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Rh he was appointed minister of foreign affairs. He resigned, however, on the 2nd of November, owing to the king’s refusal to settle the difficulties with Austria by an appeal to arms. In August 1852 he was appointed director of military education; but the rest of his life was devoted mainly to literary pursuits. He died on the 25th of December 1853.

 RAE, JOHN (1813–1893), Scottish Arctic explorer, was born on the 30th of September 1813, in the Orkney Islands, which he left at an early age to study medicine at Edinburgh University, qualifying as a surgeon in 1833. He made a voyage in a professional capacity in one of the ships of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and entering the service of the company was resident surgeon for ten years at their station at Moose Factory, at the head of James Bay. In 1846 he made a boat-voyage to Repulse Bay, and having wintered there, in the following spring surveyed 700 miles of new coast-line connecting the earlier surveys of Ross and Parry. An account of this expedition, A Narrative of an Expedition to the Shores of the Arctic Sea in 1846 and 1847, was published by him in 1850. During a visit to London in 1848 he joined the expedition which was then preparing to go out under Sir John Richardson in search of Franklin; and in 1851, at the request of the Government and with a very slender outfit, he travelled some 5300 miles, much of it on foot, and explored and mapped 700 miles of new coast on the south side of Wollaston and Victoria Lands. For this achievement he received the Founder’s gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1853 he commanded another boat-expedition which was fitted out by the Hudson’s Bay Company, which connected the surveys of Ross with that of Deane and Simpson, and proved King William’s Land to be an island. It was on this journey that he obtained the first authentic news regarding the fate of Franklin, thereby winning the reward of £10,000 promised by the admiralty. He subsequently travelled across Iceland, and in Greenland and the northern parts of America, surveying routes for telegraph lines. Dr Rae attributed much to his success in Arctic travel to his adoption of the methods of the Eskimo, a people whom he had studied very closely. He was a keen sportsman, an accurate and scientific observer. He died at his house in London and was buried in the Orkney Islands.

 RAE BARELI, a town and district of British India, in the Lucknow division of the United Provinces. The town is on the river Sai, 48 m. S.E. of Lucknow, on the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway. Pop. (1901) 15,880. It possesses many architectural features, chief of which is a strong and spacious fort erected in 1403, and constructed of bricks 2 ft. long by 1 ft. thick and 1½ wide. Among other ancient buildings are the magnificent palace and tomb of nawab Jahan Khan, governor in the time of Shah Jahan, and four fine mosques. The town is an important centre of trade, and muslins and cotton cloth are woven.

The has an area of 1748 sq. m. The general aspect of the district is slightly undulating, and the country is beautifully wooded. The soil is remarkably fertile, and the cultivation of a high class. The principal rivers of the district are the Ganges and the Sai: the former skirts it for 54 miles and is everywhere navigable for boats of 40 tons; the latter traverses it from N.W. to S.E. In 1901 the population was 1,033,761, showing a slight decrease during the decade. The principal crops are rice, pulse, wheat, barley, millet and poppy. Rae Bareli town is connected with Lucknow by a branch of the Oudh & Rohilkhand railway, which in 1898 was extended to Benares.

 RAEBURN, SIR HENRY (1756–1823), Scottish portrait painter, was born at Stockbridge, a suburb of Edinburgh, on the 4th of March 1756, the son of a manufacturer of the city. He was early left an orphan. Being placed in Heriot’s Hospital, he received there the elements of a sound education, and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to a goldsmith in Edinburgh. Here he had some little opportunity for the practice of the humbler kinds of art, and various pieces of jewelry, mourning rings, and the like, adorned with minute drawings on ivory by his hand, are still extant. Soon he took to the production of carefully finished miniatures; and, meeting with success and patronage, he extended his practice to oil-painting, being all the while quite self-taught. The worthy goldsmith his master watched the progress of his pupil with interest, gave him every encouragement, and introduced him to David Martin, who had been the favourite assistant of Allan Ramsay junior, and was now the leading portrait-painter in Edinburgh. Raeburn received considerable assistance from Martin, and was especially aided by the loan of portraits to copy. Soon the young painter had gained sufficient skill to render it advisable that he should devote himself exclusively to painting. When he was in his twenty-second year he was asked to paint the portrait of a young lady whom he had previously observed and admired when he was sketching from nature in the fields. She was the daughter of Peter Edgar of Bridgelands, and widow of Count Leslie. The lady was speedily fascinated by the handsome and intellectual young artist, and in a month she became his wife, bringing him an ample fortune. This early insurance against the risks of his chosen profession, did not, however, diminish his anxiety to excel. The acquisition of wealth affected neither his enthusiasm nor his industry, but rather spurred him to greater efforts to acquire a thorough knowledge of his craft. After the approved fashion of artists of the time, it was resolved that Raeburn should visit Italy, and he accordingly started with his wife. In London he was kindly received by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, gave him excellent advice as to his study in Rome, especially recommending to his attention the works of Michelangelo. He also offered him more substantial pecuniary aid, which was declined as unneeded; but Raeburn carried with him to Italy many valuable introductions from the president of the Academy. In Rome he made the acquaintance of Gavin Hamilton, of Batoni, and of Byers. For the advice of the last-named he used to acknowledge himself greatly indebted, particularly for the recommendation that “he should never copy an object from memory, but, from the principal figure to the minutest accessory, have it placed before him.” After two years of study in Italy he returned to Edinburgh in 1787, where he began a most successful career as a portrait-painter. In that year he executed an admirable seated portrait of the second Lord President Dundas.

Of his earlier portraiture we have interesting examples in the bust-likeness of Mrs Johnstone of Baldovie and in the three-quarter-length of Dr James Hutton, works which, if they are somewhat timid and tentative in handling and wanting in the trenchant brush-work and assured mastery of subsequent productions, are full of delicacy and character. The portraits of John Clerk, Lord Eldin, and of Principal Hill of St Andrews belong to a somewhat later period. Raeburn was fortunate in the time in which he practised portraiture. Sir Walter Scott, Blair, Mackenzie, Woodhouselee, Robertson, Home, Ferguson, and Dugald Stewart were resident in Edinburgh, and they all, along with a host of others less celebrated, honoured the painter’s canvases. Of his fully matured manner we could have no finer examples than his own portrait and that of the Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff Wellwood, the bust of Dr Wardrop of Torbane Hill, the two full-lengths of Adam Rolland of Gask, the remarkable paintings of Lord Newton and Dr Alexander Adam in the National Gallery of Scotland, and that of William Macdonald of St Martin’s. It was commonly believed that Raeburn was less successful in his female than in his male portraits, but the exquisite full-length of his wife, the smaller likeness of Mrs R. Scott Moncriefi in the Scottish National Gallery, and that of Mrs Robert Bell, and others, are sufficient to prove that he could portray all the grace and beauty of the gentler sex. 