صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

.

stone. According to Holinshed, the Queene found hir [Rosamond] out by a silken thridde which the King had drawne after him out of hir chamber with his foote, and dealt with her in such sharpe and cruell wise that she lived not long after."

"Rosamond's Labyrinth, whose ruins, together with her Well, being paved with square stones in the bottom, and also her Bower, from which the Labyrinth did run, are yet remaining, being vaults arched and walled with stone and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which, if at any time her lodging were laid about by the Queen, she might eas ily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by secret issues, take the air abroad, many furlongs about Woodstock, in Oxfordshire." Michael Drayton.

Yea Rosamonde, fair Rosamonde,
Her name was called so,
To whom our queene, dame Ellinor,
Was known a deadlye foe.

The king therefore, for her defence
Against the furious queene.
At Woodstocke builded such a bower,
The like was never seene.

Most curiously that bower was built
Of stone and timber strong,
An hundered and fifty doors
Did to this bower belong:

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Rose, The. An old tavern which was situated in Marylebone, London, and was formerly much frequented. There was a Rose tavern in Tower Street before the Great Fire.

Rose, The. A place of amusement referred to by Knight as being, in 1853, one of the chief London theatres.

Scenery, dresses, and decorations such as would now be thought mean and absurd, but such as would have been thought incredibly magnificent by those who, early in the seventeenth century, sat on the filthy benches of the Hope, or under the thatched roof of the Rose, dazzled the eyes of the multitude.

Macaulay.

Rose, Golden. See GOLDEN ROSE. Rosemary Lane. A street in London.

You must understand that I have been these sixteen years Merry Andrew to a puppet show: last Bartholomew Fair my master and I quarrelled, beat each other and parted; he to sell his puppets to the pincushion-makers in Rosemary Lane, and I to starve in St. James's Park. Goldsmith. Rosenborg. [Castle of the Roses.] A royal palace in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here are kept the regalia of the Danish kings. Roseneath. A beautiful peninsula stretching out into the Clyde, Scotland. The Duke of Argyle has an elegant Italian mansion upon it, also called Roseneath. Roses. See FEAST OF ROSES and MIRACLE Of Roses of ST. FRAN CIS.

Roses of Pæstum.

The roses of Pæstum (an ancient city in Southern Italy, now in ruins) were much celebrated by the Latin poets Virgil, Propertius, Ausonius, and others, for their beauty and fragrance. These roses have disappeared, though it is said a few may be found

flowering in May near the ruins of the temples. The violets of Pæstum, lauded by Martial, were nearly as celebrated as its roses.

"I suppose no one who has read his Virgil at school crosses the plain between Salerno and Paestum without those words of the Georgics ringing in his ears: biferique rosaria Pasti. ... The poets of Rome seem to have felt the magic of this phrase; for Ovid has imitated the line in his Metamorphoses; Martial sings of Pastane rosa.... Even Ausonius, at the very end of Latin literature, draws from the rosaries of Pæstum a pretty picture of beauty doomed to a premature decline.

Vidi Pæstano guadere rosaria cultu Exoriente nova roscida Lucifero.' ('I have watched the rose-beds that luxuriate on P'æstum's well-tilled soil, all dewy in the young light of the rising dawn-star.')

"What a place this was, indeed, for a rose-garden, spreading far and wide along the fertile plain, with its deep loam reclaimed from swamps, and irrigated by the passing of perpetual streams! But where are the roses now? As well ask, où sont les neiges d'antan " John A. Symonds. Rosetta Gate. The eastern entrance to a large circuit, near the modern town of Alexandria, Egypt, the walls of which enclose an area about 10,000 feet in length, and from 1,600 to 3,200 feet in breadth. This space, till recently uninhabited, is now being settled, and may be regarded as again a part of Alexandria. Rosetta Stone. A piece of black basalt, the most valuable existing relic of Egyptian history, inscribed in hieroglyphics and in Greek. It was found by Boussard, a French officer, near Rosetta, in Egypt, in 1799. now in the British Museum, London. The stone is a trilingual slab or tablet, bearing an inscription in honor of one of the Ptolemies, written in Greek, hieroglyphic, and demotic characters. A comparison of the Greek letters with the other characters upon the stone enabled Dr. and Champollion to read

It is

inscription, thus giv

to the deciphering sacred writings of

the Egyptians. The Roset'a Stone is fragmentary. Rosewell. A fine old mansion, now deserted, near the York River, above Yorktown, Va., once the country-seat of Gov. Page, said to be the largest private house in the Old Dominion. Its materials were imported from England, and the cost of its erection ruined the owner.

Roslin Castle. An ancient ruined castle near Edinburgh, Scotland. It has under it a set of curious excavations, similar to those at Hawthornden. It was the seat of the St. Clair family, Lords of Roslin.

O'er Roslin, all that dreary night
A wondrous blaze was seen to gleam:
"Twas broader than the watchfire's light,
And redder than the bright moonbeam.
It glared on Roslin's castled rock,
It ruddied all the copsewood glen;
'Twas seen from Deyden's groves of oak,
And seen from caverned Hawthornden.

Scott.

Roslin Chapel. A beautiful ruin near Edinburgh, Scotland. The chapel was built by William St. Clair in 1446, and was the burialplace of the Barons of Roslin, who were all laid here in their armor, as described by Sir Walter Scott in his poem. It is noted for the profuseness of its decorations.

"This little gem of florid architecture is scarcely a ruin, so perfect are its arches and pillars, its fretted cornices and its painted windows." N. P. Willis.

"It is the rival of Melrose, but more elaborate: in fact, it is a perfect cataract of architectural vivacity and ingenuity, as defiant of any rules of criticism and art as the leaf-embowered arcades and arches of our American forest cathedrals." Mrs. H. B. Stowe. August and hoary, o'er the sloping dale The Gothic abbey rears its sculptured towers;

Dull through the roofs resounds the whist-
ling gale;

Dark solitude among the pillars lowers.
Mickle.

Rospigliosi Aurora. See AURORA.
Rospigliosi Palace. [Ital. Palazzo

Rospigliosi.] A palace in Rome, built in 1603, chiefly remarkable

as possessing the celebrated fres- | Rotten Row. A road in Hyde co of Aurora by Guido.

Ross Castle. An interesting ruin in the county of Kerry, Ireland, situated on a peninsula in the Lower Lake of Killarney. It is a tall, square embattled building, with machicolated defences, and is a very conspicuous object in the landscape. It is celebrated for its exquisite views.

Rossmarkt, The. A public square

in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Ger-
many. It contains a monument
to Guttenberg, the inventor of
printing.

Rosso Palace. See BRIGNOLE
SALE PALACE.

Rostellan. The seat of the Mar-
quis of Thomond, near Cloyne,
Ireland.

Rota, The. A political club in
London, founded in 1659, and so
called from a project for annually
changing by rotation a certain
number of members of Parlia-
ment. The Rota (or Coffee Club)
was a sort of debating club for
the spread of republican ideas.
Aubrey, who became a member
in 1659, says that here Milton and
Marvell, Cyriac Skinner, Har-
rington (the author of
"Oce-
ana"), Nevill, and their friends,
discussed abstract political ques-
tions, and that they had "
a bal-
loting box, and balloted how
things should be carried, by way
of Tentamens. The room
every evening as full as it could
be crammed." The Rota broke
up after the Restoration.

But Sidrophel, as full of tricks
As Rota-men of politics.

Rotello del Fico.

was

Butler.

A famous picture by Leonardo da Vinci (14521519), representing a horrid monster, said to have been composed by him after having collected serpents, lizards, and other obnoxious animals, with a view to producing the most horrid image possible.

Rotherhithe. A district in London, the headquarters of sailors.

Park, London, used only by equestrians, and greatly frequented by them during the London season. Its name is said by some to be derived from rotteran, to muster; but others pronounce it a corruption of Route de Roi, King's Drive.

But yesterday a naked sod,

The dandies sneered from Rotten Row,
And sauntered o'er it to and fro,
And see 'tis done!

Thackeray.

Rotten Row, this half-mile to which the fashion of London confines itself as if the remainder of the bright green Park were forbidden ground, is now fuller than ever. N. P. Willis.

I hope I'm fond of much that's good,
As well as much that's gay:
I'd like the country if I could,

I like the Park in May;
And when I ride in Rotten Row,
I wonder why they called it so.

Frederick Locker. Rotto, Ponte. See PONTE ROTTO. Rotonda, La. See PANTHEON. Rotunda, The. A circular hall in the centre of the Capitol at Washington. It is 96 feet in diameter, and 180 feet high, and is overarched by the great dome. The rotunda contains eight large historical paintings.

Rotunda, The. A public enclos-
ure and favorite resort in Dub-
lin, Ireland.
Rotzberg Castle. An old fortress

See NOTRE

in Switzerland, on the shore of the Alpnach lake. It is the subject of legendary song. Rouen Cathedral. DAME [de Rouen]. Round Hill School. A famous but short-lived classical school on a beautiful hill near Northampton, Mass., established in 1823 by George Bancroft and J. G. Cogswell.

"They aimed to found a private school with the character of a great public school, without any public foundation, and to supply its wants from its annual receipts. It was a romantic enterprise, and carried on in a quixotic or poetical spirit; and it is even remarkable that the school survived its first lustre. There never was before, and probably never will be again, such a school in America, or

perhaps in the world. It was composed, as to pupils, almost exclusively of the sons of rich men; and they came from the cities of the North and the South, many being children of men well known in public life, or of historical families.

Probably no American college had at the time so large, varied, well-paid, and gifted a faculty as the Round Hill School. It outnumbered Harvard and Yale in the corps of its teachers, and put a complete circle about them in the comprehensiveness of its scheme of education. The first gymnasium in the country was set up in its play. ground, under Dr. Follen, who afterwards planted a similar one in the Delta at Cambridge. The school had a regular professor of manners, a Custos Morum, who spent his time with the boys in their play-hours, with special purpose to correct ill-speech or violence or ungentlemanliness." H. W. Bellows. About the first of August we went to Round Hill and Hanover, but that is all. George Ticknor.

Round Robin. This name is given to a written petition or protest, signed by a number of persons, in a circular form, so that it may not appear who signed it first. Sometimes the names are written around a ring or circle enclosing the memorial or remonstrance, and sometimes they are appended to it, arranged within a circle of their own, from the centre of which they radiate as the spokes of a wheel do from the nave. It has been said that the officers of the French government first used the Round Robin as a means of making known their grievances; but this is doubtless a mistake, as the same device seems to have been in use among the ancient Romans, and also among the Greeks, with whom it perhaps originated. The most celebrated Round Robin ever written was addressed to Dr. Johnson by several friends of Oliver Goldsmith, for whose monument in Westminster Abbey Johnson had written a Latin inscription. The following is a copy of this famous paper:

We, the circumsubscribers, having read with great pleasure an intended epitaph for the monument of Dr. Goldsmith, which, considered abstractedly, appears to be, for elegant composition and masterly style, in every respect

worthy of the pen of its learned author, are yet of opinion that the character of the deceased as a writer, particularly as a poet, is, perhaps, not delineated with all the exactness which Dr. Johnson is capable of giving it. We, there fore, with deference to his superior judgment, humbly request that he would at least take the trouble of revising it, and of making such additions and alterations as he shall think proper on a further perusal. But, if we might venture to express our wishes, they would lead us to request that he would write the epitaph in English rather than in Latin; as we think the memory of so eminent an English writer ought to be perpetuated in the language to which his works are likely to be so lasting an ornament, which we also known to have been the opinion of the late doctor himself. Jos. WARTON. EDM. BURke. THOS. FRANKLIN. ANT. CHANVIER. GEO. COLMAN. WM. VACHEll.

J. REYNOLDS.
W. FORBES.
T. BARNARD.
R. B. SHERIDAN.
P. METCALFE.
E. GIBBON.

[These names were signed around a circle enclosing the petition.]

The term Round Robin is of uncertain derivation. Some say it comes from the French words rond, round, and ruban, a ribbon; but this is mere assertion, and lacks even plausi bility to support it. In some parts of England a pancake is called a Round Robin; and it may, fairly enough, be conjectured that the circular form of petition, which is also so called, was named from its resemblance to a pan. cake. But the question then arises, Why was the pancake so called? This is not easily answered. It may even have happened that the pancake was named from its resemblance to the peti tion. Robin is an old and familiar form of Robert (Robin Redbreast, by the by, means Robert Redbreast); and it would not be strange if some forgotten person of that name, who proposed to his ass0ciates this ingenious method of declaring their wishes or sentiments, was the occasion of the designation. Or he may have been the happy inventor of the pancake, and have left no memorial of himself except that useful article of food and its provincial name. is, however, another conjecture, which, as it has greater probability, deserves to be mentioned. The small pieces of spun-yarn or marline which are used to confine the upper edge of a sail to the yard or gaff, are called rope-bands, -corrupted by sailors to robands, or robbins. Now, a robbin of this sort

There

encircling a yard bears an easily recognizable, though rather fanciful, resemblance to a ring enclosing a petition or other writing. As Round Robins are frequently made use of by British sailors, it is quite possible that this is the true origin of the name.

No round robin signed by the whole main-deck of the Academy or the Porch. De Quincey. Round Table [of King Arthur]. An ancient painted oaken table of a circular form, in the County Hall of Winchester, England. The tradition is, that this table is the same around which King Arthur and his knights used to assemble. This table was exhibited in 1522 to the Emperor Charles V. of Germany. It is described as "a circle divided into 25 green and white compartments radiating from the centre, which is a large double rose. . . . Resting upon the rose, is a canopied niche, in which is painted a royal figure, bearing the orb and sword, and wearing the royal crown."

"For his own part," he said," and in the land where he was bred, men would as soon take for their mark King Arthur's Round Table, which held sixty knights around it." Scott.

Where Venta's Norman castle still up

[blocks in formation]

a rhyme

The Druid frame, unhonored, falls a prey To the slow vengeance of the wizard Time,

And fade the British characters away; Yet Spenser's page, that chants in verse sublime

Those chiefs, shall live, unconscious of decay. Thomas Warton.

Full fifteen years and more were sped, Each brought new wreaths to Arthur's head,

And wide were through the world renown'd

The glories of his Table Round. Scott. Round Table. See KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE.

Round Top. See LITTLE ROUND TOP.

Round Tower. See OLD STONE MILL.

Rousseau's House. On the Grand Rue, Geneva, Switzerland. In this house Jean Jacques was born, and spent his early life. Rowallan Castle. A feudal mansion of great antiquity near Kilmarnock, Scotland.

Roxburgh Castle. An ancient fortress, made a royal palace by David I. in 1124, near Teviot Bridge, over the Tweed, in Scotland. It is now in ruins. In a churchyard adjoining is the grave of Edie Ochiltree, a character in Scott's novel of "The Antiquary." His real name was Andrew Gemmel. In the same neighborhood is a monument to the memory of the poet Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," who was born here.

Roxburgh! how fallen, since first in Gothic pride,

Thy frowning battlements the war defied. Leyden.

Roxburghe Club. This club in London derives its foundation from the sale, in 1812, of the library of John, third Duke of Roxburghe (died 1804), after whom it is named. It was avowedly instituted for the reprinting of rare and old specimens of ancient literature; each member to "reprint a scarce piece of ancient fore, to be given to the members, one copy being on vellum for the chairman, and only as many copies as members.' The Roxburghe Club gave elaborate dinners. It is still in existence.

Royal Academy. A Society of Artists in London, organized in 1768, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds was the first president. The Academy occupied rooms for a time in Somerset House, but in 1838 removed to the National Gallery.

Royal Academy of Music. An academy in London, for teaching all branches of music, founded in 1822 by the late Earl of Westmoreland.

Royal Adelaide. A British steamer wrecked off Margate, March 30, 1850, with a loss of 200 lives.

« السابقةمتابعة »