health, he pleaded the cause of Africa in various parts of the country, he set sail for Grahamstown. One of the most interesting presents which he took with him was a set of episcopal robes worked by the Bussage penitents. He regarded his position as that of a missionary as well as a colonial bishop. 'Do you think,' he said at a public meeting, 'I go forth thinking the diocese of Grahamstown is to be the bound and limit of Christian enterprise? God forbid! Africa is given to us if we will first do our part,' The diocese of Grahamstown, however, was in itself no trifling charge; it was almost as large as England, and, owing to bad roads and other hindrances, twenty miles a day was the average of travelling. His first work was to make a visitation tour of his diocese. He won golden opinions wherever he went; and he found or made many able coadjutors. There is little doubt that if his life had been spared he would have been eminently successful; his buoyant temper, his attractiveness, his ardent piety, his definiteness of aim and conviction, his readiness to recognise good wherever he found it, these and other qualities found a larger sphere for development abroad than at home. No one can read Bishop Armstrong's letters home, or his 'Notes on Africa,' a journal published by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, without deep interest. In 1856 he began a second visitation tour; but it was too much for him. His health, which had decidedly improved after he left England, failed him; and he died somewhat suddenly in Whitsun week, in the presence of his faithful friend and chaplain, archdeacon Hardie. His last public utterance was an opening lecture on the 'Character and Poetry of Oliver Goldsmith' at the Literary Institute at Grahamstown, which, after some opposition, he had succeeded in establishing on a general basis, and not in connection with any one religious body. He regarded literature and the natural sciences as 'common ground on which churchmen, without resigning one iota of catholic truth, might meet dissenters as brethren and hold kindly intercourse with them.' And even in religion, uncompromising churchman as he was, he was ever ready to acknowledge good christian work done by other bodies. 'The exertions of the Wesleyan body have been very great,' 'The Wesleyan body have been the honoured instrument of converting him' — such like remarks are not infrequent in his letters. But none the less does he deeply regret, over and over again, that the church had: not been the first in the field; for he held that to be 'the more excellent way,' His desire to deal with social questions accompanied him to Africa, He set himself to combat the besetting sin of the colonists, drunkenness; but he was called to his rest before he could effect much in this direction. He was buried in the cemetery at Grahamstown in the rochet made for him by the Bussage penitents; and after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century his memory still remains fresh in the hearts of his many friends. Few men, in the course of a comparatively short life, have had more and truer. There is a striking heartiness and unanimity in the testimony which numerous correspondents have kindly given to the present writer, to what one of them calls his 'superlative worth;' and few men, without possessing any commanding genius or incurring any unpopularity, have done more thoroughly useful work for the church and for society at large.
[Carter's Memoirs of Bishop Armstrong; information from Archdeacon Hardie, Mrs. Armstrong, H. Woodyer, Esq., Rev. T. Keble, Rev. Erskine Knollys; Bishop Armstrong's Works, passim.]
ARMSTRONG, ROBERT ARCHIBALD, LL.D. (1788–1867), Gaelic lexicographer, was the eldest son of Mr. Robert Armstrong, of Kenmore, Perthshire, by his wife, Mary McKercher. He was born at Kenmore in 1788, and educated partly by his father, and afterwards at Edinburgh and at St. Andrew's University, here he graduated. Coming to London from St. Andrew's with high commendations for his Greek and Latin acquirements, he engaged in tuition, and kept several high-class schools in succession in different parts of the metropolis. He devoted his leisure to the cultivation of literature and science. Of his humorous articles 'The Three Florists,' in 'Fraser' for January 1838, and 'The Dream of Tom Finiarty, the Cab-driver,' in the 'Athenæum,' are notable examples. His scientific papers appeared chiefly in the 'Arcana of Science and Art' (1837 et seq.),and relate to meteorological matters. But his great work was 'A Gaelic Dictionary, in two parts — I. Gaelic and English, II. English and Gaelic — in which the words, in their different acceptations, are illustrated by quotations from the best Gaelic writers,' London, 1825, 4to, This was the first Gaelic dictionary published, as there previously existed only vocabularies of the language like those of Shaw and others. It is a most meritorious work, the affinities of the Celtic words being traced in most of the languages of ancient and modern times. To it is prefixed a Gaelic grammar, and there is a short historical
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