Watson, Robert, Lld

Watson, Robert, LL.D.

a minister of the Church of Scotland, professor and author, was born at St. Andrew's about 1730. He was educated at the universities of St. Andrew's, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. In 1751 he began to deliver in Edinburgh a course of lectures on rhetoric and belles-lettres, which he repeated for several successive winters. He became a minister of the Church of Scotland in 1758; professor of logic, rhetoric, and belles-lettres in the College of St. Salvator, at St. Andrew's, soon after; and principal of the United College of St. Leonard and St. Salvator, and minister of the Church and parish of St. Leonard, in 1777. He died at St. Andrew's, March 31, 1781. He was the author of a History of the Reign of Philip II, King of Spain (Lond. 1777, 2 volumes); and a History of the Reign of Philip III (1783). The latter work was left unfinished at the author's death, and was completed for the benefit of his family by William Thomson, LL.D. The former was translated into French, Dutch, and German. Both works have been republished in the United States (N.Y. 1818), but are of little value, being heavy and inelegant in style, and yielding inevitably to the more philosophical and elegant works of Prescott.