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Young Bellair. I know some who will give you an account of every glance that passes at a play and i' th' Circle.-Etherege, The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter, 4to, 1676.

Sir Fopling. All the world will be in the Park to-night: Ladies, 'twere pity to keep so much beauty longer within doors, and rob the Ring of all those charms that should adorn it.—Ibid.

The next place of resort wherein the servile world are let loose, is at the entrance of Hyde Park, while the gentry are at the Ring.-Spectator, No. 88. Leonora. Trifle, let's see this morning's letters.

Trifle. There are only these half dozen, madam.

Leonora. No more! Barbarity! This it is to go to Hyde Park upon a windy day, when a well-dress'd gentleman can't stir abroad. The beaus were forced to take shelter in the playhouse, I suppose. I was a fool I did not go thither; I might have made ten times the havoc in the side-boxes.

Trifle. Your ladyship's being out of humour with the Exchange woman, for shaping your ruffles so odiously, I am afraid made you a little too reserv'd, madam. Leonora. Prithee! was there a fop in the whole Ring, that had not a side-glance from me?-Colley Cibber, Woman's Wit, or The Lady in Fashion, 4to, 1697.

Sir Francis Gripe (to Miranda). Pretty rogue, pretty rogue; and so thou shalt find me, if thou dost prefer thy Gardy before these caperers of the age; thou shalt outshine the Queen's box on an opera night; thou shalt be the envy of the Ring (for I will carry thee to Hyde Park), and thy equipage shall surpass the—what d'ye call 'em-Ambassadors.-Mrs. Centlivre, The Busy Body, 4to, 1708.

Here (1697) the people of fashion take the diversion of The Ring. In a pretty high place, which lies very open, they have surrounded a circumference of two or three hundred paces diameter with a sorry kind of balustrade, or rather with postes placed upon stakes but three feet from the ground; and the coaches drive round this. When they have turned for some time round one way they face about and turn t'other so rowls the world!-Wilson's Memoirs, 8vo, 1719, p. 126.

How lately did this celebrated Thing,
Blaze in the box, and sparkle in the Ring.

In Queen Anne's time

Garth, The Dispensary, 1699.

The other public diversion was merely for the eyes, for it was going round and round the Ring in Hyde Park, and bowing to one another, slightly, respectfully, or tenderly, as occasion required. No woman of fashion could receive any man at her morning toilet without alarming the husband and his friends.-Lord Chesterfield, MS. (Stanhope's Anne, p. 566).

He would no more disagree with a Lord in his sentiments, than a Beau would put his hat on in Hyde-Park Ring.-Orrery's As You Find It, 4to, 1703.

To all his most frequented haunts resort

Oft dog him in the Ring, and oft to Court.

Addison's Prologue to Steele's Tender Husband, 1705.

To scandal next-what awkward thing

Was that, last Sunday in the Ring.

Swift, Cadenus and Vanessa, 1713.

What pains to get the gaudy thing you hate,
To swell in show, and be a wretch in state!
At Plays you ogle, at the Ring you bow;
Ev'n Churches are no sanctuaries now.

Garth, Epilogue to Addison's Cato, 1713.

All the fine equipages that shine in the Ring never gave me another thought than either pity or contempt for the owners, that could place happiness in attracting the eyes of strangers.-Lady Mary W. Montagu (Works, by Lord Wharncliffe, vol. i. p. 177).

Know, then, unnumbered spirits round thee fly,
The light militia of the lower sky:

These, though unseen, are ever on the wing,
Hang o'er the Box and hover round the Ring.

Pope, Rape of the Lock.

She glares in balls, front-boxes, and the Ring,
A vain, unquiet, glittering, wretched thing.

Pope, To Martha Blount, with the Works of Voiture.

The Ring, or its immediate vicinity, was the noted Hyde Park duelling-ground of the 18th century. Here in 1712 was fought the

famous duel between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun.

My Lord [Mohun] then asked the Hackney Coachman if he knew where they could get any thing that was good, it being a cold morning; he [the Hackney Coachman] said at the House near the Ring. When they came near the house, they [Lord Mohun and his second, General Macartney] both got out of the coach, and bid the coachman get some burnt wine at the house, while they took a little walk. He went into the house and told the Drawer he brought two gentlemen, who bid him get some burnt wine against they came back; the Drawer said he would not, for very few came thither so soon in the morning but to fight.-Duel between Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun (Hackney Coachman's Evidence before the Coroner).

"If we were not in the Park," answered Booth warmly, "I would thank you very properly for that compliment." "O, Sir!" cries the Colonel, "we can be soon in a convenient place.' Upon which Booth answered, he would attend him wherever he pleased. The Colonel then bid him come along, and strutted forward directly up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park, Booth following him at first, and afterwards walking before him, till they came to that place, which may be properly called the field of blood, being that part a little to the left of The Ring, which heroes have chosen for the scene of their exit out of this world.-Fielding's Amelia.

The last circumstance of any interest connected with the Ring is the duel fought here in 1763 between John Wilkes and Samuel Martin, on account of a passage in the North Briton, in which Martin was stigmatised as a "low fellow and dirty tool of power." Wilkes was wounded.

Robert Street, ADELPHI. Thomas Hood and his wife, in 1824, resided in chambers at No. 2 Robert Street, Adelphi. [See Adelphi.] V Robin Hood Club, a discussion Club, or "Oratorical Society," which met in the last century at a house in Essex Street, Strand. [See Essex Street.] About the same time there was another "religious Robin Hood Society, which met every Sunday evening at Coachmakers' Hall, for free debate."1 [See Coachmakers' Hall.]

Rochester House, SOUTHWARK. The inn or town house of the Bishops of Rochester. No traces remain, and the Borough Market occupies part of the site.

Adjoining Winchester House is the Bishop of Rochester's inn or lodging, by whom first erected I do not now remember me to have read; but well I wot the same of long time hath not been frequented by any bishop, and lieth ruinous for lack of any reparations. The Abbot of Waverley had a house there.-Stow, p. 151.

Rochester House was, about 40 years since, one great house and a great garden, and now consisteth of 62 tenements.-MS. temp. James I. (Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Saviour's, Southwark).

1 Boswell, by Croker, p. 684.

Rochester Row, WESTMINSTER, so called after the Bishops of Rochester, several of whom (Sprat and Atterbury, for instance) held the deanery of Westminster at the same time with the see of Rochester. On the south side is the fine church of St. Stephen, erected and endowed, with the adjoining school-buildings for 400 children, by Miss (now the Baroness) Burdett-Coutts, 1847-1848; architect, Mr. B. Ferrey, F.S.A. Near it is the Westminster Police Court. On the north side are Hill's Almshouses, the Western Dispensary, and the Grenadier Guards' Hospital.

Rolls House and Chapel, CHANCERY LANE, a place where the rolls and records of the Court of Chancery were kept from the reign of Edward III. until the erection of the Record Office in Fetter Lane. [See Record Office.] Rolls House was the official residence of the Master of the Rolls, who also kept his court here. The Rolls Court was removed on the opening of the Royal Courts of Justice, and this building is now occupied by the officials of the Record Office. The master's house was designed by Colin Campbell in 1717-1725 at a cost of £5000, during the mastership of Sir Joseph Jekyll. The first stone was laid September 18, 1717. On the site of the present chapel Henry III. erected, in the year 1233, a House of Maintenance for converted Jews (Domus Conversorum), but the number of converts decreasing from the enactment of Edward I., in 1290, by which the Jews were banished out of the realm, Edward III., in 1377, annexed the house and chapel to the newly-created office of Custos Rotulorum, or Keeper of the Rolls. The chapel has been greatly altered and disfigured. Prior to their removal to the Record Office the Rolls of the Chancery were kept in presses ranged along the walls of this chapel, under the seats of the pews, and even behind the altar.

Observe.-Monument to Dr. John Young, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and Walpole attribute it, and with great reason, to Torrigiano, the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The Master is represented lying on an altar-tomb, with his hands crossed, and his face expressive of deep devotion. Within a recess at the back is a head of Christ, with an angel's head on each side, in high relief. Monument to Lord Bruce of Kinloss (d. 1610), Master of the Rolls in the reign of James I., and father of Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss, killed in a duel with Sir Edward Sackville. Monument to Sir Richard Allington of Horseheath, in Cambridgeshire (d. 1561). Conspicuous in the windows are the arms of Sir Robert Cecil and of Sir Harbottle Grimston, "under whose protection," writes Burnet (Hist. of Own Times, p. 104), "I lived nine years, when I was preacher at the Rolls, he being the Master of the Rolls." Among the eminent preachers at the Rolls besides Bishop Burnet were Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, and Bishop Butler, author of the Analogy of Religion. Burnet's sermon at this chapel (November 5, 1684) on the text, "Save me from the lion's mouth, for

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thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns," occasioned his removal from the preachership, the King considering the Chapel of the Rolls as one of his own chapels, and the words of the text as "levelled against his coat of arms." Fifteen of Butler's sermons at the Rolls form an octavo volume. The Rolls liberty is a parish or peculiar of its own. Sir William Grant, one of the greatest judges that has adorned the Bench, lived in the Rolls House (1801-1817), but never saw more of it than the ground-floor. When his successor arrived Sir William showed him his apartments. "Here are two or three good rooms; this is my sitting-room; my library and bedroom are beyond; and I am told there are some good rooms upstairs, but I never was there."

Roman Bath. [See Strand Lane.]

Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary, BLOMFIELD STREET, MOORFIELDS. John Newman, architect; first stone laid August 5, 1817; consecrated April 20, 1820; cost £26,000. The body of Weber, the composer, was buried in its vaults, but removed in 1842. [See Finsbury Circus.] This church, up to July 2, 1869, was regarded as the pro-cathedral of the arch-diocese of Westminster; but on that day "the seat of jurisdiction was moved westward" (as Archbishop Manning worded it) to the new edifice dedicated to "Our Lady of Victories," Newland Street, Kensington. That, however, is the procathedral until sufficient funds are obtained to erect a more stately permanent cathedral in Westminster.

Rood Lane, FENCHURCH STREET to EASTCHEAP.

Rood Lane, so called of a roode there placed in the churchyard of St. Margaret Pattens, whilst the old Church was taken down and again newly built; during which time the oblations made to this rood were employed towards the building of the church; but in the year 1538, about the 23d of May, in the morning, the said rood was found to have been, on the night preceding, by people unknown, broken all to pieces, together with the tabernacle wherein it had been placed.—Stow, p. 79 ; see also London Chronicle (Camd. Soc.), p. 12.

The church of St. Margaret Pattens [which see] is at the south-east corner. The houses in Rood Lane are now chiefly occupied as merchants' offices.

Roomland, Billingsgate.

At the head of Billingsgate Dock is a square plot of ground compassed with posts, known by the name of Roomland, which, with the adjacent part of the street, hath been the usual place where the ship-masters, coal-merchants, wood-mongers, lightermen, and labourers, do meet every morning, in order to the buying, selling, delivering, and taking-up of sea-coals and Scotch-coals, as the principal market. This coal-market was kept on Great Tower Hill in the time of the City's late desolation [by the Great Fire].-Delaune's Angl. Not., 1690, p. 355.

There was another Roumeland at Dowgate, for the cleansing of which an ordinance was issued in 1365. The origin of the name is uncertain. In front of several of the larger monastic establishments, as St. Albans, Waltham, Norwich, Bury St. Edmund's, and Reading, were large open spaces railed off, and sometimes, at least, as at

Waltham, used as market-places, which were called Roomlands or Romelands. Mr. Walcott says they were so called "probably from rome, roomy, as in Romney, Romsey, etc.,"2 but Romney and Romsey were certainly not so named as being roomy places, neither is it likely were the Romelands. Possibly they may have been places set apart by the Church in early times as market-places, in country towns as general, in London as special markets. The Coal Exchange, the present central coal-market, still holds its place at "the head of Billingsgate." [See Coal Exchange.]

Ropemakers' Alley, MOORFIELDS, now widened and called ROPEMAKER STREET, runs from the west side of Finsbury Pavement to Moor Lane. Hatton, 1708, describes it as "on the west side of Little Moorfields, a passage to Grub Street." In a Map of 1720 "Rope Walk" is given, and the alley appears to have run out from a Moorfields Holywell Street, called Rotten Row. At "his lodgings in this alley on April 26, 1731, died Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe.

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Rosamond's Pond, a sheet of water in the south-west corner of St. James's Park, "long consecrated to disastrous love and elegiac poetry." 3 The earliest notice of it appears to be contained in a payment, issued from the Exchequer in 1612, of £400 "towards the charge of making and bringing a current of water from Hyde Park, in a vault of brick arched over, to fall into Rosamond's Pond at St. James's Park." It was filled up in 1770; in June of which year Mr. Whately writes to George Grenville: "Lord Suffolk is very happy that orders are given for draining the ponds near his house. Rosamond's Pond is also to be filled up and a road carried across it to [Great] George Street; the rest is to be all lawn." 5 It lay obliquely across the west end of the present Bird Cage Walk. Lord Suffolk lived in Duke Street, Westminster, and the ponds which he was so happy to get rid of were "the places for the fowle" of the old maps.

Mrs. Friendall. His note since dinner desires you would meet him at seven at Rosamond's Pond.-Southerne, The Wives' Excuse, 4to, 1692.

Lady Trickitt. Was it fine walking last night, Mr. Granger? Was there good company at Rosamond's Pond?

Granger. I did not see your ladyship there.

Lady Trickitt. Me! fie, fie, a married woman there, Mr. Granger !-Southerne, The Maid's Last Prayer, or Any rather than Fail, 4to, 1693.

Sir Novelty (reads). Excuse, my dear Sir Novelty, the forc'd indifference I have shewn you, and let me recompense your past sufferings with an hour's

1 Thorne, Handbook to the Environs of London, pt. ii. p. 655.

2 Walcott, Church and Conventual Arrangement, p. 112.

3 Warburton to Hurd, p. 151.

4 Devon's Issues from the Exchequer, 4to, 1836, p. 150.

5 Grenville Corr., vol. iv. p. 517. There is an engraving of Rosamond's Pond by J. T. Smith,

from a drawing made in 1758, and a still better view by W. H. Toms, from a drawing by Chatelain in 1752. In the Crowle Pennant in the British Museum is a careful pen-and-ink drawing of the pond by J. Maurer, 1742. No. 86 of the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1774 was A View of Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park," by John Feary.

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