Chapter Royston to Rue of R by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Royston to Rue

Royston (Herts) means king's town; so called in honour of King Stephen, who erected a cross there. (French, roy.)
   A Royston horse and Cambridge Master of Arts will give way to no one. A Cambridgeshire proverb. Royston was a village famous for malt, which was sent to London on horseback. These heavyladen beasts never moved out of the way. The Masters of Arts, being the great dons of Cambridge, had the wall conceded to them by the inhabitants out of courtesy.

Rozinante (4 syl.) A wretched jade of a riding-horse. Don Quixote's horse was so called. (Spanish, rocin-ante, a hack before.)

“It is the only time he will sit behind the wretched Rosinante, and it would be Quixotic of him to expect speed.”- London Review.

   (See Horse.)

Ruach The Isle of Winds, visited by Pantagruel and his fleet on their way to the Oracle of the Holy Bottle, is the isle of windy hopes and unmeaning flattery. The people of this island live on nothing but wind, eat nothing but wind, and drink nothing but wind. They have no other houses but weathercocks, seeing everyone is obliged to shift his way of life to the ever-changing caprice of court fashion; and they sow no other seeds but the wind-flowers of promise and flattery. The common people get only a fan-puff of food very occasionally, but the richer sort banquet daily on huge mill-draughts of the same unsubstantial stuff. (Rabelais: Pantagruel, iv. 43.)

Rub An impediment. The expression is taken from bowls, where “rub” means that something hinders the free movement of your bowl.

“Without rub or interruption.”- Swift.

“Like a bowle that runneth in a smooth allie, without anie rub.” '- Stanihurst, p. 10.

Rubber of Whist (A). A game of cards called “whist.” “Rubber” is transferred from bowls, in which the collision of two balls is a rubber, because they rub against each other.

Rubens' Women The portrait of Helena Forman or Fourment, his second wife, married at the age of 16, introduced in several of his historical paintings; but the woman in Rubens and His Wife, in the Munich gallery, is meant for Isabella Brandt, of Antwerp, his first wife.

Rubi One of the Cherubim or “Spirits of Knowledge,” who was present when Eve walked in Paradise. He felt the most intense interest in her, and longed, as the race increased, to find one of her daughters whom he could love. He fixed upon Liris, young and proud, who thirsted for knowledge, and cared not what price she paid to obtain it. After some months had elapsed, Liris asked her angel lover to let her see him in his full glory; so Rubi showed himself to her in all his splendour, and she embraced him. Instantly Liris was burnt to ashes by the radiant light, and the kiss she gave on the angel's forehead became a brand, which shot agony into his brain. That brand was “left for ever on his brow,” and that agony knew no abatement. (Thomas Moore: Loves of the Angels, story ii.)

Rubicon To pass the Rubicon. To adopt some measure from which it is not possible to recede. Thus, when the Austrians, in 1859, passed the Ticino, the act was a declaration of war against Sardinia; and in 1866, when the Italians passed the Adige, it was a declaration of war against Austria. The Rubicon was a small river separating ancient Italy from Cisalpine Gaul (the province allotted to Julius Caesar). When Caesar crossed this stream he passed beyond the limits of his own province and became an invader of Italy.

Rubonax Sir Philip Sidney says, Rubonax “was driven by a poet's verses to hang himself.” (Defence of Poesie.)