215 



RUYSCH, FREDERIC. 



RYLAND, WILLIAM WYNNE. 



2.0 



committed by the barbarians of the north. Rutilius was a pagan, and 

 in his voyage gives an account of the monks who lived at Capraria, 

 and in other parts of his poem makes allusion to the state of Christianity 

 at that time. 



The poem of Rutilius was first printed in 1520, 4to, Bonon. The 

 best edition ia by Zumpt, Berlin, 1840. Other useful editions are by 

 Damm, Brandenb., 8vo, 1760; by Kappius, 8vo, Erlang., 1786; and 

 by Gruber, 8vo, Norimb., 1804. 



RUYSCH, FREDERIC, a celebrated anatomist, was born at the 

 Hague, in 1638. Hia father was secretary of the States-General of 

 Holland. He studied medicine at Leyden, took his doctor's degree in 

 1664, and then returned to practise at the Hague. In 1665 he pub- 

 lished his first work on the valves of the lymphatic vessels, and in the 

 following year he was appointed to the professorship of anatomy at 

 Amsterdam. From this time he devoted himself entirely to the 

 f-tudy of anatomy, or rather to the formation of an anatomical museum, 

 for he seems to have regarded the science of anatomy as a pursuit far 

 inferior to the art of preparation-making. In this art he was unequalled 

 by any of his contemporaries, and the accounts given by those who 

 saw his museum, of the perfect state in which the bodies of children 

 and animals were preserved, with all the apparent freshness and bloom 

 of life, if they could be entirely credited, would be sufficient evidence 

 that he has not yet had a rival in the preservation of bodies. In the 

 art of dissecting and of injecting the blood-vessels however, in which 

 Iluysch was supposed to be equally eminent, he has long been far sur- 

 passed ; and it is probable that his best preparations of this kind were 

 not superior to those which are ordinarily made at the present day. 



Ky unceasing labour Ruysch collected a most extensive museum of 

 anatomical preparations of all kinds, for which, in 1698, Peter of 

 Russia gave him 30,000 florins. It was then conveyed to Petersburg, 

 where, it is said, the greater part has since decayed, and become use- 

 less. After selling his first museum, Ruysch commenced with unabated 

 ardour to collect a second, a part of which, at his death in 1731, was 

 sold to the king of Poland for 20,000 florins. 



Ruysch's merits as an anatomist have been greatly overrated. In 

 all his works, which make up five large quarto volumes, there is no 

 evidence that he was more than a plodding anatomical artist. Though 

 he claimed many discoveries, those that really belong to him are few and 

 not important ; and in proportion to the labour expended in the pursuit 

 of anatomy, few have contributed less to its progress as a science, for 

 he did not even publish the modes of making his preparations. 



RUYSDAEL, or RUYSDAAL, JACOB, a landscape-painter, was 

 born at Haarlem, in 1635. He was originally brought up to surgery, 

 which he practised for a short time, but he appears to have painted 

 at an early age, and eventually he adopted painting as his profession. 

 He most probably received the first instruction in his art from his 

 elder brother Solomon, who was also a good landscape-painter, but 

 his reputation has been lost, or rather obscured, by the superior name 

 of his brother. Solomon was born also in Haarlem, in 1616, and died 

 there in 1670; he was the scholar of Schoeft and Van Goyen. He 

 distinguished himself by the invention of an admirable composition in 

 imitation of variegated marbles. 



Jacob Ruysdael became the friend of Nicolas Berghem, and, as has 

 been reported, his scholar; but this, if we may judge from the extreme 

 dissimilarity of their styles, is highly improbable. Ruysdael was a 

 simple but accurate imitator of nature, and his taste inclined him 

 towards the wild and the secluded. He displayed an exquisite judg- 

 ment in the selection of his subjects, and for the power and at the 

 same time the truth of his imitations he has scarcely been equalled. 

 Woods and waterfalls are the prevailing subjects of his landscapes, 

 and he rarely painted a scene without introducing either a cascade or 

 a rivulet. He occasionally also painted marine pieces. 



Ruysdael's works, independent of their powerful effect and masterly 

 imitation, are distinguished from those of other masters by the pecu- 

 liarity that the foregrounds generally constitute the pictures, the 

 distances being introduced simply as accessories to complete the view, 

 and he may be said perhaps never to have produced a -mere scenic 

 effect. His colouring, though warm, as his foliage, is that of a northern 

 climate, and it is improbable that he ever visited Italy ; he was fond 

 of rather cold and cloudy skies with sudden and powerful masses of 

 light and shade. Ruysdael never painted figures ; those which are 

 introduced into his compositions were painted by Ostade, Wouver- 

 manns, a Vandevelde, or Berghem. 



His works are held in the highest estimation by collectors of old 

 paintings. There are fine specimens of them in most of the principal 

 collections of Europe though none in the National Gallery. The 

 ' Stag-Hunt,' in the Royal Gallery of Dresden, the figures of which are 

 by Vandevelde, is generally reputed to be his masterpiece ; but there 

 is a large woody landscape in the Doria Gallery at Rome, of sur- 

 prising power and beauty, which is certainly unsurpassed by any 

 production of its class. Ruysdael also etched a few plates in a very 

 bold and effective style, but impressions from them are very scarce. 

 He died at Haarlem in 1C81, in the forty-sixth year of his age. 



RUYTER, MICHAEL, was born at Flessingen in 1607, went to sea 

 at eleven years of age as a cabin-boy, and rose successively until he 

 became a warrant-officer, and in 1 635 was made captain. He served 

 for several years in the East Indies, and in 1645 was appointed rear 

 admiral. In 1647 he attacked aud sunk off Salleo an Algeriue squadron. 



In 1652 he was employed in the war against England, and whila 

 accompanying a largo convoy of merchantmen he met the English fleet 

 off Plymouth. The combat was not decisive, but Ruyter succeeded in 

 saving his convoy. In 1653 he commanded a division under Van 

 Tromp, and was beaten by Blake, but he had afterwards an advantage 

 over the English near the Goodwin Sands. In 1655 he was sent to 

 the Mediterranean to chastise the pirates of Algiers and Tunis. In 

 1659, being sent by the States-General to the assistance of Denmark 

 against Sweden, he defeated the Swedish fleet, as a reward for which 

 the king of Denmark gave him a title of nobility with a pension. In 

 1665 he fought against Prince Rupert of England with no decisive 

 result, and in July of the following year he was beaten by the English. 

 In June 1667 he entered the Thames as far as the Medway, and 

 destroyed the shipping at Sheerness. In 1671, war having broken out 

 between France and Holland, Ruyter had the command of the Dutch 

 fleet which was to oppose the French and the English : ho fought 

 several battles hi the Channel and the German Ocean without any 

 important result. In 1675 he was sent to the Mediterranean, and 

 fought a desperate battle with the French admiral Duquesne, off the 

 eastern coast of Sicily, in which his fleet was worsted, and Ruyter had 

 both his legs shattered. He effected a retreat into the port of Syra- 

 cuse, where he died of his wounds in April 1676. A splendid monu- 

 ment was raiged to him at Amsterdam, and G. Brandt wrote his Life, 

 which was translated into French, folio, Amsterdam, 1690. Even 

 Louis XIV. expressed sorrow on hearing of his death, saying that "he 

 could not help regretting the loss of a great man, although an enemy." 



RYCAUT, or RICAUT, SIR PAUL, was the tenth son of Sir 

 Peter Rycaut, a merchant of London. The date of his birth is 

 unknown, but he took his bachelor's degree in 1650 at Cambridge. In 

 1661 he attended the Earl of Winchelsea as secretary, when that 

 nobleman went out as ambassador extraordinary to Constantinople. 

 During that embassy, which lasted eight years, he made himself 

 acquainted with the manners, customs, and religion of the Turks, and 

 published the ' Capitulations, Articles of Peace, &c., concluded between 

 England and the Porte in 1663,' and also ' The Present State of the 

 Ottoman Empire, in Three Books, containing the Maxims of the 

 Turkish Politic, their Religion, and Military Discipline, illustrated 

 with Figures,' folio, London, 1668, 1670. He was afterwards appointed 

 consul at Smyrna, which situation he held during eleven years, and 

 exerted himself diligently in extending the commerce of England with 

 the Levant. 



On his return to England, Rycaut employed himself chiefly iu 

 literary occupations. He published ' The Present State of the Greek 

 and Armenian Churches, Anno Christi 1678,' folio, London, 1680, and 

 a 'History of the Turkish Empire from 1623 to 1677,' folio, London, 

 1680, which is a continuation of Knollys's ' History of the Turks,' 

 and contains much information concerning the political resources of 

 the Turkish empire and the manners of the Turks. It has been trans- 

 lated into almost all the languages of modern Europe, and has been 

 several times reprinted. 



In 1685 the Earl of Clarendon, then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 

 appointed Rycaut secretary of the provinces of Leinster and Con- 

 naught, and James II. created him a privy councillor of Ireland, a 

 judge of the Court of Admiralty, and a knight. The revolution of 

 1688 deprived him of all his employments, but in 1690 he was appointed 

 resident to the Hanse Towns. He then went to reside on the Conti- 

 nent, and remained there till 1700, when he returned to England for 

 the benefit of his health, and died on the 16th of December in the 

 same year. 



Rycaut was a member of the Royal Society of London, and, in 

 addition to his high character as a diplomatist, was celebrated for his 

 knowledge of the learned languages and of the modern Greek, the 

 Turkish, Italian, Spanish, and French. Besides the works already 

 mentioned, Rycaut published a ' History of the Turks from the year 

 1675 to 1679,' folio, London, 1700 ; an English translation of Garcilasso 

 de la Vega's ' Royal Commentaries of Peru,' folio, London, 1688 ; an 

 English translation of Platina's ' History of the Popes,' folio, London, 

 1685 ; and an English translation of 'El Criticon' of Baltasar Gracian, 

 folio, London, 1681. 



RYLAND, WILLIAM WYNNE, one of the best English engravers 

 of the 18th century, was born in London in 1732. He was appren- 

 ticed to S. F. Ravenet, a French engraver, who was settled in England. 

 After the completion of his term of apprenticeship he went to Paris, 

 and studied there chiefly under Le Bas for five years. He did not 

 confine himself however to engraving, but applied himself also much 

 to drawing, under Boucher, a painter of eminence, and after whom he 

 engraved, besides some others, an excellent plate of Jupiter and 

 Leda ; he also etched some plates after Oudry while at Paris, illus- 

 trating the fables of Fontaine. 



Soon after his return to England Ryland was appointed engraver to 

 George III., with a pension of 200^. per annum. He engraved two 

 portraits of George III. after Ramsay, and one of Queen Charlotte 

 holding the Princess Royal on her lap after Cotes. " It is greatly to 

 be lamented," eays Strutt, in his Dictionary of Engravers, "that 

 Ryland's engagements in the mercantile line as a printseller, deprived 

 him of so considerable and so precious a part of his time, and pre- 

 vented his pursuing the arts with that alacrity the strength of his 

 genius required, which seemed formed for great aud extensive exer- 



