or subtriple. And here note, that the quantities thus compared must be of the same kind; that is, such as by multiplication may be made to exceed one the other, or as these quantities are said to have a ratio between them, which, being multiplied, may be made to exceed one another. Thus a line, how short soever, may be multiplied, that is, produced so long as to exceed any given right line; and consequently these may be compared together, and the ratio expressed; but as a line can never, by any multiplication whatever, be made to have breadth, that is, to be made equal to a superficies, how small soever; these can therefore never be compared together, and consequently have no ratio or respect one to another. RATION, in the army, a portion of ammunition, bread, drink, and forage, distributed to each soldier in the army, for his daily subsistence, &c. The horse have rations of hay and oats when they cannot go out to forage. The rations of bread are regulated by weight. The ordinary ration of a foot soldier is a pound and a half of bread per day. The officers have several rations, according to their quality, and the number of attendants they are obliged to keep. When the ration is augmented on occasions of rejoicing, it is called a double ration. The ships' crews have also their rations, or allowances of biscuit and water, proportioned according to their stock. RATIONAL, adj. RATIOCINATE, V. N. RATIOCINATION, n. s. RATIOCIN'ATIVE, adj. RATIONALIST, N. S. RATIONALITY, RATIONALLY, adv. corresponding ratiocinative is argumentative: rationalist is, one who reasons or proceeds upon reason: rationality, power of reason; or reasonableness: rationally Latin rationalis. Having reason; agreeable to reason; wise: to ratiocinate (not used) means, to reason or argue, ratiocination follows the senses of rational. He often used this comparison: the empirical philosophers are like to pismires; they only lay up and use their store: the rationalists are like to spiders; they spin all out of their own bowels: but give me a philosopher, who, like the bee, hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by his own virtue. Bacon. God decreed to create man after his own image, a free and rational agent. Hammond. The discerning of that connexion or dependence which there is betwixt several propositions, whereby we are enabled to infer one proposition from another, which is called ratiocination or discourse. Wilkins. What higher in her society thou findest Attractive, humane, rational, love still. Milton. Some consecutions are so intimately and evidently connected to, or found in the premises, that the conclusion is attained quasi per saltum, and without any thing of ratiocinative process, even as the eye sees his object immediately, and without any previous discourse. Hale's Origin of Mankind. When the conclusion is deduced from the unerring dictates of our faculties, we say the inference is rational. Glanville's Scepsis. In human occurrences, there have been many well directed intentions, whose rationalities will never bear a rigid examination. Browne's Vulgar Errors. Can any kind of ratiocination allow Christ all the marks of the Messiah, and yet deny him to be the Messiah? South. Upon the proposal of an agreeable object, it may rationally be conjectured, that a man's choice will rather incline him to accept than to refuse it. South. When God has made rationality the common portion of mankind, how came it to be thy enclosure? Government of the Tongue. any ratiocination or study, and could not fail conSuch an inscription would be self-evident without stantly to exert its energy in their minds. Bentley. If your arguments be rational, offer them in as moving a manner as the nature of the subject will admit; but beware of letting the pathetic part swallow up the rational. Swift. If it be our glory and happiness to have a rational nature, that is endued with wisdom and reason, that is capable of imitating the divine nature; then it must be our glory and happiness to improve our reason and wisdom, to act up to the excellency of our rational nature, and to imitate God in all our actions, to the utmost of our power. RATS BANE, n. s. Rat and bane. Poison for rats; arsenic. Law. He would throw ratsbane up and down a house, where children might come at it. L'Estrange. I can hardly believe the relation of his being poisoned, but sack might do it, though ratsbane would Swift to Pope. not. RATISBON, German Regensburg, an ancient city of Bavaria, long known as the place of meeting for the imperial diet. It is situated on the south bank of the Danube, opposite to the influx of the river Regen, from which its German name is derived, and is surrounded with an earthen mound, though not defensible against an army. It is built of stone, but the houses are very high and old; the streets narrow and crooked. The town-house partakes of the gloomy character of the rest of the town, and the apartment where the diet held its sittings is plain even to meanness. But the cathedral and the church of St. Emeran, the former a venerable Gothic pile and the latter containing a number of good paintings, are worth attention; and after these the episcopal residence, a palace belonging to the prince of Tour and Taxis; the Jesuits' college; the arsenal, and the Haidplatz, where tournaments were formerly given. Here is also and several hospitals. a public drawing-school, two public libraries, When Ratisbon had the exclusive navigation of the Danube to Vienna, and upwards to Ulm, but it possesses still a considerable share of it was of course far more brisk as a trading town; traffic in timber, corn, and salt. The town has extensive dock-yards for the building of boats and lighters, and a number of breweries and distilleries, but few manufactures. It has long been a favorite residence of the respectable classes of so ciety; and formerly the presence of the diet, which assembled here habitually, from 1662, until the extinction of the body in 1805, contributed much to its support. The majority of the inhabitants are Catholics; and Ratisbon (reduced in 1817 to a bishopric) was long the see of an archbishop, who had a considerable territory, and was at the head of the abbey of St. Emeran, situated within the walls, and a small town of itself. In the river is an island, crossed by a bridge of great length, extending across the Danube, and connecting the city with its northern suburb, Stadtham Hof. In April 1809, this country was the scene of obstinate contests between the French and Austrians. Ratisbon is sixty-three miles N. N. E. of Munich, and 127 south-west of Prague. Population 20,000. RATTEEN', n. s. Fr. ratine; Span. ratina. A kind of stuff. We'll rig in Meath-street Egypt's haughty queen, And Antony shall court her in rutteen. Swift. RATTLE, v. n., v. a. & n. s. Į Belg. rutelen; RATTLE-SNAKE, N. S. or a frequentative of Sax. neotan. To make a sharp, quick, or clattering noise; speak clamorously or eagerly; to move any thing so as to make a clatter; to stun or drive with noise; scold: the noise made; loud and empty talk; a child's toy the rattlesnake is the genus crotalus of amphibia, serpentes. See CROTALUS. The quiver rattleth against him. Job xxxix. 23. The noise of a whip, of the rattling of the wheels, of prancing horses, and of the jumping chariots. Nahum iii. 2. Sound but another, and another shall, They had, to affright the enemies horses, big rattles covered with parchment, and small stones within; but the rattling of shot might have done better service. Hayward. Hakewill. All this ado about the golden age is but an empty rattle and frivolous conceit. Opinions are the rattles of immature intellects, but the advanced reasons have outgrown them. Glanville's Scepsis. She loses her being at the very sight of him, and drops plump into his arms, like a charmed bird into the mouth of a rattlesnake. More's Foundling. With jealous eyes at distance she hath seen Whispering with Jove the silver-footed queen; Then, impotent of tongue, her silence broke, Thus turbulent in rattling tone she spoke. Dryden. Her chains she rattles, and her whip she shakes. Id. The rhymes and rattles of the man or boy; What right, what true, what fit we justly call, Let this be all my care, for this is all. Pope. He is a man of pleasure, and a free-thinker; he is an assertor of liberty and property; he rattles it out against popery. Swift. RATTLESNAKE. See CROTALUS. RAVAGE, v. a. & n. s. Fr. ravager; barb. RAV ́AGER, n. s. Lat. brassiare. To lay waste; ransack; pillage: the spoil or ruin thus made ravager, he who makes it. Some cruel pleasure will from thence arise, To view the mighty ravage of your eyes. Dryden. Would one think 'twere possible for love To make such ravage in a noble soul? Addison. Those savages were not then what civilized mankind is now; but without mutual society, without arms of offence, without houses or fortifications, an obvious and exposed prey to the ravage of devouring beasts. Bentley. When that mighty empire was overthrown by the northern people, vast sums of money were buried to escape the plundering of the conquerors; and what remained was carried off by those ravagers. Swift. His blasts obey, and quit the bowling hill, The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale. Thomson. Cambyses marched one army from Thebes, after having overturned the temples, ravaged the country, and deluged it with blood, to subdue Ethiopia this army almost perished by famine, insomuch that they repeatedly slew every tenth man to supply the remainder with food. Darwin. RAU'CITY, n. s. Lat. raucus. Hoarseness; loud rough noise. Inequality not stayed upon, but passing, is rather an increase of sweetness; as in the purling of a wreathed string, and in the raucity of a trumpet. Bacon's Natural History. RAVE, v. n. ? Fr. rêver; Belg. reven; RA'VINGLY, adv. S Lat. rabo. To be delirious; talk irrationally or incoherently; burst into furious exclamations. Shall these wild distempers of thy mind, This tempest of thy tongue, thus rave, and find No opposition? Sandy's Paraphrase on Job. In this depth of muses, and divers sorts of discourses, would she ravingly have remained. Sidney. Our ravings and complaints are but like arrows shot up into the air, at no mark, and so to no purpose. Temple. Another partiality is as fantastical and wild, attributing all knowledge to the ancients or the moderns; this raving upon antiquity, in matter of poetry, Horace has wittily exposed in one of his satires. Locke. Wonder at my patience, Have I not cause to rare, and beat my breast, Addison. Men who thus rave, we may conclude their brains are turned, and one may as well read lectures at Bedlam as treat with such. Government of the Tongue. It soon infecteth the whole member, and is accompanied with watching and raving. Wiseman. Revenge, revenge, thus raving through the streets, I'll cry for vengeance. Southern's Spartan Dame. RAVEL, v. a. & v. n. Belg. ravelen. To entangle; perplex; involve; entwist one with another; unweave; undo knit-work; to fall into Of ravenous fowl, through many a league remote, Milton's Paradise Lost. The ravenousness of a lion or bear are natural to perplexity or confusion; work in a perplexed them; yet their mission upon an extraordinary occa state. Sleep, that knits up the raveled sleeve of care. Shakspeare. As you unwind her love from him, Lest it should ravel, and be good to none, You must provide to bottom it on me. Id. It will be needless to ravel far into the records of elder times; every man's memory will suggest many pertinent instances. Decay of Piety. They but ravel it over loosely, and pitch upon disputing against particular conclusions, that, at the first encounter of them single, seem harsh to them. Digby. Give the reins to wandering thought, Milton. If then such praise the Macedonian got, For having rudely cut the Gordian knot; What glory's due to him that could divide Such raveled interests, has the knot untied, And without stroke so smooth a passage made, Where craft and malice such obstructions laid! Waller. The humour of ravelling into all these mystical or intangled matters, mingling with the interest and passions of princes and of parties, and thereby heightened and inflamed, produced infinite disputes. Temple. RAVELIN, in fortification, was anciently a flat bastion placed in the middle of a curtain. See FORTIFICATION. RA'VEN, n. s., v. a. & v. n.~ Saxon præfn, RAVENOUS, adj. phærian, to rob; RAVENOUSLY, adv. Belg. raven; Goth. RAVENOUSNESS, n. s. and Swed. rafn. A large black carnivorous fowl, whose cry is supposed ominous: to prey rapaciously: the adjective, &c., corresponding. Benjamin shall raven as a wolf; in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil. Genesis. well as feathers. sion may be an actus imperatus of divine providence. Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia. They might not lie in a condition exposed to the ravin of any vermin that may find them, being unable to escape. Ray. What! the kind Ismena, That nursed me, watched my sickness! oh she watched me, As ravenous vultures watch the dying lion. Smith. To sooty blackness from the purest white. Addison. Hence Gildon rails, that raven of the pit, Who thrives upon the carcasses of wit. Young. RAVEN, in ornithology. See CORVUS. RAVENNA, a large town in the east of Italy, and states of the church, situated in a marshy district at the mouth of the Montone. In the time of the Lower empire it stood on a bay of the Adriatic, and had a considerable port, separated from the city by the Via Cæsaris; but this port is now filled up with mud, and the city, though still occupying its former site, as proved by the ancient monuments it contains, is now at a distance of three or four miles from the sea. The situation is pleasant, though unhealthy from the marshy nature of the ground. This has been partly remedied by carrying along the side of the town the rivers Montone and Ronco. In former times Ravenna was surrounded with lagunes: at present, though encircled with a mound, it is not a place of strength. Its streets are straight and broad, but gloomy; and the town has a deserted aspect. The most interesting objects are the monuments of antiquity, in particular the ruins of the palace of Theodoric, and the Porta Aurea, a splendid gate of marble. Smaller monuments, as mosaics, bas reliefs, and statues, are found in all parts of the town. The cathedral is a fine modern edifice, having its nave supported by four ranges of columns of Grecian marble. The octagon church of St. Vitale, erected about the sixth century, is likewise supported by pillars of Grecian marble, brought from Constantinople. Another church, called the Rotonda, and situated outside of the town, was built in honor of Theodoric, by his daughter Amalasonda. Ravenna contains likewise the tomb of Dante. It was made a Roman colony by Augustus: Tiberius repaired its walls, and made other improvements; and the emperor Honorius made it the seat of his residence. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, having, in the latter part of the fifth century, become master of Italy, fixed here the seat of his empire, and erected several buildings. Ravenna was also the residence of the imperial lieutenants in the reign of Justinian; and Longinus, the successor of Narses, took the title of exarch, borne by the governors of Italy during 175 years that they resided at Ravenna. The exarchate was brought to a close in the eighth century, by Pepin, father of Charlemagne, who made it over to the see of Rome. On Easter day, 1512, a battle was fought in the neighbourhood between the French and Spaniards, in which the former took Ravenna by assault, and plundered it in a manner which it never recovered. The town has given birth to several eminent men, and is still the see of an archbishop, and the residence of a papal legate. Its manufactures, chiefly of silk, are inconsiderable, but it has a great annual fair. Population 12,000. Forty miles east of Bologna, and seventy north-east of Florence. RAVENNA (John de), otherwise called Malphaghino, was born in Ravenna in 1352. He studied under Donatus the grammarian. After a wandering life, for some years, he settled at Padua, where Sicco, one of his scholars, says he taught the Roman eloquence and moral philosophy, with applause and success beyond all the professors of that period. In 1397, his forty-fifth year, John was invited by the magistrates of Florence to settle in that city, where he taught many learned men. He died about 1418. RAUGHT. The disused pret. and part. pass. of REACH. Snatched; reached; attained. His tail was stretched out in wonderous length, That to the house of heavenly gods it raught, And with extorted power and borrowed strength, The ever-burning lamps from thence it brought. Spenser. Grittus, furiously running in upon Schenden, violently raught from his head his rich cap of sables, and with his horsemen took him. The hand of death has raught him. Knolles. Shakspeare. RAVILLIAC (Francis), the assassin of Henry IV. of France, was a native of Angoulesme, and at the time of his execution about thirty-two years of age. Ravilliac's parents lived upon alms. His father was an inferior retainer to the law, and his son had been bred up in the same profession. Ravilliac had set up a claim to an estate, but the cause went against him, which affected his mind. He afterwards kept a school, and received gifts of small value from the parents of those whom he taught. When he was put to the torture, he broke out into horrid execrations, but always insisted that he acted from his own impulse, and that he could accuse nobody. On the day of his execution, after he had made the amende honourable before the church of Notre Dame, he was carried to the Greve; and tied to a wooden engine in the shape of a St. Andrew's cross. His right hand, with the knife with which he did the murder fastened in it, was first burnt in a slow fire; then the fleshy parts of his body were torn with red-hot pincers, and melted lead, oil, pitch, and rosin poured iuto the wounds. The people refused to pray for him; and when, according to the sentence pronounced upon him, he came to be dragged to pieces by four horses, one of those that were brought appearing to be but weak, one of the spectators offered his own, with which the criminal was much moved: he is said to have then made a confession, which was so written by the greffier Voisin that not one word of it could ever be read. He was very earnest for absolution, which his confessor refused, unless he would reveal his accomplices; 'give it me conditionally,' said he, upon condition that I have told the truth,' which he did. His body was so robust, that it resisted the force of the four horses; and the executioner was at length obliged to cut him into quarters, which the people dragged through the streets. The house in which he was born was demolished, and a column of infamy erected; his father and mother were banished from Angoulesme, and ordered to quit the kingdom upon pain of being hanged, if they returned, without any form of process; his brothers, sisters, uncles, and other relations, were commanded to lay aside the name of Ravilliac, and to assume some other. Such was the fate of this murderer, who, according to his own account, suffered himself to be impelled to the act by the seditious sermons and books of the Jesuits, whom Henry, rather out of fear than love, had recalled and caressed. Neither the dying words of Ravilliac, nor so much of his process as was published, were credited, by his contemporaries. Various reports were circulated which it is unnecessary to recapitulate, as they were totally unsupported by any evidence. See FRANCE. RAV'ISH, v. a. Fr. ravir; Ital. rapire; Lat. rapio. To constuprate by force; deflower by violence; take away violently; overcome the senses; hence transport with pleasure. ie thou ravished always with her love. Proverbs. Lam. v. 11. They ravished the women and maids. They are cruel and bloody, common ravishers of women, and murtherers of children. Spenser. They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravished her. Shakspeare. Will quicken and accuse thee. away of men's wives, came in all those ancient Of his several ravishments, betrayings and stealing fables of his transformations and all that rabble of Grecian forgeries. Raleigh. As all the housewiferies of deities are To heare a voice so ravishingly fair. Chapman. A ravisher must repair the temporal detriment to the maid, and give her a dowry, or marry her if she desire it. Taylor. RAVITZ, or RAWITSCH, a fortified town of Prussian Poland, near the confines of Silesia. It has a wall and ditch; four gates; is regularly built, and the streets generally paved. Of the 8000 inhabitants 1200 are Jews; the rest chiefly Lutherans. It has manufactures of woollen, linen, hats, and leather. The town was erected by fugitives from Germany, during the thirty years' war. In 1704 Charles XII. of Sweden took up his winter quarters here; but in 1707 the Russians plundered and burned it down. In 1802 the greatest part was again burned by an accidental fire. Fifty-five miles south of Posen. RAUJESHY, an extensive district of Bengal, situated principally between 24° and 25° of N. lat. It is intersected and watered in its whole length by the Ganges and other rivers. It produces four-fifths of the silk exported from Bengal, and contains Moorshudabad, Baulea, Commercolly, and Bogwangola, and 1,500,000 inhabitants. The zemindary of this district had been long possessed by a Hindoo family, the last of whom, dreading the tyranny of the nabob Moorshud Cooly Jaffier Khan, terminated his own existence, and the zemindary was transferred about the year 1722 to a person named Ramjewon, whose family still retain it. RAURICUM, in ancient geography, a town of the Raurici, situated over against Abnoba, a mountain from which the Danube takes its rise. It was a Roman colony, led by Lucius Munatius Plancus, the scholar and friend of Cicero; called Colonia Rauriaca, by Pliny, Raurica, and Augusta Rauricorum. The town was destroyed in Julian's time. RAUVOLFIA, a genus of the monogynia order, and pentandria class of plants; natural order thirtieth, cortorta. It is named after the celebrated botanist Rauwolf. RAUWOLF (Leonard), a learned physician and botanist of the sixteenth century, born in Augsburg. To acquire the knowledge of botany, he travelled through Syria, Arabia, and America. He published an Account of his Travels, which was translated and printed in England in 1698. Being persecuted for his religious opinions, he retired to Linton, where he died in 1606. His Flora Orientalis was published at Leyden Sax. preap; Teut, and Belg. raco, rauw; Goth. and Swed. ra. Uncooked; Sunwrought; bare or stripped 1755. RAW, adj. RAW BONED, RAW HEAD, n. s. RAW'LY, adv. RAW'NESS, n. s. of skin; sore; unripe; new; crude; bleak; chill: rawboned is having bones scarcely covered with flesh: raw-head, a supposed spectre or hobgoblin: the adverb and noun substantive following correspond with raw. If there be quick raw flesh in the risings, it is an old leprosy. Leviticus xiii. 50. Full of great lumps of flesh, and gobbets raw. Spenser. They carried always with them that weed, as their house, their bed, and their garment; and, coming lately into Ireland, they found there more special use thereof, by reason of the raw cold climate. Id. State of Ireland. All aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw; And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw. Shakspeare. I have in my mind A thousand raw tricks of these bragging jacks. Id. Youthful still in your doublet and hose, this raw rheumatick day. Id. Id. Lean rawboned rascals! who would e'er suppose They had such courage ? Some crying for a surgeon, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. Id. Henry V. Why in that rawness left he wife and children, without leave taking? Id. Macbeth. Some people, very raw and ignorant, are very unworthily and unfitly nominated to places, when men of desert are held back and unpreferred. Raleigh's Essays. Distilled waters will last longer than raw waters. |