Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/874

Rh 840 R O M E N her fascinations seem to hare been too much for the more than middle-aged painter, and they had their own share in aggravating that nervous restlessness and instability, inherent in his nature, which finally ruined both health and mind. In 1786 Alderman Boydell started his great scheme of the Shakespeare Gallery, it would appear at the suggestion of Romney. The painter at least entered heartily into the plan, and contributed his scene from the Tempest, and his Infant Shakespeare attended by the Passions, the latter characterized by the Redgraves as one of the best of his subject pictures. Gradually he began to withdraw from portrait-painting, to limit the hours devoted to sitters, and to turn his thoughts to mighty schemes of the ideal subjects which he would execute. Already, in 1792, he had painted Milton and his Daughters, which was followed by Newton making Experiments with the Prism. He was to paint the Seven Ages, Visions of Adam with the Angel, " six other subjects from Milton three where Satan is the hero, and three from Adam and Eve, perhaps six of each." Having planned and erected a large studio in Hampstead, he removed thither in 1797, with the fine collection of casts from the antique which his friend Flaxman had gathered for him in Italy. But his health was now irremediably shattered, and the man was near his end. In the summer of 1799, suffering from great weakness of body and the profoundest depres- sion of mind, he returned to the north, to Kendal, where his deserted but faithful and long-suffering wife received and tended him. He died November 15, 1802. The art of Romney, and especially his figure subjects, suffered greatly from the waywardness and instability of the painter's disposi- tion, from his want of fixed purpose and sustained energy. He lacked the steadfast perseverance needful to the accomplishment of a great picture. His imagination was no " constant angel ever by his side ' ; it flashed and flickered fitfully upon him, like April sun- shine. His fancy would be captivated by a subject, which was presently embodied in a sketch, but the toil of elaborating it into the finished completeness of a painting too frequently overtaxed his powers ; he became embarrassed by technical difficulties which, through defective early training, he was unable to surmount, and the half-covered canvas would be turned to the wall. It is in the best of his portraits that we feel the painter's true greatness. These, and especially his female portraits, are full of grace, distinc- tion, and sweetness. When we examine his heads of Cowper and Wilkes, his delicate and dignified full length of "William Beckford, his Parson's Daughter in the National Gallery, and his group of the Duchess of Gordon and her Son, we are ready to admit his claim to rank as the third of the great portrait painters of 18th- century England. See the Memoirs by William Hayley, 1809, and the artist's son, the Rev. John Romney, 1830 ; also Cunningham's Lives of the Painters. ROMNT, a district town of Russia, on the Sula river, 112 miles to the north-west of Poltava, and in the govern- ment of that name. It acquired commercial importance during last century, especially on account of its fairs. The chief of these that in wool was removed to Poltava in 1852, but the prices established by the remaining three still determine to a great extent those at the greater fair of Poltava. Of the local industries, the manufacture of agricultural implements is the only one worthy of mention, but the petty trades, both in town and district, are of considerable importance. The population in 1881 was 12,300. ROMULUS, the mythical eponym founder and first king of Rome, is represented in legend as the son of Mars. His mother, the Vestal Silvia or Ilia, was daughter of Numitor, who had been dispossessed of the throne of Alba by his younger brother Amulius ; Silvia's twin sons, Romulus and Remus, were placed in a trough and cast into the Tiber by their cruel granduncle. The trough grounded in the marshes where Rome afterwards stood, under the wild fig- tree (ficus ruminalis) which was still holy in later days. The babes were suckled by a she-wolf and fed by a wood- pecker, and then fostered by Acca Laurentia, wife of the shepherd Faustulus. Growing up they became leaders of a warlike band of shepherds on the Palatine, and in course of time were recognized by their grandfather, whom they restored to his throne, slaying the usurper Amulius. They now proposed to found a city on the site where they had been nurtured ; but a quarrel broke out between the brothers, and Remus was slain. The story goes on to tell how Romulus strengthened his band by receiving outlaws, found wives for them by capture, and waged war with the indignant parents. The most formidable foe was Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, but after an obstinate struggle he and Romulus united their forces and reigned side by side till Tatius fell in a blood feud with Laurentum. Romulus now reigned alone till he suddenly one day disappeared from earth in darkness and storm, and was thereafter worshipped as a god under the name of Quirinus, which, however, is really a Sabine form of Mars. This legend, best preserved in Livy (book i.), belongs throughout to mytho- logy, not to history. See also Plutarch's fiomulus, and Dionysius, books i., ii. ROMULUS AUGUSTULUS. See ODOACER, vol. xvii. p. 726, and ROME, supra, p. 781. RONDA, a town of Spain, in the province of Malaga, and about 43 miles to the west of that city. It occupies a site of singular picturesqueness on a high rock nearly surrounded by the Guadalvin (afterwards the Guadiaro), which flows through a deep and abrupt chasm (or " Tajo ") by which the old town is separated from the new. Of the two bridges the more modern (1761) spans the stream in a single arch at a height of about 255 feet. On the edge of the Tajo is the alameda or public promenade, commanding a wide and beautiful prospect of the fertile valley or vega and the sierra beyond. The old part of the town has a Moorish aspect, with narrow, steep, and crooked lanes, and still retains some Moorish towers and other buildings. The Ronda bull-ring is one of the finest in Spain, and can accommodate 10,000 spectators. Ronda is the seat of a considerable trade in leather, saddlery, and horses, and has an important fair (May 20). The population within the limits of the municipality was 19,181 in 1877. Some inconsiderable remains of an aqueduct and theatre, about 7 miles to the north of Ronda, are supposed to represent the Acinipo or Arnnda of ancient geographers. Ronda was taken from the Moors in 1485. It was the birthplace of Espinel. RONDEAU or RONDEL (Ital. Hondo). In poetry the rondeau is a short metrical structure which in its perfect form is divided into three strophes of unequal length, knit together by rapidly recurrent rhymes and a refrain. The laws of the rondeau have varied at different periods, and even with different poets of the same period varied so fundamentally that some critics have found a generic dif- ference between the "rondeau" and the "rondel" or "ron- det." Rondeau, however, seems to be merely the modern spelling of the word rondel, as marteau is the modern spell- ing of martel, chateau of chdtel, &c. When the rondeau was called the rondel it was mostly written in fourteen octosyllabic lines of two rhymes as in the rondels of Charles d'Orleans. In this variability of structure it contrasts with the stability of the SONNET (q.v.). While the proper sonnet of octave and sestet has always been a structure of fourteen verses (whatever may be the arrangement of the rhymes), the structure under consideration, whether called rondeau or rondel or rondet, may, it seems, consist of any number of verses from eight to thirteen. But when we find that the kind of triolet used by Froissart is a " rondel" we are compelled to admit that the names given to this form are very elastic. In Clement Marot's time, however, the laws of the rondeau became more settled, and, according to Voiture, in the 17th century the approved form of the rondeau was a structure of thirteen verses and a refrain. Ma foy, c'est fait de moy, car Isabeau M'a conjure de luy faire un Rondeau : Cela me met en une peine extreme. Quoy treize yers, huit en cau, cinq en tme, Je luy ferois aussi-t8t un bateau ! En voila cinq pourtant en un monceau : Faisons en huict, en invoquant Brodeau, En puis mettons, par quelque stratageme, Ma foy, c'est fait !