R A B 



R A B 



RAViTiiT-IV/irrei! Farm, that fort wliich is chiefly managed literature of the age. He acquired a good (hare of popu- 

 under the rabbit fyflem. Thcfe forts of farms are now larity as a preacher ; and what he gained by his fermons, 1 c 

 much lefs common than formerly, but in fome inllances, as expended in the purchafe of a fmall hbrary. His private 



has been feen, tiu-y afford the lieft and nioft advantageous 

 means by which lands can be turned to any account in the 

 way of cultivation. They, however, in moit cafes require 

 no little capital, exertion, and attention, to manage them 

 in the bell and mod profitable methods. See Rabbit. 



Rabuit Mmmre, that which is collefted from the dung 

 of thofc animals, and which is faid to be very valuable. See 

 Makuuk. 



It (s found beneficial in different modes of application, as 

 by being intimately mixed and blended with the main par- 

 ticles of the foil or mould in arable lands, and by being 

 fown by the hand, only over the furface of it, in the way 

 of a top-drelling, when they are in a ilate of crop. When 

 ufed in this lad manner, it is likewife highly advantageous 

 on moft for:^ of grafs land ; and in both thefe cafes of top- 

 drefling with it, there is a very quick and powerful Itate of 

 vegetation produced in the crops, which can hardly be 

 (rained in any other way. See Quick Manure, and Top- 

 DreJJing. 



In Oxforddiire, Mr. Fane lias raifed a fmall building for 

 keeping rabbits in hutches, for the fake of the manure ; he 

 is faid to have fome hundreds, and to meditate the ereftion 

 of a fccond building for keeping double the number ; the 

 prefent quantity make a load of manure in the courle of the 

 week ; and as two loads manure an acre, they are the means 

 of fully dreffing twenty-fix acres annually : it is not con- 

 ceived by him that they produce any other profit, nor is it 



'ife was not fo exemplary as his public difcourfes were edi- 

 fying ; and for fome mifconduft, which caufed fcandal in 

 the monaflery, he was impriloned in his cloifter. By his 

 wit and facetioufnefs he obtained his liberation, with the 

 pope's permiifion to quit his order, and remove to that of 

 St. Benedift. Not being able, however, to bear any kind 

 of reftraint, he laid afide his religious habit, and, in 1530, 

 went to Montpclier to fludy medicine. After fome time 

 he repaired to Lyons, where he printed a collection of 

 pieces of Hippocrates and Galen. Here he likewife pub- 

 lifhed feveral other works, among which were fome of the 

 books of his Hiftorj' of Pantagruel, which gave him fo dif- 

 tinguifhed a place among burlefquc writers. In 1535 he 

 went to Paris, and waited on cardinal John du Bellay, to 

 whom he had been known when they refided in the fame 

 convent ; and he now made himfelf fo agreeable to his old 

 friend, that he was taken into his houfe in the feveral capa- 

 cities of phyfician, reader, librarian, and fteward. Du 

 Bellay, in the following year, going out as ambaflador to 

 the court of Rome, took Rabelais with him, where his wit 

 fo much interctted the pope and cardinals, that he very 

 readily obtained a full abfolution for the crime of apoftacv. 

 In 1537 he took his doftor's degree in phyfic at Monl- 

 pelier ; and returning to Paris foon after, his friend the 

 cardinal prefented him with a prebend in the chapter of St. 

 Maur. He was afterwards made the cure of Meudon, 

 which office he held from IJ45 to his death, in 1553, 



neceffary ; for to be able to fell fo much food at home, and being, according to one of his biographers, in the 631!, 



pay attendance, the profit of manuring iuch a breadth of and according to another, in the 70th year of his age. His 



land, it is fuppofed, mufl fie confiderable. Three dozen of Pantagruel, which was finiflied about the time that he ac- 



rabbits in the week are moftly fent to the London market cepted the cure of Meudon, brought upon him the hoftility 



durino- the feafon in which they can be ufed. of the monks, whom he had feverely fatirized, and who 



This is a fort of dung or manure, which has yet been procured its condemnation by the Sorbonne and the par- 



but little fubjefted to chemical examination, confequently liament ; but it caufed his company to be much fought 



its real properties, or conftitucnt principles, are very im- after, as the wittieft writer of his time. The want of de- 



perfeftly known or underttood ; it would appear, however, 

 from the effects which it produces, that it may be employed 

 with the moft advantage, when laid upon the land, in its 

 more raw, crude, or frefh ftate, before it has undergone 

 much decompofition by the procefs of fermentation or putre- 

 faftion. It has, perhaps, never yet been kept dry and 

 reduced into a powdery condition, fo as to be put in along 

 with the Jeed, in the manner of rape-dufl;, though it feems 

 probable that it would go farther, and be more beneficial, in 

 fome cafes, if ufed in this way. See Dung. 



RABCHORCADO, in Ornithology, the name of an 

 American bird, defcribed by Nieremberg with many fa- 

 bulous circumilances. All that feems certainly known is, 

 that its tail is very remarkably forked. 



RABDA, in Geography, a town of Arabia, in the pro- 

 vince of Yemen ; 30 miles N.W. of Sana. 



RABDIUM, in Ancient Geography, Tur-Raldin, a town 

 of Afia, upon a mountain, av fome diftance from the Tigris, 

 fouth of Tigranocerta, and eaft of Nifibis. 

 RABDOIDES. See Rhabdoides. 

 RABDOLOGY. See Rhabdology. 

 RABDOMANCY. See Rhabdomaxcy. 



cency was eafily pardoned at that period, and Rabelais 

 had fome eifimable qualities, and poffelied extenfive and 

 various erudition, with a ready elocution, and an inex- 

 hauftible ftore cf ludicrous ideas. " The Pantagruel and 

 Gargantua of Rabelais," fays a critic, " are to be regarded 

 as comic fatires, often concealing, under a whimfical ex- 

 travagance, attacks upon follies which it would not have 

 been fafe ferioufly to expofe. It is in vam, however, that 

 commentators have attempted to find out the meaning in 

 much that is mere ribaldry and nonfenfe, and even to dif- 

 cover real hiftory veiled in the allegory of burlefque, where 

 the author meant nothing more than to make his reader 

 laugh or wonder. His fatire, where it is intelligible, is 

 often juft and ingenious ; but the obfcurity of his language, 

 and eccentricity of his conceptions, render the perufal of 

 his works, to a modern at leaft, rather a ta(k than an amufe- 

 ment." The moil complete editions of his works is that 

 publifhed in Holland, in 5 vols. 8vo., 1715, with notes by 

 Duchat ; and that at Amfterdam, in 3 vols. 4to., 1741, 

 with plates by Picart. The letters of Rabelais were pub- 

 lifhed in an odlavo volume, with notes by St. Marthe. 

 The memory of Rabelais is perpetuated in the medical 



RABEBOIA, a name given by fome to the roots of the fchool of Montpelier, where bachelors are inverted with a 



flammula major. fcarlet robe, faid to have been the very robe which that wit 



RABELAIS, Fraxcis, \n Biography, was born about himfelf wore, 



the end of the fifteenth century at Cliinon, in Touraine. RABELHORST, in Geography, a town of the duchy 



At an early period he entered himfelf among the Cordeliers, of Holllein ; 5 miles W.N.W. of Cifmar. 



and became well fKilled m the learned languages, and the RABENAU, a town of Saxony, in tjie margraviate of 



1 1 Meiflfen ; 



