CHAMBERS'S 



ENCYCLOPAEDIA 



A DICTIONARY OF UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE 



Hind, in Music, a short vocal 

 composition, similar to the 

 catch, and like it, peculiar to 

 England. It is in tne form of 

 an infinite Canon (q.v.) at the 

 unison or octave, each part in 

 succession taking up the subject 

 at a regular rhythmic interval, 

 and returning from the conclu- 

 sion to the commencement, and so on, ad libitum, 

 till an agreed-on pause. The most ancient speci- 

 men now extant of vocal composition in polyphony 

 is the famous Rota or Round, 'Sinner is icumen 

 in,' of the 13th century. Well-known roundelays 

 are ' The Great Bells of Osney,' ' Row the Boat, 

 Whittington,' Aldrich's ' Hark the Bonny Christ- 

 church Bells,' or the well-known 'Three Blind 

 Mice. ' See Metcalfe's Round*, Canons, and Catches 

 of England, with introduction by Rimbault. 



Round Churches. Bee ROMANESQUE AR- 

 CHITECTURE. There are four surviving circular 

 churches in England, the Temple Church in Lon- 

 don (see TEMPLARS), the church of the Holy 

 Sepulchre in Cambridge (q.v.), one of the same 

 name in Northampton (q.v.), and one at Little 

 Maplentead in Essex. 



Roundhead*, the nickname given by the 

 !uilnTt.Mits of Charles I. during the Great Rebellion 

 to the Puritans, or friends of the parliament, who, 

 with Prynne, denounced the ' unloveliness of love- 

 locks,' and were understood to distinguish them- 

 selves by having their hair cut close, while the 

 Cavaliers wore theirs in long ringlets. According 

 to Clarendon and Rush worth the term was first 

 publicly used in December 1641 by a Captain 

 David Hine, who, drawing his sword, swore he 

 would 'cut the throats of those round-headed, 

 oro[i]i'd-eared dogs that bawled against the bishops.' 



Round-robin (Fr. rand, 'round,' and ri*in. 

 'riblmn'), a name given to a protest or remon- 

 strance signed by a number of persons in a circular 

 form, so that no one shall be obliged to head the 

 417 



list. It is said to have originated in a usage of the 

 French officers. The most memorable round-robin 

 in literary history is that sent by Burke, Gibbon, 

 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Joseph Warton, and others 

 to Dr Johnson, requesting him to amend the 

 epitaph for Goldsmith's monument, and suggesting 

 that it should l>e written in English, not Latin. 

 Johnson took it kindly, but told Sir Joshua, who 

 carried it to him, that he would ' never consent to 

 disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an 

 English inscription.' 



Round Table. See ARTHUR, and ROMANCES. 

 By the Round Table Conference is meant an in- 

 effectual series of meetings begun in January 1887, 

 for the purpose of arranging terms for a reunion 

 of the Gladstonian or Home Rule section of the 

 Liberal party and the Liberal Unionists, the 

 members being Lord Herschell, Mr Morley, Mr 

 Chamberlain, Sir W. V. Harcourt, and Sir George 

 Trevelyan. 



Round Towers. Tall narrow circular towers 

 tapering gradually from the base to the summit, 

 found abundantly in Ireland, and occasionally in 

 Scotland, are among the earliest and most remark- 

 able relics of the ecclesiastical architecture of the 

 British Islands. They have long been the subject 

 of conjecture and speculation, but there can be 

 now no doubt that they are the work of Christian 

 architects, and built for religious purposes. They 

 seem to have been in all cases attached to the 

 immediate neighbourhood of a church or monastery, 

 and, like other early church-towers, they were 

 capable of l*ing used as strongholds, into which, 

 in times of danger, the ecclesiastics could retreat 

 with their valuables. In the Irish records, for two 

 centuries after 950 A.D., they are invariably called 

 Cloictheach or bell-towers, and are often mentioned 

 as special objects of attack by the Northmen. 

 About 118 towers of this description are yet to be 

 seen in Ireland, twenty of which are entire or 

 nearly so ; and Scotland possesses three similar 

 towers at Brechin, Abernethy, and Eglishay in 



