Historian and reviewer, born at Edinburgh in 1742. He was educated at the grammar school and University of Edinburgh. His principal works are “A View of Society in Europe” (1778), “Observations on the Public Law and Constitutional History of Scotland” (1779), “History of the Establishment of the Reformation in Scotland” (1780), “The History of Scotland from the Establishment of the Reformation till the Death of Queen Mary” (1782). He died, Aug. 13, 1786.

Personal

  It is my constant fate to be disappointed in every thing I attempt: I do not think I ever had a wish that was gratified, and never dreaded an event that did not come…. I mortally detest and abhor this place [Edinburgh] and everybody in it…. A curse on the country, and all the men, women, and children of it…. The publication is too good for the country.

  Henry and his history long survived Stuart and his critiques; and Robertson, Blair, and Kaimes, with others he assailed, have all taken their due ranks in public esteem. What niche does Stuart occupy? His historical works possess the show, without the solidity, of research; hardy paradoxes, and an artificial style of momentary brilliancy, are none of the lasting materials of history. This shadow of “Montesquieu,” for he conceived him only to be his fit rival, derived the last consolations of life from an obscure corner of a Burton ale-house—there, in rival potations, with two or three other disappointed authors, they regaled themselves on ale they could not always pay for, and recorded their own literary celebrity, which had never taken place. Some time before his death, his asperity was almost softened by melancholy; with a broken spirit, he reviewed himself; a victim to that unrighteous ambition which sought to build up its greatness with the ruins of his fellow-countrymen; prematurely wasting talents which might have been directed to literary eminence. And Gilbert Stuart died as he had lived, a victim to intemperance, physical and moral!

  Stuart was known, while engaged on his historical treatises, to have confined himself to his library for several weeks, scarcely ever leaving his house for air and exercise. But these periods of intense labour were always followed by bouts of dissipation lasting for equal periods of time. When in England he often spent whole nights in company with his boon companions at the Peacock in Gray’s Inn Lane. These habits destroyed a strong constitution…. A writer of great talent and learning his excesses and want of principle ruined his career.

General

  Here the author has made a great, and indeed a splendid, effort to eclipse the reputation of Robertson, whom he both envied and hated. As the one historian considered Mary guilty of some of the foulest crimes laid to her charge, it was almost an obvious consequence that the other should represent her as innocent.

  A very able [“Antiquity of British Constitution,”] though somewhat impetuous inquirer into the earlier parts of our history.

  He also published in 1779, 1780, and 1782, three works: one on the “Constitutional History of Scotland,” being an attack on Dr. Robertson’s first book; another on the “History of the Reformation in Scotland,” and the third on the “History of Queen Mary,” being also an elaborate attack upon the Principal. The ability and the learning of these works, and their lively and even engaging style, has not saved them from the oblivion to which they were justly consigned by the manifest indications prevailing throughout them all, of splenetic temper, of personal malignity, and of a constant disturbance of the judgment by these vile, unworthy passions.

  All displaying both research and acuteness, but the two last-mentioned [“History of the Establishment of the Reformation in Scotland” and his “History of Scotland from the establishment of the Reformation till the death of Queen Mary”], deformed by the author’s violent personal animosity against Robertson, for the purpose of confuting certain of whose statements or views, they were mainly written.