ROBORTELLO, FRANCIS. 



ROCKINGHAM, MARQUIS OF. 



Philosophical Society of that city. In 1785 he was attacked by a dis- 

 order 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 Trans- 

 actions of Edinburgh/ on the determination, from his own observa- 

 tions, 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 ' Encyclo- 

 pedia 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 publication of 

 Dr. Black's lectures on chemistry, and they came out in 1803; but that 

 science had undergone so great 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 ' Encyclopaedia Britannica/ 

 were collected by Dr., now Sir David, Brewster, under the title of ' A 

 System of Mechanical Philosophy/ and published in 1822, with notes, 

 in 4 vols. Svo. 



While Mr. Robison was on his journey to Russia in 1770, he was 

 hospitably entertained by the Bishop of Liege, who, with all his 

 chapter, constituted a lodge of freemasons ; and into this society our 

 traveller was induced to enter. It is 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 religions and govern- 

 ments 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 sixty- 

 sixth 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, Sep- 

 tember 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 

 Charles 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 18, 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 tarn in Grsccis quam in Latinis Auctoribus/ 

 Svo, Venice, 1543; 2, 'De Historica Facultate/ &c., Svo, Florence, 

 1548, being several treatises on Greek and Roman literature, all of 

 which are inserted by Gruter in his 'Thesaurus Criticus;' 3, 'De 

 Convenientia Supputationis Livianse Annorum cum Marmoribus Ro- 

 mania quae in Capitolio sunt ; De Arte sive Ratione corrigendi Veteres 

 Auctores Disputatio/ folio, Padua, 1557; 4, 'De Vita et Victu Populi 

 Romani sub Imperatoribus Cres. Augustis/ folio, Bologna, 1559.' Be- 

 sides these he published editions of Aristotle's ' Poetics/ the ' Tra- 

 gedies ' of JEschylus, the ' Tactics' of JSlian, and Longinus ' On the 

 Sublime.' 



ROBUSTI, JACOPO. [TINTORETTO.] 



ROCHEFOUCAULD, FRANCOIS, DUC DE LA, of a distinguished 



noble family of France, was born in 1613. He appeared early at the 

 court of Louis XIII., and showed some talents and ambition, but was 

 kept out of employment and favour by the jealousy of Cardinal 

 Richelieu. In the early part of the subsequent reign of Louis XIV. 

 he figured in the civil war of La Fronde. He attached himself to the 

 party of the Duchess of Longueville, whose avowed admirer he was, 

 and he was severely wounded at the siege of Bordeaux, and in the 

 battle of St. Antoine at Paris. After Louis XIV. had firmly established 

 the monarchical authority, La Rochefoucauld withdrew to private life. 

 In this second part of his career he exhibited private virtues which 

 atoned for the folly and violence of his younger years. He was intimate 

 with Madame de la Fayette, and with Madame de Sdvigne, who speaks 

 of him in her correspondence in terms of real esteem. He died in 

 1680, with calm and Christian-like resignation. The Cardinal de Retz, 

 his contemporary and fellow-partisan, in his ' Me"moires/ says of him, 

 that he was always irresolute in his temper ; a good soldier, with no 

 military talent; a bad courtier, though ambitious of figuring and 

 meddling in intrigue ; but at the same time he praises " his natural 

 good sense, the ease and mildness of his manners," and says that " he 

 was a very upright man in private life." La Rochefoucauld left several 

 works, the principal of which are 'Me'moires de la Re"gence d'Anne 

 d'Autriche;' and his 'Maximes,' or ' Pens^es/ for which he is best 

 known as an author. This book has made much noise in the world ; 

 it has been abused, criticised, controverted, and yet no one can deny 

 that there is a great deal of truth in it, though it generalises too much. 

 La Rochefoucauld attributes all the actions of men, good or bad, to 

 the moving-spring of self-interest. Friendship is an exchange of good 

 offices, generosity is the means of gaining good opinion, justice itself 

 is derived from the fear of suffering from the oppression of others. 

 This may be all true, but still there are actions in which men can have 

 no self-interest in view, in which they act from enthusiasm, or a strong 

 sense of duty, or from benevolence, or some motive other than self- 

 interest ; such are, for instance, the self-devotedness of the patriot, the 

 perseverance of the upright man through good and evil report, the 

 sacrifice made by pure love, and, above all, the calm resignation of the 

 Christian martyr. These and other similar instances La Rochefoucauld 

 has not taken into account, because probably he had seen no specimen 

 of them. La Rochefoucauld has accounted for most actions of a great 

 proportion of mankind, perhaps by far the greater, and for so doing 

 he has been abused, because, as a French lady observed, he has told 

 everybody's secret. He has placed himself, with regard to private 

 morality, in the same predicament as Machiavelli with regard to political 

 morality. [MACHIAVELLI.] J. J. Rousseau, who was certainly not free 

 from selfishness, has abused La Rochefoucauld's 'Maximes;' and yet 

 in his ' Emile ' he observes that " selfishness is the main-spring of all 

 our actions," and that " authors, while they are for ever talking of 

 truth, which they care little about, think chiefly of their own interest, 

 of which they do not talk." La Fontaine, in his fable (b. i., 11) 

 ' L'Homme et son Image/ has made an ingenious defence of La 

 Rochefoucauld's book. 



La Rochefoucauld's ' Maximes ' have gone through many editions. 

 The ' CEuvres de La Rochefoucauld/ 1818, contain, besides his already 

 published works, several inedited letters and a biographical notice. 



Several other individuals of the same family have acquired an his- 

 torical name, among others, Louis ALEXANDRE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, 

 peer of France, who embraced the popular part at the beginning of the 

 great French revolution, and displayed considerable violence in his 

 sentiments, notwithstanding which, after the 10th of August, he was 

 massacred by the Jacobins as an aristocrat. 



ROCHESTER, LORD. [WiLMOT.] 



ROCKINGHAM, CHARLES WATSON WENTWORTH, MAR- 

 QUIS OF, was the only son of the first Marquis of Rockingham, and 

 was born on the 13th of May 1730, two years after the title of Baron 

 of Malton had been conferred upon his father, who, in 1734, was 

 advanced to the dignity of Earl of Malton, and, having succeeded to 

 his cousin in the barony of Rockingham in 1746, was created Marquis 

 of Rockingham the same year. The Watsons, barons, and for some 

 time earls of Rockingham, had originally acquired importance by the 

 marriage of one of them with the sister of the great Earl of Strafford, 

 whose vast estates they in this way came to inherit. 



In September 1750, while his father was still alive, the subject of 

 the present article was created Earl of Malton in the Irish peerage ; 

 but before the end of the year his father's death left him in possession 

 of the marquisate. Young as he was when he thus entered the House 

 of Lords, he did not wait long before beginning to take a share in 

 debate. Horace Walpole, in his ' Memoirs of the Last Ten Years of 

 the Reign of George II.,' notices one or two of his earliest appearances 

 in not very complimentary terms. When what was called the Scotch 

 Bill (for planting colonies of foreign Protestants on the forfeited 

 estates in Scotland) was under discussion in March 1752, he says, 

 " The young Marquess of Rockingham entered into a debate so much 

 above his force, and partly applied the trite old apologue of Meneniua 

 Agrippa, and the sillier old story of the fellow of college, who asked 

 why we should do anything for posterity, who had never done any- 

 thing for us ! " Again, in his account of the debates in the following 

 February, about the charge of Jacobitism brought against the solicitor- 

 general Murray (Lord Mansfield) and other persons connected with 

 the court, he notes, in the same sarcastic style : " Lord Northum- 



