Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/137

Rh K Z H R Z H 119 out that great national undertaking with which his name will always be honourably connected, and of which there is reason to believe that Lords Somers and Halifax were the original promoters. The Codex Juris Gentium Diplo- maticus of Leibnitz was taken by the editor as the model of the Foedera. The plan was to publish all records of alliances and other transactions in which England was concerned with foreign powers from 1101 to the time of publication, limiting the collection to original documents in the royal archives and the great national libraries. Unfortunately, this was not uniformly carried out, and the work contains some extracts from printed chronicles. From 1694 he corresponded with Leibnitz, by whom he was greatly influenced with respect to the plan and forma- tion of the Fcedera. While collecting materials, Rymer unwisely engraved a spurious charter of King Malcolm, acknowledging that Scotland was held in homage from Edward the Confessor. When this came to be known, the Scottish antiquaries were extremely indignant. G. Redpath published a MS. on the independence of the Scottish crown, by Sir T. Craig, entitled Scotland's Sover- eignty Asserted (1695), and the subject was referred to by Bishop Nicolson in his Scottish Historical Library (1702). This led Rymer to address three Letters to the Bishop of Carlisle (1702), explaining his action, and discussing other antiquarian matters. The first and second letters are usually found together ; the third is extremely rare. Rymer had now been for some years working with great industry, but was constantly obliged to petition the crown for money to carry on the undertaking. Up to August 1698 he had expended ,1253, and had only received 500 on account. At last, on November 20, 1704, was issued the first folio volume of the Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae et cujuscun- que generis Acta Publica inter reges Anglix et olios quosvis imperatores, reges, <kc., ab A.D. 1101 ad nostra usque tempora habita aut tractata. The publication proceeded with great rapidity, and fifteen volumes were brought out by Rymer in nine years. Two hundred and fifty copies were printed ; but, as nearly all of them were presented to persons of distinction, the work soon became so scarce that it was priced by booksellers at one hundred guineas. A hundred and twenty sheets of the fifteenth volume and the copy for the remainder were burnt at a fire at William Bowyer's, the printer, on January 30, 1712-13. Rymer died shortly after the appearance of this volume, but he had prepared materials for carrying the work down to the end of the reign of James I. These were placed in the hands of Robert Sanderson, his assistant. For the greater part of his life Rymer derived his chief subsistence from a mortgage assigned to him by his father. His miscel- laneous literary work could not have been very profitable. At one time he was reduced to offer his MSS. for a new edition for sale to the earl of Oxford. About 1703 his affairs became more settled, and he afterwards regularly received his salary as historiographer, besides an addi- tional 200 a year as editor of the Foedera. Twenty- five copies of each volume were also allotted to him. He died at Arundel Street, Strand, December 14, 1713, and was buried in the church of St Clement Danes. His will was dated July 10, 1713. Tonson issued an edition of Rochester's Works (1714), with a short preface by the late historiographer. Another posthumous publication was in a miscellaneous collection called Curious Amuse- ments, by M. B. (1714), which included "some transla- tions from Greek, Latin, and Italian poets, by T. Rymer." Some of his poetical pieces were also inserted in J. Nichols's Select Collection (1780-86, 8 vols.). Two more volumes of the Foedera were issued by Sanderson in 1715 and 1717, and the last three volumes (xviii., xix., and xx. ) by the same editor, but upon a slightly different plan, in 1726-35. The latter volumes were published by Tonson, all the former by Churchill. Under Rymer it was carried down to 1586, and con- tinued by Sanderson to 1654. The rarity and importance of the work induced Tonson to obtain a licence for a second edition, and George Holmes, deputy keeper of the Tower records, was appointed editor. The new edition appeared between 1727 and 1735. The last three volumes are the same in both issues. There are some corrections, enumerated in a volume, The Emendations in the new edition of Mr Rymer' s Foedera, printed by Tonson in 1730, but in other respects the second is inferior to the first edition. A third edition, embodying Holmes's collation, was commenced at The Hague in 1737 and finished in 1745. It is in smaller type than the others, and is compressed within ten folio volumes. The arrangement is rather more convenient ; there is some additional matter ; the index is better ; and on the whole it is to be preferred to either of the previous editions. When the volumes of the Foedera first appeared they were analysed by Leclerc and Rapin in the Bibliotheque Choisie and Bibliotheque Ancienne et Moderne. Rapin's articles were collected together, and appended, under the title of Abrege historique des actes pulliques de V Angleterre, to the Hague edition. A translation, called Acta Regia, was published by Stephen Whatley, 1726-7, 4 vols. 8vo, reprinted both in 8vo and folio, the latter edition containing an analysis of the cancelled sheets, relating to the journals of the first Parliament of Charles I., of the 18th volume of the Foedera. In 1808 the Record Commissioners appointed Dr Adam Clarke to prepare a new and improved edition of the Fcedera. Six parts, large folio, edited by Clarke, Caley, and Holbrooke, were pub- lished between 1816 and 1830. Considerable additions were made, but the editing was performed in so unsatisfactory a manner that the publication was suspended in the middle of printing a seventh part. The latter portion, bringing the work down to 1383, was ultimately issued in 1869. The wide learning and untiring labours of Rymer have received the warmest praise from historians. Sir T. D. Hardy styles the Foedera " a work of which this nation has every reason to be proud, for with all its blemishes and what work is faultless ? it has no rival in its class" (Syllabus, vol. ii., xxxvi.), and Mr J. B. Mullinger calls it " a collection of the highest value and authority " (Gardiner and Mullinger's Introduction to English History, p. 224). The best account of Rymer is to be found in the prefaces to Sir T. D. Hardy's Syllabus, 1869-86, 3 vols. 8vo. There is an unpublished life by Des Maizeaux (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. No. 4223), and a few memoranda in Bishop Rennet's collections (Lansd. MS. No. 987). In Caulfield's Portraits, <fec., 1819, i. 50, may be seen an engraving of Rymer, with a description of a satirical print. Rymer's two critical works on the drama are discussed by Sir T. N. Talfourd in the Retrospective Review, 1820, vol. i. p. 1-15. Sir T. D. Hardy's Syllabus gives in English a condensed notice of each instru- ment in the several editions of the Fcedera, arranged in chronological order. The third volume contains a complete index of names and places, with a catalogue of the volumes of transcripts collected for the Record edition of the Foedera. In 1869 the Record Office printed, for private distribution, Appendices A to E " to a report on the Foedera intended to have been submitted by C. Purton Cooper to the Late Commissioners of Public Records," 3 vols. 8vo (including accounts of MSS. in foreign archives relating to Great Britain, with facsimiles). In the British Museum is preserved (Add. MS. 24,699) a folio volume of reports and papers relating to the Record edition. Rymer left extensive materials for a new edition of the Foedera, bound in 59 vols. folio, and embracing the period from 1115 to 1698. This was the collection offered to the earl of Oxford. It was purchased by the Treasury for 215 and is now in the British Museum (Add. MSS. Nos. 4573 to 4630, and 18,911). A catalogue and index may be consulted in the 17th volume of Tonson's edition of ths Foedera. The Public Record Office possesses a MS. volume, compiled by Robert Lemon about 1800, containing instruments in the Patent Rolls omitted by Rymer. In the same place may be seen a volume of reports, orders, &c., on the Foedera, 1808-11. (H. R. T.) RZHEFF, RSHEFP, RJEV, or RZHOFF, a town of European Russia at the head of a district in the Tver government, in 56 16' N. lat. and 34 21' E. long., 89 miles south- west of Tver, occupies the bluffs on both banks of the Volga (here 350 feet wide) near the confluence of the river Bazuza. It is the terminus of a branch line from the St Petersburg and Moscow Railway, has a population of 18,569(1880; 19,660 in 1866), carries on a variety of manufactures hemp-spinning, malting, brewing, ship- building, &c. and is the centre of a great transit trade between the provinces of the lower Volga, Orel, Kaluga, and Smolensk, and the ports of St Petersburg and Riga. Rzheff was already in existence in the 12th century, when it belonged to the principality of Smolensk and stood on the highway between Novgorod and Kieff. . Under the rulers of Novgorod it become from 1225 a subordinate principality, and in the 15th century the two portions of the town were held by two independent princes, whose names are still preserved in the designations Knyaz Fedorovskii and Knyaz Dimitrievskii, given respectively to the left and the right bank of the Volga. In 1368 Rzheff was captured by Vladimir Andreevitch, and in 1375 it stood a three weeks' seige and had its suburb burned by the same prince. It was made a district town in 1775.