pected. Over paths slippery with blood affairs now marched fast. The war on the frontiers and in France itself we must pass by. On the 16th of October, 1793, the fair head of Marie Antoinette fell on the same scaffold which had been stained with the blood of her husband, and which in a few days or weeks was to be drenched with the blood of the Girondists, and of other illustrious victims. Robespierre grew even tired of his own instruments of assassination and anarchy. In March, 1794, he sent to the guillotine Hébert and the Hébertists for being ultrarevolutionary; and in April, Danton and the Dantonists were struck down by the executioner because they kindled Robespierre's envy and dread. While the guillotine was so busy, the worship of Reason was, as if in mockery, established. On the 8th June, 1794, was held at Paris a splendid festival called the festival of the Supreme Being. Robespierre, with flowers and ears of corn in his hand, marched toward an altar and harangued the people, as the high priest of Reason. It was his last triumph, for Tallien and the friends of Danton and the Dantonists conspired, and with success, to dethrone the autocrat. On the 28th of July, 1794, Robespierre, the great guillotiner, was himself guillotined. In the conflict of the previous day a gendarme had broken Robespierre's jaw with a musket shot. With Maximilian Robespierre had co-operated, and with him died, a younger brother, likewise a barrister, Augustine Robespierre. Their sister, Charlotte Robespierre, survived till 1834. It is usual to speak of Maximilian Robespierre as a monster; it were better to say that the Revolution changed him into a madman.—W. M—l.
ROBIN HOOD, a celebrated outlaw, very famous in English tradition and popular poetry. According to the received opinion he lived in the reign of Richard I., and his alleged tombstone is shown near the nunnery of Kirklees in Yorkshire. An epitaph, said to have been inscribed on it, however, is now generally regarded as a fabrication. Ritson maintains, though without trust-worthy evidence, that Robin Hood's real name was Robert Fitzooth, and that he had a claim on the earldom of Huntingdon. But the ballads about the outlaw usually describe him as a yeoman. His principal residence was in Sherwood forest in Nottinghamshire, though he is said also to have frequented Barnsdale in Yorkshire. It is probable that this popular hero was the most celebrated of the numerous outlaws, whom the oppression of the early Norman kings compelled to flee for refuge to the great forests and natural strongholds of the country, where they lived by deer-shooting and plunder. Stow says that Robin Hood maintained a hundred followers, able-bodied men and skilful archers, who were so formidable that four hundred men durst not attack them. He lived "by spoils and thefts, but he spared the poor and plundered the rich. He suffered no woman to be oppressed, violated, or otherwise molested. Poor men's goods he spared abundantly, relieving them with that which by theft he got from abbeys and the houses of rich earles." His fame was as great in Scotland as in England. He is honourably mentioned by the Scottish historians, Fordun and Major, and the latter "of all thieves affirmeth him to be prince, and the most gentle thief." "The personal courage of this celebrated outlaw," says Bishop Percy, "his skill in archery, his humanity, and especially his levelling principle of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, have in all ages rendered him the favourite of the common people." The most notable of his followers were Little John, his chaplain Friar Tuck, and his mistress named Marian. Robin is said to have been bled to death by a nun near Kirklees, in 1247. Considerable attention has of late been drawn to the history of Robin Hood, and various new theories have been broached respecting his character and position. Thierry in his History of the Norman Conquest has suggested that the outlaw was the chief of a band of Saxons, who had taken up their residence in the woods, and maintained themselves there against the Norman invaders. Others affirm that he was one of the followers of Simon de Montfort. Mr. Thomas Wright has sought to resolve the redoubtable hero into a mere myth, while the Rev. Joseph Hunter, in a clear and elaborate dissertation, has strenuously maintained the personality of the outlaw, and the general accuracy of the leading traditions respecting him.—(See Ritson's Robin Hood's Poems, Songs, and Ballads; Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry; Wright's Essay on the Middle Ages; and Hunter's Critical and Historical Tracts, No. iv.)—J. T.
ROBINS, Benjamin, a distinguished British mathematician and engineer, and the founder of the science of gunnery, was born at Bath in 1707, and died in the presidency of Madras on the 29th of July, 1751. His parents belonged to the Society of Friends. At an early age his mathematical talents attracted the notice of Pemberton, who encouraged and assisted him in his studies, and obtained for him employment as a mathematical teacher in London. So great was the ability shown in some of his original researches, that in 1727, at the age of twenty, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1728 he quitted the Society of Friends, probably because of the attention which he then began to pay to artillery, fortification, and military engineering in general. He invented that valuable instrument the ballistic pendulum, and made many experiments by its aid; and in 1742 appeared his great work, "New Principles of Gunnery," in which for the first time the effects of the resistance of the air on the motion of projectiles were exactly determined. This book at once attained a European reputation, having been translated and commented on by Euler soon after its publication. In 1749 he was appointed engineer-in-chief to the East India Company, and he went to India in 1750; but in the following year his valuable life was cut short while he was engaged in planning the fortifications of Madras.—W. J. M. R.
ROBINSON, Edward, D.D., a distinguished American scholar and divine, was born at Southington, Connecticut, in 1794, and was educated in Hamilton college in the state of New York, where he took his degree in 1816, and became a teacher of Greek and mathematics. In 1821 he entered the theological seminary of Andover, with the view of devoting himself to the study of theology, and became deeply imbued with the love of sacred philology and criticism which distinguished Professor Moses Stuart, who was then at the head of that institution. Professor Stuart conceived the highest opinion of his talents and attainments, and in a short time procured his appointment as an assistant instructor in the department of sacred literature. It was no doubt from Stuart also that he imbibed his first appreciation and love of German learning in the same field, and hence arose a desire to visit the universities of Germany with a view to the enlargement and deepening of his knowledge of the oriental languages. In 1826 he came to Europe and studied these languages, both at Halle and Paris. On his return to America he resumed his duties at Andover, and entered upon a career of industrious and very useful authorship. He published a "Concise View of the Universities and of the State of Theological Education in Germany;" "Harmony of the Gospels in Greek," in 1834; a translation of the Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of Gesenius in 1836; and a Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament in 1837. Applying himself thereafter with great ardour to the study of sacred geography, he spent the whole of 1838, in company with Mr. Eli Smith, in the Holy Land and the countries immediately adjoining, where the two travellers prosecuted the most accurate topographical researches with all the advantages derivable from their united knowledge of the Arabic tongue; and the important fruits of these researches were given to the world in 1841 in his "Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petræa," a work which was everywhere received by learned men with high satisfaction, and which has done more than any other modern work to settle the geography and topography of these interesting regions. On a good many points, however, the author's conclusions were disputed, which induced him to make a second journey to Palestine in 1851, the scientific results of which he published in a volume, entitled "The Holy Land." In 1845 he published a translation of Buttmann's Greek Grammar. He is also the author of a "Dictionary of the Holy Bible," and has long taken a large share in contributing to and editing one of the best theological journals of America, the Bibliotheca Sacra. While much inferior to many American theologians in theological depth and grasp, he was unquestionably one of the best biblical scholars that America has produced. During his residence in Germany, Dr. Robinson married the daughter of Professor Jakob—see Robinson, Therese Albertine Louise. He died in 1864.—P. L.
ROBINSON, John, Bishop of Bristol from 1710 to 1713, and Bishop of London from that time till his death in 1723, was born in 1650 at Cleasby in Yorkshire, where he afterwards founded a free school, and was educated at Oriel college, Oxford, of which he became a liberal benefactor. During the first portion of his public life, from 1603 to 1708, he was English ambassador to the court of Sweden, a circumstance which he commemorated by adopting a Runic motto for his coat
