Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/395

 Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society’ or the publications of the Royal Society); eighteen papers published in conjunction with Dr. H. Müller, one in conjunction with Dr. H. Müller and [q. v.], and ten in conjunction with Drs. Balfour Stewart and B. Loewy. He also had privately printed two tables (computed by A. Marth) for the reduction of solar observations (1875 and 1878), and other tables (1877).



RUFF, WILLIAM (1801–1856), author of ‘The Guide to the Turf,’ born in London in 1801, was educated for the law, which he followed for a short period. His father was a reporter of sporting intelligence to the principal London journals, and on his father's death Ruff succeeded to his occupation, which required much bodily as well as mental vigour. The younger Ruff first reported for ‘Bell's Life’ in 1821, and inaugurated a new era in his branch of journalism. He never contracted a betting obligation, and during the quarter of a century of his professional career the utmost reliance was placed on his reports. He continued working until the summer of 1853, when his health failed. He was the author and originator in 1842 of the ‘Guide to the Turf, or Pocket Racing Companion,’ which he brought out annually up to the spring of 1854. The work had a world-wide celebrity. After 1854 the publication, which is still issued twice a year, was edited by W. H. Langley. Ruff died at 33 Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square, London, on 30 Dec. 1856.



RUFFHEAD, OWEN (1723–1769), miscellaneous writer, the son of Owen Ruffhead, the descendant of a Welsh family and baker to George I, was born in Piccadilly in 1723. When still a child his father bought him a lottery ticket, and, drawing a prize of 500l., invested the money in his son's education. He was entered of the Middle Temple in 1742, was called to the bar in 1747, and he gradually obtained a good practice, less as a regular pleader than as a consultant and framer of bills for parliament. In the meantime he sought to form some political connections, and, with this end in view, he in 1757 started the ‘Con-Test’ in support of the government against the gibes of a weekly paper called the ‘Test,’ which was run by [q. v.] in the interests of (afterwards first Baron Holland) [q. v.] Both abounded in personalities, and the hope expressed by Johnson in the ‘Literary Magazine,’ that neither would be long-lived, was happily fulfilled (cf. A Morning's Thoughts on Reading the Test and the Con-Test, 1757, 8vo). From about 1760 he commenced editing, at the cost of great labour, ‘The Statutes at Large from Magna Charta to 1763,’ which was issued in nine volumes folio, London, 1762–5, and again in 1769. Ruffhead's collection maintained a position of authority, and has been continued successively by Runnington, Tomlins, Raithby, Simons, and Sir George Kettilby Rickards. In 1760 Ruffhead addressed to Pitt a letter of some eloquence upon the ‘Reasons why the approaching Treaty of Peace should be debated in Parliament,’ and this was followed by pamphlets, including ‘Considerations on the Present Dangerous Crisis’ (1763, 4to), and ‘The Case of the late Election for the County of Middlesex considered’ (1764, 4to), in which he defended the conduct of the administration in relation to Wilkes.

About 1767 Bishop Warburton asked Ruffhead to undertake the task of digesting into a volume his materials for a critical biography of Alexander Pope. Warburton reserved to himself the reading of the proof-sheets and the supervision of the plan. Ruffhead set to work with the methodical industry that was habitual to him, and the result appeared in 1769 (preface dated Middle Temple, 2 Jan.) as ‘The Life of Alexander Pope, from Original Manuscripts, with a Criti-