[Reynolds, John Fulton], an American general, born at Lancaster, Pennsylvania; graduated at 21 at West Point, entered the army, distinguished himself during the Civil War, especially at the second battle of Bull Run; was killed at the battle of Gettysburg (1820-1863).
[Reynolds, Sir Joshua], the chief of English portrait-painters, born near Plymouth; went to London in 1740 to study art, and remained three years; visited Italy and the great centres of art there, when he lost his hearing, and settled in London in 1752, where he began to paint portraits, and had as the subjects of his art the most distinguished people, "filled England with the ghosts of her noble squires and dames"; numbered among his friends all the literary notabilities of the day; he was the first President of the Royal Academy, and though it was no part of his duty, delivered a succession of discourses to the students on the principles and practice of painting, 15 of which have been published, and are still held in high esteem (1723-1792).
[Rhabdomancy], a species of divination by means of a hazel rod to trace the presence of minerals or metals under ground.
[Rhadamanthus], in the Greek mythology a son of Zeus and Europa, and a brother of [Minos] (q. v.), was distinguished among men for his strict justice, and was after his death appointed one of the Judges of the dead in the nether world along with Æacus and Minos.
[Rhapsodists], a class of minstrels who in early times wandered over the Greek cities reciting the poems of Homer, and through whom they became widely known, and came to be translated with such completeness to us.
[Rhea], in the Greek mythology a goddess, the daughter of Uranus and Gaia, the wife of Kronos, and mother of the chief Olympian deities, Zeus, Pluto, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia, and identified by the Greeks of Asia Minor with the great earth goddess Cybele, and whose worship as such, like that of all the other earth deities, was accompanied with wild revelry.
[Rhea Silvia], a vestal virgin, the mother of Romulus and Remus, twins, whom she bore to Mars, the god of war, who had violated her.
[Rheims] (104), an important French city in the department of Marne, on the Vesle, 100 m. NE. of Paris; as the former ecclesiastical metropolis of France it has historical associations of peculiar interest; the French monarchs were crowned in the cathedral (a Gothic structure of unique beauty) from 1179 to 1825; has a beautiful 12th-century Romanesque church, an archiepiscopal palace, a Roman triumphal arch, a Lycée, statues, &c.; situated in a rich wine district, it is one of the chief champagne entrepôts, and is also one of the main centres of French textiles, especially woollen goods; is strongly fortified.
[Rheingau], a fruitful wine district in the Rhine Valley, stretching along the right bank of the river in Hesse-Nassau; has a sunny, sheltered situation, and its wines are famed for their quality.
[Rhenish Prussia] (4,710), the most westerly and most densely populated of the Prussian provinces, lies within the valleys of the Rhine and the Lower Moselle, and borders on Belgium and the Netherlands; is mountainous and forest-clad, except in the fertile plains of the N. and in the rich river valleys, where vines, cereals, and vegetables are extensively cultivated; large quantities of coal, iron, zinc, and lead are mined; as an industrial and manufacturing province it ranks first in Germany. Coblenz (capital), Aix-la-Chapelle, Bonn, and Cologne are among its chief towns; was formed in 1815 out of several smaller duchies.