Chapter Random to Rattlin of R by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Random to Rattlin

Random, a man of fortune with a scapegrace son. He is pale and puffy, with gout and a tearing cough. Random goes to France to recruit his health, and on his return to England gets arrested for debt in mistake for his son. He raves and rages, threatens and vows vengeance, but finds his son on the point of marrying a daughter of sir David Dunder of Dunder Hall, and forgets his evils in contemplation of this most desirable alliance.—Colman: Ways and Means (1788).

Random (Roderick), a young Scotch scapegrace in quest of fortune. At one time he revels in prosperity, at another he is in utter destitution. Roderick is led into different countries (whose peculiarities are described), and falls into the society of wits, sharpers, courtiers, and harlots. Occasionally lavish, he is essentially mean; with a dash of humour, he is contemptibly revengeful; and, though generous-minded when the whim jumps with his wishes, he is thoroughly selfish. His treatment of Strap is revolting to a generous mind. Strap lends him money in his necessity, but the heartless Roderick wastes the loan, treats Strap as a mere servant, fleeces him at dice, and cuffs him when the game is adverse.—Smollett: Roderick Random (1748).

Ranger, the madcap cousin of Clarinda, and the leading character in Hoadly’s Suspicious Husband (1747).

Rantipole , or Ratipole, a madcap. One of the nicknames given to Napoleon III. (See Napoleon III., p. 744.)

Dick, be a little rantipolish.
   —Colman: Heir-at-Law, i.2 (1797).

Raoul [Rawl], the old huntsman of sir Raymond Berenger.—Sir W. Scott: The Betrothed (time, Henry II.).

Raoul di Nangis (Sir), the hugue not in love with Valentina (daughter of the comte de St. Bris, governor of the Louvre). Sir Raoul is offered the hand of Valentina in marriage, but rejects it because he fancies she is betrothed to the comte de Nevers. Nevers being slain in the Bartholomew Massacre, Raoul marries Valentina, but scarcely is the ceremony over when both are shot by the musketeers under the command of St. Bris.—Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots (opera, 1836).

Rape of the Lock (The), a poem in five cantos, in rhyming heroic lines, by Pope (1711 and 1714). The subject is a l ock of Belinda’s hair surreptitiously cut off by baron Plume, at a card-party given at Windsor Court. Belinda indignantly demanded back the ringlet, but after a fruitless charge it was affirmed that, like Berenice’s hair, it had been transported to heaven, and henceforth shall “midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.”

Raphael (2 or 3 syl.), called by Milton “The Sociable Spirit,” and “The Affable Archangel.” In the book of Tobit it was Raphael who travelled with Tobias into Media and back again; and it is the same angel that holds discourse with Adam through two books of Paradise Lost, v. and vi. (1665).

Raphael, the guardian angel of John the Beloved.

Longfellow calls Raphael “The Angel of the Sun,” and says that he brings to man “the gift of faith.”—Golden Legend (“Miracle-Play,” iii., 1851).

The Flemish Raphael, Frans Floris. His chief works are “St. Luke at his Easel,” and the “Descent of the Fallen Angels,” both in Antwerp Cathedral (1520–1570).

The French Raphael, Eustace Lesueur (1617–1655).

The Raphael of Cats, Godefroi Mind, a Swiss painter, famous for his cats (1768–1814).

The Raphael of Holland, Martin van Hemskerck (1498–1574).

The Raphael of Music, Mozart (1756–1791).