Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hepburn, Robert
HEPBURN, ROBERT (1690?–1712), miscellaneous writer, was born at Bearford, Haddingtonshire, in 1690 or 1691. Giving promise of unusual powers, he was sent to Holland to study civil law, and returned in 1711 to pursue his profession in Scotland. On his return he started a periodical, of two pages in double columns, entitled ‘The Tatler, by Donald MacStaff of the North.’ Lacking the geniality of Steele, of whom he thus proclaimed himself an imitator, Hepburn became too satirical and personal, and his ‘Tatler’ reached only thirty numbers. There is a specimen copy in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, in a collection of miscellanies. Hepburn was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1712, and died the same year.
Three posthumous works attest Hepburn's scholarship and literary faculty. In 1714 appeared at Edinburgh ‘Libellus singularis quo demonstratur quod Deus sit.’ This contains a preface and sixteen short Latin chapters, well and forcibly written, but embodying no novelty of argument. In 1715 was published ‘Dissertatio de Scriptis Pitcarnianis,’ characteristically dedicated to Addison—‘Illustrissimo viro Josepho Addisono Anglo Robertus Hepburnius Scotus S.’ Likewise, in 1715 at Edinburgh, appeared ‘A Discourse concerning a Man of Genius, by Mr. Hepburn; with a poem on the Young Company of Archers by Mr. Boyd.’ The discourse, displaying some power of observation and practical good sense, is in twenty-three brief sections, followed by the poem in heroic couplets.
[Lord Woodhouselee's Life and Writings of Lord Kames, i. 228; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen; Anderson's Scottish Nation, i. 469.]