afterwards he forsook the Club and remained in seclusion. It was his custom neither to take an active part in the great overt acts of massacre or rebellion, nor to appear immediately after their commission; but rather to pause awhile, that he might see by what means they might best be turned to the promotion of his political objects, and the increase of his own popularity. It was with joy that he saw the National Assembly suspend the royal authority and call upon the nation to elect a convention which should determine on a new form of government. He became a member of the Convention; and on its opening (Sep. 21, 1792), seated himself on the montagne,' or higher part of the room, occupied by the most violent, which was also rapidly becoming the most powerful party. It was now that Robespierre first appeared in the foremost rank, which comprised the most powerful men: until now, notwithstanding all his efforts, he had had superiors even in his own party;-in the days of the Constituent Assembly, the well-known leaders of the time; during the continuance of the Legislative Assembly, Brissot and Péthion; and, on the 10th of August, Danton. In the first assembly he could attract notice only by the profession of extravagant opinions; during the second he became more moderate, because his rivals were innovators; and he maintained peace before the Jacobins, because his rivals called for war. Now, as we have said, he was in the first rank, and his chief aim was to annihilate the Girondins, who hoped, on the other hand, that the eminence he had attained was insecure as well as high, and that he might be overthrown himself. Barbaroux, Rebecqui, and Louvet dared to accuse him of seeking to be dictator. But the time had not come for accusations to be successful; the tide of his popularity had not turned. He demanded time to prepare his defence, and absented himself for eight days both from the Convention and the Jacobin Club. During this absence the Jacobins protested his innocence and intimidated his accusers, the excitement in the Convention subsided, and on his re-appearance he was triumphantly exculpated. At this time the king was in prison, but his days were drawing to a close. Robespierre vehemently combated those who either asserted the necessity of a trial or declared the king inviolable: he demanded that he should be beheaded at once, and promoted unscrupulously the execution of his whole family. The death of the king augmented both party strife and private bitterness; each faction and each leader had some rival to destroy. The Montagnards struggled with the Girondins for supremacy, gained their end, and massacred their opponents. any great quality; he was cowardly, cruel, and vain; one of the most intimate compounds of self-esteem and circumspection that ever met in the same character.' His success, which was partly due to his egotism, his excessive caution not to commit himself, made him the safest guide and model for all that multitude of cautious egotists which form so large a portion of human society.' (Edin. Rev., vol. lxxii., p. 428.) He had another great source of strength in being the very apostle and prolocutor of the populace, of that vague and indefinite religion which Rosseau had created, and which then enjoyed so immense a popularity-a religion of sentiment without belief.' He was honest in his efforts for the democratic cause, he never sought money, and he well deserved the name of Incorruptible.' He long depended on his sister for support, and died worth fifty francs. The powers of his mind, his judgment, and his oratory have been frequently underrated; he must have been at least plausibly eloquent: he chose with adroitness the topics upon which he spoke; he was acute, and had considerable foresight. But on the whole, his low and vile qualities so greatly predominated, that he was not only the terror of the monarchical and aristocratic party, but he likewise injured the democratic cause, for he was guilty of no small portion of that violence and cruelty which rendered a reaction inevitable. (Thiers, Hist. French Rev.; Mignet; Walter Scott, Hist. of Nap., vol. i.; Carlyle, Hist. French Rev.; Mad. de Stäel, Thoughts on the French Rev.; Ed. Rev., vol. lxxii.; Biog. Universelle.) ROBIN HOOD. [HOOD, ROBIN.] ROBI'NIA, a name given to a genus of plants in conmemoration of John Robin, a botanist in the time of Henry IV. of France. This genus is known by having an inferior perianth; teeth of calyx 5, lanceolate, two upper ones shorter and approximate; corolla papilionaceous; ovary with from 16 to 20 ovules; style bearded in front, and legume subsessile and many-seeded. They are North American trees, bearing nodding racemes of white or rose-coloured flowers. The genus Robinia formerly comprehended the plants now included under Caragana, from which it is distinguished by its long gibbous legume and unequally pinnate leaves. The best known species of Robinia is the R. pseudacacia, the Bastard or False Acacia, or Locust-tree. It has stipular prickles, with loose pendulous racemes of white sweet-smelling flowers, which, as well as the legumes, are smooth. This tree, which is now so well known, was first The kingdom was chiefly go-grown in Europe by Vespasien Robin, the son of the botaverned by the Committee of Public Safety [COMMITTEE OF nist, after whom the genus was named, in the Jardin des PUBLIC SAFETY], of which Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Plantes at Paris. It was named locust-tree by the missionJust became the triumvirate. Their schemes for a moral aries, who supposed it to be the same tree as that which regeneration will be found in all the histories of the time, grows in Asia, and is supposed to have produced the locusts and also an account of Robespierre's presidency at the great spoken of in the New Testament. It was one of the first public acknowledgment of the existence of a Deity. This trees received in Europe from North America, where it took place when his career was nearly run, when there were grows in great abundance. It grows in the Atlantic States divisions in the Montagne, where he had lost the support of of North America, but it is very abundant in the south-west, many who, though they had been rivals, had been likewise in the valleys of the Alleghany Mountains. It is also found powerful allies, when Marat had been assassinated, when in the Western states and in Upper and Lower Canada. he had sanctioned the execution of Péthion and Danton Since its first introduction into Europe, this tree has met and Desmoulins, when he had put a countless host of vic- with very different treatment, at one time being extolled as tims to death, and raised a proportionate number of enemies. the most valuable of trees, at another time condemned as In July, 1794, his adversaries became too strong for him: worthless. This has arisen in a great measure from the Billaud-Varennes, one of his own party, jointly with the soils and situations in which it has been accidentally cultiremnant of the Dantonists, who still were furious because of vated. It has always been known in America as affording the execution of their leader, accused Robespierre of seek- an exceedingly hard and durable wood; hence it has been ing his own aggrandizement by the sacrifice of his colleagues. recommended to be cultivated on this account, but the In vain Robespierre retired, in vain he took forty.days to great tendency which this tree possesses to branching and prepare his defence, in vain he strained every nerve to its seldom attaining a great size render it impossible to obrefute their charges. After a scene of frightful excite-tain from it timber of a useful kind. In America it is used ment, he was condemned to death, his brother, Couthon, St. Just, and Lebas being included in the same condemnation. Robespierre was separated from the other prisoners, and led to the gaol at the Luxembourg. Here accident gave him a chance of escape. The gaoler, who was his friend, released him; he marched against the Convention with a number of soldiers and partizans, and it is not impossible that he might have re-established his power, if he had possessed courage, and his allies dexterity. As it was, he was again seized, and having blown his jaw to pieces, in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy himself, was dragged groaning to the guillotine, amidst the taunts and acclamations of the people. The characters of few men have been more deservedly decried than that of Robespierre. He was totally without for making posts, and occasionally trees are found large enough to be employed in ship-building; but its greatest consumption is for making trenails, by which the timbers of ships are fastened together, and for this purpose large quantities are used in the royal dock-yard at Plymouth, which are imported from America. Cattle are fond of the young shoots, and on this account it has been recommended to be cultivated as forage. At one time it was thought to be an excellent tree for planting on the banks of rivers and canals, as the roots, being very large and spreading, would bind the soil together. In 1823, Cobbett wrote on this tree, recommending it strongly in his various publications. He imported immense quantities of the seeds from America for the purpose of growing the plants for sale. He stated that in this way he had distri buted in Great Britain more than a million of plants. His praises of the tree were extravagant in the extreme, and it has failed to answer thost of the promises that he held out. The tree is of rapid growth when young, and forms heartwood at a very early age. In America it attains a height of 70 or 80 feet, but in this country it is seldom seen so high. Its tendency to form branches, even when young, prevents its being used for hop-poles as recommended by Cobbett. The roots and other parts of the plant, like many of its order (Leguminosa), contain a saccharine principle, which accounts for the nutritive properties of the leaves. In St. Domingo the flowers are used for making a distilled liquor, which is said to be very delicious. It folds up its leaves at the approach of night. The tree grows best on a soil of sandy loam, rich rather than poor; a good garden soil is the best. It should not be planted in exposed situations, as, from the great brittleness of its branches, it is likely to be destroyed by winds. It may be propagated by cuttings from the roots or by planting large truncheons or suckers, but producing it from seeds is the best mode. The seeds should be sown in the spring, and in the summer of the following year they may be transplanted. The seeds will not retain their vitality more than two years. American seed should be always used, as it does not come to perfection in this country. There are two other species frequently cultivated in this country, R. viscosa, Clammy Robinia, and R. hispida, Hairy Robinia, or Rose Acacia. The former is characterised by the sticky secretion with which it is covered, and which has been discovered to possess a peculiar vegetable principle; the latter, which is the smallest of the three species here mentioned, has very large flowers, and forms a very ornamental shrub when grown on an espalier rail or against a wall. us,' mentions another in the possession of Gale, and this is now in the library of Trinity College,-O. i. 11. We find also that there is still another copy in the Ashmolean Museum, MS. No. 186. The preface to this latter work, which is partly plagiarised from Cicero, is printed in Hall well's Rara Mathematica,' p. 48-54. ROBINS, BENJAMIN, a celebrated mathematician and artillerist, was born at Bath, in 1707, of parents whe were members of the society of Friends, and in such humbe circumstances as to be unable to give their son the benefits of a learned education. By the aid however of some octasional instruction and a mind by nature formed to compre hend readily the processes of mathematical investigation, he early attained to a considerable proficiency in the pure sciences; and, as the best means of being enabled to prosecute his favourite studies, he determined to establish himself in London as a private teacher. Some specimens of his skill in the solution of problems having been forwarded to Dr. Pemberton, this learned mathematician conceived so favourable an opinion of his abilities as to encourage him m his design; and accordingly, about the year 1725, Mr. Robins came to town, in the garb and professing the doctrines of a Quaker. The former, after a time, he exchanged for the ordinary dress of the country. In the metropolis, and apparently in the intervals of leisure which his employment as a teacher afforded, Mr. Robins applied himself to the study of the modern lan guages, and diligently cultivated the higher departments of science by reading the works of the antient and the best modern geometers; these he appears to have mastered without difficulty, and in 1727 he distinguished himself by writing a demonstration, which was inserted in the Philosophical Transactions' for that year, of the eleventh proposition in Newton's treatise on quadratures. During the following year he published, in a work entitled the Present State of the Republic of Letters,' a refutation of John Bernoulli's treatise on the measure of the active forces of bodies in motion, a subject which had been proposed as a prize question by the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, and successfully answered by Maclaurin. The foreign mathematician had endeavoured to support the hypothesis of Leibnitz, that the forces are proportional to the squares of the velocities which they produce, while both Maciaurin and Robins were in favour of the original opinion of Des cartes, that the forces are proportional to the velocities simply. About this time Mr. Robins began to make those experiments for determining the resistance of the air against military projectiles, which have gained for him so much reputation. He is said also to have directed the energies of his mind to the construction of mills, the building of bridges, draining marshes, and making rivers navigable; but it does not appear that he was ever employed in carrying such works into execution. The methods of fortifying places became a favourite study with Mr. Robins, and, in company with some persons of distinction, probably his pupils, he several excursions to Flanders, where he bad opportu nities of examining on the ground the works of the great masters in the art. ROBINS, or ROBYNS, JOHN, an English astronomer and mathematician, who was born in Staffordshire, about the close of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the Sixteenth, as it appears he was entered a student at Oxford in 1516, and educated for the church. In MS. Digby, 143, are preserved several inedited tracts by Robins, and from a note at the end it appears that he was of Merton College. It seems that, in common with many others of that college, he devoted himself to the study of the sciences, and he soon made such a progress, says Wood, in the pleasant studies of mathematics and astrology, that he became the ablest person in his time for those studies, not excepting his friend Recorde,' whose learning was more general. Having taken the degree of bachelor of divinity, in the year 1531, he was the year following made by King Henry VIII., to whom he was chaplain, one of the canons of his college in Oxford. In December, 1543, he was made a canon of Windsor, and afterwards one of the chaplains to Queen Mary, who highly esteemed him for his learning. He died on the 25th of August, 1558, and was buried in the chapel of St. George at Windsor. He left behind him several works in manuscript, of which two, De Culmina-made tione Stellarum Fixarum,' and 'De Ortu et Occasu Stellarum Fixarum,' are preserved in MS. Digby, 143, in the Bodleian Library. According to Wood, Sir Kenelm Digby In 1734, the celebrated bishop of Cloyne, author of the also possessed three other tracts by Robyns, viz.: 1, Anno-Treatise on Human Knowledge,' published a small work tationes Astrologica,' lib. 3; 2, Annotationes Edwardi called the 'Analyst,' in which, without intending to deny VI.; 3, 'Tractatus de Prognosticatione per Ecclipsin;' and the accuracy of the results, it is attempted to be shown that Wood adds that these were also in the Bodleian Library. the principles of fluxions, as they were delivered by Sir Isaac We suspect Wood is here in error, for in the sale catalogue Newton, are not founded upon strictly correct reasoning, inof the library of George, earl of Bristol, sold by auction in asmuch as it is assumed that the ratio between two variable April, 1680, a copy of which is in the British Museum, we quantities may have a finite or infinite value when the find an account of several manuscripts said formerly to have quantities are nascent or evanescent; that is, as the objector belonged to Sir Kenelm Digby, and among these (No. 49) supposes, when both quantities become zero. The objection is Johannis Robyns Annotationes Astrologica. We are is founded on a misunderstanding of the subject, for by the inclined to think that Wood may have taken the titles from term nascent or evanescent is meant, not that each quanthe catalogue of Thomas Allen's library, in the Ashmolean tity is nothing, but that both are infinitely small, or that Museum, nearly the whole of which came into the hands of they are less than any thing assignable; in which case Kenelm Digby, and that the two titles of Annotationes' do one of them may, notwithstanding, exceed the other in reality belong to the same book. We are not aware that in magnitude a finite or even an infinite number of any copy of this work of Robyns's is now in existence, times. The talents of both Maclaurin and Robins were although there are some extracts from it in MS. Bodl. 3467, employed in answering the objection; and for this purpose and the loss of it is perhaps not much to be regretted. the latter published, in 1735, A Discourse concerning the Wood slightly refers to a book by Robyns under the title of Certainty of Sir I. Newton's Method of Fluxions, and of De Portentosis Cometis, but he says that he had never seen Prime and Ultimate Ratios.' It is easy to imagine however a copy. Bale however mentions having seen one in the that great difficulty would at first be felt in admitting a Royal Library at Westminster, and this copy is now in the principle so different from any which occurs in the antient British Museum. Sherburne, in the appendix to his Mani- geometry; and, before the subject was set at rest, Mr Robins added to the first, two or three other discourses ex- | planatory of the calculus. In 1738 he wrote a defence of Newton against an objection on the subject of the sun's parallax which occurs in a note at the end of Baxter's 'Matho;' and, in the following year, he published some remarks on Euler's treatise of Motion,' on Smith's 'Optics,' and on Dr. Jurin's discourse concerning vision. taken ill with a fever. He recovered from this attack, but Dr. Hutton relates that, in 1741, he was a competitor with Mr. Müller for the post of professor of fortification in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; and that the latter succeeded through some private interest in obtaining the appointment. Mr. Robins's principal work, entitled 'New Principles of Gunnery,' was published in 1742. To this is prefixed an account of the rise and progress of modern fortification, and a history of the invention of gunpowder, with a statement of the steps which had been taken towards a knowledge of the theory of gunnery. Having then determined the value of the explosive force of fired gunpowder and the effect of the heat and moisture of the atmosphere on that force, he proceeds to describe the ballistic pendulum which ROBISON, JOHN, was born in 1739, at Boghall in the he had invented, with the manner of employing it in deter-county of Stirling. His father, who had been a merchant at mining the velocities of shot when the guns are charged Glasgow, but who then resided on his estate, intended that with given quantities of powder; and he treats at length of he should enter the clerical order, and accordingly he sent the resistance of the air on shot and shells during their flight, him, at eleven years of age, to the university of that city. a subject till then but little understood. This work had the Here the youth studied the classics under Dr. Moore, and honour of being translated into German, and commented moral philosophy under Dr. Adam Smith; and at the same on by the learned Euler. Some of the opinions advanced time he received instructions in mathematics from Dr in it being questioned by the author of a paper in the Phi- Robert Simson. He took his degree of M.A. in 1756, but losophical Transactions,' Mr. Robins was induced to reply he declined the church as a profession. to the objections, and to give several dissertations on the experiments made by order of the Royal Society in 1746 and 1747; for these he was presented with the annual gold medal. A number of experiments in gunnery subsequently made by Mr. Robins were, after his death, published with the rest of his mathematical works, by Dr. Wilson, and the collection, which makes two volumes 8vo., came out in 1761. Besides the pursuits of science, Robins appears to have been occasionally occupied with subjects of a political nature. A convention which had been made with the king of Spain, in 1738, respecting the payment of certain claims made by British merchants in compensation for the seizure of their ships and the destruction of their property by the subjects of that monarch, not being considered satisfactory, the opponents of the minister, Sir Robert Walpole, made it the ground of an inquiry into his conduct, and Robins wrote three pamphlets on the occasion. These gained for him considerable reputation, and a committee of the House of Commons being appointed to manage the inquiry, he was chosen its secretary; he did not however hold the post long, as a compromise took place between the opposing parties. About ten years afterwards (1749) Mr. Robins wrote, as a preface to the Report of the Proceedings of the Board of Officers on their Inquiry into the Conduct of Sir John Cope,' an apology for the unsuccessful issue of the action at Preston Pans in 1745. Great difference of opinion exists concerning the share which Mr. Robins had in writing the account of Lord Anson's Voyage round the World' (1740-1744). The work was certainly commenced by the Rev. W. Walter, the chaplain of the Centurion, who was in that ship during the greater part of the voyage; but, on the one hand, it is said that the account of the reverend gentleman consisted chiefly of matters taken verbatim from the journals of the naval officers; and that Robins, using the statement of courses, bearings, distances, &c. as materials, composed the introduction and many of the dissertations in the body of the work. On the other hand, we are told that Mr. Robins was consulted only concerning the disposition of the plates, and that he left England before the work was published. It is scarcely probable that a clergyman professing to write the history of such a voyage should have merely copied a sailor's journal, and it may be reasonably supposed that the greater part of the work as it stood in the first edition came from his pen; while, with equal reason, it may be allowed that Mr. Robins added the introduction and the scientific notices. The first edition appeared in 1748, and four were disposed of in the course of that year. Mr. Robins was offered, in 1749, his choice between two good appointments; the first, to go to Paris as one of the Commissioners for settling the boundaries of Acadia; and the other, to be engineer in general to the East India Company. He accepted the latter, and departed in December for Madras, where he arrived in July, 1750. His intentions were to put the fortifications in a good state of defence, and he had actually prepared plans for the purpose when he was Being thus compelled to seek an occupation in some other line, he went to London in 1758, with a recommendation from Dr. Simson to Dr. Blair, a prebendary of Westminster, who was then desirous of obtaining some person to instruct the young duke of York in navigation, and to accompany his royal highness in a voyage to sea, an intention being entertained that the prince should serve in the royal navy. The project was afterwards abandoned, but Mr. Robison consented to embark on board the Neptune with a son of Admiral Knowles, who had just then received his appointment as a midshipman. This ship was one of a fleet destined to co-operate with the land-forces under General Wolfe in the reduction of Quebec; and during the voyage Mr. Knowles being promoted to the rank of lieutenant on board the Royal William, Robison, who was then rated as a midshipman, accompanied him. In May, 1759, the fleet arrived in the St. Lawrence, and Mr. Robison was employed in surveying the river and the neighbouring country; at the same time he had an opportunity of making observations concerning the effects produced by the aurora borealis on the magnetic needle. The success of the expedition is well known; and on the return of the Royal William to England, Mr. Robison accepted an invitation from Admiral Knowles to reside with him at his seat in the country. In 1762, lieutenant Knowles being appointed to the command of a sloop of war, Robison accompanied him in a voyage to Spain and Portugal, but after being absent six months he returned to England, and quitted entirely the naval service. His great friend and patron the admiral however recommended him to Lord Anson as a person qualified to take charge of Harrison's timekeeper, which, after the labour of thirty-five years, was considered fit to be used for the important purpose of determining the longitude of a ship at sea, and which it was proposed by the Board of Longitude to try during a voyage to the West Indies. In consequence of this recommendation, Mr. Robison, accompanied by a son of Mr. Harrison, sailed to Jamaica, where, on January 26, 1763, the chronometer (whose rate had been determined at Portsmouth, November 6th, 1762) was found, after allowing for that rate, to indicate a time less by 5" only than that which resulted from the known difference between the longitudes of the two places; and on his return to England, April 2nd, 1763, that is, after an absence of one hundred and forty-seven days, the whole error was found to be but 1'543′′. Mr. Robison, being disappointed in his expectations of promotion from the Admiralty, set out for Glasgow in order to resume his studies. Here, enjoying the friendship of Dr. Black and Mr. Watt, the former of whom was on the point of developing his theory of latent heat, and the latter of bringing forward his great improvements on the steamengine, he felt himself irresistibly impelled towards the pursuit of the physical sciences. On the removal of Dr. Black to Edinburgh, Mr. Robison was appointed to succeed him, and for four years he gave lectures on natural philosophy at Glasgow; but at the end of that time he accepted (1770) the appointment of secretary to admiral Sir Charles Knowles, who had been invited by the empress of Russia to superintend the improvements which that sovereign contemplated making in her navy. Two years after his arrival at St. Petersburg, Sir Charles became president of the board of admiralty, and Robison was made inspector of the corps of maritime cadets at Cronstadt, with a liberal salary and the rank of lieutenantcolonel in the Russian service. He gave no instructions, but his duty was to receive the reports of the masters, and to class the cadets in the order of their merits; this he performed for four years, but finding Cronstadt a dreary place of residence during the winter, he accepted the professorship of natural philosophy at Edinburgh, which had become vacant by the death of Dr. Russel. He arrived in that city in June, 1774, bringing with him two or three of the Rus sian cadets, whose education he had undertaken to superintend; and in the same year he gave a series of lectures on mechanics, optics, electricity, astronomy, &c. This course he continued to deliver annually during the rest of his life, except when ill health obliged him to appoint a substitute for the purpose, improving each subject from time to time by the introduction of every important discovery which it received from the researches of his contemporaries. The lectures are said to have been distinguished by accuracy of definition and clearness as well as brevity of demonstration; and the experiments by which they were illustrated, to have been performed with neatness and precision. But it has been objected to them that they were delivered with a rapidity of utterance which made it difficult for the students to follow him; that he supposed his pupils to possess a higher degree of preparatory information than they had in general attained, even when they had gone through the university course of study, and that the experiments were too few in number to serve the purpose intended by them. It may be thought that the second objection might have been obviated by merely requiring, in the pupils who were to attend the course of lectures, an adequate portion of mathematical knowledge previous to their admission; but it is probable that the ground of the complaint lay, parily, in the | difficulties inseparable from the communication of scientific instruction by general lectures. The result attained after a geometrical investigation on paper may be admitted by a reader who can take the time necessary to satisfy himself of the truth of the several steps and of their dependence on each other; but this is seldom possible when the investigation is delivered from the mouth of a lecturer, who must go on with his subject without waiting for the slow operations of the judgment in the mind of his auditor, and the consequences too often are that, at the expiration of the hour, the latter carries away only a number of ideas in a state of inextricable confusion. In former ages, when books were scarce, there was no other method of conveying instruction to a number of persons than that of general lectures; but at present such lectures can only be useful as auxiliaries in teaching the physical sciences, and probably the chief advantage to be derived from them consists in the opportunities they afford for exhibiting experiments which it may not be in the power of students individually to make. It seems to follow that such exhibitions should not be omitted whenever they can be made conducive to the illustration of the subject. On settling in Edinburgh, Mr. Robison became a member of the Philosophical Society of that city. In 1785 he was attacked by a disorder which was attended with pain and depression of spirits, but he was only occasionally prevented from performing his duties and following his literary avocations. In 1798 he was made doctor in laws by the University of New Jersey; and in the following year, by that of Glasgow and in 1800 he was elected a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. In 1785 he wrote a paper which was published in the first volume of the Philosophical Transactions of Edinburgh,' on the determination, from his own observations, of the orbit and motion of the Georgium Sidus; and he afterwards wrote one which appeared in the second volume of the same work, on the motion of light as affected by reflecting and refracting substances which are themselves in motion. But his most important works are the numerous articles which, in 1793 and the following years, he contributed to the third edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica' and its supplement: a series of treatises which may be considered as forming a complete body of physical science for that time. Mr. Robison was prevailed upon to superintend the pub ! lication of Dr. Black's lectures on chemistry, and they came out in 1803, but that science had undergone so gre a change since the death of the learned lecturer, that the work excited little interest. In the following year he published a portion, containing dynamics and astronomy, of a book entitled 'Elements of Mechanical Philosophy;' but the substance of it, together with that of some MSS | which had been intended by the author to form part of the second volume, and also the principal articles which had been written for the Encyclopædia Britannica,' were collected by Dr., now Sir David, Brewster, under the title of A System of Mechanical Philosophy,' and published 1822, with notes, in 4 vols. 8vo. This work is considered by the late Professor Playfair as firmly establishing the character of Mr. Robison for scientific attainments. While Mr. Robison was on his journey to Russia in 1770, he was hospitably entertained by the bishop of Liège, whe with all his chapter, constituted a lodge of freemasons; and into this society our traveller was induced to enter. It s unknown from what source he obtained his information respecting its proceedings, but twenty-nine years afterwards he published a remarkable work containing A History of the German Illuminati,' whom he describes as the agents in a plot formed by the freemasons to overturn all the relgions and governments of Europe. The work met with little attention, and Robison was charged with a degree of credulity scarcely to be expected in a person so well acquainted with the laws of philosophical evidence. Having taken a slight cold, and suffered an illness of only two days' duration, Mr. Robison died on the 30th of January, 1805, in the 66th year of his age, leaving a widow and four children. He is stated to have been a person of prepossessing countenance, a good linguist, a draughtsman, and an accomplished musician; and it is added that his conversation was both energetic and interesting. ROBORTELLO, FRANCIS, was born of a noble family, September 9th, 1516. He was educated at Bologna under the celebrated Romulo Amaseo, and he began about 1538 to teach the belles-lettres at Lucca. Five years afterwards he went to Pisa, where he lived during the next five years, and laid the foundation of his fame, which was soon spread over the whole of Italy. In 1549 the senate of Venice elected him successor to Battista Egnazio, professor of rhetoric there, whose advanced age obliged him to retire from public duties. In 1552 Robortello was promoted to the chair of Greek and Latin literature in the university of Padua, in the place of Lazaro Buonamici, who died in that year. Thence he removed in 1557 to Bologna, in order to undertake a similar office in that city. Having been appointed to pronounce here the funeral oration in honour of the emperor Charies V., who died in 1558, he is said to have forgotten the exordium, and to have been incapable of proceeding, which brought him into some disrepute. About this time he had violent disputes with Sigonius, in which Robortello appears to have been the aggressor, and which did not terminate till the senate of Venice employed their authority in imposing silence upon both. Robortello died at Padua, March 18th, 1567, in the fifty-first year of his age, so poor that he did not leave enough to defray the expenses of his funeral, which however was celebrated by the University in a style of great magnificence. Robortello seems to have been naturally pugnacious, and he was continually involving himself in disputes with men superior to himself. He could not refrain from attacking such writers as Erasmus, Paulo Manuzio, Muretus, and Henry Stephens. He was however a man of considerable talent and learning, and he published several books of great utility. The following are his principal works: 1, Variorum Locorum Annotationes tam in Græcis quam in Latins Auctoribus,' Venice, 1543, 8vo.; De Historica Facultate," &c., Florence, 1548, 8vo., being several treatises on Greek and Roman literature, all of which are inserted by Gruter in his Thesaurus Criticus.' 3, De Convenientia Supputations Liviana Annorum cum Marmoribus Romanis quæ in Capitolio sunt; De Arte sive Ratione corrigendi Veteres Auctores Disputatio,' Padua, 1557, folio; 4, De Vita et Victu Populi Romani sub Imperatoribus Cæs. Augustis,' Bologna, 1559, folio. Besides these he published editions of Aristotle's Poetics,' the 'Tragedies of schylus, the 'Tactics' of E lian,' and Longinus On the Sublime. (Weiss in Biographie Universelle.) ROBULI'NA. [FORAMINIFERA, Vol. X., p. 348.] ROBUSTI. [TINTORETTO.] ROCCA, in Italian, means a strong hold or fortified place, perched upon a rock or steep hill, a position common to many provincial towns in Italy. Rocca, properly speaking, means the castle or keep, but it has also become an appellative for the town or village which generally adjoins it. The appellative Rocca is most frequent in the Neapolitan and Papal states, and in Piedmont. The most notable places of this name are Rocca Morfina, in Campania, once the capital of the Aurunci; Rocca di Papa, on the Alban Mount, near Rome; Rocca Gorga, near Piperno; Rocca Rasa, and Rocca Vall' Oscura, two stations in the Abruzzo, on the high road from Naples to Sulmona, in the mountain tract which divides the valley of the Sangro from that of the Pescara; Roccabruna, in the province of Cuneo in Piedmont; Roccaforte, in the province of Mondovi; Roccabione, in the province of Cuneo, &c. ROCCELLA. [ORCHIL.] ROCHDALE, a parliamentary borough in the hundred of Salford, 12 miles north-west of Manchester, and 202 from the General Post-office, London, by the mail road through Dunstable, Northampton, Market Harborough, Leicester, Derby, Belper, Matlock, and Buxton to Manchester; in 53° 37' N. lat. and 2° 10' W. long. The parish of Rochdale is one of the most extensive in the kingdom. It extends into Agbrigg wapentake, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and comprises 58,620 statute acres; with a population, in 1831, of 74,427, of which 40,340 acres and 58,441 inhabitants are in Lancashire. The Lancashire part was formerly divided into four parts, now into ten townships, as follows: Rochdale derives its name from the Roch (which flows into the Irwell, a tributary of the Mersey); it is called Recedham in the Domesday Survey. In the time of Edward III. some Flemings introduced the woollen manufacture into the parish; and two centuries afterwards, viz. in the reign of Elizabeth, it was still famous for its woollens. In 1610 there were no fewer than five fulling-mills established on the Spodden or Spotland brook in this parish. The town of Rochdale is situated on both sides of the river Roch, into which, on the north bank, two brooks flow, the Hee brook just above, and the Spodden or Spotland brook just below the town. That part of the town which is on the south side of the Roch is in the township of Castleton, and is connected by three bridges with the more extensive part on the north side of the Roch, which extends into the townships of Wardleworth and Spotland, and a small part into the township of Wuerdale and Wardale. The streets are irregularly laid out, and many of them are narrow and inconvenient. Within the last fifteen years how ever great improvements have taken place, several of the streets have been widened and otherwise improved, and a new market-house completed. The houses are chiefly of brick; some of the best are built of freestone quarried in the neighbourhood: the streets are well paved, and lighted with gas; and the town is supplied with water from four reservoirs in Castleton township. The old bridge over the Roch (a stone bridge of three arches) has been widened Not given in the Population Returns; probably included in one of the cher divisions. P. C., No. 1237. and improved; about a quarter of a mile below it is another stone bridge of one arch, and just above it an iron bridge for foot passengers. There are several churches and chapels, episcopal and dissenting. The parish church was built within about a century of the time of Domesday Survey, and was dedicated to St. Cedd or St. Chad. It is partly in the early English style, with a few remains of Norman character in the interior. The nave and south aisle, and the tower, which is embattled and crowned with pinnacles, are of later date. The windows of the choir have rich tracery; and the font and many of the monuments are very antient. St. Mary's church was built in 740 as a chapel-of-ease to the parish church; it is a plain brick building. St. James's, built in 1814, is a Gothic stone edifice, with a square embattled tower. There are other churches or episcopal chapels (some of them erected of late years) in the outparts of the parish. There are in the town chapels for Presbyterians, Baptists (two), Methodists (Wesleyan, New and Primitive), Independents, the countess of Huntingdon's connexion, Unitarians, and Roman Catholics: all these, except the Presbyterian chapel, have been built or rebuilt in the present century. The manufactures of this place are very important; they comprehend woollen goods, as baize, flannels, coatings, and friezes, and strong calicos and other goods in cottons; but the woollen fabrics form the staple. Hats are also made, and cotton yarn is spun. Coal is dug, and slates, flagstones, and freestone are abundantly quarried in the parish, and there are iron-works in Butterworth township. Steam-power is extensively employed by the manufacturers. There are two weekly markets; on Monday for manufactured goods, wool, oil, dye-stuffs, and grain; and on Saturday for provisions. There are three yearly fairs: on May 14th; on Whit Tuesday; and on November 7th; all for cattle, horses, and pedlary. The Rochdale canal, whieh unites the duke of Bridgewater's canal at Manchester with the Calder and Ribble navigation near Halifax in Yorkshire, passes near the town on the south-east side of it. The town is in the jurisdiction of the county magistrates. The lord of the manor holds a court baron every three weeks for the recovery of debts under 40s. There are a neat town-hall, used also as a news-room, and a commodious gaol called the New Bailey. Rochdale was erected into a parliamentary borough by the Reform Act; and the boundary, as defined by the Boundary Act, coincides with the boundary laid down in a previous local police act, and is a circle drawn with a radius of three-quarters of a mile from the old market-place in the very heart of the town. Rochdale returns one member to parliament: the number of voters on the register for 1834-5 was 746; for 1835-6, 695. The borough of Rochdale is a vicarage, one of the richest in the kingdom, at present in the archdeaconry and diocese of Chester; but to be transferred to Manchester when that see is erected. Its clear yearly value is estimated at 17307., with a glebe-house: it is in the gift of the archbishop of Canterbury. The glebe comprehends 200 acres of land, a part of it built upon. There were, in 1833, in the three townships of Castleton, Wardleworth, and Spotland, sixty-eight schools of all kinds for daily instruction, with 2289 scholars; and twenty-eight Sunday schools, with 4036 scholars. Some of these schools are probably out of the town in the outparts of the townships. We have not included Wuerdale and Wardale township, as only a very small part of the town is in it. Four of the dayschools are endowed; one is a national school, the children of which attend also on Sunday. Littleborough, in the parish of Rochdale, was a Roman post, but the remains of it have nearly or quite disappeared. Roman coins, and part of a statue of Victory, of silver, have been dug up. The mound of an antient castle, said to be of Saxon original, to which the township of Castleton owes its name, is mentioned in the 'Beauties of England and Wales.' In the chapelry of Saddleworth, in the Yorkshire part of the parish, are some Druidical remains. (Baines's Hist. of Lancashire; Parliamentary Papers.) ROCHEFORT, a town and port of France, capital of ar arrondissement in the department of Charente Inférieure, 300 miles south-west of Paris by the road through Orléans, Tours, Poitiers, and Niort ; in 45° 56′ N. lat., and 0° 59′ W. long. Rochefort was in the middle ages in the power of the English, from whom it was taken by Charles VII. Its VOL. XX.-H |