purposes, but the scheme was not matured, and was soon abandoned on his going abroad (Robison, Mechanical Philosophy, ii.) But Watt kept Robison informed of all his later inventions, and Robison's evidence proved afterwards of great service in defending Watt's patent against infringement before a court of law in 1796. Robison described that trial as being ‘not more the cause of Watt versus Hornblower than of science against ignorance.’
Meanwhile, on the recommendation of Dr. Black, Robison was elected in 1766 to succeed him as lecturer on chemistry in Glasgow University. In 1769 Robison anticipated Mayer in the important electrical discovery that the law of force is very nearly or exactly in inverse square (Whewell, Inductive Sciences, iii. 30). In 1770, on Admiral Knowles being appointed president of the Russian board of admiralty, Robison went with him to St. Petersburg as private secretary. In 1772 he accepted the mathematical chair attached to the imperial sea-cadet corps of nobles at St. Petersburg, with the rank of colonel; he acted also for some time as inspector-general of the corps. In 1773 he became professor of natural philosophy in Edinburgh University. ‘The sciences of mechanics,’ wrote Professor Playfair, his successor, ‘hydrodynamics, astronomy, and optics, together with electricity and magnetism, were the subjects which his lectures embraced. These were given with great fluency and precision of language.’ In 1783, when the Royal Society of Edinburgh was founded and incorporated by royal charter, he was elected the general secretary, and he discharged the duties till within a few years of his death. He also contributed to its ‘Transactions.’
In 1787, when the northern lighthouse board resolved to substitute reflectors for the open coal fires then in use, the plans of the apparatus were submitted to Robison (Blackwood's Mag. xxxiv. 366). In 1798 he received the degree of LL.D. from the university of New Jersey, and in 1799 the university of Glasgow conferred on him a similar honour. In 1799 he prepared for the press and published the lectures of Dr. Black, the great chemical discoverer. Robison also contributed articles on seamanship, the telescope, optics, waterworks, resistance of fluids, electricity, magnetism, music, and other subjects to the third edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ He died on 30 Jan. 1805, after two days' illness. He was survived by his wife, Rachel Wright (1759–1852?), whom he had married in 1777, and by four children: John (see below); Euphemia, who married Lord Kinnedder, Sir Walter Scott's friend, and died in September 1819; Hugh (d. 1849) captain in the nizam's service; and Charles (d. 1846). There are two portraits of Robison by Sir Henry Raeburn—one the property of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the other in the university of Edinburgh. An engraving of one of these appears in Smiles's ‘Lives of Boulton and Watt.’
On Robison's death Watt wrote of him: ‘He was a man of the clearest head and the most science of anybody I have ever known.’ In addition to great scientific abilities, Robison possessed no little skill and taste in music. He was a performer on several instruments. But his musical lucubrations in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ proved as useless to the musician as they were valuable to the natural philosopher (ib. xxvii. 472). He was also an excellent draughtsman and a facile versifier. Hallam, in his ‘Literary History of Europe,’ says that ‘Robison was one of those who led the way in turning the blind veneration of Bacon into a rational worship’ (iii. 227). Lord Cockburn gives an amusing description of Robison's personal appearance in his ‘Memorials.’ Although he was a freemason, Robison published in 1797 a curious work—‘a lasting monument of fatuous credulity’—to prove that the fraternity of ‘Illuminati’ was concerned in a plot to overthrow religion and government throughout the world. The title ran: ‘Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies,’ 1797, Edinburgh, 8vo (2nd edit. with postscript, Edinburgh, 1797; 3rd edit. Dublin, 1798; 4th edit. London, 1798, and New York, 1798).
Robison's scientific publications were: 1. ‘Outlines of a Course of Lectures on Mechanical Philosophy,’ 1797, Edinburgh, 8vo. 2. ‘Elements of Mechanical Philosophy … vol. i.’ (all published), 1804, Edinburgh, 8vo, 3. ‘A System of Mechanical Philosophy, with Notes by David Brewster, LL.D.,’ 4 vols. 1822, Edinburgh, 8vo. These volumes comprised reprints of his ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ and papers read before the Royal Society. Robison's article on the steam-engine in vol. ii. was revised and augmented by Watt.
Sir John Robison (1778–1843), son of Professor Robison, was born in Edinburgh on 11 June 1778. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh and the university there. On leaving college he went to Mr. Houston of Johnston, near Paisley, who was erecting cotton-spinning mills with Arkwright's machinery. Shortly afterwards he
