(fl. 1741 - 65); Glasgow U., prof. of oriental languages 1751 and church history 1752, resigned 1760.
1742 - 3 Viterbo, Tuscany, Rome, Naples (by 14 Nov. 1742), Mantua ( - 28 May 1743), Verona (12 Jun. - )
1748 Naples, Rome (by Easter)
1761 - 3 see Charles, Lord Hope
The Scottish antiquarian William Rouet was three times in Italy. On the first occasion he accompanied John Maxwell. From December 1741 to February 1742 they had been in Geneva. By November 1742 they were in Naples, having stayed 'a month or two' in Viterbo and travelled through Tuscany with four others (Williamson and his tutor, Edward Sainthill and Thomas Cholwick); they had spent only a short time in Rome.1 Maxwell, Rouet, Sainthill and Cholwick left Mantua on 28 May for Verona, but were detained at the lazzaretto at the Veronese-Mantuan border until 12 June.2
At Easter 1748 'Gugliemo Ruet' was living on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome with James Murray, Peter Crommelin and Henry Knight.3 In April 1748 'two Scotch Gentlemen Mr Ruati and Dr Hope' came to Rome from Naples where they had studied the antiquities at Herculaneum, 'Ruati' having purchased some rarities.4 That this was the same William Rouet seems confirmed by a letter which Daniel Crespin wrote from Rome on 11 March 1763: Rouet, he said, had then found 'a great alteration for the worse over the Face of the Campania of Rome, and more misery ... within the walls, than he observed fifteen years ago'.5
In 1760 Rouet had resigned his appointment at Glasgow University to accompany Charles, Lord Hope, and his brother James Hope in Italy.6 The Abb? Grant, who had met Rouet in Rome with the Hope brothers, wrote on 12 September 1763 that he was 'a most valuable man' with whom he had 'been these 20 years in close correspondence'.7 Some travel journals in Edinburgh (NLS 4990 - 1), probably from the early 1740s and covering France and Italy, have been attributed to William Rouet.
1. Caldwell Papers, 2:32 (Jn.Maxwell 14 Nov. 1742), and see 17 - 27. 2. ASVR us xxxix. 3. AVR sa, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 4. Add.41169, f.6 (J. Russel, 6 Apr. 1748). 5. Seafield MSS, GD 248/49/2. 6. See Fleming, Adam, 375. 7. Seafield MSS, GD 248/3/609.