Rights of Man, The.—“Being an answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution,” by Thomas Paine. This work, which was published in 1791-1792, procured for the writer the distinction of a trial for sedition, which he escaped by flying to France.
Rinaldo (ri-nal´dō).—A Christian hero in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. He was the son of Bertoldo and Sophia, and nephew of Guelpho, but was brought up by Matilda. He was one of Charlemagne’s paladins, and cousin to Orlando. Having killed Charlemagne’s nephew Berthelot, he was banished and outlawed. After various adventures and disasters, he went to the Holy Land, and, on his return, succeeded in making peace with the emperor.
Ring and the Book, The.—A poem by Robert Browning, published in 1869. It is the story of a tragedy which took place at Rome in 1698. The versified narrative of the child Pompilia’s sale to Count Guido, of his cruelty and violence, of her rescue by a young priest, the pursuit, the lawful separation, the murder by Guido of the girl and her putative parents, the trial and condemnation of the murderer, and the affirmation of his sentence by the pope—all this is made to fill out a poem of twenty-one thousand lines; but these include ten different versions of the tale, besides the poet’s prelude, in which latter he gives a general outline of it. The chapters which contain the statements of the priest lover and Pompilia are full of tragic beauty and emotion. The pope’s soliloquy, though too prolonged, is a wonderful piece of literary metempsychosis.
Rip Van Winkle.—A tale by Washington Irving, adapted from the old German legend of Peter Klaus, a goatherd, who drank a miraculous draught of wine in a dell of the Harz mountains, which brought on sleep from which he did not wake until twenty years after, when he returned to his native village to find everything changed, and no one who knew him. In Irving’s tale the hero is a Dutchman living in America, and the scene is the Catskill mountains. The story is most picturesquely told, and has been effectively dramatized, the leading personage being illustrated by the genius of Jefferson.
Rivals, The.—A comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, produced at Covent Garden, London, in 1775, and described by Hazlitt as “a play of even more action and incident, but of less wit and satire, than The School for Scandal. It is as good as a novel in the reading, and has the broadest and most palpable effect upon the stage.”
Roaring Camp, The Luck of.—A prose sketch by Francis Bret Harte, an American poet, in which the softening effects of the presence of a little child in a camp of ruffians are very touchingly described. It has been dramatized.
Rob Roy.—A romance by Sir Walter Scott which is founded on some passages in the career of the famous Highlander, Robert MacGregor, who was popularly [813] called Rob Roy. The nominal hero of Rob Roy is Francis Osbaldistone; the heroine, Diana Vernon. Among the other characters are Baillie Nicol Jarvie, “The Dougal Cratur” Andrew Fairservice, Helen MacGregor, Sir Frederick Vernon, and Rashleigh Osbaldistone. The novel has been dramatized in a version which still holds the stage in Scotland. Scott speaks of Rob as “the Robin Hood of Scotland—the dread of the wealthy, but the friend of the poor, and possessed of many qualities, both of head and heart, which would have graced a less equivocal profession than that to which his fate condemned him.”
Roderick, or Roderic (rod´er-ik) Dhu.—Lady of the Lake, Scott. An outlaw and chief of a band of Scots who resolved to win back what had been lost to the Saxons. In connection with Red Murdock he sought the life of the Saxon Fitz-James.
Roderigo (rod-e-rē´gō).—In Shakespeare’s Othello, a Venetian in love with Desdemona, who, when the lady eloped with Othello, hated the “noble Moor.”
Roland (rō´land).—The hero of one of the most ancient and popular epics of early French or Frankish literature, and, according to tradition, the favorite nephew and captain of the Emperor Charlemagne. Roland is the hero of Théroulde’s Chanson de Roland; of Turpin’s Chronique; of Bojardo’s Orlando Innamorato; of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.