The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 381

ROOT AND BRANCH MEN, name of a party in the Commons who in 1641 supported a pet.i.tion for the abolition of Episcopacy in England, and even carried a bill through two readings, to be finally thrown out.

ROPEMAKER, THE BEAUTIFUL. See LABe, LOUISE.

RORKE'S DRIFT, a station on the Tugela River, Zululand, the defence of which was on the night of the 24th January 1879 successfully maintained by 80 men of the 24th Regiment against 4000 Zulu warriors.

ROSA, CARL, father of English opera, born at Hamburg; introduced on the English stage the standard Italian, French, and German operas with an English text (1842-1889).

ROSA, SALVATOR, Italian painter, born near Naples, a man of versatile ability; could write verse and compose music, as well as paint and engrave; his paintings of landscape were of a sombre character, and generally representative of wild and savage scenes; he lived chiefly in Rome, but took part in the insurrection of Masaniello at Naples in 1647 (1615-1673).

ROSAMOND, FAIR, a daughter of Lord Clifford, and mistress of Henry II., who occupied a bower near Woodstock, the access to which was by a labyrinth, the windings of which only the king could thread. Her retreat was discovered by Queen Eleanor, who poisoned her.

ROSARIO (51), an important city of the Argentine Republic, on the Parana, 190 m. NW. of Buenos Ayres; does a large trade with Europe, exporting wool, hides, maize, wheat, &c.

ROSARY, a string of beads used by Hindus, Buddhists, Mohammedans, and Roman Catholics as an aid to the memory during devotional exercises; the rosary of the Roman Catholics consists of beads of two sizes, the larger ones mark the number of Paternosters and the smaller the number of Ave Marias repeated; of the former there are usually five, of the latter fifty.

ROSAS, JEAN MANUEL, Argentine statesman, born at Buenos Ayres; organised the confederation, became dictator, failed to force the Plate River States into the confederation, and took refuge in England, where he died (1793-1877).

ROSCHER, WILHELM, distinguished political economist, born at Hanover, professor at Gottingen and Leipzig, the head of the historical school of political economy; his chief work a "System of Political Economy" (1817-1894).

ROSCIUS, QUINTUS, famous Roman comic actor, born near Lanuvium, in the Sabine territory; was a friend of Cicero, and much patronised by the Roman n.o.bles; was thought to have reached perfection in his art, so that his name became a synonym for perfection in any profession or art.

ROSCOE, SIR HENRY, chemist, born in London, grandson of succeeding, professor at Owens College, Manchester; author of treatises on chemistry; _b_. 1834.

ROSCOE, WILLIAM, historian, born in Liverpool; distinguished as the author of the "Life of Lorenzo de' Medici" and of "Leo X.," as well as of "Handbooks of the Italian Renaissance" and a collection of poems (1753-1831).

ROSCOMMON (114), an inland county of Connaught, SW. Ireland; is poorly developed; one-half is in gra.s.s, and a sixth mere waste land; crops of hay, potatoes, and oats are raised, but the rearing of sheep and cattle is the chief industry; the rivers Shannon and Suck lie on its E.

and W. borders respectively; there is some pretty lake-scenery, interesting Celtic remains, castle, and abbey ruins, &c. The county town, 96 m. NW. of Dublin, has a good cattle-market, and remains of a 13th-century Dominican abbey and castle.

ROSCREA (3), an old market-town of Tipperary, 77 m. SW. of Dublin; its history reaches back to the 7th century, and it has interesting ruins of a castle, round tower, and two abbeys.

ROSEBERY, ARCHIBALD PHILIP PRIMROSE, EARL OF, born in London; educated at Eton and Christ's Church, Oxford; succeeded to the earldom in 1868; was twice over Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Mr. Gladstone, in 1885 and 1892; was first Chairman of London County Council; became Prime Minister on March 1894 on Mr. Gladstone's retirement, and resigned in June 1895; he is one of the most popular statesmen and orators of the day, and held in deservedly high esteem by all cla.s.ses; _b_. 1847.

ROSECRANS, WILLIAM STARKE, American general, born at Kingston, Ohio; trained as an engineer, he had settled down to coal-mining when the Civil War broke out; joined the army in 1861, and rapidly came to the front; highly distinguished himself during the campaigns of 1862-63, winning battles at Iuka, Corinth, and Stone River; but defeated at Chickamauga he lost his command; reinstated in 1864 he drove Price out of Missouri; has been minister to Mexico, a member of Congress, and since 1885 Registrar of the U.S. Treasury; _b_. 1819.

ROSENKRANZ, KARL, philosopher of the Hegelian school, born at Magdeburg; professor of Philosophy at Konigsberg; wrote an exposition of the Hegelian system, a "Life of Hegel," on "Goethe and his Works," &c.

(1805-1879).

ROSES, WARS OF THE, the most protracted and sanguinary civil war in English history, fought out during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. between the adherents of the n.o.ble houses of York and Lancaster--rival claimants for the throne of England--whose badges were the white and the red rose respectively; began with the first battle of St. Albans (1455), in which Richard, Duke of York, defeated Henry VI.'s forces under the Duke of Somerset; but not till after the decisive victory at Towton (1461) did the Yorkists make good their claim, when Edward (IV.), Duke of York, became king. Four times the Lancastrians were defeated during his reign. The war closed with the defeat and death of the Yorkist Richard III. at Bosworth, 1485, and an end was put to the rivalry of the two houses by the marriage of Henry VII. of Lancaster with Elizabeth of York, 1486.

ROSETTA (18), a town on the left branch of the delta of the Nile, 44 m. NE. of Alexandria, famous for the discovery near it by M. Boussard, in 1799, of the Rosetta stone with inscriptions in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek, and by the help of which archaeologists have been able to interpret the hieroglyphics of Egypt.

ROSICRUCIANS, a fraternity who, in the beginning of the 15th century, affected an intimate acquaintance with the secrets of nature, and pretended by the study of alchemy and other occult sciences to be possessed of sundry wonder-working powers.

ROSINANTE, the celebrated steed of Don Quixote, reckoned by him superior to the Bucephalus of Alexander and the Bavieca of the Cid.

ROSLIN, a pretty little village of Midlothian, by the wooded side of the North Esk, 6 m. S. of Edinburgh; has ruins of a 14th-century castle, and a small chapel of rare architectural beauty, built in the 16th century as the choir of a projected collegiate church.

ROSMINI, ANTONIO ROSMINI-SERBATI, distinguished Italian philosopher, born at Rovereto, entered the priesthood, devoted himself to the study of philosophy, founded a system and an inst.i.tute called the "Inst.i.tute of the Brethren of Charity" at Stresa, W. of Lake Maggiore, on a pietistic religious basis, which, though sanctioned by the Pope, has encountered much opposition at the hands of the obscurantist party in the Church (1797-1865).

ROSS, SIR JOHN, Arctic explorer, born in Wigtowns.h.i.+re; made three voyages, the first in 1811 under Parry; the second in 1829, which he commanded; and a third in 1850, in an unsuccessful search for Franklin, publis.h.i.+ng on his return from them accounts of the first two, in both of which he made important discoveries (1777-1856).

ROSSANO (19), a town of Southern Italy, in Calabria, 2 m. from the SW. sh.o.r.e of the Gulf of Taranto; has a fine cathedral and castle; valuable quarries of marble and alabaster are wrought in the vicinity.

ROSSBACH, a village in Prussian Saxony, 9 m. SW. of Merseburg, where Frederick the Great gained in 1767 a brilliant victory with 22,000 men over the combined arms of France and Austria with 60,000.

ROSSE, WILLIAM PARSONS, THIRD EARL OF, born in York; devoted to the study of astronomy; constructed reflecting telescopes, and a monster one at the cost of 30,000 at Parsonstown, his seat in Ireland, by means of which important discoveries were made, specially in the resolution of nebulae (1800-1867).

ROSSETTI, CHARLES DANTE GABRIEL, poet and painter, born in London, the son of Gabriele Rossetti; was as a painter one of the PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD (q. v.), and is characterised by Ruskin as "the chief intellectual force in the establishment of the modern romantic school in England,... as regarding the external world as a singer of the Romaunts would have regarded it in the Middle Ages, and as Scott, Burns, Byron, and Tennyson have regarded it in modern times,"

and as a poet was leader of the romantic school of poetry, which, as Stopford Brooke remarks, "found their chief subjects in ancient Rome and Greece, in stories and lyrics of pa.s.sion, in mediaeval romance, in Norse legends, in the old English of Chaucer, and in Italy" (1828-1882).

ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA GEORGINA, poetess, born in London, sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and of kindred temper with her brother, but with distinct qualities of her own; her first volume, called the "Goblin-Market," contains a number of very beautiful short poems; she exhibits, along with a sense of humour, a rare pathos, which, as Professor Saintsbury remarks, often "blends with or pa.s.ses into the utterance of religious awe, unstained and unweakened by any craven fear"

(1830-1894).

ROSSETTI, GABRIELE, Italian poet and orator, born at Vasto; had for his patriotic effusions to leave Italy, took refuge in London, and became professor of Italian in King's College, London; was a man of strong character, and student of literature as well as man of letters himself; was the father of Dante Gabriel and Christina (1783-1854).

ROSSI, PELLEGRINO, an Italian jurist and politician, born at Carrara, educated at Bologna, where he became professor of Law in 1812; four years later was appointed to a chair in Geneva, where he also busied himself with politics as a member of the Council and deputy in the Diet; settled in Paris in 1833, became professor at the College de France, was naturalised and created a peer, returned to Rome, broke off his connection with France, won the friends.h.i.+p of Pius IX., and rose to be head of the ministry; was a.s.sa.s.sinated (1787-1848).