Part 114 (2/2)

When the robber put on the ring, it incessantly cried out, ”Here I am;”

so he bit off his finger, and threw it from him.

_Ring_ (_The Virgin's Wedding Ring_), kept in the Duomo of Perugia, under fourteen locks.

=Ring and the Book= (_The_), an idyllic epic, by Robert Browning, founded on a _cause celebre_ of Italian history in 1698. The case was this: Guido Franceschini, a Florentine count of shattered fortune, married Pompilia, thinking her to be an heiress. When the young bride discovered that she had been married for her money only, she told her husband she was no heiress at all, but was only the supposit.i.tious child of Pietro (2 _syl._), supplied by one Violante, for the sake of keeping in his hands certain entailed property. The count now treated Pompilia so brutally that she ran away from home, under the protection of Caponsacchi, a young priest, and being arrested at Rome, a legal separation took place. Pompilia sued for a divorce, but, pending the suit, gave birth to a son. The count now murdered Pietro, Violante, and Pompilia, but being taken red-handed, was brought to trial, found guilty, and executed.

=Ring the Bells Backwards= (_To_), to ring a m.u.f.fled peal, to lament.

Thus, John Cleveland, wis.h.i.+ng to show his abhorrence of the Scotch, says:

How! Providence! and yet a Scottish crew!...

Ring the bells backwards. I am all on fire; Not all the buckets in a country quire Shall quench my rage.

_The Rebel Scot_ (1613-1659).

=Ringdove= (_The Swarthy_). The responses of the oracle of Dodona, in Epiros, were made by old women called ”pigeons,” who derived their answers from the cooing of certain doves, the bubbling of a spring, a rustling of the sacred oak [or _beech_], and the tinkling of a gong or bell hung in the tree. The women were called pigeons by a play on the word _peliae_, which means ”old women” as well as ”pigeons;” and as they came from Libya they were _swarthy_.

According to the fable, Zeus gave his daughter, Thebe, two black doves endowed with the gift of human speech; one of them flew into Libya, and the other into Dodona. The former gave the responses in the temple of Ammon, and the latter in the oracle of Dodona.

... beach or lime, Or that Thessalian growth, In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke.

Tennyson.

=Ringhorse= (_Sir Robert_), a magistrate at Old St. Ronan's.--Sir W.

Scott, _St. Ronan's Well_ (time, George III.).

=Ringwood=, a young Templar.--Sir W. Scott, _Fortunes of Nigel_ (time, James I.).

=Rintherout= (_Jenny_), a servant at Monkbarns to Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, the antiquary.--Sir W. Scott, _The Antiquary_ (time, George III.).

=Riou= (_Captain_), called by Nelson ”The Gallant and the Good;” fell in the battle of the Baltic.

Brave hearts! to Britain's pride Once so faithful and so true, On the deck of fame that died, With the gallant, good Riou.

Campbell, _Battle of the Baltic_ (1777-1844).

=Rip van Winkle= slept twenty years in the Catskill Mountains, of North America. (See WINKLE.)

Epimenides, the Gnostic, slept for fifty-seven years.

Gyneth slept 500 years, by the enchantment of Merlin.

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