The Nuttall Encyclopaedia
by
Edited by Rev. James Wood
Part 41 out of 53
round the earth like the sun and moon.
PTOLEMAIS, the name of certain cities of antiquity, the most
celebrated being Acre, in SYRIA (q. v.).
PTOLEMY, the name of the Macedonian kings of Egypt, of which there
were 14 in succession, of whom Ptolemy I., SOTER, was a favourite
general of Alexander the Great, and who ruled Egypt from 328 to 285 B.C.;
Ptolemy II., PHILADELPHUS, who ruled from 285 to 247, a patron
of letters and an able administrator; Ptolemy III., EUERGETES, who
ruled from 247 to 222; Ptolemy IV., PHILOPATOR, who ruled from 222
to 205; Ptolemy V., EPIPHANES, who ruled from 205 to 181; Ptolemy
VI., PHILOMETOR, who ruled from 181 to 146; Ptolemy VII., EUERGETES
II., who ruled from 146 to 117; Ptolemy VIII., SOTER, who ruled
from 117 to 107, was driven from Alexandria, returning to it in 88, and
reigning till 81; Ptolemy X., ALEXANDER I., who ruled from 107 to
88; Ptolemy X. ALEXANDER II., who ruled from 81 to 80; Ptolemy XI.,
AULETES, who ruled from 80 to 51; Ptolemy XII., who ruled from 51
to 47; Ptolemy XIII., the INFANT KING, who ruled from 47 to 43;
Ptolemy XIV., CESARION, the son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, who
ruled from 43 to 30.
PTOLEMY (CLAUDIUS PTOLEMAEUS), ancient astronomer and geographer,
born in Egypt; lived in Alexandria in the 2nd century; was the author of
the system of astronomy called after him; left behind him two writings
bearing one on astronomy and one on geography, along with other works of
inferior importance.
PUBLICANS or PUBLICANI, a name given by the Romans to persons
who farmed the public revenues; specially a class of the Jewish people,
often mentioned in the New Testament, and specially odious to the rest of
the community as the farmers of the taxes imposed upon them, mostly at
the instance of their foreign oppressors the Romans, and in the
collection of which they had recourse to the most unjust exactions. They
were in their regard not merely the tools of a foreign oppression, but
traitors to their country and apostates from the faith of their fathers,
and were to be classed, as they were, with heathens, sinners, and
harlots.
PUCCINOTTI, FRANCESCO, eminent Italian pathologist, born in Urbino,
and author of the "Storia delle Medicina" (History of Medicine), the
fruit of the labour of twenty years (1794-1872).
PUCELLE LA (i. e. the Maid), Joan of Arc, the maid _par
excellence_.
PUCK, a tricky, mischievous fairy, identified with Robin Goodfellow,
and sometimes confounded with a house spirit, propitiated by kind words
and the liberty of the cream-bowl.
PUEBLA (79), on an elevated plateau 7000 ft. above the sea, 68 m.
due SE. of Mexico, is the third city of the republic, and a beautiful
town, with Doric cathedral, theological, medical, and other schools, a
museum, and two libraries; cotton goods, iron, paper, and glass are
manufactured; it is a commercial city, and carries on a brisk trade. Is
the name also of a Colorado town (24) on the Arkansas River; it is in a
rich mineral district, and is engaged in the manufacture of steel and
iron wares.
PUERTO DE SANTA MARIA (22), a seaport in Spain, on the Bay of Cadiz,
9 m. SW. of Xeres, and the chief place of export of Xeres port or sherry
wines.
PUERTO PLATA (15), the chief port of the Dominican Republic, on the
N. of Hayti; exports tobacco, sugar, coffee, &c.
PUERTO PRINCIPE (46), a town on the E. of Cuba; manufactures cigars,
and exports sugar, hides, and molasses; originally on the shore, but
removed inland.
PUFFENDORF, SAMUEL, Baron von, eminent German jurist, born at
Chemnitz, Saxony; wrote several works on jurisprudence, one of which,
under the ban of Austria, was burned there by the hangman, but his "De
Jure Naturae et Gentium" is the one on which his fame rests; was
successively in the service of Charles XI. of Sweden and the Elector of
Brandenburg (1632-1694).
PUGIN, AUGUSTUS WELBY, architect, born in London, of French
parentage; made a special study of Gothic architecture; assisted in
decorating the new Houses of Parliament, but becoming a Roman Catholic he
gave himself to designing a good number of Roman Catholic churches,
including cathedrals; he wrote several works on architecture, and was
the chief promoter of the "Mediaeval Court" in the Crystal Palace; he was
afflicted in the prime of life with insanity, and died at Ramsgate
(1812-1852).
PULCI, LUINI, Italian poet, born at Florence; the personal friend of
Lorenzo de' Medici, and the author of a burlesque poem of which Roland is
the hero, entitled in Tuscan "Il Morgante Maggiore" ("Morgante the
Great"); he wrote also several humorous sonnets; two brothers of his had
similar gifts (1432-1484).
PULQUE, a favourite beverage of the Mexicans and in Central America,
from the fermented juice of the agave.
PULTENEY, WILLIAM, Earl of Bath, English statesman; in 1705 entered
Parliament zealous in the Whig interest; was for years the friend and
colleague of Walpole, but afterwards, from a slight, became his bitterest
enemy and most formidable opponent; he contributed a good deal to his
fall, but, unable to take his place, contented himself with a peerage,
his popularity being gone (1682-1764).
PULTOWA (43), a town in Southern Russia, 90 m. by rail SW. of
Kharkoff, on an affluent of the Dnieper; manufactures leather and
tobacco; here Peter the Great won his victory over Charles XII. of Sweden
in 1709.
PULTUSK, a Polish town, 33 m. N. of Warsaw; here Charles XII. gained
a victory over the Saxons in 1703, and the French over the Russians in
1806.
PULU, a kind of silk obtained from the fibres of a fern-tree of
Hawaii.
PUNCH, the name of the chief character in a well-known puppet show
of Italian origin, and appropriated as the title of the leading English
comic journal, which is accompanied with illustrations conceived in a
humorous vein and conducted in satire, from a liberal Englishman's
standpoint, of the follies and weaknesses of the leaders of public
opinion and fashion in modern social life. It was started in 1841 under
the editorship of Henry Mayhew and Mark Lemon; and the wittiest literary
men of the time as well as the cleverest artists have contributed to its
pages, enough to mention of the former Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, and
Tom Hood, and of the latter Doyle, Leech, Tenniel, Du Maurier, and
Lindley Sambourne.
PUNDIT, a Brahmin learned in Sanskrit and in the language,
literature, and laws of the Hindus.
PUNIC FAITH, a plighted promise that one can put no trust in, such
as the Romans alleged they systematically had experience of at the hands
of the Poeni or Carthaginians.
PUNIC WARS, the name given to the wars between Rome and Carthage for
the empire of the world, of date, the first from 264 to 241, the second
from 218 to 201, and the third from 149 to 146 B.C., due all to
transgressions on the one side or the other of boundaries fixed by
treaty, which it was impossible for either in their passion of empire to
respect. It was a struggle which, though it ended in the overthrow of
Carthage, proved at one time the most critical in the history of Rome.
PUNJAB (25,130), "five rivers," a province in the extreme NW. of
India, watered by the Indus and its four tributaries, Jhelum, Chenab,
Ravee, and Sutlej; its frontiers touch Afghanistan and Cashmir. Mountain
ranges traverse the N., W., and S; little rain falls; the plains are dry
and hot in summer. There is little timber, cow-dung is common fuel; the
soil is barren, but under irrigation there are fertile stretches; wheat,
indigo, sugar, cotton, tobacco, opium, and tea are largely grown; cotton,
silk, lace, iron, and leather are manufactured; indigo, grain, cotton,
and manufactured products are exported in exchange for raw material,
dyes, horses, and timber. The population is mixed, Sikhs, Jats, and
Rajputs predominate; more than a half are Mohammedan, and more than a
third Hindu. Lahore is the capital, but Delhi and Amritsar are larger
towns. Several railways run through the province. The natives remained
loyal throughout the Mutiny of 1857-58, Sikhs and Pathans joining the
British troops before Delhi.
PURANAS, a body of religious works which rank second to the Vedas,
and form the basis of the popular belief of the Hindus. There are 18
principal Puranas and 18 secondary Puranas, of various dates, but
believed to be of remote antiquity, though modern critical research
proves that in their present form they are not of very ancient origin.
PURBECK, ISLE OF, the peninsula in South Dorsetshire lying between
the river Frome, Poole Harbour, and the English Channel; formerly a royal
deer-forest; has a precipitous coast, and inland consists of chalk downs;
nearly 100 quarries are wrought of "Purbeck marble."
PURCELL, HENRY, eminent English musician, born at Westminster; was
successively organist at Westminster Abbey and to the Chapel Royal;
excelled in all forms of musical composition; was the author of anthems,
cantatas, glees, &c., which attained great popularity; he set the songs
of Shakespeare's "Tempest" to music (1658-1695).
PURCHAS, SAMUEL, collector of works of travel and continuator of the
work of Hakluyt, in two curious works entitled "Purchas his Pilgrimage,"
and "Hakluyt's his Posthumous, or Purchas his Pilgrimmes," and was rector
of St. Martin's, Ludgate, and chaplain to Archbishop Abbot (1577-1626).
PURGATORIO, region in Dante's "Commedia" intermediate between the
Inferno, region of lost souls, and the Paradiso, region of saved souls,
and full of all manner of obstructions which the penitent, who would pass
from the one to the other, must struggle with in soul-wrestle till he
overcome, the most Christian section, thinks Carlyle, of Dante's poem.
PURGATORY, in the creed of the Church of Rome a place in which the
souls of the dead, saved from hell by the death of Christ, are chastened
and purified from venial sins, a result which is, in great part, ascribed
to the prayers of the faithful and the sacrifice of the Mass. The creed
of the Church in this matter was first formulated by Gregory the Great,
and was based by him, as it has been vindicated since, on passages of
Scripture as well as the writings of the Fathers. The conception of it,
as wrought out by Dante, Carlyle considers "a noble embodiment of a true
noble thought." See his "Heroes."
PURIM, THE FEAST OF, or LOTS, an annual festival of the Jews in
commemoration of the preservation, as recorded in "Esther," of their race
from the threatened wholesale massacre of it in Persia at the instance of
Haman, and which was so called because it was by casting "lots" that the
day was fixed for the execution of the purpose. It lasts two days, being
observed on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar.
PURITAN CITY, name given to Boston, U.S., from its founders and
inhabitants who were originally of Puritan stock.
PURITANS, a name given to a body of clergymen of the Church of
England who refused to assent to the Act of Uniformity passed in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, because it required them to conform to Popish
doctrine and ritual; and afterwards applied to the whole body of
Nonconformists in England in the 16th and 17th centuries, who insisted on
rigid adherence to the simplicity prescribed in these matters by the
sacred Scriptures. In the days of Cromwell they were, "with musket on
shoulder," the uncompromising foes of all forms, particularly in the
worship of God, that affected to be alive after the soul had gone out of
them.
PURSUIVANT, one of the junior officers in the Heralds' College, four
in England, named respectively Rouge Croix, Blue Mantle, Rouge Dragon,
and Portcullis; and three in Scotland, named respectively Bute, Carrick,
and Unicorn.
PUSEY, EDWARD BOUVERIE, English theologian, born in Berkshire, of
Flemish descent; studied at Christ's Church, Oxford, and became a Fellow
of Oriel, where he was brought into relationship with Newman, Keble, and
Whately; spent some time in Germany studying Rationalism, and, after his
return, was in 1828 appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford; in
1833 he joined the Tractarian Movement, to which he contributed by his
learning, and which, from his standing in the University, as well as from
the part he played in it, was at length called by his name; he was not so
conspicuous as other members of the movement, but he gained some
notoriety by a sermon he preached on the Eucharist, which led to his
suspension for three years, and notwithstanding his life of seclusion, he
took an active part in all questions affecting the interests he held to
be at stake; he was the author of several learned works, among them the
"Minor Prophets, a Commentary," and "Daniel the Prophet" (1800-1882).
PUSEYISM, defined by Carlyle to be "a noisy theoretic demonstration
and laudation of _the_ Church, instead of some unnoisy, unconscious, but
_practical_, total, heart-and-soul demonstration of _a_ Church, ... a
matter to strike one dumb," and apropos to which he asks pertinently, "if
there is no atmosphere, what will it serve a man to demonstrate the
excellence of lungs?"
PUSHKIN, a distinguished Russian poet, considered the greatest, born
at Moscow; his chief works are "Ruslan and Liudmila" (a heroic poem),
"Eugene Onegin" (a romance), and "Boris Godunov" (a drama); was mortally
wounded in a duel (1799-1837).
PUSHTOO or PUSHTO, the language of the Afghans, said to be
derived from the Zend, with admixtures from the neighbouring tribes.
PUTEAUX (17), a suburb of Paris, on the left bank of the Seine, a
favourite residence of the Parisians, who have villas here.
PUTNEY (18), a London suburb on the Surrey side, 6 m. from Waterloo,
has a bridge across the Thames 300 yards long; the parish church tower
dates from the 15th century. The river here affords favourite rowing
water, the starting-place of the inter-universities boat-race; Putney
Heath was a favourite duelling resort; Gibbon was a native; Pitt and
Leigh Hunt died here.
PUY, LE (20), a picturesque town, 70 m. SW. of Lyons, a bishop's
seat, with a 10th-century cathedral; is the centre of a great lace
manufacture.
PUY-DU-DOME (564), a department in Central France, in the upper
valley of the Allier, on the slopes of the Auvergne Mountains. The soil
is poor, but agriculture and cattle-breeding are the chief industries; in
the mountains coal and lead are found, and there are many mineral
springs; there are paper and oil manufactures. The principal town is
Clermont-Ferrand (45), where Peter the Hermit preached the first crusade.
PYGMALION, king of Cyprus, is said to have fallen in love with an
ivory statue of a maiden he had himself made, and to have prayed
Aphrodite to breathe life into it. The request being granted, he married
the maiden and became by her the father of Paphus.
PYGMIES, a fabulous people, their height 131/2 inches, mentioned by
Homer as dwelling on the shores of the ocean and attacked by cranes in
spring-time, the theme of numerous stories.
PYM, JOHN, Puritan statesman, born in Somersetshire, educated at
Oxford; bred to law, entered Parliament in 1621, opposed the arbitrary
measures of the king, took a prominent part in the impeachment of
Buckingham; at the opening of the Long Parliament procured the
impeachment of the Earl of Strafford, and conducted the proceedings
against him; he was one of the five members illegally arrested by Charles
I., and was brought back again in triumph to Westminster; was appointed
Lieutenant of the Ordnance, and a month after died (1584-1643).
PYRAMIDS, ancient structures of stone or sometimes brick, resting
generally on square bases and tapering upwards with triangular sides,
found in different parts of the world, but chiefly in Egypt, where they
exist to the number of 70 or 80, and of which the most celebrated are
those of Ghizeh, 10 m. W. of Cairo, three in number, viz., the Great
Pyramid of Cheop, 449 ft. high, and the sides at base 746 ft. long, that
named Chefren, nearly the same size, and that of Mykerinos, not half the
height of the other two, but excelling them in beauty of execution. The
original object of these structures has been matter of debate, but there
seems to be now no doubt that they are sepulchral monuments of kings of
Egypt from the first to the twelfth dynasty of them.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE, two lovers who lived in adjoining houses in
Babylon, and who used to converse with each other through a hole in the
wall, because their parents would not allow them open intimacy, but who
arranged to meet one evening at the tomb of Nisus. The maiden appearing
at the spot and being confronted by a lioness who had just killed an ox,
took to flight and left her garment behind her, which the lioness had
soiled with blood. Pyramus arriving after this saw only the bloody
garment on the spot and immediately killed himself, concluding she had
been murdered, while she on return finding him lying in his blood, threw
herself upon his dead body and was found a corpse at his side in the
morning.
PYRENE, a crystalline substance obtained from coal tar, fats, &c.
PYRENEES, a broad chain of lofty mountains running from the Bay of
Biscay, 276 m. eastwards, to the Mediterranean, form the boundary between
France and Spain. They are highest in the centre, Mount Maladetta
reaching 11,168 ft. The snow-line is about 8000 or 9000 ft., and there
are glaciers on the French side. Valleys run up either side, ending in
precipitous "pot-holes," with great regularity. The passes are very
dangerous from wind and snow storms. The streams to the N. feed the Adour
and Garonne; those to the S., the Ebro and Douro. Vegetation in the W. is
European, in the E. sub-tropical. Minerals are few, though both iron and
coal are worked. The basis of the system is granite with limestone strata
superimposed.
PYROXYLINE, an explosive substance obtained by steeping vegetable
fibre in nitro-sulphuric acid and drying after it is washed.
PYRRHA, in Greek mythology the wife of DEUCALION (q. v.).
PYRRHIC DANCE, the chief war-dance of the Greeks, of quick, light
movement to the music of flutes; was of Cretan or Spartan origin. It was
subsequently danced for display by the Athenian youths and by women to
entertain company, and in the Roman empire was a favourite item in the
public games.
PYRRHO, the father of the Greek sceptics, born in Elis, a
contemporary of Aristotle; his doctrine was, that as we cannot know
things as they are, only as they seem to be, we must be content to
suspend our judgment on such matters and maintain a perfect
imperturbability of soul if we would live to any good.
PYRRHONISM, philosophic scepticism. See PYRRHO.
PYRRHUS, king of Epirus, and kinsman of Alexander the Great; essayed
to emulate the Macedonian by conquering the western World, and in 280 B.C.
invaded Italy with a huge army, directed to assist the Italian Greeks
against Rome; in the decisive battles of that year and the next, he won
"Pyrrhic victories" over the Romans, losing so many men that he could not
pursue his advantage; 278 to 276 he spent helping the Greek colonies in
Sicily against Carthage; his success was not uniform, and a Carthaginian
fleet inflicted a serious defeat on his fleet returning to Italy; in 274
he was thoroughly vanquished by the Romans, and retired to Epirus;
subsequent wars against Sparta and Argos were marked by disaster; in the
latter he was killed by a tile thrown by a woman (318-272 B.C.).
PYRRHUS, called also NEOPTOLEMUS, son of Achilles; was one of
the heroes concealed in the wooden horse by means of which Troy was
entered, slew Priam by the altar of Zeus, and sacrificed Polyxena to the
manes of his father. Andromache, the widow of Hector, fell to him on the
division of the captives after the fall of Troy, and became his wife.
PYTHAGORAS, a celebrated Greek philosopher and founder of a school
named after him Pythagoreans, born at Samos, and who seems to have
flourished between 540 and 500 B.C.; after travels in many lands settled
at Crotona in Magna Graecia, where he founded a fraternity, the members of
which bound themselves in closest ties of friendship to purity of life
and to active co-operation in disseminating and encouraging a kindred
spirit in the community around them, the final aim of it being the
establishment of a model social organisation. He left no writings behind
him, and we know of his philosophy chiefly from the philosophy of his
disciples.
PYTHAGOREANS, the school of philosophy founded by Pythagoras, "the
fundamental thought of which," according to SCHWEGLER, "was that
of proportion and harmony, and this idea is to them as well the principle
of practical life, as the supreme law of the universe." It was a kind of
"arithmetical mysticism, and the leading thought was that law, order, and
agreement obtain in the affairs of Nature, and that these relations are
capable of being expressed in number and in measure." The whole tendency
of the Pythagoreans, in a practical aspect, was ascetic, and aimed only
at a rigid castigation of the moral principle in order thereby to ensure
the emancipation of the soul from its mortal prison-house and its
transmigration into a nobler form. It is with the doctrine of the
transmigration of souls that the Pythagorean philosophy is specially
associated.
PYTHEAS, a celebrated Greek navigator of Massilia, in Gaul, probably
lived in the time of Alexander the Great; in his first voyage visited
Britain and Thule, and in his second coasted along the western shore of
Europe from Cadiz to the Elbe.
PYTHIAN GAMES, celebrated from very early times till the 4th century
A.D. every four years, near Delphi, in honour of Apollo, who was said to
have instituted them to commemorate his victory over the Python;
originally were contests in singing only, but after the middle of the 6th
century B.C. they included instrumental music, contests in poetry and
art, athletic exercises, and horse-racing.
PYTHON, in the Greek mythology a serpent or dragon produced from the
mud left on the earth after the deluge of Deucalion, a brood of sheer
chaos and the dark, who lived in a cave of Parnassus, and was slain by
Apollo, who founded the Pythian Games in commemoration of his victory,
and was in consequence called Pythius.
PYTHONESS, the priestess of APOLLO AT DELPHI (q. v.), so
called from the PYTHON (q. v.), the dragon slain by the god.
PYX, the name of a cup-shaped, gold-lined vessel, with lid, used in
the Roman Catholic churches for containing the eucharistic elements after
their consecration either for adoration in the churches or for conveying
to sick-rooms. Pyx means "box." Hence TRIAL OF THE PYX is the annual
test of the British coinage, for which purpose one coin in every 15 lbs.
of gold and one in every 60 lbs. of silver coined is set aside in a pyx
or box.
Q
QUADRAGESIMA (i. e. fortieth), a name given to Lent because it
lasts forty days, and assigned also to the first Sunday in Lent, the
three Sundays which precede it being called respectively Septuagesima,
Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima.
QUADRANT, an instrument for taking altitudes, consisting of the
graduated arc of a circle of ninety degrees.
QUADRATIC EQUATION, an equation involving the square of the unknown
quantity.
QUADRIGA, a two-wheeled chariot drawn by four horses abreast, used
in the ancient chariot races.
QUADRILATERAL, THE, the name given to a combination of four
fortresses, or the space enclosed by them, in North Italy, at Mantua,
Legnago, Verona, and Peschiera.
QUADROON, the name given to a person quarter-blooded, in particular
the offspring of a mulatto and a white person.
QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, an alliance formed in 1719 between England,
France, Austria, and Holland to secure the thrones of France and England
to the reigning families, and to defeat the schemes of Alberoni to the
aggrandisement of Spain.
QUAESTORS, the name given in Roman history to the officers entrusted
with the care of the public treasury, originally two in number, one of
them to see to the corn supply in Rome, but eventually, as the empire
extended, increased, till in Caesar's time they amounted to forty. Under
the kings they were the public prosecutors in cases of murder.
QUAIGH, a name formerly given to a wooden drinking-cup in Scotland.
QUAIN, JONES, anatomist, born at Mallow, Ireland; was professor of
Anatomy and Physiology in London University; was author of "Elements of
Anatomy," of which the first edition was published in 1828, and the tenth
in 1800 (1796-1865).
QUAIN, RICHARD, anatomist, born at Fermoy, Ireland, brother of
preceding, and professor in London University; author of a number of
medical works; bequeathed a large legacy to the university for "education
in modern languages" (1800-1887).
QUAIN, SIR RICHARD, physician, born at Mallow, cousin of preceding;
edited "Dictionary of Medicine," and was President of Medical Council in
1891 (1816-1898).
QUAIR, an old Scotch name for a book.
QUAKERS, the SOCIETY OF FRIENDS (q. v.), so called first by
Justice Bennet of Derby, because Fox bade him quake before the Lord.
QUARANTINE, the prescribed time, generally 40 days (hence the name),
of non-intercourse with the shore for a ship suspected of infection,
latterly enforced, and that very strictly, in the cases of infection with
yellow fever or plague; since November 1896, the system of quarantine as
regards the British Islands has ceased to exist.
QUARLES, FRANCIS, religious poet, born in Essex, of good family; a
member of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Lincoln's Inn; held divers
offices at the Court, in the city, and the Church; was a bigoted Royalist
and Churchman, a voluminous author, both in prose and verse, but is now
remembered for his "Divine Emblems," and perhaps his "Enchiridion"; he
wrote in his quaint way not a few good things (1592-1644).
QUARTER DAYS, in England and Ireland Lady Day, 25th March; Midsummer
Day, 24th June; Michaelmas Day, 29th September; and Christmas Day, 25th
December; while in Scotland the legal terms are Whitsunday, 15th May, and
Martinmas, 11th November, though the Whitsunday term is now changed to
the 28th May.
QUARTER-DECK, the part of a ship abaft the main-mast, or between the
main and mizzen, where there is a poop.
QUARTER-SESSIONS, a court held every quarter by justices of the
peace in the several divisions of a county to try offences against the
peace.
QUARTER-STAFF, strong wooden staff 61/2 ft. long, shod with iron,
grasped in the middle; formerly used in England for attack and defence.
QUARTERLY REVIEW, a review started by John Murray, the celebrated
London publisher, in February 1809, in rivalry with the _Edinburgh_,
which had been seven years in possession of the field, and was exerting,
as he judged, an evil influence on public opinion; in this enterprise he
was seconded by Southey and Scott, the more cordially that the
_Edinburgh_ had given offence to the latter by its criticism of
"Marmion." It was founded in the Tory interest for the defence of Church
and State, and it had Gifford for its first editor, while the
contributors included, besides Southey and Scott, all the ablest literary
celebrities on the Tory side, of which the most zealous and frequent was
John Wilson Croker.
QUARTERMASTER, in the army an officer whose duty it is to look after
the quarters, clothing, rations, stores, ammunition, &c., of the
regiment, and in the navy a petty officer who has to see to the stowage,
steerage, soundings, &c., of the ship.
QUARTETTE, a musical piece in four parts, or for four voices or
instruments.
QUARTO, a book having the sheet folded into four leaves.
QUASIMODO SUNDAY, the first Sunday after Easter.
QUASS, a beer made in Russia from rye grain, employed as vinegar
when sour.
QUATRE-BRAS (i. e. four arms), a village 10 m. SE. of Waterloo,
where the roads from Brussels to Charleroi and from Nivelles to Namur
intersect: was the scene of an obstinate conflict between the English
under Wellington and the French under Ney, two days before the battle of
Waterloo.
QUATREFAGES DE BREAU, French naturalist and anthropologist, born at
Berthezenne (Gard); studied medicine at Strasburg; was professor at the
Natural History Museum in Paris; devoted himself chiefly to anthropology
and the study of annelides (1810-1892).
QUATREMERE, ETIENNE MARC, French Orientalist, born in Paris; was
professor at the College of France; was distinguished for his knowledge
of Arabic and Persian, as well as for his works on Egypt; was of vast
learning, but defective in critical ability (1782-1857).
QUATREMERE DE QUINCY, a learned French archaeologist and writer on
art, born in Paris; was involved in the troubles of the Revolution;
narrowly, as a constitutionalist, escaped the guillotine, and was
deported to Cayenne in 1797, but after his return took no part in
political affairs; wrote a "Dictionary of Antiquities" (1755-1849).
QUATRO CENTO (i. e. four hundred), a term employed by the Italians
to signify one thousand four hundred, that is, the 15th century, and
applied by them to the literature and art of the period.
QUEBEC (1,359), formerly called Lower Canada, one of the Canadian
provinces occupying that part of the valley of the St. Lawrence, and a
narrow stretch of fertile, well-cultivated land on the S. of the river,
which is bounded on the S. by the States of New York and Maine, and on
the E. by New Brunswick; it is twice the size of Great Britain, and
consists of extensive tracks of cultivated land and forests interspersed
with lakes and rivers, affluents of the St. Lawrence; the soil, which is
fertile, yields good crops of cereals, hay, and fruit, and excellent
pasturage, and there is abundance of mineral wealth; it was colonised by
the French in 1608, was taken by the English in 1759-60, and the great
majority of the population is of French extraction.
QUEBEC (63), the capital of the above province, and once of all
Canada, a city of historical interest, is situated on the steep
promontory, 333 feet in height, of the NW. bank of the St. Lawrence, at
the mouth of the St. Charles River, 300 m. from the sea, and 180 m. below
Montreal; it is divided into Upper and Lower, the latter the business
quarter and the former the west-end, as it were; there are numerous
public buildings, including the governor's residence, an Anglican
cathedral, and a university; it is a commercial centre, has a large trade
in timber, besides several manufacturing industries; the aspect of the
town is Norman-French, and there is much about it and the people to
remind one of Normandy.
QUEDLINBURG (19), an old town of Prussian Saxony, on the river Bode,
at the foot of the Harz Mountains, 32 m. SW. of Magdeburg, founded by
Henry the Fowler, and where his remains lie; was long a favourite
residence of the emperors of the Saxon line; it has large nurseries, an
extensive trade in flower seeds, and sundry manufactures.
QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY, a fund established in 1704 for the augmentation
of the incomes of the poorer clergy, the amount of which for distribution
in 1890 was L176,896; it was the revenue from a tax on the Church prior
to the Reformation, and which after that was appropriated by the Crown.
QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS, a small group of islands on the W. coast of
North America, N. of Vancouver's Island, 80 m. off the coast of British
Columbia, a half-submerged mountain range, densely wooded, with peaks
that rise sheer up 2000 ft.
QUEENBOROUGH, a town on the Isle of Sheppey, 2 m. S. of Sheerness,
between which and Flushing, in Holland, a line of steamers plies daily.
QUEEN'S COLLEGE, a college for women in Harley Street, London,
founded in 1848, and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1853, of which
Maurice, Trench, and Kingsley were among the originators; attendance of
three years entitles to the rank of "Associate," and of six or more to
that of "Fellow"; it is self-supporting.
QUEEN'S COLLEGES, colleges established in Ireland in 1845 to afford
a university education to members of all religious denominations, and
opened at Belfast, Cork, and Galway in 1849, the first having 23
professors, with 343 students; the second 23 professors, with 181
students; and the third 37 professors, with 91 students. There is also a
Queen's College in Melbourne.
QUEEN'S COUNTY (6), one of the inland counties of Leinster, in
Ireland, N. of King's County, mostly flat; agriculture and dairy-farming
are carried on, with a little woollen and cotton-weaving; population
mostly Roman Catholics.
QUEEN'S METAL, an alloy of nine parts tin and one each of antimony,
lead, and bismuth, is intermediate in hardness between pewter and
britannia metal.
QUEENSLAND, a British colony occupying the NE. of Australia, 1300 m.
from N. to S. and 800 m. from E. to W., two-thirds of it within the
tropics, and occupying an area three times as large as that of France.
Mountains stretch away N. parallel to the coast, and much of the centre
is tableland; one-half of it is covered with forests, and it is fairly
well watered, the rivers being numerous, and the chief the Fitzroy and
the Burdekin. The population is only half a million, and the chief towns
are Brisbane, the capital, Gympie, Maryborough, Rockhampton, and
Townsville. The pastoral industry is very large, and there is
considerable mining for gold. The mineral resources are great, and a
coal-field still to be worked exists in it as large as the whole of
Scotland. Maize and sugar are the principal products of the soil, and
wool, gold, and sugar are the principal exports; the colony is capable of
immense developments. Until 1859 the territory was administered by New
South Wales, but in that year it became an independent colony, with a
government of its own under a Governor appointed by the Crown; the
Parliament consists of two Houses, a Legislative Council of 41 members,
nominated by the Governor, and the Legislative Assembly of 72 members,
elected for three years by manhood suffrage.
QUEENSTOWN, a seaport, formerly called the Cove of Cork, on the S.
shore of Great Island, and 14 m. SE. of Cork; a port of call for the
Atlantic line of steamers, specially important for the receipt and
landing of the mails.
QUELPART (10), an island 52 m. S. of the Corea, 40 m. long by 17
broad, surrounded with small islets in situation to the Corea as Sicily
to Italy.
QUERCITRON, a yellow dye obtained from the bark of a North American
oak.
QUERETARO (36), a high-lying Mexican town in a province of the same
name, 150 m. NW. of Mexico; has large cotton-spinning mills; here the
Emperor Maximilian was shot by order of court-martial in 1867.
QUERN, a handmill of stone for grinding corn, of primitive
contrivance, and still used in remote parts of Ireland and Scotland.
QUESNAY, FRANCOIS, a great French economist, born at Merez
(Seine-et-Oise), bred to the medical profession, and eminent as a medical
practitioner, was consulting physician to Louis XV., but distinguished
for his articles in the "Encyclopedie" on political economy, and as the
founder of the PHYSIOCRATIC SCHOOL (q. v.), the school which
attaches special importance in State economy to agriculture (1694-1774).
QUESNEL, PASQUIER, a French Jansenist theologian, born in Paris; was
the author of a great many works, but the most celebrated is his
"Reflexions Morales"; was educated at the Sorbonne, and became head of
the congregation of the Oratory in Paris, but was obliged to seek refuge
in Holland with Arnauld on embracing Jansenism; his views exposed him to
severe persecution at the hands of the Jesuits, and his "Reflexions" were
condemned in 101 propositions by the celebrated bull _Unigenitus_; spent
his last years at Amsterdam, and died there (1634-1719).
QUETELET, ADOLPHE, Belgian astronomer and statistician, born at
Ghent; wrote on meteorology and anthropology, in the light especially of
statistics (1796-1874).
QUETTA, a strongly fortified town in the N. of Beluchistan,
commanding the Bolan Pass, and occupied by a British garrison. It is also
a health resort from the temperate climate it enjoys.
QUEUES, BAKERS', "long strings of purchasers arranged _in tail_ at
the bakers' shop doors in Paris during the Revolution period, so that
first come be first served, were the shops once open," and that came to
be a Parisian institution.
QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS, Francisco Gomez de, a Spanish poet, born at
Madrid, of an old illustrious family; left an orphan at an early age, and
educated at Alcala, the university of which he left with a great name for
scholarship; served as diplomatist and administrator in Sicily under the
Duke of Ossuna, the viceroy, and returned to the Court of Philip IV. in
Spain at his death; struggled hard to purify the corrupt system of
appointments to office in the State then prevailing but was seized and
thrown into confinement, from which, after four years, he was released,
broken in health; he wrote much in verse, but only for his own solace and
in communication with his friends, and still more in prose on a variety
of themes, he being a writer of the most versatile ability, of great
range and attainment (1580-1645).
QUIBERON, a small fishing village on a peninsula of the name,
stretching southward from Morbihan, France, near which Hawke defeated a
French fleet in 1759, and where a body of French emigrants attempted to
land in 1795 in order to raise an insurrection, but were defeated by
General Hoche.
QUICHUAS, a civilised people who flourished at one time in Ecuador,
Peru, and Bolivia, and spoke a highly-cultivated language called Quichua
after them.
QUICK, ROBERT HEBERT, English educationist; wrote "Essays on
Educational Reformers"; was in holy orders (1832-1891).
QUICKSAND, sandbank so saturated with water that it gives way under
pressure; found near the mouths of rivers.
QUIETISM, the name given to a mystical religious turn of mind which
seeks to attain spiritual illumination and perfection by maintaining a
purely passive and susceptive attitude to Divine communication and
revelation, shutting out all consciousness of self and all sense of
external things, and independently of the observance of the practical
virtues. The high-priest of Quietism was the Spanish priest
MOLINOS (q. v.), and his chief disciple in France was Madame de
Guyon, who infected the mind of the saintly Fenelon. The appearance of it
in France, and especially Fenelon's partiality to it, awoke the hostility
of Bossuet, who roused the Church against it, as calculated to have an
injurious effect on the interests of practical morality; indeed the
hostility became so pronounced that Fenelon was forced to retract, to the
gradual dying out of the fanaticism.
QUILIMANE (6), a seaport of East Africa, on the Mozambique Channel,
in a district subject to Portugal; stands 15 m. from the mouth of a river
of the name.
QUILON, a trading town on the W. coast of Travancore, 85 m. N. of
Comorin.
QUIMPER (17), a French town 63 m. SE. of Brest, with a much admired
cathedral; has sundry manufactures, and a fishing industry.
QUIN, JAMES, a celebrated actor, born in London; was celebrated for
his representation of Falstaff, and was the first actor of the day till
the appearance of Garrick in 1741 (1693-1766).
QUINAULT, French poet; his first performances procured for him the
censure of Boileau, but his operas, for which Luini composed the music,
earned for him a good standing among lyric poets (1635-1688).
QUINCEY, DE. See DE QUINCEY.
QUINCY (31), a city in Illinois, U.S., on the Mississippi, 160 m.
above St. Louis; a handsome city, with a large trade and extensive
factories; is a great railway centre.
QUINCY, JOSIAH, American statesman, born at Boston; was bred to the
bar, and entered Congress in 1804, where he distinguished himself by his
oratory as leader of the Federal party, as the sworn foe of
slave-holding, and as an opponent of the admission of the Western States
into the Union; in 1812 he retired from Congress, gave himself for a time
to purely local affairs in Massachusetts, and at length to literary
labours, editing his speeches for one thing, without ceasing to interest
himself in the anti-slavery movement (1772-1864).
QUINET, EDGAR, a French man of letters, born at Bourg, in the
department of Ain; was educated at Bourg and Lyons, went to Paris in
1820, and in 1823 produced a satire called "Les Tablettes du
Juif-Errant," at which time he came under the influence of HERDER
(q. v.) and executed in French a translation of his "Philosophy of
Humanity," prefaced with an introduction which procured him the
friendship of Michelet, a friendship which lasted with life; appointed to
a post in Greece, he collected materials for a work on Modern Greece, and
this, the first fruit of his own view of things as a speculative Radical,
he published in 1830; he now entered the service of the _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, and in the pages of it his prose poem "Ahasuerus" appeared,
which was afterwards published in a book form and soon found a place in
the "Index Expurgatorius" of the Church; this was followed by other
democratic poems, "Napoleon" in 1835 and "Prometheus" in 1838; from 1838
to 1842 he occupied the chair of Foreign Literature in Lyons, and passed
from it to that of the Literature of Southern Europe in the College of
France; here, along with Michelet, he commenced a vehement crusade
against the clerical party, which was brought to a head by his attack on
the Jesuits, and which led to his suspension from the duties of the chair
in 1846; he distrusted Louis Napoleon, and was exiled in 1852, taking up
his abode at Brussels, to return to Paris again only after the Emperor's
fall; through all these troubles he was busy with his pen, in 1838
published his "Examen de la Vie de Jesus," his "Du Genie des Religions,"
"La Revolution Religieuse au xix^{e} Siecle," and other works; he was a
disciple of Herder to the last; he believed in humanity, and religion as
the soul of it (1803-1875).
QUININE, an alkaloid obtained from the bark of several species of
the cinchona tree and others, and which is employed in medicine specially
as a ferbrifuge and a tonic.
QUINISEXT, an ecclesiastical council held at Constantinople in 692,
composed chiefly of Eastern bishops, and not reckoned among the councils
of the Western Church.
QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY, the Sunday before the beginning of Lent.
QUINSY, inflammation of the tonsils of the throat.
QUINTANA, MANUEL JOSE, a Spanish lyric and dramatic poet, born in
Madrid; was for a time the champion of liberal ideas in politics, which
he ceased to advocate before he died; is celebrated as the author of a
classic work, being "Lives of Celebrated Spaniards" (1772-1857).
QUINTETTE, a musical composition in obligato parts for five voices
or five instruments.
QUINTILIAN, MARCUS FABIUS, celebrated Latin rhetorician, born in
Spain; went to Rome in the train of Galba, and began to practise at the
bar, but achieved his fame more as teacher in rhetoric than a
practitioner at the bar, a function he discharged with brilliant success
for 20 years under the patronage and favour of the Emperor Vespasian in
particular, being invested by him in consequence with the insignia and
title of consul; with posterity his fame rests on his "Institutes," a
great work, being a complete system of rhetoric in 12 books; he commenced
it in the reign of Domitian after his retirement from his duties as a
public instructor, and it occupied him two years; it is a wise book, ably
written, and fraught with manifold instruction to all whose chosen
profession it is to persuade men (35-92).
QUIPO, knotted cords of different colours used by the ancient
Mexicans and Peruvians for conveying orders or recording events.
QUIRINAL, one of the seven hills on which Rome was built, N. of the
Palatine, and one of the oldest quarters of the city.
QUIRITES, the name the citizens of Rome assumed in their civic
capacity.
QUITO (80), the capital of Ecuador, situated at an elevation of
nearly 9000 ft. above the sea-level, and cut up with ravines; stands in a
region of perpetual spring and amid picturesque surroundings, the air
clear and the sky a dark deep blue. The chief buildings are of stone, but
all the ordinary dwellings are of sun-dried brick and without chimneys.
It is in the heart of a volcanic region, and is subject to frequent
earthquakes, in one of which, in 1797, 40,000 of the inhabitants
perished. The population consists chiefly of Indians, whose religious
interests must be well cared for, for there are no fewer than 400 priests
to watch over their spiritual welfare.
QUITO, CORDILLERA OF, a chain of mountains, the chief of them
volcanic, in Ecuador, containing the loftiest peaks of the Andes, and
including among them Antisana, Cotopaxi, and Chimborazo.
QUIT-RENT, a rent the payment of which frees the tenant of a
holding from other services such as were obligatory under feudal tenure.
QUORRA, the name given to the middle and lower course of the Niger.
QUORUM, the number of the members of a governing body required by
law to give legality to any transaction in the name of it.
QURAN. See KORAN.
R
RAAB (20), a town in Hungary, 67 m. NW. of Buda Pesth, manufactures
tobacco and cutlery.
RAASAY, one of the Inner Hebrides, belonging to Inverness-shire,
lies between Skye and Ross-shire; bare on the W., picturesque on the E.;
has interesting ruins of Brochel Castle.
RABANT DE ST. ETIENNE, a moderate French Revolutionary; member of
the Constituent Assembly; one of the Girondists; opposed the extreme
party, and concealed himself between two walls he had built in his
brother's house; was discovered, and doomed to the guillotine, as were
also those who protected him (1743-1793).
RABAT (26), known also as NEW SALLEE, a declining port in
Morocco, finely situated on elevated ground overlooking the mouth of the
Bu-Ragrag River, 115 m. SE. of Fez; is surrounded by walls, and has a
commanding citadel, a noted tower, interesting ruins, &c.; manufactures
carpets, mats, &c., and exports olive-oil, grain, wool, &c.
RABBI (lit. my master), an appellation of honour applied to a
teacher of the Law among the Jews, in frequent use among them in the days
of Christ, who was frequently saluted by this title.
RABBISM, the name applied in modern times to the principles and
methods of the Jewish Rabbis, particularly in the interpretation of the
Jewish Scriptures.
RABELAIS, FRANCOIS, great French humorist, born at Chinon, the son
of a poor apothecary; was sent to a convent at nine; became a Franciscan
monk; read and studied a great deal, but, sick of convent life, ran away
at forty years of age; went to Montpellier, and studied medicine, and for
a time practised it, particularly at Lyons; here he commenced the series
of writings that have immortalised his name, his "Gargantua" and
"Pantagruel," which he finished as cure of Meudon, forming a succession
of satires in a vein of riotous mirth on monks, priests, pedants, and all
the incarnate solecisms of the time, yet with all their licentiousness
revealing a heart in love with mankind, and a passionate desire for the
establishment of truth and justice among men (1495-1553).
RACES OF MANKIND. These have been divided into five, the
CAUCASIAN (q. v.) or Indo-European, the Mongolian or Yellow, the
Negro or Black, the Malayan or Tawny, and the India or Copper-coloured.
RACHEL, ELIZA, a great French tragedienne, born in Switzerland, of
Jewish parents; made her _debut_ in Paris in 1838, and soon became famous
as the interpreter of the principal characters in the masterpieces of
Racine and Corneille, her crowning triumph being the representation, in
1843, of Phedre in the tragedy of Racine; she made a great impression
wherever she appeared, realised a large fortune, and died of decline
(1821-1858).
RACINE (21), a flourishing city of Wisconsin, U.S.A., capital of
Racine County, at the entrance of Root River into Lake Michigan, 62 m. N.
of Chicago; has an Episcopal university: trades in lumber, flax, and the
products of various factories.
RACINE, JEAN, great French tragic poet, born at La Ferte Milon, in
the dep. of Aisne; was educated at Beauvais and the Port Royal; in 1663
settled in Paris, gained the favour of Louis XIV. and the friendship of
Boileau, La Fontaine, and Moliere, though he quarrelled with the latter,
and finally lost favour with the king, which he never recovered, and
which hastened his death; he raised the French language to the highest
pitch of perfection in his tragedies, of which the chief are "Andromaque"
(1667), "Britannicus" (1669), "Mithridate" (1673), "Iphigenie" (1774),
"Phedre" (1677), "Esther" (1688), and "Athalie" (1691), as well as an
exquisite comedy entitled "Les Plaideurs" (1669); when Voltaire was asked
to write a commentary on Racine, his answer was, "One had only to write
at the foot of each page, _beau, pathetique, harmonieux, admirable,
sublime_" (1639-1699).
RACK, an instrument of torture; consisted of an oblong wooden frame,
fitted with cords and levers, by means of which the victim's limbs were
racked to the point of dislocation; dates back to Roman times, and was
used against the early Christians; much resorted to by the Spanish
Inquisition, and also at times by the Tudor monarchs of England, though
subsequently prohibited by law in England.
RADCLIFFE (20), a prosperous town of Lancashire, on the Irwell, 7 m.
NW. of Manchester; manufactures cotton, calico, and paper; has bleaching
and dye works, and good coal-mines.
RADCLIFFE, MRS. ANN, _nee_ WARD, English novelist, born in
London; wrote a series of popular works which abound in weird tales and
scenes of old castles and gloomy forests, and of which the best known is
the "Mysteries of Udolpho" (1764-1823).
RADCLIFFE, JOHN, physician, born at Wakefield, studied at Oxford;
commenced practice in London; by his art and professional skill rose to
eminence; attended King William and Queen Mary; summoned to attend Queen
Anne but did not, pleading illness, and on the queen's death was obliged
to disappear from London; left L40,000 to found a public library in the
University of Oxford (1650-1714).
RADETZKY, JOHANN, COUNT VON, Austrian field-marshal, born in
Bohemia; entered the Austrian army in 1784; distinguished himself in the
war with Turkey in 1788-89, and in all the wars of Austria with France;
checked the Revolution in Lombardy in 1848; defeated and almost
annihilated the Piedmontese army under Charles Albert in 1849, and
compelled Venice to capitulate in the same year, after which he was
appointed Governor of Lombardy (1766-1858).
RADICALS, a class of English politicians who, at the end of the 18th
century and the beginning of the 19th, aimed at the political
emancipation of the mass of the people by giving them a share in the
election of parliamentary representatives. Their Radicalism went no
farther than that, and on principle could not go farther.
RADNORSHIRE (22), the least populous of the Welsh counties; lies on
the English border between Montgomery (N.) and Brecknock (S.); has a wild
and dreary surface, mountainous and woody. RADNOR FOREST covers an
elevated heathy tract in the E.; is watered by the Wye and the Teme. The
soil does not favour agriculture, and stock-raising is the chief
industry. Contains some excellent spas, that at Llandrindod the most
popular. County town, Presteign.
RADOWITZ, JOSEPH VON, Prussian statesman; entered the army as an
artillery officer, rose to be chief of the artillery staff; by marriage
became connected with the aristocracy; at length head of the
Anti-Revolutionary party in the State, and the political adviser of
William IV., in which capacity he endeavoured to effect a reform of the
German Diet, and to give a political constitution to Germany (1797-1853).
RAE, JOHN, Arctic voyager, born in Orkney, studied medicine in
Edinburgh; first visited the Arctic regions as a surgeon; was engaged in
three expeditions to these regions, of which he published reports; was
made a LL.D. of Edinburgh University on the occasion of Carlyle's
installation as Lord Rector (1813-1893).
RAEBURN, SIR HENRY, portrait-painter, born at Stockbridge,
Edinburgh; was educated at George Heriot's Hospital; apprenticed to a
goldsmith in the city, and gave early promise of his abilities as an
artist; went to Italy; was introduced to Reynolds by the way, and after
two years' absence settled in Edinburgh, and became famous as one of the
greatest painters of the day; the portraits he painted included
likenesses of all the distinguished Scotsmen of the period, at the head
of them Sir Walter Scott; was knighted by George IV. a short time before
his death (1756-1823).
RAFF, JOACHIM, musical composer of the Wagner School, born at
Lachen, in Switzerland; began life as a schoolmaster; was attracted to
music; studied at Weimar; lived near Liszt, and became Director of the
Conservatorium at Frankfort-on-Main; his works include symphonies,
overtures, with pieces for the violin and the piano (1822-1882).
RAFFLES, SIR THOMAS STAMFORD, English administrator, born in
Jamaica; entered the East India Company's service, and rose in it; became
Governor of Java, and wrote a history of it; held afterwards an important
post in Sumatra, and formed a settlement at Singapore; returned to
England with a rich collection of natural objects and documents, but lost
most of them by the ship taking fire (1781-1826).
RAFN, KARL CHRISTIAN, Danish archaeologist, born in Fuenen; devoted
his life to the study of northern antiquities; edited numerous Norse
MSS.; executed translations of Norse literature; wrote original treatises
in the same interest, and by his researches established the fact of the
discovery of America by the Norsemen in the 10th century (1796-1864).
RAGGED SCHOOLS, a name given to the charity schools which provide
education and, in most cases, food, clothing, and lodging for destitute
children; they receive no Government support. The movement had its
beginning in the magnanimous efforts of John Pounds (_d_. 1839), a
shoemaker of Portsmouth; but the zeal and eloquence of Dr. GUTHRIE
(q. v.) of Edinburgh greatly furthered the development and spread of
these schools throughout the kingdom.
RAGLAN, FITZROY SOMERSET, LORD, youngest son of the Duke of
Beaufort; entered the army at sixteen; served with distinction all
through the Peninsular War; became aide-de-camp to the Duke of
Wellington, and his military secretary; lost his right arm at Waterloo;
did diplomatic service at Paris in 1815, and held afterwards a succession
of important military posts; was appointed commander-in-chief of the
British forces in the Crimea, and was present at all the engagements till
attacked by cholera, aggravated by a repulse and unjust reflections on
his conduct of the war, he sank exhausted and died (1788-1855).
RAGMAN ROLL, the name given to a record of the acts of fealty and
homage done by the Scottish nobility and gentry in 1296 to Edward I. of
England, and of value for the list it supplies of the nobles, gentry,
burgesses, and clergy of the country at that period. The original written
rolls of parchment have perished, but an abridged form is extant, and
preserved in the Tower of London.
RAGNAROeK, in the Norse mythology the twilight of the gods, when it
was predicted "the Divine powers and the chaotic brute ones, after long
contest and partial victory by the former, should meet at last in
universal, world-embracing wrestle and duel, strength against strength,
mutually extinctive, and ruin, 'twilight' sinking into darkness, shall
swallow up the whole created universe, the old universe of the Norse
gods"; in which catastrophe Vidar and another are to be spared to found a
new heaven and a new earth, the sovereign of which shall be Justice.
"Insight this," says Carlyle, "of how, though all dies, and even gods
die, yet all death is but a Phoenix fire-death, and new birth into the
greater and the better as the fundamental law of being."
RAGUSA, a decayed Austrian city on the Dalmatian coast, fronting the
Adriatic; has interesting remains of its ancient greatness, and still
contains several fine monastic and other buildings.
RAHEL, wife of Varnhagen von Ense, born in Berlin, of Jewish
parentage; was a woman of "rare gifts, worth, and true genius, and equal
to the highest thoughts of her century," and lived in intimate relation
with all the intellectual lights of Germany at the time; worshipped at
the shrine of Goethe, and was the foster-mother of German genius
generally in her day; she did nothing of a literary kind herself; all
that remains of her gifts in that line are her Letters, published by her
husband on her death, which letters, however, are intensively subjective,
and reveal the state rather of her feelings than the thoughts of her mind
(1771-1833).
RAIKES, ROBERT, the founder of Sunday Schools, born in Gloucester;
by profession a printer; lived to see his pet institution established far
and wide over England; left a fortune for benevolent objects (1735-1811).
RAILWAY KING, name given by Sydney Smith to GEORGE HUDSON
(q. v.), the great railway speculator, who is said to have one day in
the course of his speculations realised as much in scrip as L100,000.
RAINY, ROBERT, eminent Scottish ecclesiastic, born in Glasgow;
professor of Church History and Principal in the Free Church College,
Edinburgh; an able man, a sagacious and an earnest, a distinguished
leader of the Free Church; forced into that position more by
circumstances, it is believed, than by natural inclination, and in that
situation some think more a loss than a gain to the Church catholic, to
which in heart and as a scholar he belongs; _b_. 1826.
RAJAH, a title which originally belonged to princes of the Hindu
race, who exercised sovereign rights over some tract of territory; now
applied loosely to native princes or nobles with or without territorial
lordship.
RAJMAHAL (4), an interesting old Indian town, crowns an elevated
site on the Ganges, 170 m. NW. of Calcutta; has ruins of several palaces.
RAJON, PAUL ADOLPHE, French etcher, born at Dijon; made his mark in
1866 with his "Rembrandt at Work"; carried off medals at the Salon;
visited England in 1872, and executed notable etchings of portraits of
J.S. Mill, Darwin, Tennyson, &c. (1842-1888).
RAJPUT, a name given to a Hindu of royal descent or of the high
military caste. See CASTE.
RAJPUTANA (12,016), an extensive tract of country in the NW. of
India, S. of the Punjab, embracing some twenty native States and the
British district, Ajmere-Merwara. The Aravalli Hills traverse the S.,
while the Thar or Great Indian Desert occupies the N. and W. Jodhpur is
the largest of the native territories, and the Rajputs, a proud and
warlike people are the dominant race in many of the States.
RAKOCZY MARCH, the national anthem of the Hungarians, composed about
the end of the 17th century by an unknown composer, and said to have been
the favourite march of Francis Rakoczy II. of Transylvania.
RAKSHASAS, in the Hindu mythology a species of evil spirits, akin to
ogres.
RALEIGH, SIR WALTER, courtier, soldier, and man of letters, born
near Budleigh, in E. Devon, of ancient family; entered as student at
Oxford, but at 17 joined a small volunteer force in aid of the
Protestants in France; in 1580 distinguished himself in suppressing a
rebellion in Ireland; was in 1582 introduced at court, fascinated the
heart of the Queen by his handsome presence and his gallant bearing, and
received no end of favours at her hand; joined his half-brother, Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, in an expedition to North America, founded a colony,
which he called Virginia in honour of the queen, and brought home with
him the potato and the tobacco plants, till then unknown in this country;
rendered distinguished services in the destruction of the Armada; visited
and explored Guiana, and brought back tidings of its wealth in gold and
precious things; fell into disfavour with the queen, but regained her
esteem; under King James he became suspected of disloyalty, and was
committed to the Tower, where he remained 12 years, and wrote his
"History of the World"; on his release, but without a pardon, he set out
to the Orinoco in quest of gold-mines there, but returned heart-broken
and to be sentenced to die; he met his fate with calm courage, and was
beheaded in the Old Palace Yard; of the executioner's axe he smilingly
remarked, "A sharp medicine, but an infallible cure" (1552-1618).
RALSTON, WILLIAM SHEDDEN, a noted Russian scholar and translator,
born in London; studied at Cambridge, and in 1862 was called to the bar,
but never practised; assistant in the British Museum library till 1875;
visited Russia; his works embrace "Songs of the Russian People," "Russian
Folk-Tales," &c. (1828-1889).
RAMA, in the Hindu mythology an avatar of Vishnu, being the seventh,
in the character of a hero, a destroyer of monsters and a bringer of joy,
as the name signifies, the narrative of whose exploits are given in the
"RAMAYANA" (q. v.).
RAMADAN, the ninth month of the Mohammedan year, a kind of Lent,
held sacred as a month of fasting by all Moslems, being the month in the
life of Mahomet when, as he spent it alone in meditation and prayer, his
eyes were opened to see, through the shows of things, into the one
eternal Reality, the greatness and absolute sovereignty of Allah.
RAMAYANA, one of the two great epic poems, and the best, of the
Hindus, celebrating the life and exploits of Rama, "a work of art in
which an elevated religious and moral spirit is allied with much poetic
fiction, ... written in accents of an ardent charity, of a compassion, a
tenderness, and a humility at once sweet and plaintive, which ever and
anon suggest Christian influences."
RAMBLER, a periodical containing essays by Johnson in the
_Spectator_ vein, issued in 1750-52, but written in that "stiff and
cumbrous style which," as Professor Saintsbury remarks, "has been rather
unjustly identified with Johnson's manner of writing generally."
RAMBOUILLET, MARQUISE DE, a lady of wealth and a lover of literature
and art, born in Rome, who settled in Paris, and conceiving the idea of
forming a society of her own, gathered together into her salon a select
circle of intellectual people, which, degenerating into pedantry, became
an object of general ridicule, and was dissolved at her death
(1588-1665).
RAMEAU, JEAN PHILIPPE, French composer, born at Dijon; wrote on
harmony, and, settling in Paris, composed operas, his first "Hippolyte et
Aricie," and his best "Castor et Pollux" (1683-1764).
RAMESES, the name of several ancient kings of Egypt, of which the
most famous are R. II., who erected a number of monuments in token of his
greatness, and at whose court Moses was brought up; and R. III., the
first king of the twentieth dynasty, under whose successors the power of
Egypt fell into decay.
RAMILLIES, Belgian village in Brabant, 14 m. N. of Namur; scene of
Marlborough's victory over the French under Villeroy in 1706.
RAMMOHUN ROY, a Brahman, founder of the Brahmo-Somaj, born at
Burdwan, Lower Bengal; by study of the theology of the West was led to
embrace deism, and tried to persuade his countrymen to accept the same
faith, by proofs which he advanced to show that it was the doctrine of
their own sacred books, in particular the Upanishads; with this view he
translated and published a number of texts from them in vindication of
his contention, as well as expounded his own conviction in original
treatises; in doing so he naturally became an object of attack, and was
put on his defence, which he conducted in a succession of writings that
remain models of controversial literature; died in Bristol (1772-1833).
RAMSAY, ALLAN, Scottish poet, born in Crawford, Lanarkshire; bred a
wig-maker; took to bookselling, and published his own poems, "The Gentle
Shepherd," a pastoral, among the number, a piece which describes and
depicts manners very charmingly (1686-1758).
RAMSAY, ALLAN, portrait-painter, son of preceding; studied three
years in Italy, settled in London, and was named first painter to George
III. (1715-1764).
RAMSAY, EDWARD BANNERMAN, dean of Edinburgh, born at Aberdeen,
graduated at Cambridge; held several curacies; became incumbent of St.
John's Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, in 1830, and dean of the diocese in
1840; declined a bishopric twice over; is widely known as the author of
"Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character"; was a most genial,
lovable man, a great lover of his country, and much esteemed in his day
by all the citizens of Edinburgh (1793-1872).
RAMSBOTTOM (17), a busy manufacturing town in Lancashire, on the
Irwell, 4 m. N. of Bury, engaged in cotton-weaving, calico-printing,
rope-making, &c.
RAMSDEN, JESSE, mathematical instrument-maker and inventor, born in
Yorkshire; invented the theodolite for the Ordnance Survey of Great
Britain (1735-1800).
RAMSEY, a beautifully situated, healthy watering-place, 14 m. NE. of
Douglas, in the Isle of Man.
RAMSGATE (25), a popular watering-place in the Isle of Thanet, Kent,
fronting the Downs, 72 m. E. by S. of London; has a famous harbour of
refuge; to the W. lies Pegwell Bay with Ebbsfleet.
RAMUS, PETER, or PIERRE DE LA RAMEE, a French philosopher and
humanist, son of poor parents; became a servant in the College of
Navarre; devoted his leisure to study, and became a great scholar;
attacked scholasticism in a work against Aristotle as the main pillar of
the system, and was interdicted from teaching philosophy, but the
judgment was reversed by Henry II., and he was made a royal professor; he
turned Protestant in the end, and was massacred on the eve of St.
Bartholomew (1515-1572).
RANAVALONA III., queen of Madagascar; was crowned in 1883, but her
kingdom and capital were taken from her by the French in 1893, and she is
now queen only in name; _b_. 1861.
RANCHING, a term of Spanish derivation applied to the business of
rearing cattle, as carried on in the southern and western States of
America; vast herds of cattle in a half-wild condition are raised on the
wide stretches of prairie land, and are tended by "cowboys," whose free,
adventurous life attracts men of all sorts and conditions.
RANDALL, JAMES RYDER, American journalist; author of "Maryland, my
Maryland," "Stonewall Jackson," and other popular lyrics, which greatly
heartened the Southern cause in the Civil War; born in Baltimore; engaged
in teaching till he took to journalism; _b_. 1839.
RANDOLPH, JOHN, a noted eccentric American politician, born at
Cawsons, Virginia; entered Congress in 1799, and held a commanding
position there as leader of the Democratic party; was a witty, sarcastic
speaker; sat in the Senate from 1825 to 1827, and in 1830 was Minister to
Russia; liberated and provided for his slaves (1773-1833).
RANDOLPH, SIR THOMAS, English diplomatist, was sent on diplomatic
missions by Queen Elizabeth, and particularly mixed up in Scotch
intrigues, and had to flee from Scotland for his life; left Memoirs
(1523-1590).
RANDOLPH, THOMAS, English poet, wrote odes and sundry dramas, of
which the "Muses' Looking-Glass" and "Amyntas" are the best, though not
absolutely good (1605-1634).
RANEE, name given to a Hindu princess or queen; a rajah's wife.
RANELAGH, a place of resort in grounds at Chelsea of people of
fashion during the last half of the 18th century, with a promenade where
music and dancing were the chief attractions.
RANGOON (180), capital and chief port of British Burmah, situated 20
m. inland from the Gulf of Martaban, on the Hlaing or Rangoon River, the
eastmost of the delta streams of the Irrawaddy; British since 1852; a
well-appointed city of modern appearance, strongly fortified; contains
the famous Shway-Dagon pagoda erected in the 6th century B.C.; has
extensive docks, and negotiates the vast bulk of Burmese exports and
imports; the former include teak, gums, spices, and rice.
RANJIT SINGH, the maharajah of the Sikhs, after taking possession of
Lahore, became undisputed master of the Punjab, and imposed on his
subjects the monarchical form of government, which was shattered to
fragments after his death; he was the possessor of the Koh-i-Nur diamond
(1797-1839).
RANJITSINHJI, Indian prince, born at Sarodar; studied at Cambridge;
devoted himself to cricket, and became famous for his brilliant play;
_b_. 1872.
RANKE, LEOPOLD VON, distinguished German historian, born in
Thueringia just 16 days after Thomas Carlyle; began life similarly as a
teacher and devoted his leisure hours to the study of history and the
publication of historical works; was in 1825 appointed professor of
History at Berlin; was commissioned by the Prussian government to explore
the historical archives of Vienna, Rome, and Venice, the fruit of which
was seen in his subsequent historical labours, which bore not only upon
the critical periods of German history, but those of Italy, France, and
even England; of his numerous works, all founded on the impartial study
of facts, it is enough to mention here his "History of the Popes in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" and his "German History in the Times
of the Reformation" (1795-1886).
RANKINE, W. J. MACQUORN, mathematician and physicist, born in
Edinburgh; devoted himself to engineering, and held the chair of
Engineering in Glasgow University; wrote extensively on mathematical and
physical subjects, both theoretical and practical (1820-1872).
RANNOCH, an elevated, dreary moorland in NW. of Perthshire, crossed
by the West Highland Railway; Lochs Rannoch and Tummel lie to the E. and
Loch Lydoch in the W.
RANTERS, a name given to the Primitive Methodists who seceded from
the Wesleyan body on account of a deficiency of zeal.
RANZ DES VACHES, a simple melody, played on the horn by the Swiss
Alpine herdsmen as they drive their cattle to or from the pasture, and
which, when played in foreign lands, produces on a Swiss an almost
irrepressible yearning for home.
RAPE OF THE LOCK, a dainty production of Pope's, pronounced by
Stopford Brooke to be "the most brilliant occasional poem in the
language."
RAPHAEL, one of the seven archangels and the guardian of mankind,
conducted Tobias to the country of the Medes and aided him in capturing
the miraculous fish, an effigies of which, as also a pilgrim's staff, is
an attribute of the archangel.
RAPHAEL, SANTI, celebrated painter, sculptor, and architect, born at
Urbino, son of a painter; studied under Perugino for several years,
visited Florence in 1504, and chiefly lived there till 1508, when he was
called to Rome by Pope Julius II., where he spent the rest of his short
life and founded a school, several of the members of which became eminent
in art; he was one of the greatest of artists, and his works were
numerous and varied, which included frescoes, cartoons, madonnas,
portraits, easel pictures, drawings, &c., besides sculpture and
architectural designs, and all within the brief period of 37 years; he
had nearly finished "The Transfiguration" when he died of fever caught in
the excavations of Rome; he was what might be called a learned artist,
and his works were the fruits of the study of the masters that preceded
him, particularly Perugino and the Florentines, and only in the end might
his work be called his own; it is for this reason that modern
Pre-Raphaelitism is so called, as presumed to be observant of the simple
dictum of Ruskin, "Look at Nature with your own eyes, and paint only what
yourselves see" (1483-1520). See PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
RAPIN DE THOYRAS, French historian, born at Castres; driven from
France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in Holland, came
over to England with and served under the Prince of Orange, withdrew to
Holland and wrote a "History of England," deservedly much in repute for
long, if not still (1661-1725).
RAPP, GEORGE, German fanatic, born in Wuertemberg, emigrated to
America, and founded a fraternity called Harmonites, who by tillage of
land on the Ohio and otherwise amassed great wealth, to be kept in store
for the service of Christ at His second coming (1770-1847).
RAPP, JEAN, French general, born at Colmar; served under Napoleon
with distinction all through his wars, held Danzig for a whole year
against a powerful Russian army, was kept prisoner by the Russians after
surrender, returned to France, and submitted to Louis XVIII. after
Waterloo (1772-1821).
RAPPAHANNOCK, a navigable river of Virginia State, rises in the
Alleghanies, and after a course of 125 m. to the SE. discharges into
Chesapeake Bay.
RASHI, a Jewish scholar and exegete, born at Troyes; was an expert
in all departments of Jewish lore as contained in both the Scriptures and
the Talmud, and indulged much in the favourite Rabbinical allegorical
style of interpretation (1040-1105).
RASK, RASMUS CHRISTIAN, Danish philologist, born near Odense;
studied first the primitive languages of the North, chiefly Icelandic,
and then those of the East, and published the results of his researches
both by his writings and as professor of Oriental Languages and of
Icelandic in the university of Copenhagen (1787-1832).
RASKOLINK (lit. a separatist), in Russia a sect, of which there
are many varieties, of dissenters from the Greek Church.
RASPAIL, FRANCOIS VINCENT, French chemist, physiologist, and
socialist; got into trouble both under Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon
for his political opinions (1794-1878).
RASSAM, HORMUZD, Assyriologist, born at Mosul; assisted Layard in
his explorations at Nineveh, and was subsequently, under support from
Britain, engaged in further explorations both there and elsewhere; being
sent on a mission to Abyssinia, was put in prison and only released after
the defeat of Theodore; _b_. 1826.
RASSELAS, a quasi-novel written in 1759 by Johnson to pay the
expenses of his mother's funeral, the subject of which is an imaginary
prince of Abyssinia, and its aim a satire in sombre vein on human life.
RASTATT or RASTADT (12), a town in Baden, on the Murg, 15 m.
SW. of Carlsruhe; is fortified, and manufactures hardware, beer, and
tobacco.
RATANA, a brandy flavoured with kernels of fruits.
RATHLIN (1), a picturesque, cliff-girt island (61/2 by 1-1/3 m.) off
the N. coast of Antrim; fishing is the chief industry; has interesting
historical associations.
RATICH, WOLFGANG, German educationalist, born in Wilster (Holstein);
a forerunner of Comenius; his theory of education, which in his hands
proved a failure, was based on Baconian principles; proceeded from things
to names, and from the mother tongue to foreign ones (1571-1635).
RATIONAL HORIZON, a great circle parallel to the horizon, the centre
of which is the centre of the earth.
RATIONALISM, MODERN, a speculative point of view that resolves the
supernatural into the natural, inspiration into observation, and
revelation into what its adherents called reason, when they mean simply
understanding, and which ends in stripping us naked, and leaving us empty
of all the spiritual wealth accumulated by the wise in past ages, and
bequeathed to us as an inheritance that had cost them their life's blood.
RATISBON or REGENSBURG (38), one of the oldest and most
interesting of German towns in Bavaria, on the Danube, 82 m. NE. of
Muenich; has a quaint and mediaeval appearance, with Gothic buildings and
winding streets; associated with many stirring historical events; till
1806 the seat of the imperial diet; does an active trade in salt and
corn, and manufactures porcelain, brass, steel, and other wares.
RATTAZZI, URBANO, Italian statesman, born at Alessandria; was leader
of the extreme party in the Sardinian Chamber in 1849, and was several
times minister, but was unstable in his politics (1808-1873).
RAUCH, CHRISTIAN, eminent Prussian sculptor, born in Waldeck;
patronised by royalty; studied at Rome under Thorwaldsen and Canova;
resided chiefly in Berlin; executed statues of Bluecher, Duerer, Goethe,
Schiller, and others, as well as busts; his masterpiece is a colossal
monument in Berlin of Frederick the Great (1777-1857).
RAUHES HAUS ("Rough House"), a remarkable institution for the
reclamation and training of neglected children, founded (1831), and for
many years managed by Johann Heinrich Wichern at Hoon, near Hamburg; it
is affiliated to the German Home Mission.
RAUMER, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG GEORG VON, German historian; was professor
of History at Berlin; wrote the "History of the Hohenstaufen and their
Times," and a "History of Europe from the End of the 15th Century"
(1781-1873).
RAVAILLAC, FRANCOIS, the assassin of Henry IV., born at Angouleme; a
Roman Catholic fanatic, who regarded the king as the arch-enemy of the
Church, and stabbed him to the heart as he sat in his carriage; was
instantly seized, subjected to torture, and had his body torn by horses
limb from limb (1578-1640).
RAVANA, in the Hindu mythology the king of the demons, who carried
off Sita, the wife of Rama, to Ceylon, which, with the help of the
monkey-god Hanuman, and a host of quadrumana, Rama invaded and conquered,
slaying his wife's ravisher, and bringing her off safe, a story which
forms the subject of the Hindu epic, "Ramayana."
RAVENNA (12), a venerable walled city of Italy; once a seaport, now
5 m. inland from the Adriatic, and 43 m. E. of Bologna; was capital of
the Western Empire for some 350 years; a republic in the Middle Ages, and
a papal possession till 1860; especially rich in monuments and buildings
of early Christian art; has also picture gallery, museum, library,
leaning tower, etc.; manufactures silk, linen, paper, etc.
RAVENNA, EXARCH OF, the viceroy of the Byzantine Empire in Italy
while the latter was a dependency of the former, and who resided at
Ravenna.
RAVENSCROFT, THOMAS, musical composer, born in London; was a
chorister in St. Paul's Cathedral; composed many part-songs, etc., but is
chiefly remembered for his "Book of Psalmes," which he edited and partly
composed; some of the oldest and best known Psalms (e. g. Bangor, St
David's) are by him (1592-1640).
RAVENSWOOD, a Scottish Jacobite, the hero of Scott's "Bride of
Lammermoor."
RAVIGNAN, GUSTAVE DELACROIX DE, a noted Jesuit preacher, born at
Bayonne; won wide celebrity by his powerful preaching in Notre Dame,
Paris; wrote books in defence of his order (1795-1858).
RAWAL PINDI (74), a trading and military town in the Punjab, 160 m.
NW. of Lahore; has an arsenal, fort, etc., and is an important centre for
the Afghanistan and Cashmere trades.
RAWLINSON, GEORGE, Orientalist, brother of following, Canon of
Canterbury; has written extensively on Eastern and Biblical subjects:
_b_. 1815.
RAWLINSON, SIR HENRY, Assyriologist, born in Oxfordshire; entered
the Indian Army in 1827; held several diplomatic posts, particularly in
Persia; gave himself to the study of cuneiform inscriptions, and became
an authority in the rendering of them and matters relative (1810-1895).
RAY, JOHN, English naturalist, born in Essex; studied at Cambridge;
travelled extensively collecting specimens in the departments of both
botany and zoology, and classifying them, and wrote works on both as well
as on theology (1628-1705).
RAYLEIGH, LORD, physicist, was senior wrangler at Cambridge; is
professor of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution; author of "The
Theory of Sound"; discovered, along with Professor Ramsay, "argon" in the
atmosphere; _b_. 1842.
RAYMOND, name of a succession of Counts of Toulouse, in France,
seven in number, of which the fourth count, from 1088 to 1105, was a
leader in the first crusade, and the sixth, who became Count in 1194, was
stripped of his estate by Simon de Montfort.
RAYNAL, THE ABBE, French philosopher; wrote "Histoire des Indes" and
edited "Philosophic History," distinguished for its "lubricity,
unveracity, loose, loud eleutheromaniac rant," saw it burnt by the common
hangman, and his wish fulfilled as a "martyr" to liberty (1713-1796).
RAYNOUARD, FRANCOIS, French litterateur and philologist, born in
Provence; was of the Girondist party at the time of the Revolution, and
imprisoned; wrote poems and tragedies, but eventually gave himself up to
the study of the language and literature of Provence (1761-1836).
RE, ISLE OF (16), small island, 18 m. by 3, off the French coast,
opposite La Rochelle; salt manufacturing chief industry; also oysters and
wine are exported. Chief town, St. Martin (2).
READE, CHARLES, English novelist, born at Ipsden, in Oxfordshire;
studied at Oxford; became a Fellow of Magdalen College, and was called to
the bar in 1842; began his literary life by play-writing; studied the art
of fiction for 15 years, and first made his mark as novelist in 1852,
when he was nearly 40, by the publication of "Peg Woffington," which was
followed in 1856 by "It is Never too Late to Mend," and in 1861 by "The
Cloister and the Hearth," the last his best and the most popular; several
of his later novels are written with a purpose, such as "Hard Cash" and
"Foul Play"; his most popular plays are "Masks and Faces" and "Drink"
(1814-1884).
READING (61), capital of Berkshire, on the Kennet, 36 m. N. of
London; a town of considerable historic interest; was ravaged by the
Danes; has imposing ruins of a 12th-century Benedictine abbey, &c.; was
besieged and taken by Essex in the Civil War (1643); birthplace of
Archbishop Laud; has an important agricultural produce-market, and its
manufactures include iron-ware, paper, sauce, and biscuits.
READING (79), capital of Berks Co., Pennsylvania, on the Schuylkill
River, 58 m. NW. of Philadelphia; has flourishing iron and steel works;
population includes a large German settlement.
REAL, an old Spanish silver coin still in use in Spain, Mexico, and
some other of the old Spanish colonies, also is a money of account in
Portugal; equals one-fourth of the _peseta_, and varies in value from 21/2
d. to 5d. with the rise and fall of exchange.
REAL, a legal term in English law applied to property of a permanent
or immovable kind, e. g. land, to distinguish it from _personal_ or
movable property.
REAL PRESENCE, the assumed presence, really and substantially, in
the bread and wine of the Eucharist of the body and blood, the soul and
divinity, of Christ, a doctrine of the Romish and certain other Churches.
REALISM, as opposed to Nominalism, is the belief that general terms
denote real things and are not mere names or answerable to the mere
conception of them, and as opposed to idealism, is in philosophy the
belief that we have an immediate cognition of things external to us, and
that they are as they seem. In art and literature it is the tendency to
conceive and represent things as they are, however unsightly and immoral
they may be, without any respect to the beautiful, the true, or the good.
In Ruskin's teaching mere realism is not art; according to him art is
concerned with the rendering and portrayal of ideals.
REALM, ESTATES OF THE, the Sovereign, the House of Lords, and the
House of Commons in Great Britain.
REAL-SCHULE, a German school in which languages, sciences, and arts
are taught to qualify for apprenticeship in some special business or
craft.
REASON, in philosophy is more than mere understanding or reasoning
power; it is the constitutive and regulative soul of the universe assumed
to live and breathe in the inner life or soul of man, as that develops
itself in the creations of human genius working in accord with and
revealing the deep purpose of the Maker.
REASON, in German _Vernunft_, defined by Dr. Stirling "the faculty
that unites and brings together, as against the understanding," in German
_Verstand_, "the faculty that separates, and only in separation knows,"
and that is synthetic of the whole, whereof the latter is merely analytic
of the parts, sundered from the whole, and without idea of the whole, the
former being the faculty which construes the diversity of the universe
into a unity or the one, whereas the latter dissolves the unity into
diversity or the many.
REASON, GODDESS OF, a Mrs. Momoro, wife of a bookseller in Paris,
who, on the 10th November 1793, in the church of Notre Dame, represented
what was called Reason, but was only scientific analysis, which the
revolutionaries of France proposed, through her representing such, to
install as an object of worship to the dethronement of the Church,
_l'infame_.
REAUMUR, French scientist, born in La Rochelle; made valuable
researches and discoveries in the industrial arts as well as in natural
history; is best known as the inventor of the thermometer that bears his
name, which is graduated into 80 degrees from the temperature of melting
ice to that of boiling water (1683-1757).
REBECCA THE JEWESS, a high-souled Hebrew maiden, who is the heroine
in Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe."
REBECCAITES, a band of Welsh rioters who in 1843, dressed as
females, went about at nights and destroyed the toll-gates, which were
outrageously numerous; they took their name from Gen. xxiv. 60.
REBELLION, name of two risings of Jacobites in Scotland to restore
the exiled Stuart dynasty to the throne, one in behalf of the Pretender
in 1715, headed by the Earl of Mar, and defeated at Sheriffmuir, and the
other in behalf of the Young Chevalier, and defeated at Culloden in April
1746.
RECAMIR, MADAME, Frenchwoman, born at Lyons; became at 15 the wife
of a rich banker In Paris thrice her own age; was celebrated for her wit
her beauty, and her salon; was a friend of Madame de Stael and
Chateaubriand, whom she soothed in his declining years, and a good woman
(1777-1849).
RECANATI (6), a pretty Italian town, 15 m. S. of the Adriatic port
Ancona, the birthplace of Leopardi; has a Gothic cathedral.
RECENSION, the name given to the critical revision of the text of an
author, or the revised text itself.
RECHABITES, a tribe of Arab origin and Bedouin habits who attached
themselves to the Israelites in the wilderness and embraced the Jewish
faith, but retained their nomadic ways; they abstained from all strong
drink, according to a vow they had made to their chief, which they could
not be tempted to break, an example which Jeremiah in vain pleaded with
the Jews to follow in connection with their vow to the Lord (See Jer.
xxxv.).
RECIDIVISTS, a name applied to the class of habitual delinquents or
criminals of France.
RECIPROCITY, a term used in economics to describe commercial
treaties entered into by two countries, by which it is agreed that, while
a strictly protective tariff is maintained as regards other countries,
certain articles shall be allowed to pass between the two contracting
countries free of or with only light duties; this is the cardinal
principle of Fair Trade, and is so far opposed to Free Trade.
RECLUS, ELISEE, a celebrated French geographer; from his extreme
democratic opinions left France In 1851, lived much in exile, and spent
much time in travel; wrote "Geographie Universelle," in 14 vols., his
greatest work; _b_. 1830.
RECORDE, ROBERT, mathematician, born in Pembroke; a physician by
profession, and physician to Edward VI. and Queen Mary; his works on
arithmetic, algebra, &c., were written in the form of question and
answer; died in the debtors' prison (1500-1558).
RECORDER, an English law official, the chief Judicial officer of a
city or borough; discharges the functions of judge at the
Quarter-Sessions of his district; must be a barrister of at least five
years' standing; is appointed by the Crown, but paid by the local
authority; is debarred from sitting on the licensing bench, but is not
withheld from practising at the bar; the sheriff in Scotland is a similar
official.
RECTOR, a clergyman of the Church of England, who has a right to the
great and small tithes of the living; where the tithes are impropriate he
is called a vicar.
RECUSANTS, a name given to persons who refused to attend the
services of the Established Church, on whom legal penalties were first
imposed in Elizabeth's reign, that bore heavily upon Catholics and
Dissenters; the Toleration Act of William III. relieved the latter, but
the Catholics were not entirely emancipated till 1829.
RED CROSS KNIGHT, St. George, the patron saint of England, and the
type and the symbol of justice and purity at feud with injustice and
impurity.
RED CROSS SOCIETY, an internationally-recognised society of
volunteers to attend to the sick and wounded in time of war, so called
from the members of it wearing the badge of St. George.
RED REPUBLICANS, a party in France who, at the time of the
Revolution of 1848, aimed at a reorganisation of the State on a general
partition of Property.
RED RIVER, an important western tributary of the Mississippi; flows
E. and SE. through Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana; has a course of 1600
m. till it joins the Mississippi; is navigable for 350 m.
RED RIVER OF THE NORTH, flows out of Elbow Lake, Minnesota; forms
the boundary between North Dakota and Minnesota, and flowing through
Manitoba, falls into Lake Winnipeg after a course of 665 m.; is a
navigable river.
Back to Full Books
|