30 



HOXOLANA RUBENS. 



plctc parishes, and a part of four others. The 

 county J.I>M-M-> only one royal burgh, namely, Jed- 

 burgb; and two other towns, Ki'l-o und llawiek; 

 besides some villages, as .Mi-lro.-r, C'astletown, &c. 

 The principal proprietors are the dukes of Rox- 

 burgh and Buccleugh, the marquises of Lothian 

 und Tweeddale, lord Minto, and the families of 

 Scot, Her, Elliot, Douglas, Pringle, Rutherford, 

 Don, &c. The county contains many excellent 

 mansions, the principal of which are Flenrs, the 

 seat of the duke of Roxburgh; Mount-Teviot, the 

 seat of the marquis of Lothian; Minto House, the 

 seat of the earl of Minto; the Pavilion, the seat 

 of lord Somerville; Springwood Park, the seat of 

 Sir John Scott Douglas; Ancrum, the seat of Sir 

 William Scott; Makerston, the seat of Sir Thomas 

 Brisbane Macdougal; Abbotsford, the seat of Sir 

 Walter Scott ; Stitchel, the seat of Sir John Pringle ; 

 Stobs and Wells, the seats of Sir William F. Elliot ; 

 Edgerston, the seat of Mr Rutherford ; Dry-grange, 

 the seat of Mr Tod; Chesters, the seat of Mr 

 Ogilvie; Eildon Hall, the seat of Mr Henderson; 

 and Riddel House, the seat of Mr Sprott. The 

 most interesting of these mansions is Abbotsford, 

 the residence of Scotland's great poet and novelist. 

 (See the article Abbotsford.) Roxburghshire has 

 given birth to three poets of distinction Thomson, 

 the author of the Seasons, Dr John Armstrong, and 

 Dr John Leyden. Population of Roxburghshire 

 in 1841, 40,025. 



ROXOLANA. See Solyman II. 



ROY, RAMMOHUN. See Rammolmn Roy. 



ROY, ROB. See Rob-Roy. 



ROYALISTS. In France, after the revolution 

 of 1792, this name was given to the adherents of 

 the Bourbons; and from the restoration, in 1814, 

 down to the revolution of 1830, it served to desig- 

 nate those who were in favour of the old system of 

 things, and opposed to liberal principles. Those 

 of the former royalists who continue to adhere to, 

 and in fact are often active for the elder line of the 

 Bourbons, are now generally called Carlists (from 

 Charles X). Those royalists who carried farthest 

 the doctrine of legitimacy (q. v.), the touchstone 

 of this party, are called ultras, without addition, 

 though this term might be, and in some cases ac- 

 tually is, applied to the ultra-liberals. 



ROZIER, PILATRE DE. See Aeronautics. 



RUBBLE WALLS. See Architecture. 



RUBENS, PETER PAUL, the most eminent painter 

 of the Flemish school, was the son of a doctor of 

 laws and a sheriff of Antwerp, who, during the 

 troubles of the Low Countries, retired to Cologne, 

 where his celebrated son was born in 1577. The 

 f-nnily subsequently returned to Antwerp, where 

 the subject of this article received a literary edu- 

 cation, and early displayed a talent for design, which 

 induced his mother, then a widow, to place him 

 with the painter Van Oort, whom he left for the 

 school of Otto Venius. His talent having made 

 him known to the archduke Albert, governor of the 

 Netherlands, that prince employed him on several 

 pictures, and recommended him to the duke of 

 Mantua, at whose court he remained six years, 

 studying the works of Giulio Romano, and other 

 great artists, and paying particular attention to the 

 colouring of the Venetian school. In the interval he 

 also visited Madrid, on a commission for the duke, 

 where he saw some of the finest works of Titian 

 and other masters. On leaving Mantua, he visited 

 Rome and other cities of Italy, copying some of 

 the best pictures, and perfecting himself in every 



branch of his profes>ion. After a residence of 

 seven years in Italy, he returnvd to Aiuweip, being 

 recalled by the illness of his mother, who died be- 

 fore his arrival. This event induced him to retire 

 to the abbey of St Michael, where he gave himself 

 up for a time to solitary study. His reputation 

 now stood so high, that he was called to the court 

 of the archduke, and pensioned; soon after which, 

 he married his first wife, and lived in a style of 

 great magnificence, which excited much envy among 

 inferior artists, who sought to lower his reputation 

 by attributing the best parts of his pictures to his 

 numerous pupils. These calumnies he treated with 

 disregard, and, aware of the source of much of the 

 ill-will, relieved the necessities of some of his 

 principal decriers. For the cathedral at Antwerp 

 he painted that great masterpiece, the Descent 

 from the Cross ; for the Jacobites, the Four Evan- 

 gelists; and he continued to execute many gre;i 

 works with surprising facility, until, in 1620, 

 he was employed by Mary de' Medici to adorn the 

 gallery of the Luxembourg, for which he painted 

 a well-known series of magnificent pictures, alle- 

 gorically exhibiting the principal events in the life 

 of that princess. Such was the opinion of his 

 general talents, that he was chosen, at the recom- 

 mendation of the archduchess Isabella, to be the 

 private negotiator of a peace between Spain and 

 England; for which purpose he visited Madrid in 

 1628, where he was treated with great distinction. 

 He painted for Philip IV., and his minister Oli- 

 varez, twelve or fourteen of his most celebrated 

 pictures, in the short space of nine months; and, 

 in 1629, he returned to Flanders with a secret 

 commission, and proceeded to England. Although 

 not received openly as a minister, Charles I., who 

 was both a patron and judge of the fine arts?, was 

 much gratified by his visit; and during his stay in 

 England, where he succeeded in his negotiation, he 

 was engaged to paint the ceiling of the banqueting- 

 house at Whitehall. He also executed several 

 other pictures for the English nobility, some of 

 which are to be found at Blenheim, Wilton, Easton, 

 &c. He remained in England about a year, during 

 which time he received the honour of knighthood, 

 and then returned to Flanders, where he married 

 the beautiful Helen Formann, his second wife, and 

 was nominated secretary to the council for the Low 

 Countries. He maintained a highly dignified station 

 through the rest of his life, which was one of con- 

 tinued prosperity, until his death at Antwerp, in 

 1640, in the sixty-third year of his age. 



Rubens, beyond all comparison, was the most 

 rapid of the great masters; and so many pictures 

 bear his name, it is impossible not to credit a part 

 of what was asserted in his own days, that the 

 greater portion of many of them was performed by 

 his pupils. His great characteristics are freedom, 

 animation, and striking brilliancy and disposition of 

 colouring, the favourite tone of which is that of a 

 gay magnificence, from which, whatever the subject, 

 he never deviated. Besides the excellence of his 

 general powers, he saw all the objects of nature 

 with a paintei's eye, and instantly caught the pre- 

 dominating feature by which the object is known 

 and distinguished; and, as soon as seen, he executed 

 it with a facility that was astonishing. According 

 to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he was the greatest master 

 of the mechanical part of his art that ever existed. 

 His chief defects consisted in inelegance and incor- 

 rectness of form, a want of grace in his female 

 figures, and in the representation of youth in 





