RAMEAU 



RAMSAY 



573 



Rnilieail, JEAN PHILIPPE, a French musician, 

 was born at Dijon, 25th September 1683. At 

 eighteen he went to Milan, but soon returned to 

 France, to Paris, Lille, and Clermont in Auvergne. 

 Here he acted as organist to the cathedral, and 

 wrote his Traitt de I' Harmonic (1722). Removing 

 to Paris, he published Nouveau Systime (1726), 

 Generation Harmonique (1737), and Nomelles 

 Reflexions (1752). In 1733, at the mature age of 

 fifty, he produced his first opera, Hippolyte et 

 Aricie, the libretto of which was written by the 

 Abbe Pellegrin. It created a great sensation, and 

 Itameau was forthwith elevated to the rank of a 

 rival to Lully (see OPERA). Rameau's best opera 

 was Castor et Pollux, produced at the Academie 

 Royale de Musique in 1737. Between 1733 and 

 1760 he composed twenty-one operas and ballets, as 

 well as numerous harpsichord pieces. Louis XV. 

 created for him the office of composer of chamber 

 music, granted him letters of nobility, and named 

 him a Chevalier de St Michel. Rameau died 12th 

 September 1764. See A. Pougin's essay (Paris, 

 1876). Rameau's nephew, well known as giving 

 the title to a singular dialogue of Diderot's, which 

 Goethe thought worthy of translation into Ger- 

 man, had actual existence, being Louis Sebastien 

 Mercier (1740-1814), author of the famous Tableau 

 de Paris. 



K.-MIKT. DE LA. See RAMUS, and OUIDA. 



Raineses, the name of several Egyptian 

 monarchs, of whom two, the first and the second, 

 were specially famous (see EGYPT, Vol. IV. p. 

 240). It U usual to identify the warrior king 

 Raineses II. with the Pharaoh of the oppression, 

 and Raineses III. with the Pharaoh of the Exodus, 

 though there is some difficulty in the identifica- 

 tion. The mummy of Rameses II. was found at 

 Deir-el-Bahari in 1881, that of Rameses III. at 

 Boulak in 1886. The story of Rhampsiuitus (q.v.) 

 seems to refer to Rameses III. For the treasure- 

 city called Rameses, see PITHOM. 



Ramie. See B<EHMERIA. 



Kami Hit'*, a village of Brabant, Belgium, 14 

 miles by rail N. of Namur, is memorable as the 

 place near which, on May 23, 1706, the French 

 forces under Marshal Villeroy and the Elector of 

 Bavaria were defeated by Marlborough, with the 

 loss of almost all their cannon and baggage, and 

 thirteen thousand killed and wounded. This 

 victory compelled the French to give up the whole 

 of the Spanish Netherlands. 



Rammohun Roy. Rajd Ram Mohan Rai, 

 founder of the Brahmo Somaj (q.v.), was l>orn at 

 Radhanagar in Bengal, in May 1772, his ancestors 

 being Brahmans of high birth. He studied Persian, 

 Arabic, and Sanskrit, and soon began to doubt the 

 foundations of the ancestral faith. He spent some 

 time studying Buddhism in Tibet, and gave offence 

 there by his frank criticisms. He incurred the 

 enmity of his family for his religious views, and 

 lived at Benares till 1803. For some years he was 

 revenue collector in Rangpur. In 1811 he succeeded 

 to affluence on the death of his brother. He pub- 

 lished various works in Persian, Arabic, and Sans- 

 krit, the object of the whole being the uprooting 

 of idolatry. His influence was powerful in securing 

 the abolition of suttee. He also issued in English 

 an abridgment of the Vedanta, giving a digest of 

 the Vedas, the ancient sacred books of the Hindus. 

 In 1820 he published The Precepts of Jesus, the 

 Guide to Peace and Happiness, accepting the 

 morality preached by Christ, but rejecting belief 

 in His deity or in the miracles, and wrote other 

 pamphlets hostile both to Hinduism and to Christian 

 Trimtarianism. In 1828 he began the association 

 which rrow- into the Brahmo Somaj, and in 1831 

 visited England, where he was received with all 



but universal friendliness and respect. He took a 

 lively interest in the Reform agitation, and gave 

 valuable evidence before the Board of Control on 

 the condition of India, but overtasked himself, and 

 died at Bristol, 27th September 1833. 



See Miss Carpenter's Last Days of Bammohun Boy 

 (1866). There is also a full Bengali memoir (1881); 

 and his English works have been edited by Jogendra 

 Chunder Ghose (2 vols. 1888). 



Ramnagar, two towns of India : ( 1 ) a town 

 of the North-western Provinces, stands on the right 

 bank of the Ganges, 2 miles above Benares. It 

 contains a palace, the residence of the rajah of 

 Benares, which rises from the banks of the sacred 

 stream by a number of fine ghats or flights of 

 stairs. There is a fort, and whips and wicker-work 

 chairs are manufactured. Pop. 11,859. (2) A town 

 of the Punjab, on the Chenafi River, 28 miles NW. 

 of Gujranwala. It was a place of great importance 

 in the 18th century, being then known as Rasul- 

 nagar, but was stormed by the Sikhs under Ranjit 

 Singh in 1795, and its name changed to Ramnagar. 

 It is now a place of only 6830 inhabitants, who 

 make leathern vessels. A large fair is held here 

 every April. 



Rampart forms the substratum of every per- 

 manent fortification ; see FORTIFICATION. 



Rainphastidae. See TOUCAN. 



Rampion (Campanula rapunculus ; see CAM- 

 PANULA), a perennial plant, a native of Europe, 

 rare in England, with 

 a stem about two feet 

 high, and a panicle of 

 very pretty pale-blue 

 bell - shaped flowers. 

 The radical leaves are 

 ovato - lanceolate and 

 waved. The root is 

 white and spindle- 

 shaped, and was for- 

 merly much used for 

 the table, under the 

 name of Rampion or 

 Ramps. The plant is 

 now little cultivated in 

 Britain, but is still 

 commonly grown in 

 France for the sake of 

 its roots, which are 

 used either boiled or 

 as a salad, and of its 

 young leaves, which are also used as a salad. 



Rainpur, the capital of a native state of India, 

 in the North-western Provinces, stands on the river 

 Kosila, 110 miles E. by N. of Delhi. It manufac- 

 tures damask, pottery, sword-blades, and jewellery. 

 Pop. ( 1891 ) 73,530. The state, entirely surrounded 

 by British territory, has an area of 899 (another 

 authority says 945) sq. m. and a pop. of 541,914. 



Rainpur Bailleall, chief town of the Rajshahi 

 district (area, 2361 sq. in.) of Bengal, stands on the 

 north bank of the Ganges, is a centre of silk and 

 indigo trade, and has an English Presbyterian 

 mission; pop. 21,407. 



Ramsay, ALLAN, Scottish poet, was born in 

 the parish of Crawford, Lanarkshire, October 15, 

 1686. His father was manager of Lord Hopetoun's 

 mines at Leadhills, and his mother, Alice Bower, 

 was the daughter of a Derbyshire miner. At four- 

 teen he was put apprentice to a wigmaker in Edin- 

 burgh, and followed that calling till his thirtieth 

 year, by which time he had become known as a 

 poet, having issued several short humorous satires 

 and realistic descriptions, which were printed as 

 broadsides, and sold in his shop or on the street for 

 a penny each. He had also written ( 1716-18) two 



Rampion 

 ( Campanula rapunculm). 



