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 Williams and his “Banishment” from the Massachusetts Plantation’ (Boston, 1876, 4to). In 1865 was founded the Narragansett Club, which adopted as its motto ‘What cheare, Netop’ (the traditional hail given by the friendly Indians to Williams from the banks of the Mooshausic, ‘Netop’ signifying friends), and the first six of its massive quarto volumes (1866–74), admirably printed and edited, are devoted to reprints of Williams's writings. The sixth volume contains a series of upwards of 130 of Williams's letters. His sixty-five letters to Winthrop and other detached pieces had previously appeared in the Massachusetts Historical Society's collections (1st ser. vols. i. ix., 2nd ser. vols. vii. viii., 3rd ser. vols. i. ix. x., and 4th ser. vols. iv. v. vi.), and the ‘Bloudy Tenent’ was carefully edited for the Hanserd Knollys Society by Edward Bean Underhill in 1848. ‘What Cheer; or Roger Williams in Banishment,’ a poem by Job Durfee, appeared in 1832 (cf., Life and Corresp. 1856, i. 156).

[Roger Williams has attracted comparatively little attention in England, but in America his career has excited an almost undue amount of discussion, and various controversial issues have been raised mainly on the ground of the justice or injustice of his expulsion from Massachusetts in 1635. Chief among the independent Lives, most of which display abundant research, are: 1. Johnson's Spirit of Roger Williams, 1839; 2. Knowles's Memoir of Roger Williams, founder of the state of Rhode Island, Boston, 1834 (with facsimiles of Williams's handwriting); 3. Gammell's Life of Roger Williams, Boston, 1845. 4. ‘Elton's Life of Roger Williams, London and Providence, 1852 and 1853; 5. Eddy's Roger Williams and the Baptists, Boston, 1861; 6. Biographical Introduction to the first volume of the Narragansett Club Publications (1866) by Reuben A. Guild, containing a brief appreciation of the preceding Lives; 7. ‘Dexter's As to Roger Williams, Boston, 1876; 8. Guild's Footprints of Roger Williams, Providence, 1886 (adducing a theory that Williams was a Cornishman); 9. Merriman's Pilgrims, Puritans, and Roger Williams Vindicated, Boston, 1892; 10. Straus's Roger Williams, New York, 1894. Most of these are eulogies, and display too marked a tendency to judge Williams's relation to the men of his age by what posterity finds most valuable in his teaching rather than by what actually appeared most conspicuous to his fellow-colonists of the seventeenth century. In addition to the above, to the controversial tracts in the first six volumes of the Narrangansett Club and the Journals and letters of Winthrop, see also Bradford's Hist. of Plymouth Plantation (ap. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 4th ser. vol. iii.); Backus's Hist. of New England, 1796; Hubbard's Hist. of New England, 1680 (ap. Mass. Hist. Coll. vol. xv.); Potter's Early Hist. of Narrangansett (Rhode Island Hist. Soc. Coll. vol. iii., 1835); Staples's Annals of the Town of Providence (ib. vol. v.); Narrangansett Historical Register; Arnold's Hist. of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1860; Bartlett's Bibliography of Rhode Island, 1864; Rider's Historical Tracts, No. 14 (1881); Palfrey's Hist. of New England, 1884, i. 46, 161, 184, 214, 344, 386, ii. 111, 190, 285; Drake's Making of New England, 1886, pp. 194 sq.; Ellis's Treatment of Dissentients by Founders of Massachusetts (Lowell Lect.), Boston, 1876; R. C. Winthrop's Life and Letters of John Winthrop, 1867; Winsor's Hist. of America, iii. 336 (with facsimile of handwriting); Bancroft's Hist. of the United States, 1885, i. 241 et seq.; Deane's Roger Williams and the Massachusetts Charter, 1873; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xliii. (1889), 291–303, 313–20, 427, xlv. (1891) 70, l. (1896) 65–8, 169 liii. (1899) 60–4; note kindly communicated by Mr. John Ward Dean, Boston, Mass. For the development of Williams's religious views, see Evans's Early English Baptists, 1862; Barclay's Inner Life of Religious Societies of the Commonwealth, 1876; and for the growth more especially of the idea of toleration, cf. More's Utopia; Masson's Milton, iii. 98 sq.; Buckle's Hist. of Civilisation, 1885, i. 337 sq.; Lecky's Rationalism in Europe, ii. 70–84; Fiske's Beginning of New England, pp. 114, 185; Gardiner's Great Civil War, i. 287 sq.; and art. (1613–1662).] 

WILLIAMS, ROGER (fl. 1690), mezzotint engraver. [See .]

WILLIAMS, ROWLAND (1817–1870), Anglican divine, was born at Halkyn in Flint on 16 Aug. 1817. His father, Rowland Williams (d. 1854), canon of St. Asaph, held successively the livings of Halkyn, Meivod, and Ysceiviog. He married Jane Wynne, daughter of the Rev. Hugh Wynne Jones of Treiorwerth, Anglesey, and prebendary of Penmynydd. Rowland, their second son, went to Eton as king's scholar in 1828, was Newcastle medallist in 1835, left Eton for King's College, Cambridge, in 1836, and in his first year obtained Battie's university scholarship. He became fellow of King's in 1839. After graduating B.A. in 1841, he held for a short time the post of assistant-master at Eton, but resigned on account of delicate health. Returning to Cambridge, he was ordained deacon in 1842 and priest in 1843 by John Kaye, bishop of Lincoln. He was appointed classical tutor of King's College, Cambridge, and performed the duties of that office for eight years. He proceeded M.A. in 1844, and B.D. in 1851.

While at Cambridge he was not forgetful