Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/161

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Raggi
151
Railton

lished from the original MSS. ‘Sheridan's Plays, now printed as he wrote them,’ as well as ‘A Journey to Bath,’ an unpublished comedy by Sheridan's mother.

Rae also made some halting incursions into fiction of the three-volume pattern. His ‘Miss Bayle's Romance’ (1887) was followed by ‘A Modern Brigand’ (1888), ‘Maygrove’ (1890), and ‘An American Duchess’ (1891).

In his last years he reviewed much for the ‘Athenæum,’ whose editor, Norman MacColl, was a close friend. He spent his time chiefly at the Reform Club, which he joined in 1860, and where he was chairman of the library committee from 1873 till his death. He wrote the preface to C. W. Vincent's ‘Catalogue of the Library of the Reform Club’ (1883; 2nd and revised edit. 1894). To this Dictionary he was an occasional contributor. Chronic ill-health and the limited favour which the reading public extended to him tended somewhat to sour his last years. He died on 21 Jan. 1905 at 13 South Parade, Bath, and was buried at Bath.

Rae married, on 29 Aug. 1860, Sara Eliza, second daughter of James Fordati of the Isle of Man and London. She died at Franzensbad, where Rae and herself were frequent autumn visitors, on 29 Aug. 1902; she left two daughters. Besides the works mentioned, Rae published anonymously in 1873 ‘Men of the Third Republic,’ and translated ‘English Portraits’ from Sainte-Beuve in 1875.

[Who's Who, 1905; The Times, 25 Jan. 1905; Athenæum, 28 Jan. 1905; Foster's Men at the Bar; private information.]

S. E. F.


RAGGI, MARIO (1821–1907), sculptor, born at Carrara, Italy, in 1821, studied art at the Royal Academy, Carrara, winning all available prizes at the age of seventeen. He then went to Rome, where he studied under Temerani. In 1850 he came to London, working at first under Monti, afterwards for many years under Matthew Noble [q. v.], and finally setting up his own studio about 1875. His principal works were memorial busts and statues. He executed the national memorial to Beaconsfield in Parliament Square, a Jubilee memorial of Queen Victoria for Hong Kong, with replicas for Kimberley and Toronto, and statues of Lord Swansea for Swansea, Dr. Tait for Edinburgh, Dr. Crowther for Hobart Town, Sir Arthur Kennedy for Hong Kong, and Gladstone for Manchester.

His first exhibit in the Royal Academy was a work entitled 'Innocence' in 1854. No further work was shown at the Academy till 1878, when he exhibited a marble bust of Admiral Rous, which he executed for the Jockey club, Newmarket. He afterwards exhibited intermittently till 1895, among other works being busts of Cardinal Manning (1879), Cardinal Newman (1881), Lord John Manners, afterwards seventh Duke of Rutland (1884), and the duchess of Rutland (1895). Raggi died at the Mount, Roundstone, Farnham, Surrey, on 26 Nov. 1907.

[The Times, 29 Nov. 1907; Graves's Roy. Acad. Exhibitors, 1906.]

S. E. F.


RAILTON, HERBERT (1858–1910), black-and-white draughtsman and illustrator, born on 21 Nov. 1858 at Pleasington, Lancashire, was eldest child (in a family of two son and a daughter) of John Railton by his wife Eliza Ann Alexander. His parents were Roman catholics. After education at Malines, in Belgium, and at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire, he was trained as an architect in the office of W. S. Varley of Blackburn, and showed great skill as an architectural draughtsman, but he soon abandoned his profession for book-illustration, and came to London to practise that art in 1885. Some of his earliest work was contributed to the 'Portfolio' in that year. He first attracted attention by his illustrations in the Jubilee edition of the 'Pickwick Papers' (1887), and in the following year joined Mr. Hugh Thomson in illustrating 'Coaching Days and Coaching Ways,' by W. O. Tristram. Some of his best drawings appeared in the 'English Illustrated Magazine,' and among books which he illustrated may be mentioned 'The Peak of Derbyshire' by J. Leyland (1891), 'The Inns of Court and Chancery' by W. J. Loftie (1893), 'Hampton Court' by W. H. Hutton (1897), 'The Book of Glasgow Cathedral' by G. Eyre-Todd (1898), 'The Story of Brages ' by E. Gilliat-Smith (1901), and 'The Story of Chartres' by C. Headlam (1902). Railton was a delicate and careful draughtsman, and rendered the texture and detail of old buildings with particular charm. The crisp, broken line of his work lent his drawings an air of pleasant picturesqueness, though it was not without a mannerism which tended to become monotonous. His pen work was eminently suited for successful reproduction by process, and he exercised a wide influence on contemporary illustration.

Railton died in St. Mary's Hospital from pneumonia on 15 March 1910, and was