ROSSALL COLLEGE 



ROSSETTI 



813 



Rossall College, a large public school on the 

 coast of Lancashire, 2J miles SSW. of Fleetwood, 

 was founded in 1844 for the education of the sons 

 of clergymen and others. It has twelve entrance 

 scholarships, thirty masters, and over 350 boys. 

 See the Jubilee Sketch by Canon Beechey ( 1894)'. 



Ross and Cromarty, a Highland county, 

 the third largest in Scotland, extends from the 

 German Ocean to the Atlantic, and is bounded 

 N. by Sutherland, S. by Inverness-shire. In 

 1890-91 it was finally formed into a single county 

 by the boundary commissioners, who also added to 

 it the small Ferintosh (detached) district of Nairn- 

 shire, and a much smaller fragment from Inverness- 

 shire. Its mainland portion measures 75 by 67 

 miles, and the total area is 2,084,900 acres or '3260 

 sq. m., of which 103 are water and 736 belong to a 

 dozen islands the Lewis, Tanera, Ewe, &c. The 

 east coast is indented by the Dornoch, Cromarty, 

 and Moray Firths; the west coast by eight sea- 

 lochs (Broom, Gruinard, Torridon, Carron, &c.). 

 The chief of the innumerable streams are the 

 Oykell, Alness, and Conon ; the Falls of Glomach, 

 on a head-water of the Elchaig, in the SW. are 

 370 feet high ; and beautiful Loch Maree is the 

 largest of nearly a hundred good-sized fresh-water 

 lakes. Mam Sodhail (3862 feet), on the Inverness- 

 shire border, is the highest of more than thirty 

 summits exceeding 3200 feet above sea-level, others 

 being Ben Dearg (3547), Benmore (3505), Ben 

 Wyvis (3429), and Ben Attow (3383). The high 

 grounds afford good pasture, and systematic sheep- 

 farining dates from about 1764. It reached its 

 zenith during 1860-70, when 400,000 sheep were 

 grazed in the county. The glens and low grounds 

 in the more favoured portions have a fertile soil, 

 which, with the fine climate, especially in Easter 

 Ross, bears crops of superior quality. Still, less 

 than 7 per cent, of the entire area is arable, and 

 less than 70 square miles is occupied by woods and 

 plantations. Whisky is distilled, and the salmon 

 and sea fisheries are very valuable. Montrose was 

 defeated at Invercharron (1650), and a small 

 Jacobite force in Glenshiel (1718). Sir Thomas 

 Unjuhart, Lord Lovat, and Hugh Miller were 

 natives. The chief places are Dingwall, Tain, 

 Stornoway, Fortrose, Cromarty, Strathpeft'er, and 

 Invergordon ; and the county returns one member 

 to parliament. Pop. ( 1801 ) 56,318 ; ( 1851 ) 82,707 ; 

 ( 1881 ) 78,547 ; ( 1891 ) 77,810. See separate articles 

 on Cromarty, Dingwall, Lewis, Maree, &c. ; and 

 an article by J. Macdonald in Trans. Highland 

 and Aqric. Soc. for 1877. 



Rossbach, a village in Prussian Saxony, 22 

 miles W. by S. of Leipzig and 9 S\V. of Merseburg, 

 is celebrated for the victory gained here by the 

 Prussians under Frederick the Great (q.v. ) over 

 the combined French and Austrian armies on 5th 

 November 1757. The ' rout of Rossbach ' remained 

 for a long time a term of reproach in the French 

 army. The Prussians lost 540 killed and wounded, 

 while the loss of the allies was more than 2700 

 killed and wounded and 5000 prisoners, among 

 whom were 5 generals and 300 officers, and nearly 

 70 cannon. 



RoK.se, WILLIAM PARSONS, third EARL OF, an 

 astronomer, was born in York on 17th June 1800, 

 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and Mag- 

 dalen College, Oxford, where he graduated first- 

 class in Mathematics in 1822. During the life of 

 his father he sat in the House of Commons as Lord 

 Oxrnantown, representing King's County from 1821 

 to 1834 ; he succeeded to the peerage in 1841, and 

 was elected a representative peer for Ireland in 

 1845. As early as 1826 he had commenced to make 

 experimente in the construction of fluid lenses ; 

 but he subsequently devoted his powers to the 



construction of a speculum for the reflecting tele- 

 scope. Certain defects had hitherto baffled 

 opticians namely, spherical aberration and absorp- 

 tion of light by specula, and in casting specula 

 of large size cracking and warping of the surface 

 on cooling; but Lord Rosse succeeded in obvi- 

 ating the last defect, and in counteracting in 

 great part the other two. He began the con- 

 struction of his great reflecting telescope in 

 1845 ; it weighed in all 12 tons, and was mounted 

 in his park at Parsonstown at a cost of 30,000. 

 The first addition to astronomical knowledge made 

 by this telescope was the resolution of certain 

 nebulae into groups of stars ; next came the discovery 

 of numerous binary and trinary stars, and a descrip- 

 tion of the moon's surface. The telescope is 

 described in the Philosophical Transactions, in 

 which journal, and in the Transactions of the Royal 

 Society, Dublin, most of his papers were published. 

 Lord Rosse was president of the Royal Society 

 from 1848 to 1854. He died on 31st October 1867, 

 and a statue to his memory was erected in Parsons- 

 town in 1876. 



Rossendale, an electoral division of north-east 

 Lancashire, in which is Haslingden ( q. v. ). 



Rossetti, GABRIELE, an Italian poet and man 

 of letters, particularly concerned in Dantesque 

 criticism, was born on 28th February 1783 at Vasto, 

 in Abruzzo Citeriore, then forming part of the 

 kingdom of Naples. His father, Nicola Rossetti, 

 was engaged in the iron-trade of the district ; his 

 mother was Maria Francesca Pietrocola. The 

 parents were not in easy circumstances, and had 

 a large family : besides Gabriele, two of the sons 

 attained some eminence, Andrea becoming a canon 

 in the church, and Domenico being well reputed in 

 letters and antiquities. Gabriele gave early signs 

 of more than common ability, and was placed by 

 the local grandee, the Marchese del Vasto, to study 

 in the university of Naples. He had a fine tenor 

 voice, and was sometimes urged to try his success 

 on the operatic stage ; he drew with such precision 

 that some of his extant pen-drawings with sepia-ink 

 might readily be taken for steel-engravings ; he com- 

 posed poetry, botli written and improvised, and be- 

 came one of the most noted improvisatori in Naples. 

 The boyhood and youth of Rossetti passed in a 

 period of great political commotion, consequent upon 

 the revolutionary and imperial wars of France. The 

 Bourbon king of Naples, Ferdinand I., was ousted 

 by the Parthenopean Republic, and again by King 

 Joseph, the brother of Napoleon, and his successor 

 King Joachim (Murat), the emperor's brother-in- 

 law, and Ferdinand had to retire to Sicily. Ros- 

 setti obtained an appointment as Curator of Ancient 

 Bronzes in the Museum of Naples, and also as 

 librettist to the operatic theatre of San Carlo : he 

 wrote the libretto of an opera, Giulio Sabino, was 

 well received at the court of the Napoleonic 

 sovereigns, and in 1813 acted as a member of the 

 provisional government sent to Rome by Murat. 

 After the restoration of Ferdinand to Naples in 

 1815 he continued his connection with liberal 

 politicians, and joined the widely-diffused secret 

 society of the Carbonari. In 1820 a military 

 uprising compelled King Ferdinand to grant a con- 

 stitution on the model of that which had recently 

 been established in Spain. Rossetti saluted its 

 advent in one of his most celebrated odes, be- 

 ginning ' Sei pur bella cogli astri sul crine ' 

 [ ' Beautiful indeed art thou, with the stars in thine 

 iiair ' ). The good faith of the king was highly 

 dubious from the first, and in 1821 he abrogated 

 ;he constitution, and put it down with the aid of 

 Austrian troops. The constitutionalists were pro- 

 scribed and persecuted, Rossetti among them. Two 

 verses in one of his lyrics aie said to have given 



