MATTHEW ROBINSON. * Mx. Mezon is already favourably known to the

public by the two interesting Lives of Nicholas Ferran which he edited with scholarly care and copious illustration in the early part of last year. He now contributes to our resources for the better know- ledge of England, and particularly Cambridge, in the seventeenth century, a curious biography of a Cambridge student, who attained high University distinction but while still quite a young man became the incumbent of the living of Burneston in Yorkshire, and spent there the greater part of the rest of his life. The biography is doubly curious, as being the record of the character and career of a singular person who lived in eventful times, and as the most fulsome piece of self-laudation that man ever constructed to the gratification of an abnormal vanity. Indeed, so far beyonkany -ordinary degree of vanity does this life rise that we are scarcely prepared to admit the irrefragable validity of the evidence on which the assertion of authorship rests. The evidence, as given by Mr. Mayor, is as follows.

"The MS. which is here for the first time printed is contained with others in a folio volume (S. 19) in St. John's College Library. It is written on 11 leaves (22 pages) in two different hands. A title in Zachary Grey's hand (see University Library MS. Be. 6. 42) runs thus : The Life of Mr. Matthew Robinson, M.A. Vicar of Burniston in the North Riding of York- shire, and Diocese of Chester ; and Some Time Fellow of St. John's Col- lege Cambridge. All written with His own hand, excepting the Four Last Pages.' This account is confirmed by Robinson's signature in the Johnian register, when he was admitted to a fellowship ; for it is written in the same crabbed hand as the first 18 leaves of the M. (the entry made on his admission to a scholarship appears to be in a different hand.)'

Now the heading to the Life runs thus-

" The _Life of the Author, written by one who knew him thoroughly, and had many of these things from his own mouth."

We readily admit that a facetious old gentleman might describe his autobiography in these terms ; and we by no means feel convinced that the Life is not by Matthew Robinson himself. But there is a possibility that Zachary Grey, Robinson's grand-nephew, may have been mistaken ; and Mr. Mayor does not appear to have compared the handwriting of the manuscript with that of Robinson's anno- tations on the Bible, which he mentions as still in existence, and in the possession of the Reverend Dr. Jackson, of the Wesleyan College, Richmond. We confess that no amount of internal im- probability, of the kind dependent on singularity of character, can be allowed to weigh against strictly historical evidence. But the internal improbability is here very strong, and the historical evi- dence appears to us not absolutely insuperable ; and we must sus- pend our opinion as to the authorship of the Life, or at least allow ourselves to consider the question as not finally settled.

On the point of fulsome self-laudation--our sole ground for doubting the autobiographical character of the work—we will cite but one passage from the opening paragraph ; and we may ask our readers with some confidence, whether they can recall any in- stance of a sane man writing seriously of himself in this tone-

" He was indeed paucis notes etpaucioribus ignotus. Few knew his worth thoroughly, and yet most persons of quality knew him and esteemed him as one of the greatest character for parts learning and piety, though he did fly the public and despised those titles and dignities in the church which have aggrandized so many, chiming to move in a lower sphere. And it would be hard to find in his times one through the whole kingdom to whose eminency nature art and fortune did so much contribute."

We may add, that the key-note thus struck, the composition never modulates into a lower key, except it be a passing phrase of self-abasement that seems to challenge the reader's indignant protestation against so great and good a man's doing himself even a momentary injustice. And with this remark we leave Mr. Mayor to reconsider his verdict.

• Autobiography of Matthew Robinson. Now first edited, with Illustrations, by 1. B. B. Mayor, M.A., Fellow and Assistant-Tutor of St. John's College, Cam- bridge. Printed for the Editor, at the University Press, Cambridge.

The Life itself, apart from this over-laudatory tone, is, as we said, curious as the record of a singular man's career in times perhaps more eventful and important than any other period of English history. Matthew Robinson was born in 1628, and died in 1694 ; and though this biography mentions public affairs only so far as they affected personally its subject, which they appear to have done to a very slight extent after the Restoration, its earlier portion, which is concerned with his University career, supplies curious details of the interference of the Parliamentary and Protectoral government with the University, and of the dis- turbing influence of the civil wars upon the prospects and pursuits of individuals. The detail is not indeed new in kind ; but every fresh instance gives some touch that helps to complete the definite- ness of our picture of the times : and the world is under obliga- tions to every person who contributes to increase its knowledge of the past,—an obligation which Mr. Mayor enhances by the ex- emplary diligence with which he collects from all quarters facts and references that bear upon any matters alluded to in his text. Thus he has given us, in addition to Robinson's life, a collection of biographical notes, relating to the lives of persons with whom Robinson was brought into connexion at Cambridge, which forms a useful supplement to such notices of them as may be found else- where in published works. Robinson's University career began in. 1644, in the summer of the siege of York and the battle of Marston Moor. Oxford and. Cambridge were occupied, the one by the King's garrison, the other by the Parliament's ; and St. John's College at Cambridge was used as a gaol by the Parliament forces. Under these cir- cumstances, the young student, whose father was of the Parlia- ment party and had died the year before, was sent by his mother to Edinburgh ; where he staid till the plague broke up the Uni- versity session in the spring of the year 1646. He then resolved to proceed to Cambridge ; and we have the following account of the difficulty and danger of travelling during a period of civil war.

"Therefore ere the end of May he took his venture again for Hull, de- signing to slip to Cambridge through the washes of Lincolnshire, the high- er road by Lincoln heath being much infested by the raparees of Newark : and having got a firm pass from the governor of Hull, he with another com- panion of the same inclination passed the Humber into Lincolnshire, in com- pany with some other persons of quality : but being on Caster Heath they were all forced to ride for their lives many miles, being pursued by a party of Newarkers, who waited for such a prize : of these fugitives our student pars prima fuit ; for though mounted with the worst, he came off with the first to Horncastle that night day. The next day he and his companion re- solved to get further off the like danger, going over several ferries in that washy country where enemies could not march : and getting to Spalding in Holland, thought it not safe to lodge there that night, (the enemy's army having lust then taken Leicester,) but hastened for Crowland, a garrison whither no enemies could come but by water. There he was kindly re- ceived of the governor, and appointed to a mean quarter, but could take no rest for swarms of night enemies, the gnats and hummers, thousands of which he left slain upon his bed. He used to say in relating this night's execution, Quis stragent aline swells, guis funerajlendo Explicet Here he could not rest, but by break of day made to Peterborough that morning, where he took his rest a little and kept his Sabbath that daysdevoutly : but that night the city was alarumed, notwithstanding they had four troop of horse in it ; so that our student was forced to fly again with the first, leaving the troops to make good his rear : and to Huntingdon he got by noon, and to Cambridge safely ere night."

At Cambridge he seems to have been little less than. an Admira- ble Crighton in intellectuals ; going the whole round of the learn- ing and science of his time, and finally betaking himself, in his despair of the prospects of the Church, to the study of physic for a profession. He was chosen Fellow of Christ's College, but sup- planted by "a man of the times," through "a mandamus from the powers then in being." While making preparations for proceed- ing to Italy in the suite of the residentiary Ambassador at Li- gorne," . he was however, persuaded to become a candidate for a fellowship at his own college, St. John's' and was elected. In this position he resided and acted. as a tutor for two years when the living of Burneston which was in the gift of his family, fell vacant. After some obstacles, arising from the circumstances of the times, he finally settled down in this living, and there passed the rest of his life. Many interesting facts might be quoted from the Cambridge portion of Robinson's life, illustrative of the stu- dies of the place at that time. But the limitation of our space compels us to pass them by, in favour of passages in his later life, of more general interest. He was evidently a fine gentleman as well as a great scholar and man of science. Witness the account of his stud.

"To recreate himself sometimes he had in his active and youthful years a small pack of beagles, with which he usually hunted once per week ; and fine horses being his great delight, he never wanted a choice 'gelding of great value for his pleasure in galloping, and a beautiful curiously going pad for his saddle : never appearing abroad but rarely mounted and in rich clothes, above the common rate of clergymen ; being a companion for gentle- men of the greatest quality, except he saw them given to swearing and de- bauchery; for drunkenness he hated, and no man of civility would offer to press healths or strong drink upon him, being one so strictly temperate : yet all delighted in the pleasantry of his witty and innocent conversation. "Thence he advanced to set up a small stud of brood mares, rarely ex- ceeding four, but the finest and largest that he could find out in the whole North. Of these he bred many choice colts, which proved gallopers of fame at Newmarket; many of these he sold for a hundred guineas or near upon, at four or five years old. I knew him breed a colt that at eight months old he sold for forty guineas, and a brood mare he had that he refused £90 for. His eye and judgment were so curious in horses, that he would buy some- times a choice colt foie at twenty guineas, and in less than four years sell him for a hundred ; and geldings he would buy at eight and ten and twelve pound ; and within three months sell them at 420 sometimes at MO and 435. So that this, which was his pleasure, redounded much unto his pro- fit, and no man of so small a stud reaped half the advantage : for he carried it on at small charge, keeping never more than one boy and an experienced old groom to attend himself, his stable, and his concerns abroad. Nay, he hath often professed that he never was out in stock above £300 at one tune, and yet yearly he took for horses out of his stock for many years above £100, sometimes £200, and sometimes above £250. And when he was disabled by his distemper from riding upon a fine horse or taking .pleasure in them, he sold off MOO worth and gave the rest of his fine things to his relations, which were of good value. And yet in this his curiosity, he very often rid abroad alone without man or boy, because they did but distract his medita- tions as he rid. Kay, walking on foot to him was a novelty he much delighted in, for he would sometimes run two or three hares to death on foot; and in frost, having once broke his leg, he would never ride, but constantly would foot it with his boy, going eight or nine miles in a winter morning to dine with a friend, and after two hours would return home to his own supper. This he continued, even after his distemper arrested him, for many months. "He was so noted and accurate an horseman, that he had begun a book of horsemanship, treating of the several strains of horses, their shapes, breeding, manning, feeding, trotting and galloping horses, and also of cu- ring their several maladies. Many secrets he had which great horsemen got of him, and those bearing his name some after put into the book called The Gentleman's Jockey, without his leave or privity,: Some friends and horse- men pressed him much to publish that manuscript of his ; but he refused it thuiking it not for the honour of his cloth to be lirwaysequoy, famous only for skill in horses."

There is a curious anecdote of an interview between Robinson and his Sacred Majesty Charles the Second, who had bought a racer of his breeding, which subsequently carried the Duke of Monmouth at Bothwell Bridge. Mr. Mayor is very indignant with the courtiers for their -behaviour on this occasion, but his zeal for his hero seems to have made him see indignity. where Robinson himself hints at none worth speaking of. Besides breeding horses to his pleasure and profit, the parson used to go about accompanied with a bevy of " messet spaniels, very ,little, beautiful, and of rare conceit, with bells about their necks. We have been before told that his skill in physic was so great,. that for many years after settling at Burneston, his time was seriously broken in upon by patients—" dukes, peers, with many baronets, knights, and great men "—so that "three or four days per week, and often more, he was carried abroad unwillingly to visit pa- tients"; and "in his medicinal practice he had prodigious suc- cess." INVe are further informed, that "He was in his nature a politician, if he never had read Ifacbiavel, and might have made a consummate statesman as well as clergyman : for in those many turns of times and tumbling factions he was cool, calm, and reserved, never mingling with humours of men. Yet when great motions were on foot in parliament, which he deemed high and dangerous, he writ often post letters to members in the House of Commons, who knew how to manage his arguments pro and eon in doubtful cases; yet never subscribed his name to any of them, lest he should have been suspected for a busy meddler. So that his motto might have been that about the mariner's compass Moveor ;sonatas ; and in all changes he was still the same, un- changed."

He was also a consummate lawyer and canonist ; " so that his people were happy in him, having a lawyer as well as an able physician and divine to go to gratis." He also, in his later days, when debarred from active exercise by a painful disease, wrote annotations upon the whole Bible, from not being satisfied with Poole's work of the same kind. "For," says he supposing the autobiographical theory correct, "though he himself used to say of himself modestly, nullus sum, in Hebraieis, yet few men were better furnished than himself with that variety of Rabbinical no- tions Hebrew customs and antiquities, which he had collected and digested from many critical authors."

But the most startling fact remains to be told—that all his learning, benevolence, and gentlemanly taste in horse-flesh, dogs, fine dress, and field sports, did not prevent him from accumu- lating a large fortune from apparently small resources. Unfor- tunately, he gives us no clue to the means by which he effected this. But here is the statement ; and his will remains to prove its truth so far as regards the sum left and his bountiful disposi- tion, while the charities he founded during his life are yet in full activity at Burneston, as the report of the Charity Commissioners avouches.

"But as to his personal manage and conduct in his own private affairs, it would appear to many men as next to miraculous. For all well knew that he begun of little, having but £40 annuity and a vicarage that never yielded him clearly £100 per annum and rarely exceeded £80 his curate's wages tenths and assessments deducted, and his portion with his wife ex- ceeded not £800. Yet he lived ever genteelly, kept a plentiful house and table, entertained suitable persons of quality, who weekly visited him, was not only charitable to a great highth unto the poor (except they were lusty vagrant beggars) but highly bountiful to many of his relations. Which all seemed much to exceed his income yearly, and yet he still grew rich, and left an estate worth upon £20,000 amongst his friends at his death."

We have quoted enough from this small volume to show that it is worth purchasing. Mr. Mayor has prefaced the work with a discussion on the condition and utility of the periodical litera- ture of the day, which is more remarkable for onesided pre- judice than caution or judgment. It is a pity he cannot pursue kis own antiquarian researches without vituperating his neigh- bours.