Raphael on his pictures, and has signed the only autograph letter we have of his, Raphaello.—(Vasari, Vite dei Pittori, &c.; Longhena, Istoria della Vita, &c., di Raffaello Sanzio, &c., del Sig. Quatremère de Quincy, &c., Milan, 1829; Pungileoni, Elogio Storico di Raffaello Santi, &c., Urbino, 1827-31; Passavant, Rafael Von Urbino, &c., Leipsic, 1839-58, 3 vols., 8vo; Wornum, Epochs of Painting, &c., 1859.)—R. N. W.
RAPHELENGH or RAPHELING, Franz, a learned printer, was born not far from Ryssel, 27th February, 1539. From Ghent, where he had begun his studies, he went to Nürnberg, where he tried to qualify himself for mercantile pursuits, but gave up the idea and devoted himself to study. Having mastered Greek and Hebrew in Paris he went to Cambridge and taught the former language. He soon, however, returned to the Netherlands, and married the eldest daughter of the celebrated printer, Christopher Plantin. When Plantin removed to Leyden, Raphelengh remained in Antwerp, and superintended his father-in-law's press. In 1585 he removed to Leyden. He was elected professor of Hebrew and Arabic in the university of Leyden, and held the office till his death, 20th July, 1597. Raphelengh published a Hebrew grammar, a Chaldee and an Arabic lexicon, various readings and emendations in the texts of the Chaldee paraphrases of the Bible, &c. His press at Leyden was justly celebrated for the accuracy and beauty of the many learned works which proceeded from it, especially editions of the Bible.—S. D.
RAPIN, Nicolas, French poet, born at Fontenai-le-Comte, Poitou, in 1535, was vice-seneschal of his native province, and subsequently appointed by Henry III. provost of the high constable's jurisdiction. He held this office until 1598, and died at Poitiers, 15th of February, 1609. He was concerned in the famous "Satyre Ménippée." The "Œuvres Latines et Françaises de N. Rapin" were published at Paris in 1620 by his literary executors.—W. J. P.
RAPIN, Paul, chiefly known by his history of England, was born at Castres in Languedoc in 1661. His father, Jacques de Rapin, Sieur de Thoyras, was a Huguenot lawyer, and the family, originally belonging to Savoy, is supposed to have migrated to France on embracing protestantism. Rapin was educated for the profession of the law, and had begun to practise it, when the edict of Nantes was revoked, and he took refuge in England. Thence he went to Utrecht and joined a company of French volunteers, returning to England with William III., in whose army he received an ensign's commission. He distinguished himself in William's first campaign, and was wounded at the siege of Limerick. In 1693 he was appointed tutor to the son of the earl of Portland, whose studies he superintended at various places on the continent. At the close of this engagement he retired in 1707 to Wesel, and devoted himself to the composition of his "History of England," which occupied him seventeen years. He died in 1725, having undermined, it is said, his strong constitution in the performance of his historical task. Besides the history he published a "Dissertation sur les Whigs et Tories," and contributed to Leclerc's Bibliothéque Choisie, a useful abridgment of most of Rymer's Fœdera. Both works have been translated into English. The first edition of his "Histoire d'Angleterre, depuis retablissement des Romains dans la Grande Bretagne jusqu'à la mort de Charles I.," was published at the Hague in 1724-36, and the narrative was continued by Durand to the death of William III., and by Despard to the twenty-first year of the reign of George II. The best English version of the work, Tindal's, is more than a mere translation, and went through several editions. Rapin's was a great work for the time which witnessed its publication. His foreign extraction gave him a certain impartiality, and his few prepossessions, those of a French Huguenot, are both natural and innocent. With its amplitude of detail, its references to authorities, and its copious citation of original documents, his history is still extremely useful for consultation. To Tindal's translation is prefixed a short biography of the author—Some particulars of the Life of M. de Rapin-Thoyras.—F. E.
RAPP, Jean, was born at Colmar, on 26th April, 1772, of obscure parentage. At the age of sixteen he enlisted, and, after serving with the army of the Rhine and being four times wounded, he rose to the rank of lieutenant, and acted as aid-de-camp to Dessaix, whom he accompanied during the expedition to Egypt, and by whose side he stood at the battle of Marengo. He became general of division after the battle of Austerlitz, at which he distinguished himself as the leader of one of the most brilliant charges of cavalry ever made. In 1813 he added to his reputation by a gallant defence of Dantzic, which he did not surrender to the Russians until two-thirds of the garrison had perished. Made prisoner of war, he returned to France after the restoration of the Bourbons, to whom he gave his adhesion. During the Hundred Days, however, he sided with his old leader, and he held Strasbourg after Waterloo. Peer of France in 1818, he died in 1821.—W. J. P.
RASARIUS or RASARIO, Giambattista, an Italian physician, was born in 1517 in Novara in the Sicilian territories. He was educated at Milan and Pavia, and graduated in medicine at the university of Padua. His reputation for learning induced the republic of Venice to invite him to settle there. At Venice he became professor of rhetoric and Greek, and rendered himself famous by an oration he pronounced in the church of St. Mark, at the request of the doge, on the occasion of the battle of Lepanto. He remained at Venice, discharging the duties of his professorship for twenty-two years. He afterwards was offered several lucrative appointments at Rome by Pope Pius IV. These, however, he declined, preferring to accept the chair of rhetoric at Pavia. he died at Pavia in 1578. Besides the oration above mentioned, which was several times printed, he translated and edited several of the Greek authors.—F. C. W.
RASIS. See Rhazes.
RASK, Rasmus Christian, the eminent philologist, was born in 1787 in the Danish island of Funen. Even as a schoolboy he applied himself to the cultivation of the northern languages, and friends attracted by his zeal aided him—for his parents were very poor—to study at the university of Copenhagen. His first notable work was an introduction to Icelandic, a later form of which has been rendered accessible to English students by Dr. Dasent's translation (1843). In 1808 he obtained a situation in the university library of Copenhagen. In 1812 he visited Sweden, where he studied Finnish, and he then passed three years in Iceland. His edition of Haldorsen's Icelandic Dictionary (1814), and of the older and younger Eddas, accompanied by a Swedish translation, aided in promoting a study of the Icelandic language and literature. In 1816, partly with the assistance of the Danish government, he proceeded on a philological mission to the East, spending some time at St. Petersburg in the study of eastern and other languages. After visiting Persia and India he returned in 1823 to Copenhagen, and one of the many results of his journey was his treatise "On the age of the Zend language and the genuineness of the Zend-avesta." In 1829 he was appointed professor of oriental languages and principal librarian at the Copenhagen university, and his later years were chiefly devoted to studies connected with the former of these offices. He died at Copenhagen in 1832. Even for a professed philologist Rask's accomplishments and pursuits were multifarious. Besides the works already mentioned and many others, he produced a Spanish grammar, a Frisian grammar, a treatise on Egyptian chronology, an edition of Lockman's Fables, and when he died he was engaged on a great work on the Malay languages, and on a Mœso-Gothic dictionary. Rask was more eminent as a collector of material, than for philosophic grasp and power of arrangement. His chief contribution to the modern science of comparative philology, is his demonstration of the relations between the Scandinavian languages on the one hand, and Latin and Greek with the Sclavonic group on the other. England owes him the first good Anglo-Saxon grammar (Angelsaksisk Sproglære), Stockholm, 1817, translated from Rask's Swedish by Mr. Thorpe in 1830, and forming the basis of Mr. Vernon's Guide to the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, 1846. In private Rask was simple and retiring, astonishing English visitors by his conversational mastery of our language.—F. E.
* RASPAIL, François Vincent, an eminent French naturalist, chemist, and revolutionary politician, was born in 1794 at Carpentras in the department of Vaucluse. From an early age he gave himself up with great energy and success to the study of natural history, especially botany and chemistry. In 1825, he became editor in the natural history department of the Bulletin des Sciences. In 1831 he published his "Cours Elementaire d'Agriculture," a judicious and useful work. In 1833 appeared his "Chimie Organique," in which he strongly insists on the use of the microscope in organic chemical research. In 1837 followed his "Systeme de Physiologie Vegetale." But besides these scientific and literary labours, he was engrossed in political intrigue. Having imbibed ultrademocratic and repub-
