Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/85

ROB of arms.—(See Gentleman's Magazine, 1802, p. 129.) After he became bishop he was made lord privy seal in 1710, and first plenipotentiary at the treaty of Utrecht in 1712. His civil employments and his high church principles rendered him obnoxious to a large party in the church. He died at Fulham, where he was buried. His "Account of Sweden in 1688" was printed with Lord Molesworth's account of Denmark.—(See Cole's MSS. for Robinson's Letters.)—R. H.  * ROBINSON,, one of the most distinguished of the fast-decreasing body of high-class English line-engravers, was born about 1796, at Bolton in Lancashire. He was a pupil of James Heath, whose manner he at first imitated. His prints comprise some after the old masters, as Murillo's Flower Girl, and Vandyck's Theodosius refused admission into Church by St. Ambrose, and Countess of Bedford; subject-pieces after contemporaries, including Leslie's Mother and Child; Wilkie's Napoleon and Pope Pius VII.; Mulready's Wolf and Lamb; some of Landseer's works, Partridge's portrait of the Queen, and Lawrence's Sir Walter Scott. He has also engraved numerous book-plates. Mr. Robinson was elected in 1856 associate engraver of the new class of the Royal Academy.—J. T—e.  ROBINSON, or, a beautiful woman, who published several poems, novels, plays, &c., was born in 1758 at Bristol, the daughter of a master whaler named Derby. She was educated by Hannah More; but her father failing in business, she became an actress. An unfortunate marriage with Mr. Robinson, a lawyer, did not keep her long from the stage. While performing Perdita she attracted the attention of the prince of Wales, whose mistress she became. Abandoned by him, she had recourse to literature for a subsistence, and died at her cottage at Englefield Green in 1800.—R. H.  ROBINSON,, a noted divine, was born at Swaffham, Norfolk, 8th January, 1735. His father was a dissolute man, and ultimately left his wife; but through her unwearied industry the boy got good schooling, both at Swaffham and then at Scarning—one of his school-fellows at the latter place being Thurlow, afterwards lord chancellor. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a hair-dresser in Crutched Friars, London; but his master perceiving that the heart of the lad was not in his occupation, and that he had some qualities which might elevate him to a higher sphere of work, released him before the term of his apprenticeship had expired. When he was about nineteen he formed the design of being a preacher, and attached himself for a period to Whitfield. His first sermon was delivered to a small congregation at Mildenhall in Suffolk, and he soon preached to far larger audiences in various parts of the country. Leaving the Methodists, he and thirteen other persons formed an independent church in Norfolk—himself becoming the minister. Having renounced pædobaptism, he was invited on trial in 1759 by a baptist church in Cambridge, and after two years became their pastor. But he had for a time small encouragement, and his income was very limited. His fame grew, however, and a more commodious place of worship was built, and filled with admiring and interested congregations. The undergraduates of the university sometimes came to the chapel, and behaved with such impropriety as often to disturb, and once to break up the service. But they met with their match, and in a published sermon were exposed with satirical keenness and scorn. In 1773 he removed to the village of Chesterton, about two miles from Cambridge, and in a short time commenced business as a farmer and coal merchant. By this time he had his aged mother, a wife, and nine children to support. His engaging in secular business brought upon him many reproofs; but he cared not, and sometimes replied—"Godly critics, too idle many of them to work, spending all their time in talking and mischief—are these the men to censure my industry?" His farming, however, did not interfere with his literary and pastoral labours. In 1774 he published "Arcana," on the subject of relief in matters of clerical subscriptions; and in the following year an appendix to Alleine's Legal Degrees of Marriage, on the point of marrying a deceased wife's sister, advocating its lawfulness. In the same year or in 1775 he published a translation of some of Saurin's sermons, and the volume was followed by three others—a new edition of which appeared in 1784. In 1776 he published a plea for the divinity of Christ, which at once attracted great attention, as discussing a subject then one of controversy. Yet this doctrine he lived to abandon, and adopted Socinian opinions. Preferment in the church was open to him, but he would not be bribed to conformity. In 1777 he published a small tract—"The history and mystery of Good Friday," in which he condemned the annual observance of the day; and in 1778 he printed a "Plan of Lectures on Nonconformity," expounding historically and theoretically the whole question between church and dissent. At the end of the same year appeared his translation, with notes, of Claude's Essay on the composition of a sermon. Being applied to in 1781 to write a history of the baptists, he complied; and to qualify himself for the consultation of authorities he began to study German, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish. "The History of Baptism," the intense and continuous preparation of which tended to shorten his life, was published in 1790, a few weeks after his death. In June of this year he journeyed to Birmingham to see Dr. Priestley. He preached there more than once, and Priestley has remarked that his "manner of treating the Trinity savoured rather of burlesque than of serious reasoning." He had often expressed a wish "to die softly, suddenly, and alone," and on the morning of the 9th of June he was found dead in his bed—his features not disturbed, nor the clothes disarranged. His "Ecclesiastical Researches" were brought out in 1792—two years after his death. A collected edition of his miscellaneous works was published in 1807, in four volumes, and a volume of posthumous works in 1812. Robinson was a man of great natural powers, eloquent and sarcastic, never wearying of toil, eccentric in many of his mental moods, though honest in giving expression to all his convictions. His more systematic investigations are deficient in breadth and erudition. A man with such force of character, so bold and so ready with his answer, and that often so pithy and memorable, could not be but renowned in his day.—J. E.  * ROBINSON,, née , an accomplished and gifted writer, was born in 1797, at Halle, where her father was then a professor. At the age of nine she accompanied Professor Jakob to the Russian university of Charkow, and there, as well as afterwards at St. Petersburg, she familiarized herself with at least one Slavonic language. Returning with her father to Halle in 1817, she became known as a writer under the pseudonym of Talvj. In 1825 appeared her German translation of the national songs of the Servians, which vividly interested the veteran Göthe. Marrying in 1828 Dr. Robinson, the well-known author of the Biblical Researches in Palestine, and then a student at Halle, she accompanied her husband to America. Of her subsequent works in German and in English—she writes the latter language with grace and skill—two of the more prominent are her "Historical view of the languages and literature of the Slavic nations, with a sketch of their popular poetry," 1850; and her "Geschichte der colonisation von Neu England," 1847; translated by Mr. Hazlitt as "History of the Colonization of New England," 1851.—F. E.  ROBISON,, a Scottish natural philosopher, was born in 1739 at Rosehall, near Glasgow, and died in Edinburgh on the 30th of January, 1805. He was educated at the university of Glasgow, where he studied mathematics under Simson, natural philosophy under Dick, and chemistry under Black; and where also he contracted a firm friendship with James Watt, then mathematical instrument-maker to the university. According to Watt's own statement, it was at the suggestion of Robison that he first turned his mind to the improvement of the steam-engine. The intimate knowledge which Robison possessed of the early history of Watt's inventions, proved afterwards of great service in defending Watt's patent against infringement before a court of law in 1796. In 1759 Robison went to sea in Admiral Knowles' flag-ship, as tutor to that officer's son. He passed about four years in the navy, holding the rank of midshipman, and performing important duties in marine surveying, and in making scientific observations of different kinds; and in particular, he assisted in the testing of Harrison's chronometer during the trip made for that purpose in 1762. In 1764 he returned to Glasgow; and in 1767 he succeeded Black as professor of chemistry. In 1770, on the recommendation of Admiral Knowles, he went to St. Petersburg to become inspector-general of the college of naval cadets, an office which he filled with great ability for four years. In 1774 he was appointed to the professorship of natural philosophy in the university of Edinburgh, which he held until his death, about thirty years afterwards. His principal work was that entitled "Elements of Mechanical Philosophy," which was chiefly compiled from his lectures, was edited in 1822, after his death, by Dr. (now Sir 