one has felt them as bitterly as I have; and yet for all this I shall not for one moment disguise my belief, that much of what has been said to-night is true. I know that there are men who once wandered in darkness and doubt, and could find no light, who have now found an anchor, and a rock, and resting-place. I know that there are men who were feeling bitterly and angrily what seemed to them the unfair differences of society, who now regard them in a gentler, more humble, and more tender spirit. I know that there are rich who have been led to feel more generously towards the poor. I know that there are poor who have been taught to feel more truly and more fairly towards the rich. I believe—for on such a point God only can know—that there are men who have been induced to place before themselves a higher standard, and perhaps I may venture to add, have conformed their lives more truly to that standard. I am deeply grateful in being able to say that if my ministry were to close to-morrow, it would not have been, in this town at least, altogether a failure."
To the numerous admirers of his posthumous discourses the following particulars regarding his manner of preaching may be interesting:—"The majority of his sermons were delivered extemporaneously, a few words pencilled upon a card or scrap of note paper sufficing by way of groundwork for the most magnificent of them. These spontaneous efforts were highly finished in point of composition, as much so as if they had been set down and committed to memory;" and yet on one occasion when applied to for permission to print some of his discourses as taken down by a shorthand writer, he remarked that—"Few things could embarrass or pain him more than the publication of his sermons." In the same letter he intimated the probability of his preparing a volume of his sermons for the press; and it was perhaps with that view that during the last year of his ministry he preached chiefly from manuscripts. He was not, however, spared to complete the design, and the whole of his sermons, except one which he was induced to publish in his lifetime, have appeared under the great disadvantage of posthumous pieces, some of them printed from the MSS. just referred to, and others from copies written down by him after delivery, for the use of friends at a distance. His delivery did full justice to the high quality of his thoughts and diction. "He was gifted with a voice of wonderful sweetness and power; so flexible and harmonious was it that it gave expression to the finest tones of feeling—so thrilling that it stirred men to the heart; the gesture was simple and quiet, his whole soul so thoroughly absorbed in his subject that all was intensely real, natural, and earnest."
Towards the close of 1852 Mr. Robertson's health, which had never been vigorous, began visibly to decline. In February, 1853, he delivered his lecture on Wordsworth to the members of the Brighton Athenæum, an effort for which he succeeded in bracing himself, but which was evidently beyond his real physical strength. His congregation entered into a liberal subscription to provide him with a curate; but owing to the opposition of the vicar of Brighton to the gentleman proposed for the curacy, no appointment took place. A change of air at Cheltenham failed to produce any favourable effect, and on the 5th of June he preached his last two sermons. On Sunday, the 15th August, the anniversary of the day upon which, only six years before, he had entered upon his duties in Brighton, he breathed his last, and the latest words that escaped his dying lips were—"My God! my Father!" His funeral was a spectacle of public grief and appreciation such as Brighton had seldom or never before seen, and all classes of that community, from the highest to the lowest, united in demonstrations of honour, gratitude, and love. Death has added immensely to his influence and fame. His posthumous sermons, in three series, have reached respectively an eighth, a seventh, and a sixth edition. More recently has appeared a volume of expository lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians, which is to be followed up by a similar volume on portions of the Old Testament. A volume of letters, including a Life, is also promised, and is now in progress. The "Lectures and Addresses on Literary and Social topics" before referred to, have a preface from the pen of one of the author's most familiar and most trusted friends, which contains several interesting elucidations of his character and principles. What place he has taken as an author in the estimation of his countrymen may be gathered from one of innumerable tributes paid to his genius, to this remarkable effect, "that had the Church of England produced no other fruit in the present century than these works, these alone would be amply sufficient to acquit her of the charge of barrenness."—(Church of England Monthly Review.)—P. L.
ROBERTSON, James, professor of oriental languages in the university of Edinburgh, was born at Cromarty, of poor parents, and spent his early days in a long struggle with difficulties and privation. He studied at Aberdeen. He was chosen professor at Edinburgh chiefly on the recommendation of Schultens, under whom he had studied, 26th June, 1751. At the time of his election he was offered the chair of Hebrew in Doddridge's theological academy at Northampton. He first taught Buxtorf's grammar, but soon compiled one for himself. He published a Clavis Pentateuchi, in 1763, which contains an analysis of all the words, with critical notes. He was also, in 1762, elected librarian of the university, and did good service in that department Dr. Samuel Johnson met him in Edinburgh, and speaks highly of him. He was known in his day by the title of Rabbi Robertson. Died 26th November, 1795.—J. E.
ROBERTSON, Joseph, an English divine, was born in 1726 at Knipe in the county of Westmoreland. Educated at the grammar-school of Appleby and at Queen's college, Oxford, he obtained in 1758 the living of Herriard in Hampshire, that of Sutton in Essex in 1770, and in 1779 the vicarage of Horncastle in Lincolnshire. He died in 1802. He wrote "An Introduction to the study of polite literature;" "An Essay on Punctuation;" "The Parian Chronicle, or the Chronicle of the Arundelian Marbles, with a Dissertation on its authenticity;" a translation of Telemachus; "Essay on the nature of English verse." Robertson also edited in 1772 Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government.
ROBERTSON, Patrick, a well known Scottish lawyer and judge, was the son of a writer to the signet, and was born in 1794. After completing his education at the high school and university of Edinburgh he was called to the bar in 1815. He was a very successful pleader, was especially skilful in his addresses to juries, whom he amused by his wit and fun, as well as convinced by his arguments. In November, 1842, he was elected dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the highest honour in the gift of the profession; and on the retirement of Lord Meadowbank in November, 1843, he was appointed a lord of the court of session, with the title of Lord Robertson. In 1848 he was elected rector of Marischal college, Aberdeen. He died suddenly in January, 1855. He was the author of two volumes of sentimental poetry of no great merit. He was not only an accomplished lawyer, but a man of infinite humour. An immense fund of anecdote and drollery perished with him.—J. T.
ROBERTSON, William, grammarian and lexicographer, who flourished about the middle of the seventeenth century, was a native of Scotland, and was educated at Edinburgh. He settled in London about 1650, and devoted himself to the teaching of Hebrew. His "Gates to the Holy Tongue" was published in 1653. The Hebrew text of the Psalms and Lamentations was published in 1656. After the Restoration he went to Cambridge, and there he published "Phraseologia Generalis, Thesaurus linguæ Græcæ," designed both for a concordance and a lexicon; "Index Alphabeticus Hebræo-biblicus;" "Novum Testamentum Hebraice," a revision of Hutten's version. This edition is scarce, as a large portion of it was destroyed by the great fire of London. Robertson died about 1686.—J. E.
ROBERTSON, William, the eminent historian, was the eldest son of the Rev. William Robertson, minister of Borthwick, and was born at Borthwick, 19th September, 1721. He got his first education at the school of Dalkeith, and on his father's translation, in 1733, to Edinburgh as one of the ministers of Old Greyfriars' church, the son entered college when little more than twelve years of age. The ambition of his life is marked on the motto which his note-books bear when he was a student, "Vita sine literis mors est." Translations from the classics, and especially from the Greek, were a favourite pursuit. His academic and theological course being completed, he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Dalkeith in 1741, before he had completed his twentieth year. In 1743 he was ordained minister of Gladsmuir, East Lothian, having received a presentation from the earl of Hopeton. His annual income was under a hundred pounds; yet when his father and mother had both died within a few months after his settlement, he took entire charge of the orphan family in their destitution, and opened his humble manse to a younger brother and six sisters. He undertook, also, the education of his sisters, and though he was engaged did not for their sakes marry
