356 R O O 
view.—They shall see that all roodlofts, in which wooden 
crosses stood, be clean taken away.— Irish Constitutions 
and Canons.— Under the king’s arms, placed over the 
roodloft, is [a] distich. AshmOle. 
ROODY SAND, or WAVEREN, a district in the territory 
of the Cape of Good Hope, situated between the mountains 
of Drakenstein. It abounds in grain, pulse, fruits, and wine; 
70 miles east of Cape Town. 
ROOF, s. [hpop, Sax. In the plural Sidney has rooves, 
now obsolete. Dr. Johnson.]—The cover of a house. 
Her shoulders be like two white doves. 
Perching within square royal rooves. Sidney. 
Return to her, and fifty men dismiss’d ? 
No, rather I abjure all roofs, and chuse 
To wage against the enmity o’ th’ air. Shakspeare. 
For the structure and proportion of roofs , see the article 
Architecture, 114—116.—The house in general. 
I’ll tell all strictly true. 
If time, and foode, and wine enough accrue 
Within your roofs to us; that freely we 
May sit and banquet. Chapman. 
The inside of any arch; as the roof of heaven.—The roof 
of tire mouth. 
Swearing till my very roof was dry 
With'oaths of love. Shakspeare. 
Some fishes have rows of teeth in the roofs of their mouths j 
as pikes, salmons, and trouts. Bacon. 
To ROOF, v. a. To cover with a roof. 
He enter’d soon the shade 
High rooft, and walks beneath, and alleys brown. Milton . 
I have not seen the remains of any Roman buildings, that 
have not been roofed with vaults or arches. Addison. —To 
inclose in a house. 
Here had we now our country’s honour roof'd. 
Were the grac’d person of our Banquo present. Shakspeare. 
ROO'FLESS, adj. [popleap, Sax.] Wanting a roof ; un¬ 
covered. 
And columns, awful in decay. 
Rear up their roofless heads to form the various scene. 
Hughes. 
ROO'FY, adj. Having roofs. 
Snakes, 
Whether to roofy houses they repair, 
Or sun themselves abroad in open air, 
In all abodes of pestilential kind 
To sheep. Dryden. 
ROOG. See Port Baltic. 
ROOK, s. [hpoc, Sax. Serenius pronounces' it formed 
from the sound, like the Swed. kraeka, a crow ; and Skinner 
from the Lat. caucus, hoarse.] A bird resembling a crow ; 
but feeding on grain. 
Huge flocks of rising rooks forsake their food. 
And crying seek the shelter of the wood. Dryden. 
The jay, the rook, the daw, 
Aid the full concert. Thomson. 
One of the pieces used at the game of chess, [roc, “ la 
tour, piece des echecs.” Lacombe. ] 
So have I seen a king on chess. 
His rooks and knights withdrawn. 
His queen arid bishops in distress. 
Shifting about grow less and less, 
With here and there a pawn. Dryden. 
A cheat; a trickish rapacious fellow.—I am like an old 
rook, who is ruined by gaming, forced to live on the good 
fortune of the pushing young men. Wycherley. 
To ROOK, v. it. To rob; to cheat. 
They rook'd upon us with design. 
To out-reform and undermine. Hudibras. 
R O 0 
How any one’s being put into a mixed herd of unruly boys, 
and there learning to rook at span-farthing, fits him for 
conversation, I do not see. Locke. 
To ROOK, v. a. To cheat; to plunder by cheating.— 
He (Sir John Denham) was much rooked by gamesters. 
Aubrey. 
To ROOK. To squat. See To Ruck. 
ROOKE (Sir George), a distinguished naval commander, 
born in 1650, was the son of Sir William Rooke, a gentle¬ 
man of ancient family in Kent. Though destined to another 
profession, a strong inclination for the sea induced him to 
enter into the navy, where his courage and conduct raised 
him to the rank of captain before he was 30 years of age. 
In the reign of James II. he was appointed to the command 
of the Deptford man-of-war. His obligations to this prince, 
however, did not prevent his hearty concurrence in the re¬ 
volution; and in 1689 he was employed as commodore of 
a squadron off the Irish coast, with which he prevented the 
intercourse of King James with Scotland, and assisted in 
the relief of Londonderry, and in other military operations. 
In 1690, he was made rear-admiral of the red, in which 
quality he was present at the unfortunate battle off Beachy- 
head ; but no blame in that action was imputed to him. He 
was employed more than once in the subsequent years to 
convoy King William to Holland ; and being promoted to 
the rank of vice-admiral of the blue, was partaker of the 
glory obtained at La Hogue, under Admiral Russel, in May, 
1692. Besides his share in the action, the important busi¬ 
ness of burning the French ships on the next day was com¬ 
mitted to him, which he performed with great skill and 
success, the number destroyed being twelve of the line and 
one of 56 guns. In 1693, the honour of knighthood was 
conferred upon him, and he was made vice-admiral of the 
red. The grand fleet of English and Dutch proceeding to 
sea in May, Sir G. Rooke was detached from it with a 
squadron of twenty-three ships of both nations, to convoy 
a great fleet of merchantmen up the Mediterranean. The 
French, in the meantime, had been indefatigable in repair¬ 
ing their losses, and with a very powerful fleet, of which 
the English ministry had obtained no proper intelligence, 
were lying in Lagos-bay, on the coast of Portugal, to inter¬ 
cept the combined fleet. On descrying the enemy, Rooke 
ordered the smaller of the merchant-ships to make their 
escape into the nearest Spanish ports, and stood off under 
an easy sail for the protection of the rest. Although two 
Dutch men-of-war and a great number of merchant ships 
were captured, the conduct of the English Admiral, who 
saved his own squadron and the best part of the fleet com¬ 
mitted to his charge, was exempted from all blame. He 
received the thanks of the merchants, and his promotion was 
not impeded by this misfortune, which was principally 
owing to the mismanagement in the naval department during 
that reign. In 1696, having the chief command of the 
Channel fleet, he was ordered to prevent the Toulon squad¬ 
ron from getting into Brest, which from the defective 
manning of his ships, he was unable to accomplish. On 
this account he underwent a long examination before the 
House of Commons, but nothing appeared upon which a 
charge against him could be founded. He continued in the 
command till the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, gave him 
an interval of repose. 
In 1698, he was chosen representative to parliament for 
Portsmouth; and voting with the opposition, an attempt 
was made to induce the King to remove him from his seat 
at the Admiralty-board; but William, who had juster 
notions than his ministers of freedom of opinion, observed, 
that Sir George had served him faithfully at sea, and should 
not be displaced for acting as he thought most for the good 
of his country in the House of Commons. In 1700, he was 
sent with an English squadron, in conjunction with a Dutch 
one, into the Baltic, to preserve the balance of power in 
the North, where a confederacy had been formed against the 
young King of Sweden, Charles XII. Rooke bombarded 
Copenhagen, and a peace being effected in the course of the 
year, he returned. In the following year he acted as com¬ 
mander 
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