Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/69

Rh R U H R U H 57 Riigen," near Bergen, but the highest point is the Hertha- burg (505 feet) in Jasmund. Erratic blocks are scattered throughout the island, and the roads are made with granite. Though much of Riigen is flat and sandy, the tine beech-woods which cover great part of it and the northern coast scenery combine with the convenient sea- bathing offered by the various villages round the coast to attract large numbers of visitors annually. The most beautiful and attractive part of the island is the peninsula of Jasmund, which terminates to the north in the Stuben- kammer (from two Slavonic words meaning " rock steps"), a sheer chalk cliff by the sea, the summit of which, known as the Kdnigsstuhl, is 420 feet above sea-level. The east of Jasmund is clothed with an extensive beech-wood called the Stubbenitz, in which lies the Burg or Hertha Lake. Connected with Jasmund only by the narrow isthmus of Schabe to the west is the peninsula of Wittow, the most fertile part of the island. At its north-west extremity rises the height of Arcona, with a lighthouse. The official capital of the island is Bergen (3662 inhabitants), connected since 1883 with Stralsund by a railway and ferry. The other chief places are Garz (2014), Sagard (1447), Gingst (1285), and Putbus (1752). The last is the old capital of a barony of the princes of Putbus. Sassnitz, Gohren, and Putbus are among the favourite bathing resorts. Schoritz was the birthplace of the patriot and poet, Arndt (1769-1860). Ecclesiastically, Riigen is divided into 27 parishes, in which the pastoral succession is said to be almost hereditary. The inhabitants are distinguished from those of the main- land by peculiarities of dialect, costume, and habits ; and even the various peninsulas differ from each other in these particulars. The peninsula of Monchgut has best preserved its peculiarities ; but there too primitive simplicity is yield- ing to the influence of the annual stream of summer visitors. The inhabitants rear some cattle, and Riigen has long been famous for its geese ; but the only really con- siderable industry is fishing, the herring-fishery being especially important. Riigen, with the neighbouring islands, forms a governmental department, with a popula- tion (1880) of 46,115. The original Germanic inhabitants of Riigen were dispossessed by Slavs ; and there are still various relics of the long reign of paganism that ensued. In the Stubbenitz and elsewhere Huns' or giants' graves (see p. 52, supra) are common ; and near the Hertha Lake are the ruins of an ancient edifice which some have sought (though perhaps erroneously) to identify with the shrine of the heathen deity Hertha or Nerthus, referred to by Tacitus. On Arcona in Wittow are the remains of an ancient fortress, enclosing a temple of the four-headed god Svantevit, which was destroyed in 1168 by the Danish king Waldemar I., when he made himself master of the island. From that date until 1325 Riigen was ruled by a suc- cession of native princes, at first under Danish supremacy ; and, after being for a century and a half the possession of a branch of the ruling family in Pomerania, it was finally united with that province in 1478, and passed with it into the possession of Sweden in 1648. With the rest of Western Pomerania Riigen has belonged to Prussia since 1815. RUHNKEN, DAVID (1723-1798), one of the most illustrious scholars of the Netherlands, was of German origin, having been born in Pomerania in 1723. His parents had him educated for the church, but after a residence of two years at the university of Wittenberg, he determined to live the life of a scholar. His biographer (Wyttenbach) somewhat quaintly exhorts all studious youths who feel the inner call as Ruhnken did to show the same boldness in crossing the wishes of their parents. At Wittenberg. Ruhnken lived in close intimacy with the two most distinguished professors, Ritter and Berger, who fired his passion for things ancient, and guided his studies. To them he owed a thorough grounding in ancient history and Roman antiquities and literature ; and from them he learned what distinguished him among the scholars of his time, a pure and at the same time a vivid Latin style. At Wittenberg, too, Ruhnken derived valuable mental training from study in mathematics and Roman law. Probably nothing would have severed him from his sur- roundings there but a desire which daily grew upon him to explore the inmost recesses of Greek literature. Neither at Wittenberg nor at any other German university was Greek in that age seriously studied. It was taught in the main to students in divinity for the sake of the Greek Testament and the early fathers of the church, taught as a necessary appendage to Hebrew and Syriac, and generally by the same professors. F. A. Wolf is the real creator of Greek scholarship in modern Germany, and Person's gibe that "the Germans in Greek are sadly to seek" was barbed with truth. It is significant of the state of Hellenic studies in Germany in 1743 that their leading exponents were Gesner and Ernesti. Ruhnken was well advised by his friends at Wittenberg to seek the university of Leyden, where, stimulated by the influence of Bentley, the great scholar Tiberius Hemsterhuis had founded the only real school of Greek learning which had existed on the Continent since the days of Joseph Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon. Perhaps no two men of letters ever lived in closer friendship than Hemsterhuis and Ruhnken during the twenty-three years which passed from Ruhnken's arrival in the Netherlands in 1743 to the death of Hemsterhuis in 1766. A few years made it clear that Ruhnken and Valckenaer were the two pupils of the great master on whom his inheritance must devolve. As his reputation spread, many efforts were made to attract Ruhnken back to Germany, but the air of freedom which he drew in the Netherlands was more to him than all the flesh-pots his native land could offer. Indeed, after settling in Leyden, he only left the country once, when he spent a year in Paris, ransacking the public libraries (1755). For work achieved, this year of Ruhnken may compare even with the famous year which Ritschl spent in Italy. In 1757 Ruhnken was appointed lecturer in Greek, to assist Hemsterhuis, and in 1761 he succeeded Oudendorp, with the title of " ordinary professor of history and eloquence," but practically as Latin professor. This promotion drew on him the enmity of some native Netherlander, who deemed themselves (not without some show of reason) to possess stronger claims for a chair of Latin. The only defence made by Ruhnken was to publish works on Latin literature which eclipsed and silenced his rivals. In 1766 Valckenaer succeeded Hemsterhuis in the Greek chair. The intimacy between the two colleagues was only broken by Valckenaer's death in 1785, and stood without strain the test of common candidature for the office (an import- ant one at Leyden) of university librarian, in which Ruhnken was successful. Ruhnken's later years were clouded by severe domestic misfortune, and by the poli- tical commotions which, after the outbreak of the war with England in 1780, troubled the Netherlands without ceasing, and threatened to extinguish the university of Leyden. The year of Ruhnken's death was 1798. Personally, he was as far as possible removed from being a recluse or a pedant. He had a well-knit and even handsome frame, attractive manners (though some- times tinged with irony), and a nature simple and healthy, and open to impressions from all sides. Fond of society, he cared little to what rank his associates belonged, if they were genuine men in whom he might find something to learn. His biographer even says of him in his early days that he knew how to sacrifice to the Sirens without proving traitor to the Muses. Life in the open air had a great attraction for him ; he was fond of sport, and would sometimes devote to it two or three days in the week. In XXI. 8