Chapter Red Sea to Regillus of R by Brewer's Readers Handbook

lost his morbid feelings, and all who suffered by his infection, being healed, were restored to love, mirth, benevolence, and gratitude.—Dickens: The Haunted Man (1848).

Redmain (Sir Magnus), governor of the town of Berwick (fifteenth century).

He was remarkable for his long red beard, and was therefore called by the English “Magnus Red-beard,” but by the Scotch, in derision, “Magnus Red-mane,” as if his beard had been a horse-mane.—Godscroft, 178.

Redmond O’Neale, Rokeby’s page, beloved by Rokeby’s daughter Matilda, whom he marries. He turns out to be Mortham’s son and heir.—Sir W. Scott: Rokeby (1812).

Reece (Captain), R.N., of the Mantelpiece; adored by all his crew. They had feather-beds, warm slippers, hot-water cans, brown Windsor soap, and a valet to every four, for captain Reece said, “It is my duty to make my men happy, and I will.” Captain Reece had a daughter, ten female cousins, a niece, and a ma, six sisters, and an aunt or two, and, at the suggestion of William Lee the coxswain, married these ladies to his crew—“It is my duty to make my men happy, and I will.” Last of all, captain Reece married the widowed mother of his coxswain, and they were all married on one day—“It was their duty, and they did it.”—Gilbert: The Bab Ballads (“Captain Reece, R.N.”).

Reeve’s Tale (The). Symond Symkyn, a miller of Trompington, near Cambridge, used to serve “Soler Hall College,” but was an arrant thief. Two scholars, Aleyn and John, undertook to see that a sack of corn sent to be ground was not tampered with; so one stood by the hopper, and one by the trough which received the flour, In the mean time, the miller let their horse loose, and, when the young men went to fetch it, purloined half a bushel of the flour, substituting meal instead. It was so late before the horse could be caught, that the miller offered the two scholars a “shakedown” in his own chamber, but when they were in bed he began to belabour them unmercifully. A scuffle ensued, in which the miller, being tripped up, fell upon his wife. His wife, roused from her sleep, seized a stick, and mistaking the bald pate of her husband for the night-cap of one of the young men, banged it so lustily that the man was almost stunned with the blows. In the mean time, the two scholars made off without payment, taking with them the sack and also the half-bushel of flour which had been made into cakes.—Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (1388).

Boccaccio has a similar story in his Decameron. It is also the subject of a fabliau entitled De Gombert et des Deux Clers. Chaucer borrowed his story from a fabliau given by Thomas Wright in his Anecdota Literaria, 15.

Reformado Captain, an officer shelved or degraded because his troops have been greatly reduced.

Reformation (The). It was noticed in the early Lollards, and was radiant in the works of Wycliffe.

It was present in the pulpit of Pierre de Bruys, in the pages of Arnoldo da Brescia, in the cell of Roger Bacon.

It was active in the field with Peter Revel, in the castle of lord Cobham, in the pulpit with John Huss, in the camp with John Ziska, in the class-room of Pico di Mirandola, in the observatory of Abraham Zacuto, and the college of Antonio di Lebrija, before father Martin was born.

Regan, second daughter of king Lear, and wife of the duke of Cornwall. Having received the half of her father’s kingdom under profession of unbounded love, she refused to entertain him with his suite. On the death of her husband, she designed to marry Edmund natural son of the earl of Gloster, and was poisoned by her elder sister Goneril out of jealousy. Regan, like Goneril, is proverbial for “final ingratitude.”—Shakespeare: King Lear (1605).