Part 379 (2/2)
ROGATION DAYS, the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday preceding Ascension Day, on which special litanies are sung or recited by the Roman Catholic clergy and people in public procession; has its origin in an old custom dating from the 6th century. In England the practice ceased after the Reformation.
ROGER I., the youngest of the 12 sons of Tancred of Hauteville; conquered Sicily from the Saracens after a war of 30 years, and governed it under the t.i.tle of count in part from 1071 and wholly from 1089 to 1101.
ROGER II., son and successor of the preceding, was crowned king of the two Sicilies by the Pope; waged war advantageously against the Emperor of the East and the Saracens of North Africa; ruled the country well and promoted industry (1097-1154).
ROGER OF WENDOVER, an early English chronicler, lived in the 13th century; was a monk of St. Albans and subsequently prior of Belvoir; wrote a history of the world down to Henry III.'s reign, the only valuable portion of it being that which deals with his own times.
ROGERS, HENRY, English essayist; contributed for years to the _Edinburgh Review_; author of the ”Eclipse of Faith” (1806-1877).
ROGERS, JAMES E. THORWOLD, political economist, born in Hamps.h.i.+re; became professor of Political Economy at Oxford; author of a ”History of Agriculture and Prices in England” and ”Six Centuries of Work and Wages,”
an abridgment of it (1823-1890).
ROGERS, JOHN, the first of the Marian martyrs, born at Birmingham; prepared a revised edition of the English Bible, preached at Paul's Cross against Romanism the Sunday after Mary's entrance into London, and was after a long imprisonment tried for heresy, and condemned to be burned at Smithfield (1505-1555).
ROGERS, SAMUEL, English poet, born in London, son of a banker, bred to banking, and all his life a banker--took to literature, produced a succession of poems: ”The Pleasures of Memory” in 1792, ”Human Life” in 1819, and ”Italy,” the chief, in 1822; he was a good conversationalist, and told lots of good stories, of which his ”Table-Talk,” published in 1856, is full; he issued at great expense a fine edition of ”Italy” and early poems, which were ill.u.s.trated by Turner and Stothard, and are much prized for the ill.u.s.trations (1763-1855).
ROGET, PETER MARK, physician, born in London; was professor of Physiology at the Royal Inst.i.tution; wrote on physiology in relation to natural theology; was author of a ”Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases” (1779-1869).
ROHAN, PRINCE LOUIS DE, a profligate ecclesiastic of France who attained to the highest honours in the Church; became archbishop and cardinal, but who had fallen out with royalty; was debarred from court, tried every means to regain the favour of Marie Antoinette, which he had forfeited, was inveigled into buying a necklace for her in hope of thereby winning it back, found himself involved in the scandal connected with it, and was sent to the Bastille (1783-1803). See ”Diamond Necklace” in CARLYLE'S ”MISCELLANIES.”
ROHILKHAND (5,343), a northern division of the North-West Provinces, British India; is a flat, well-watered, fertile district, crossed by various railways; takes its name from the Rohillas, an Afghan tribe, who had possession of it in the 18th century.
ROHILLAS (i. e. hillmen), a tribe of Afghans who settled in a district N. of Oudh, called Rohilkhand after them, and rose to power in the 18th century, till their strength was broken by the British in 1774.
ROHLFS, F. GERARD, German traveller, born near Bremen, travelled in various directions through North Africa; undertook missions to Abyssinia, and has written accounts of his several journeys; _b_. 1832.
ROKITANSKY, BARON, eminent physician, born at Koniggratz, professor of Pathological Anatomy at Vienna, and founder of that department of medicine (1804-1878).
ROLAND, one of the famous paladins of Charlemagne, and distinguished for his feats of valour, who, being inveigled into the pa.s.s of Roncesvalles, was set upon by the Gascons and slain, along with the flower of the Frankish chivalry, the whole body of which happened to be in his train.
ROLAND, MADAME, a brave, pure-souled, queen-like woman with ”a strong Minerva face,” the n.o.blest of all living Frenchwomen, took enthusiastically to the French Revolution, but when things went too far supported the Moderate or Girondist party; was accused, but cleared herself before the Convention, into whose presence she had been summoned, and released; but two days after was arrested, imprisoned in Charlotte Corday's apartments, and condemned; on the scaffold she asked for pen and paper ”to write the strange thoughts that were rising in her,” which was refused; looking at the statue of Liberty which stood there, she exclaimed bitterly before she laid her head on the block, ”O Liberty, what crimes are done in thy name!” (1754-1793).
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