187 



RUBRUQUIS, WILLIAM DE. 



RUDDIMAN, THOMAS. 



188 



later period this excellence had vanished, and given way to the crude 

 and affected imitation of the Italian masters which we find in Mabuse 

 and Van Orlay. Rubens however a second time placed the Low 

 Countries in the first rank, and by his own genius restored to them a 

 reputation different indeed in kind, but perhaps equal in degree to 

 that which they had formerly enjoyed. 



RUBRUQUIS, WILLIAM DE. This distinguished traveller of the 

 middle ages was a friar of the Minorite or Franciscan order. Pits, or 

 Pitseus, an English Roman Catholic of the 16th century, in his curious 

 biographical work, ' Lives of the Kings, Bishops, Apostolical Men, and 

 Writers of England,' claims him as au Englishman, and as one that did 

 honour to his country. It appears however pretty plainly that he was 

 a native of Brabant. His real name was Ruysbrock, or Rysbruck, which, 

 according to the fashion of the times, he Latinised into Rubruquis. 

 The date of his birth is not preserved, but he was probably born about 

 1228. He entered the cloisters early in life, and soon after completing 

 his noviciate and taking the major vows he went to the Holy Land, 

 with other monks and missionaries. The recent successes of the fourth 

 grand crusade, under Louis IX. of Franco, had revived the hopes of 

 the Christians of the west. Fresh streams of pilgrims were flowing 

 thither ; and some of these counted upon setting up their tabernacle 

 of rest in Jerusalem, and upon finding provision and settlement for 

 life in the Holy Land. 



But before Rubruquis could reach the Syrian shore these hopes were 

 overcast ; the devout French king had been defeated near Tunis, rather 

 by endemic diseases than by the sword of the Saracen, and had been 

 made prisoner, with the remnant of his host, by the Mohammedans. 

 Louis however was soon released upon paying a ransom, and entering 

 into a treaty with the Soldan; and he was in Palestine in 1253. 

 Although some monkish envoys, who had previously been sent in quest 

 of that great, undiscoverable, Christian potentate of the East, Prester 

 or Priest John, had returned disappointed, and with very discouraging 

 accounts of the difficulties and perils of their journey, King Louis 

 resolved to send another mission in search of him. A report had 

 reached Louis that the groat Tartar, Sartach, son of Baatu-Khan, who 

 commanded in the western parts of Tartary, was a good Christian. 

 If this Sartach was not Prester John, still his faith and devoutness, 

 if truly reported, must make him a valuable ally to the Christians who 

 were warring in the Holy Land against the Paynim. The mission of 

 Louis was therefore to find that Tartar prince, wherever he might be, 

 and at whatever toil and danger. It was composed of Rubruquis, 

 friar Bartholomew of Cremona, and a certain friar Andrew, whose 

 country or birthplace is not named. Rubruquis, though the youngest 

 of the three, appears to have been considered as the head of the 

 mission. He no doubt owed this pre-eminence to his superior scholar- 

 ship, wit, and courage. Before his departure King Louis strictly 

 enjoined him to write down everything he saw and heard among the 

 Tartars; and by conscientiously obeying the royal order, and by 

 making a good use of his eyes (his ignorance of the Tartar languages 

 made his ears of less account), he brought back a great deal of curious 

 information on the subject of that nomadic people. 



After spending a short time at Constantinople among the Greek 

 Christians, whose schism gave them great offence, Rubruquis and his 

 companions took shipping, and entered the Euxine, or Black Sea. On 

 the 21st of May 1253 they were safely landed at Soldaia, now Souclac 

 or Soujac, not far from Cherson, in the Crimea. But here their 

 troubles began. They had brought no presents of any value, and 

 presents are necessary passports through all the East. They were told 

 that they would never get at Sartach unless they had rich gifts to lay 

 at his feet. They however pleaded their vow of poverty as Franciscans, 

 and boldly went on, travelling sometimes in carts and sometimes on 

 rough horses. They crossed the Steppes which separate the Dnieper, 

 or Borysthenes, from the river Don, or Tana'is, and then directed their 

 course due east, over immense desert plains where nothing was to be 

 seen but earth and sky, and here and there the barrows or tumuli of 

 the Comaris. On the 22nd of July, being in a famishing condition, 

 they reached the banks of the Don, where they found some fish, flesh,, 

 and dry bread. Crossing the river, they plunged again into the hungry 

 desert. On the 2nd of August they reached the temporary residence, 

 or encampment, of the great Sartach. As they had nothing to give, 

 beyond a little sweet wine, a few preserved fruits, and a bag full of 

 sweet biscuits, their reception was of the sourest. They soon dis- 

 covered that Sartach's Christianity was all a dream. That Tartar chief 

 however determined to send them on to his father Baatu. From his 

 encampment they had to travel solely on horseback, in the break-neck 

 Tartar fashion. After dreadful fatigue, and many privations and 

 dangers, they reached Baatu, who was encamped on the banks of the 

 Volga, not far from its confluence with the Caspian. Baatu told them 

 that he could enter into no uegociations, and that they must continue 

 their journey until they came to Manchu-Khan, the great Tartar 

 emperor, who was to be fonnd somewhere in the direction of China. 

 Of this long journey " of hunger and thirst, cold and fatigue, there was 

 no end." At last, on the 27th of December, the poor monks tirrr. cd 

 at the camp and court of the Tartar emperor, and were lodged in a 

 small dirty hovel. It is not possible to fix the spot where the erratic 

 Manchu-Khan was then residing. Rubruquis only tells us that it was 

 in a vast plain, as flat as the surface of a lake ; that, before reaching 

 the plain, he had crossed a lofty range of mountains, and had travelled 



due north. The emperor was attended by many Chinese mandarins, 

 and by ambassadors from India, from Persia, and from Turkey. He 

 gave a grand feast, at which all the great men got drunk on cosmos, 

 or the fermented milk of mares. On the 5th of January (1254) the 

 friars were presented at court, where they had to perform several 

 humiliating ceremonies. Manchu-Khan gave them to understand that 

 he was master of the whole world, and that the King of France and 

 all the monarchs of Christendom must submit to him. About the 

 court were a good many Nestorian Christians ; but then? faith was 

 sadly corrupted, and their priests were little better than conjurors 

 and quacks. 



A week or two before Easter, Manchu-Khan removed to Kara- 

 Corum, or Kara-Kum, a royal city on the east side of the river Orchan. 

 The monks followed him, and were kindly entertained by a French 

 goldsmith, his wife, a Hungarian woman, and one Basilicus, the son 

 of an Englishman, who had been born in Hungary. 



On Whit-Sunday Rubruquis was called into the presence of the 

 emperor, who had been told that the friars, had called him a foul 

 infidel. Rubruquis solemnly denied the fact. " Then," said the khan, 



be not afraid." The brave monk smiled and said, " If I had feared, 

 I should not have come hither ! " He was then told that he must 

 return the way he had come, and make himself strong for the journey 

 by eating good meat. He took his departure a fortnight after Mid- 

 summer day. " From Kara-Corum," says the good friar, " unto the 

 court of Baatu, our journey lasted four months and ten days, during 

 all which time we never saw a town, or so much as a single fixed 

 house, except one village in which we did not break bread; nor in all 

 this time did we ever rest from our rough riding, except one day when 

 we could find no horses." The court of Baatu was then about to 

 migrate to Sarai, on the eastern bank of the Volga. Rubruquis accom- 

 panied it during a whole month ; but then, tired of the slow and 

 indirect movements of the Tartars, who as usual were conducting their 

 flocks and herds with them, he procured a guide and pushed rapidly 

 forward for Sarai, keeping due south and always near to the Volga. 

 After a very remarkable journey, the dangers and fatigues of which 

 were supported with admirable temper, and in the course of which he 

 threaded the great defiles of Mount Caucasus, crossed the Araxes, and 

 traversed Armenia, Persia, and Asia Minor, Rubruquis reached Tripoli 

 in Syria in the month of August 1255. He had been altogether about 

 two years and six months on his laborious travels, and he now earnestly 

 besought his superior to allow him to go to King Louis at Paris ; for 

 that devout prince had quitted the East after witnessing the failure 

 of all his high hopes. But the Franciscan provincial, being a strict 

 disciplinarian, ordered the poor friar to write to Louis, and then retire 

 to the convent of his order at Acre. The manuscript account of the 

 travels was soon transmitted to Paris, together with an earnest prayer 

 that his Christian Majesty would obtain the provincial's permission 

 for his going for a. short season to France. It has not been ascertained 

 whether he obtained the favour, or whether he remained shut up in 

 his cell at Acre. Indeed, after his return to Syria, nothing more seems 

 to be known about Rubruquis except that he was living somewhere as 

 late as the year 1293, when Marco Polo was on his way back to Europe 

 from the remotest regions of the East. He was a man of rare good 

 sense. The sobriety of his descriptions is marvellous for the time in 

 which he lived. He was the first European traveller that gave a 

 correct account of the Caspian Sea. 



RUDDIMAN, THOMAS, was born in October 1674, at Raggel, in 

 the pariah of Boyndie and county of Banff, Scotland. He was instructed 

 in Latin in the parish school of Boyndie, where he made a rapid 

 progress. At the age of sixteen he obtained, at King's College, Aber- 

 deen, the first exhibition or bursary of the year, on account of his 

 superior knowledge of Latin. Here he studied four years, and then 

 took his degree of master of arts, at which time he was well read in 

 the Roman classics. Soon after this he engaged himself as tutor 

 in a private family, and in the course of another year he became 

 schoolmaster of the parish of Lawrence-Kirk. He remained here 

 three years and a half, and then, through the interest of Dr. Pitcairue, 

 he was appointed assistant-keeper of the advocates' library at Edin- 

 burgh. In this office, though he had good opportunities of becoming 

 known, and of reading and teaching for his further improvement, yet 

 his pecuniary advantages were so small that he was obliged, in 1707, 

 to commence auctioneer. In the same year he published an edition 

 of Voluseuus's ' Dialogue on Tranquillity of Mind,' with a Life of Volu- 

 senus, or Wilson, prefixed. In 1709 he published Johnston's Latin 

 ' Poetical Paraphrase of Solomon's Song ' and Johnston's ' Cantica.' 

 He was next invited by the magistrates of Dundee to be rector of the 

 grammar-school there, but he declined the offer. In 1713 his friend 

 Dr. Pitcairne died, and JRuddiman, being still an auctioneer, managed 

 the sale of his library, which was purchased by Peter the Great, 

 emperor of Russia. In 1714 he published his 'Rudiments of the 

 Latin tongue,' a book which is well known, and is still generally used 

 in the schools of Scotland. In 1715 he published an edition of 

 Buchanan's works, in two volumes, folio, and in the same year he 

 commenced printer, in partnership with a brother who had been 

 brought up to the business; and some years afterwards he was 

 appointed printer to the University of Edinburgh. He published, in 

 1725, the first part of his ' Grammaticse Latinse Institutiones,' which 

 treats of etymology; and in 1732, the second part, which treats of 



