407 
ROUS 
Blust’ring winds had rous'd the sea. Milton. —-To drive 
a beast from his lair. 
The blood more stirs, 
To rouse a lion, than to start a hare. Shakspeare . 
To ROUSE, v. n. To awake from slumber. 
Or as men, sleeping found by whom they dread, 
Rouse ancl bestir themselves ere well awake. Milton. 
Melancholy lifts her head ; 
Morpheus rouses from his bed. ' Pope. 
To be excited to thought or action. 
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse. 
While night’s black agents to their prey do rouse. 
Sha/cspeare. 
ROUSE, s. [rusch , Germ, half drunk.] This word is 
used in the various significations of a' riotous noise, a 
drunken debauch, and a large portion of liquor. 
They have given me a rouse already. 
—Not past a pint as I am a soldier. Shakspeare. 
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day, 
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell; 
And the king’s rouse shall bruit it back again. 
Respeaking earthly thunder. Shakspeare. 
A large glass filled to the utmost, in honour of a health 
proposed. 
Take the rovose freely, 
’Twill warm your blood, and make you fit for jollity. 
lieaum. 
ROUSER, s. One who rouses.*—All this which I have 
depainted to thee, are inciters ancl rousers of my mind. 
Skelton. 
ROUSELENCH, a parish of England, in Worcestershire, 
between Pershore and Alcester. 
ROUSHAM, aparish of England,in Oxfordshire; 5 miles 
north-east of Woodstock. 
ROUSHOLM HEAD, a cape on the south-west coast of 
the island of Stronsa. Lat. 58. 56. N. long. 2. 34. W. 
ROUSSEA [so named by Sir J. E. Smith, in memory of 
the celebrated Jean Jacques Rousseau, who wrote some very 
elegant letters on the subject of botany], in Botany, a 
genus of the class tetrandria, order monogynia.—Generic 
Character. Calyx: perianth, four-cleft, smooth; segments 
tongue-shaped, acute, reflex. Corolla: bell-shaped, wrinkled 
on the outside, sub-pubescent, half-four-cleft; segments acute, 
revolute. Stamina: twice as long as the revolute corolla, 
and alternate with its segments; filaments straight, very 
wide, a little narrower at the top, smooth; anthers small, 
sagittate, acute. Pistil: germ superior, quadrangularly pyra¬ 
midal, smooth; style the length of the stamens, permanent; 
stigma simple, blunt, umbilicate-depressed, smooth. Peri¬ 
carp : berry quadrangularly pyramidal, one-celled, with a 
smooth, hard bark. Seeds very numerous, small, lens-shaped, 
nestling.— Essential Character-. Calyx four-leaved. Co¬ 
rolla one-petalled, bell-Shaped, four-cleft, inferior. Berry 
quadrangular, many-seeded. 
• Roussea simplex.—This is a small shrub, climbing over 
trees or rocks, seemingly among moss. Stem and branches 
thick, fleshy, knobbed. Leaves opposite, petioled, obovate, 
acute and subacuminate, toothed, very smooth on both sides, 
somewhat fleshy. Stipules intrafoliaceous, membranaceous, 
acute. Flowers solitary, axillary, on short peduncles, nod¬ 
ding, large, of a very fleshy substance. Bractes clustered, 
membranaceous, acute, like the stipules. Peduncles round, 
naked.—Found by Commerson in the island ot St. Mauri¬ 
tius; and communicated by Mons. Thouin. 
ROUSSEAU (Jean Baptiste), a very eminent French poet, 
was bom at Paris in 1671. ITis father, though only a shoe¬ 
maker, gave him a liberal education in the colleges of the 
metropolis. At an early age he distinguished himself by his 
poetical talents, and obtained admission among persons of 
rank and taste. In 1688, he attended the French ambassador 
to Denmark in quality of page; and he afterwards went 
with Marshal Tallard to England, where he contracted an 
S E A U. 
intimacy with St. Evremond. In 1703, he was domiciliated 
with M. Rouille, director of the finances, whom he accom- 
panied to court and elsewhere, living in tranquillity in the 
midst of splendour, and cultivating the Muses, to the neg¬ 
lect of the opportunities presented him of making his fortune. 
The minister Chamillard offered him the post of provincial 
director of the fermes generales, which he declined. He was 
at tire height of his reputation, and enjoying all the pleasures 
of society, when an unfortunate affair shed bitterness on all 
the remainder of his life. A number of men of letters and 
leisure were accustomed to meet at a coffee-house in Paris, and 
Rousseau and La Motte were the leading personages of this 
assembly, when in 1708, the opera of Hesione made its ap¬ 
pearance. Rousseau, who had already displayed an envious 
and caustic disposition, wrote five couplets to the measure of 
an air in this opera, highly satirical upon the authors of the 
words, the music, and the ballet of the piece. That these 
anonymous couplets were his, is an acknowledged fact; but 
they were followed by a number of others of a similar kind, 
in which the most indecent licence of personal satire was 
employed against many known characters. All Paris ex¬ 
claimed against the baseness and malignity of these con¬ 
cealed attacks, and the general voice attributed them to 
Rousseau, from their similarity to the couplets which were 
known to be his. This poet, however, not only asserted his 
own innocence, but attempted to fix the charge upon one 
Saurin, a man of science and letters, who, from a Calvinist 
minister, had become a convert to popery, and resided in 
Paris. It is unnecessary here to dwell upon the particulars 
of this disgusting controversy; the reader who wishes for 
further information may consult the list of writers in Vol¬ 
taire’s “ Siecle de Louis XIV.,” articles Rousseau, Saurin, 
and La Motte. The conclusion was, that by an arret of 
parliament in 1712, Rousseau was condemned to perpetual 
banishment from the kingdom, not only as a suborner in the 
accusation of Saurin, but as the author and distributor of 
“ the impure and satirical verses which are the subject of 
the actionnor could any solicitation afterwards procure 
the revocation of this decree. Rousseau had already retired 
to Switzerland, where he was protected by the Count de Luc, 
the French ambassador to the Cantons. He published at 
Soleure the first edition of his collected works, in the preface 
to which he ridiculously gives himself the air of one who 
wrote verses for mere amusement, although it was his poetry 
alone which raised him from the obscurity of a mean rank, 
to public notice and the faVour of the great. Something like 
this was observable in Pope. When the Count de Luc went 
to Baden in 1714, as plenipotentiary for concluding peace 
with the emperor, Rousseau accompanied him. He there 
became known to prince Eugene, who was a great admirer 
of his poetry, and he was taken by that celebrated general 
with him to Vienna. He resided in his palace for three years, 
when, n'ot being able, it is said, to refrain from exercising 
his satirical talent upon his patron, he was obliged to quit 
that capital for Brussels. That city thenceforth became his 
principal residence; but he was not formed to live in tran¬ 
quillity any where. At Brussels he first became acquainted 
■with Voltaire, then a young candidate for fame. They be¬ 
gan with reciprocal compliments, and soon formed a confi¬ 
dential intimacy. It was not likely, however, that a cordial 
friendship should continue between Ihe jealous possessor of 
mature reputation, and a rising competitor in the same walk, 
both of tempers abounding in causticity and selfishness, and 
they became bitter enemies. 
Rousseau, though treated with distinction at Brussels, 
could not be at his ease under a sentence of banishment from 
Paris. He made intercession with the Regent Duke of 
Orleans, who granted him letters of recal; but the poet in¬ 
sisted upon a previous revision of his trial, and a solemn cas¬ 
sation of the sentence against him, which he could not obtain. 
He endeavoured to dissipate chagrin by travelling, and, in 
1721, visited England, where he prepared a new edition of 
his works. This was published in 1723, in 2 vols. 4to., 
and produced him 10,000 crowns, which he placed in the 
fund of the Ostend company. The failure of this company 
sunk 
