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William Robinson, Contributor to
Fielding's Champion
by
Frederick G. Ribble
[*]
The author of the "Advertisement" prefaced to the collected edition of the Champion (London, 1741) mentions four contributors to that journal as especially worthy of note:
It has long been known that the first two sets of signatures distinguish the work of the two editors of the Champion, Fielding and James Ralph, but the identity of the last two authors has remained obscure. The identity of "Janus the Elder" (later to be joined as a contributor by a physical or spiritual son,
In 1755, a volume was printed at London, without name of publisher, entitled Essays. Written by Mr. Robinson.[2] An explanatory "Advertisement" appears on the verso of the title page:
This volume contains fifteen essays, at least eight of which were reprinted from the Champion: Essays I and II (the "Trials of the Coxcombs"), signed "Morpheus," reprinted from Champion Nos. 63 and 71 (8, 26 April 1740); Essay III (the "Dissection"), signed "Somnus," reprinted from C78 (13 May 1740); Essay IV, signed "Somnus," reprinted from C92 (14 June 1740);[3] Essay V, signed "W. R.," reprinted from C102 (8 July 1740; unsigned in original issue); Essay VI, signed "Morpheus," reprinted from C113 (2 Aug 1740); Essay X, written in character of "Will. Wrangle," reprinted from C386 (6 May 1742); and Essay XII, signed "Morpheus," reprinted from C409 (29 June 1742). The first six of these essays appeared during Fielding's association with the Champion.
Three more of the essays in this volume (Essays VIII, IX, and XI) were probably published in the Champion, although in issues no longer extant. Essay XI, in fact, is announced in C387 (8 May 1742) as to be "published in our next," an issue that does not survive.
Although Essay VI, a vision of the Palace of Lust, is published in C113 (2 Aug 1740), Essay VII, the conclusion of this vision, does not appear in C114-158 (5 Aug-15 Nov 1740) and seems to have been rejected. The collection ends with three essays not reprinted from the Champion.[4]
"Mr. Robinson" identifies himself more fully in the text of the Essays as "William Robinson of the Inner-Temple, London, Gent." We also learn that his wife Anne and at least two of his children were buried at St. Mary's, Willesden, Middlesex; and that Anne died in childbirth on 20 October 1753, aged 43 (Essays, pp. 85-86).
This information, though, is not as helpful as it might appear. Robinson is not mentioned, as far as I have been able to determine, in either the published or the extant unpublished records of the Inner Temple.[5] And, although the St. Mary's parish register contains burial entries for several members of Robinson's family in the period January 1749/50 to September 1754, any previous or later connection of Robinson with that parish has been impossible to trace.[6]
More helpful are certain documents in the Public Record Office and Law Society Library which clarify Robinson's connection with the Inner Temple and contain at least one example of his signature. Robinson, we discover, was
| Essay No. | Original Champion No. | Champion Date | Signature | Dated from |
| I | C63 | 8 Apr 1740 | Morpheus | Inner Temple |
| II | C71 | 26 Apr 1740 | Morpheus | Inner Temple |
| III | C78 | 13 May 1740 | Somnus | Gray's Inn |
| IV3 | C92 | 14 Jun 1740 | Somnus | Gray's Inn |
| V | C102 | 8 Jul 1740 | unsigned in orig.; signed W.R. in Essays | Inner Temple |
| VI | C113 | 2 Aug 1740 | Morpheus | Otterspool |
| VII (conclusion of VI) | probably rejected | Morpheus | Otterspool | |
| VIII | not in extant C issues | Will. Manly | Inner Temple | |
| IX | not in extant C issues | Somnus | Otterspool | |
| X | C386 | 6 May 1742 | ---- | ---- |
| XI (conclusion of X) | probably in C388 (11 May 1742) | Will. Wrangle | Inner Temple | |
| XII | C409 | 29 Jun 1742 | Morpheus | Otterspool |
| XIII | not reprinted from C | Hymen | Inner Temple | |
| XIV | not reprinted from C | ---- | Newmarket | |
| XV | not reprinted from C | Funereus | Gray's Inn |
There is only one marriage of a William Robinson and a woman named Ann(e) listed in Boyd's Marriage Index, London/Middlesex section, for the period involved: that of William Robinson, 34, of St. Dunstan in the West who married Ann Byard at St. Gregory by St. Paul on 4 May 1746. The signature of William Robinson of the Inner Temple on the assignment of Articles
If Robinson gave his age correctly on the marriage allegation, he would have been born sometime between May 1711 and May 1712. He was of St. Dunstan in the West at the time of his marriage; perhaps he was the William Robinson, son of William and Mary Robinson, born 25 March 1711 and baptized at St. Dunstan in the West on 5 April 1711,[10] although in that case his age should have been 35 on 4 May 1746. The last date Robinson is known to have been alive is 4 August 1758, the date of the assignment of Articles of Clerkship mentioned above.[11]
William Robinson of the Inner Temple, the contributor to the Champion, is not to be identified, I believe, with William Robinson the attributed author of a play entitled The Intriguing Milliners and Attornies Clerks, although the circumstantial evidence for such an identification may initially seem rather strong. The play was published, with miscellaneous poetry, London, 1738 (for 1737); and separately, London, 1740. Both editions are anonymous. The attribution, which is found in the British Library Catalogue and in other bibliographical sources, is based, almost undoubtedly, on a penciled inscription in the British Library copy of the second edition (shelf mark: 11775.a.18): "By William Robinson / Attorney at Law / Kirkland / Hill Top [?in] [?H]ay Westmorland." Since Kirkland has long been considered a part of Kendal, Robinson is referred to in these sources as "Robinson of Kendal."[12]
The author of this play was, apparently, an attorney's clerk and later an attorney. The central character, Will. Dashwell, an attorney's clerk with whom the author identifies, gives his address as "Inner Temple" (Intriguing Milliners, 1738 ed., p. 39). The author, like William Robinson of the Inner Temple, was an imitator of Fielding; the play is modeled not only on Fielding's Intriguing Chambermaid but also on his Covent-Garden Tragedy.
The name William Robinson, however, was a very common one in this period, much more common, in fact, than might first be imagined. According to the inscription in the British Library copy, William Robinson of Kirkland was an attorney living and practicing in Westmorland, presumably by the 1740's. It is clear, indeed, that he had strong connections with the North of England at least by the late 1730's when he wrote and published his play.[13] William Robinson of the Inner Temple, on the other hand, spent his entire life, as far as we know, in and around London.[14]
The personalities and interests of these writers, moreover, seem very different. The author of The Intriguing Milliners has a certain cheeky irreverence for social convention and a strong love of bawdry. William Robinson of the Inner Temple, by contrast, is very much a gentleman, a somewhat sententious
Now that we have established Robinson's identity, I would like to con-sider briefly his work itself. Robinson was a specialist in writing dreamvisions, as his pseudonyms "Morpheus" and "Somnus" attest. As far as can be determined from surviving issues, he was the chief contributor of dream-visions to the Champion, other than Fielding himself, during Fielding's association with that journal. In his essays, including those few which are not dream-visions, Robinson writes, with some shrewdness, of the vanity and effeminacy of the beau monde, the perniciousness of French fashions, the ignorance and venality of politicians and pettifoggers. His style, although little more than an imitation of Fielding's, is spirited, and the short "characters" he draws (such as Sir Alamode Toupèt in C63 or Miss Trifle in C71) have a certain life.
Several of the essays are dated from "Otter's-Poole," or Otterspool, Hertfordshire.[15] Robinson's depiction of this watering-place reveals a love for the country and sense of local color very refreshing in a journal so dominated by politics and London social life as the Champion:
Another attractive characteristic of Robinson's essays is the obvious warmth of his attitude to Fielding. The essay just quoted continues with an appreciation of Fielding and Young's translation of Plutus, published less than a month before:
. . . I lighted my Pipe, and having been a Truant in my Greek, since I left School, pull'd out of my Pocket the new Translation of Plutus . . . by Fielding and Young, which I read over for my Evening's Amusement.
The Drollery, the exquisite Strokes of Humour, Satire, and Ridicule, with the admirable Vein of Wit and Pleasantry, that run through that inimitable Piece, made me several Times burst out into a loud Laugh, tho' alone, insomuch that the People of the House, if they were not well accustomed to my way in such Cases, would certainly take me to be mad, at least for the Time; and indeed . . . I am generally so strongly agitated on such facetious Occasions, that they might guess worse.
His "Reflections on the many beautiful Passages I had just been reading" bring on the usual dream in which Plutus, having recovered his eyesight, sets about to favor men according to merit. Many are stripped of wealth and dignities, but "in the midst of these Disasters, I was not a little comforted
In Essay IX of the collected essays, a dream-vision probably published in the Champion, although in an issue no longer extant, Robinson writes whimsically of the possibility of inheriting the virtues and abilities of his contemporaries:
It is unlikely that Fielding longed for Robinson's "Humour," but he does seem to have regarded him with respect. The first dream published in the Champion (13 December 1739; Works, XV, 97-102)[18] is by Fielding but written in the character of a specialist in dream-visions, a man of a "twilight imagination" (p. 97), who has chambers in the Inner Temple—perhaps in playful allusion to Robinson and his interests or even in acknowledgment of hints Robinson may have furnished for the essay.
Fielding clearly refers to Robinson's Champion essay of 13 May 1740, the dissection of Walpole's head and heart, in a dream-vision of his own published on 24 May. The Great Man presents himself on the banks of the River Styx in a miserable state:
When, in April 1740, the editors of the Champion decided to include more contributions from outside sources, Robinson was the first writer to whom they turned. The introduction, by one of the editors, to Robinson's first contribution is especially complimentary:
W. B. Coley has written that "of all Fielding's major undertakings perhaps none is more surrounded by doubtful circumstance than his journal The Champion."[20] A knowledge of William Robinson's role as a contributor to the Champion provides, I believe, some of the historical context necessary for more fully understanding that journal and Fielding's association with it.
Notes
I have received great assistance in my research for this paper from Ruthe R. Battestin who conducted investigations on my behalf at the Inner Temple Library, the Guildhall Library, the Public Record Office, the Law Society Library, and elsewhere. Her help has been so pervasive that I have not felt it possible to acknowledge it specifically on every occasion. The encouragement and expert advice of Martin C. Battestin have been very heartening and helpful. I have benefited also from the professional services of Mr. M. J. Wood of the Society of Genealogists; Michael Yelland of the Association of Genealogists and Record Agents; and T. D. Mathew, Windsor Herald. References to the Champion in this paper are to original issues, unless otherwise stated. Numerals, when given after the date, refer to page and column.
The Folger Shakespeare Library possesses a possibly unique copy (call-number: PR3668/R8E8/Cage).
Replaced in the collected edition of the Champion by the "Remarkable Queries," a very effective attack on Walpole originally published in C141 (7 Oct 1740).
Robinson published at least one literary work in the Champion which is not an essay and not reprinted in this collection: a poem in praise of Garrick, signed "Somnus" and dated from the "Inner Temple," printed in C380 (22 Apr 1742), 2/3.
A William Robinson of Gwersyllt, Denbighshire, was admitted to the Inner Temple on 17 June 1727, but he died in June 1739 (Inner Temple Library, typescript of admissions to the Inner Temple; Alfred N. Palmer, "A History of the Old Parish of Gresford," Archaeologia Cambrensis, 6th series, V [1905], 63). I am grateful to Ruthe Battestin for checking this typescript and to Mr. W. W. S. Breem, Librarian and Keeper of Manuscripts, Inner Temple Library, for checking other unpublished records of the Inner Temple.
"William Robinson of the Inner Temple, London, Gent" was enrolled as a solicitor in the Court of Chancery on 12 May 1741 (Law Society Library, MS. Roll of Solicitors, Vol. I, 1720[29]-91). He is referred to as an attorney in several apprenticeship documents (PRO. IR1/16, fol. 199; IR1/18, fols. 93, 192; IR1/20, fol. 192; documents dated January 1742, February 1747, June 1749, and May 1756, respectively). For the assignment, see Articles of Clerkship, PRO. CP5/46. William Robinson is not designated "of the Inner Temple" in this assignment, but the clerk whose articles were assigned, William Dearsly, was apprenticed to William Robinson of the Inner Temple in May 1756 (PRO. IR1/20, fol. 192).
Boyd's Marriage Index, which covers, I believe, about 50% of Anglican marriages in the London/Middlesex area in this period, is kept by the Society of Genealogists. Information about the marriage as given in the text is supplemented from the marriage allegation (Guildhall Library. Marriage Allegations, Bishop of London, 10,091/86, no. 231) and the register of St. Gregory by St. Paul (Guildhall Library, MS. 18,934, p. 145). I am grateful to Ruthe Battestin for first determining that the signatures on the assignment and allegation match. I have since compared photocopies of these signatures myself.
One record might be seen as casting doubt on the identification of William Robinson of the Inner Temple with the William Robinson of the Robinson-Byard marriage. There is a baptismal entry for a Sally Robinson, "d. of William and Ann Robinson, of Whitefriars," in the printed Temple Church Register under date 7 January 1745/46, several months before the Robinson-Byard marriage (Register of the Temple Church, transcribed by G. D. Squibb, Harleian Society Publications, n. s. 1 [London, 1979], p. 22). This Sally would be the right age for Sally, the daughter of William Robinson of the Inner Temple, buried 1750, aged 4 (Essays, pp. 84-85). William Robinson of the Inner Temple did baptize his son John at the Temple Church on 19 October 1753 (Register, p. 27). Perhaps the explanation suggested by Mr. Wood is the most plausible: that Robinson's first wife died within a short time of Sally's birth and Robinson needed to remarry quickly to provide a mother for his infant daughter. Remarriages for such a purpose were, as Mr. Wood points out, rather frequent. The name Ann was a common one, and it would not be too much of a coincidence if it were the name of Robinson's second wife as well as of his first.
Ms. Sarah Nichols, Assistant Librarian of the Law Society, has informed me that Robinson is not listed in the London/Westminster section of the first three editions of Browne's Law List (1775, 1777, and 1779).
See British Library General Catalogue of Printed Books to 1975; David Erskine Baker et al., Biographia Dramatica (London, 1812), I, 603; and Samuel Halkett and John Laing, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature, new ed., ed. James Kennedy et al. (Edinburgh, 1926-62), III, 166. Robinson's first name is omitted in these sources, probably because they all derive from an earlier British Museum catalogue in which it was omitted.
In one of the poems published with the first edition, Robinson writes a friend about a journey northward of several days to what must have been his family home: "The Joy, the Transport I felt here / At the sweet Sight of all that's dear / I can't describe! . . . / Our Folks and yours are very well" (p. 96). Thomas Ashburner, "of Kendall, Bookseller," subscribed for twenty-five copies of this edition, by far the largest subscription ("A List of the Subscribers Names," p. 15).
Robinson's essays in the Champion, from his first contribution in April 1740, are clearly those of a Londoner. According to documents at the Law Society and the PRO, he was practicing law from his chambers in the Inner Temple from 1741 to at least August 1758 (see text and note 7 above).
Essays VI, VII, IX, and XII. The first and last of these essays appear in original issues of the Champion still extant, C113 (2 Aug 1740) and C409 (29 June 1742). Robinson also mentions Otterspool in Essay IV (Essays, p. 28), originally published in C92 (14 June 1740).
This reference to Adams seems meant as a compliment to Young, the model for Parson Adams and one of the translators of the work Robinson is praising. If so, it would be, I believe, the earliest datable allusion to Young as the original of Adams.
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