Joseph Robertson (historian)

His Deliciæ Literariæ, published in the following year, showed a cultivated taste in literature, and the collection of the masterpieces in it helped to form his own style.

The political principles of Robertson, and of all the papers he edited, were conservative; but he had many friends of other views, and received from the whig Lord-advocate Moncreiff—it is said, at the instance of Lord Aberdeen—the appointment of historical curator of the records in the Edinburgh Register House in 1853.

In his new sphere Robertson was aided by the counsels of Cosmo Innes and Hill Burton, and supported by his official superiors, the Marquis of Dalhousie and Sir J. Gibson Craig.

Among his duties were the arrangement and selection of such records as were of special value, their publication in a manner similar to that of the series published under the direction of the master of the rolls in England, so far as the meagre grants to Scotland permitted, and the answering constant inquiries into all branches of Scottish history.

Always diligent, and working perhaps somewhat beyond his physical strength, Robertson edited in 1863 the Inventories of Jewels, Dresses, Furniture, Books, and Paintings belonging to Queen Mary, and Concilia Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ in 1866, which are among the best publications of the Bannatyne Club.

An article on 'Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals' in the Quarterly Review for 1849 gave further proof of his fitness to undertake a complete ecclesiastical history of Scotland.

[2] Queen Victoria granted a pension to his wife of £100 a year, in consideration of Robertson's "services to literature, and especially illustrative of the ancient history of Scotland.