Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/776

RAMAYANA. who oppose Aryan culture. In any case, these mythical and other motives cannot have served as more than mere suggestions for the great story.

The Ramayana exists in three recensions which differ from one another in their reading, in the order of their verses, and in having each more or less lengthy passages that are wanting in the others. The best known and most popular of these is also the most original version of the poem. Its home is in the northwest and south of India; it has been edited a number of times in India, and is most accessible in the second Bombay edition of 1888. The second recension is at home in Bengal; it has been edited by the Italian scholar Gaspare Gorressio, who added to his edition a somewhat free Italian translation in poetical prose (Paris, 1843-70). The third recension apparently at home in the west of India is as yet unpublished, but is accessible in manuscripts at Berlin and Bonn. The poetic translation of the Anglo-Indian scholar Griffith in five volumes (Benares (1870-75) is based upon the first recension. Consult: Weber, Ueber das Rāmāyaṇa (Berlin, 1870); Jacobi, Das Rāmāyaṇa (Bonn, 1893); Ludwig, Ueber das Rāmāyaṇa und die Beziehungen desselben zum Mahābhārata (Prague, 1894).  RAMBAUD,, (1842—). A French historian, born at Besançon. He was a pupil of the Ecole Normale, and after receiving his degree in 1870 traveled in Russia, and taught history at Caen and Nancy (1871-79). He was chief of a department in the Ministry of Public Instruction in Ferry's Cabinet in 1879-81, and held the portfolio of Public Instruction in the Méline Cabinet in 1896-98. He became professor of contemporary history at the Sorbonne in 1883, and was elected to the Academy of Moral Sciences in 1897. His works include: La domination française en Allemagne, Les Français sur le Rhin 1792-1800 (1873); La Russie épique (1876); Histoire dc la Russie (1878, translated by Lang as A History of Russia, 1879); Histoire de la civilisation française (1887); Histoire de la civilisation contemporaine en France and Histoire de la Revolution française, 1789-1799 (1895). With Lavisse he directed the publication of the Histoire genérale du IVme siècle à nos jours (1893-96).  RAMBAUT, (1859—). An English astronomer, born in Waterford and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was assistant in astronomy there from 1882 to 1892, when he became royal astronomer of Ireland; and in 1897 he was appointed Radcliffe observer at Oxford. His valuable astronomical papers are to be found in Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society, of the Royal Diblin Society, of the Royal Irish Academy, and of the Royal Astronomical Society.  RAMBERG,, , Baron (1819-75). A German genre painter and illustrator, born in Vienna, son of Georg Heinrich von Ramberg (1786-1855, a distinguished general), and grand-nephew of Johann Heinrich Ramberg (1763-1840, Court painter at Hanover, illustrator, and etcher, whose drawings, of which the Leipzig Museum preserves an extensive collection, were exceedingly popular in his day). Ramberg received his first training at the School of Art in Prague from Franz Kadlik and others, then studied in Dresden (1844) under Julius Hübner, and passed through a subsequent formative stage under the influence of Schwind, whose romantic trend is apparent in the "Wedding Song" (after Goethe) and other works. His great coloristic talent was, however, most successfully displayed in some characteristic scenes from rural life, such as "Women of Dachau on Sunday" (1853), "Morning Devotion in the Mountains" (1855, New Pinakothek), "Walk with the Tutor" (1856), in little humorous episodes like "Hide and Seek," "After the Masked Ball" (1858), and in the idyllic "Meeting on the Lake" (1876), and "Invitation to Boating" (1879), all breathing an atmosphere of ideal beauty. The same refined sentiment and a rare delicacy of technique suggestive of the artist's thorough study of the Dutch masters, characterize the "Reading from Wieland" and the concertino in Terborch's manner "After Dinner" (1873, New Pinakothek). In 1860 Ramberg was appointed professor at the School of Art in Weimar, where he executed the historical painting "Court of Emperor Frederick II. at Palermo" (1866, Maximilianeum, Munich), collaborated with Pauwels in the decoration of the Luther room at the Wartburg, and painted the "Fairy Tale of the Frog King" (Weimar Museum). It was, however, as an illustrator of the German classics that he earned his greatest fame, notably with the drawings for Cotta's jubilee edition of Schiller's poems, those for the "Schiller and Goethe Galleries" (with Pecht), but above all with the cycles of grisailles to Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea and to Voss's Luise. In 1866 Ramberg became professor at the Munich Academy. Consult: Pecht, Deutsche Künstler, etc., iv. (Nördlingen, 1885), and Rosenberg, Geschichte der modernen Kunst, iii. (Leipzig, 1889).  RAMBLER,. A periodical published twice a week from 1750 to 1752, by Dr. Samuel Johnson, who wrote all the numbers but five. These ponderous essays and observations on life and manners had a remarkable influence on English morals and language in their day, showing the force of a strong judgment and a noble nature, even through an unwieldy vehicle.  RAMBOUILLET,,. The house which, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, was the most famous meeting-place of the cultivated society of Paris. The house itself had previously been known as the Hotel Pisini, the residence of the Marquis of that name, whose daughter, Catherine de Vivonne, received it as a part of her dowry on her marriage in 1600 with the future Marquis de Rambouillet. Dissatisfied with the style of the house, she had it entirely remodeled between 1610 and 1617. After its completion the young beauty, weary of the crowded assemblies of the Louvre, decided to remain at home and make her own house supply all the society she desired. Here, for a generation, assembled the most brilliant coterie in Paris, known, from their insistence on refinement in speech and manners, as precieux. Among early frequenters were Richelieu, Malherbe, Balzac, Corneille, Racan, Voiture, and, somewhat later, Bossuet, Ménage, Chapelain, Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Benserade, and La Rochefoucauld. There too were trained the ladies