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the occupation of his mere bye hours and times of leisure. The main effort of his life was directed to painting, a pursuit which, as he was never weary of impressing on younger artists, was enough to occupy a man's whole time, even were it longer than it is, and to call forth his utmost energy. The unceasing application, perseverance, and assiduity which form the recurrent burden of Reynold's discourses found the most complete illustration in his own career. He laid it down as a distinct principle that each fresh portrait to which he set his hand should excel the last, and no effort was wanting to realize this aim. In his search for perfection he would paint and repaint a subject; when a visitor asked how a certain portion of the infant Hercules had been executed, he replied, "How can I tell! There are ten pictures below this, some better, some worse.' A method like this contrasts curiously with the swift certainty of Gainsborough's practice, but it must be confessed that the productions of Reynolds have an abiding charm that is wanting in the exquisite but slighter and more mannered work of his great rival. In range, too, of subject, as well as of method, the art of Sir Joshua has by far the wider reach. "How various the man is," said Gainsborough once, after he had been examining the president's portraits hung in an Academy exhibition; and the remark gains an added point and emphasis when we compare the paintings of Reynolds with Gainsborough's own.

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In the work which the painter produced shortly after his return from Italy-in the Lady Cathcart and her Daughter of 1755, the Lady Elizabeth Montague and the George, Earl of Warwick, of 1756, and the Countess of Hyndford of 1757-we find a certain dignity and elegance of pose and arrangement which bears witness to his foreign studies, joined to some coldness of colour, hardness of execution, and insistance on definiteness of outline, which contrasts with the sweet felicity and tenderness of his fully developed manner, with its perfect colour, and its form which is lost and found again in an exquisite mystery. But soon all that is tentative and immature disappears from his works. In 1758 we have the gracious and winning full-length of Elizabeth Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton, and the stately Duke of Cumberland, followed in 1760 by the Kitty Fisher, and a host of admirable portraits in which the men and women and children of the time live still before our eyes, each possessed with a nameless dignity, or grace, or sweetness. As the artist advanced towards old age his hand only gained in power, his colour in richness and splendour; his works show no decadence till the day when he finally laid aside his brush. We have nothing finer from his hand than the Mrs Nesbitt as Circe of 1781, the Mrs Siddons as The Tragic Muse of 1784, the Duchess of Devonshire and her Child of 1786, and the Infant Hercules and the Miss Gawtkin as Simplicity of 1788.

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In the midst of his constant practice as a portrait-painter Reynolds was true to his early admiration of "the grand style,' to his veneration for the old masters of Italy, to his belief that the imaginative paths which these men pursued were the highest ways of art. At the conclusion of his last Academy discourse, while speaking of Michelangelo, he breaks forth with uncontrollable emotion, "Were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master; to kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man.'

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From the Italians Reynolds conveyed into his own portraitsubjects a dignity and a grace, along with a power of colour, which were previously unknown in English art; but he essayed also to follow them into their own exalted and imaginative paths, to paint Holy Families and Nativities, to picture the cardinal virtues, and to realize the conceptions of the poets. But the English portraitpainter wanted the visionary power necessary for such tasks; his productions of this class form the least interesting portion of his work. They are most successful when the symbolism and the allegory in them are of the slightest, when the human element is the main attraction, when he paints as cherub faces five different views of the countenance of one living English girl, or titles as "Simplicity" his portrait of Offy Gawtkin or as "Hebe" his portrait of Miss Meyer. His series of "The Virtues," designed for the window of New College, Oxford, show simply studies of graceful women, lightly draped, and pleasantly posed. His Macbeth and his Cardinal Beaufort have no real impressiveness, no true terror; and the finest of the subjects that he painted for Boydell's Shakespeare is the Puck, in which the artist's inspiration was caught, not from the realms of imagination or fancy, but from observation of the child nature which he knew and loved.

Much has been said regarding the recklessness and want of care for permanency which characterized the technical methods of Sir Joshua. While he insisted that his pupils should follow only such ways of work as were well known and had been tested by time, he was himself most varying and unsettled in his practice. In his earnest desire for excellence he tried all known processes, and made all kinds of fantastic experiments. He was firmly convinced that the old masters were possessed of technical secrets which had been lost in later times, and he even scraped the surfaces from portions of valuable works by Titian and Rubens in the vain attempt to

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probe the mystery. In his efforts to attain the utmost possible power and brilliancy of hue he made use of pigments which are admittedly the reverse of stable and permanent, he worked with dangerous vehicles, he employed both colours and varnishes which in combination are antagonistic. Orpiment was mingled with white lead; wax-medium, egg-varnish, and asphaltum were freely used; and, when we read the account of his strangely hap-hazard methods, we are ready to echo Haydon's exclamation-"The wonder is that the picture did not crack beneath the brush!" and are prepared for such a sight of the vanishing ghosts of masterpieces as was afforded by so many works in the Reynolds Exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884. Our only consolation lies in the truth expressed by Sir George Beaumont, when his recommendation of Sir Joshua for the execution of a certain work was met by the objection that his colours faded, that he "made his pictures die before the man. "} "Never mind," said Sir George, "a faded portrait by Reynolds is better than a fresh one by anybody else." See Malone, The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Knight (3 vols., 1798); Northcote, Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Knight, &c. (1813); Farrington, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1819); Beechy, Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1835); Cotton, Joshua Reynolds and his Works (edited by Burnet, 1856); Leslie and Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (2 vols. 1865); and Redgrave, A Century of English Painters, vol, i. (1866). (J. M. G.)

RHADAMANTHUS, in Greek mythology, a son of Zeus and Europa and brother of Minos, king of Crete. At first he helped his brother to rule his island empire. His justice earned him the admiration of his subjects and the jealousy of his brother, wherefore he fled to Boeotia, where he wedded Alcmene. On account of his inflexible integrity he was made one of the judges of the dead in the other world. According to Plato, Rhadamanthus judged the souls of Asiatics, while acus judged those of Europeans, and when they could not agree Minos had a casting vote.

RHÆTIA was the name given in ancient times to a province of the Roman empire, which included a considerable tract of the Alpine regions that separated the great valleys of the Po and the Danube, comprising the stricts occupied in modern times by the Grisons and the Ansatan province of Tyrol. Before their subjugation by Rome the Rhætians are described as one of the most powerful and warlike of the Alpine tribes; but little or nothing is known as to their origin and history. It is indeed stated distinctly by Livy (v. 33) that they were of Etruscan origin, and a tradition reported by Justin (xx. 5) and Pliny (H.N., iii. 24, 133) affirmed that they were a portion of that people who had been settled in the plains of the Po and were driven into the mountains by the irruption of the Gauls, when they assumed the name of Rhætians from a leader of the name of Rhætus. Very little value can, however, be attached to such traditions, and the attempts of some modern writers to support them by philological researches have led to no satisfactory result. But the ethnical connexion of the Rhætians with the Etruscans has been accepted by Niebuhr, and its general reception by the Romans would seem to prove that they were a distinct race from their neighbours the Ligurians as well as from the Gauls and Germans.

The name of the Rhætians is first mentioned by Polybius, but merely incidentally, and they played no part in Roman history till after the fall of the republic. It is certain, however, that they continued virtually independent until Augustus undertook their subjugation, in common with that of the neighbouring Alpine tribes bordering upon Italy. The importance he attached to this task is shown by his having deputed its execution to his two step-sons, Drusus and Tiberius, who in a single campaign reduced them all to subjection (15 B.C.), so that their territory was shortly after incorporated as a province in the Roman empire and their name never again appears in history. The exploits of the imperial youths on this occasion have been immortalized in two well-known odes of Horace (Od., iv. 4 and 14). In the time of Strabo their territory was considered as extending from the Lakes of Como and Garda to that of Constance (the Lacus Brigantinus), while the allied people of the Vindelici, who had shared in their

contest against the Roman arms, as well as in their final subjugation, extended down the northern slope of the Alps as far as the Danube. By far the greater part of this extensive region was occupied by rugged mountains, the inhabitants of which, when compelled to abandon their predatory habits, subsisted principally upon the produce of their flocks. Some of the valleys, however, which extended on the south side down to the plains of Italy, were rich and fertile, and produced excellent wine, which was considered equal to any of those grown in Italy itself. The most important of these valleys was that of the Adige, which descends from the high Alps adjoining the Brenner to Verona; of this the upper portions were held by the Breuni, whose name is still perpetuated in that of the Brenner, while the lower and more fertile region was occupied by the Tridentini, whose chief town of Tridentum was the same as the now celebrated city of Trent. The next people towards the west were the Triumpilini, in the valley still known as Val Trompia; the Camuni in Val Camonica; the Orobii, who appear to have occupied the Val Tellina and adjoining districts; and the Lepontii, between the Lago Maggiore and the Pennine Alps. The tribes in the interior and heart of the mountain ranges cannot be for the most part assigned to definite localities. The Genauni, mentioned by Horace as well as by Strabo, are supposed to have occupied the Val di Non, and the Vennones or Venostes the lofty ranges near the source of the Adige.

The boundaries of the Roman province were repeatedly changed. At first it appears to have comprised all Vindelicia, so as to have extended to the Danube from its sources to its confluence with the Inn, which constituted its eastern boundary on the side of Noricum. But at a later period this northern tract was separated from the central mountain region, and the two were named Rhætia Prima and Rhætia Secunda, in which form they appear in the Notitia. At the same time the southern valleys were gradually incorporated with Italy and assigned to the territory of the neighbouring municipal towns. Thus Tridentum, which was originally a Rhætian town, came to be included in Venetia, and is assigned by Pliny to the tenth region of Italy. The only important town in the northern part of the province was the Roman colony of Augusta Vindelicorum, which still retains the name of Augsburg. The same is the case with Curia, now Chur or Coire, the capital of the Grisons, and Brigantia (Bregenz), which gave name in ancient times to the lake now called the Lake of Constance.

1

The province of Rhætia was traversed by two great lines of Roman roads, -the one leading from Verona and Tridentum (Trent) across the pass of the Brenner to Innsbruck (Pons Eni), and thence to Augsburg (Augusta Vindelicorum), and the other from Bregenz on the Lake of Constance, by Coire and Chiavenna, to Como and Milan. RHAPSODIST. See HOMER, vol. xii. p. 109 sq. RHAZES. See MEDICINE, vol. xv. p. 805. RHEA, the name given in 1752 by Möhring to a South-American bird which, though long before known and described by the earlier writers-Nieremberg, Marcgrave, and Piso (the last of whom has a recognizable but rude figure of it)-had been without any distinctive scientific appellation. Adopted a few years later by Brisson, the name has since passed into general use, especially among English authors, for what their predecessors had called the American Ostrich; but on the European continent the bird is commonly called Nandu, a word corrupted from a

1 What prompted his bestowal of this name, so well known in classical mythology, is not apparent.

The name Touyou, also of South-American origin, was applied to it by Brisson and others, but erroneously, as Cuvier shews, since by that name, or something like it, the JABIRU (vol. xiii. p. 529) is properly meant.

The

name it is said to have borne among the aboriginal inhabitants of Brazil, where the Portuguese settlers called it Ema (cf. EMEU, vol. viii. p. 171). The resemblance of the Rhea to the OSTRICH (vol. xviii. p. 62) was at once perceived, but the differences between them were scarcely less soon noticed, for some of them are very evident. former, for instance, has three instead of two toes on each foot, it has no apparent tail nor the showy wing-plumes of the latter, and its head and neck are clothed with feathers, while internal distinctions of still deeper significance have since been dwelt upon by Prof. Huxley (Proc. Zool. Society, 1867, pp. 420-422) and the late Mr W. A. Forbes (op. cit., 1881, pp. 784-787), thus justifying the separation of these two forms more widely even than as Families; and there can be little doubt that they should be regarded as types of as many Orders-Struthiones and Rhex-of

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the Subclass Ratitæ.3 Structural characters no less important separate the Rheas from the Emeus, and, apart from their very different physiognomy, the former can be readily recognized by the rounded form of their contour-feathers, which want the hyporrhachis or after-shaft that in the Emeus and Cassowaries is so long as to equal the main shaft, and contributes to give these latter groups the appearance of being covered with shaggy hair. Though the Rhea is not decked with the graceful plumes which adorn the Ostrich, its feathers have yet a considerable market value, and for the purpose of trade in them it is annually killed by thousands, so that it has been already extirpated from much of the country it formerly inhabited, and its total 3 Ann. Nat. History, ser. 4, xx. p. 500.

Mr Harting, in his and Mr De Mosenthal's Ostriches and Ostrich Farming, from which the woodcut here introduced is by permission copied, gives (pp. 67-72) some portentons statistics of the destruction of Rheas for the sake of their feathers, which, he says, are known in the trade as "Vautour" to distinguish them from those of the African bird, XX. 64

extinction as a wild animal is probably only a question of | time. Its breeding habits are precisely those which have been already described in the case of other Ratite birds. Like most of them it is polygamous, and the male performs the duty of incubation, brooding more than a score of eggs, the produce of several females-facts known to Nieremberg more than two hundred and fifty years since, but hardly accepted by naturalists until recently. From causes which, if explicable, do not here concern us, no examples of this bird seem to have been brought to Europe before the beginning of the present century, and accordingly the descriptions previously given of it by systematic writers were taken at second hand and were mostly defective if not misleading. In 1803 Latham issued a wretched figure of the species from a half-grown specimen in the Leverian Museum, and twenty years later said he had seen only one other, and that still younger, in Bullock's collection (Gen. Hist. Birds, viii. p. 379).1 A. А bird living in confinement at Strasburg in 1806 was, however, described and figured by Hammer in 1808 (Ann. du Muséum, xii. pp. 427-433, pl. 39), and, though he does not expressly say so, we may infer from his account that it had been a captive for some years. In England the Report of the Zoological Society for 1833 announced the Rhea as having been exhibited for the first time in its gardens during the preceding twelvemonth. Since then many other living examples have been introduced, and it has bred both there and elsewhere in Britain, but the young do not seem to be very easily reared.2

Though considerably smaller than the Ostrich, and, as before stated, wanting its fine plumes, the Rhea in general aspect far more resembles that bird than the other Ratita. The feathers of the head and neck, except on the crown and nape, where they are dark brown, are dingy white, and those of the body ash-coloured tinged with brown, while on the breast they are brownish-black, and on the belly and thighs white. In the course of the memorable voyage of the "Beagle," Darwin came to hear of another kind of Rhea, called by his informants Avestruz petise, and at Port Desire on the east coast of Patagonia he obtained an example of it, the imperfect skin of which enabled Mr Gould to describe it (Proc. Zool. Society, 1837, p. 35) as a second species of the genus, naming it after its discoverer. Rhea darwini differs in several well-marked characters from the earlier known R. americana. Its bill is shorter than its head; its tarsi are reticulated instead of scutellated in front, with the upper part feathered instead of being bare; and the plumage of its body and wings is very different, each feather being tipped with a distinct whitish band, while that of the head and neck is greyish-brown. A further distinction is also asserted to be shewn by the eggs-those of R. americana being of a yellowish-white, while those of R. darwini have a bluish tinge. Some years afterwards Mr Sclater described (op. cit., 1860, p. 207) a third and smaller species, more closely resembling the R. americana, but having apparently a longer bill, whence he named it R. macrorhyncha, more slender tarsi, and shorter toes, while its general colour is darker, the body and wings being of a brownish-grey mixed with black. The precise geographical range of these three species is still undetermined. While R. americana is known to extend from Paraguay and southern Brazil through the state of La Plata to an uncertain distance in Patagonia, R. darwini seems to be the proper inhabitant of the country last named, though

very

much

1 The ninth edition of the Companion to this collection (1810, r. 121) states that the specimen "was brought alive" [? to England].

2 Interesting accounts of the breeding of this bird in confinement are given, with much other valuable matter, by Mr Harting in the work already cited.

M. Claraz asserts (op. cit., 1885, p. 324) that it is occasionally found to the northward of the Rio Negro, which had formerly been regarded as its limit, and, moreover, that flocks of the two species commingled may be very frequently seen in the district between that river and the Rio Colorado. On the "pampas" R. americana is said to associate with herds of deer (Cariacus campestris), and R. darwini to be the constant companion of guanacos (Lama huanaco)—just as in Africa the Ostrich seeks the society of zebras and antelopes. As for R. macrorhyncha, it was found by Forbes (Ibis, 1881, pp. 360, 361) to inhabit the dry and open "sertoes" of north-eastern Brazil, a discovery the more interesting since it was in that part of the country that Marcgrave and Piso became acquainted with a bird of this kind, though the existence of any species of Rhea in the district had been long overlooked by or unknown to succeeding travellers.

Besides the works above named and those of other recognized authorities on the ornithology of South America such as Azara, able information on the subject is to be found in Darwin's Voyage; Prince Max of Wied, Prof. Burmeister, and others, more or less valuDr Böcking's "Monographie des Nandu" in (Wiegmann's) Archiv für Naturgeschichte (1863, i. pp. 213-241); Prof. R. O. Cunninghan's Natural History of the Strait of Magellan and paper in the Zoological Society's Proceedings for 1871 (pp. 105-110), as well as Dr Gadow's still more important anatomical contributions in the same journal for 1885 (pp. 308 sq.). (A. N.)

RHEA (or RHEEA) FIBRE is a textile material yielded by one or more species of Böhmeria (nat. ord. Urticacea), plants found over a wide range in India, China, the Malay Peninsula and islands, and Japan. Rhea is also capable of being grown in temperate latitudes, and has been experimentally introduced into the south of France and Algeria. The most important source of rhea fibre, known also very inappropriately as China grass, or by its Malay name Ramie, is B. nivea. It is a shrubby plant growing to the height of from 5 to 8 feet with foliage and inflorescence like the common nettle, but destitute of stinging hairs. Some authorities consider the variety cultivated in China to be specifically distinct from the Indian plant. An allied plant called Pooah or Puya, B. Puya, found growing wild in the north of India, is also a source of rhea fibre. Among the Chinese much care is bestowed on the cultiva tion of Chu or Tchou Ma, as rhea is called by them, and they prepare the fibre by a tedious and costly process of selection and manual labour. The plant thrives in hot, moist, shaded situations; propagated from slips or root cuttings, it throws up from three to five crops of stems in the course of a season, although not more than three crops are commonly reckoned on. Each such crop may yield about 250 lb of marketable fibre per acre, that total output being exceeded only by the jute crop. The stems when ripe are cut down, stripped of leaves and branchlets, and, either split or whole, are freed from their cortical layers till the bast layer is exposed. In this state they are made up in small bundles and placed where they receive strong sunlight by day and dews by night for several days, after which the fibrous bast layer is peeled with ease off the woody core, and the separated fibres are thereafter treated with boiling water to remove as far as possible adherent gummy and resinous matter in which the fibres are embedded in the stalks. The fibre so obtained is usually bleached by exposure on the grass, and it comes into the market as brilliant white filaments with a fine silky gloss, having a strength, lustre, and smoothness unequalled by any other vegetable fibre.

The fibre first appeared in the European market in 1810, and a cord then spun from it was found to sustain a weight of 252 1b, while a similar cord of Russian hemp was estimated by Admiralty test not to bear more than 87 Ib. A fibre possessed of such strength and beauty immediately attracted great attention, and throughout the early half of the century numerous efforts were made by the East India Company to introduce it as a textile staple. But many diffi

The whole cathedral, with the exception of the façade, was completed by 1231; but it has undergone numerous alterations. The present façade was erected in the 14th century after 13th-century designs,—the nave having in the meantime been lengthened so as to afford room for the vast crowds that attended the coronations. In 1481 a terrible fire destroyed the roof and also the spires, which have never been restored to their original state. În 1875 the National Assembly voted £80,000 for repairs of the façade and balustrades. This façade is the finest portion of the building, and one of the most perfect masterpieces of the Middle Ages. The portals and the rose window are laden with statues and statuettes; the "gallery of the kings" above has the baptism of Clovis in the centre, and also has statues of Charlemagne and his father Pippin the Short. The towers, 267 feet high, were originally designed to rise 394 feet; that on the south contains two great bells, one of which, named by Cardinal de Lorraine in 1570, weighs more than 11 tons. The transepts are also decorated with sculptures,—that on the north with statues of the principal bishops of Rheims, a representation of the last judgment, and a figure of Christ, while that on the south side has a beautiful rose window with the

culties have been encountered in its working, some of which are not yet overcome. The fibre itself is very difficult of extraction owing to the large amount of adhesive matter in which it is embedded, and it is proportionately so expensive that it practically comes into competition only with silk and wool. Further, rhea is hard and inelastic, and on the machinery adapted for spinning other textiles it can only be spun into a rough, harsh, and hairy yarn, while fabrics into which it is woven are rigid, and show permanent creases at every fold. In the form of cordage, moreover, it cuts and gives way at sharp knots and twists. Notwithstanding all disappointments and drawbacks, the Indian Government considered the fibre of such importance that in 1869 two prizes of £5000 and £2000 and again in 1877 prizes of £5000 and £1000 were offered for machinery or processes by which the fibre could be prepared at such a cost per ton as would render its introduction into the market prac. ticable. Competitive trials were made at Saharanpur in 1872 and 1879, but no machine was found to satisfy the conditions of success, although in 1872 a reward of £1500 was granted to Mr John Greig, jun., of Edinburgh, and in 1879 £500 and £100 respectively were paid to two of the competitors. The extraction of rhea continues to attract attention, and quite recently (1885) it has been announced that Prof. Frémy of Paris, assisted by M. Urbain, has successfully overcome all difficulties. The raw material used by Prof. Frémy is obtained by a process devised by M. Fevier, which consists in submitting the newly cut stoms to low-pressure steam for twenty minutes, after which the whole rind is separated in ribands from its woody core with the utmost ease. These ribands are then dried, and on them Prof. Frémy operates with alkaline solutions which are varied in strength according to the appearance of the material dealt with, and a pure fibro in fine working condition is thus obtained. Rhea has yet to establish its position among European textiles, but in the East its value is well recognized. extensively used for cordage, fishing nets, &c.; and it is very little affected by water. The Chinese prepare an exceedingly fine "grass cloth" from single filaments of rhea, knotted or gummed end to ond in the way they employ the finest filaments of Manila hemp for making "Pina" gauze.

RHEGIUM. See REGGIO.

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RHEIMS, a city of France, chief town of an arrondissement of the department of Marne, lies 81 miles east-northcast of Paris (99 miles by rail) on the right bank of the Vesle, a tributary of the Aisne, and on the canal which connects the Aisne with the Marne. To the south and west rise the "montagne de Rheims" and the vine-clad hills where the wine is grown which constitutes the chief object of the industry and commerce of the town. Rheims has been, since the last Franco-Prussian War, surrounded with detached forts that render it a great entrenched camp, and it still preserves eleven of the gates of its old enceinte, that of Paris, constructed on occasion of the coronation of Louis XVI., being specially noticeable. Beyond the boulevards the town spreads out in several suburbs-the faubourgs of St Aune on the south, Vesle on the west, Laon on the north-west, and Cérès on the northeast. The town is well planned and built, and its streets are traversed by tramways.

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The spinning and weaving of wool is carried on in seventy factories, employs 10,000 hands, and annually turns £3,500,000 worth of the raw material into flannels, merinoes, cloth, blankets, &c. Dyeing and "dressing are carried on in the outskirts of the town. Fifty firms with 2000 workmen are employed in the champagne manufacture; the cellars are vast excavations in the chalk rock. Rheims is also famous for its biscuits, gingerbread, and dried pears. Machinery, chemical products, candles, soap, stained glass, common glass, and paper are

also manufactured. In respect of population (93,683 in

1881) Rheims ranks as the cleventh city of France.

The oldest monument in Rheims is the Mars Gate (so called from a temple to Mars in the neighbourhood), a triumphal arch 108 feet in length by 43 in height erected by the Remi in honour of Caesar and Augustus when Agrippa made the great roads terminating at the town. In its vicinity a curious mosaic measuring 35 feet by 26, with thirty-five medallions representing animals and gladiators, was discovered in 1861. But by far the most interesting architectural feature of the town is the cathedral of Notre Dame, where the kings of France used to be crowned. replaced an older church burned in 1211, which had been built on the site of the basilica where Clovis was baptized by St Remigius.

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prophets and apostles. Of the four towers which formerly flanked the fire of 1481. Above the choir rises an elegant bell-tower in the transepts nothing remains above the height of the roof since timber and lead, 59 feet high, reconstructed in the 15th century. The interior of the cathedral is 455 feet long, 98 feet wide in the nave, and 125 feet high in the centre. It has a profusion of statues similar to those of the outside, and is further adorned with stained glass of the 13th century and with tapestries. The rose window over the main portal and the gallery beneath are of rare magnificence. Forty pieces of tapestry bestowed in 1530 by Robert de Lenoncourt, and devoted to the history of the Virgin, are remarkable for the richness of colour and the variety of costume they display. Of six pieces presented by Cardinal de Lorraine in 1570, only three have been preserved; one of them representing the coronation of Clovis and the battle of Soissons afford's valuable evidence relating to the military costumes of the 16th century. Archbishop Henry of Lorraine also presented seventeen large pieces of tapestry representing the life of Christ, in 1633 ; they are called Pepersack's tapestries after the maker, a celebrated tapestry

weaver of Charleville. The Canticles tapestries, four pieces representing scenes in Louis XIV.'s youth, originally belonged to the castle of Hauteville. In the right transept are two great Gobelins tapestries executed after Raphael's designs, and dealing with the life of St Paul. The left transept contains a fine organ in flamboyant Gothic with 3516 pipes and 53 stops. The choir clock is ornamented with curious mechanical devices. Several paintings, by Titian, Tintoretto, Nicolas Poussin, and others, and the carved woodwork and the railings of the choir, also deserve to be mentioned; and among the numerous objects of antiquarian interest in the cathedral "treasury "is the reliquary of the sacred phial which contained the oil used in anointing the kings, but was broken during the Revolution. The archiepiscopal palace, built between 1498 and 1509, and in part rebuilt in 1675, was occupied by the kings on the occasion of their coronation. The saloon chamber, where the royal banquet was held, has an immense stone chimney of the 15th century, medallions of the archbishops of Rheims, and portraits of fourteen kings crowned in the city. Among the other rooms of the royal suite, all of which are of great beauty and richness, is that now used for the meetings of the Rheims Academy; the building also contains a library of 16,000 volumes. The chapel of the archiepiscopal palace consists of two stories, the upper of which still serves as a place of worship, while the lower is occupied by an antiquarian museum, in which is preserved the marble cenotaph (almost entire) of the consul Jovinus, who in the 4th century led his fellow-townsmen at Rheims to embrace Christianity. After the cathedral the most celebrated church is that of St Remi, built in the 11th and 12th centuries on the site of an older place of worship. The valuable monuments with which it was at one time filled were pillaged during the Revolution, and even the tomb of the saint is a modern piece of work; but there still remain the 13th-century glass windows of the apse and tapestries representing the history of St Remigius. The churches of St Jacques, St Maurice (partly rebuilt in 1867), St André, and St Thomas (erected in 1847, under the patronage of Cardinal Gousset, now buried within its walls), as well as the chapels of the lycée and of several monasteries, are all more or less interesting. There are also in the city two Protestant churches and a synagogue.

The town-house, erected in the 17th century and enlarged in 1880, has a pediment with an equestrian statue of Louis XV. and a tall and elegant campanile. It contains a picture gallery, a natural history museum, and a library of 60,000 volumes and 1500 MSS. Of the many curious old houses which still exist in the town it is enough to mention the House of the Musicians, so called from the seated figures of musicians which decorate the front. Rheims is the seat of an academy of science, arts, and literature, founded in 1841 and composed of forty-five members, a preparatory school of medicine and pharmacy, several hospitals, and a modern theatre. It is the headquarters of one of the divisions of the 6th corps d'armée (Châlons). Colbert's statue adorns the Cours; Louis XV.'s (in bronze) stands in the centre of the handsome Place Royale; and Marshal Drouet d'Erlou's is in another of the public squares.

History.-Rheims (Durocortorum), an important town in the time of Caesar, made voluntary submission to the Romans and by its fidelity throughout the various Gallic insurrections secured the special favour of its conquerors. Christianity was introduced about the middle of the 4th century. Jovinus, already mentioned as an influential supporter of the new faith, repulsed the barbarians who invaded Champagne in 336; but the Vandals captured the town in 406 and slew St Nicasus, and Attila afterwards put everything to fire and sword. Clovis, after his victory at Soissons (486), was baptized at Rheims in 496 by St REMICIUS (q.v.). From this period the see acquired new lustre. The kings of the second and third dynasties desired to be consecrated at Rheims with the oil of the sacred phial which was believed to have been brought from heaven by a dove for the baptism of Clovis and was preserved in the abbey of St Remi. Historical meetings of Pope Stephen III. with Pippin the Short, and of Leo III. with Charlemagne, took place at Rheims; and there Louis the Debonnaire was crowned by Stephen IV. In the 10th century Rheims had become a centre of intellectual culture, Archbishop Adalberon, seconded by the monk Gerbert (Sylvester II.), having founded schools where the "liberal arts" were taught. Adalberon was also one of the prime authors of the revolution which put the Capet house in the place of the Carlovingians. The archbishops of Rheins held the temporal lordship of the city and coined money till the close of the 14th century. But their most important prerogative was the consecration of the king,—a privilege which was regularly exercised from the time of Philip Augustus to that of Charles X. Louis VII. granted the town a

communal charter in 1139. Councils met within its walls in 1119

and 1148. The treaty of Troyes (1420) ceded it to the English, who had made a futile attempt to take it by siege in 1360; but they

were expelled on the approach of Joan of Arc, who in 1429 caused Charles VII. to be duly consecrated in the cathedral. A revolt at Rheims caused by the salt tax in 1461 was cruelly repressed by

Louis XI. The town sided with the League (1585), but submitted to Henry IV. after the battle of Ivry. In the foreign invasions of 1814 it was captured and recaptured; in 1870-71 it was made by the Germans the seat of a governor-general and impoverished by heavy requisitions.

RHEINGAU. See RHINE.

RHENANUS, BEATUS (c. 1485-1547), German humanist, was born about 1485 at Schlettstadt in Alsace, where his father, a native of Rheinau, was a prosperous butcher. He received his early education in Schlettstadt, and afterwards (1503) went to Paris, where he came under the influence of Faber Stapulensis; here, among his other learned pursuits, we must include that of correcting the press for Henry Estienne. In 1511 he removed to Basel, where he became intimate with Erasmus, and took an active share in the publishing enterprises of Frobenius. Some time after 1520 he became a comparatively wealthy man through the death of his father; returning to Schlettstadt he devoted himself to a life of learned leisure, enlivened with free epistolary and personal intercourse with Erasmus, Reuchlin, Pirckheimer, Lasky, and many other scholars of his time. He died at Strasburg, while returning from Baden in Switzerland, whither he had gone for his health, in 1547, leaving behind him a high reputation not only for sound learning but also for singular gentleness, modesty, and simplicity.

His earliest publication was a life of Geiler of Strasburg (1510). Of his subsequent works the principal are Rerum Germanicarum Libri III. (1531), and editions of Velleius Paterculus (ed. princeps, from a MS. discovered by himself, 1520); Tacitus (1533, exclusive of the Histories); Livy (1535); and Erasmus (with a life, 9 vols, fol., 1540-41).

RHENISH PRUSSIA. See PRUSSIA, RHENISH.

RHETICUS, or RHETICUS, a surname given to GEORGE JOACHIM (1514-1576) from his birth at Feldkirch in that part of Tyrol which was anciently the territory of the Rhæti. Born in 1514, he was appointed professor of mathematics at Wittenberg in 1537. His first appearance before the public was in the character of an enthusiastic convert to the newly broached opinions of Copernicus. No sooner had he adopted these opinions than, resigning his chair, he repaired to Frauenberg to sit at the feet of their great promulgator. All his energy was forthwith devoted to the new system, and, as has been mentioned under COPERNICUS, it was he who superintended the printing of the De Orbium Revolutione. Rheticus now commenced his great treatise, Opus Palatinum de Triangulis, and continued to work at it while he occupied his old chair at Wittenberg, while he taught mathematics at Leipsic, while he travelled over different parts of the Continent, and indeed up to his death in Hungary in 1576. The Opus Palatinum of Rheticus was published by Otho in 1596. It gives tables of sines and cosines, tangents, &c., for every 10 seconds, calculated to ten places. He had projected a table of the same kind to fifteen places, but did not live to complete it. The sine table, however, was afterwards published on this scale under the name of Thesaurus Mathematicus (Frankfort, 1613) by Pitiscus, who himself carried the calculation of a few of the earlier sines to twenty-two places.

"

a master

RHETORIC. A lost work of Aristotle is quoted by Diogenes Laertius (viii. 57) as saying that Empedocles "invented" (eupeîv) rhetoric; Zeno, dialectic. This is certainly not to be understood as meaning that Empedocles composed the first "art" of rhetoric. It is rather to be explained by Aristotle's own remark, cited by Laertius of expression and skilled in the use of metaphor "-quali from another lost treatise, that Empedocles was ties which may have found scope in his political oratory, when, after the fall of Thrasydæus in 472 B.C., he opposed the restoration of a tyranny at Agrigentum. The founder of rhetoric as an art was Corax of Syracuse (c. 466 B.C.). In 466 Thrasybulus the despot of Syracuse was

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