Chapter Raphael to Raul of R by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Raphael to Raul

Raphael The sociable archangel who travelled with Tobias into Media and back again, instructing him on the way how to marry Sara and to drive away the wicked spirit. Milton introduces him as sent by God to advertise Adam of his danger. (See Seven Spirits .)

“Raphael, the sociable spirit, hath deigned
To travel with Tobias, and secured
His marriage with the seven- times-wedded maid.”
Paradise Lost, v. 221-3.

   Raphael, according to Longfellow, is the angel of the Sun, who brings to man the “gift of faith.”

“I am the angel of the Sun,
Whose flaming wheels began to run
When God Almighty's breath
Said to the darkness and the night,
`Let there be light,' and there was light,-
I bring the gift of faith.”
Golden Legend: The Miracle Play. iii.

   St. Raphael, the archangel, is usually distinguished in Christian art by a pilgrim's staff, or carrying a fish, in allusion to his aiding Tobias to capture the fish which performed the miraculous cure of his father's eyesight.
   The French Raphael. Eustace Lesueur (1617-1655).

Raphael of Cats (The). Godefroi Mind, a Swiss painter, noted for his cats. (1768-1814.)

Rapparee A wild Irish plunderer; so called from his being armed with a rapary or half-pike. (Irish rappire, a robber.)

Rappee A coarse species of snuff, manufactured from dried tobacco by an instrument called in French a râpe, “instrument en metal percé de plusieurs trous, dont on se sert pour réduire les corps en pulpe ou en fragments. On se sert surtout de la râpe dans les ménages, pour le sucre, le chocolat, le poivre; et dans les usines, pour le tabac, les betteraves, les pommes de terre qu'on réduit en fécule, etc.” (Bouillet: Dictionnaire des Sciences.)

Rara Avis (Latin, a rare bird). A phenomenon; a prodigy; a something quite out of the common course. Black swans are now familiar to us; they are natives of Australia, and have given its name to the “Swan river.” At one time a black swan was emphatically a rara avis.

“Rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygne.”
Juvenal.

Rare Ben So Shakespeare called Ben Jonson, the dramatist. (1574-1637.) Aubrey says that this inscription on his tablet in the “Poets' Corner,' Westminster Abbey, “was done at the charge of Jack Young (afterwards knighted), who, walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteenpence to cut it.” At the late relaying of the pavement, this stone was unhappily removed. When Sir William Davenant was interred in Westminster Abbey, the inscription on his covering-stone was, “O rare Sir William Davenant”- showing how nearly the sublime and the ridiculous often meet.

Raree Show A peep-show; a show carried about in a box.

Rascal Originally applied in the chase to a lean, worthless deer, then a collective term for the commonalty, the mob; and popularly to a base fellow. Shakespeare says, “Horns! the noblest deer hath them as huge as the rascal” [deer]. Palsgrave calls a starveling animal, like the lean kine of Pharaoh, “a rascall refus beest” (1530). The French have racaille (riff-raff).

“Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal.”- Shakespeare: 2 Henry IV., v. 4.

Rascal Counters Pitiful or paltry £ s. d. Brutus calls money paltry compared with friendship, etc.

“When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friend
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces.”
Shakespeare. Julius Caesar. iv. 5.

Rasher A slice, as a rasher of bacon.

Rashleigh Osbaldistone An accomplished but deceitful villain, called “the scholar.” He is the youngest of the six hopeful sons of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone. The six brothers were nicknamed “the sot,” “the bully,” “the gamekeeper,” “the horse-jockey,” “the fool,” and the crafty “scholar.” (Sir Walter Scott: Rob Roy.)