Chapter Robinson Crusoe to Rodmond of R by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Robinson Crusoe to Rodmond

Robinson Crusoe, a tale by Daniel Defoe. Robinson Crusoe ran away from home, and went to sea. Being wrecked, he led for many years a solitary existence on an uninhabited island of the tropics, and relieved the weariness of life by numberless contrivances. At length he met a human being, a young Indian, whom he saved from death on a Friday. He called him his “man Friday,” and made him his companion and servant.

(Defoe founded this story on the adventures of Alexander Selkirk, sailing-master of the privateer Cinque Ports Galley, who was left by captain Stradling on the desolate island of Juan Fernandez for four years and four months (1704–1709), when he was rescued by captain Woodes Rogers and brought to England.)

Robsart (Amy), countess of Leicester. She was betrothed to Edmund Tressilian. When the earl falls into disgrace at court for marrying Amy, Richard Varney, master of the horse, loosens a trap-door at Cumnor Place; and Amy, rushing forward to greet her husband, falls into the abyss and is killed.

Sir Hugh Robsart, of Lidcote Hall, father of Amy.—Sir W. Scott: Kenilworth (time, Elizabeth).

Roc, a white bird of enormous size. Its strength is such that it will lift up an elephant from the ground and carry it to its mountain nest, where it will devour it. In the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments it was a roc which carried Sinbad the sailor from the island on which he had been deserted by his companions (“Second Voyage’). And it was a roc which carried Agib from the castle grounds of the ten young men who had lost their right eyes (“The Third Calender’s Story”). Sinbad says one claw of the roc is as “big as the trunk of a large tree,” and its egg is “fifty paces [150 feet] in circumference.”

The “rukh” of Madagascar lays an egg equal to 148 hen’s eggs.—Comptes Rendus, etc., xxxii. 101 (1851).

Rocco, the jailer sent with Fidelio (Leonora) to dig the grave of Fernando Florestan (q.v.).—Beethoven: Fidelio (1791).

Rochdale (Sir Simon), of the manorhouse. He is a J.P., but refuses to give justice to Job Thornberry the old brazier, who demands that his son Frank Rochdale shall marry Mary [Thornberry], whom he has seduced. At this crisis, Peregrine appears, and tells sir Simon he is the elder brother, and as such is heir to the title and estates.

Frank Rochdale, son of the baronet, who has promised to marry Mary Thornberry, but sir Simon wants him to marry lady Caroline Braymore, who has £4000 a year. Lady Caroline marries the hon. Tom Shuffleton, and Frank makes the best reparation he can by marrying Mary.—Colman: John Bull (1805).

Roche’s Bird (Sir Boyle), which was “in two places at the same time.” The tale is that sir Boyle Roche said in the House of Commons, “Mr. Speaker, it is impossible I could have been in two places at once, unless I were a bird.” This is a quotation from Jevon’s play, The Devil of a Wife (seventeenth century).

Wife. I cannot be in two places at once.

Husband (Rowland). Surely no, unless thou wert a bird.

Presuming that the duplicate card is the knave of hearts, you may make a remark on the ubiquitous nature of certain cards, which, like sir Boyle Roche’s bird, are in two places at once.—Drawing-room Magic.

Rochecliffe (Dr. Anthony), formerly Joseph Albany, a plotting royalist.—Sir W. Scott: Woodstock (time, Commonwealth).

Rochester (The earl of), the favourite of Charles II., introduced in high feather by sir W. Scott in Woodstock, and in Peveril of the Peak in disgrace.