ROMAGNOSI
ROMME
and the organization of lectures and
exhibitions. For his second wife he in
1897 married Stopford Brooke s daughter.
Mr. Eolleston has given us an excellent
translation of The Encheiridion of Epictetus
{1881), and written The Teaching of Epic
tetus (1888) and many other works. His
Eationalism is developed in Parallel Paths
(1908). He adopts impersonal Theism,
and leaves the question of immortality
open.
ROMAGNOSI, Professor Giovanni Domenico, LL.D., Italian jurist and philo sopher. B. Dec. 11, 1761. Ed. Alberoni College and Parma University. Soon after leaving the University Eomagnosi wrote his finest work, La genesi del diritto penale, a powerful plea for penal reform on the lines of Beccaria and the French Ration alists. In 1802 he was appointed pro fessor of public law at Parma University, and he rendered great service in codifying the penal law. In 1806 he occupied the chair of civil law at Pavia, and in 1824, having fled from the reactionaries of Italy, who deposed him, he became professor of law at Corfu University. Romagnosi was regarded by his Italian contemporaries as " one of the greatest thinkers of the century." His Suprema economia dell umano sapere and other philosophical works are entirely Rationalistic, and affiliated to the French Sensualist school. His collected works were published in nineteen volumes (1832-35). D. June 8, 1835.
ROMILLY, Sir Samuel, jurist and reformer. B. Mar. 1, 1757. Ed. private school. Romilly was a clerk in a lawyer s office until 1778, when he entered Gray s Inn. He adopted Rationalist views in his twenties, and from 1781 onwards he was very friendly with Diderot, D Alembert, Raynal, and the other leading French philosophers. He was called to the Bar in 1783, and under the influence of the continental Rationalists he wrote a num ber of pleas for legal reform, w r hich brought 677
him the friendship of Bentham and Mill.
He became King s Counsel in 1800, and
was soon recognized as one of the leaders
in the Court of Chancery. From 1805 to
1815 he was Chancellor for the County of
Durham. In 1806 he was appointed
Solicitor General, and knighted ; and from
1806 to 1818 he sat in Parliament, and
made many a powerful speech in the
cause of reform. He protested against the
restoration of the feudal monarchs of
Europe in 1816, pleaded for Catholic
Emancipation and the abolition of black
slavery, and reformed British law in many
points. He, in fact, drafted a compre
hensive scheme for the reform of the laws ;
but the death of his wife in 1818 threw
him into such profound grief that he com
mitted suicide. He is little noticed by
Rationalists (though mentioned in Mr.
Robertson s History}, but no one questions
that Romilly was from early years merely
a Deist. " He early lost all faith in Chris
tianity," says the Dictionary of National
Biography, " but embraced with ardour
the gospel of Rousseau." The writer justly
adds that " his principles were austere to
the verge of Puritanism " ; and no man in
high public office was in those days so
outspoken a humanitarian. Professor Bain
reproduces in his James Mill (1882,
pp. 451-52) a letter in which Bentham
says that Romilly assured him he agreed
with every word of his Church of Eng-
landism. In the Selections from the
Correspondence of Macvey Napier (1879,
pp. 333-34) there is a letter of Brougham s
in which that courtly trimmer is indignant
because Romilly s son has, after his death,
" proclaimed to the world that Romilly was
not a Christian." He admits that there is
" not the least doubt " about the truth of
the statement. D. Nov. 2, 1818.
ROMME, Charles Gilbert, French mathematician. B. Mar. 26, 1750. Ed. Paris. Romme was a tutor in a Russian family until 1775, when he returned to France and threw himself into the advanced movement. He was elected to the Legis- 678
