ieved
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 _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 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 Sindbad 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"). Sindbad 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."

[Asterism] 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._)[TN-131]--Beethoven, _Fidelio_ (1791).

=Roch'dale= (_Sir Simon_), of the manor-house. He is a J.P., but refuses
to give justice to Job Thornberry, the old brazier, who demands that his
son, Frank Rochdale, should 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 [pounds]4000 a year. Lady Caroline marries the Hon. Tom Shuffleton,
and Frank makes the best reparation he can by marrying Mary.--G. Colman,
Jr., _John Bull_ (1805).

=Roche's Bird=