ページの画像
PDF
ePub
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

All love, half languor, and half fire, Like saints that at the stake expire, And lift their raptured looks on high, As though it were a joy to die. Byron. RARE, adj. Fr. rare; Lat. rarus. RA'REE-SHOW, n. s. Uncommon; unfreRARELY, adv. quent; scarce; excelRARENESS, n. s. lent; incomparable; RA'RITY. thin; subtle a rareeshow is a rare show corruptly pronounced, and therefore written: rarely corresponds with rare; as well as rareness and rarity, which are synony

[blocks in formation]

Donne.

Virtue, art, beauty, fortune, now I see Rareness or use, not nature, value brings. Bodies, under the same outward bulk, have a greater thinness and expansion, or thickness and solidity, which terms, in English, do not signify fully those differences of quantity; therefore I will do it under the names of rarity and density. Digby. On which was wrought the gods and giants fight, Rare work, all filled with terror and delight.

Cowley. For the rareness, and rare effect of that petition, I'll insert it as presented. Clarendon.

The cattle in the fields and meadows green,
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herbs upsprung.

So eagerly the fiend

Milton.

[blocks in formation]

I saw three rarities of different kinds, which pleased me more than any other shows of the place. Addison.

It would be a rarity worth the seeing, could any one show us such a thing as a perfectly reconciled enemy. South.

The dense and bright light of the circle will obscure the rare and weak light of these dark colours round about it, and render them almost insensible. Newton's Opticks.

Of raree-shows he sung, and Punch's feats.

Gay.

This I do, not to draw any argument against them from the universal rest or accurately equal diffusion of matter, but only that I may better demonstrate the great rarity and tenuity of their imaginary chaos. Bentley's 's Sermons.

The fashions of the town affect us just like a rareeshow; we have the curiosity to peep at them, and nothing more. Pope.

Vanessa in her bloom,
Advanced like Atalanta's star,

But rarely seen, and seen from far.
I cannot talk with civet in the room,

Swift.

A fine puss gentleman that's all perfume; The sight's enough-no need to smell a beauWho thrusts his nose into a raree-show? Cowper RARE, adj. Sax. þɲeɲe; Goth. rar. Underdone by the fire. New-laid eggs, with Baucis' busy care, Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare.

Dryden.

RARE AND SCARCE BOOKS. We are not bibliomaniacs. See the article LIBRARY: and in undertaking what we have there promised, to furnish the reader with a few criteria of rare and scarce, as distinguished from useful books, we shall not, of course, detain him long.

Of the date of MSS. we have already given the general marks in the article of that name: printed books are rare according to the date or circumstances of their being printed; the material on which they are printed; the manner in which their circulation has been interrupted by authority or accident; whether they are on large or small paper; and the manner in which they have been illustrated. These have been called marks of absolute rarity.

Books are said to be comparatively or relatively rare which are of the first editions of particular places; which have proceeded from the press of certain distinguished printers of the last three centuries, as the Aldi, the Stephenses, Elzevirs, Brindley, Baskerville, &c.; which have never been offered to sale or have been sold under different titles; and lastly which are local, or confined to particular classes of mankind in their interest; such as the topography of certain places and districts, books treating of exploded arts or sciences, the history of particular academists, catalogues of libraries, &c.

books into those simply rare; books precious Some bibliographers have further distinguished but not rare; and books both rare and precious. The first are such as from any circumstances are difficult to be procured: their value therefore is often wholly adventitious, and idle clergymen and noblemen are adding to this important list every

year by printing one or two copies of an impression of a book on vellun; illustrating it in some particular way, diversifying the binding, &c. Books precious, we are told, are those which have been of very great expense in bringing out: such as splendid collections of architectural engravings; large collections of uniform works on antiquities, &c., and why not Encyclopædias?

Books both rare and precious are those which extend to an immense number of volumes on an important subject, or are executed with remarkable care or splendor, and are therefore seldom found perfect, as the Collections of Travels published by De Bry, the basis of which alone cost Mr. Grenville £240, and a copy of which was lately purchased, as Dr. Dibdin tells us, by the duke of Devonshire for £546. Ah! it makes our heart rejoice,' says our author (and we unite in this feeling with him, only his fear is our hope), 'to think of the good old times,' the golden days of the bibliomania, when colonel Stanley's copy was sold; days I fear which are gone, never to return: Ramusio, de Bry, Hakluyt, and Purchas, Caxton, De Worde, Pynson, and William Faques, were then contemplated and caressed as their beauties and merits entitle them to be!'

We add, as calculated to exhibit the earlier difficulties and gradual improvements in the art of printing, the following directions for ascertaining editions of the fifteenth century. 1. The texture and thickness of the paper is to be regarded as printed books were at first imitations of MSS., they were made to imitate vellum as nearly as possible. 2. The unequal size and general clumsiness of the type. It was, however, soon improved in these respects. 3. The absence of title pages; printer's name and abode; date when printed; signatures or letters marking the sheet; and catchwords on the right hand page. Titlepages first began to be printed separately about 1470, some say 1480, but were very rare until the beginning of the sixteenth century. 4. The infrequency of divisions, and of capital letters at the beginning of divisions, chapters, &c. The plan was at first to leave these to be filled up by illuminators who ornamented them with the gold and fine colors that enrapture our bibliomaniacs. 5. The little punctuation that appears, and particularly the omission of commas and semi-colons. Books printed about the middle of the fifteenth century have no stops but periods. 8. The numerous abbreviations, as neqz, quibz, for neque and quibus; Dns for Dominus and many others less intelligible. See Jungendre. Dissertatio de Notis Characterist. Librorum à Typograph. Incurabulo ad Ann. M. D. impressorum, Norimb. 1740. Dibdin's Bibliomania, Horne's Introduction to Bibliography, &c.

Finally, the reader may contrast the scarceness of books in the dark ages with their present abundance. Many circumstances,' says Dr. Robertson (Charles V. vol. i.) prove the scarcity of books during these ages. Private persons seldom possessed any books whatever. Even monasteries of considerable note had only one missal. Murat. Antiq. vol. ix. p. 789. Lupus, abbot of Ferrieres, in a letter to the pope, A. D.

[ocr errors]

855, beseeches him to lend him a copy of Cicero de Oratore, and Quintilian's Institutions; 'for,' says he, although we have parts of those books, there is no complete copy of them in all France.' Murat. Ant. v. iii. p. 835. The price of books became so high that persons of a moderate fortune could not afford to purchase them. The countess of Anjou paid for a copy of the Homilies of Haimon, bishop of Halberstadt, 200 sheep, five quarters of wheat, and the same quantity of rye and millet. Histoire Literaire de France, par des Religieux Benedictins, tom. vii. p. 3. Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI. borrowed the works of Rasis, the Arabian physician, from the faculty of medicine in Paris, he not only deposited in pledge a considerable quantity of plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, binding himself, under a great forfei ture, to restore it. Gabr. Naudè Addit. à l'Histoire de Loyus XI. par Comines, edit. de Fresnoy, tom. iv. p. 281. Many curious circumstances, with respect to the extravagant price of books in the middle ages, are collected by that industrious compiler, to whom I refer such of my readers as deem this small branch of literary history an object of curiosity. When any person made a present of a book to a church or a monastery, in which were the only libraries during several ages, it was deemed a donative of such value that he offered it on the altar, pro remedio animæ suæ, in order to obtain the forgiveness of his sins. Murat. vol. iii. p. 836. Hist. Liter. de France, tom vi. p. 6. Nouv. Trait. du Diplomat. par deux Benedictins, 4to. tom i. p. 481. In these 'good old times,' to adopt Dr. Dibdin's phrase, we suppose the editor of an Encyclopædia would have been at least a cardinal!

[blocks in formation]

RARITAN, a river of New Jersey, formed by two branches, which unite about twenty miles above New Brunswick. It becomes navigable two miles above that city, at a place called Brunswick Landing. Flowing by New Brunswick and gradually becoming broader and deeper, it passes Amboy, and then widens into Raritan Bay, which is immediately connected with the ocean. It is navigable for sloops of eighty tons, as far as New Brunswick, seventeen miles. The general course of the Raritan is south of east, It is intended to connect this

river with the Delaware, by a canal which is to
commence between New Brunswick and Wash-
ington, and join the Delaware at Croswick's
Creek. The distance is twenty-nine miles.
RAS EL KHY MA, the chief town of the Pi-
rates on the Persian Gulf. There is a suburb of
bamboo huts. Here are several castles, one the
residence of the chief, and another for naval
stores. In 1809 the depredations of the pirates
induced the British authorities to fit out an ex-
pedition against them. On the 13th of Novem-
ber Ras el Khyma was taken by storm, the ships
burned, and the guns spiked: the British loss
consisted of only one killed, and four wounded.
In the course, however, of a few years, the
enemy had repaired the place and its defences,
and had again become so formidable that a new
expedition was sent against them, which effected
its object with the same success. Long. 55° 30′
E., lat. 25° 49' N.
RAS'CAL, n. s.
RASCALLION,
RASCALITY,

Sax. narcal. A lean
beast,' says Johnson: pro-

RASCIANS, or RAITZEN, a numerous and ancient Sclavonic tribe, inhabiting the south of Hungary. They are supposed to be the descendants of Christians who fled from the district of Rascia, in Servia and Bosnia, when they were invaded by the Turks. They came into Hungary early in the fifteenth century, and received particular privileges. Some time after their arrival they were driven by the Turks farther north. They are found at present in considerable numbers in the Bannat, in Sclavonia, and other parts of the south of Hungary. In Croatia they form a third of the population. They live in great simplicity, partly employed in agricultural and pastoral occupations, and partly in woollen and linen manufactures. Early marriage is customary among them, and their increase consequently considerable; but they have never exhibited, during three centuries, Mr. Malthus's fearful propensity to multiply. The Uscocks and Morlachians appear to be of the same descent, but are behind the Rascians in civilisation. Each of these tribes

RAS'CALLY, di Perly a lean deer. See the calls itself by the name of Srbi, or Servians, and

fine instance of its use so late as in Shakspeare, and the equivoque of Falstaff which can only be thus understood. A mean fellow; a scoundrel: rascallion is synonymous rascality and rascally correspond.

For the rascal commons, lest he cared. Spenser.
And when him list the rascal routs appal,
Men into stones therewith he could transmew. Id.
A little berd of England's humorous deer,
Mazed with the yelping kennels of French curs!
If we be English deer be then in blood,
Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch;
But rather moody-mad and desperate stags,
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel,
And make the cowards aloof at bay.

Shakspeare. Henry VI.
The rascal people, thirsting after prey,
Join with the traitor.

Id.

DOL.-You muddy rascal is that all the comfort you give me?

FAL. You make fat rascals mistress Doll.

Id. Henry IV. Would'st thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep biter come by some notable shame?

That proud dame

Shakspeare.

That old Pig-what d' ye call him-malion,

Used him so like a base rascalion,

That cut his mistress out of stone,

Had not so hard a hearted one.

Hudibras.

all speak dialects of the Illyrian language.

[ocr errors]

RASE, v. a. Fr. raser, of Lat. rasus. I Ra'sure, n. s. § would write rase,' says Johnson, when it signifies to strike slightly, perstringere; and raze, when it signifies to ruin, delere.' To skim; strike on the surface; blot out; overthrow: rasure is the mark made by blotting or rubbing out.

He certifies your lordship that this night
He dreamt the boar had rused off his helm.

Shakspeare.

Though of their names in heav'nly records now Be no memorial, blotted out and rased. Milton. Was he not in the nearest neighbourhood to death? and might not the bullet, that rased his South. cheek, have gone into his head?

Such a writing ought to be free from any vituperation of rasure. Ayliffe's Parergon.

RASH, adj.

RASH'LY, adv.

RASH'NESS, n. s.

Belg. and Teut. rasch;

Swed. and Dan. rask.

Hasty; violent; precipi

tate: the adverb and noun substantive corresponding.

Be not rash win thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God; for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. Eccles.

This is to be bold without shame, rash without
Ascham.

Pretended philosophers judge as ignorantly in their skill, full of words without wit.

way, as the ruscality in theirs.

Glanville.

Did I not see you, rascal, did I not,
When you lay snug to snap young Damon's goat?
Dryden.

I have sense, to serve my turn, in store,
And he's a rascal who pretends to more. Id.
Scoundrels are insolent to their superiors; but it
does not become a man of honour to contest with
mean rascals.
L'Estrange.

Jeroboam having procured his people gods, the next thing was to provide priests; hereupon, to the calves he adds a commission, for the approving, trying, and admitting the rascality and lowest of the people to minister in that service.

South.

The poor girl provoked told him he lyed like a

rascal.

Swift.

[blocks in formation]

Our rascally porter is fallen fast asleep with the black cloth and sconces, or we might have been Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat. tacking up by this time.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

If we grow all to be pork eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money. Shakspeare. Merchant of Venice. White and black was all her homely cheer, And rashers of singed bacon on the coals.

Dryden. Quenches his thirst with ale in nut-brown bowls, And takes the hasty rasher from the coals. King. RASP, v. a. & n. s. Fr. Ital. rasper; raspare; RASPATORY, n. s. Span. raspar. To rub to powder with a rough file; the file used: a surgeon's rasp.

Having prepared hard woods and ivory for the lathe with rasping, they pitch it between the pikes. Moxon.

Case-hardening is used by file-cutters, when they make coarse files, and generally most rasps have formerly been made of iron and case-hardened.

Moxon's Mechanical Exercises.

Some authors have advised the rasping of these bones; but in this case it is needless. Wiseman.

I put into his mouth a raspatory, and pulled away the corrupt flesh, and with cauteries burnt it to a Id. Surgery.

crust.

RASP, n. s. Ital. raspo. A delicious berry RASPBERRY. that grows on a species of the bramble; a raspberry.

Set sorrel amongst rasps, and the rasps will be the

smaller.

Bacon.

Raspberries are of three sorts; the common wild one, the large red garden raspberry, which is one of the pleasantest fruits, and the white, which is little inferior to the red. Mortimer's Husbandry. Now will the corinths, now the rasps supply Delicious draughts, when prest to vines. Philips. RASPBERRY-TREE. See RUBUS.

RASTADT, a town of Baden, the capital of the district of Murg, and the seat of one of the four grand courts of the duchy. Here is an excellent manufacture of fire arms; but the town is chiefly noted as having been, in 1714 and 1798, the seat of diplomatic conferences. On this last occasion two of the French negociators, on their journey to Strasburg, were assassinated in a manner never fully explained, but supposed to have been the act of common robbers. In the campaign of 1796 the French obtained here an advantage over the Austrians. Twenty miles N. N. E. of Strasburg.

RASTALL (John), a printer and miscellaneous writer, born in London about the end of the fifteenth century, and educated at Oxford. He married the sister of Sir Thomas More, with whom he was very intimate, and whose writings

he strenuously defended. He died in 1536. Rastall was a zealous Papist. He wrote, 1. Natura Naturata. Pits calls it an ingenious comedy, describing Europe, Asia, and Africa, with cuts. 2. The Pastyme of the People; the Cronycles of diverse Realmys, and most especially of the realm of England, fol. 3. Ecclesia Johannis Rastal, 1542; one of the prohibited books in the reign of Henry VIII. 4. Legum Anglicanarum vocabula explicata. French and Latin. London 1567, 8vo. RAT, n. s. Sax. næt; Fr. rat; Belg. ratte; Swed. and Span. ratta; raton. An animal of the mouse kind that infests houses and ships: to smell a rat' is to suspect; be on the watch. Our natures do pursue

Id.

Like rats that ravin down their proper banc. Shakspeare. I have seen the time, with my long sword I would have made you four tall fellows skip like rats. Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat, Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate. Hudibras. Thus horses will knable at walls, and rats will gnaw iron. Browne's Vulgar Errours. If in despair he goes out of the way like a rat with a dose of arsenick, why he dies nobly. Dennis. RAT, in zoology. See Mus. RATAFIA is prepared from the kernels, &c. of several other kinds of fruits. Ratafia of cherries is prepared by bruising the cherries, and putting them into a vessel, wherein brandy has been long kept; then adding to them the kernels of cherries with strawberries, sugar, cinnamon, white pepper, nutmeg, cloves; and to 20 lbs. of cherries ten quarts of brandy. The vessel is left open ten or twelve days, and then stopped close for two months before it be tapped. Ratafia of apricots is prepared two ways, viz. either by boiling the apricots in white wine, adding to the liquor an equal brandy, with sugar, cinnamon, mace, and the kernels of apricots; infusing the whole for eight or ten days; then straining the liquor, and putting it up for use or else by infusing the apricots, cut in pieces, for a day or two, passing it through a straining bag, and then putting in the usual ingredients.

RATE, n. s., v. a. & v. n. I
RA'TABLE, adj.

Old Fr. rate; Lat. Sratus. Price fixed, or allowance settled; tax; degree; value; principle of value; quantity; manner: to value at a price; make an estimate.

His allowance was a continual allowance, a daily ate for every day. 2 Kings xxv. 30. I am a spirit of no common rate; The summer still doth tend upon my state. Shakspeare.

In goodly form comes on the enemy; And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.

I freely told you all the wealth I had Ran in my veins, I was a gentleman; And yet, dear lady,

Id.

ld.

Rating myself as nothing, you shall see How much I was a braggart. Many times there is no proportion of shot and powder allowed ratably by that quantity of the great Raleigh.

ordnance.

The Danes brought in a reckoning of money by ton, that twenty ore were ratable to two marks of ores, per oras; I collect out of the abbey-book of Bursilver. Camden's Remains.

Many of the horse could not march at that rate, nor come up soon enough. Clarendon.

We may there be instructed how to name and rate all goods, by those that will concentre into felicity. Boyle. In rating, when things are thus little and frivolous, we must not judge by our own pride and passions, which count nothing little, but aggrandize every affront and injury that is done to ourselves.

Kettlewell. You seem not nigh enough your joys to rate, You stand indebted a vast sum to fate, And should large thanks for the great blessings pay.

[blocks in formation]

They obliged themselves to remit after the rate of twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum, divided into so many monthly payments. Addison.

Tom hinting his dislike of some trifle his mistress had said, she asked him how he would talk to her after marriage, if he talked at this rate before? Id. They paid the church and parish rate, And took, but read not, the receipt. Prior. In this did his holiness and godliness appear above the rate and pitch of other men's, in that he was so infinitely merciful. Calamy.

A virtuous heathen is, at this rate, as happy as a virtuous Christian. Atterbury.

RATE, v. a. Isl. and Goth. reita. hastily and vehemently.

To chide

[blocks in formation]

There is a great use among the Irish, to make great assemblies upon a rath or hill, there to parly about matters and wrongs between townships or private persons. Spenser.

RATH, adj. Sax. ɲað, soon. Early; beRATHER, adv. fore the usual time: rather, the comparative of Sax. nao, meaning sooner, is more willingly; with better liking.

This is he that I seide of, after me is comun a man, which was made bifore me, for he was rather than I. Wiclif. Jon i. Almighty God desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness Common Prayer. Thus is my summer worn away and wasted, Thus is my harvest hastened all to rathe, The ear, that budded fair, is burnt and blasted, And all my hoped gain is turned to scathe. Spenser.

and live.

This is an art, Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature. Shakspeare. Winter's Tale.

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

'Tis rather to be thought that an heir had no such right by divine institution, than that God should give such right, but yet leave it undeterminate who such heir is. Locke.

"Tis with reluctancy he is provoked by our impenitence to apply the discipline of severity; he had rather mankind should adore him as their patron and benefactor. Rogers.

RATIFY, v. a. Lat, ratum facio. To conRATIFIER, n. s. firm; settle: "he who settles RATIFICATION. S or confirms: confirmation. We have ratified unto them the borders of Judæa., 1 Mac.

There must be zeal and fervency in him which proposeth for the rest those suits and supplications, which they by their joyful acclamations must ratify. Hooker.

[ocr errors]

They cry, chuse we Laertes for our king:' The ratifiers and props of every word, Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds. Shakspeare.

By the help of these, with him above
To ratify the work, we may again
Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights. Id.
Tell me, my friend, from whence hadst thou the
skill,

So nicely to distinguish good from ill?
And what thou art to follow, what to fly,
This to condemn, and that to ratify?

Dryden.

God ratified their prayers by the judgment brought down upon the head of him whom they prayed against. South.

RATIO, n. s. Lat. ratio. Proportion. Whatever inclination the rays have to the plane of incidence, the sine of the angle of incidence of every ray, considered apart, shall have to the sine of the angle of refraction a constant ratio. Cheyne.

RATIO, in arithmetic and geometry, is that relation of homogeneous things which determines the quantity of one from the quantity of another, without the intervention of a third. Two numbers, lines, or quantities, A and B, being proposed, their relation one to another may be considered under one of these two heads :-1. How much A exceeds B, or B exceeds A? And this is found by taking A from B, or B from A, and is called arithmetic ratio. 2. Or how many times, and parts of a time, A contains B, or B contains A? And this is called geometric reason or ratio (or, as Euclid defines it, it is the mutual habitude or aspect of two magnitudes of the same kind, according to quantity; that is, as to how often the one contains, or is contained in, the other), and is found by dividing A by B, or B by A. And here note, that that quantity which is referred to another quantity is called the antecedent of the ratio; and that to which the other is referred is called the consequent of the ratio; as, in the ratio of A to B, A is the antecedent, and B the consequent. Therefore any quantity, as antecedent, divided by any quantity is a consequent, gives the

« 前へ次へ »