Chapter Ring the Bells Backwards to Road to Ruin of R by Brewer's Readers Handbook

River of Swans, the Potomac, United States, America.

Rivers (The king of), the Tagus.

Tagus they crossed, where, midland on his way,
The king of rivers rolls his stately streams.
Southey: Roderick, the Last of the Goths, xi. (1814).

Rivers, Arise…In this Vacation Exercise, George Rivers (son of sir John Rivers of Westerham, in Kent), with nine other freshmen, took the part of the ten “Predicaments,” while Milton himself performed the part of “Ens.” Without doubt, the pun suggested the idea—

Rivers, arise; whether thou be the son
Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulphy Don,
Or Trent, who, like some earthborn giant, spreads
His thirty arms along the indented meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden’s death,
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lee,
Or cooly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian’s name,
Or Medway smooth, or royal towered Thame.
   —Milton: Vacation Exercise (1627).

Rivulet Controversy (The), a theological controversy with the Rev. T. T. Lynch, who died in 1871. He was a congregational minister of neologian views, expreesed in a volume of poems called The Rivulet, and published in 1853.

Road (The Law of the).

The law of the road is a paradox quite,
In riding or driving along:
If you go to the left, you are sure to go right;
If you go to the right, you go wrong.

Road to Ruin, a comedy by Thomas Holcroft (1792). Harry Dornton and his friend Jack Milford are on “the road to ruin” by their extravagance. The former brings his father to the eve of bankruptcy; and the latter, having spent his private fortune, is cast into prison for debt. Sulky, a partner in the bank, comes forward to save Mr. Dornton from ruin; Harry advances £6000 to pay his friend’s debts, and thus saves Milford from ruin; and the father restores the money advanced by Widow Warren to his son, to save Harry from the ruin of marrying a designing widow instead of Sophia Freelove, her innocent and charming daughter.