Dr. Gilbert, was born at Edinburgh in the year 1742. His father Mr. George Stuart was professor of humanity in the university, and a man of considerable eminence for his classical taste and literature. For these accomplishments he was probably indebted in no small degree to his relation the celebrated Ruddiman, with whom both he and his son conversed familiarly, though they afterwards united to injure his fame.

Gilbert having finished his classical and philosophical studies in the grammar-school and university, applied himself to jurisprudence, without following, or probably intending to follow, the profession of the law. For that profession he has been represented as unqualified by indolence; by a passion which at a very early period of life he displayed for general literature; or by boundless dissipation:—and all these circumstances may have contributed to make him relinquish pursuits in which he could hope to succeed only by patient perseverance and strict decorum of manners. That he did not waste his youth in idleness, is, however, evident from An Historical Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the British Constitution, which he published before he had completed his twenty-second year, and which had so much merit as to induce the university of Edinburgh to confer upon the author, though so young a man, the degree of LL.D.

After a studious interval of some years, he produced a valuable work, under the title of A View of Society in Europe, in its Progress from Rudeness to Refinement; or, Inquiries concerning the History of Laws, Government, and Manners. He had read and meditated with patience on the most important monuments of the middle ages; and in this volume (which speedily reached a second edition) he aimed chiefly at the praise of originality and invention, and discovered an industry that is seldom connected with ability and discernment. About the time of the publication of the first edition of this performance, having turned his thoughts to an academical life, he asked for the professorship of public law in the university of Edinburgh. According to his own account he had been promised that place by the minister, but had the mortification to see the professorship bestowed on another, and all his hopes blasted by the influence of Dr. Robertson, whom he represented as under obligations to him.

To the writer of this article, who was a stranger to these rival candidates for historical fame, this part of the story seems very incredible; as it is not easy to conceive how it ever could be in the power of Dr. Stuart to render to the learned Principal any essential service. It was believed indeed by the earl of Buchan, and by others, who observed that the illiberal jealousy not unfrequent in the world of letters, was probably the source of this opposition; which entirely broke the intimacy of two persons who, before that time, were understood to be on the most friendly footing with each other. ingratitude, however, is as likely to have been the vice of Dr. Stuart as of Dr. Robertson; for we have been told by a writer*, who, at least in one instance, has completely proved what he affirms, that “such was Gilbert Stuart’s laxity of principle as a man, that he considered ingratitude as one of the most venial sins; such was his conceit as a writer, that he regarded no one’s merits but his own; such were his disappointments, both as a writer and a man, that he allowed his prejudices to four into malice, and indulged his malevolence till it settled in corruption.”

Soon after this disappointment, Dr. Stuart went to London, where he became from 1768 to 1774 one of the writers of the Monthly Review. In 1772 Dr. Adam, rector of the high-school at Edinburgh, published a Latin Grammar, which he intended as an improvement of the famous Ruddiman’s. Stuart attacked him in a pamphlet under the name of Bubby, and treated him with much severity. In doing this, he was probably actuated more by some personal dislike of Dr. Adam than by regard for the memory of his learned relation; for on other occasions he showed sufficiently that he had no regard to Ruddiman’s honour as a grammarian, editor, or critic.

In 1774 he returned to his native city, and began the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, in which he discussed the liberty and constitution of England, and distinguished himself by an inquiry into the character of John Knox the reformer, whose principles he reproved in the severest terms. About this time he revised and published Sullivan’s Lectures on the Constitution of England. Soon after he turned his thoughts to the history of Scotland, and published Observations concerning its Public Law and Constitutional History; in which he examined with a critical care the preliminary book to Dr. Robertson’s History. His next work was The History of the Reformation; a book which deserves praise for the easy dignity of the narrative, and for strict impartiality. His last great work, The History of Scotland from the Establishment of the Reformation to the Death of Queen Mary, which appeared in 1782, has been very generally read and admired. His purpose was to vindicate the character of the injured queen, and expose the weakness of the arguments by which Dr. Robertson had endeavoured to prove her guilty: but though the style of this work is his own, it contains very little matter which was not furnished by Goodall and Tyler; and it is with the arms which these two writers put into his hands that Dr. Stuart attacked his great antagonist.

In 1782 he once more visited London, and engaged in the Political Herald and English Review; but the jaundice and droop increasing on him, he returned by sea to his native country, where he died in the house of his father on the 19th of August 1786.

In his person Dr. Stuart was about the middle size and justly proportioned. His countenance was modest and expressive, sometimes glowing with sentiments of friendship, of which he was truly susceptible, and at others darting that satire and indignation at folly and vice which appear in some of his writings. He was a boon companion; and, with a constitution that might have stood the shock of ages, he fell a premature martyr to intemperance. His talents were certainly great, and his writings are useful; but he seems to have been influenced more by passion than prejudice, and in his character there was not much to be imitated.