Suttelege. It is divided by an island and fed by several small rivers, and by the melting of the snow, with which the neighbouring mountains are always covered. In its vicinity is to be seen Mount Cailas, a celebrated scene of Hindoo fable. It is situated about 31° of N. lat., and was visited in the year 1812 by Mr. Moorcroft. RAWLEY (William), D. D., a learned divine, born at Norwich, about 1518. He studied at Benet College, Cambridge; took his degree of A. B. in 1604; A. M. in 1608; B. D. in 1615; and D. D. in 1621. In 1609 he was chosen fellow; took orders in 1611, and was appointed rector of Landbeach in 1616. Although he was chaplain to lord Verulam, and afterwards to king Charles I. and II., he never received any higher promotion. During the commonwealth he was ejected by the parliament; but survived their power, and was restored to his living, which he held till his death, June 18th, 1667. He was married and had a son RAWLINS (Thomas), a dramatic writer, who was engraver for the mint under Charles I. and II. He wrote three plays, entitled Rebellion, Tom Essence, and Tunbridge Wells; and died in 1670. RAWLINSON (Richard), LL.D., an eminent English antiquary, educated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he took his degrees in 1713 and 1719. He made large collections for the continuation of Wood's Athene Oxonienses, and History of Oxford; which, with notes of his own travels, he bequeathed to the university. He promoted the publication of many books of history and antiquities, with particular descriptions of several counties in England. In 1728 he translated and published Fresnoy's new mode of studying history, with a catalogue of the chief historians, 2 vols. 8vo. In 1750 he founded an Anglo-Saxon professorship at Oxford; and bequeathed to that university a large collection of books and medals, and also his heart in a marble urn. He died at Islington in 1755. RAWLINSON (Christopher, esq,), of Clarkhall, in Lancashire, another learned antiquary, was born in 1677, and educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He became eminent for his skill in Saxon and northern literature; and published a beautiful edition of king Alfred's Saxon translation of Boethius de Consolatione, Oxford 1698, 8vo. He died January 8th, 1733, leaving a great collection of MSS. RAWLINSON (Thomas), a learned collector of books, commemorated in Addison's Tatler, under the name of Tom Folio. He collected such a quantity of books that he took a large house on purpose for them. He died in 1725, aged forty-four, and the sale of his library lasted three months. RAY (John), a celebrated botanist, was born at Black Notley in Essex, in 1628. He received the first rudiments of education at the grammarschool at Braintree; and in 1644 was admitted into Catharine Hall, Cambridge, whence he afterwards removed to Trinity College in that university. He took the degree of M. A. and became at length a senior fellow of the college; but his intense application to his studies having injured his health, he was obliged to exercis himself by riding or walking in the fields, which led him to the study of plants. In 1660 he published his Catalogus Plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium, and was ordained deacon and priest. In 1661 he made a tour through Britain along with Mr. Willughby, in search of rare plants; and in 1662 accompanied him in a tour through Holland, Germany, France, and Italy; and on his return was made F. R.S. In 1672 Mr. Willughby dying left Ray one of his executors, and tutor to his sons, with £60 a year for life. For their use he composed his Nomenclator Classicus, in 1672. In 1673 he married a daughter of Mr. Oakley, of Launton, Oxfordshire; and published his Observations Topographical and Moral, &c., made in foreign countries; to which was added his Catalogus Stirpium in Exteris Regionibus Observatarum; and about the same time his Collection of Unusual or local English Words, which he had gathered up in his travels through the counties of England. In 1697 he published the Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of the Creation, 8vo. The rudiments of this work were read in some college lectures; and another collection of the same kind he enlarged and published under the title of Three Physico-Theological Discourses, concerning the Chaos, Deluge, and Dissolution of the World, 8vo. 1692. He died in 1705. He was modest, affable, and communicative; and was distinguished by his probity and piety. He wrote a great number of other works; the principal of which are, 1. Catalogus Plantarum Angliæ. 2. Dictionariolum Trilingue secundum Locos Communes. 3. Historia Plantarum, Species hactenus Editas, aliasque insuper noviter multas Inventas et Descriptas, Complectens, 3 vols. 4. Methodus Plantarum Nova, cum Tabulis, 8vo., and several other works on plants. 5. Synopsis Methodica Animalium, Quadrupedum et Serpentini Generis, 8vo. 6. Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium. 7. Historia Insectorum, Opus Posthumum. 8. Methodus Insectorum. 9. Philosophical Letters, &c. RAY, n. s. & v. a. Fr. raie; Span. rago; Ital. raggio; Lat. radius. A beam of light; any lustre, natural or artificial; a mental beam: as an obsolete verb active, to streak with ray-like lines. Before a bubbling fountain low she lay, Which she increased with her bleeding heart, And the clean waves with purple gore did ray. Spenser. His horse is raied with the yellows. Shakspeare. These eyes that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn Milton. No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise. Burns. RAY, in optics. See LIGHT and OPTICS. RAYS, INFLECTED, those rays of light which, on their near approach to the edges of bodies, in passing by them, are bent out of their course, being turned either from the body or towards it. This property of the rays of light is generally termed diffraction by foreigners, and Dr. Hooke sometimes called it deflection. RAYS, PENCIL OF, a number of rays issuing from a point of an object, and diverging in the form of a cone. RAYS, REFLECTED, those rays of light, which, after falling upon the body, do not go beyond the surface of it, but are thrown back again. RAYS, REFRACTED, those rays of light which, after falling upon any medium, enter its surface, being bent either towards or from a perpendicular to the point on which they fell. RAYNAL (William Thomas), the celebrated abbé, was born in 1712: educated among the Jesuits, and had even become a member of their order; but was expelled for denying the supreme authority of the church. He afterwards associated with Voltaire, D'Alembert,and Diderot, and was by them employed to furnish the theological articles for the Encyclopedie. In this, however, he received the assistance of the abbe Yvon, to whom he did not give above a sixth part of what he received; which being afterwards discovered, he was obliged to pay Yvon the balance. His most celebrated work is his Political and Philosophical History of the European Settlements in the East and West Indies; which has been translated into all the languages of Europe, and much admired. This work was followed in 1780 by another, entitled The Revolution of America, in which the abbé pleads the cause of the Americans with zeal. The French government commenced a prosecution against him for the former of these works; upon which he retired to Berlin, where Frederick the Great afforded him an asylum. The chief trait in Raynal's character was his love of liberty; but, when he saw the length to which the French revolutionists were going, he made one effort to stop them in their career. In May, 1791, he addressed a letter to the Constituent National Assembly, in which, after complimenting them upon the great things they had done, he cautioned them against the dangers of going farther. He lived not only to see his forebodings of public calamity realised, but to suffer his share of it. After being stripped of all his property, which was considerable, by the robbers of the revolution, he died in poverty, in March 1796, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote, 1. A History of the Parliament of England. 2. A History of the Stadtholderate. 3. The History of the Divorce of Catharine of Arragon by Henry VIII. About the time of his death, he was preparing a new edition of all his works, with many alterations; and he is said to have left among his MSS. A History of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 4 vols; but during the bloody reign of Robespierre he burnt a great number of his MSS. RAZE, n. s, Span. rayz, a root. A root of ginger. Written also race, but less properly, I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger to be delivered. Shakspeare. Henry IV. RAZE, v. a. See Fr. raser; Lat. rasus. } RAʼZURE, n. s. RASE. To overthrow; ruin; subvert; efface: razure, the act or mark of razing. Will you suffer a temple, how poorly built soever, but yet a temple of your deity, to be razed? Sidney. He yoaketh your rebellious necks, Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns. Shakspeare. Id. Id. Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain. Oh! your desert speaks loud, It well deserves with characters of brass A forted residence, 'gainst the tooth of time And razure of oblivion. He in derision sets Upon their tongues a various spirit, to raze Quite out their native language; and instead, To sow a jangling noise of words. Milton. Shed Christian blood, and populous citics raze; Because they're taught to use some different phrase. Waller. We touched with joy The royal hand that razed unhappy Troy. Dryden. RA'ZOR, n.s. Fr. razoir; Lat. rasor. A so called from its shape. Zeal, except ordered aright, useth the razor with such eagerness that the life of religion is thereby hazarded. Hooker. These words are razors to my wounded heart. Shakspeare. New-born chins be rough and razourable. Id. The sheath or razorfish resembleth in length and bigness a man's finger. Carew. Those thy boisterous locks, not by the sword Of noble warrior, so to stain his honour, But by the barber's razor best subdued. Milton. Razor makers generally clap a small bar of Venice steel between two small bars of Flemish steel, and weld them together, to strengthen the back of the razor. Moxon. by the recess, and their reviving by the reaccess of Let pass the quailing and withering of all things the sun. Hakewill. REACH, v. a., v. n. & n. s. Sax. ɲæcan; Belg. ekken; Goth. reckia. To attain; penetrate or be adequate to; arrive at ; touch, strike, or fetch, from a distance; hold out; give: as a verb neuter, be extended; penetrate; be far extended; endeavour: as a noun substantive reach is power of touching, taking, or compassing; limit of faculties; attainment; authority; range; extent; scheme; device; fetch. He hath delivered them into your hand, and ye have slain them in a rage, that reacheth up unto heaven. 2 Chronicles xxviii. Do not great bodies conserve their heat the longest, their parts heating one another; and may not great, dense, and fixed bodies, when heated beyond à certain degree, emit light so copiously as by the emission and reaction of its light, and the reflections and refractions of its rays within its pores, to grow still hotter till it comes to a certain period of heat, such as that of the sun? Newton's Opticks. The lungs being the chief instrument of sanguifica tion, and acting strongly upon the chyle to bring it to an animal fluid, must be reacted upon as strongly. Arbuthnot. Cut off your hand, and you may do READ, v. a., v.n. & n.s.~ Swift's Miscellanies. Sax. pæd; Teut. reden; Goth. reda, rada, to explain or divine. To peruse; discover by marks or characters; hence learn by observation of any kind; to perform the act of reading; be studious; know by reading as an obsolete noun substantive, counsel; saying: a reader is he who reads; who is studious; or whose office it is to read in public: readership, his office: reading is public recital; study; variation of copies. It shall be with him, and he shall read therein, that he may learn to fear the Lord. Deut. xvii. 19. Give attendance to reading, exhortation, and doctrine. 1 Timothy. The man is blest that hath not lent This reade is rife that oftentime In humble dales is footing fast, The trade is not so tickle. Sternhold. Spenser. In whose dead face he read great magnanimity. Id. Hooker. read it, and afterwards seal it. O most delicate fiend! As we must take the care that our words and sense be clear; so, if the obscurity happen through the hearers or readers want of understanding, I am not to answer for them. Ben Jonson, Taylor. 'Tis sure that Fleury reads. Virgil's shepherds are too well read in the philoso phy of Epicurus. Dryden. Id. Basiris' altars, and the dire decrees Of hard Eurestheus, every reader sees. Till a man can judge whether they be truths or no, his understanding is but little improved: and thus men of much reading are greatly learned, but may be Locke. little knowing. We have a poet among us, of a genius as exalted as his stature, and who is very well read in Longinus, Addison. his treatise concerning the sublime. That learned prelate has restored some of the readings of the authors with great sagacity. Arbuthnot on Coins. The passage you must have read, though since slipt out of your memory. Pope. Less reading than makes felons 'scape, Less human genius than God gives an ape, Can make a Cibber. Id. I have read of an eastern king, who put a judge to death for an iniquitous sentence. Swift. He got into orders, and became a reader in a parish church at twenty pounds a year. Id. When they have taken a degree, they get into or ders, and solicit a readership. Id. Miscellanies. Though reading and conversation may furnish us with many ideas of men and things, yet it is our own meditation must form our judgment. Watts on the Mind. READEPTION, n. s. Lat. re and adeptus. Recovery; act of regaining. Will any say that the readeption of Trevigi was matter of scruple? Bacon. READING, a borough, market and countytown in the county of Berks, is thirty-nine miles west by south from the metropolis, on the high road from London to Bath. It is of considerable extent and importance, and is unquestionably of very great antiquity; but whether it is indebted for its origin to the Britons, the Romans, or the Saxons, is unknown. In 1389 a great council was held at Reading, at which the king and his barons were reconciled by John of Gaunt. Parliaments were held here in 1440 and 1451; in the former of which the order of viscounts was first established; and in the year following the parliament adjourned hither from Westminster, on account of the plague. Edward IV.'s marriage with Elizabeth, lady Grey, was first acknowledged at Reading, in 1464; on which occasion she made her public appearance at the abbey, conducted by the duke of Gloucester and the earl of Warwick. In 1466 parliament was a second time adjourned to Reading, to avoid the plague. King Henry VIII. frequently resided here at the dissolved abbey. His son, king Edward VI., visited the town in 1552, when he was met by the mayor and aldermen at Coley-Cross, and presented with two yokes of oxen. The same ceremony was repeated when Reading was visited by the bigotted Mary, and her husband, Philip of Spain. When, early in the reign of Charles I., the plague raged with great violence in the metropolis, all the great courts of law were held here. In 1642 Reading was a parliamentary post; but the garrison, wanting ammunition, quitted the town, without resistance, on the approach of the king's horse. In consequence of this event it became a royal garrison, and continued to be so till taken by Essex in April 1643, after a siege of eight days. The king, however, again recovered it in September, and held it till May 1644, when he ordered the works to be demolished. Reading was afterwards frequently occupied as the head quarters of the parliamentary army, and much impoverished by the contributions levied upon it. In 1688 the army of king James II. was quartered in this town, but quitted it on the approach of the prince of Orange. In 1700 queen Anne visited Reading, when she was received by the corporation in state, and presented with forty broad pieces of gold in an elegant purse. The first monarch who conferred upon Reading the privilege of separate jurisdiction was Henry III. His charter was confirmed by all his successors, but without any material alterations, till the reign of Henry VI., when the corporation is first mentioned by the title of the mayor and burgesses. Charles I. authorised alder men to be elected, and invested them with ample powers for the government of the town. This charter was confirmed, after the restoration, by Charles II., and is the one now extant. By it aldermen, and the same number of capital burthe officers are declared to be a mayor, twelve gesses; the mayor, and his deputy (the preceding mayor), the senior alderman, the bishop of Salisbury, and his chancellor, being justices of the peace for the borough, and empowered to hold sessions, and a court of record. Reading sent members to parliament from the time of the earliest records. Before 1716 the right of election was vested in the freemen not receiving alms, and in the inhabitants paying scot and lot; but in that year it was limited, by a decision of the house of commons, to the inhabitants paying scot and lot only. The number of voters is large, and the mayor is the returning officer. The town is situated on both banks of the river Kennet, which here separates itself into several branches. It contains three parishes, St. Giles, St. Mary, and St. Lawrence. Formerly it was a place of great trade in woollens, but that manufacture fell to decay during the seventeenth century, and has never since revived. The principal support of the town arises from its water communications with London, Bath, and Bristol. The articles exported are flour, timber, bark, straight hoops, and a variety of minor articles. Many improvements have been lately made in the internal navigation of the district. Its markets are held weekly, on Wednesday and Saturday, and there are four annual fairs. The houses are mostly of brick, and the streets regular, spacious, well lighted, and paved. Within the last few years the town has greatly increased in size, and a new town has sprung up to the westward of the old one. Along the Oxford and London roads, also, many well built rows of houses have been lately erected. The principal public buildings and institutions in the town are the three churches of St. Lawrence, St. Mary, and St. Giles; a handsome episcopal chapel recently erected by the Rev. George Hulme; and several dissenting meeting-houses; the town-hall and free-school, blue-coat school, green-school, foundation school, the school of industry, Lancasterian school, school for national education, the theatre, and the county gaol. The ruins of the ancient monastery are also an object of considerable attraction. The church of St. Lawrence was chiefly erected towards the close of the sixteenth century, and is partly constructed of materials taken from the buildings of the abbey. St. Mary's church is more ancient than that of St. Lawrence, and its tesselated tower is much admired. St. Giles's church was probably constructed at the commencement of the twelfth century. The tower only is modern, the ancient one having been demolished during the civil war. This church has recently undergone complete repair. The meeting-houses belong to the Independents, Baptists, Quakers, Method ists, Unitarians, and Catholics. The town hall and free-school form one building; the free-school occupying the ground story, and the hall, court room, and offices, the floor above. The free-school was established in the reign of Henry VII., by John Thorne, abbot of Reading, with the funds of a suppressed almshouse. The blue-coat school was founded in 1656 by Mr. Richard Aldworth, who bequeathed £4000 for the support of a master, lecturer, and twenty boys. The green school, situated in Broad-street, is appropriated for the education of the daughters of decayed tradesmen, residents in the town, and of orphans, who have been left unprovided for by their parents. The theatre of Reading is a neat and convenient building, erected under the act for regulating provincial theatres. The gaol is built on the site of some of the abbey ruins. It is a large edifice, and contains commodious apartments for the keeper, a neat chapel, an infirmary, and a room for the reception of the magistrates, in the centre. Reading has given birth to several persons of eminence, among whom may be named Sir Thomas White, founder of St. John's College, Oxford; archbishop Laud; John Blagrave, the mathematician; Sir Thomas Holt; Sir John Bernard; James Merrick, the translator of the Psalms, &c. &c. READING, a borough and capital of Berks county, Pennsylvania, on the Schuylkill, fiftyfour miles north-west of Philadelphia. Population 3463. It is a very pleasant and flourishing town, and contains a court house, a jail, two banks, a large edifice for the public offices, and four houses of public worship: one for Lutherans, one for Calvinists, one for Roman Catholics, and one for Friends. It is chiefly settled by Ger These commodities yield the readiest money of any in this kingdom, because they never fail of a price abroad. Temple. He overlooked his hinds; their pay was just And ready; for he scorned to go on trust. Dryden. One hand the sword, and one the pen employs And in my lap the ready paper lies. Proud of their conquest, prouder of their prey, They leave the camp, and take the readiest way. Id. |