THE MOST REV. SIR RICHARD, archbishop of Armagh and Lord Rokeby, was immediately defended from the Robinsons of Rokeby in the north riding of the county of York, and was born in 1709. He was educated at Westminster school, from whence he was elected to Christ-Church, Oxford, in 1726. After continuing his studies there the usual time, Doctor Blackburne, archbishop of York, appointed him his chaplain, and collated him first to the rectory of Elton, in the east riding of Yorkshire, and next to the prebend of Grindal, in the cathedral of York. In 1751, he attended the duke of Dorset, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to that kingdom, as his first chaplain, and the same year was promoted to the bishopric of Killala. A family connection with the earl of Holderness, who was secretary of state that year, with the earl of Sandwich and other noblemen related to him, opened the fairest prospects of attaining to the first dignity in the Irish church. Accordingly in 1759 he was translated to the united sees of Leighlin and Ferns, and in 1761 to Kildare. The duke of Northumberland being appointed to the lieutenancy of Ireland in 1765, he was advanced to the primacy of Armagh, made lord-almoner, and vice-chancellor of the university of Dublin. When Lord Harcourt was lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1777, the king was pleased by privy-seal at St James's, February 6th, and by patent at Dublin the 26th of the same month, to create him Baron Rokeby of Armagh, with remainder to Matthew Robinson of West Layton, Esq.; and in 1783 he was appointed prelate to the most illustrious order of St Patrick. On the death of the duke of Rutland lord-lieutenant of Ireland in 1787, he was nominated one of the lords-justices of that kingdom. Sir William Robinson, his brother, dying in 1785, the primate succeeded to the title of baronet, and is the survivor in the direct male line of the Robinsons of Rokeby, being the 8th in descent from William of Kendal. His grace died at Clifton near Bristol in the end of October 1794.

No primate ever sat in the see of Armagh who watched more carefully over the interests of the church of Ireland, as the statute-book evinces. The act of the 11th and 12th of his present majesty, which secures to bishops and ecclesiastical persons repayment by their successors of expenditures in purchasing glebes and houses, or building new houses, originated from this excellent man, and must ever endear his name to the clergy. The other acts for repairing churches, and facilitating the recovery of ecclesiastical dues, were among the many happy exertions of the primate.

But it was at Armagh, the ancient seat of the primacy, that he displayed a princely munificence. A very elegant palace, 90 feet by 60, and 40 high, adorns that town; it is light and pleasing, without the addition of wings or lesser parts; which too frequently wanting a sufficient uniformity with the body of the edifice, are unconnected with it in effect, and divide the attention. Large and ample offices are conveniently placed behind a plantation at a small distance. Around the palace is a large lawn, which spreads on every side over the hills, skirted by young plantations, in one of which is a terrace, which commands a most beautiful view of cultivated hill and dale; this view from the palace is much improved by the barracks, the school, and a new church at a distance; all which are so placed as to be exceedingly ornamental to the whole country.

The barracks were erected under the primate's direction, and form a large and handsome edifice. The school is a building of considerable extent, and admirably adapted for the purpose; a more beautiful or better contrived one is nowhere to be seen; there are apartments for a master, a school-room, 56 feet by 28, a large dining-room and spacious airy dormitories, with every other necessary, and a spacious play-ground walled in; the whole forming a handsome front; and attention being paid to the residence of the master (the salary is 400l. a-year), the school flourishes, and must prove one of the greatest advantages to the country. This edifice was built entirely at the primate's expense. The church is erected of white stone, and having a tall spire, makes a very agreeable object, in a country where churches and spires do not abound. The primate built three other churches, and made considerable reparations to the cathedral; he was also the means of erecting a public infirmary, contributing amply to it himself; he likewise constructed a public library at his own cost, endowed it, and gave it a large collection of books; the room is 45 feet by 25, and 20 high, with a gallery and apartments for the librarian. The town he ornamented with a market-house and flambles, and was the direct means, by giving leaves upon that condition, of almost new-building the whole place. He found it a nest of mud cabins, and he left it a well-built city of stone and slate. These are noble and spirited works, in which the primate expended not less than 30,000l. Had this sum been laid out in improving a paternal estate, even then they would be deserving great praise; but it is not for his posterity but the public good that his grace was so munificent. A medal was struck by the ingenious William Moslop of Dublin, which has on one side the head of the primate, inscribed "Richard Robinson, Baron Rokeby, Lord Primate of All Ireland." And on the reverse, the south front of the observatory at Armagh, erected by his grace, with this admirable motto, "The Heavens declare the glory of God."

Robert, a dissenting minister of considerable note, was born on the 8th of October 1735 at Swaffham in Norfolk. His father died when he was young; and his maternal grandfather Robert Wilkin, of Milden-Hall, Suffolk, gent., who had ever been dissatisfied with his daughter's marriage, deprived him of his maternal inheritance, cutting him off with half-a-guinea. His uncle, however, who was a substantial farmer, in some measure supplied their loss. He took Mr Robinson home, and placed him under the Rev. Joseph Brett, at Scarning school in Norfolk, with a view to the ministry of the church of England; where he had for one of his school-fellows the lord chancellor Thurlow. When about the age of 15 or 16, he imbibed the notions of George Whitfield; on which account he was discarded by his uncle, and again exposed to poverty and want. He first directed his thoughts towards the ministry in the year 1754, and commenced preaching in the following year at the age of 20; preaching his first sermon to a congregation of poor people at Milden-hall. He continued for a year or two as one of Mr Whitfield's preachers, and during that period he married. In the year 1758, however, he determined to separate from the Methodists; after which he settled at Norwich with a small congregation formed chiefly of his methodistic friends, being at that time an Independent. In the year 1759 he was invited to Cambridge, and for two years preached on trial to a congregation consisting of no more than 34 people, and to poor that they could only raise 3l. 6s. a quarter for his subsistence. In June 1761 he settled as their pastor, and was ordained in the usual manner; at which time we are told he exercised the office of a barber. In 1774, his congregation had so much increased as to consist of 1000 souls, including children and servants.

In Cambridge Mr Robinson's talents soon attracted notice. notice, and he quickly set up a Sunday evening lecture, which was well attended. His preaching was altogether without notes; a method in which he was peculiarly happy; not by trusting to his memory entirely, nor by working himself up to a degree of warmth and passion, to which the preachers among whom he first appeared commonly owe their ready utterance; but by thoroughly studying and making himself perfectly master of his subject, and a certain faculty of expression which is never at a loss for suitable and proper words. In short, his manner was admirably adapted to enlighten the understanding, and to affect and reform the heart. He had such a plainness of speech, such an easy and apparent method in dividing a discourse, and such a familiar way of reasoning, as discovered an heart filled with the tenderest concern for the meanest of his hearers; and yet there was a decency, propriety, and justness, that the most judicious could not but approve. Several gentlemen of the university, eminent for character and abilities, we are told, were his constant hearers.

The circumstances which lost him his uncle's patronage paved the way for the future events of his life. The incident which made him discard the common sentiments on the subject of baptism, at once marked the turn of his mind, and shows what apparently slight causes frequently determine the lot and usefulness of our lives. He was invited to the baptism of a child; the minister who was to perform the service keeping the company in long expectation of his appearance, some one suggested, that supposing the child were not baptized at all, he saw not how it could affect his happiness. Though the conversation was not pursued, the hint struck Mr Robinson's mind; and he immediately determined to read the New Testament with this particular view, to examine what it said concerning the baptism of infants. He accordingly began with the Gospel of Matthew; and, in succession, perused the historical and epistolary books; in expectation that he should find in every following part what he had not met with in the preceding parts of the sacred volume; namely, passages recommending and urging this rite. But observing, on the whole, a total silence about it, he thought it is duty to relinquish the practice, as without foundation in the rule of our faith; which appeared to him to speak only of the baptism of believers.

This change of his sentiments was more unfavourable than the former alterations in his religious judgment to his worldly views; and having married very early in life from pure affection, he was involved in great difficulties for near 12 years after his settlement in Cambridge; as, in that course of time, his family became numerous, and the support of an aged mother, as well as of a wife and ten children, depended upon him. But unexpected supplies, from quarters of which he was ignorant, frequently relieved his necessities, and confirmed his trust in Providence: yet the situation of his family must, it is easy to conceive, have much affected his mind. For he appears to have possessed great tenderness and sensibility, and to have regarded with peculiar endearment his domestic connections.

It may be reckoned a circumstance worthy of mention, that the sphere of Mr Robinson's ministry was the same in which his great grandfather Mr Shelly, of Jesus College, and vicar of All-Saints, had, with others, diffused the principles of the Puritans, about the beginning of the 17th century. The reputation of the Diffrers in the university and neighbourhood had for almost a century been sinking into contempt, when Mr Robinson settled with the baptist church at Stone-Yard. His abilities and assiduity, however, raised their reputation. The place in which his people assembled, which was at first a barn, afterwards a stable and granary, and then a meeting-house, but still a damp, dark, and ruinous place, soon became too small for the audience; and several of the new auditors being men of fortune, they purchased the site, and erected at their own expense a new house in the year 1764.

His labours as a preacher were not limited to the town of Cambridge; but soon after his coming there, he set up several lectures in the adjacent villages. His lectures were either annual or occasional, or stated on fixed days. The usual time was half an hour after six in the evening; and sometimes at five in the morning; and now and then in the summer at two in the afternoon, for the sake of those who came from a distance.

He died on the 9th of June 1790, at the house of William Russel, Esq. of Showell Green near Birmingham. He had laboured under an alarming disorder for some time before; but on the Sunday preceding his death he preached a charity sermon. On Monday he was seized with a fit; on Tuesday he recovered and went to bed tolerably well, but was found dead next morning.

The abilities of Mr Robinson were very considerable, as appears from his numerous works; and he possessed the quality of expressing his thoughts in an easy and forcible manner. But he appears to have been of an unsteady temper, and in our opinion, acquires but little credit either from the frequency with which he changed his religious creed (for we have reason to believe he died a Socinian), or from the foolish and undeserved acrimony with which he treated the church of England. His Plan of Lectures on the Principles of Nonconformity, for the Instruction of Catechumens, is a piece of the most unjust and illiberal abuse that we have ever seen, and would have disgraced the most high-flying Puritan of the last century.

Mr Robinson's largest work, the History of Baptism and of the Baptists, was published since his death, and is written in the same style and with the same confidence as his other works. Yet, as we have heard it remarked by a learned and liberal professor of theology in the church which he opposed, it is not a little remarkable that there is in it no argument or fact against infant baptism which was not answered by Dr Wall nearly 100 years ago, of whose arguments Mr Robinson however takes no notice.