Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/501

 Subjunctive, the seventy right-hand pages are occupied with examples of the Indicative in uses nearly approaching those of the Subjunctive which are set forth in the examples on the seventy pages opposite. Hence arises what sometimes appears to beginners a defect—his refusal to make hard and fast rules, not always warranted by the facts. But no one who seeks counsel in ‘Roby’ on any difficult point will fail to find a representative collection of the evidence, worth many pages of dogma. He had a shrewd perception of degrees of probability, and an equally shrewd reluctance to accept tradition without testing it for himself. His profound knowledge of it, however, appeared everywhere; notably in his article on Priscian in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth edition).

In one respect the Latin Grammar introduced among English-speaking scholars a reform so important as to amount to a revolution. Roby everywhere adopted the historical rather than the conventional point of view. He nowhere fails to make clear what older grammarians called the correct, that is, the Ciceronian usage, with abundant and striking examples; but he set it in its true perspective. He read deeply in the growing literature of comparative grammar; and chose continually that part of its teaching which made a strictly scientific use of evidence. His own carefully limited account of Latin phonology, which contributed much to the reform of Latin pronunciation, often anticipates the truth and clarity of the work of Karl Brugmann which was then just beginning; and his original investigations, especially in the preface to the second volume, still retain their full value.

Roman Law was a favourite study with Roby from his Cambridge days; but his first considerable publication was the Introduction to Justinian's Digest (1884), which provided students with a comprehensive account of the history, and method of compilation of the Digest, and of the jurists from whom it was drawn, such as did not exist, and does not exist, in any other language. It contained much original criticism, including a study—very valuable at the time—of ‘lawyer's Latin’, though later writers have shown that the Digest, in which he had suspected some degree of interpolation, is an even more complex product than he had supposed.

Roby's study of Roman Private Law (1902) was an admirable presentment of what is known as the ‘classical’ law, so far as it was then understood. These essays are probably the most original part of his legal work, though he had mastered what other men had written. ‘Here’, writes a competent critic, ‘is the real Roby; the work was better than anything that had been done before in England; he always drew from the sources and he always thought for himself.’ His latest contribution to the subject of any length was the chapter (vol. ii, c. 3) on Roman Law in the Cambridge Medieval History (1913).

Roby will no doubt be best remembered for his Latin Grammar—a monument of open-minded research from which other grammars will long continue to be compiled. But probably his greatest service to his generation lay in the educational reforms which he carried through with keen insight, indomitable zeal, and the most genial humour; and these qualities were fruitful also in other kinds of work, such as his long service on the governing bodies of the grammar school and university of Manchester, of Girton College, Cambridge, and of University College, London, which with other good causes were deeply indebted to his far-sighted, high-minded, and always generous guidance.

 ROGERS, BENJAMIN BICKLEY (1828–1919), barrister and translator of Aristophanes, was born at Shepton Montague, Somerset, 11 December 1828, the third son of Francis Rogers, of Yarlington Lodge, Wincanton, by his wife, Catharine Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Benjamin Bickley, of Bristol and Ettingshall, Staffordshire. He was educated at Bruton School, Somerset, and Sir Roger Cholmley's School, Highgate (now Highgate School), of both of which he subsequently became a governor. He matriculated at Wadham College, Oxford, in 1846, and was elected scholar there the same year. He obtained a first class in literae humaniores and a fourth class in mathematics in 1851, and in the next year was elected a fellow of his college. In 1853 Rogers joined Lincoln's Inn, and in 1856 was called to the bar. He vacated his fellowship in 1861, having in that year married Ellen Susanna, daughter of Robert Herring, of Cromer. As an undergraduate he had shown rare gifts and promise, as well as intellectual and moral bent. Already prominent in the Oxford Union, in February 1853 he took part in 475