صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

of Sencca, the only copy of which is in the Print Room at the British Museum, and a beautiful figure of St Catherine, we can admit none of the other plates, said to proceed from Rubens, as authentic. Rubens nevertheless exercised an immense influence on the art of engraving. Under his direct guidanco Soutman, Vorsterman, Pontius, Witdoeck, the two Bolswerts, Peter de Jode, N. Lauwers, and many others of less note left an immense number of beautiful plates, reproducing the most celebrated of his paintings. To give an idea of what his influence was capable of accom plishing, pictorially speaking, it might be sufficient to notice the transformation undergone by the Antwerp school of engraving under Rubens: even the modern school of engraving, in more than one respect, is a continuation of the style first practised in Antwerp. His influence is scarcely less apparent in sculpture, and the celebrated Luke Fayd'herbe was his pupil.

Neither in name nor in fact did the Flemisli school ever find a second Rubens. None of his four sons became a painter, nor did any of his three daughters marry an artist. According to Rubens's will, his drawings were to belong to that one of his sons who might become a painter, or in the event of one of his daughters marrying a celebrated artist they were to be her portion. The valuable collection was dispersed only in 1659, and of the pictures sold in 1640 thirty-two became the property of the king of Spain. The Madrid Gallery alone possesses a hundred of his works. Four years after her husband's death Helena Fourment married J. B. Van Brouckhoven de Bergheyck, knight of St James, member of the privy council, &c. She died in 1673. In 1746 the male line of Rubens's descendants was completely extinct. In the female line more than a hundred families of name in Europe trace their descent from him. The paintings of Rubens are found in all the principal galleries in Europe: Antwerp and Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Lille, Dresden, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, St Petersburg, London, Florence, Milan, Turin exhibit several hundreds of his works. J. Smith's Catalogue gives descriptions of more than thirteen hundred compositions.

Literature.-A. van Hasselt, Histoire de P. P. Rubens, Brussels, 1840; E. Gachet, Lettres inédites de P. P. Rubens, Brussels, 1840; W. Noel Sainsbury, Original unpublished Papers illustrative of the Life of Sir Peler Paul Rubens, London, 1859; C. Ruelens, Pierre Paul Rubens, Documents et Lettres, Brussels, 1877; Armand Baschet "Rubens en Italle et en Espagne," in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, vols. xxii. to xxiv., Paris, 1867-68; A. Michiels, Rubens et l'École d'Anvers, Paris, 1877; Cruzada Villaamil, Rubens diplomatico español, Madrid, 1874; Gachard, Histoire politique et diplomatique de P. P. Rubens, Brussels, 1877; P. Genard, P. P. Rubens, Aanteekeningen over den Grooten Meester, Antwerp, 1877; Max Rooses, Titres et Portraits gravés d'après P. P. Rubens, pour l'imprimerie plantinienne, Antw., 1877; J. Smith, Catalogue Raisonné of

the Works of the most eminent Dutch and Flemish Painters, part 1., London, 1830;

Waagen, Peter Paul Rubens (translated from the German by R. Noel, edited by Mrs Jameson, London, 1840); H. Hymans, Histoire de la gravure dans l'École de Rubens, Brussels, 1879; C. G. Voorhelm Schneevoogt, Catalogue des Estampes gravées d'après Rubens, Haarlem, 1873. (H. H.)

RUBIDIUM. See POTASSIUM METAIS. RUBRUQUIS, the name which has most commonly been given to William of Rubruk, a Franciscan friar and the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic travel in the 13th century. Nothing is known of him save what can be gathered from his own narrative, with the exception of a word from the pen of Roger Bacon, his contemporary and brother Franciscan, indicating personal acquaintance. The name of Rubruquis has adhered to him, owing to this form ("Willielmus de Rubruquis") being found in the imperfect copy of the Latin original printed by Hakluyt in his collection, and followed in his English translation, as well as in the completer issue of the English by Purchas. Writers, again, of the 16th and 17th centuries have called the traveller Risbroucke and Rysbrokius, for which there is no authority, an error founded on the too hasty identification of his name of origin with Ruysbroeck in Brabant (a few miles south of Brussels). This error was probably promoted by the fame of John of Ruysbroeck or Rysbroeck (1294-1381), a Belgian mystic theologian, whose treatises have been reprinted as late as 1848 (see vol. xvii. p. 133). Our traveller is styled "Guillaume de Rysbroeck" and "Ruysbroek in the Biographie Universelle and in the Nouv. Biog. Générale. It is only within the last twenty years that attention has been called to the fact that Rubrouck is the name of a village and commune in what was formerly called French Flanders, belonging to the canton of Cassel in the department du Nord, and lying some 83 miles north-east of St Omer. In the library of the latter city many medieval documents exist referring expressly to

[ocr errors]

The

Rubrouck, and to persons in the 12th and 13th centuries styled as "de Rubrouck." It may be fairly assumed that Friar William came from this place; indeed, if attention had been paid to the title of the MS. belonging to Lord Lumley, which was published by Hakluyt (Itinerarium fratris Willielmi de Rubruquis de Ordine fratrum Minorum, Galli, Anno Grutiæ 1253, ud partes Orientales), there necd have been no question as to the traveller's quasi-French nationality; 2 but this (erroneously) has always been treated as if it were an arbitrary gloss of Hakluyt's own. IX. (St Louis). That king, at an earlier. date, viz., Friar William went to Tartary under orders from Louis December 1248, when in Cyprus, had been visited by certain persons representing themselves to be envoys from a great Tartar chief Flchigaday (Ilchikadai), who commanded the Mongol hosts in Armenia and Persia. king then despatched a return mission consisting of Friar Andrew of Lonjumel and other ecclesiastics, who carried presents and letters for both Ilchikadai and the Great Khan. They reached the court of the latter in the winter of 1249-50, when there was in fact no actual khan on the throne; but in any case they returned, along with Tartar envoys, bearing a letter to Louis, which was couched in terms so arrogant and offensive that the king repented sorely of having sent such a mission (li rois se repenti fort quant il y envoia, Joinville, § 492). These returned envoys reached the king when he was at Cæsarea, therefore between March 1251 and May 1252. It was, however, not very long after that the zealous king, hearing that a great Tartar prince called Sartak was a baptized Christian, felt strongly moved to open communication with him, and for this purpose deputed Friar William of Rubruk with companions. But it is evident that the former rebuff had made the king chary as to giving these emissaries the character of his royal envoys, and Friar William on every occasion, beginning with a sermon delivered in St Sophia's (on Palm Sunday, i.e., April 13, 1253), formally disclaimed that character, alleging that, though he was the bearer of the king's letters and presents, he went simply in fulfilment of his duty as a Franciscan and preacher of the gospel..

Various histories of St Louis, and other documents which have come down to us, give particulars of the despatch of the mission of Friar Andrew from Cyprus, but none mention that of Friar William; and the first dates given by the latter are those of his sermon at Constantinople, and of his embarkation from Sinope (May 7, 1253). He must therefore have received his commission at Acre, where the king was residing from May 1252 to June 29, 1253; but he had travelled by way of Constantinople, as has just been indicated, and there received letters to some of the Tartar chiefs from the emperor, who was at this time Baldwin de Courtenay, the last of the Latin dynasty.

interest, but we cannot follow its details. The vast conquests of The narrative of the journey is everywhere full of life and Jenghiz Khan were still in nominal dependence on his successors, at this time represented by Mangu Khân, reigning on the Mongoseveral great monarchies. Of these the Ulus of Jaji, the eldest lian steppes, but practically those conquests were splitting up into son of Jenghiz, formed the most westerly, and its ruler was Bâtû Khan, established on the Volga. Sartak is known in the history of the Mongols as Bâtû's eldest son, and was appointed his successor, though he died immediately after his father (1255). The story of Sartak's profession of Christianity may have had some kind of foundation; it was currently believed among the Asiatic 1 A detailed notice of such documents was published by M. Edm. Coussemaker of Lille. See remarks by M. D'Avezac in Bull. de la Soc. de Géog., 2d vol. for 1868, pp. 569-570.

The country of Flanders was at this time a fiet of the French crown (see Natalis de Wailly, Notes on Joinville, p. 576). William's

mother-tongue may probably have been Flemish. But this cannot be proved by his representation to Mangu Khan (p. 361) that certain Teutonici who had been carried away as slaves by a Tartar chief were nostrae linguae, as Dr Franz Schmidt inclines to think,

Christians, and it is alleged by Armenian writers that he had been brought up and baptized among the Russians. Rubruk and his party landed at Soldaia, or Sûdâk, on the Crimean coast, a port which was then the chief seat of the communication between the Mediterranean states and what is now southern Russia. Equipped with horses and carts for the steppe, they travelled successively to the courts of Sartak and of Batu, respectively on the hither and further banks of the Volga, bandied from one to the other, and then referred to the Great Khan himself, an order involving the enormous journey to Mongolia. The actual travelling of the party from the Crimea to the khan's court near Karakorum cannot have been, on a rough calculation, less than 5000 miles, and the return journey to Ay13 in Cilicia would be longer by 500 to 700 miles. The chief dates to be gathered from the narrative are as follows:-embark on the Euxine, May 7, 1253; reach Soldaia, 21; set out thence, June 1; reach camp of Sartak, July 31; begin journey from camp of Bâtû eastward across steppe, September 16; turn south-east, November 1; reach Talas river, 8; leave Cailac1 (south of Lake Balkash), 30; reach camp of Great Khan, December 27; leave camp of Great Khan on or about July 10, 1254; reach camp of Batú again, September 16; leave Sartak's camp, November 1: at the Iron Gate (Derbend) 13; Christmas spent at Nakhshivân (under Ararat); reach Antioch (from Ayas, via Cyprus), June 29, 1255; reach Tripoli, August 15.

The camp of Batu was reached near the northernmost point of his summer marches, therefore about Ukek near Saratoff (see Marco Polo, Prol., chap. iii. note 4). Before the camp was left they had marched with it five weeks down the Volga. The point of departure would lie on that river somewhere between 48° and 50° N. lat. The route taken lay eastward by a line running north of the Caspian and Aral basins; then from about 70° E. long. south (with some easting) to the basin of the Talas river; thence across the passes of the Kirghiz Ala-tan and south of the Balkash Lake to the Ala-kul and the Baratula Lake (Ebi-nûr). From this the travellers struck north across the Barluk, or the Orkochuk Mountains, and thence, passing south of the modern Kobdo, to the valley of the Jabkan river, whence they emerged on the plain of Mongolia, coming upon the Great Khan's camp at a spot ten days' journey from Karakorum and bearing in the main south from that place, with the Khangai Mountains between.

This route is of course not thus defined in the narrative, but is a laborious deduction from the facts stated therein. The key to the whole is the description given of that central portion intervening between the basin of the Talas and the Lake Ala-kul, which enables the topography of that region, including the passage of the Ili, the plain south of the Balkash, and the Ala-kul itself, to be identified past question.2

The return journey, being made in summer, after retraversing the Jabkan valley, lay much farther to the north, and passed north of the Balkash, with a tolerably straight course probably, to the mouths of the Volga. Thence the party travelled south by Derbend, and so by Shamakhi to the Araxes, Nakhshivan, Erzingan, Sivas, and Iconium, to the coast of Cilicia, and eventually to the port of Ayas, where they embarked for Cyprus and Syria. St Louis had returned to France a year beforc.

We have alluded to Roger Bacon's mention of Friar William of Rubruk. Indeed, in the geographical section of the Opus Majus (c. 1262) he cites the traveller repeatedly and copiously, describing him as "frater Wilhelmus quem dominus rex Franciae misit ad Tartaros, Anno Domini 1253 qui perlustravit regiones

orientis et aquilonis et loca in medio his annexa, et scripsit haec praedicta illustri regi; quem librum diligenter vidi et cum ejus auctore contuli" (Opus Majus, ed. Jebb, 1733, pp. 190-191). Add to this William's own incidental particular as to his being (like his precursor, Friar John of Pian Carpine, see vol. v. p. 132) a very heavy man (ponderosus valde), and we know no more of his personality except the abundant indications of character affortled by the story itself. These paint for us an honest, pious, stouthearted, acute, and most intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge, the author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence. His language indeed is Latin of the nost un-Ciceronian quality,-dog-Latin we fear it must be called; but, call it what we may, it is in his hands a pithy and transparent medium of expression. In spite of all the difficulties of communi

1 Callac, where Rubruk halted twelve days, is undoubtedly the Kayalik of the historians of the Mongols, the position of which is somewhat indefinite. The narrative of Rubruk shows that it must have been near the modern Kopal.

2 See details in Cathay and the Way Thither, pp. ccxi.-ccxiv., and Schuyler's Turkistan, i. 402-405. Mr Schuyler points out the true identification of Kubruk's river with the Ill, instead of the Chu, which is a much smaller stream; and other amendments have been derived from Dr F. M. Schmidt (see below). So the present writer interprets what Rubruk says:-"Our going was in winter, our return in summer, and that by a way lying very much farther north, only that for a space of fifteen days' journey in going and coming we followed a certain river between mountains, and on these there was no grass to be found except close to the river." The position of the Chagan Takoi or upper Jabkan seems to suit these facts best; but. Mr Schuyler refers them to the upper Irtish, and Dr F. Schmidt to the Uliungur.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

66

non est

cation, and of the badness of his turgemannus or dragoman, he gathered a mass of particulars, wonderfully true or near the truth, not only as to Asiatic nature, geography; ethnography, and manners. but as to religion and language. Of his geography a good example occurs in his account of the Caspian (eagerly caught up by Roger Bacon), which is perfectly accurate, except that he places the hill country occupied by the Mulâhids, or Assassins, on the castern instead of the southern shore. He explicitly corrects the allegation of Isidore that it is a gulf of the ocean: verum quod dicit Ysidorus. nusquam enim tangit oceanum, sed undique circumdatur terra " (265).5 Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the Hungarians is the same, as he had learned from Dominicans who had been among them (274).6 The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Boliemians, and Slavoniaus is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals, or Wends (275). In the town of Equius (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far remote from Persia (281). The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about Cailac (see note above) had formed a language and character of their own, and in that language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform their office and write their books (281-2). The Yugurs are those among whom are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue (289). Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they begin writing from the top and write downwards; whilst line follows line from left to right (286). The Nestorians say their service, and have their holy books, in Syriac, but know nothing of the language, just as some of our monks sing the mass without knowing Latin (293). The Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards (329). The current money of Cathay is of cotton paper, a palm in length and breadth, and on this they print lines like those of Mangu Khan's seal:-"imprimunt linens sicut est sigillum Mangu -a remarkable expression. They write with a painter's pencil and combine in one character several letters, forming one expression :-"faciunt in una figura plures literas comprehendentes unam dictionem," "-a still more remarkable utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of Chinese writing (329).

[ocr errors]

Yet this sagacious and honest observer is denounced as an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day, but narrow and wrong-headed, and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the 13th-century friar whom he maligus), simply because the evidence of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet heresy, long since exploded, which Schmidt entertained, viz., that the Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan.

The narrative of Rubruk, after Roger Bacon's copious use of it, scems to have dropped out of sight. It has no place in the famous collections of the 14th century, nor in the earlier Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, which gives so many others of the Tartarian ecclesiastical itineraries. It first appeared imperfectly in Hakluyt (1600), as we have mentioned. But it was not till 1839 that any proper edition of the text was published. In that year the Recueil de Voyages of the Paris Geographical Society, vol. iv., contained a thorough edition of the Latin text, and a collation of the few existing MSS., put forth by M. D'Avezac, with the assistance of two young scholars, since of high distinction, viz., Francisque-Michel and Thomas Wright. But there is no commentary, such as M. D'Avezac attached, in his own incomparable fashion, to the edition of Friar John of Plan Carpine in the same volume; nor has there ever been any properly annotated edition of a traveller so worthy of honour. Richthofen in his China, 1. 602-604, has briefly but justly noticed the narrative of Rubruk. A Fre, ch version with some notes, issued at Paris in 1877, in the Bibliothèque Orienta Elzévirienne, if named at all, can only be mentioned as beneath contempt. The task is one which the present writer has long contemplated, but now with but slender hope of accomplishment. (Since this was in type the writer has received from Dr. Franz Max Schmidt an admirable monograph by him, L'eber Rubruk's Reise (Berlin, p. 93), extracted from vol: xx. of the Ztschr. Geog. Soc. Berl., and has greatly profited by it in the revision of the article in proof.) (H. Y.)

RUBY. This name is applied by lapidaries and jewellers to two distinct minerals, which may be distinguished as the true or Oriental ruby and the spinel ruby. The former is a red variety of corundum or native alumina, of

4 "Ego enim percepi pos'ea, quando incepi aliquantulum intelligere idioma, quod quando dicebam unum ipse totum allud, dicebat, secundum quod ei occurrebat. Tum, videns periculum loquendi per ipsum, elegi magis tacere' (248-249).

5 The page references in the text are to D A vezac's edition of the Latin (see below).

6 The Bashkirds now speak a Turkish dialect; but they are of Finnish race, and it is quite possible that they then spoke a language akin to Magyar. There is no doubt that the Mussulman historians of that age identified the Hungarians and the Bashkirds (e.g., see extracts from Juvaint and Pashiduddin in App. to D'Ohsson's Hist. des Mongols, ii. 620-623). The Bashkirds are also constantly coupled with the Majár by Abulghâzi. See Fr. tr. by Desmaisons, pp. 19, 140, 180, 189.

7 Asp = Equus. Aspara is often mentioned by the historians of Timur and his successors; its exact place is uncertain, but it lay somewhere on the Ill frontier. Dr F. Schmit thinks this identification impossible; but one of his reasonsviz., that Equius was only one day from Cailuc-appears to be a misapprehension of the text.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

great rarity and value, while the latter is an aluminate of magnesium, inferior to the true ruby in hardness and much less esteemed as a gem stone. With ancient writers the confusion was even greater, for they appear to have classed together under a common name, such as the carbunculus of Pliny or the av@paέ of Greek writers, not only our two kinds of ruby but also garnets and other inferior stones of a brilliant fiery colour. By modern mineralogists it has come to be understood that when the word ruby is used without any qualifying prefix the true or Oriental stone is invariably indicated.

The Oriental ruby, like all other varieties of corundum, crystallizes in the rhombohedral system; but, as it usually occurs as small pebbles or rounded fragments, the crystalline form can rarely be traced. Its colour varies from deep cochineal to pale rose red, in some cases inclining to purple, the most valued tint being that known to experts as pigeon's blood colour. On exposure to a high temperature the ruby becomes green, but regains its original colour on cooling-a behaviour which is consistent with the supposition that the stone owes its colour to the presence of oxide of chromium, and indeed in artificial rubies the required tint is always obtained by the use of some compound of chromium. When a ruby of the most esteemed colour is properly viewed through a dichroiscope, the colour is resolved into a carmine and an aurora red, or red inclining to orange. By this test the true ruby may be distinguished from spinel and garnet, since these minerals crystallize in the cubic system and therefore are not dichroic. Another mode of distinction is suggested by the high density of corundum: the specific gravity of the true ruby reaches or even rises slightly above 4, and thus greatly exceeds that of either spinel or garnet. But perhaps the simplest test is afforded by its great hardness (H9): the sharp edge of a corundum crystal will readily scratch either a spinel or a garnet, but has no effect on a ruby. The true ruby has a very high index of refraction (178), and to this character is due the remarkable lustre of the polished stone. Mr Crookes has shown that the ruby is brilliantly phosphorescent when subjected to radiant discharge in a properly exhausted vessel, and curiously enough the red light emitted is equally vivid whatever be the colour of the corundum under experiment. The microscopic structure of the ruby has been studied by Mr Sorby, who finds that the stone contains fluid cavities and numerous crystallized enclosures of other minerals (Proc. Roy. Soc., xvii.. 1869, r. 291).

[ocr errors]

|

sapphires, and large pebbles of coarse corundum were found in the bed of a river near a large mass of serpentine which afterwards became known as Corundum Hill, and these pebbles were eventually traced to certain veins in the serpentine. The corundum occurred crystallized in situ, but was rarely of such a colour as would entitle it to be called ruby. Mr G. F. Kunz, who has lately written an article on American precious stones, states that rubies and sapphires have also been found at Vernon, New Jersey; near Helena, Montana; at Santa Fé, New Mexico; in southern Colorado; and in Arizona.

Australia has occasionally yielded true rubies, but mostly of small size and inferior quality. In Victoria they have been found in the drifts of the Beechworth gold fields and at the Berwick tin mine, Wallace's Creek; while in New South Wales they occur at Mudgee, in the Codgesang and some of its tributaries, and at Tumberumba, co. Wynyard. A magenta-coloured turbid ruby from Victoria is known under the name of "barklyite."

The "star ruby" is a rather cloudy variety from Ceylon, exhibit

ing when cut en cabochon a luminous star of six rays, reflected

from the convex surface of the stone.

The largest ruby known in Europe is said to be one of the size of a small hen's egg, which was presented by Gustavus III. of Sweden to the empress of Russia on the occasion of his visit to St Petersburg. Rubies of larger size have been described by Tavernier and other Oriental travellers, but it is probable that in many cases spinels have been mistaken for true rubies. There seems no doubt that the great historic ruby set in the Maltese cross in front of the imperial state crown of England is a spinel. This stone was given to Edward the Black Prince by Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, on the victory of Najera in 1867, and it was afterwards worn by Henry V. at the battle of Agincourt, when it narrowly escaped destruction.

The spinel ruby has been described in the article MINERALOGY (vol. xvi. p. 386, sp. 93). The spinels used for jewellery are mostly obtained in Burmah, where they occur as octahedral crystals or as water-worn pebbles in association with the true ruby, for which they are often mistaken. They are also found in the gem-bearing gravels of Ceylon, Victoria, and New South Wales. The delicate rose-pink variety known as balas ruby was worked for centuries in Badakhshan, but the operations appear to have been suspended of late But late years. The mines are situated on the river Shighnan, a tributary of the Oxus. It is commonly said that the name or "balash" is a corruption of Badakhshan, while others derive it from Balkh.

The Oriental ruby is a mineral of very limited distribution, its principal localities being confined to the kingdom of Burmah. The nrost important ruby mines are situated at Kyat Pyen, about 70 miles to the north-cast of Mandalay; there are also mines at Mookop, a little farther north, and others in the Sagyin Hills, within 16 miles of Mandalay. In all these localities the rubies occur in association with sapphires and other precious stones, forming a gem-bearing gravel which is dug up and washed in very primitive fashion. By far the larger number of the rubics are of small size, and the larger stones are generally flawed. All rubies exceeding a certain weight were the property of the king of Burmah. The mines were jealously watched, and it was difficult for Europeans to obtain access to them; but some of the Ava workings were visited and described many years ago by Père Giuseppe d'Amato, and more recently those near Mandalay have been described by Mr Bredmeyer, who was officially connected with them (Ball). It is stated in the older works on mineralogy that rubies occur in the Capelan Mountains near Syrian, in Pegu. In peninsular India there are but few localities that yield rubies, but they have been reported from the corundum mines of the Salem district in Madras and from Mysore. In Ceylon they occur with sapphires, but are rarer than those gems, and the Ceylon rubies are not usually of good colour. Rubies have been brought from Gandamak, in Afghanistan, but most of the stones reputed to be Afghan rubies are merely spinels.

In 1871 some remarkable deposits of corundum were discovered by Col, C, W. Jenks in Macon co., North Carolina. Rabies,

"balas

The Oriental ruby has always been esteemed of far higher value than any other precious stone. A ruby of perfect colour, weighing five carats, is worth at the present day ten times as much as a diamond of equal weight (Streeter). As the weight of the stone increases, its value rapidly rises, so that rubies of exceptional size command enormous prices. There is consequently much temptation to replace the true stone by spinel or garnet or even paste. By means of oxide of chromium an excellent imitation of the colour of the ruby is obtained; and, though the ordinary "strass," or fine lead-glass, is very soft, and therefore soon loses its lustre, it is yet possible to produce a paste consisting of silicate of alumina which is almost as hard as rock crystal.

It is an interesting fact that the chemist has frequently succeeded in causing alumina to assume artificially many of the physical characteristics of the native ruby. As far back as 1837 M. Gaudin reproduced the ruby en a small scale by exposing ammonia-alum to the heat of the oxyhydrogen blowpipe, whereby he obtained fused alumina which was readily coloured by the addition of oxide of chromium. A different method was followed by Ebelmen. He dissolved alumina in boric acid at a high temperature, and on the cooling of the mass obtained the alumina in a crystallized form; while if chromate of ammonium was present the crystals became veritable ruby. MM. Sainte-Claire Deville and Caron heated a mixture of fluoride of aluminium, fluoride of chromium, and boric acid, and thus obtained a fluoride of boron, which, being volatile, readily escaped, and left a solid residue of alumina coloured by the chrome. These, however, were only laboratory experiments, and it was reserved for MM. Frémy and Feil, in 1878, to reproduce the ruby and sapphire on a scale suggestive of some commercial importance. By heating a mixture of artificial alumina and red lead in a fireclay crucible, they obtained a vitreous silicate of lead (the silica being derived from the crucible) and crystallized alumina, while the addition of bichromate of potas sium caused this alumina to assume the coveted tint of the ruby. For a general description of the ruby see E. Jannettaz, Diamant et Pierres Précieuses (1881); Kluge, Handbuch der Edelsteinkunde (1860); Schrauf, Edelsteinkunde (1869); Church, Precious Stones (1883); Streeter, Precious Stones and Gems (4th ed., 1884). For Indian localities see Ball's Economic Geology, being vol. i. of the Manual of the Geology of India (1881); for Australian localities, Liversidge's Minerals of New South Wales (2 ed., 1882); for United States rubies, Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. xxx, 1874, p. 303, and American Jour. Science, ser. lil. vol. iv. 1872, pp. 109, 175, and Kunz's article in Mineral Resources of the United States, by A. Williams, jun. (1883). For the history of the stone consult King's Natural Hist. of Precious Stones (1865), and for artificial rubies, Comptes Rendus, vol. lxxxv. 1877, p. 1029. (F. W.R.)

RÜCKERT, FRIEDRICHI (1788-1866), an eminent German poet, was born at Schweinfurt on the 16th May 1788. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native place and at the universities of Würzburg and Heidelberg, where he studied law and philology. Having taken his degree, he went to the university of Jena as a "privatdocent"; but this position he soon abandoned. For some time he worked in connexion with the Morgenblatt at Stuttgart. Nearly the whole of the year 1818 he spent in Rome, where he devoted himself to study, especially to the study of the popular poetry of Italy; and afterwards he lived for several years at Coburg. He was appointed a professor of Oriental languages at the university of Erlangen in 1826, and in 1841 he was called to a similar position in Berlin, where he was also made a privy councillor. In 1849 he resigned his professorship at Berlin, and went to live on his estate near Coburg. He died on the 31st January 1866. When Rückert began his literary career, Germany was engaged in her life-and-death struggle with Napoleon; and in his first volume, Deutsche Gedichte, published in 1814 under the name of Freimund Raimar, he gave vigorous expression to the prevailing sentiment of his countrymen. In 1816 appeared Napoleon, eine politische Komödie in drei Stücken, and in 1817 the Kranz der Zeit. He issued a collection of poems, Oestliche Rosen, in 1822; and in 1834-38 his Gesammelte Gedichte were published in six volumes, a selection from which has passed through many editions. Rückert, who was master of thirty languages, made his mark chiefly as a translator of Oriental poetry, and as a writer of poems conceived in the spirit of Oriental masters. Much attention was attracted by Die Verwandlungen des Abu Seid, a translation of Hariri's Makamen (1826), Nal und Damajanti, an Indian tale (1828), Amrilkais, der Dichter und König (1843), and Hamasa, oder die ältesten arabischen Volkslieder (1846). Among his original poems dealing with Oriental subjects are Morgenländische Sagen und Geschichten (1837), Erbauliches und Beschauliches aus dem Morgenland (1836-38), Rostem und Suhrab, eine Heldengeschichte (1838), and Brahmanische Erzählungen (1839). The most elaborate of his works is Die Weisheit des Brahmanen, published in six volumes in 1836-39. In 1843-45 he issued several dramas, all of which are greatly inferior to the work to which he owes his distinctive place in German literature. At the time of the Danish war in 1864 he wrote Ein Dutzend Kampf-Lieder für Schleswig-Holstein, which, although published anonymously, produced a considerable impression. After his death many poetical translations and original poems were found among his papers, and several collections of them were published. Rückert lacked the simple and natural feeling which is characteristic of all the greatest lyrical poets of Germany. But he had a certain splendour of imagination which made Oriental poetry congenial to him, and he has seldom been surpassed in his power of giving rhythmic expression to ideas on the conduct of life. As a master of poetical style he ranks with Gerinan writers of the highest class. There are hardly any lyrical forms which are not represented among his works, and in all of them, the simplest and the most complex, he wrote with equal ease and grace.

A complete edition of Rückert's poetical works appeared in Frankfort in 1868-69. See Fortlage, Rückert und seine Werke (1867); Beyer, Friedrich Rückert, cin biographisches Denkmal (1868); Neue Mittheilungen über Rückert (1873); and Nachgelassene Gedichte Rückerts und neue Beiträge zu dessen Leben und Schriften (1877); Boxberger, Rückert-Studien (1878).

RÚDAGÍ (d. 954). Hakim Mohammed Farid-eddín Abdallah, the first great genius of modern Persia, was born in Rúdag, a village in Transoxiana, about 870-900, -totally blind, as most of his biographers assert, although the fine distinction of colours and the minute description

of the various tints and shades of flowers in his poems flatly contradict the customary legend of the "blind minstrel." In his eighth year he knew the whole Korán by heart and had begun to write verses. He had besides a wonderful voice which enraptured all hearers, and he played in a masterly way on the lute. The fame of these accomplishments at last reached the ear of the Sámánid Nasr II. bin Ahmad, the ruler of Khorásán and Transoxiana (913942), who drew the poet to his court and distinguished him by his personal favour. Rúdagí became his daily companion, rose to the highest honours, and grew rich in worldly wealth. He received so many costly presents that he could allow himself the extravagance of keeping two hundred pages, and that four hundred camels were necessary to carry all his property. In spite of various predecessors he well deserves the title of "father of Persian literature," since he was the first who impressed upon every form of epic, lyric, and didactic poetry its peculiar stamp and its individual character. He is also said to have been the founder of the "díwán," that is, the typical form of the complete collection of a poet's lyrical compositions in a more or less alphabetical order which prevails to the present day among all Mohammedan writers. His poems filled, according to all statements, one hundred volumes and consisted of one million three hundred thousand verses; but of this there remain only fifty-two kasídas, ghazals, and rubá'ís; of his epic masterpieces we have nothing beyond a few stray lines found here and there as illustrations of ancient Persian words and phrases in native dictionaries. But the most serious loss is that of his translation of Ibn Mukaffa's Arabic version of the old Indian fable book Kalilah and Dimnah; which he put into Persian verse at the request of his royal patron, and for which he received the handsome reward of 40,000 dirhems. In his kasídas, which are all devoted to the praise of his sovereign and friend, Rúdagí has left us unequalled models of a refined and delicate taste, very different from the often bombastic compositions of later Persian encomiasts, and these alone would entitle him to a foremost rank among the poets of his country; but his renown is considerably enhanced by his odes and epigrams. Those of a didactic tendency express in wellmeasured lines a sort of Epicurean philosophy-in the loftiest sense of the word-on human life and human happiness; more charming still are the purely lyrical pieces, sweet and fascinating songs, which glorify the two everlasting delights of glowing hearts and cheerful minds-love and wine. Rúdagí survived his royal friend, and died long after the splendid days of Nasr's patronage, the time of wealth and luxury, had passed away-poor and forgotten by the world, as one of his poems, a beautiful elegy, seems to indicate-in 954.

A complete edition of all the extant poems of Rúdagí, in Persian text and metrical German translation, together with a biographi cal account, based on forty-six Persian MSS., is found in Dr Ethe's Rúdagi der Sámánidendichter" (Göttinger Nachrichten, 1873, pp.. 663-742).

[ocr errors]

RUDD, or RED-EYE (Leuciscus erythrophthalmus), a fish of the family of Carps, generally spread over Europe, north and south of the Alps, also found in Asia Minor, and extremely common in suitable localities, viz., still and deep waters with muddy bottom. When adult, it is readily recognized by its deep, short body, golden-coppery tint of the whole surface, red eyes, and scarlet lower fins; the young are often confounded with those of the roach, but the pharyngeal teeth of the rudd stand in a double row, and not in a single one, as in the roach; also the first dorsal rays are inserted distinctly behind the vertical line from the root of the ventral fin. The anal rays are from thirteen to fifteen in number, and the scales in the lateral line from thirty-nine to forty-two. The rudd is a

fine fish, but little esteemed for food, and very rarely exceeds a length of 12 inches or a weight of 2 lb. It feeds on small freshwater animals and soft vegetable matter, and spawns in April or May. It readily crosses with the white bream, more rarely with the roach and bleak.

as to all that did not immediately concern his art which can best be described as out of date. He was born at Dijon, 4th January 1784, and came therefore in his youth under the influence of the democratic and Napoleonic ideals in their full force. Till the age of sixteen he RUDDIMAN, THOMAS (1674-1758), an eminent Scot- worked at his father's trade as a stovemaker, amusing tish scholar, was born in October 1674, at Raggal, in the himself with modelling in his free hours only; but in parish of Boyndie, Banffshire, where his father was a 1809 he went up to Paris from the Dijon school of art, farmer. He studied Latin eagerly at the school of his and became a pupil of Castellier, obtaining the Great Prize native parish, and when sixteen started off to walk to in 1812. After the second restoration of the Bourbons Aberdeen, there to compete for a college bursary. On the he retired to Frussels, where he got some work under the way he was attacked by Gipsies, robbed of a guinea, which architect Van der Straeten, who employed him to execute was all he had, and otherwise very cruelly treated; but he nine bas reliefs in the palace of Tervueren, which he was persevered in his journey, reached Aberdeen, and competed then engaged in building. At Brussels Rude married for and won the bursary. He then entered the university, Sophie Fremiet, the daughter of a Bonapartist compatriot, and four years afterwards-on 21st June 1694-received to whom he had many obligations, but, obtaining with the degree of M.A. For some time he acted as school- difficulty work so ill-paid that it but just enabled him to master. at Laurencekirk in Kincardine. There he chanced live, he gladly availed himself of the opportunity of to make the acquaintance of Dr Pitcairne, of Edinburgh, return to Paris, where in 1827 a statue of the Virgin for who persuaded him to remove to the Scottish capital, St Gervais and a Mercury Fastening his Sandals obtained where he obtained the post of assistant in the Advocates' much attention. His great success dates, however, from Library. As his salary was only £8, 6s. 8d. per annum, 1833, when he received the cross of the Legion of Honour he was forced to undertake additional employment. He for his statue of a Neapolitan Fisher Boy playing with a engaged in miscellaneous literary work, took pupils, and Tortoise, which also procured for him the important comfor some time acted as an auctioneer. His chief writingsmission for all the ornament and one bas relief of the Arc at this period were editions of Wilson's De Animi Tran de l'Étoile. This relief, a work full of energy and fire, quillitate Dialogus (1707), and the Cantici Solomonis Para- immortalizes the name of Rude. Amongst other produc phrasis Poetica (1709) of Arthur Johnstone (ob. 1641), tions, we may mention the statue of Monge, 1848, Jeanne editor of the Delicia Poetarum Scotorum. d'Arc (in garden of Luxembourg), 1852, a Calvary in bronze for the high altar of St Vincent de Paul, 1855, as well as Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter, Love Triumphant, and Christ on the Cross, all of which appeared at the Saion of 1857 after his death. He had worked all his life long with the most extraordinary energy and given himself no rest in spite of the signs of failing health, and at last, on the 3d November 1855, he died suddenly with scarcely time to cry out. One of his noblest works, and easily accessible, is the tomb of Cavaignac, on which he placed beside his own the name of his favourite pupil Christophe. Although executed in 1840, this was not erected at Montmartre till the year after Rude's own death. His Louis XIII., a life size statue, cast in silver, is to be seen at the Duc de Luynes's chateau at Dampierre. Cato of Utica stands in the gardens of the Tuileries, and his Baptism of Christ decorates a chapel of the Madeleine.

In 1714 he published Rudiments of the Latin Tongue, which is even yet his best known work. This was intended to be an easy introduction to Latin grammar, and was so successful that it at once superseded all others. Under various forms it has been in use, down to our own day, in the schools of Scotland. In 1715 he edited, with notes and annotations, the works of George Buchanan in two volumes folio. As Ruddiman was a Jacobite, the liberal views of Buchanan seemed to him to call for frequent censure. That censure is often rather implied than openly expressed; but it excited much opposition. A society of scholars was formed in Edinburgh to "vindicate that incomparably learned and pious author from the calumnies of Mr Thomas Ruddiman" by publishing a correct edition of his works. This they never did; but a number of obscure writers from this time attacked Ruddiman with great vehemence. He replied; and it was not till the year before his death that he said his "last word" in the controversy.

His worldly affairs, meanwhile, grew more and more prosperous. He founded (1715) a successful printing business, and after some time was appointed printer to the university. He acquired the Caledonian Mercury in 1729, and in 1730 was appointed keeper of the Advocates' Library, which post, owing to failing health, he resigned in 1752. He died at Edinburgh, 19th January 1758, and was interred in Greyfriars churchyard, where in 1806 a tablet was erected to his memory.

Besides the works mentioned, the following writings of Ruddiman deserve notice an edition of Gavin Douglas's Eneid of Virgil (1710); the editing and completion of Anderson's Selectus Diplomatum et Numismatum Scotia Thesaurus (1739); Catalogue of the Advocates' Library (1733-42); an edition of Livy, famed for its "immaculate purity," in 4 vols. (1751). Ruddiman was for many years the representative scholar of Scotland. Writing in 1766, Dr Johnson, after reproving Boswell for some bad Latin, significantly adds-"Ruddiman is dead." When Boswell proposed to write Ruddiman's life, "I should take pleasure in helping you to do honour to him," said Johnson

See Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman (1794); Scots Magazine, January 7, 1757; Boswell's Life of Johnson.

RUDE, FRANÇOIs (1784-1855), a French sculptor of great natural talent and force of character, but of an ignorance

RUDE STONE MONUMENTS. The raising of commemorative monuments of such an enduring material as stone is a practice that may be traced in all countries to the remotest times. The highly sculptured statues, obelisks, and other monumental erections of modern civilization are but the lineal representatives of the unhewn monoliths, dolmens, cromlechs, &c., of prehistoric times. Judging from the large number of the latter that have still survived the destructive agencies (notably those of man himself) to which they have been exposed during so many ages, it would seem that the ideas which led to their erection had as great a hold on humanity in its earlier stages of development as at the present time. In giving some idea of these rude monuments in Britain and else(see vol. ii. p. 383, figs. 1-4). (1) Isolated pillars or monowhere, it will be convenient to classify them as follows liths of unhewn stones raised on end are called Menhirs (maen, a stone, and hir, long). (2) When these monoliths are arranged in lines they become Alignments. (3) But if their linear arrangement is such as to form an enclosure (enceinte), whether circular, oval, or irregular, the group is designated by the name of Cromlech (see CROMLECH). (4) Instead of the monoliths remaining separate, they are sometimes placed together and covered over by one or more capstones so as to form a rude chamber; in this case

« السابقةمتابعة »