Your erudition and knowledge of hooks is infinitely superior to mine, and I doubt not but you will be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me.  I know very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians copy from one another, and how little is to be learned from reading many books; but at the same time, when one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary and decent for him to consult every book relating to it upon which he can lay his hands.”  This avowal proves that Robertson knew little of the history of Charles V. till he began the task; and he further confesses that “he had no knowledge of the Spanish or German,” which, for the history of a Spanish monarch and a German emperor, was somewhat ominous of the nature of the projected history.

Yet Robertson, though he once thus acknowledged, as we see, that he “never had access to any copious libraries, and did not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors,” seems to have acquired from his friend, Dr. Birch, who was a genuine researcher in manuscripts as well as printed books, a taste even for bibliographical ostentation, as appears by that pompous and voluminous list of authors prefixed to his “History of America;” the most objectionable of his histories, being a perpetual apology for the Spanish Government, adapted to the meridian of the court of Madrid, rather than to the cause of humanity, of truth, and of philosophy.  I understand, from good authority, that it would not be difficult to prove that our historian had barely examined them, and probably had never turned over half of that deceptive catalogue.  Birch thought so, and was probably a little disturbed at the overwhelming success of our eloquent and penetrating historian, while his own historical labours, the most authentic materials of history, but not history itself, hardly repaid the printer.  Birch’s publications are either originals, that is, letters or state-papers; or they are narratives drawn from originals, for he never wrote but from manuscripts.  They are the true materia historica.

Birch, however, must have enjoyed many a secret triumph over our popular historians, who had introduced their beautiful philosophical history into our literature; the dilemma in which they sometimes found themselves must have amused him.  He has thrown out an oblique stroke at Bobertson’s “pomp of style, and fine eloquence,” “which too often tend to disguise the real state of the facts."[A] When he received from Robertson the present of his “Charles V.,” after the just tribute of his praise, he adds some regret that the historian had not been so fortunate as to have seen Burghley’s State-papers, “published since Christmas,” and a manuscript trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, in Lord Boyston’s possession.  Alas! such is the fate of speculative history; a Christmas may come, and overturn the elaborate castle in the air.  Can we forbear a smile when we hear Robertson, who had projected a history of British America, of which we possess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution broke out, congratulate himself that he had not made any further progress?  “It is lucky that my American History was not finished before this event; how many plausible theories that I should have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has now happened!” A fair confession!