OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, John (diplomatist)

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​ROBINSON, JOHN (1650–1723), English diplomatist and prelate, a son of John Robinson (d. 1651), was born at Cleasby, near Darlington, on the 7th of November 1650. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, he became a fellow of Oriel College, and about 1680 chaplain to the British embassy to Stockholm, and remained in Sweden for nearly thirty years. During the absence of the minister, Philip Warwick, Robinson acted as resident and as envoy extraordinary, and he was thus in Sweden during a very interesting and important period, and was performing diplomatic duties at a time when the affairs of northern Europe were attracting -an unusual amount of attention. Among his adventures not the least noteworthy was his journey to Narva with Charles XII. in 1700. In 1709 Robinson returned to England, and was appointed dean of Windsor and of Wolverhampton; in 1710 he was elected bishop of Bristol, and among other ecclesiastical positions he held that of dean of the Chapel Royal. In August 1711 he became lord privy seal, this being, says Lord Stanhope, “the last time that a bishop has been called upon to fill a political office.” In 1712 the bishop represented England at the important congress of Utrecht, and at first plenipotentiary he signed the treaty of Utrecht in April 1713. Just after his return to England he was chosen bishop of London in succession to Henry Compton. He died at Hampstead on the 11th of April 1723, having been a great benefactor to Oriel College. Robinson wrote an Account of Sweden: ​together with an Extract of the History of that Kingdom. By a person of note who resided many years there (London, 1695). This was translated into French (Amsterdam, 1712), and in 1738 was published with Viscount Molesworth’s Account of Denmark in 1692. Some of his letters are among the Strafford papers in the British Museum.
A member of the same family was Sir Frederick Philipse Robinson (1763–1852), a Virginian soldier, who fought for England during the American War of Independence. On the conclusion of peace he went to England, and in 1813 and 1814 he commanded a brigade under Wellington in Spain- Afterwards he was governor of Tobago, and he became a general in 1841. He died at Brighton on the 1st of January 1852.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinia

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​ROBINIA, or Locust-Tree, a genus of about six species native of the United States and Mexico, belonging to the suborder Papilionaceae of the great family Leguminosae. It was named by Linnaeus in honour of lean Robin (1550–1629), herbalist to the king of France and his son and successor, Vespasien Robin (1579–1660) by whom the best-known species, Robinia Pseudacacia, was introduced into Europe, in the Jardin du Roi at Paris in 1636. This tree, the bastard acacia, or false acacia, and often called erroneously acacia, is now widely cultivated as an ornamental tree in this country and on the European continent. It grows from 30 to 60 ft. high, and bears long, graceful, compound leaves with 9 to 17 bright green oblong leaflets, and white fragrant flowers in loose pendulous racemes, recalling the laburnum in habit. There are many varieties in English gardens varying in the method of growth, the presence or absence of thorns (persistent spinose stipules) on the branches and the colour of the flower.
In the eastern United States, where it is native, it grows from 70 to 80 ft. high with a trunk 3 or 4 ft. in diameter. It is one of the most valuable timber trees of the American forest. The wood is heavy, very hard, strong, close-grained and durable, and is extensively used in shipbuilding, also for posts and other purposes where durability in contact with the ground is essential.
Like many plants of the same family, the leaves show sleep movement, folding together at night and in dull or wet weather; for this reason it is less injurious than many trees to plants growing in its shade, as the rain is able more quickly to reach the ground beneath.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, Sir Joseph Benjamin

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​ROBINSON, SIR JOSEPH BENJAMIN (1845–), South African mine-owner, was born at Cradock, Cape Colony, in 1845. At the age of sixteen he started business as a general trader, wool-buyer and stock-breeder, but on the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1867 he hastened to the Vaal river district, where, by purchasing the stones from the natives and afterwards by buying diamond-bearing land, notably at Kimberley, he soon acquired a considerable fortune. He was mayor of Kimberley in 1880, and for four years was a representative of Griqualand West in the Cape parliament. On the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand district in 1886, Robinson purchased the Langlaagte and Randfontein estates. His views as to the westerly trend of the main gold-bearing reef were entirely contrary to the bulk of South African opinion at the time, but events proved him to be correct, and the enormous appreciation in value of his various properties made him one of the richest men in South Africa. As a Rand capitalist he stood aloof from combinations with other gold-mining interests, and took no part in the Johannesburg reform movement, maintaining friendly relations with President Kruger. He claimed that it was as the result of his representations after the Jameson Raid that Kruger appointed the Industrial Commission of 1897, whose recommendations—had they been carried out—would have remedied some of the Uitlander grievances. In 1908 he was created a baronet.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, John (divine)

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​ROBINSON, JOHN (1575–1625), English Nonconformist divine, was born probably in Lincolnshire or Nottinghamshire about 1575. He seems to have studied at Cambridge, and to have been influenced by William Perkins. He took orders and held a curacy in Norwich, but was attracted by Puritan doctrines, and finally associated himself with a Congregation meeting at Gainsborough (where the “John Robinson Memorial Church” bears witness to his work). In 1606 the members divided into two societies, Robinson becoming minister of the one which made its headquarters at Scrooby, a neighbouring village. The increasing hostility of the authorities towards nonconformity soon forced him and his people to think of flight, and, not Without difficulty, they succeeded in making their escape in detachments to Holland. Robinson settled in Amsterdam in 1608, but in the following year removed, with a large contingent, to Leiden, where he ministered to a community whose numbers gradually grew from one hundred to three hundred. In 1620 a considerable minority of these sailed for England in the “Speedwell,” and ultimately crossed the Atlantic in the “Mayflower”; it was Robinson’s intention to follow as soon as practicable, along with the rest of his flock, but he died before the plan could be carried out, on the 1st of March 1625.
In the early stages of the Arminian controversy he took the Calvinistic side, and even engaged in a public disputation with the famous Episcopius. He bore a high reputation even among his ecclesiastical opponents, and one of them (Robert Baillie) calls him “the most learned, polished and modest spirit that ever that sect enjoyed.” He was large-minded and eminently reasonable in spirit, recognizing parish assemblies where “the pure word and discipline” prevailed as true churches of God. His sound judgment is seen in the way in which he adjusted the relations of elders and church—the most delicate practical problem of Congregationalism.
Amongst his publications may be mentioned Justification of Separation from the Church (1610), Apologia Brownistarum (1619), A Defence of the Doctrine propounded by the Synod of Dort (1624), and a volume of Essays, or Observations Divine and Moral, printed in 1625. His Works (with one exception, A Manumission to a Manduction, since published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, ser. iv., vol. i.), including a memoir, were reprinted by R. Ashton in three vols. in 1851. A summary of their contents is given in G. Punchard, History of Congregationalism (New York, 1867), iii. 300-344. See further Congregationalism, and the literature there cited; also O. S. Davis, John Robinson (Hartford, Connecticut, 1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, Henry Crabb

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​ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB (1777–1867), English journalist and diarist, the son of a tanner, was born at Bury St Edmunds on the 13th of March 1775. In 1796 he entered the office of a solicitor in London, but two years later, having inherited a sum of money sufficient to give him a small yearly income, he started in 1800 upon a tour on the Continent, travelling chiefly in Germany and Bohemia. In 1802 he became a student at the university of Jena, where he remained until his return to England in 1805. After vain endeavours to obtain a post in the diplomatic service, he was appointed foreign correspondent for The Times at Altona. His letters, “From the Banks of the Elbe,” were published in this newspaper during 1807, and on his return he became its foreign editor. In 1808 at the outbreak of the Peninsular War he was sent out as special war correspondent-an innovation in English journalism—for The Times to Spain. There he witnessed Sir John Moore’s retreat at Corunna. After his return to England he read for the bar at the Middle Temple, and from 1813 to 1828 he practised as a barrister, retiring as soon as he had acquired a modest competence. He is remembered chiefly as the friend of Lamb, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Southey. He was a great conversationalist, and his breakfast parties rivalled those of Samuel Rogers. He died in London on the 5th of February 1867.
His Diary of 35 volumes, his Journals of 30 volumes, and his Letters and Reminiscences in 36 volumes, contain vivid pictures drawn by an acute and sympathetic observer who had exceptional opportunities of studying contemporary celebrities. They are preserved at Dr Williams’s Library in Gordon Square, London. Crabb Robinson seems to have intended to edit these for publication, but except for a meagre selection edited by Thomas Sadler and entitled The Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of H. Crabb Robinson (1869), they have never been reprinted. Crab Robinson was one of the founders of the Athenaeum Club and of University College, London.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, Edward

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​ROBINSON, EDWARD (1794–1863), American Biblical scholar, was born in Southington, Connecticut, on the 10th of April 1794, the son of William Robinson (1754–1825), minister of the Congregational Church of Southington. He graduated in 1816 at Hamilton College. In 1821 he came under the influence and teaching of Moses Stuart, the second edition of whose Hebrew Grammar he helped to prepare for the press in 1823, and through whom he was appointed in the same year instructor in Hebrew in Andover Seminary. With Stuart he translated in 1825 the first edition of Winer’s Grammar of New Testament Greek; and alone he translated Wahl’s Clavis Philologica Novi Testamenti (1825). In 1826–30 he studied in Germany, especially at Halle, under Gesenius, Tholuck and Rödiger, and at Berlin, under Neander, He was professor (extraordinary) of sacred literature and librarian at Andover in 1830–33, resigning because of dangerous epileptic attacks; and in 1831–35 he edited the Biblical Repository, which he founded and carried on very largely by his own contributions, assisted somewhat by his young German wife, Theresa Albertina Luise (1797–1869), the daughter of Professor Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob of Halle, a linguist of considerable ability, and a writer (in her early years under the pseudonym “Talvi”) of essays and stories. In 1837 he accepted the professorship of Biblical literature in Union Theological Seminary, and left America for three years of study in Palestine and Germany, the fruit of which, his Biblical Researches, published in 1841, brought him the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1842. A second volume of Researches appeared in 1856. His plans to sum up his important topographical studies in a work on Biblical geography were cut short by cataract in 1861 and by his death in New York City on the 27th of January 1863. A great Biblical scholar and exegete, Robinson must be considered the pioneer and father of Biblical geography—his Biblical Researches, supplemented by the Physical Geography of the Holy Land (1865), were based on careful personal exploration and tempered by a thoroughly critical spirit, which was possibly at times too sceptical of local tradition. Of scarcely less value in their day were his Greek Harmony of the Gospels (1845 and often) and his Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament (1836, revised 1847 and 1850). He established in 1843 and edited for some years the Bibliotheca Sacra (in which the Biblical Repository was merged-in 1852), for which he wrote until 1855.
See Henry B. Smith and Roswell D. Hitchcock, The Life, Writings and Character of Edward Robinson (New York, 1863); a biography of Mrs Robinson was published, with a collection of her stories, in Leipzig, in 1874.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, John Thomas Romney

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​ROBINSON, JOHN THOMAS ROMNEY (1792–1882), Irish astronomer and physicist, was born in Dublin on the 23rd of April 1792. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and obtained a fellowship in 1814; for some years he was deputy professor of natural philosophy, until in 1821 he obtained the college living of Enniskillen. In 1823 he was appointed astronomer of the Armagh observatory, with which he (from 1824) combined the living of Carrickmacross, but he always resided at the observatory, engaged in researches connected with astronomy and physics, until his death on the 28th of February 1882.
Robinson published a number of papers in scientific journals, and the Armagh catalogue of stars (Places of 5345 Stars observed from 1828 to 1854 at the Armagh Observatory, Dublin, 1859), but e is best known as the inventor (1846) of the cup-anemometer for registering the velocity of the wind.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, Mary

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​ROBINSON, MARY [“Perdita”] (1758–1800), English actress and author, was born in Bristol on the 27th of November 1758, the daughter of a captain of a whaler named Darby. In 1774 she was married to Thomas Robinson, a clerk in London, where her remarkable beauty brought her many attentions; and when, after two years of fashionable life, her husband was arrested for debt, she shared his imprisonment. She had been a precocious child, encouraged to write verses, and while in King’s Bench prison she completed the collection published in two volumes in 1775. On her release, thanks to Carrick, she secured an engagement at Drury Lane, making a successful first appearance as Juliet in 1776. On the 3rd of December 1779 she was Perdita in Garrick’s version of The Winter’s Tale, and her beauty so captivated George, prince of Wales (afterwards ​George IV.), then in his eighteenth year, that he began a correspondence with her, signing himself “Florizel.” She was for about two years his mistress, but he then deserted her, even dishonouring his bond for £20,000, payable when he came of age, and left her to obtain a pension of £500 in exchange for it from Charles James Fox. Owing to the hostility of public opinion, she feared to return to the stage, but she published some more volumes of her writings. There are numerous charming portraits of “Perdita”; two in the Wallace Collection, by Reynolds and by Gainsborough, reveal “her grave, refined beauty.” Hoppner, Cosway and Romney also painted her.
See Memoirs of Mary Robinson, “Perdita,” with introduction and notes by J. F. Molloy (1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robinson, Sir John Beverley

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​ROBINSON, SIR JOHN BEVERLEY, Bart. (1791–1863), Canadian statesman and jurist, was the son of Christopher Robinson (1764–1798), one of the band known as United Empire Loyalists, who came to Canada at the conclusion of the American Revolution. He was born at Berthier, Quebec, on the 26th of July 1791, and studied under Dr John Strachan, by whom his religious and political ideas were much influenced. He served with distinction at the beginning of the war of 1812, and later in the war was appointed acting attorney-general of Upper Canada. In 1815 he visited England and read law at Lincoln’s Inn.
From 1818 till 1829 he was the head of the Tory party in Upper Canada (the so-called “Family Compact”). In 1829 he became chief justice of Upper Canada, which position he held till shortly before his death on the 31st'of January 1863. Not one of his decisions was ever reversed on appeal. In 1824 and again in 11839 he strongly advocated a federal union of British North America, and in 1839 opposed in Canada and the Canada Bill the legislative union of the two Canadas proposed by Lord Durham. In 1854 he was created a baronet of the United Kingdom and in 1855 a D.C.L. of Oxford University. His unbending Toryism rendered him a reactionary. in politics, but his bitterest opponents admitted his sincerity and patriotism.
Several of his sons rose to eminence, John Beverley Robinson (1820–1896) becoming a member of the Dominion parliament and lieutenant-governor of Ontario (1880–1887). Christopher Robinson (1828–1905) was for many years the acknowledged leader of the Canadian Bar.
His Life, by his son, Major-General C. W. Robinson, C.B. (Toronto and London, 1904), gives a very favourable picture of the fine old colonial gentleman and loyalist. For a less favourable view see J. C. Dent, Canadian Portrait Gallery, vol. iv. (Toronto, 1881).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Robins, Benjamin

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​ROBINS, BENJAMIN (1707–1751), English man of science and engineer, was born at Bath in 1707. His parents were Quakers in poor circumstances, and gave him very little education. Having come to London by the advice of Dr Henry Pemberton (1694–1771), who had recognized his talents, he for a time maintained himself by teaching mathematics, but soon devoted himself to engineering and the study of fortification. In particular he carried out an extensive series of experiments in gunnery, embodying his results in his famous treatise on New Principles in Gunnery (1742), which contains a. description of his ballistic pendulum (see Chronograph). Robins also made a number of important experiments on the resistance of the air to the motion of projectiles, and on the force of gunpowder, with computation of the velocities thereby communicated to projectiles. He compared the results of his theory with experimental determinations of the ranges of mortars and cannon, and gave practical maxims for the management of artillery. He also made observations on the flight of rockets, and wrote on the advantages of rifled barrels. His work on gunnery was translated into German by L. Euler, who added to it a critical commentary of his own. Of less interest nowadays are Robins’s more purely mathematical writings, such as his Discourse concerning the Nature and Certainty of Sir Isaac Newton’s Methods of Fluxions and of Prime and Ultimate Ratios (1735), “A Demonstration of the Eleventh Proposition of Sir Isaac Newton’s Treatise of Quadratures” (Phil. Trans., 1727), and similar works. Besides his scientific labours Robins took an active part in politics. He wrote pamphlets in support of the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, and was secretary of a committee appointed by the House of Commons to inquire into the conduct of that minister. He also wrote a preface to the Report on the Proceedings of the Board of General Officers on their Examination into the Conduct of Lieutenant-General Sir John Cope, in which he gave an apology for the battle of Prestonpans. In 1749 he was appointed engineer-general to the East India Company, and went out to superintend the reconstruction of their forts; but his health soon failed, and he died at Fort St David on the 29th of July 1751.
His works were published in two volumes in 1761.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ploennies, Luise von

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​PLOENNIES, LUISE VON (1803-1872), German poet, was born at Hanau on the 7th of November 1803, the daughter of the naturalist Philipp Achilles Leisler. In 1824 she married the physician August von Ploennies in Darmstadt. After his death in 1847 she resided for some years in Belgium, then at Jugenheim on the Bergstrasse, but finally at Darmstadt, where she died on the 22nd of January 1872. Between 1844 and 1870 she published several volumes of verse, being particularly happy in eclectic love songs, patriotic poems and descriptions of scenery. She also wrote two biblical dramas, Maria Magdalena (1870) and Dowd (1873).
As a translator from the English, Luise von Ploennies published two collections of poems, Britannia (1843) and Englische Lyriker des 19ten Jahrhunderts (1863, 3rd ed., 1867).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ploesci

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​PLOESCI (Ploescii), the capital of the department of Prahova, Rumania; at the southern entrance of a valley among the Carpathian foothills, through which flows the river Prahova; and at the junction of railways to Buzeu, Bucharest and Hermannstadt in Transylvania. Pop. (1900), 42,687. As the name Ploesci (pluviena, rainy) implies, the climate is moist. The surrounding hills are rich in petroleum, salt and lignite. There are cardboard factories, roperies, tanneries and oil mills. Ploesci possesses schools of commerce and of arts and crafts, several banks, and many synagogues and churches, including the Orthodox church of St Mary built in 1740 by Matthew Bassarab.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Plombières

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​PLOMBIÈRES, a town of eastern France, in the department of Vosges, on a branch line of the Eastern railway, 17 m. S. of Epinal by road. Pop. (1906), 1882. The town is situated at a height of 1410 ft. in a picturesque valley watered by the Augronne. It is well known for its mineral springs, containing sodium sulphate and silicic acid, varying from 66° to 166° F. Plombières has a handsome modern church and a statue of the painter Louis Français, born in the town in 1814. The waters were utilized by the Romans and during the middle ages. In later times Montaigne, Richelieu, Stanislas, duke of Lorraine and Voltaire were among the distinguished people who visited the place. Napoleon III. built the most important of the bathing establishments and made other improvements.