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 ROMAGNOSI

ROMME

and the organization of lectures and exhibitions. For his second wife he in 1897 married Stopford Brooke s daughter. Mr. Eolleston has given us an excellent translation of The Encheiridion of Epictetus {1881), and written The Teaching of Epic tetus (1888) and many other works. His Eationalism is developed in Parallel Paths (1908). He adopts impersonal Theism, and leaves the question of immortality open.

ROMAGNOSI, Professor Giovanni Domenico, LL.D., Italian jurist and philo sopher. B. Dec. 11, 1761. Ed. Alberoni College and Parma University. Soon after leaving the University Eomagnosi wrote his finest work, La genesi del diritto penale, a powerful plea for penal reform on the lines of Beccaria and the French Ration alists. In 1802 he was appointed pro fessor of public law at Parma University, and he rendered great service in codifying the penal law. In 1806 he occupied the chair of civil law at Pavia, and in 1824, having fled from the reactionaries of Italy, who deposed him, he became professor of law at Corfu University. Romagnosi was regarded by his Italian contemporaries as &quot; one of the greatest thinkers of the century.&quot; His Suprema economia dell umano sapere and other philosophical works are entirely Rationalistic, and affiliated to the French Sensualist school. His collected works were published in nineteen volumes (1832-35). D. June 8, 1835.

ROMILLY, Sir Samuel, jurist and reformer. B. Mar. 1, 1757. Ed. private school. Romilly was a clerk in a lawyer s office until 1778, when he entered Gray s Inn. He adopted Rationalist views in his twenties, and from 1781 onwards he was very friendly with Diderot, D Alembert, Raynal, and the other leading French philosophers. He was called to the Bar in 1783, and under the influence of the continental Rationalists he wrote a num ber of pleas for legal reform, w r hich brought 677

him the friendship of Bentham and Mill. He became King s Counsel in 1800, and was soon recognized as one of the leaders in the Court of Chancery. From 1805 to 1815 he was Chancellor for the County of Durham. In 1806 he was appointed Solicitor General, and knighted ; and from 1806 to 1818 he sat in Parliament, and made many a powerful speech in the cause of reform. He protested against the restoration of the feudal monarchs of Europe in 1816, pleaded for Catholic Emancipation and the abolition of black slavery, and reformed British law in many points. He, in fact, drafted a compre hensive scheme for the reform of the laws ; but the death of his wife in 1818 threw him into such profound grief that he com mitted suicide. He is little noticed by Rationalists (though mentioned in Mr. Robertson s History}, but no one questions that Romilly was from early years merely a Deist. &quot; He early lost all faith in Chris tianity,&quot; says the Dictionary of National Biography, &quot; but embraced with ardour the gospel of Rousseau.&quot; The writer justly adds that &quot; his principles were austere to the verge of Puritanism &quot; ; and no man in high public office was in those days so outspoken a humanitarian. Professor Bain reproduces in his James Mill (1882, pp. 451-52) a letter in which Bentham says that Romilly assured him he agreed with every word of his Church of Eng- landism. In the Selections from the Correspondence of Macvey Napier (1879, pp. 333-34) there is a letter of Brougham s in which that courtly trimmer is indignant because Romilly s son has, after his death, &quot; proclaimed to the world that Romilly was not a Christian.&quot; He admits that there is &quot; not the least doubt &quot; about the truth of the statement. D. Nov. 2, 1818.

ROMME, Charles Gilbert, French mathematician. B. Mar. 26, 1750. Ed. Paris. Romme was a tutor in a Russian family until 1775, when he returned to France and threw himself into the advanced movement. He was elected to the Legis- 678