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ROMAINE, REV. WILLIAM. 



ROMAINE, REV. WILLIAM. 



HO 



Universale' mentioned above. He demonstrates that society is the 

 natural state of man, from which all his rights and duties are de- 

 rived ; that agriculture, arts arid commerce, education and instruction, 

 and religion, are neceseary to the social state ; and that knowledge, 

 will, and power are the three conditions required for its improvement. 

 On being appointed inspector of the schools of law in the kingdom, 

 he laid dowu the principle, that candidates for professorships ought 

 to be examined more especially on the system of teaching which they 

 propose to follow, even more than on the subject-matter of their 

 lessons; he insisted, in short, on the importance of pedagogical science 

 and aptitude. 



His 'Saggio filosofico-politico sull' Istruzione Pubblica Legale,' 

 Milan, 1807, belongs to this period. He had previously written a 

 ' Progetto di Regolamento degli Studj Politici LegalL' He also edited 

 a ' Journal of Civil and Administrative Jurisprudence.' 



When Napoleon's power was overthrown in 1814, Romagnosi lost 

 his offices, but he continued to lecture on jurisprudence till September 

 1817, when the special chairs at Milan were suppressed. He con- 

 tinued however to teach privately at Milan. In June 1821, during 

 the political agitation of that period, he was summoned to Venice to 

 be tried on a charge of high treason, of which however he was fully 

 acquitted in December of the same year, and the emperor confirmed 

 the sentence of the court in words most honourable to Romagnosi. 



He still continued to live at Milan, teaching, and writing for several 

 journals, and especially for the 'Annali di Statistica,' to which he 

 was one of the chief contributors. He wrote also on matters of law, 

 especially on the important subject of property in water, and water- 

 ways and channels for irrigation, questions of the utmost importance 

 to Lombardy : ' Delia Condotta delle Acque secondo le vecchie, inter- 

 rnedie, e vigenti Legislazioni dei diversi Paesi d'ltalia,' Milan, 1822-25, 

 six volumes, with an appendix in two volumes. This work was very 

 well received, not only in Italy, but also in Holland. A second work 

 by Romagnosi on the same subject is entitled ' Delia Ragione Civile 

 delle Acque della Rurale Economia,' two vcls., Milan, 1829-30. He 

 also began a ' Dizionario Ragionato delle piu important! Parole della 

 Giurisprudenza Romana, Francese, ed Austriaca,' but the work was 

 not continued. His work entitled ' Dell' Indole e dei Fattori dell' 

 Incivilimento con Esempio del suo Risorgimento in Italia,' contains a 

 brief sketch of the progress of human civilisation through different 

 ages, a subject which Herder has more fully and elaborately treated 

 in his 'Philosophy of the History of Mankind.' ('Ideen zur Philo- 

 sophie der Geschichte der Menschheit.') Long before Romagnosi, the 

 Neapolitan jurist Gianbatti,-ta Vico, in his 'Principii di una Nuova 

 Seienza,' and Jacopo Stellini, a native of Friuli, in his remarkable 

 work, ' De Ortu et Progressu Morum,' had laboured in the eame field, 

 but their works have scarcely been noticed. Romagnosi had the 

 merit of rendering their inquiries and his own on the vast subject of 

 the progress of civilisation, familiar to the Italian readers. 



The other works of Romagnosi are : 1, ' Che Cos' e la Mente Sana ?' 

 Milan, 1827; 2, 'Delia Suprema Economia dell' Umano Sapere in 

 relazione alia Mente Sana,' Milan, 1828; 3, 'Dell' Insignamento pri- 

 mitivo delle Matematiche; ' 4, ' L'Antica Morale Filosofia ;' 5, 'Elogio 

 storico di Melchiorre Gioia ; ' 6, 'Elogio del Cardinale Alberoni;' 7, 

 ' Note, Supplement!, ed illustrazioni all* India Antica di Robertson.' 

 He left several works in manuscript, among others : 1, ' Della vita 

 degli stati;' 2, 'Delia Civile Filosofia in relazione alia Vita degli 

 Stati; ' 3, ' Ricerche su la Validity dei Giudizii del Pubblico a discer- 

 nere il Vero dal Falso.' 



Romagnosi was no dreamer. In an age of confusion of ideas, he 

 retained his mental self-possession, and was not led away by crude 

 theories, nor was he entrammelled by any superstitious veneration for 

 irrational though ancient custom. He was an original thinker, and 

 as such not justly appreciated in his life-time ; but he is now remem- 

 bered as an able supporter and expounder of sound political principles. 

 Some of the most distinguished later writers of that country, Rossi, 

 Cantu, and others, boast of having been his disciples. Romagnosi was 

 a member of the Italian Academy, of the Academy of the Georgofili, 

 of the French Institute for the class of moral sciences, and of other 

 learned societies. He died at Milan, in June 1835. His funeral was 

 attended by more than two hundred of the most distinguished men 

 of that capital, who felt the value of departed merit, and who sub- 

 scribed on the spot to raise a monument to his memory. 



(Notizia di G. D. Romagnosi, stesa da Cesare Cantti, Milan, 1835.) 



ROMAINE, REV. WILLIAM, was born at Hartlepool, in Durham, 

 on the 25th of September 1714. His father was one of the French 

 Protestants who fled to England upon the revocation of the Edict of 

 Nantes, and a man of the strictest piety and integrity. Mr. Romaine 

 was his second son. He was educated at the grammar-school of 

 Houghton-le-Spring, in the county of Durham, whence he proceeded 

 to Oxford in 1730 or 1731, and entered first at Hertford College, and 

 afterwards at Christchurch. He resided principally at Oxford, 

 devoting himself especially to the study of the Hebrew and Greek 

 Scriptures, till he took his degree of M.A. in 1737. He had received 

 deacon's orders the year before. His first curacy was that of Loe 

 Trenchard, in Devon, which he served for six months. In 1738 we 

 find him residing at Epsom, in Surrey, and about the same time that 

 he received priest's orders from Dr. Hoadly, bishop of Winchester, he 

 became curate of the parishes of Banstead and Horton, in Middlesex. 



At Banstead he became acquainted with Sir Daniel Lambert, who, on 

 his election to the mayoralty of London in 1741, appointed Mr. 

 Romaine as his chaplain. In this capacity he preached a sermon at 

 St. Paul's, on Romans ii. 14, 1.5. This was the second sermon he 

 published, the fiist having been one which he preached before the 

 University of Oxford in 1739, entitled 'The Divine Legation of Moses 

 demonstrated, from his having made express mention of, and insisted 

 so much on, the Doctrine of a Future State ; whereby Mr. Warburton's 

 Attempt to prove the Divine Legation of Moses from the Omission of 

 a Future State is proved to be absurd and destructive of all Revelation.' 

 At the end of the year 1741 he returned to the attack on Warburton's 

 theory, in a sermon preached at St. Mary's, Oxford, having in the 

 meantime been engaged in an epistolary controversy with Warburton. 



The next seven years of his life were devoted to the preparation of 

 a new edition of Calasio's Hebrew Concordance and Lexicon, which 

 was published in 1747. He was chosen lecturer of St. George's, 

 Botolph Lane, and St. Botolph's, Billingsgate, in the year 1748. In 

 the following year he was elected to two lectureships at St. Dunstan's 

 in the West, the duties of which he had' discharged for some time, 

 when the rector thought fit to deny him the use of the pulpit. The 

 matter was referred to the Court of King's Bench, which deprived 

 Romaine of one of the lectureships, but confirmed him in the other, 

 with a salary of eighteen pounds a year ; but he was still refused the 

 use of lights in the church, and used to preach by the light of a single 

 candle held in his own hand, till this unseemly contest was put an end 

 to by the mediation of Dr. Terrick, the then bishop of London. This 

 lectureship was held by Romaine till his death. In 1750 he was 

 appointed assistant morning preacher at St. George's, Hanover Square. 

 He held this office till September 1755, when he was removed from 

 it, his biographer tells us, on account of "the popularity and plain- 

 ness of his ministry." About the time of his appointment to this 

 lectureship, he was chosen professor of astronomy in Gresbam College. 

 His views of natural science were Hutchinsouian, and he always 

 expressed- his opinions with boldness, and not always without bigotry. 

 Accordingly he spoke of the Newtonian views as having " a difference 

 in their demonstrations of no less than one hundred and twenty-one 

 millions of miles," and of " the modern divinity as bringing you no 

 nearer than one hundred and twenty-one millions of miles short of 

 heaven." It is not surprising that he gained little repxitation from 

 this office. He seems however to have regained his credit with the 

 citizens by hia opposition to the bill for naturalising the Jews in 1753. 



In February 1755 he married Miss Price; and in the following year 

 he became curate and morning preacher at St. Olave's, Southwark, 

 where he remained till 1759. During this period he resided in a 

 pleasant retreat in Walnut-tree Walk, Lambeth, where he was in the 

 habit of inviting young clergymen to his early breakfasts, and many 

 have spoken with great gratitude of the instruction and encouragement 

 they received from him. Romaine had frequently preached before 

 the University of Oxford up to the year 1757, when he was refused 

 the use of the university pulpit, in consequence of the offence which 

 was taken at a sermon he delivered there on ' The Lord our Righteous- 

 ness.' This sermon he published in vindication of his conduct. In 

 the same year he published a tract, addressed to members of the 

 Established Church, exhorting them to set apart one hour in every 

 week for prayer on behalf of the Church and nation. About this 

 time he received pressing invitations to the ministry of a church in 

 Philadelphia, which Mr. Whitefield, whose general religious views he 

 had warmly adopted, strongly urged him to accept, but he preferred 

 remaining in his own country. 



In 1764 he was chosen to the rectory of St. Andrew by the Ward- 

 robe, and St. Ann's, Blackfriars. His election was disputed, but in 

 1766 it was confirmed by the Court of Chancery. He spent the rest 

 of his life in the faithful and zealous discharge of the duties of this 

 office. He died on the 2tith of July 1795, and was buried in the 

 rectory vault of Blackfriars Church on the 3rd of August. 



Romaine has been compared to a " diamond, rough often, but very 

 pointed ; and the more he was broken by years, the more he appeared 

 to shine." His firm attachment to what he esteemed truth was not 

 always tempered with moderation towards his opponents, and some- 

 times, if we are to believe anecdotes that are told of him, his bold 

 impetuosity betrayed him into acts of rudeness, for which however 

 he always apologised with Christian humility. His deportment in 

 private life was mild and amiable, and he was most exemplary in his 

 domestic relations. He was especially remarkable for the diligence 

 and regularity with which he improved his time. His religious senti- 

 ments were strongly Calvinistic, and he spent his life in boldly main- 

 taining them in an age when such a course was sure to excite violent 

 opposition and to shut out all hopes of preferment. During his whole 

 life he continued strongly attached to the Church of England. Hia 

 chief works, in addition to those already mentioned, are the follow- 

 ing : 'Nine Sermons on the 107th Psalm,' 1747; 'A Seasonable 

 Antidote against Popery, in a Dialogue upon Justification,' 1757; 

 'Twelve Sermons upon Solomon's Song,' 1759; ' Twelve Discourses 

 upon the Law and the Gospel,' 1760; 'The Life of Faith/ 1763; 

 ' The Scriptural Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 

 briefly stated,' 1765; 'The Walk of Faith,' 2 vols., 1771; 'An Essay 

 on Psalmody,' 1775; 'The Triumph of Faith,' 1795; and some 

 Sermons and Letters. His works were published in 8 vols., in 1796, 



