, as he spent it alone in meditation and prayer, his
eyes were opened to see, through the shows of things, into the one
eternal Reality, the greatness and absolute sovereignty of Allah.

RAMAYANA, one of the two great epic poems, and the best, of the
Hindus, celebrating the life and exploits of Rama, "a work of art in
which an elevated religious and moral spirit is allied with much poetic
fiction, ... written in accents of an ardent charity, of a compassion, a
tenderness, and a humility at once sweet and plaintive, which ever and
anon suggest Christian influences."

RAMBLER, a periodical containing essays by Johnson in the
_Spectator_ vein, issued in 1750-52, but written in that "stiff and
cumbrous style which," as Professor Saintsbury remarks, "has been rather
unjustly identified with Johnson's manner of writing generally."

RAMBOUILLET, MARQUISE DE, a lady of wealth and a lover of literature
and art, born in Rome, who settled in Paris, and conceiving the idea of
forming a society of her own, gathered together into her salon a select
circle of intellectual people, which, degenerating into pedantry, became
an object of general ridicule, and was dissolved at her death
(1588-1665).

RAMEAU, JEAN PHILIPPE, French composer, born at Dijon; wrote on
harmony, and, settling in Paris, composed operas, his first "Hippolyte et
Aricie," and his best "Castor et Pollux" (1683-1764).

RAMESES, the name of several ancient kings of Egypt, of which the
most famous are R. II., who erected a number of monuments in token of his
greatness, and at whose court Moses was brought up; and R. III., the
first king of the twentieth dynasty, under whose successors the power of
Egypt fell into decay.

RAMILLIES, Belgian village in Brabant, 14 m. N. of Namur; scene of
Marlborough's victory over the French under Villeroy in 1706.

RAMMOHUN ROY, a Brahman, founder of the Brahmo-Somaj, born at
Burdwan, Lower Bengal; by study of the theology of the West was led to
embrace deism, and tried to persuade his countrymen to accept the same
faith, by proofs which he advanced to show that it was the doctrine of
their own sacred books, in particular the Upanishads; with this view he
translated and published a number of texts from them in vindication of
his contention, as well as expounded his own conviction in original
treatises; in doing so he naturally became an object of attack, and was
put on his defence, which he conducted in a succession