(Vienna, 1805). (4) לקומות ,חרושים ,הלכות, Decisions, Novelise, and Collectanea ; these are spread over almost the whole Talmud. The Rcs-ponsa ascribed to him are by his disciple Rashba. (5) דרשה, a sermon on the superiority of the Mosaic Law (best edition by Jellinek, Vienna, 1872, 8vo). (6) Letters {a) on the Maimonidean controversy (cheapest edition, Vilna, 1821, 8vo); (5) to his son, on conduct (Lisbon ed. of the Pent, com.); (c) Iggereth Hakkodesh, on the ethics of matrimony (latest edition, Berlin, 1793, 8vo); MSS. lie in almost every public library in Europe, e.g., Cambridge. (7) תורת האדם, on Sickness, Death, d-c. (Constantinople, 1518, folio), —partly ascetic and contemplative, partly Rabbinic ordi-

nances; its last chapter separately under the title of שער הגמול (Naples, 1490, 4to, and reprints). (8) His anti-Christian contro-versics are chiefly contained in his וכוח, a Disputation with the convert Pablo Christian!, the teacher of Raymundus Martini, held before Jayme I., king of Aragon; it is translated into Latin, and will be found, with a mutilated and otherwise corrupt text, in Wag-enseil’s Tela ignea Satanse (Altdorf, 1681, 4to), the best and cheapest edition of the text and of the explanation of Isa. lii. 13 to liii. 12 being that of Dr Steinschneider (Berlin, 1860, 8vo). (9) Cabbal-

istic matter is contained in all Rainban’s works (notably, however, in the Pentateuch and Job); he has also a commentary on the Sepher Ycsirah (Mantua, 1562, 4to, and reprints). (10) Nachmanides was also a liturgical writer of eminence. There are extant by him a prose prayer for one going on a sea voyage ( Yephe Noph, Venice, 1575, 4to), and a piece of religious poetry {Mclo Chofnajim, Berlin, 1840, 8vo, pp. 39-41) for the Malkhiyyoth (first part of the additional service of New Year); the latter is a mostajdb and betrays a perfect master both in kabbalah and poetry. For a specimen of Aramaic poetry see his introductory poem to Milhnmoth Adonai. (S. M. S.-S. )

RAMBOUILLETCatherine de Yivonne, Marquise de (1588-1665), a lady famous in tbe literary history of France, was born in 1588. She was the daughter and heiress of Jean de Yivonne, marquis of Pisani, and her mother Giulia was of the noble Roman family of Savelli. She was married at twelve years old to Charles d’Angennes, vidame of Le Mans, and afterwards marquis of Rambouillet. Her celebrity is due to the salon or literary meeting-place which she established as early as 1608 in the Hôtel de Rambouillet,—or, to give it its proper name, the Hôtel Pisani, for M. de Rambouillet had shortly before his marriage sold his family mansion. Madame de Rambouillet not merely endeavoured to refine the manners of her guests and gave special attention to literary conversation, but also seems to have taken great trouble to arrange her house for purposes of reception, and is said to have been the first to devise suites of rooms through which visitors could move easily. The hôtel was open for more than fifty years, and almost all the more remarkable personages in French society and French literature frequented it, especially during the second quarter of the century, when it was at the height of its reputation. The incidents connected with the salon of the “incomparable Arthénice” (an anagram for Catherine which is said to have taken two poets of renown, Malherbe and Racan, a whole afternoon to devise) are innumerable, and it would be impossible to recount them in any space here available. Among the more noteworthy are the sonnet war between the Uranistes and the Jobistes—partisans of two famous sonnets by Voiture and Benserade—and the composition by all the famous poets of the day of the Guirlande de Julie , a collection of poems on different flowers, addressed to Julie d’Angennes, Madame de Rambouillet’s eldest daughter. Even more important is the rise of the Précieuses, who owed their existence to Madame de Rambouillet’s salon and influence. These ladies—who are usually represented in the memory of posterity by Molière’s avowed caricatures and by Mademoiselle de Scudéry, but whose name, it must l be remembered, Madame de Sévigné herself was proud to bear—insisted on a ceremonious gallantry from their suitors ' and friends (though it seems from Tallemant’s account that practical jokes of a mild kind were by no means excluded from the Hôtel de Rambouillet), and especially favoured an elaborate and quintessenced kind of colloquial and literary expression, such as at the end of the 16th and in the earlier part of the 17th century was fashionable throughout Europe. The immortal Précieuses Ridicules was no doubt directly levelled not at the Hôtel de Rambouillet itself but at the numerous coteries which in the course of years (for the salon had been open for more than a generation when Molière’s piece, which was patronized by the real Précieuses themselves, appeared) had sprung up in imitation of it. But the satire did in truth touch the originators as well as the imitators,—the former more closely perhaps than they perceived. The Hôtel de Rambouillet continued open till the death of its mistress, 27th December 1665, but latterly it lost its peculiar position. It had no doubt a very considerable influence in bringing about the classicizing of French during the 17th century, though the literary work with which it is chiefly identified was of an older school than that of the age of Louis XIV. proper.

The chief original authorities respecting Madame de Rambouillet and her set are Tallemant des Réaux in his Historiettes and Somaize in his Dictionnaire des Précieuses. Many recent writers have treated the subject, among whom MM. Cousin, Livet, and De Barthélemy deserve special mention.

Burning with desire to remedy the imperfection of his early education, Rameau now diligently studied the writings of Zarlino, Descartes, Mersenne, F. Kircher, and certain other well-known authors. He not only mastered their several theories but succeeded in demonstrating their weak points and substituting for them a system of his own, which, notwithstanding its manifest imperfection, was based upon firm natural principles, and ultimately led to discoveries of the utmost possible value to musical science. His keen insight into the constitution of certain chords, which in early life he had studied only by ear, enabled him to propound a series of hypotheses, many of which are now accepted as established facts; and, if, in his desire to carry out his system to a logical conclusion, he was sometimes tempted into palpable and dangerous error, it was only in obedience to the law which invariably renders the inventor of a new theory blind to the stubborn facts which militate against its universal application. His theory was based upon an instinctive anticipation of the discoveries of modern science. While the older contrapuntists were perfectly satisfied with the laws which regulated the melodious involutions of their vocal and instrumental parts, Rameau demonstrated the possibility of building up a natural harmony upon a fundamental bass, and of using that harmony as an authority for the enactment of whatever laws might be considered necessary for the guidance either of the contrapuntist or the less ambitious general composer. And in this he first explained the distinction between two styles, which, in deference to the views expressed by a popular critic of the present day, have been called the “horizontal and vertical systems,” the “horizontal system” being that by which the older contrapuntists regulated the onward motion of their several parts, and the “vertical system” that which constructs an entire passage out of a single harmony. From fundamental harmonies he passed to inverted chords, to which he was the first to call attention; and the value of this discovery fully compensates for his erroneous theory concerning the chords of the eleventh and the great (Angl. “added”) sixth.

Rameau first set forth his new theory in his Traité de VHarmonie (Paris, 1722), and followed it up in his Nouveau Système (1726), Génération Harmonique (1737), Démonstration (1750), and Nouvelles Réflexions (1752). But it was not only as a theorist that he became famous. Returning to Paris in 1722, he first attracted attention by composing some light dramatic pieces, and then showed his real powers in his first great opera, Hijypolyte et Aricie, founded on Racine’s Phèdre, and produced at the Académie in 1733. Though this work was violently opposed by the admirers of Lully, whose party spirit eventually stirred up the famous “guerre des bouffons,” Rameau’s genius was too brilliant to be trampled under foot by an ephemeral faction, and his ultimate triumph was assured. He afterwards produced more than twenty operas, the most successful of which were Dardanus, Castor et Pollux, Les Indes Galantes, and La Princesse de Navarre. Honours were now showered upon him. He was appointed conductor at the Opéra Comique, and the directors of the opera granted him a pension. King Louis XV. appointed him composer to the court in 1745, and in 1764 honoured him with a patent of nobility and the order of Saint Michael. But these last privileges were granted only on the eve of his death, which took place in Paris on 12th September 1764.