The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 383

ROWLANDSON, THOMAS, caricaturist, born in London; studied art in Paris; gambled and lived extravagantly; led a roving life in England and Wales; displayed great versatility and strength in his artistic work, _e.

g_. in "Imitations of Modern Drawings," ill.u.s.trations to Sterne's "Sentimental Journey," "Munchausen's Travels," &c.; ridiculed Napoleon in many cartoons (1756-1827).

ROWLEY REGIS (31), a flourishing town of Staffordshire, 3 m. SE. of Dudley; has large iron-works, potteries, &c.

ROWTON HEATH, in the vicinity of Chester, scene of a great Parliamentary victory over the forces of Charles I. in September 1645.

ROXBURGHSHIRE (54), in Border pastoral county of Scotland, between Berwick (NE.) and Dumfries (SW.); the Cheviots form its southern boundary; lies almost wholly within the basin of the Tweed, which winds along its northern border, receiving the Teviot, Jed, &c.; includes the fine pastoral districts of Teviotdale and Liddesdale, where vast flocks of sheep are reared; agriculture and woollen manufactures are important industries; Hawick is the largest town, and Jedburgh the county town; near Kelso stood the royal castle and town of Roxburgh, which gave its name to the county, destroyed in 1460.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS, in London; was inst.i.tuted in 1768 by George III. as a result of a memorial presented to him by 29 members who had seceded from "The Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain"

(founded 1765); for some years received grants from the privy purse, and was provided with rooms in Somerset House; removed to Trafalgar Square in 1836, and to its present quarters at Burlington House in 1869; receives now no public grant; holds yearly exhibitions, and supports an art school; membership comprises 42 Royal Academicians, besides a.s.sociates.

The present President is Sir Edward John Poynter. The Royal Hibernian Academy (founded 1823) and the Scottish Academy (1826) are similar inst.i.tutions.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, THE, was incorporated by royal charter in 1783 through the efforts of Robertson the historian, and superseded the old Philosophical Society; held fortnightly meetings (December till June) in the Royal Inst.i.tution; receives a grant of 300; publishes _Transactions_; has a membership of some 550, including foreign and British Fellows.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, incorporated by royal charter in 1662, but owing its origin to the informal meetings about 1645 of a group of scientific men headed by Theodore Haak, a German, Dr. Wilkins, and others; in 1665 the first number of their _Philosophical Transactions_ was published which, with the supplementary publication, _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, begun in 1800, const.i.tute an invaluable record of the progress of science to the present day; encouragement is given to scientific investigation by awards of medals (Copley, Davy, Darwin, &c.), the equipping of scientific expeditions (e. g. the _Challenger_), &c.; weekly meetings are held at Burlington House (quarters since 1857) during the session (November till June); membership comprises some 500 Fellows, including 40 foreigners; receives a parliamentary grant of 4000 a year, and acts in an informal way as scientific adviser to Government.

ROYAN (6), a pretty seaside town of France, on the estuary of the Gironde, 60 m. NW. of Bordeaux; trebles its population in the summer.

ROYER-COLLARD, PIERRE PAUL, politician and philosopher, born at Sompuis; called to the Paris bar at 20; supported the Revolution, but refused to follow the Jacobins, and during the Reign of Terror sought shelter in his native town; was elected to the Council of the Five Hundred in 1797, retired in 1804, and betook himself to philosophic studies; became professor of Philosophy in Paris 1811, and exercised great influence; re-entered political life in 1815, and was actively engaged in administrative work till his retirement in 1842; was all through his life a doctrinaire and rather unpractical (1763-1842).

ROYTON (13), a busy cotton town in Lancashire, 2 m. NW. of Oldham.

RUABON (18), a mining town in Denbighshire, 4 m. SW. of Wrexham; has collieries and iron-works.

RUBENS, PETER PAUL, the greatest of the Flemish painters, born at Siegen, in Westphalia; came with his widowed mother in 1587 to Antwerp, where he sedulously cultivated the painter's art, and early revealed his masterly gift of colouring; went to Italy, and for a number of years was in the service of the Duke of Mantua, who encouraged him in his art, and employed him on a diplomatic mission to Philip III. of Spain; executed at Madrid some of his finest portraits; returned to Antwerp in 1609; completed in 1614 his masterpiece, "The Descent from the Cross," in Antwerp Cathedral; with the aid of a.s.sistants he painted the series of 21 pictures, now in the Louvre, ill.u.s.trating the princ.i.p.al events in the life of Maria de' Medici during 1628-1629; diplomatic missions engaged him at the Spanish and English Courts, where his superabundant energy enabled him to execute many paintings for Charles I.--e. g. "War and Peace," in the National Gallery--and Philip IV.; was knighted by both; in all that pertains to chiaroscuro, colouring, and general technical skill Rubens is unsurpa.s.sed, and in expressing particularly the "tumult and energy of human action," but he falls below the great Italian artists in the presentation of the deeper and sublimer human emotions; was a scholarly, refined man, an excellent linguist, and a successful diplomatist; was twice married; died at Antwerp, and was buried in the Church of St. Jacques; his tercentenary was celebrated in 1877 (1577-1640).

RUBICON, a famous river of Italy, a.s.sociated with Julius Caesar, now identified with the modern Fiumecino, a mountain torrent which springs out of the eastern flank of the Apennines and enters the Adriatic N. of Ariminum; marked the boundary line between Roman Italy and Cisalpine Gaul, a province administered by Caesar; when he crossed it in 49 B.C. it was tantamount to a declaration of war against the Republic, hence the expression "to cross the Rubicon" is applied to the decisive step in any adventurous undertaking.

RUBINSTEIN, ANTON, a famous Russian pianist and composer, born, of Jewish parents, near Ja.s.sy, in Moldavia; studied at Moscow, under Liszt in Paris, and afterwards at Berlin and Vienna; established himself at St.

Petersburg in 1848 as a music-teacher; became director of the Conservatoire there; toured for many years through Europe and the United States, achieving phenomenal success; resumed his directorship at St.

Petersburg in 1887; composed operas (e. g. "The Maccabees," "The Demon"), symphonies (e. g. "Ocean"), sacred operas (e. g. "Paradise Lost"), chamber music, and many exquisite songs; as a pianist he was a master of technique and expression; was enn.o.bled by the Czar in 1869; published an autobiography; his works as well as his performances display both vigour and sensibility (1829-1894).

RUBRICS, a name, as printed originally in red ink, applied to the rules and instructions given in the liturgy of the Prayer-Book for regulating the conduct of divine service, hence applied in a wider significance to any fixed ecclesiastical or other injunction or order; was used to designate the headings or t.i.tle of chapters of certain old law-books and MSS., formerly but not now necessarily printed in red characters.

RUBY, a gem which in value and hardness ranks next to the diamond; is dichroic, of greater specific gravity than any other gem, and belongs to the hexagonal system of crystals; is a pellucid, ruddy-tinted stone, and, like the sapphire, a variety of corundum, also found (but rarely) in violet, pink, and purple tints; the finest specimens come from Upper Burmah; these are the true Oriental rubies, and when above 5 carats exceed in value, weight for weight, diamonds; the Spinel ruby is the commoner jeweller's stone; is of much less value, specific gravity and hardness, non-dichroic, and forms a cubical crystal.

RuCKERT, FRIEDRICH, German poet, born at Schweinfurt, in Bavaria; at Wurzburg University showed his talent for languages, and early devoted himself to philology and poetry; was for 15 years professor of Oriental Languages at Erlangen; introduced German readers, by excellent translations, to Eastern poetry; filled for some time the chair of Oriental Languages in Berlin; takes rank as a lyrist of no mean powers; essayed unsuccessfully dramatic composition (1788-1866).

RUDDIMAN, THOMAS, author of a well-known Latin grammar, a Banffshire man, and graduate of Aberdeen University; was school-mastering at Laurencekirk, where his scholarly attainments won him an a.s.sistantship in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; spent a busy life in that; city in scholarly occupation, editing many learned works, the most notable being Buchanan's works and the "immaculate" edition of Livy; his famous Latin grammar was completed in 1732; in 1730 became princ.i.p.al keeper of the Advocates' Library (1674-1757).

RUDOLF I., of the House of Hapsburg, founder of the Austrian dynasty; born, the son of a count, at Schloss Limburg (Breisgau); greatly increased his father's domain by marriage, inheritance, and conquest, becoming the most powerful prince in S. Germany; acquired a remarkable ascendency among the German princes, and was elevated to the imperial throne in 1273, and by friendly concessions to the Pope, Gregory IX., terminated the long struggle between the Church and the empire; shattered the opposition of Ottocar, king of Bohemia, and brought peace and order to Germany (1218-1291).

RUDOLF II., German Emperor, son of Maximilian II., born at Vienna; became king of Hungary in 1573, and of Bohemia three years later; ascended the imperial throne in 1576; indolent and incapable, he left the empire to the care of worthless ministers; disorder and foreign invasion speedily followed; persecution inflamed the Protestants; by 1611 his brother Matthias, supported by other kinsmen, had wrested Hungary and Bohemia from him; had a taste for astrology and alchemy, and patronised Kepler and Tycho Brahe (1552-1612).

RUDOLF LAKE, in British East Africa, close to the highlands of S.

Ethiopia, practically an inland sea, being 160 m. long and 20 broad, and brackish in taste; discovered in 1888.

RUDRA, in the Hindu mythology the old deity of the storm, and father of the Marutz.

RUGBY (11), a town in Warwickshire, at the junction of the Swift and the Avon, 83 m. NW. of London; an important railway centre and seat of a famous public school founded in 1567, of which DR. ARNOLD (q. v.), and Archbishops Tait and Temple were famous head-masters, is one of the first public schools in England, and scholars number about 450.

RUGE, ARNOLD, a German philosophical and political writer, born at Bergen (Rugen); showed a philosophic bent at Jena; was implicated in the political schemes of the BURSCHENSCHAFT (q. v.), and was imprisoned for six years; taught for some years in Halle University, but got into trouble through the radical tone of his writings in the _Halle Review_ (founded by himself and another), and went to Paris; was prominent during the political agitation of 1848, and subsequently sought refuge in London, where for a short time he acted in consort with Mazzini and others; retired to Brighton, and ultimately received a pension from the Prussian Government; his numerous plays, novels, translations, &c., including a lengthy autobiography, reveal a mind scarcely gifted enough to grasp firmly and deeply the complicated problems of sociology and politics; is characterised by Dr. Stirling as the "bold and brilliant Ruge"; began, he says, as an expounder of Hegel, and "finished off as translator into German of that 'hollow make-believe of windy conceit,' he calls it, Buckle's 'Civilisation in England'" (1802-1880).

RuGEN (45), a deeply-indented island of Germany, in the Baltic, separated from the Pomeranian coast by a channel (Strela Sund) about a mile broad; the soil is fertile, and fishing is actively engaged in.

Bergen (4) is the capital.

RUHR, an affluent of the Rhine, which joins it at Ruhrort after a course of 142 m.; navigable to craft conveying the product of the coal-mines to the Rhine.

RULE OF FAITH, the name given to the ultimate authority or standard in religious belief, such as the Bible alone, as among Protestants; the Bible and the Church, as among Romanists; reason alone, as among rationalists; the inner light of the spirit, as among mystics.

RUM, a mountainous, forest-clad island in one of the Inner Hebrides, lies 15 m. off Ardnamurchan Point; a handful of inhabitants cultivate a very small portion of it; the rest is mountain, wood, and moorland; forms a deer-forest.

RUMFORD, COUNT, Benjamin Thompson, soldier, philanthropist, and physicist, born at Woburn, Ma.s.sachusetts; a fortunate marriage lifted him into affluence, relieving him from the necessity of teaching; fought on the British side during the American War; became a lieutenant-colonel, and for important services was knighted in 1782 on his return to England; entered the Bavarian service, and carried through a series of remarkable reforms, such as the suppression of mendicity, the amelioration of the poorer cla.s.ses by the spread of useful knowledge, culinary, agricultural, &c.; was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and placed in charge of the War Department of Bavaria; was a generous patron of science in England and elsewhere; retired from the Bavarian service in 1799, and five years later married the widow of Lavoisier the chemist; his later years were spent in retirement in a village near Paris, where he devoted himself to physical research, especially as regards heat (1753-1814).

RUMP, THE, name of contempt given to the remnant of the Long Parliament in 1659.

RUNCORN (20), a flourishing river-port of Cheshire, on the Mersey, 12 m. SE. of Liverpool, at the terminus of the Bridgewater Ca.n.a.l; is an old place dating back to the 10th century; has excellent docks; industries embrace shipbuilding, iron-founding, &c.