-
Counties of England in Past Centuries,’ 1856, dedicated to Lord Macaulay, and mainly based on the archives of Lyme Regis and Weymouth, the proceedings of the Dorset County Sessions, 1625–37, and the proceedings before the Dorchester magistrates, 1654–1661. Its value has been acknowledged by successive historians.
Roberts edited for the Camden Society in 1848 the ‘Diary of Walter Yonge.’ From an autograph note in his copy of the ‘History of the Mutiny at Spithead and the Nore’ (1842), which is quoted in ‘Notes and Queries’ (5th ser. xii. 307, 355), it appears that he claimed to have compiled the original manuscript of that work. It was afterwards mutilated by William Johnson Neale [q. v.], to whom it is usually attributed.
[Gent. Mag. 1860, ii. 103, 201; Athenæum, 23 June 1860, p. 856; Mayo's Bibliotheca Dorset. pp. 168–70; Hutchins's Dorset (1864), ii. 50, 77.]
ROBERTS, GEORGE EDWARD (1831–1865), geologist and author, born at Birmingham in 1831, was brought up at Kidderminster, and early manifested an interest in natural science, devoting himself especially to the geology of Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and the adjacent parts of Wales. He wrote sundry small books—some dealing with the physical and geological features of this region, the most important being ‘The Rocks of Worcestershire’ (1860); others, for children, blending the acids of science with the sweets of imagination. As part of his more serious work, he contributed two papers to the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London,’ and was joint author of two others. The Royal Society's ‘Catalogue’ gives a list of seventeen others contributed to the ‘Geologist,’ the ‘Geological Magazine,’ the ‘Anthropological Review,’ &c. Roberts also wrote for the ‘Reader,’ the ‘Intellectual Observer,’ and other papers. For the last five years of his life he was clerk to the Geological Society of London, was elected a fellow of that society in 1864, and honorary secretary to the Anthropological Society in the same year. He died rather suddenly at Kidderminster, 20 Dec. 1865.
[A fairly full obituary notice, with an engraved portrait, is given in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, vol. iv. p. lix.]
ROBERTS, GRIFFITH (fl. 1570), Welsh grammarian, was educated at the university of Siena, where he graduated M.D. In 1567 he published at Milan a Welsh treatise on grammar (in three parts) of about three hundred pages. Only two copies are now extant—one in the British Museum, the other at Peniarth. It was reprinted, with some omissions, at Carmarthen in 1857, and in its entirety as a supplement to the ‘Revue Celtique.’ In 1585 he published at Rouen a catholic religious manual, entitled ‘Y Drych Christianogawl’ (‘The Christian Mirror’). A tract entitled ‘The English Roman Life,’ printed in London in 1590, shows us ‘Dr. Robert Griffin’ as at that time confessor to Cardinal (Federigo) Borromeo (Harleian Miscellany, vii. 132). His friend Dr. Rosser Smith speaks of him in the preface to a Welsh work published in 1611 as ‘theological canon of the mother church of Milan.’
[Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig, by Gweirydd ap Rhys; Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. p. 635; Williams's Eminent Welshmen.]
ROBERTS or ROBARTS, HENRY (fl. 1606), author, whose works are all of extreme rarity, may be identical with the ‘Henrie Roberts, one of the sworne esquires’ of Queen Elizabeth and envoy from her highness to ‘Mully Hamet, emperour of Marocco and king of Fes,’ in 1585, whose ambassage is recounted in Hakluyt's ‘Voyages’ (1589, pp. 237–9). He was subsequently attached to the court of James I, and was present at the festivities upon the occasion of the visit of Christian IV of Denmark to England in 1606.
His ascertained works are:
- ‘A most friendly farewell, Giuen by a welwiller to the right worshipful Sir Frauncis Drake, Knight, Generall of her Maiesties Nauy, which be appointed for this his honorable voiage, and the rest of the fleete bound to the Southward, and to all the Gentlemen his followers and captaines in this exploite, who set sale from Wolwich the xv. day of Iuly, 1585 …;’ imprinted at London by Walter Mantell and Thomas Lawe, 8 leaves, 4to; the only copy known is at Britwell.
- ‘Robertes his Welcomme of Good Will to Capt. Candishe’ [?Cavendish]; licensed to John Wolfe 3 Dec. 1588; no copy known (Arber, Stationers' Regist. ii. 238).
- ‘An Epitaphe vpon ye Death of the Erle of Leicester, by Hen. Robertes;’ licensed to John Charlwood 5 Dec. 1589 (Ames, ed. Herbert, ii. 1105; Arber, Regist. ii. 251 b). This is the only work by Roberts to which Ritson alludes; no copy exists.
- ‘Fames Trumpet Soundinge, or Commemorations of the Famous Liues and Deathes of the two Right Honourable Knights of England: the
