RUSSELL, William, a popular historian, the eldest son of Alexander Russell and Christian Ballantine, was born in the year 1741 at Windydoors, a farm-house in the parish of Stowe and county of Selkirk. At an early age he was sent to school in the neighbouring village of Inverleithen, where he acquired an elementary knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages; and private study afterwards enabled him to supply many of the deficiencies of his early education. In 1756 he was removed to Edinburgh, in order to be instructed in writing and arithmetic; and after having attended to these branches for about ten months, he was bound an apprentice to the bookselling and printing business for the term of five years. While engaged in this occupation he discovered the utmost ardour in literary pursuits; nor was his situation unfavourable to the acquisition of useful and elegant knowledge. After the completion of his apprenticeship he published a select collection of modern poems, which was favourably received.
About the year 1763 he made an unsuccessful attempt to adapt Crebillon's Rhadamisthe et Zénobie to the English stage. In 1764 he retired to the country, and spent the succeeding autumn with Lord Elbank. He had relinquished his original employment, and he now prosecuted with zeal his historical and literary studies.
Having resided with his father till the month of May 1767, he proceeded to London in quest of honour and emolument. But his high hopes were speedily blasted. After having in vain waited for advancement, he engaged himself as a corrector of the press in the great office of William Strahan, afterwards printer to his majesty. In the year 1769 he quitted the employment of Strahan, and was engaged as overseer of the printing-office of Brown and
Adlard. During the same year he published an Ode to Fortitude. His Sentimental Tales appeared in 1770; and from this time he contributed to the periodical publications many essays in prose as well as verse. In 1772 he published a collection of Fables, Moral and Sentimental; and An Essay on the Character, Manners, and Genius of Women, from the French of M. Thomas. In 1774 he produced an octavo volume under the title of Julia, a Poetical Romance. Of this work, which is founded on the Nouvelle Héloïse of Rousseau, neither the plan nor the execution can be commended. Russell is the author of the verses on the death of Hume and on the death of Dr Armstrong, subscribed "W. R.," and dated from Gray's Inn, Sept. 10, 1779, which are commonly printed with the poems of that classical writer. His History of America, published in numbers, was completed in the course of the same year. This work was received with some degree of favour; but the splendid merit of Dr Robertson's History precluded all competition. During the same year (1779) he likewise published, in octavo, the first two volumes of The History of Modern Europe, with an Account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and a View of the Progress of Society from the Fifth to the Eighteenth Century, in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to his Son. Their reception was so favourable as to exceed his most sanguine expectations. In the year 1783 he published The Tragic Muse, a poem addressed to Mrs Siddons. The three volumes which completed the History of Modern Europe made their appearance in 1784. His narrative is always free from languor, and his reflections are conveyed in a lively and elegant style. It is, however, to be regretted that he should have adopted the commercial expedient of exhibiting his work as a series of letters from a nobleman to his son: every reader is sufficiently aware that Dr Russell did not belong to the order of nobility; and the frequent recurrence of "my dear Philip" is too apt to remind one of Lord Chesterfield. This work has very often been reprinted, and has still some degree of popularity. Russell closes his History with the peace of Paris in 1763. A continuation, extending to two volumes, was added by the late Dr Coote; and another writer has continued the narrative still farther down.
In the year 1787 he married Isabella Scott, a lady of Eskdale, to whom he had long been attached, and in whom he found a pleasant and intelligent companion. He now entered upon the occupation of a comfortable farm at Knottyholm, in the parish of Canonby and county of Dumfries, where he spent the remainder of his days.
He had now acquired the reputation of a very popular historian; and in 1792 the university of St Andrews conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. During the following year he published at London, in two volumes octavo, The History of Ancient Europe, with a View of the Revolutions in Asia and Africa, in a Series of Letters to a Young Nobleman. This production partakes of the peculiar merits of his modern history; but as the author did not live to complete his design, it never attained to the same popularity. Of these two volumes, the greater proportion relates to the history of Greece. Dr Coote was afterwards induced to supply what he had left deficient.
Dr Russell did not long survive the publication of his last work. A stroke of palsy suddenly terminated his life, on the 25th of December 1793, after he had completed the fifty-second year of his age.
He had engaged in various projects which he did not live to execute. Among these was his History of England from the Beginning of the Reign of George III. to the Conclusion of the American War, a work on which he was engaged at the close of his life.