ROM 
art thou a Homan ? He said. Yea. And the chief captain 
answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And 
Paul said, But I was free bom. Acts, xxii. 27.—A papist. 
—Whether doth the Jew romanize, or the Homan judaize, 
in his devotions. Lightfoot. 
RO'MAN, adj. Relating to the people of Rome.—In 
Augustus’s time, they [the Jews] were in a low state, reduced 
under the Roman yoke. Sherlock. —Popish; professing 
the religion of the pope of Rome.—These are the chief 
grounds upon which we separate from the Roman com¬ 
munion. Burnet. —When you are in I?o;»««-Catholic 
countries, go to their churches, see all their ceremonies. 
Ld. Chesterfield. 
ROMAN (John-Helmicli), a celebrated Swedish com¬ 
poser and musician, was born at Stockholm, in 1694. He 
displayed an early taste for music, and in 1714 was sent to 
England at the expense of Queen Ulrica Eleonora, in order 
that he might study thorough bass and composition under 
those celebrated masters, Handel and Pepuscb. During his 
residence in this country, he was patronised by the Duch¬ 
esses of Marlborough and Newcastle, and resided three years 
in the house of the latter. In 1721 he went back to Sweden, 
and in 1727 was appointed master of the band in the Royal 
Chapel; but in 1735 he undertook another tour into foreign 
parts, first visiting England, and then proceeding to France 
and Italy, where he was much esteemed by the most cele¬ 
brated performers and amateurs of the time. On his return 
to Sweden, in 1740, he was honoured with a place in the 
Academy of Sciences to the transactions of which, for the 
years 1741 and 1747, he contributed two papers; one on 
a method to bleach linen, and another on the fitness of the 
Swedish language for church music. As a composer, he 
possessed the necessary knowledge of the mathematics, as 
well as poetry; and he was acquainted with the principal 
languages' of Europe. His works, comprehending anthems 
and other pieces, some of which were composed for the 
interment of the Swedish kings in 1742 and 1751, for the 
coronation in the latter year, 'and on various other occasions, 
bear honourable testimony to his abilities, and entitle him 
to be styled the father of the Swedish music. He continued 
to compose till the last period of his life, which he spent in 
retirement at Calmar, where he died in the year 1758. Gcze- 
lii Biographiska Lexicon. 
ROMAN, a town of European Turkey, in Moldavia, 
situated at the junction of the rivers Moldavia and Sereth. 
It is the see of a Greek bishop, and has the remains of 
Roman walls; 45 miles west-south-west of Jassy, and 145 
west of Bender. 
ROMAN, Cape, a cape on the coast of South Carolina. 
From hence to Charleston light-house the course is west- 
south-west \ west 21 leagues. Lat. 33. 5. N. long. 79. 
30. W. 
ROMAN, Cape, a cape on the coast of Florida; 20| 
leagues north-west-by-north of Cape Sable, the south-west 
point of the peninsula of Florida. 
ROMAN, Cape of, a point of land on the coast of 
Venezuela, and New Kingdom of Granada. 
ROMANA, a small town in T> e north of Spain, in 
Arragon, near the influx of the Aguas into the Ebro. 
ROMANA, a river of St. Domingo, which enters the sea 
in the bay of Caballos. . 
ROMANBY, a village of England, North Riding of 
Yorkshire, near Northallerton. 
ROMANCE, s. [Roman, Germ, and French, Rotnanza, 
Ttal.] “A military fable of the middle ages; a tale of 
wild adventures in war or love,” Such is the definition of 
Johnson; and it is, in our opinion, a most accurate one. 
Nevertheless, as is well known. Sir W. Scott (than whom 
no one ought to know better what a romance is) takes ex¬ 
ception to this definition, as not sufficiently comprehensive. 
He affirms that “ a composition may be a legitimate romance, 
yet neither refer to love or chivalry—to war, nor to the middle 
ages and he proposes to describe a romance as “ a ficti¬ 
tious narrative in prose or verse, the interest of which turns 
upon marvellous and uncommon incidentswhich descrip- 
i N C E. 203 
tion would equally embrace the Odyssey of Homer and the 
Adventures of Baron Munchausen. 
Before the enchanter of the north attempted to try his 
strength with the great English lexicographer, he should 
have learnt what is proposed in a definition; for he seems to 
think it is what a word maybe made to mean, whereas a little 
reflexion might have shewn him that it is what a word really 
does imply in general acceptation and with the best authors. 
That Dr. Johnson’s exposition of this word meets exactly 
the common use of the term no one can deny who attends 
to the secondary meanings of its derivatives. What other 
do persons intend when they speak of a romantic youth, 
or a romantic poem, than one exalted beyond the natural 
bounds of propriety and chaste feeling,—-one indeed, in 
whom the artificial virtue that distinguished the age of 
chivalry is predominant. The mixture of love, religion, 
and valour, into one overwhelming motion of action and 
rule of behaviour, is the marked and distinguishing stamp 
of the age of chivalry. Such also is an essential ingredient 
in our notions of romance. In the writings of the Greeks 
we behold heroism, and marvellous, and supernatural ad¬ 
venture, but nothing that is romantic—nothing that would 
be like a tale of the middle ages, even were the names of 
the actors and countries changed.' The motive of every action 
is in the Odyssey plain and direct, and the love of glory, the 
fear of the gods, or sensual appetites, rule by turns the heroes of 
the tale. Who does not feel that here is a wide difference in 
character from those renowned knights who are fabled to 
have cast away all thoughts of the world of dull reality, 
and to have moved and had their being in an atmosphere 
far exalted by pure love and transcendant devotion, above 
our sublunary sphere — and who can fail to see that if 
modem licence and the deficiency of language has applied 
the term romance to works of a mixed character, it is only 
because a tinge of the chivalrous spirit still elevates the 
nature’ of these productions, and animates them with an 
ethereal light. It must be granted that the scene of a few 
modern works, called romances, is laid in the last century, 
but these are all imbued with the expressions of pure and 
fervent attachments to the fair sex, and disinterested valour 
in the field, and so far identify themselves with the old 
romance. It is evident, nevertheless, that as we have no 
word for a serious fiction of human life, the term romance 
must assume this meaning, as tragedy, once only a repre¬ 
sentation of suffering, is gradually becoming a name for all 
dramas that deal in the strong passions of our nature, and 
comedy is embracing, in the delineation of manners, one 
particular department wherein nothing comic is to be found. 
Still as these serious fictions can never be expected to please . 
in the plain and true language of nature, unless adorned by 
a romantic colouring, they must necessarily comply with 
the definition we have copied. 
Romances were originally so called from the language in 
which compositions of this species were first composed. 
The name evidently points to a Latin or Roman origin, 
and the first and obvious presumption might be, that the 
vulgar Latin or Italian was identical with the romance lan¬ 
guage.. Such however was not the case. The earliest ro¬ 
mance pieces are Gallic, and the language is evidently 
compounded of the Celtic and Latin. It probably under¬ 
went in different courts different modifications; but there 
are pretty clear proofs that it was the early language of the 
courts of Spain and France, and even of England - under 
Alfred, as well as (with some changes) under the Norman 
race of kings. Its extensive diffusion admits of an easy 
explanation, when we reflect that the conversion of the bar¬ 
barians to Christianity necessarily introduced all desirous of 
knowledge, or refinements, to the study and colloquy of the 
Latin, the only medium of knowledge of any kind. The 
rude chiefs of course modified this language in various 
measures, and the soft provincial and Italian is espe¬ 
cially contrasted by the rougher and more sonorous 
romance of the Normans. Still we cannot believe that the 
romance language ever was, in France, England, or Spain, 
the general language of the people, on account of the com¬ 
plete 
