Letters to His Friends. Forbes Robinson

Forbes Robinson (1880)

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      Though of Irish descent he only once visited Ireland. This was during his summer holidays in 1884, when he travelled round a good part of the north and west coasts. The only adventure of special interest was his unintended voyage across the Bay of Donegal, which was nearly attended with fatal consequences. He and his brother, the editor of this memoir, started in a small open sailing boat from the harbour of Killybegs, intending to return within a few minutes; but no sooner had they got outside the harbour than they were caught in a squall, which rapidly developed into a gale, and made it impossible to turn the boat or head it for the shore, owing to the immediate risk of swamping. The only means of securing momentary safety was to head the boat out into the Atlantic, but as the nearest land in this direction was the coast of America, the prospect was far from cheerful. Eventually the boat was turned a few points further south, in the direction of land which could not be seen, but which was known to lie about fifteen miles away on the other side of the Bay of Donegal. After having been nearly swamped many times, and running with bare poles, owing to the violence of the gale, the boat arrived at length at Bundoran. As this place was distant some sixty miles from Killybegs, it seemed wearisome to return by land, and a return by sea was out of the question. Accordingly, Forbes and the writer, drenched to the skin and without a vestige of baggage, started forthwith on a walking tour along the west coast of Ireland, arriving at Connemara in the course of the following week. Forbes's dislike of sea voyages in after years may in part be traced to this experience. During the greater part of the voyage across Donegal Bay he was helpless from sea-sickness; his companion was busily occupied in baling out the water to prevent the boat from sinking.

      The letters which Forbes wrote from school to members of his family are a curious mixture of humour and religion. It was his keen sense of humour which preserved him from becoming morbid. It was this same sense of humour which helped to attract to him at the University men on whom he eventually exercised a strong religious influence, but whom religious conversation would have inevitably repelled.

      In two letters written to one of his sisters from Rossall in 1886, the following sentences occur. They show that he found time while at school for a considerable amount of reading which was not connected with his school work:

      'You ask me to tell you what books I have been reading. Among others, Longfellow's "Hiawatha" and "Evangeline," both exquisite; continually the "In Memoriam," "Idylls of the King"; some of Buchanan, which I scarcely recommend; M. Arnold, which I do most heartily recommend; and Walt Whitman, the great poet of democracy; "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," by De Quincey, good in its way; G. Eliot and Mrs. Browning, &c., &c. Perhaps you would like some of those. I read Chas. Kingsley's "Andromeda"—it is really a splendid rhythmical piece of hexameter—and some of his Life. I rather like pieces of his poetry, and the one you sent me I liked.

      'My only birthday advice is: Read more Longfellow. If you have any writers, send me word, though I am sorry to say I can appreciate but few. … '

      Another letter, written the same year, is entirely composed of selections from Tennyson's 'Princess,' which, he says, 'I have just read through.' He ends, 'Mind you send me gleanings of Milton if you have time.' In another, 'I have been reading a fair amount of Carlyle at present, as we had an essay on "The influence of individuals on great movements of religion, politics, and thought," for which I read especially Carlyle's "Heroes and Hero Worship," and Emerson's "Representative Men," and for which, I am glad to say, I not only got full marks, but the highest maximum possible. Have read Tennyson's "Queen Mary." Am reading "Harold." I liked the first very much, but the latter a great deal more. The scene where Harold debates about telling a lie or the truth is very fine. … ' The rest of the letter is composed of quotations from 'Harold.' In other letters he says, 'Get Emerson's "Essays" for me.' 'I send you "Aurora Leigh." … '

      He left Rossall in the summer of 1887, when he was nearly twenty, and entered Christ's College, Cambridge, in the following October. His brother Armitage, now Dean of Westminster, was then fellow and dean of Christ's College, and Forbes occupied the attic rooms over his.

      The following notice by Dr. James, now headmaster of Rugby and formerly headmaster of Rossall, appeared in 'The Rossallian' and is reprinted here at his suggestion:

      'Forbes Robinson came to Rossall in 1881. He was a member of a very able family; an elder brother is Dean of Westminster; another is Charles H. Robinson, Editorial Secretary of the S.P.G. and translator of part of the Gospels into Hausa. He was a delicate boy, and lived for a year or two in the headmaster's private house, from which he passed on into Mr. Batson's. Rather shy and retiring in disposition, and unable to take much part in games, he was not conspicuous in the School until he reached the Sixth, and did not make friends as easily as some boys do. But the few who knew him well recognised in him a deeply affectionate if very sensitive nature, and saw how the religious side of it, afterwards so conspicuous, was even then developing. His powers as a classical scholar, though considerable, were not exceptional; they enabled him to reach the Upper Sixth, but not to win a scholarship at his entrance to the university, and I well remember advising him to make theology, to which his inclinations were already drawing him, his special subject at Cambridge. To this I knew he would bring not only interest but power of reasoning and literary culture. He had won the Divinity Prize of the School in 1885 and again in 1886, and the English Essay Prize (for an essay on "The relative value of art, science, and literature in education") in the latter year.

      'He went up to Christ's, Cambridge, in 1887, and at once addressed himself to his favourite study. What strides he was making in it were apparent at once from the extraordinary series of distinctions which he won—a scholarship at the college, the Carus Greek Testament Prize for undergraduates, the Jeremie Septuagint Prize, a first class in the Theological Tripos, the Burney Theological Essay Prize, the Carus Prize for Bachelors, the Crosse Divinity Scholarship, and the Hulsean Prize all fell to him between 1888 and 1893, and finally in 1896 he was elected to a Fellowship at Christ's, where he had already been Theological Lecturer for a year.

      'His essay which gained the Burney Prize in 1891 was on "The Authority of our Lord in its bearing upon the Interpretation of the Old Testament." He printed it in 1893 under the title of "The Self-limitation of the Word of God as manifested in the Incarnation." With characteristic modesty he says in his preface: "I can claim but little of the work as strictly original." This is far too deprecatory; the essay is a singularly lucid statement and attempted solution of a most difficult theological problem, in which all who believe in the Deity of Christ must be deeply interested, and I can bear personal testimony to its helpfulness. It was only the other day that I was reading it afresh, for I had just recovered it, when I feared that the copy he gave me was hopelessly lost and irreplaceable, from South Africa, where a friend to whom I had lent it had taken it among his books. Among Forbes Robinson's later activities were a work on the Coptic Apocryphal Gospels ("the subject," he wrote to me, "was so technical and uninteresting that I did not send you a copy"), and the editing of a Sahidic fragment of the Gospels.

      'But his value to Cambridge and to his college lay mainly in the influence for good which he was able to exert over undergraduates. Again and again I have been told there how great this was; and it was