750 



KOI-.INS 



Kor.lNsoN 



durability. It in close grained anil finely veined, 

 and in America U tin- most valued of all Umber! 

 f,,r i-nliini.-t-w.irk. On iu-i-ouiit of iU quick growth, 

 il- Alines, and it* proiierty of submitting t" be 

 clipped into any form, it is very suitable for hedges. 

 In uii- south of Europe it succeeds well aa a timlicr 

 trcf, lint in moie northern regions it .suffers from 

 fio-t in severe winters; ami in Britain it often 

 surfers fnim frost, owing t" tli> tmperfeot ripening 

 of tin- wood in summer. It does not readily rot in 

 water, and is used tor shipbuilding. Tlie tree is 

 very ornamental, and of rapid growth. The fl.iwera 

 are fragrant and white, in large pendulous racemes. 

 In San Domingo its flowers are used for making a 

 distilled liquor and a syrup. The roots throw up 

 many suckers, and are very sweet, allbrding an 

 extract resembling liquorice. B. vitcosa is a smaller 

 tree, but even more ornamental, a native of the 

 s.iuth- western parts of the Alleghany Mountains. 

 It has rose-coloured scentless flowers. The young 

 branches are viscid. The Rose Acacia (.R. kupida I 

 is a native of the south-western ranges of the Alle- 

 ghanies, and is a highly ornamental shrub, with 

 hispid branches, and large rose-coloured scentless 

 flowers. 



Robins. BKNJAMIN, mathematician, the father 

 of the military art of gunnery, was born at 

 Bath in 1707 o'f a poor Quaker family. Having 

 obtained a little instruction in mathematics, he 

 prosecuted this branch of science with great zest, 

 and, having removed to London, set up for a 

 teacher of mathematics, ami pnUlUMd several 

 mathematical treatises which gained for him con- 

 siderable reputation. Robins next commenced his 

 great series of ex|K>rimente on the lesi-ting force 

 of the air to projectile, varying liis labours by the 

 study of fortification, and invented the Ballistic 

 Pendulum (q.v.). In 1734 he demolished, in 

 a treatise entitled A Discourse concerning the 

 Certainty of Sir I. Neil-ton's Method of Fluxions, 

 the objections brought by the celebrated Berkeley, 

 Bishop of Cloy no, against Newton's principle of 

 ultimate ratios. His great and valuable work, 

 the New Principles of Gunner;/, upon the prepara- 

 tion of which he hail spent an enormous amount 

 of lalmur, appeared in 1742, ami produced a com 

 plete revolution in the art of Gunnery (q.v.). In 

 consideration of his able defence of the policy of 

 the then government, by means of pamphlets which 

 he wrote and published from time to time, he 

 received (1749) the post of ' Engineer-in-general 

 to the East India Company ;' but hi first under- 

 taking, the planning of the defences of Madras, 

 was no sooner accomplished than he was MUM 

 with a fever, and he died July 29, 1751. His works 

 were collected and published in 1701. 



Robinson. EDWARD, philologist and biblical 

 scholar, was born at Southing-ton, Conneetient, 

 April 10, 1794, graduated at Hamilton College, New 

 York, in 1816, ami time remained till 1821, when 

 he went to Andover, Massachusetts, to see through 

 tin- press an edition of part of the Iliad. Here 

 he studied Hebrew iiiulcr Professor Stuart, but in 

 1820 went to Germany, where he studied under 

 Gesenius and Meander, and married as his second 

 wife Therese A. L. von .Jakob, .laughter of a pro 

 fessor at Halle. In 1830 he liecame extra-ordinary 

 professor of Sacred Literature at Andover, in 1 HUT 

 professor of Biblical Literature in the Union Then 

 logical Seminary, New York. II now made an 

 extensive survey of Palestine. Collecting material' 

 for ItililicMl Restarchr* in Palestinr mnl A<lj<ir>-nt 

 i;,,,,ilrirs (3 vols. 1841). A second visit in iw. 

 N i.'lded fniit for its wx-ond edition ( 1856). Robin 

 H<III died in New York, '27th .January 1883. 



fh.-r world are a tnniUtion of Ituttmann's Greek 

 Urnmtnar (1832); Ureek and Snytuk Lexicon oj the 



no Testament (1836; 1850) ; Harmony of the Uoqxb, 

 n Greek (1846), and in English (1846). He wu also 

 ilitor of tin- HilJical Rtpontory, MfMfcM Sacra, 

 '-' IlilJr liirtiunary, and a translation of CJeeniu* 



'I threw Lexicon. 

 His wife, TllERESK Al.HKRTINE Lot'ISK VON 



IAKOB, well known to the world of letters a 



Talvi,' a name coniposeil of her initials, was Ixirn 



at Halle, January 26, 1797. At ten she went to 



Kharkolt'in RMBt, where her father had liecome 



[irofessor, but in 1810 they removed to St IVi. 



Liurg. In 1816 they returned to Halle, and here 



die studied Latin, and wrots her volume of tales, 



PsycJie (1825). As 'Ernest Berthold ' she pub- 



ished translations of Scott's Blm-1; Itn-urf and '//-/ 



Mortality, and also two volumes of Sen ian iiop 

 songs, Volkslieder der Serbtn (1825 - 2(i I. In 

 she married Robinson, and in 1830 MOtMnpUUed 

 liim to America. After liis ib-ath she lived mostly 

 at Hamburg, where she died 13th April Isii!). 



RobillSOll. HI-.M:> CHAIIH, born of middle- 

 class parentage at liury St Edmunds on Kith May 

 1775, was educated there and at Devi/.es, and then 

 was articled to a Colchester attorney (1790-95). 

 He studied five years at .Jena, Weimar, \-c. ( 1800-5), 

 making friends or acqnaintiincc> of nearly all the 

 t;reat German spirits of the day, and during 1807-9 

 \\;>- enured on the Times- tn Spain, the lir.-l war- 

 correspondent. In 1813, at the age of thirty-eight, 

 lie was culled to the bar, from which, having risen to 

 be leader of the Norfolk circuit, he retired in 1828 

 with 500 a year. ' In looking back on his life, Mr 

 Robinson used to say that two of the wisest acts 

 he had done were going to the bar and quitting 

 the bar.' Thenceforth he lived chiefly in London. 

 with frequent tours Imth at home and abroad till 

 1863, giving and receiving much hospitality, until 

 at the ripe age of ninety-one he died unmarried on 

 5th February 1867. A dissenter and a Liberal, he 

 was one of the founders of the London University 

 (1828), an early member of the Athemeum Club 

 (1824). Withal he was a splendid talker, who 

 'talked aliout everything but his own good deeds,' 

 a buoyant companion, an earnest thinker, a pro- 

 digious reader, content not to publish but t<> keep 

 a diary. ' I early found,' he says, ' that I had not 

 the literary ability to ^ive me such a place anifmn 

 English authors as I should have desired : but 1 

 thought that 1 had an opportunity of gainii- 

 knowledge of many of the most distinguished men of 

 the age, and that I might do some good by keeping 

 a record of my interviews with them. True | which 

 was not quite true], 1 want in an eminent degree 

 the Boswell faculty: still, the names recorded in 

 his great work are not so important as Goethe, 

 Schiller, Herder, Wieland, the Duchesses Amelia 

 and Louisa of Weimar, Tieck, as Madame de 

 Stael, I-u I ayette, Abbe Gregoire, Benjamin Con- 

 stant, as Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge. Lamb, 

 Rogers, Ha/.litt, Mrs Barbauld, Clarkson. fte., flee., 

 iVe.. for I could add a great number of minor si 

 And yet what has come of all this? Nothing. What 

 will come of it? Perhaps nothing.' Yes, s ...... 



thing has come of it the three delightful volumes. 

 edited ill 1869 by Dr Sadler, of his l>in/, BfMM* 

 iscences, anil Correspondence, which will last as. 

 long as literature itself. 



Robinson. JOHN, pastor of the Pilgrim 

 Fathers, was- born, probably in Lincolnshire, about 

 l.T7.~>, was a Fellow of Corpus Christ i. Cambridge, 

 and mini-tci-ed to a church near Norwich, until he 

 was Mis|,ci,ded for liis Puritan tendencies. In MUM 

 he resigned his fellowship and all connection with 

 the Church of England, and gathered a congre^i 

 tion of dissenters at Gainsliorougli. He was liter 

 wards a minister at Scroobv, but in 1608 he and 

 his flock escaped to Amsterdam ; in 1609 he PMMd 

 to Leyden, and there in 1611 he established a 



