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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Stradivari, Antonio

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​STRADIVARI, ANTONIO (1644–1737), Italian violin-maker, is associated throughout his life with Cremona, where he brought the craft of violin-making to its highest pitch of perfection. The obscure details of his life have been thoroughly worked out in the monograph on him by W. H. Hill, A. F. Hill and Alfred Hill (1902). He was still a pupil of Nicolas Amati in 1666, when he had already begun to insert his own label on violins of his making, which at first follow the smaller Amati model, solidly constructed, with a thick yellow varnish. It was not till 1684 that he began to produce a larger model, using a deeper coloured varnish, and beautifying the instruments in various details, his “long” patterns (from 1690) representing a complete innovation in its proportions; while from 1700, after for a few years returning to an earlier style, he again broadened and otherwise improved his model. He also made some beautiful violon-cellos and violas. The most famous instruments by him are:—Violins: the “Hellier” (1679), the “Selliere” (before 1680), the “Tuscan” (1690), the “Betts” (1704), the “Ernst” (1709), ”La Pucelle” (1709), the “Viotti” (1709), the “Vieuxtemps” (1710), the “Parke” (1711), the “Boissier” (1713), the “Dolphin” (1714), the “Gillot” (1715), the “Alard,” the finest of all (1715), the “Cessot” (1716), the “Messiah” (1716), the “Sasserno” (1717), the “Maurin” (1718), the “Lauterbach” (1719), the “Blunt” (1721), the “Sarasate” (1724), the “Rode” (1722), the “Deurbroucq” (1727), the “Kiesewetter” (1731), the “Habeneck” (1736), the “Muntz” (1736). Violas: the “Tuscan” (1690), two of 1696 formerly belonging to the king of Spain, the “Archinto” (1696), the “Macdonald” (1701), and the “Paganini” (1731). Violoncellos: the “Archinto” (1689), the “Tuscan” (1690), the “Aylesford” (1696), the “Cristiani” (1700), the “Servais” (1701), the “Gore-Booth” (1710), the “Duport” (1711), the “Adam” (1713), the “Batta” (1714), the “Piatti,” the finest of all (1720), the “Bandiot” (1725), the “Gallay” (1725). Antonio Stradivari’s sons Francesco (1671–1743) and Omobono (1679–1742) were also violin-makers, who assisted their father, together with Carlo Bergonzi, who appears to have succeeded to the possession of Antonio’s stock-in-trade. The Stradivari method of violin-making created a standard for subsequent times; but what is regarded as Antonio’s special advantage, now irrecoverable, was his varnish, soft in texture, shading from orange to red, the composition of which has been much debated. (See also Violin.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Strafford, Earls of

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​STRAFFORD, EARLS OF. The first earl of Strafford was Charles I.’s friend and adviser, Thomas Wentworth (see below). When he was attainted and executed in May 1641 his honours were forfeited, but later in the year his only son, William (1626–1695), was created earl of Strafford, his father’s attainder being reversed by act of parliament in 1662. William died without issue on the 16th of October 1695, when all his titles, except the barony of Raby, became extinct. His estates passed to a kinsman, Thomas Watson, afterwards Watson-Wentworth (d. 1723), a son of Anne (1629–1695), daughter of the 1st earl, and her husband Edward Watson, 2nd Baron Rockingham. In 1746 Watson-Wentworth’s son, Thomas Watson-Wentworth (c. 1690–1750), was created marquess of Rockingham, and when his son Charles, the 2nd marquess, died in 1782, the estates passed to his maternal nephew, William Fitzwilliam, 2nd Earl Fitzwilliam (1748–1833). His descendant, the present Earl Fitzwilliam, is the owner of Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, and the representative of the Wentworth family.
The barony of Raby passed to the 2nd earl’s cousin, Thomas Wentworth (1672–1739), son and heir of Sir William Wentworth of Northgate Head, Wakefield. In early life he saw much service as a soldier in the Low Countries, and was occasionally employed on diplomatic errands. From 1711 to 1714 he was British ambassador at the Hague, and in 1711 he was created earl of Strafford. The earl was one of the British representatives at the congress of Utrecht, and in 1715 he was impeached for his share in concluding this treaty, but the charges against him were not pressed to a conclusion. He died on the 15th of November 1739. The earldom became extinct when Frederick Thomas, the 5th earl, died in August 1799. William, the 4th earl (1722–1791), had a sister Anne, who married William
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Strain

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​STRAIN (through O. Fr. straindre, estraindre, mod. étreindre, from Lat. stringere, to draw tight, related to stress, stretch, string, &c.), to draw out, extend, stretch, especially with the idea of great effort or beyond measure or limit; hence, from the idea of pressure or constriction, to separate coarser matter or light solids from a liquid by pressure through a “strainer,” which may be either a sieve or a colander (Lat. colare, to strain), a metal vessel with perforations in the bottom. Another type is the filter (q.v.). Straining can also be effected by means of cloths, and the name strainer is used of a coarse open cloth usually of flax; a coarser cloth of a more open texture is technically known as “screw.”
For “strains” and “stresses” in physics see Mechanics; Elasticity and Strength of Materials.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Régnier, Henri François Joseph de

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​RÉGNIER, HENRI FRANÇOIS JOSEPH DE (1864–), French poet, was born at Honfieur (Calvados) on the 28th of December 1864, and was educated in Paris for the law. In 1885 he began to contribute to the Parisian reviews, and his verses found their way into most of the French and Belgian periodicals favourable to the symbolist writers. Having begun, however, to write under the leadership of the Parnassians, he retained the classical tradition, though he adopted some of the innovations of Moréas and Gustave Kahn. His gorgeous and vaguely suggestive style shows the influence of Stéphane Mallarmé, of whom he was an assiduous disciple. His first volume of poems, Lendemains, appeared in 1885, and among numerous later volumes are Poèmes anciens et romanesques (1890), Les Jeux rustiques et divins (1890), Les Médailles d’argent (1900), La Cité des eaux (1903). He is also the author of a series of realistic novels and tales, among which are La Canne de jaspe (end ed., 1897), La Double Maitresse (5th ed., 1900), Les Vacances d’un jeune homme sage (1904), and Les Amants singuliers (1905). M. de Régnier married Mlle. Marie de Hérédia, daughter of the poet, and herself a novelist and poet under the name of Gérard d’Houville.
See E. Gosse, French Profiles (1905), and Poètes d’aujourd’hui (6th ed., 1905), by van Bever and Léautaud.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rædwald

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​RÆDWALD (d. c. 620), king of the East Angles, was the son of King Tytili. He became a Christian during a stay in Kent, but on his return to East Anglia he sanctioned the worship both of the Christian and the heathen religions. Very little is known about his reign, which probably began soon after 600. For a time he recognized the overlordship of Æthelberht, king of Kent, but he seems to have shaken off the Kentish yoke. He gained some superiority over the land south of the Humber with the exception of Kent and is counted among the Bretwaldas. Rædwald protected the fugitive Edwin, afterwards king of Northumbria, and in his interests he fought a sanguinary battle with the reigning Northumbrian king, Æthelfrith, near Retford in Nottinghamshire, where Æthelfrith was defeated and killed in April 617. He was followed as king of the East Angles by his son Eorpwald.
See Bede, Historiae ecclesiasticae, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); and J. R. Green, The Making of England (1897—1899).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Réjane, Gabrielle

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​RÉJANE, GABRIELLE [Charlotte Réju] (1857–), French actress, was born in Paris, the daughter of an actor. She was a pupil of Regnier at the Conservatoire, and took the second prize for comedy in 1874. Her début was made the next year, during which she played attractively a number of light—especially soubrette—parts. Her first great success was in Henri Meilhac’s Ma camarade (1883), and she soon became known as an emotional actress of rare gifts, notably in Décoré, Germinie Lacerteux, Ma cousine, Amoureuse and Lysistrata. In 1892 she married M. Porel, the director of the Vaudeville theatre, but the marriage was dissolved in 1905. Her performances in Madame Sans Géne (1893) made her as well known in England and America as in Paris, and in later years she appeared in characteristic parts in both countries, being particularly successful in Zaza and La Passerelle. She opened the Théatre Réjane in Paris in 1906. The essence of French vivacity and animated expression appeared to be concentrated in Madame Réjane's acting, and made her unrivalled in the parts which she had made her own.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Râmnicuvâlcea

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​RÂMNICUVÂLCEA (Rîmnicu Vâlcea), or Rymnik, an episcopal city and the capital of the department of Vâlcea, Rumania; situated at the foot of the Carpathians, on the right bank of the river Olt, and on the railway from Caracal to Hermannstadt in Transylvania. Pop. (1900) 7317. Three monasteries in the Vâlcea department, those of Bistritza, Cozia and Horezu, are among the finest in Walachia. Besides wine, fruit, grain and timber, the surrounding uplands yield petroleum and salt. Within a few miles are the thermal springs of Olanestzi and the salt mines of Ocnele Mari. The city is said to be the ancient Castra Traiana, and many traces of old encampments bear evidence of this.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ré, Île de

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​RÉ, ÎLE DE, an island of western France, belonging to the department of Charente-Inférieure, from the nearest mainland point of which it is distant about 2 m. The island has an area of nearly 33 sq. m., with a breadth varying from 1 to 4½ m. and a length of 15 m. It is separated from the coast of Vendée on the N. by the Pertuis Breton, some 6 m. broad, and from the island of Oléron on the S. by the Pertuis D'Antioche, 7½ m. broad. The coast facing the Atlantic is rocky and inhospitable, but there are numerous harbours on the landward side, of which the busiest is La Flotte. Towards the north-west extremity of the island there is a deep indentation, the Fier d'Ars, which leaves an isthmus only 230 ft. wide, strengthened by a breakwater. The north coast is fringed by dunes and by the salt-marshes which are the chief source of livelihood for the inhabitants. Some of them are employed in fishing, oyster-cultivation and the collection of seaweed for manure; the island has corn-lands and vineyards, the latter covering about half its surface, and produces good figs and pears. Apart from its orchards it is now woodless, though once covered by forests. There are two cantons, St Martin (pop. in 1906, 8362) and Ars-en-Ré (pop. 4711) forming part of the arrondissement of La Rochelle. St Martin, the capital, which has a secure harbour and trade in wine, brandy, salt, &c., was fortified by Vauban in 1681 and used to be the depôt for convicts on their way to New Caledonia. In 1627 it repulsed an English force after a siege of three months.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Râmnicu Sarat

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​RÂMNICU SARAT (Rîmnicu Sărat), the capital of the department of Râmnicu Sarat, Rumania; on the railway from Buzeu to Focshani, and on the left bank of the Râmnicu, a tributary of the Sereth. Pop. (1900) 13,134, about 1500 being Jews. The town rises from a marshy plain, east of the Carpathians, and west of the cornlands of southern Moldavia. Salt and petroleum are worked in the mountains, and there is a considerable trade in agricultural produce and preserved meat. Râmnicu Sarat was the scene of battles between the Moldavians and the Walachians in 1434 and 1573, and between the Walachians and Turks in 1634. Here also, in 1789, an Austro-Russian army defeated the Turks. In 1854 the town was almost destroyed by fire and was rebuilt.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Macbeth

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​MACBETH, king of Scotland (d. 1058), was the son of Findlaech, mormaer or hereditary ruler of Moreb (Moray and Ross), who had been murdered by his nephews in 1020. He probably became mormaer on the death of Malcolm, one of the murderers, in 1029, and he may have been one of the chiefs (the Maclbaethe of the Saxon Chronicle) who submitted to Canute in 1031. Marianus records that in 1040 Duncan, the grandson and successor of Malcolm king of Scotland, was slain by Macbeth. Duncan had shortly before suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Thorfinn, the Norwegian earl of Orkney and Caithness, and it was perhaps this event which tempted Macbeth to seize the throne. As far as is known he had no claim to the crown except through his wife Gruach, who appears to have been a member of the royal family. Macbeth was apparently a generous benefactor to the Church, and is said to have made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1050. According to S. Berchan his reign was a time of prosperity for Scotland. The records of the period, however, are extremely meagre, and much obscurity prevails, especially as to his relations with the powerful earl Thorfinn. More than one attempt was made by members of the Scottish royal family to recover the throne; in 1045 by Crinan, the lay abbot of Dunkeld, son-in-law of Malcolm II., and in 1054 by Duncan’s son Malcolm with the assistance of Siward the powerful earl of Northumbria, himself a connexion of the ousted dynasty. Three years later in 1057 Malcolm and Siward again invaded Scotland and the campaign ended with the defeat and death of Macbeth, who was slain at Lumphanan. Macbeth is, of course, chiefly famous as the central figure of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.
See W. F. Skene, Chronicles of the Picts and Scots (1867) and Celtic Scotland (1876); Sir John Rhys, Celtic Britain (1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Macdonald, Flora

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​MACDONALD, FLORA (1722–1790), Jacobite heroine, was the daughter of Ranald Macdonald of Milton in the island of South Uist in the Hebrides, and his wife Marion the daughter of Angus Macdonald, minister of South Uist. Her father died when she was a child, and her mother was abducted and married by Hugh Macdonald of Armadale. She was brought up under the care of the chief of her clan, Macdonald of Clanranald, and was partly educated in Edinburgh. In June 1746 she was living in Benbecula in the Hebrides when Prince Charles Edward (q.v.) took refuge there after the battle of Culloden. The prince’s companion, Captain O’Neill, sought her help. The island was held for the government by the local militia, but the secret sympathies of the Macdonalds were with the Jacobite cause. After some hesitation Flora promised to help. At a later period she told the duke of Cumberland, son of George III. and commander-in-chief in Scotland, that she acted from charity and would have helped him also if he had been defeated and in distress, a statement which need not be accepted as quite literally true. The commander of the militia in the island, a Macdonald, who was probably admitted into the secret, gave her a pass to the mainland for herself, a manservant, an Irish spinning maid, Betty Burke, and a boat’s crew of six men. The prince was disguised as Betty Burke. After a first repulse at Waternish, the party landed at Portree. The prince was hidden in a cave while Flora Macdonald found help for him in the neighbourhood, and was finally able to escape. He had left Benbecula on the 27th of June. The talk of the boatmen brought suspicion on Flora Macdonald, and she was arrested and brought to London. After a short imprisonment in the Tower, she was allowed to live outside of it, under the guard of a “messenger” or gaoler. When the Act of Indemnity was passed in 1747 she was left at liberty. Her courage and loyalty had gained her general sympathy, which was increased by her good manners and gentle character. Dr Johnson, who saw her in 1773, describes her as “a woman of soft features, gentle manners and elegant presence.” In 1750 she married Allen Macdonald of Kingsburgh, and in 1773 they emigrated to America. In the War of Independence he served the British government and was taken prisoner. In 1779 his wife returned home in a merchant ship which was attacked by a privateer. She refused to leave the deck during the action, and was wounded in the arm. She died on the 5th of March 1790. There is a statue to her memory in Inverness. Flora Macdonald had a large family of sons, who mostly entered the army or navy, and two daughters.
See A. C. Ewald, Life and Times of Prince Charles Edward (1886). The so-called Autobiography of Flora Macdonald, published by her grand-daughter F. F. Walde (1870) is of small value.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Macdonald, George

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​MACDONALD, GEORGE (1824–1905), Scottish novelist and poet, was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire. His father, a farmer, was one of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and a direct descendant of one of the families that suffered in the massacre. Macdonald’s youth was passed in his native town, under the immediate influence of the Congregational Church, and in an atmosphere strongly impregnated with Calvinism. He took his degree at Aberdeen University, and migrated thence to London, studying at Highbury College for the Congregational ministry. In 1850 he was appointed pastor of Trinity Congregational Church, Arundel, and, after resigning his cure there, was engaged in ministerial work in Manchester. His health, however, was unequal to the strain, and after a short sojourn in Algiers he settled in London and adopted the profession of literature. In 1856 he published his first book, Within and Without, a dramatic poem; following it in 1857 with a volume of Poems, and in 1858 by the delightful “faerie romance” Phantastes. His first conspicuous success was achieved in 1862 with David Elginbrod, the forerunner of a number of popular novels, which include Alec Forbes of Howglen (1865), Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood (1866), Robert Falconer (1868), Malcolm (1875), The Marquis of Lossie (1877), and Donal Grant (1883). He was for a time editor of Good Words for the Young, and lectured successfully in America in 1872–1873. He wrote admirable stories for the young, and published some volumes of sermons. In 1877 he was given a civil list pension. He died on the 18th of September 1905.
Both as preacher and as lecturer on literary topics George Macdonald’s sincerity and moral enthusiasm exercised great ​influence upon thoughtful minds. His verse is homely and direct, and marked by religious fervour and simplicity. As a portrayer of Scottish peasant-life in fiction he was the precursor of a large school, which has benefited by his example and surpassed its original leader in popularity. The religious tone of his novels is relieved by tolerance and a broad spirit of humour, and the simpler emotions of humble life are sympathetically treated.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Macassar

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​MACASSAR (Makassar, Mangkasar), the capital of a district of the same name in the island of Celebes, Dutch East Indies, and the chief town of the Dutch government of Celebes. Pop. 17,925 (940 Europeans, 2618 Chinese, 168 Arabs). It stands on the west coast of the southern peninsula of the island, near the southern extremity of the Macassar Strait, which separates Celebes from Borneo. Macassar consists of the Dutch town and port, known as Vlaardingen, and the Malay town which lies inland. Macassar’s trade amounts to about £1,250,000 annually, and consists mainly of coffee, trepang, copra, gums, spices and valuable timber.
For the Macassar people and for the Strait, see Celebes. “Macassar oil” is a trade name, not geographical: see Antimacassar.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nitzsch, Karl Immanuel

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​His son, Friedrich August Nitzsch (b. 1832), was made professor ordinarius of theology at Giessen in 1868 and at Kiel in 1872. He was the author of Grundriss der christl. Dogmengeschichte (1870, incomplete) and Das System des Boëthius (1860), amongst other works.
Karl Nitzsch’s principal works are: System der christlichen Lehre (1829; 6th ed., 1851; Eng. trans., 1849), Praktische Theologie (1847–1860; 2nd ed., 1863–1868), Akademische Vorträge über christliche Glaubenslehre (1858) and several series of Predigten. “He took as his starting-point the fundamental thought of Schleiermacher, that religion is not doctrine but life, direct consciousness, feeling. At the same time he sought to bring religious feeling into closer connexion with knowledge and volition than Schleiermacher had done; he laid special stress—and justly—on the recognition of a necessary and radical union of religion with morality, treating both dogmatics and ethics together accordingly in his System der christlichen Lehre” (Otto Pfleiderer, Development of Theology, p. 123). His Protestantische Beantwortung, a reply to the Symbolik of Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838), which originally appeared in the Studien u. Kritiken, of which he was one of the founders, may also be mentioned.
See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, and the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie; F. Lichtenberger, History of German Theology in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 185-196.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nitre

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​NITRE, the name given to naturally occurring potassium nitrate; “cubic nitre” is sodium nitrate. The word is adapted from Lat. nitrum, which is itself adapted from Gr. νίτρον. These words were originally applied to the naturally occurring sodium carbonate; the connexion with potassium nitrate (sal petrae or sal petrosum) may be traced to Raimon Lull’s name sal nitri, which substance, however, he distinguished from nitrum. In the 16th century the ancient nitrum became altered to natron, a term still used for native sodium carbonate, while nitrum, and its adaptation nitre, were retained for potassium nitrate or saltpetre (q.v.).