Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

50
K U D-
fine fisli, but little esteemed for food, and very rarely ex¬
ceeds a length of 12 inches or a weight of 2 ft*. It feeds
on small freshwater animals and soft vegetable matter, and
spawns in April or May. It readily crosses with the white
bream, more rarely with the roach and bleak.
RUDDIMAN, Thomas (1674-1758), an eminent Scot¬
tish scholar, was born in October 1674, at Raggal, in the
parish of Boyndie, Banffshire, where his father was a
farmer. He studied Latin eagerly at the school of his
native parish, and when sixteen started off to walk to
Aberdeen, there to compete for a college bursary. On the
way he was attacked by Gipsies, robbed of a guinea, which
was all he had, and otherwise very cruelly treated; but he
persevered in his journey, reached Aberdeen, and competed
for and won the bursary. He then entered the university,
and four years afterwards—on 21st June 1694—received
the degree of M.A. For some time he acted as school¬
master at Laurencekirk in Kincardine. There he chanced
to make the acquaintance of Dr Pitcairne, of Edinburgh,
who persuaded him to remove to the Scottish capital,
where he obtained the post of assistant in the Advocates’
Library. As his salary was only j£8, 6s. 8d. per annum,
he was forced to undertake additional employment. He
engaged in miscellaneous literary work, took pupils, and
for some time acted as an auctioneer. His chief writings
at this period were editions of Wilson’s De Animi Tran-
quillitate Dialogus (1707), and the Cantici Solomonis Para¬
phrasis Poetica (1709) of Arthur Johnstone (pb. 1641),
editor of the Deliciee, Poetarum Scotorum.
In 1714 he published Rudiments of the Latin Tongue,
which is even yet his best known work. This was intended
to be an easy introduction to Latin grammar, and was so
successful that it at once superseded all others. Under
various forms it has been in use, down to our own day, in
the schools of Scotland. In 1715 he edited, with notes
and annotations, the works of George Buchanan in two
volumes folio. As Ruddiman was a Jacobite, the liberal
views of Buchanan seemed to him to call for frequent
censure. That censure is often rather implied than openly
expressed ; but it excited much opposition. A society of
scholars was formed in Edinburgh to “ vindicate that in¬
comparably learned and pious author from the calumnies
of Mr Thomas Ruddiman” by publishing a correct edition
of his works. This they never did; but a number of ob¬
scure writers from this time attacked Ruddiman with great
vehemence. He replied; and it was not till the year
before his death that he said his “ last word ” in the con¬
troversy.
His worldly affairs, meanwhile, grew more and more
prosperous. He founded (1715) a successful printing
business, and after some time was appointed printer to the
university. He acquired the Caledonian Mercury in 1729,
and in 1730 was appointed keeper of the Advocates’
Library, which post, owing to failing health, he resigned
in 1752. He died at Edinburgh, 19th January 1758, and
was interred in Greyfriars churchyard, where in 1806 a
tablet was erected to his memory.
Besides the works mentioned, the following writings of Ruddiman
deserve notice an edition of Gavin Douglas’s JEneid of Yirgil
(1710); the editing and completion of Anderson’s Selectus Diplo-
matum et Numismatum Scotise Thesaurus (1739); Catalogue of the
Advocates Library (1733-42); an edition of Livy, famed for its
immaculate purity,” in 4 vols. (1751). Ruddiman was for many
years the representative scholar of Scotland. Writino- in 1766 Dr
dohnson, after reproving Boswell for some had Latin, significantly
adds— Ruddiman is dead.” When Boswell proposed to write
ituddiman s life, I should take pleasure in helping you to do
honour to him,” said Johnson.
See Chalmers s of Ruddiman (1794); Scots Magazine. January 7 1757*
Boswclrs Zt/<2 o/ZoTmsott. J 1
RUDE, Francois (1784-1855), a French sculptor of great
natural talent and force of character, but of an ignorance |
-HUD
as to all that did not immediately concern his art which
can best be described as out of date. He was born at
Dijon, 4th January 1784, and came therefore in his youth
under the influence of the democratic and Napoleonic
ideals in their full force. Till the age of sixteen he
worked at his father’s trade as a stovemaker, amusing
himself with modelling in his free hours only; but in
1809 he went up to Paris from the Dijon school of art,
and became a pupil of Castellier, obtaining the Great Prize
in 1812. After the second restoration of the Bourbons
he retired to Brussels, where he got some work under the
architect Van der Straeten, who employed him to execute
nine bas reliefs in the palace of Tervueren, which he was
then . engaged in building. At Brussels Rude married
Sophie I remiet, the daughter of a Bonapartist compatriot,
to whom he had many obligations, but, obtaining with
difficulty work so ill-paid that it but just enabled him to
live, he gladly availed himself of the opportunity of
return to_ Paris, where in 1827 a statue of the Virgin for
St Gervais and a Mercury Fastening his Sandals obtained
much attention. His great success dates, however, from
1833, when he received the cross of the Legion of Honour
for his statue of a Neapolitan Fisher Boy playing with a
Tortoise, which also procured for him the important com¬
mission for all the ornament and one bas relief of the Arc
de 1 Etoile. This relief, a work full of energy and fire,
immortalizes the name of Rude. Amongst other produc¬
tions, we may mention the statue of Monge, 1848, Jeanne
d’Arc (in garden of Luxembourg), 1852, a Calvary in
bronze for the high altar of St Vincent de Paul, 1855, as
well as Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter, Love Triumphant,
and Christ on the Cross, all of which appeared at the Salon
of 1857 after his death. He had worked all his life long
with the most extraordinary energy and given himself no
rest in spite of the signs of failing health, and at last, on
the 3d November 1855, he died suddenly with scarcely
time to cry out. One of his noblest works, and easily
accessible, is the tomb of Cavaignac, on which he placed
beside his own the name of his favourite pupil Christophe.
Although executed in 1840, this was not erected at Mont¬
martre till the year after Rude’s own death. His Louis
XIII., a life size statue, cast in silver, is to be seen at the
Due de Luynes’s chateau at Dampierre. Cato of Utica
stands in the gardens of the Tuileries, and his Baptism of
Christ decorates a chapel of the Madeleine.
RUDE STONE MONUMENTS. The raising of com¬
memorative monuments of such an enduring material as
stone is a practice that may be traced in all countries
to the remotest times. The highly sculptured statues,
obelisks, and other monumental erections of modern civi¬
lization are but the lineal representatives of the unhewn
monoliths, dolmens, cromlechs, &c., of prehistoric times.
Judging from the large number of the latter that have
still survived the destructive agencies (notably those of
man himself) to which they have been exposed during so
many ages, it would seem that the ideas which led to their
erection had as great a hold on humanity in its earlier
stages of development as at the present time. In giving
some idea of these rude monuments in Britain and else¬
where, it will be convenient to classify them as follows
(see vol. ii. p. 383, figs. 1-4). (1) Isolated pillars or mono¬
liths of unhewn stones raised on end are called Menhirs
(maen, a stone, and hir, long). (2) When these monoliths
are arranged in lines they become Alignments. (3) But
if their linear arrangement is such as to form an enclosure
{enceinte), whether circular, oval, or irregular, the group is
designated by the name of Cromlech (see Cromlech). (4)
Instead of the monoliths remaining separate, they are
sometimes placed together and covered over by one or
more capstones so as to form a rude chamber) in this case