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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orelli, Johann Caspar von

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​ORELLI, JOHANN CASPAR VON (1787–1849), Swiss classical scholar, was born at Zürich on the 13th of February 1787. He belonged to a distinguished Italian family, which had taken refuge in Switzerland at the time of the Reformation. His cousin, Johann Conrad Orelli (1770–1826), was the author of several works in the department of later Greek literature. From 1807 to 1814 Orelli worked as preacher in the reformed community of Bergamo, where he acquired the taste for Italian literature which led to the publication of Contributions to the History of Italian Poetry (1810) and a biography (1812) of Vittorino da Feltre, his ideal of a teacher. In 1814 he became teacher of modern languages and history at the cantonal school at Chur (Coire); in 1819, professor of eloquence and hermeneutics at the Carolinum in Zürich, and in 1833 professor at the new university, the foundation of which was largely due to his efforts. His attention during this period was mainly devoted to classical literature and antiquities. He had already published (1814) an edition, with critical notes and commentary, of the Antidosis of Isocrates, the complete text of which, based upon the MSS. in the Ambrosian and Laurentian libraries, had recently been made known by Andreas Mystoxedes of Corfu. The three works upon which his reputation rests are the following, (1) A complete edition of Cicero in seven volumes (1826–1838). The first four volumes contained the text (new ed., 1845–1863), the fifth the old Scholiasts, the remaining three (called Onomasticon Tullianum) a life of Cicero, a bibliography of previous editions, indexes of geographical and historical names, of laws and legal formulae, of Greek words, and the consular annals. After his death, the revised edition of the text was completed by J. G. Baiter and C. Halm, and contained numerous emendations by Theodor Mommsen and J. N. Madvig. (2) The works of Horace (1837–1838; 4th ed., 1886–1892). The exegetical commentary, although confessedly only a compilation from the works of earlier commentators, shows great taste and extensive learning, although hardly up to the exacting standard of modern criticism. (3) Inscriptionum Latinarum Selectarum Collectio (1828; revised edition by W. Henzen, 1856), extremely helpful for the study of Roman public and private life and religion. His editions of Plato (1839–1841, including the old scholia, in collaboration with A. W. Winckelmann) and Tacitus (1846–1848, new ed. by various scholars, 1875–1894) also deserve mention. Orelli died at Zürich on the 6th of January 1849. He was a most liberal-minded man, both in politics and religion, an enthusiastic supporter of popular education and a most inspiring teacher. He took great interest in the struggle of the Greeks for independence, and strongly favoured the appointment of the notorious J. F. Strauss to the chair of dogmatic theology at Zürich, which led to the disturbance of the 6th of September 1839 and the fall of the liberal government.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orenburg (town)

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​ORENBURG, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, on the Ural river; connected by rail with Samara (262 m.), and since 1905 with Tashkent (1150 m.). Pop. (1900) 65,906, of whom about 30% were Tatars, Jews, Bashkirs, &c. The town now includes the former suburbs of Golubinaya and Novaya. It is an episcopal see of the Orthodox Greek Church and the headquarters of the hetman of the Orenburg Cossacks. To a “barter house,” 3 m. from the town, the camel caravans bring carpets, silks, cottons, lambskins, dried fruits, &c., from Bokhara, Khiva, Kokand and Tashkent, to be bartered against the textiles, metallic goods, sugar and manufactured wares of Russia. From 20,000 to 100,000 horses, 40,000 to 160,000 cattle, and 450,000 to 750,000 sheep are also sold every year at the barter house. Formerly most of these were sent alive to Russia; now some 200,000 head of cattle and sheep are killed every year, and exported in cold-storage wagons. Cattle are also bought by wandering merchants in the Steppe provinces and Turkestan. Every year many tons of tallow, hams, sausages, butter, cheese and game are exported by rail to Samara. Besides these, nearly a million hides and sheepskins, goat and astrakhan skins, as well as wool, horsehair, bristles, down, horns, bones, &c., are exported. There are two cadet corps, a theological seminary, seminaries for Russian and Kirghiz teachers, a museum, branches of the Russian Geographical Society and the Gardening Society, and a military arsenal.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quotation

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QUOTATION, a passage repeated from the writings or speech of another. The verb "to quote" comes from Med. Lat. quotare (from quot, how many), to refer to by numbers, i.e. of page, chapter, &c., also to separate into chapters, verses, &c. The term is also specifically applied to the statement of the current prices of goods and commodities, and of stocks and shares (see stock exchange).
Useful lists of familiar quotations may be found in the following: H. T. Riley, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Quotations, ed. Bohn; P. H. Dalbiac, Dictionary of English Quotations (1896) ; in the same series, T. B. Harbottle, Classical Quotations (1897), and T. B. Harbottle and P. H. Dalbiac, French and Italian Quotations (1901); Robinson Smith, English Quotations (n.d.); H. P. Jones, A New Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations; J. K. Hoyt and A. L. Ward, The Cyclopaedia of Practical Quotations, English and Latin (1892); Cassell's Book of Quotations (1901); J. Bartlett, Familiar Quotations . . . in Ancient and Modern Literature (1902); in Notes and Queries, the indices to the various series contain, grouped under the heading "Quotation," a large number of out-of-the-way quotations.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quoits

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QUOITS (O. Fr. coiter, quoiter, to incite), a pastime resembling the ancient discus-throwing which formed one of the five games of the Greek pentathlon (see DISCUS), the two main differences between the ancient and modern sports being that the quoit is ring-shaped (one surface being rounded, the other—the back—being flat) and is lighter than the discus, and its throwing is a test rather of accuracy than strength. Few traces of a game resembling quoits can be found on the continent of Europe, and its origin may be sought for on the borderland of Scotland and England. There are references to it in the Midlands dating from the beginning of the 15th century, and it was one of the games prohibited in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II. in favor of archery. Ascham, in his Toxophilus (1545), says that "quoiting be too vile for scholars," and in old times it was chiefly played by the working classes, who often used horseshoes for want of quoits, a custom still prevailing in country districts. According to the modern rules, slightly modified from the code drawn up in 1869, two iron or steel pins 18 yds. apart are driven into the ground, leaving 1 in. exposed. Each is situated in the centre of an "end," a circle of stiff clay 3 ft. in diameter. The quoits, made of iron, may be of any weight, but are usually about 9 lb. each. They must not exceed 8½ in. in diameter, or be less than 3½ in. in the bore, or more than 2¼ in. in the web. When delivering his quoit a player must stand within 4 ft. 6 in. of the centre of the end and at its side. Matches are played between teams or individuals, the object of the game being to throw the quoit as near to the pin as possible, a "ringer," i.e. a quoit actually surrounding the pin, counting two, and a quoit nearer to the pin than any of the adversary's, counting one. A match may be for any number of points, the team or player scoring that number first being the winner. In championship matches all quoits farther than 18 in. from the end, are foul and removed. All measurements are made from the middle of the pin to the nearest edge of the quoit. If one or more quoits are lapped, the one most accessible is first measured and withdrawn. All quoits on their backs are a foul. The general principle of curling, to drive the opponents' quoits away from the pin and place one's own near or on it, is followed.
Scotland, Lancashire and the Midlands are the principal centres of quoiting in Great Britain. In Scotland the game is patronized by the Curling Clubs, and this is also the case in the United States and Canada. Billy Hodson was champion of Great Britain in the middle of the 19th century, and his trip to America in the early 'sixties is of historical interest, as it resulted in two contests for the championship of the world with James McLaren of Newark, N. J., a native of Scotland, who was champion of America. One hard-fought match was won by each, the deciding one remaining unplayed. The championship of America is rewarded by the "Bell Medal," presented by the Grand National Curling Club of America.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Raabe, Wilhelm

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RAABE, WILHELM (1831-1910), German novelist, whose early works were published under the pseudonym of Jakob Corvinus, was born at Eschershausen in the duchy of Brunswick on the 8th of September 1831. He served apprenticeship at a bookseller's in Magdeburg for four years (1849-1854); but tiring of the routine of business, studied philosophy at Berlin
(1855-1857). While a student at that university he published his first work, Die Chronik der Sperlingsgasse (1857), which at once attained to great popularity. Raabe next returned to Wolfenbüttel, and then lived (1862-1870) at Stuttgart, where he devoted himself entirely to authorship and wrote a number of novels and short stories; notably Unseres Herrgotts Kanzlei (1862); Der Hungerpastor (1864); Abu Telfan (1867) and Der Schüdderump (1870). In 1870 Raabe removed to Brunswick and published the narratives Horacker (1876)—perhaps his masterpiece; Das Odfeld (1889); Kloster Lugau (1894) and Hastenbeck (1899), and numerous other stories. The distinguishing characteristic of Raabe's work is a genial humour which reminds us occasionally of Dickens; but this humour is often combined with a pessimism that is foreign to the English novelist.
Raabe's Gesammelte Erzählungen appeared in 4 vols. (1896-1900); there is no uniform edition of his larger novels. See P. Gerber, Wilhelm Raabe (1897); A. Otto, Wilhelm Raabe (1899); A. Bartels, Wilhelm Raabe: Vortrag (1901).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Raba Ben Joseph Ben Ḥama

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​RABA BEN JOSEPH BEN ḤAMA (c. 280–352), Babylonian rabbi or amora. He is closely associated in his studies with Abaye. The latter was head of the Academy at Pumbeditha. Raba founded a new school at Maḥuza, which eventually became so long as Raba lived the only academy in Babylonia (Persia). The development of Talmudic Law (or Halakhah) was much indebted to this rabbi, whose influence in all branches of Jewish learning was supreme. His friendship with the King Shapur II. enabled Raba to secure a relaxation of the oppressive laws enacted against the Jews of Persia.
See Graetz, History of the Jews; (Eng. trans., vol. ii. ch. xxi.); Bacher, Agada der Babyl. Amoräer, p. 108, &c. and 114–133.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quoins

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QUOINS, (an old variant spelling of "coin," from Lat. cuneus, a wedge), in architecture, the term for the external angle of a building, generally applied to the ashlar masonry employed to stop the rubble masonry or brickwork of the wall at the angles, as also of buttresses, doorways or projecting features. In Saxon work the quoins were built with large stones laid horizontally and vertically in alternate courses, technically known as "long and short" work. Sometimes, to give greater importance to the angles of towers, the quoin stones are rusticated, and this treatment is found extensively employed in ancient German towns. At Eastbury Manor House in Essex, built in brick, the quoins at the angles of the walls, doorway and windows were plastered in imitation of stonework.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quorum

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QUORUM (Lat. for "of whom"), in its general sense, a term denoting the number of members of any body of persons whose presence is requisite in order that business may be validly transacted by the body or its acts be legal. The term is derived from the wording of the commission appointing justices of the peace which appoints them all, jointly and severally to keep the peace in the county named. It also runs—"We have also assigned you, and every two or more of you (of whom [quorum], any one of you the aforesaid A, B, C, D, &c., we will shall be one) our justices to inquire the truth more fully," whence the justices so-named were usually called justices of the quorum. The term was afterwards applied to all justices, and subsequently by transference, to the number of members of a body necessary for the transaction of its business. No general rule can be laid down as to the number of members of which a quorum should consist; its size is usually prescribed by definite enactment or provision; it is entirely a matter for self-constituted bodies as to what their quorum shall be, and it usually depends on the size of the body. In bodies which owe their existence to an act of the legislature, the necessary quorum is usually fixed by statute. In England, in the House of Lords, three form a quorum, though on a division there must be thirty members present. In the House of Commons, forty members, including the Speaker, form a quorum. The quorum of a standing committee of the House of Lords is seven, and of the House of Commons, twenty.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quota

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QUOTA, a proportional share or part that is due from or to any person or body of persons, in Med. Lat. quota, sc. Pars, from quotus, an adjective formed from quot, how many. The word first appears in connexion with the levying of men, money or supplies for military and naval purposes from districts, towns or seaports, and thus is equivalent to "contingent" (Lat. contingere, to happen to, fall to one's lot or share, cum, with, and tangere, to touch), used since the 18th century specifically of a contribution of men or ships according to a scale fixed between the contracting parties.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Raabe, Hedwig

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​RAABE, HEDWIG (1844–1905), German actress, was born in Magdeburg on the 3rd of December 1844, and at the age of fourteen was playing in the company of the Thalia theatre, Hamburg. In 1864 she joined the German Court theatre at St Petersburg, touring about Germany in the summer with such success that in 1868 she relinquished her Russian engagement to devote herself to starring. In 1871 she married Albert Niemann (b. 1831), the operatic tenor. She excelled in classical rôles like Marianne in Goethe's Geschwister and Franziska in Minna von Barnhelm. It was she who first played Ibsen in Berlin. She died on the 21st of April 1905.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quérard, Joseph Marie

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​QUÉRARD, JOSEPH MARIE (1797–1865), French bibliographer, was born at Rennes on the 25th of December 1797. He was apprenticed to a bookseller in his native town, and was sent abroad on business. He remained in Vienna from 1819 to 1824, and there drew up the first volumes of his great work, La France littéraire, ou Dictionnaire bibliographique des savants, historiens, et gens de lettres de la France, &c. (10 vols., 1826–1842), dealing especially with the 18th and early 19th centuries, which he was enabled to complete by a government subsidy granted by Guizot in 1830, and by the help of the Russian bibliophile Serge Poltoratzky. The firm of Didot, who were his publishers, took out of his hands the Littérature française contemporaine with which he had intended to complete his Work, and placed it with Ch. Louandre and F. Bourquelot. Quérard avenged himself by pointing out the errors of his successors. In spite of his claims Quérard was unable to secure a position in any of the public libraries. He died in Paris on the 3rd of December 1865.
Among his other works are: Les superchéries littéraires dévoilées (5 vols., 1845–56); Bibliographie La Menaisienne (1849); Dictionnaire des ouvrages-polyonymes et anonymes de la littérature française, 1700–1854 (1846–47); an additional volume to La France littéraire entitled Écrivains pseudonymes, &c. (1854–56). See Mar. Jozon d’Erquar, Quérard, in La France littératre (1854), vol. xi.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/R

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​R THE twentieth letter in the Phoenician alphabet, the nineteenth in the numerical Greek, the seventeenth in the ordinary Greek and the Latin and (owing to the addition of J) the eighteenth in the English. Its earliest form in the Phoenician alphabet when written from right to left was , thus resembling the symbol for D with one side of the triangle prolonged. In Aramaic and other Semitic scripts which were modified by opening the heads of the letters, the symbol in time became very much changed. Greek, however, maintained the original form with slight variations from place to place. Not infrequently in the Greek alphabets of Asia Minor and occasionally also in the West, R was written as , thus introducing a confusion with D (q.v.). Elsewhere a short tail was added, as occasionally in the island of Melos, in Attica and in western Greece, but nowhere does this seem to have been universal. The earliest Latin forms are exactly like the Greek. Thus in the very early inscriptions found in the Forum in 1899 R appears as (from right to left), and (from left to right). Later the forms and come in; sometimes the back is not quite connected in the middle to the upright, when the form is produced. The name of the Semitic symbol is Rēsh; why it was called by the Greeks Rhō (ῥῶ) is not clear. The h which accompanies r in the transliteration of Greek ρ, indicates that it was breathed, not voiced, in pronunciation. No consonant varies more in pronunciation than r. According to Brockelmann, the original Semitic r was probably a trilled r, i.e. an r produced by allowing the tip of the tongue to vibrate behind the teeth while the upper surface of the tongue is pressed against the sockets of the teeth. The ordinary English r is also produced against the sockets of the teeth, but without trilling; another r, also untrilled, which is found in various parts of the south of England, is produced by turning up the tip of the tongue behind the sockets of the teeth till the tongue acquires something of a spoon shape. This, which is also common in the languages of modern India, is called the cerebral or cacuminal r, the former term, which has no meaning in this connexion, being only a bad translation of a Sanscrit term. The common German r is produced by vibrations of the uvula at the end of the soft palate, and hence is called the uvular r. There are also many other varieties of this sound. In many languages r is able to form syllables by itself, in the same way that l, m, n may do, as in the English brittle (britl), written (rltn). In Europe r with this value is most conspicuous in Slavonic languages like Bohemian (Czech) and Croatian; in English r in this function is replaced by a genuine vowel in words like mother (moðꝺ). This syllabic r is first recorded for Sanscrit, where it is common, but is replaced in the languages descended from Sanscrit by r and a vowel or by a vowel only, according to the position in which it occurs. Most philologists are of opinion that syllabic r existed also in the mother-tongue of the Indo-European languages. (P. Gi.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pomfret, John

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POMFRET, JOHN (1667-1702), English poet, son of Thomas Pomfret, vicar of Luton, was born in 1667. He was educated at Bedford grammar school and at Queens' College, Cambridge. He became rector of Maulden, Bedfordshire, in 1695, and of Millbrook in the same county in 1702. Dr Johnson says that the bishop of London refused to sanction preferment for him because in his Choice he declared that he would have no wife, although he expressed a wish for the occasional company of a modest and sprightly young lady. The poet was married in real life all the same, and — while waiting to clear up the misunderstanding with the bishop he died in November 1702. The Choice or Wish: A Poem written by a Person of Quality (1700) expresses the epicurean desires of a cultivated man of Pomfret's time. It is smoothly written in the heroic couplet, and was widely popular. His Miscellany Poems were published in 1702.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pomona (goddess)

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​POMONA, an old Italian goddess of fruit and gardens. Ovid (Met. xiv. 623) tells the story of her courtship by the silvan deities and how Vertumnus, god of the turning year, wooed and won her. Corresponding to Pomona there seems to have been a male Italian deity, called Pomunus, who was perhaps identical with Vertumnus. Although chiefly worshipped in the country, Pomona had a special priest at Rome, the flamen Pomonalis, and a sacred grove near Ostia, called the Pomonal. She was represented as a beautiful maiden, with fruits in her bosom and a pruning-knife in her hand.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pommer

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​POMMER, or Bombard (Fr. hautbois; Ital. bombardo, bombardone), the alto, tenor and basses of the shawm or Schalmey family, and the forerunners respectively of the cor-anglais, bassoon or fagotto, and double bassoon or contrafagotto. The main difference to the casual observer between the medieval instruments and those of our orchestra which were evolved from them would be one of size. In the Pommers no attempt had been made to bend the tube, and its length, equal to that of an open organ pipe of the same pitch, was outstretched in all its unwieldiness in an oblique position in front of the performer. The great contrabass Pommer was 9 ft. long without the crook and reed, which, however, were bent downwards. It had five open fingerholes and five keys working inside a perforated case; in order to bring the holes within reach of the finger, they were cut obliquely through the tube. The compass extended from F below 8 ft. C to E or F in the bass stave, two octaves in all. The other members of the family were the bass Pommer, from 8 ft. C to middle C, corresponding to the modern bassoon or fagotto; the tenor or basset Pommer, a fifth higher in pitch; the alto pommer or nicolo, a fourth or a fifth above the tenor; and the high alto, or Klein Alt Pommer, an octave higher than the tenor, corresponding approximately to the cor-anglais.
For the history of the Pommer family see Oboe and Bassoon.
    (K. S.)