Mr. ROBERT ROBINSON was born on the 8th. of October, 1735, at Swaffham in the county of Norfolk. His father Mr. Michael Robinson, a native of Scotland, was an exciseman; his mother was the daughter of Mr. Robert Wilkin, of Mildenhall, Suffolk; a man of respectability in private life, and in possession of a moderate independence. He married a widow by whom he had two children, Robert and Mary. Mrs Wilkin brought into the family two children by a former husband, on whom their father in law bestowed a good education, and towards whom he discovered so much partiality as to cause uneasiness to the other branches of the family; a consequence too frequently resulting from that, in general, undesirable domestic connection, a second marriage. Mr. Robinson's parents were both of them members of the church of England, and their children were educated in the principles of the establishment. Mary Wilkin, Mr, Robinson's mother, was beautiful in her person, amiable in her manners, and her father bestowed on her, so far as related to the cultivation of her understanding, a good education; but his partiality to his wife's former children, and his rejecting several respectable persons who had solicited the hand of his daughter Mary, rendered her so unhappy at home, that at length she, against her father's consent, married a person in an inferior station,

* Mr. Dyer states Mr. Robinson's birth day to have been the 8th. of January, which, from the account given me by the relatives of the deceased, is a mistake.

whose disposition and habits of life were not the best calculated to render her happy, and whose unkindness to his wife was increased by the unkindness of his father in law. How careful should parents be to cultivate not only the understandings, but the affections of their children, and to render their home in their younger years so happy, that in forming the most important connection, a connection for life, they may naturally turn to those who have given them birth, and who have nourished and brought them up, as to their most intimate counsellers, and best friends.

Mr. Robinson was the youngest of three children; his brother was apprenticed to a painter, and his sister to a mantua-maker: he was sent to a latin school at the age of six years, where he made so considerable a proficiency, that his master soon became very fond of him, observing that he never before knew a child who discovered such a capacity. His father was now ordered in the course of his profession from Swaffham to Scarning in the same county, where being uneasy in his circumstances, he left the place, his family remaining at home, and he shortly after died at Winchester.

At Scarning young Robinson was sent to an endowed grammer school then under the care of the Rev. Joseph Brett. Several persons of eminence received their education at the same school, and amongst others the late Lord Thurlow. Mrs. Robinson, however, in consequence of the unkind

treatment of her father, and her own narrow circumstances, was unable after a few years to pay the expences of her son's education; but the master being much attached to his pupil, and respecting the mother on account of her virtues and afflictions, continued him in the school, and instructed him gratis.

At this school young Robinson early discovered those powers by which he was afterwards so highly distinguished. There appears to have been a mutual respect between the master and the scholar, the former gave due encouragement and commendation, and the latter strove to excell in those branches of learning in which he was educated. He gained a considerable knowledge of the french as well as of the classical languages: he wrote a good hand, but as is too frequently the case at grammar schools, was defective in his knowledge of arithmetic, a branch of education which in all situations, ought not to be neglected.

At the age of fourteen, Mrs. Robinson was desirous of placing out her son as an apprentice. Mr. Brett endeavoured to procure him a situation suited to his talents and disposition; but his plan failing, young Robinson was bound to a Mr. Anderson, hair-dresser, in Crutched Friars, London. Although he appears to have been for a time, tolerably industrious at his trade, yet his love of literature shortly convinced his master, that hair-dressing, shaving, and wig-making, were not his forte. I have been informed that when out on

business, he would frequently return with his pockets loaded with old books purchased from different stalls: he would generally be at his books by four or five in the morning; this practice of early rising grew into a habit : in after life he could not only preach excellently and eloquently on the subject, as in his Village Exercises, but what is not always the case with preachers, his instructions were constantly enforced by his example. It is not improbable that this habit was acquired from his mother, who, even at the age of upwards of eighty used to rise at four in the morning. Mr. Robinson never appears to have been ashamed of his employment in early life; it was not unfrequently the subject of his conversation this was one proof of his genuine good sense the aristocratical airs of some in the middle class of life, the sneers frequently indulged against respectable persons on account of their trade, are equally irrational and unchristianlike, and are to men who have just ideas of the natural dignity and equality of mankind, peculiarly disgusting.

Robert Robinson, appears during his apprenticeship to have imbibed serious impressions of religion. He occasionally attended the most celebrated preachers of the day amongst the Independents, Baptists, the clergy termed Evangelical, and the Methodists. Drs. Guise, and Gill, Messrs. Romaine, and Whitfield, appear to have been his favourites. Mr. Dyer has presented us with various extracts from Robinson's Diary,

which it appears he kept during his apprenticeship, and which being remarkable for nothing but their enthusiasm, must surely have been the inferior parts of it: as they might as well have remained in the original manuscript, the reader will not censure me for passing them over as unworthy

notice.

Mr. Robinson does not appear during his residence in London, to have joined himself as a member to any particular church, but frequently communicated with the methodists in Mr. Whitfield's connection: at the age of nineteen, he, encouraged by others, had some view to the ministerial office: amongst other methods he made use of to prepare himself for speaking in public, he would occasionally preach for an hour together to himself; and it is not an improbable conjecture, that this was one mean by which he acquired that admirable mode of delivering his discourses, which in the opinion of Dr. Price, rendered him, in this respect, without an equal: his connection with the methodists was not without its use: Mr. Whitfield was, at times, happy both in the manner and the matter of his pulpit addresses. Never in my youthful days was I so much impressed as by some of his sermons; and when we consider the usefulness of his laborious life, and the multitudes of persons, both in this kingdom and in America, who were converted from Satan unto God, and from vice to virtue under his ministry, what a lesson for humility does it not