the hungry gentleman in Lazarillo de Tormes, in Don Melón and Doña Endrina he anticipates Calisto and Melibea in the Celestina, and Celestina herself is developed from Ruiz’ Trotaconventos. Moreover, Ruiz was justly proud of his metrical innovations. The Libro de buen amor is mainly written in the cuaderna via modelled on the French alexandrine, but he imparts to the measure a variety and rapidity previously unknown in Spanish, and he experiments by introducing internal rhymes or by shortening the fourth line into an octosyllabic verse; or he boldly recasts the form of the stanza, extending it to six or seven lines with alternate verses of eight and five syllables. But his technical skill never sinks to triviality. All his writing bears the stamp of a unique personality, and, if he never attempts a sublime flight, he conveys with contagious force his enthusiasm for life under any conditions—in town, country, vagabondage or gaol.
His influence is visible in El Corbacho, the work of another jovial goliard, Alphonso Martinez de Toledo, arch-priest of Talavera, who wrote more than half a century before the Libro de buen amor was imitated by the author of the Celestina. Ruiz is mentioned with respect by Santillana, and that his reputation extended beyond Spain is proved by the surviving fragments of a Portuguese version of the Libro de buen amor. By some strange accident he was neglected, and apparently forgotten, till 1790, when an expurgated edition of his poems was published by Tomás Antonio Sanchez; from that date his fame has steadily increased, and by the unanimous verdict of all competent judges he is now ranked as the greatest Spanish poet of his century.
An accurate edition of his works was published by M. Jean Ducamin at Toulouse in 1901, and he is the subject of Sr. D. Julio Puyol y Alonso’s critical study, El Arcipreste de Hita (Madrid, 1906).
(J. F.-K.)
RUKWA (sometimes also Rikwa and Hikwa), a shallow
lake in German East Africa, lying 2650 ft. above the sea in a
N.W. continuation of the rift-valley which contains Lake Nyasa.
The sides of the valley here run in steep parallel walls 30 to 40 m. apart, from S.E. to N.W., leaving between them a level plain
extending from about 7½° to 8½° S. This whole area was
probably once covered by the lake, but this has shrunk so that
the permanent water occupies only a space of 30 m. by 12 at the
S. immediately under the E. escarpment. In the rains its extends
some 40 m. farther N., and the north of the plain is likewise then
covered with water to a depth of about 4 ft. The rest of the
plain is a bare expanse intensely heated by the sun in the dry
season, and forming a tract of foul mud near the lake shores.
But in 1903–4 the level of the lake rose so that the waters covered
the whole depression. The lake has two large feeders, one
coming from the W., the other from the S.E. The W. feeder,
the Saisi, or Momba, rises in 80° 50′ S., 31° 30′ E., and traverses
a winding valley cut out of the high plateau between lakes
Nyasa and Tanganyika. It enters the lake on its N.W. side.
The other chief feeder, the Songwe, rises in 9° 8′ S., 33° 30′ E.
on the same plateau as the Saisi and flows N.W., entering Rukwa
at its S. end. The Songwe is joined about 50 m. about its mouth
by the Rupa, whose head-waters are in the high-lying land N.E.
of Rukwa. The maximum depth of the lake is about 10½ ft.
Its water is very brackish and of a milky colour from the mud
stirred up by the wind. It contains great quantities of fish.
First seen from the north by Joseph Thomson in 1880, it was
visited by Dr Kaiser, a German, in 1882, and has since been
thoroughly explored by various British and German travellers.
See “Begleitworte zu der Karte der Gebiete am südlichen Tanganjika-und Rukwa-See,” by Paul Sprigade, in Mitteil. v. Forsch. u. Gelehrten a. d. deutschen Schutzgebieten (Berlin, 1904), with map on the scale of 1:500,000.
RULHIÈRE (or Rulhières), CLAUDE CARLOMAN DE (1735–1791), French poet and historian, was born at Bondy, near
Paris, on the 12th of June 1735. He became aide-de-camp to
Marshal Richelieu, whom he followed through the Hanoverian
campaign of 1757 and to his government at Bordeaux in 1758;
and at twenty-five he was sent to St Petersburg as secretary
of legation. Here he actually saw the revolution which seated
Catherine II. on the throne, and thus obtained the facts of
Anecdotes sur la revolution de Russie en 1762. Catherine made
repeated efforts to secure the destruction of the MS., which
remained unpublished until after the empress’s death. Rulhière
became secretary to the comte de Provence (afterwards
Louis XVIII.) in 1773, and he was admitted to the Academy
in 1787. The later years of his life were spent chiefly in Paris,
where he held an appointment in the Foreign Office and went
much into society; but he visited Germany and Poland in
1776. His unfinished Histoire de l’anarchie de Pologne (4 vols.,
1807) was published posthumously under the editorship of
P. C. F. Daunou. The only important historical work which
he published during his lifetime was his
Éclaircissements historiques sur les causes de la révocation de l’édit de Nantes... (2 vols., 1788), undertaken in view of the restoration to the
Protestants of their civil rights. Rulhière died at Bondy on
the 30th of January 1791.
His short sketch of the Russian revolution is justly ranked among the masterpieces of the kind in French. Of the larger Poland Carlyle, as justly, complains that its allowance of fact is too small in proportion to its bulk. The author was also a fertile writer of vers de société, short satires, epigrams, &c., and he had a considerable reputation among the witty and ill-natured group also containing Nicolas Chamfort, Antoine de Rivarol, Louis René de Champcenetz, &c. On the other hand he has the credit of caring for J. J. Rousseau in his morose old age, until Rousseau as usual quarrelled with him.
Rulhière’s works were edited, with a notice by P. R. Anguis, in 1819 (Paris, 6 vols. 8vo). The Russian Revolution may be found in the Chefs-d’œuvre historiques of the Collection Didot, and the Poland, with title altered to Révolutions de Pologne, in the same collection. See also a notice by Eugène Asse prefixed to an edition 1890) of Rulhière’s Anecdotes sur le Maréchal de Richelieu; Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi (vol. iv.).
RULLUS, PUBLIUS SERVILIUS, Roman tribune of the
people in 64 B.C., well known as the proposer of one of the
most far-reaching agrarian laws brought forward in Roman
history. This law provided for the establishment of a commission
of ten, empowered to purchase land in Italy for distribution
amongst the poorer citizens and for the foundation
of colonies. Its professed object was to clear Rome of the
large number of pauper citizens, who formed a standing menace
to peace. The members of the commission were to be invested
with powers so extensive that Cicero spoke of them as ten
“kings.” They were to be elected for five years by seventeen
of the tribes chosen by lot from the thirty-five; the imperium
was to be conferred upon them by the lex curiata, together
with judicial powers and the rank of praetor. Only those
were eligible who personally gave in their names, a clause
obviously intended to exclude Pompey, who was at the time
absent in the East. In fact, the commission as a whole was
intended to act as a counterpoise to his power. The only land
available for the purposes of the bill was the Ager Campanus
and the Ager Stellatis, where 5000 citizens were to be settled
at once, but as these were utterly insufficient, other lands
were to be acquired by purchase. The necessary money was
to be found by the sale of all the public property in Italy which
had been ordered to be sold by resolutions of the senate (in
81, or subsequently), but which the fear of unpopularity had
deterred the consuls from selling; by the sale of lands, &c.,
in the provinces which had become public property since 88,
and even of the domains acquired during the Mithradatic
war. A special article, the object of which was to pacify
those who had received grants of land from Sulla, declared
such possessions to be private property, for which compensation
was to be paid in case of surrender. The revenues of the
provinces which were now being organized by Pompey, and
the booty and money taken or received by generals during
war were also to be applied to this purpose. The places to
which colonies were to be sent were not specified (with the
exception mentioned above), so that the commissioners would
be able to sell wherever they pleased, and it was left to them
to decide what was public or private property.
