1823; ‘An Attempt to ascertain the Age of the Church of Mickleham in Surrey,’ 1824; ‘Ornamental Villas,’ 1825–7; ‘Village Architecture,’ 1830; ‘Farm Buildings,’ 1830; ‘Gate Cottages, Lodges, and Park Entrances,’ 1833; ‘Domestic Architecture in the Tudor Style,’ 1837; ‘New Series of Ornamental Cottages and Villas,’ 1838. Robinson became F.S.A. in 1826, and was (1835–9) one of the first vice-presidents of the Institute of British Architects. He read papers to the institute, 6 July 1835, on ‘The newly discovered Crypt at York Minster,’ and, 5 Dec. 1836, on ‘Oblique Arches.’ About 1840 pecuniary difficulties led him to reside at Boulogne, where he died on 24 June 1858.
[Dict. of Architecture; Builder, xvi. 458; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iii. 284; Roget's History of the ‘Old Water Colour’ Society, i. 510; Trans. Inst. of Brit. Architects, 1835–6.]
ROBINSON, RALPH (fl. 1551), translator of More's Utopia,' born of poor parents in Lincolnshire in 1521, was educated at Grantham and Stamford grammar schools, and had William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burghley) as companion at both schools. In 1536 he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduated B.A. in 1540, and was elected fellow of his college on 16 June 1542. In March 1544 he supplicated for the degree of M.A. Coming to London, he obtained the livery of the Goldsmiths' Company, and a small post as clerk in the service of his early friend, Cecil. He was long hampered by the poverty of his parents and brothers. Among the Lansdowne MSS. (ii. 57-9) are two appeals in Latin for increase of income addressed by him to Cecil, together with a copy of Latin verses, entitled ' His New Year's Gift.' The first appeal is endorsed May 1551; upon the second, which was written after July 1572, appears the comment, 'Rodolphus Robynsonus. For some place to relieve his poverty.'
In 1551 Robinson completed the first rendering into English of Sir Thomas More's 'Utopia.' In the dedication to his former schoolfellow, Cecil, he expressed regret for More's obstinate adherence to discredited religious opinions, modestly apologised for the shortcomings of his translation, and reminded his patron of their youthful intimacy. The book was published by Abraham Veal, at the sign of the Lamb in St. Paul's Churchyard, in 1551 (b. 1. 8vo, Brit. Mus.) A second edition appeared in 1556, without the dedicatory letter. The third edition is dated 1597, and the 'newly corrected' fourth (of 1624) is dedicated by the publisher, Bernard Alsop, to Cresacre More [see under More, Sir Thomas]. The latest editions are dated 1869, 1887, and 1893.
Although somewhat redundant in style, Robinson's version of the 'Utopia' has not been displaced in popular esteem by the subsequent efforts of Gilbert Burnet (1684) and of Arthur Cayley (1808).
[See art. More, Sir Thomas; Lupton's preface to his edition of the Utopia, 1896; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss.]
ROBINSON, RALPH (1614–1655), puritan divine, born at Heswall, Cheshire, in June 1614, was educated at St. Catharine Hall, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1638, M.A. 1642. On the strength of his preaching he was invited to St. Mary's Woolnoth, Lombard Street, and there received presbyterian ordination about 1642. He was scribe to the first assembly of provincial ministers held in London in 1647, and united with them in the protest against the king's death in 1649. On 11 June 1651 he was arrested on a charge of being concerned in the conspiracy of Christopher Love [q. v.] He was next day committed to the Tower, and appears to have been detained there at any rate until October, when an order for his trial was issued. Perhaps he was never brought up, but if so it was to be pardoned. He died on 15 June 1655, and was buried on the 18th in the chancel of St. Mary Woolnoth. His funeral sermon was preached by Simeon Ashe [q. v.], and published, with memorial verses, as 'The Good Man's Death Lamented,' London, 1655. By his wife, Mary, Robinson had a daughter Rebecca (1647-1664). Besides sermons, Robinson was the author of: 1. 'Christ all in all,' London, 1656 ; 2nd edit. 1660; 3rd edit. Woolwich, 1828; 4th edit. London, 1868, 8vo. 2. 'Πανοπλία. Universa Arma' ('Hieron; or the Christian compleatly Armed'), London, 1656.
[Transcript of the Registers of St. Mary Woolnoth, by the rector, 1886, pp. xiv, 48, 228, 233 ; Cal. of State Papers, Dom. 1651, pp. 247, 249, 251, 252, 457, 465; Brook's Lives of the Puritans, iii. 237 ; information from the registrary of Cambr. Univ.]
ROBINSON, RICHARD (fl. 1576–1600), author and compiler, was a freeman of the Leathersellers' Company, and in 1576 was residing in a chamber at the south side of St. Paul's. In the registers of St. Peter's, Cornhill (Harl. Soc.), there are several entries of the births and deaths of the children of Richard Robinson, skinner. In 1585 he is described as of Fryers (ib. p. 135). In 1595 he presented to Elizabeth the third part of his ‘Harmony of King David's Harp.’ In his manuscript ‘Eupolemia’ he gives an
