R H A 



incoherent jumble of ideas. This fenfe of the word un- 

 doubtedly took its rife from the notorious folly and abfur- 

 dity of the rhapfodilts, in their rapturous comments upon 

 their favourite poets ; for they undertook, to explain, as well 

 as to recite. Hence it is that in Suidas, the word pa | 

 is defined by ?>- > -• ■» nonfenfe. 



RHAPSODOMANCY, pa>4 , an ancient kind 



of divination performed by fixing' on a paliage of a poet at 

 hazard, and reckoning on it as a prediction of what was to 

 come to p; 



There were various methods of praciifing this rhapfodo- 

 xnancy. Sometimes they wrote feveral verfes or fentences 

 of a poet on fo many pieces of wood, paper, or the like ; 

 fhook them together in an urn ; and drew out one, which 

 was accounted the lot. 



Sometimes they call dice on a table, on which verfes were 

 written ; and that on which the die lodged, contained the 

 prediction. 



A third manner was by opening a book, 'and pitching on 

 fome verfe, at lir.t light. This method they particularly 

 called the fortes Prxneftinx, and afterwards, according to 

 the poet thus made ufe of, fortes Homerice, fortes Virgiliame, 

 &c. 



RHAPSODY, p»Luiut, in Antiquity, a difcourfe in 

 verfe, fung or rehcarled by arhapfodill. 



Others will have rhapfody properly to fignify a collection 

 of verfes, efpecially thofe of Homer ; which, having been 

 a long time difperfed in pieces and fragments, were at 

 length, by Piliftratus's order, digeiled into books, called 

 rhapfodics ; from the Greek fa.m v, fuo, I few, and »«, 



fo»g- 



Hence, among the moderns, rhapfody is alfo ufed for an 

 alTemblage of palfages, thoughts, and authorities, raked 

 together from divers authors, to compoie fome new piece. 

 Lipfius's Politics make fuch a rhapfody, in which there is 

 nothing of the author's own but conjunction and particles. 



RHAPTE, in /Indent Geography, the metropolis of the 

 Ethiopians, near the river Raptus. Steph. Byz. 



RHATOSTATHIBIUS, or, as Baxter thinks it was 

 originally written, Retoflaubius, a river of the ifle of Albion, 

 (England,) on the weftern fide, the mouth of which is 

 placed by Ptolemy between that of the Tobius and the 

 eituary of Sabrina. This is the river Wye, and its 

 ancient name is derived from " Rot in Ta<," the courle 

 of a river. 



RHATTA, a town of Alia, in Babylonia, in the vici- 

 nity of Chiriphe. Ptolemy. 



RHAUCUS, a town of the ifland of Crete. Steph. 

 Byz. 



RHAVENA, a prefecture of Afia, along the Eu- 

 phrates. Ptolemy places in it Gx towns on the banks of tin- 

 Euphrates, and four in the interior of the country. 



RH AVIUM, a river of Hibernia, the mouth of which 

 is placed by Ptolemy between the promontory " Boreum" 

 and the town " Magnata." 



RHAUNEM, in Geography, a town of France, in the 

 department of the Seine, and chief place of a canton, in 

 the diitrict of Birkcnfeld. The place contains 547, and the 

 canton 5886 inhabitants, 1035 communi . 



RHAUNETI, in Ancient Geography, a town of Arabia 

 Felix, on the Arabian gulf, a the town " Phoemcum" 



and the extremity of this Cherfonefu . Ptolemy. 



RHAURARIS, a rivei il (.Ilia Narbonenfis, ac< 

 cording to Strabo. This river is called " Araurius" by 

 my, ami " Arauraris" by Pomponius M 



RHAITZIUM, the metropolis of Dalmatia, according 

 to Cedrcnus and Curopalata. 



R II A 



RHAW, George, in Biography, a learned bookfeller and 

 mulician of Wittemberg, born in 1494. In 1531 appeared 

 an " Enchiridion utriufque Muficx Practical, ex variis Muli- 

 corum Libris congeltum," in 8vo. And in 153S he not 

 only puWlifhed "Select Harmony for four Voices," con- 

 futing of two Latin Palhoncs, the one by John Galliculus, 

 and the other by Jacob Otrecht, with mafles, lamentations 

 of Jeremiah, and motets by John Walther, Lewis Senfels, 

 Simon Cellarius, Benedict Dux, Eckel, Lemlin, Stoel, 

 and Henry Ifaac, to which Melandthon furniflied him with a 

 Latin preface; but in 1544 publifhed, in oblong quarto, 

 121 German facred fongs, of four and five parts, for the ufe 

 of fchools. Prefixed to the fecond part of this publication, 

 containing ecclefiaftical hymns, fet by fixteen different 

 German compofers, there is a print of the editor, Geo. 

 Rhaw, Typographus, Wittemh. anno aetatis fua; LIV. 



RHAZES, one of the okklt and molt dillinguifhcd of 

 the Arabian phyficians, was born at Rei, in the province of 

 Chorafan, about the year 852. There was a fchool in his 

 native town, at which he received his early education ; but 

 he is faid not to have commenced the ftudy of medicine till 

 fomewhat late in life, having given up his time much to the 

 cultivation of mufic. After he was thirty years of age, he 

 removed to Bagdad, and then he turned his attention to 

 • philofophy, and afterwards to phyfic. He became, how- 

 ever, indefatigable in his application, and was continually 

 occupied in obferving, reading, and writing, until he ob- 

 tained the higheit reputation ; and he was felccted out of a 

 hundred eminent phyficians, who were then refident at Bag- 

 dad, to fuperintend the celebrated hofpital of that city. 

 The hiftorians confidered him as the Galen of the Arabians ; 

 and from his long life and conltant practice, during which he 

 paid the moft affiduous attention to the varieties of difeafe, 

 he obtained the appellation of the experimenter, or the ex- 

 perienced. He was faid alfo to be profoundly (killed in all 

 the fciences, efpecially in philofophy, altronomy, and mufic. 

 He travelled much in purltiit of knowledge, and made fre- 

 quent journies into Perfia, his native country, and was much 

 con fulted by feveral princes, particularly by Almanzor, the 

 chief of Chorafan, with whom he frequently correfponded, 

 and to whom he dedicated feveral of his writings. Abi 

 Ofbaia enumerated two hundred and twenty-fix trcatifes 

 compofed by Rhazes, among which the ten books, addrelled 

 to his patron Almanzor, are mentioned, and therefore are 

 doubtlefs genuine, although Haly Abbas, who has given an 

 account of him and his works, has not noticed them. This 

 work Rhazes defigned as a complete body of phyfic, and it 

 may be deemed the great magazine of all the Arabian me- 

 dicine ; the ninth book, indeed, which treats of the cure of 

 difeafes, was in fuch general eftimation foi ' iveral centuries, 

 that it was the text-book of the public fchools, and was 

 commented upon by the molt learned proteffors. Ncver- 

 thelefs, like the relt of the Arabian writings, it com 

 very little more than the fubitance of the works ot the 

 Greeks, from whom the Arabians borrowed almofl all their 

 medical knowledge. They have, indeed, and Rhazes in 

 particular, given the firlf dilti ount of the fmalhpox, 



a pcllilential malady which the Greeks have nowhere ac- 

 curately defcribed, and which is, th< 



to have been unknown among tii.'t people. This is quef- 



tionable; but, at all ■ Brft fpecifv account of the 



pox is to he found hi tl" 1 te was 



the author, alio, of the drill pofed rcfpect- 



| hildren. H on the affections ol 



joints w in(erefting, and contains an account of fome 



; kable cur | ious blood-letting. 



Hedefcribes the fymptoms of hydrophobia very well ; 



alia 



