musicians of the day, including the editor. After this period nothing is known of him. He probably did not live to see the second edition of his "Psalms" in 1633.—E. F. R.
RAVIS, RAVIUS, or RAIT, Christian, a learned Prussian orientalist, was born in Berlin in 1603, and after studying at various universities, in 1638 found his way to Oxford. By Archbishop Usher he was employed in the following year to travel in the East as a collector of MSS., and on his return was liberally rewarded by his patron. In 1642 he went to Holland, and became professor of oriental languages at Utrecht. In the same capacity he afterwards officiated in Amsterdam, London, Upsal, Kiel, and Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where he died in 1677. Among his works there is a "Grammar of the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Samaritan."
RAWLET, John, author of the "Christian Monitor"—a work which has been often reprinted—held a lectureship in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He died in 1686, aged forty-four.
RAWLEY, William, Lord Bacon's chaplain and amanuensis, was born at Norwich about 1588, and educated at Benet college, Cambridge, obtained a fellowship in 1609. Three years afterwards he became rector of Bowthorpe in Norfolk. Lord Bacon afterwards gave him the living of Landbeach, near Cambridge. After the death of the chancellor, who left him a legacy and a copy of the Antwerp Polyglot, Rawley prepared an edition of Bacon's works, which he dedicated to Charles I., 1657. He died in 1667. Rawley printed some of his patron's tracts under the title of "Resuscitated," and from his papers Tenison collected his Baconiana.
RAWLINSON, Christopher, an eminent Saxon scholar, was born at Springfield in Essex in 1677, and educated at Queen's college, Oxford. He edited Junius' transcript of Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiæ, the publication of which in the Junian types was anything but remunerative to the editor. The chief credit of the edition has been ascribed to Mr. Edward Thwaites, who, it is surmised, wrote the Latin preface to it. Rawlinson, at his death in 1733, left a large collection of MSS., many of which relate to the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland.—R. H.
* RAWLINSON, Sir Henry Creswick, K.C.B., the chief decipherer of the cuneiform inscriptions, was born at Chadlington in Oxfordshire in 1810. He belongs to the old Lancashire family of Rawlinson, and his grandfather represented the borough of Lancaster in the house of commons. Educated at Ealing, Middlesex, he entered the East India Company's military service in 1827, and remained with the Bombay army until 1833, when he was sent to Persia to aid in reorganizing the army of the shah, a duty which kept him on the move in that kingdom. So early as 1835 he had begun his study of Persian cuneiform inscriptions. In a communication to the Royal Asiatic Society, dated January, 1838, he announced his success in reading the ancient and important cuneiform inscription engraved by Darius Hydaspes on the sacred rock of Behistun, on the western frontier of Media, on the high road leading eastward from Babylonia, and rising abruptly from the plain to a perpendicular height of about seventeen hundred feet. This success was achieved by him in ignorance of what had meanwhile been done in Europe by Lassen and Burnouf. In 1840 he was appointed political agent at Candahar, which difficult post he retained throughout the Affghan war, materially contributing, both by his skilful diplomacy and his soldiership in the field, to the retention of Candahar by the British under General Nott. After the close of the Affghan war Colonel Rawlinson was transferred in 1843 to Bagdad as political agent in Turkish Arabia, being appointed consul in 1844 and consul-general in 1851. He was in Bagdad when Mr. Layard made his discoveries at Nineveh, and the cuneiform inscriptions found there passed through his hands. Fastening immediately on this new branch of a favourite study, he succeeded in finding the key to the so-called Babylonian, as he had formerly to the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, and in this enterprise he was aided by a Babylonian version, much defaced, however, of his old friend, the Behistun inscription. We may add that a curious and interesting confirmation of Rawlinson's accuracy in deciphering the Babylonian inscriptions was afforded some years later. In March, 1857, the Royal Asiatic Society received from Mr. Fox Talbot a sealed packet containing his translation of a cuneiform inscription on a cylinder bearing the name of Tiglath Pileser, and the first of a series lithographed by Sir Henry Rawlinson. Mr. Talbot requested that the inscription should be submitted to other decipherers, and the results compared. Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr. Hincks, and Dr. Oppert undertook the task without mutual communication, and each transmitted his version of the inscription in a sealed packet, to be opened and examined by a committee consisting of Dean Milman, Dr. Whewell, Mr. Grote, the late Professor H. H. Wilson, and Sir J. G. Wilkinson. The remarkable general agreement of the various decipherers, with slight occasional variations, proved that Rawlinson was on the right track. This was in 1857. In 1856 Lieutenant-colonel Rawlinson retired from the service of the East India Company, and the following year he was made a K.C.B. (civil), having in 1844 been made a C.B. (military) for his services at Candahar. In January, 1858, he entered the house of commons as member for Reigate, resigning his seat when, in the September of the same year, he was appointed a crown member of the council of India. In May, 1859, with the local rank of major-general, he was appointed envoy-extraordinary and minister-plenipotentiary to Persia. The records of Sir Henry Rawlinson's earlier cuneiform discoveries are to be found chiefly in the journals of the Asiatic Society, and he has also contributed many papers on points of oriental geography and topography to the publications of the Geographical Society. He has edited, with notes, &c., his brother's translation of Herodotus, and has published "Notes and letters on telegraphic communication with India." The great work in which he is assisted by Mr. Edwin Norris (q.v.), and which is published at the expense of the British museum—"The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia"—commenced its appearance in 1861. Sir Henry Rawlinson adds to numerous other honorary distinctions that of being a corresponding member of the French Institute.—F. E.
RAWLINSON, Richard, an English antiquary, was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Rawlinson, lord mayor of London. He was educated at St. John's college, Oxford, and followed in the steps of Antony Wood, by collecting materials for a continuation of the Athenæ and History of Oxford. In 1711 he published the "Life of Wood." He promoted the publication of many valuable books, treating of local and general history. His most useful compilation was "The English Topographer," being an account of the literature of English local history. He endowed Oxford with certain small rents for the maintenance of an Anglo-Saxon professorship. He bequeathed books, coins, and money to his college, to whom he committed the care of his heart, which was placed in an urn against the chapel wall. He was a strong Jacobite, and once paid a high price for the head of a non-juror, named Layer, that had been blown off Temple Bar. He desired to be buried with the skull in his right hand. He died at Islington, 6th April, 1755.—(Nichols' Anecd.)—R. H.
RAWSON, Sir William, an oculist, was born in Cornwall. His family name was Adams. He was apprenticed to a surgeon at Barnstaple, Devon, and afterwards became a pupil of J. Cunningham Saunders, a practitioner who had become eminent by his attention to diseases of the eye. Adams followed in the same path, and established institutions for the special treatment of eye disease at Exeter and Bath. In 1810 he came to London, obtained the diploma of the College of Surgeons, and was appointed oculist extraordinary to the prince regent, by whom he was afterwards knighted. He took the name of Rawson in consequence of the provisions of a will under which he was benefited. He died in 1829. He wrote a monograph on ectropium, or eversion of the eyelids, 8vo, 1812.—F. C. W.
RAY or WRAY, John, an English divine and an eminent naturalist, was born at Black Notley, near Braintree, in Essex, on 29th November, 1628, and died at the same place on 17th January, 1705. His father was a blacksmith, but gave his son a liberal education. Ray passed his early days at Braintree school, and about the age of sixteen he entered Catherine hall at Cambridge. He subsequently went to Trinity college. Under the tutorship of Dr. Duport he prosecuted his studies with zeal and success. On 8th September, 1649, he was chosen junior fellow of Trinity, after acquiring the degree of B.A., and when he took the master's degree he became major senior fellow. On 1st October, 1651, he was chosen Greek lecturer of the college; on 1st October, 1653, mathematical lecturer; and on 2nd October, 1655, humanity reader. In 1657 he was made prælector primarius, and in 1658 junior dean. He acted as tutor to many men of eminence, and he delivered discourses in the college and university. These were the foundation of some of the works he afterwards published. He early displayed a great taste for natural science.
