[Raeburn, Sir Henry], portrait-painter, born at Stockbridge, Edinburgh; was educated at George Heriot's Hospital; apprenticed to a goldsmith in the city, and gave early promise of his abilities as an artist; went to Italy; was introduced to Reynolds by the way, and after two years' absence settled in Edinburgh, and became famous as one of the greatest painters of the day; the portraits he painted included likenesses of all the distinguished Scotsmen of the period, at the head of them Sir Walter Scott; was knighted by George IV. a short time before his death (1756-1823).
[Raff, Joachim], musical composer of the Wagner School, born at Lachen, in Switzerland; began life as a schoolmaster; was attracted to music; studied at Weimar; lived near Liszt, and became Director of the Conservatorium at Frankfort-on-Main; his works include symphonies, overtures, with pieces for the violin and the piano (1822-1882).
[Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford], English administrator, born in Jamaica; entered the East India Company's service, and rose in it; became Governor of Java, and wrote a history of it; held afterwards an important post in Sumatra, and formed a settlement at Singapore; returned to England with a rich collection of natural objects and documents, but lost most of them by the ship taking fire (1781-1826).
[Rafn, Karl Christian], Danish archæologist, born in Fünen; devoted his life to the study of northern antiquities; edited numerous Norse MSS.; executed translations of Norse literature; wrote original treatises in the same interest, and by his researches established the fact of the discovery of America by the Norsemen in the 10th century (1796-1864).
[Ragged Schools], a name given to the charity schools which provide education and, in most cases, food, clothing, and lodging for destitute children; they receive no Government support. The movement had its beginning in the magnanimous efforts of John Pounds (d. 1839), a shoemaker of Portsmouth; but the zeal and eloquence of Dr. [Guthrie] (q. v.) of Edinburgh greatly furthered the development and spread of these schools throughout the kingdom.
[Raglan, Fitzroy Somerset, Lord], youngest son of the Duke of Beaufort; entered the army at sixteen; served with distinction all through the Peninsular War; became aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, and his military secretary; lost his right arm at Waterloo; did diplomatic service at Paris in 1815, and held afterwards a succession of important military posts; was appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in the Crimea, and was present at all the engagements till attacked by cholera, aggravated by a repulse and unjust reflections on his conduct of the war, he sank exhausted and died (1788-1855).
[Ragman Roll], the name given to a record of the acts of fealty and homage done by the Scottish nobility and gentry in 1296 to Edward I. of England, and of value for the list it supplies of the nobles, gentry, burgesses, and clergy of the country at that period. The original written rolls of parchment have perished, but an abridged form is extant, and preserved in the Tower of London.
[Ragnarök], in the Norse mythology the twilight of the gods, when it was predicted "the Divine powers and the chaotic brute ones, after long contest and partial victory by the former, should meet at last in universal, world-embracing wrestle and duel, strength against strength, mutually extinctive, and ruin, 'twilight' sinking into darkness, shall swallow up the whole created universe, the old universe of the Norse gods"; in which catastrophe Vidar and another are to be spared to found a new heaven and a new earth, the sovereign of which shall be Justice. "Insight this," says Carlyle, "of how, though all dies, and even gods die, yet all death is but a Phoenix fire-death, and new birth into the greater and the better as the fundamental law of being."
[Ragusa], a decayed Austrian city on the Dalmatian coast, fronting the Adriatic; has interesting remains of its ancient greatness, and still contains several fine monastic and other buildings.
[Rahel], wife of Varnhagen von Ense, born in Berlin, of Jewish parentage; was a woman of "rare gifts, worth, and true genius, and equal to the highest thoughts of her century," and lived in intimate relation with all the intellectual lights of Germany at the time; worshipped at the shrine of Goethe, and was the foster-mother of German genius generally in her day; she did nothing of a literary kind herself; all that remains of her gifts in that line are her Letters, published by her husband on her death, which letters, however, are intensively subjective, and reveal the state rather of her feelings than the thoughts of her mind (1771-1833).