Chapter Reel to Remember of R by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Regius Professor One who holds in an English university a professorship founded by Henry VIII. Each of the five Regius Professors of Cambridge receives a royally-endowed stipend of about £40. In the universities of Scotland they are appointed by the Crown. The present stipend is about £400 or £500.

Regulars (The). All the British troops except the militia, the yeomanry, and the volunteers. There are no irregulars in the British army, but such a force exists among the black troops.

Rehoboam (A). A clerical hat.

“He [Mr. Helstone] was short of stature [and wore] a rehoboam, or shovel hat, which he did not ... remove.”- “Currer Bell”: Shirley, chap. i.

Rehoboam A rehoboam of claret or rum is a double jeroboam. (2 Chr. xiii. 3.)
   1 rehoboam = 2 jeroboams or 32 pints.
   1 jeroboam = 2 tappet-hens or 16 pints.
   1 tappet-hen = 2 magnums or 8 pints.
   1 magnum = 2 quarts or 4 pints.

Reign of Terror The period in the French Revolution between the fall of the Girondists and overthrow of Robespierre. It lasted 420 days, from May 31st, 1793, to July 27th, 1794.

Reimkennar (A). A sorceress, a pythoness; one skilled in numbers. Sorcery and Chaldean numbers are synonymous terms. The Anglo-Saxon rimstafas means charms or conjuration, and the Norse reim- kennar means one skilled in numbers or charms. Norna of the Fitful Head was a Reimkennar, “a controller of the elements.”

Reins To give the reins. To let go unrestrained; to give licence.
   To take the reins. To assume the guidance or direction.

Reins (The). The kidneys, supposed by the Hebrews and others to be the seat of knowledge, pleasure, and pain. The Psalmist says (xvi. 7), “My reins instruct me in the night season,” i.e. my kidneys, the seat of knowledge, instruct me how to trust in God. Solomon says (Prov. xxiii. 16), “My reins shall rejoice when [men] speak right things,” i.e. truth excites joy from my kidneys; and Jeremiah says (Lam. iii. 13), God “caused His arrows to enter into my reins,” i.e. sent pain into my kidneys. (Latin, ren, a kidney.)

Reldresal Principal secretary for private affairs in the court of Lilliput, and great friend of Gulliver. When it was proposed to put the Man-Mountain to death for high treason, Reldresal moved as an amendment, that the “traitor should have both his eyes put out, and be suffered to live that he might serve the nation.” (Swift: Gulliver's Travels; Voyage to Lilliput.)

Relics A writer in the Twentieth Century (1892, article ROME) says: “Some of the most astounding relics are officially shown in Rome, and publicly adored by the highest dignitaries of the Christian Church, with all the magnificence of ecclesiastical pomp and ritual.” The following are mentioned:-
   A BOTTLE OF THE VIRGIN'S MILK.
   THE CRADLE AND SWADDLING CLOTHES of the infant Jesus.
   THE CROSS OF THE PENITENT THIEF.
   THE CROWN OF THORNS.
   THE FINGER OF THOMAS, with which he touched the wound in the side of Jesus.
   HAIR OF THE VIRGIN MARY.
   THE HANDKERCHIEF OF ST. VERON'ICA, on which the face of Jesus was miraculously pictured.
   HAY OF THE MANGER in which the infant Jesus was laid.
   HEADS OF PETER, PAUL, AND MATTHEW.
   THE INSCRIPTION set over the cross by the order of Pilate.
   NAILS used at the crucifixion.
   PIECE OF THE CHEMISE of the Virgin Mary.
   THE SILVER MONEY given to Judas by the Jewish priests, which he flung into the Temple, and was expended in buying the potters' field as a cemetery for strangers.
   THE TABLE on which the soldiers cast lots for the coat of Jesus.
    Brady mentions many others, some of which are actually impossibilities, as, for example, a rib of the Verbum caro factum, a vial of the sweat of St. Michael when he contended with Satan, some of the rays of the star which guided the wise men. (See Clavis Calendria, p. 240.)

Relief (The). In fortification, the general height to which the defensive masses of earth are raised. The directions in which the masses are laid out are called the tracings.