Part 371 (1/2)

REDEMPTIONISTS, better known as TRINITARIANS (q. v.), a name bestowed on an order of monks consecrated to the work of redeeming Christian captives from slavery.

REDESDALE, in Northumberland, the valley of the river Reed, which rises in the Cheviots and flows SE. through pastoral and in part dreary moorland till it joins the North Tyne; at the S. end is the field of OTTERBURN (q. v.).

REDESWIRE, RAID OF THE, a famous Border fight took place in July 1575 at the Cheviot pa.s.s which enters Redesdale; through the timely arrival of the men of Jedburgh the Scots proved victorious; is the subject of a Border ballad.

REDGAUNTLET, an enthusiastic Jacobite character in Sir Walter Scott's novel of the name, distinguished by a ”horse-shoe vein on his brow, which would swell up black when he was in anger.”

REDGRAVE, RICHARD, painter, born at Pimlico, in London; studied at the Royal Academy, won his first success in ”Gulliver on the Farmer's Table,” became noted for his _genre_ and landscape paintings, held Government appointments, and published among other works ”Reminiscences”

and ”A Century of English Painters” (1804-1888).

REDING, ALOYS VON, a Swiss patriot, born in Schwyz; was the bold defender of Swiss independence against the French, in which he was in the end defeated (1755-1818).

REDOUBT KALI, a Russian fort on the E. coast of the Black Sea, 10 m.

N. of Poti, the chief place for s.h.i.+pping Circa.s.sian girls to Turkey; captured by the British in 1854.

REDRUTH (10), a town of Cornwall, on a hilly site nearly 10 m. SW.

of Truro, in the midst of a tin and copper mining district.

RED-TAPE, name given to official formality, from the red-tape employed in tying official doc.u.ments, whence ”red-tapism.”

REES, ABRAHAM, compiler of ”Rees' Cyclopedia” (45 vols.), born in Montgomerys.h.i.+re; became a tutor at Hoxton Academy, and subsequently ministered in the Unitarian Chapel at Old Jewry for some 40 years (1743-1825).

REEVE, name given to magistrates of various cla.s.ses in early English times, the most important of whom was the s.h.i.+RE-REEVE or sheriff, who represented the king in his s.h.i.+re; others were BOROUGH-REEVES, PORT-REEVES, &c.

REEVE, CLARA, an English novelist, born, the daughter of a rector, at Ipswich; the best known of her novels is ”The Champion of Virtue,”

afterwards called ”The Old English Baron,” a work of the school of Mrs.

Radcliffe and of Walpole (1725-1803).

REEVES, JOHN SIMS, distinguished singer, born at Shooter's Hill, Kent; made his first appearance at the age of 18 as a baritone at Newcastle, and then as a tenor, and the foremost in England at the time; performed first in opera and then as a ballad singer at concerts, and took his farewell of the public on May 11, 1891, though he has frequently appeared since; _b_. 1822.

REFERENDUM, a practice which prevails in Switzerland of referring every new legislative measure to the electorate in the several electoral bodies for their approval before it can become law.

REFORM, the name given in England to successive attempts and measures towards the due extension of the franchise in the election of the members of the House of Commons.