397 



SELKIRK, ALEXANDER. 



SELVA, GIANNANTONIO. 



however contrived to make Lis escape, and was reinstated in his 

 kingdom by his son Kai Khosrou. In consequence of this, Kai 

 Khosrou was invested with the government of Iconium, which had 

 been taken by him from his brother ; and he succeeded his father in 

 the kingdom. At the death of the latter, in 1192, 



Kai Khosrou, surnamed Gaiathoddin, obtained several successes in 

 the beginning of his reign against the emperor Alexis ; but in 1198 

 he was dispossessed by his brother 



Rokneddin, who, taking advantage of the death of his brother Koth- 

 boddin, seized not only upon his dominions, but also on those of his 

 other brothers. He died in 1203, leaving his son 



Kilij Arslan III., a minor, from whom however the throne was 

 wrested almost immediately on his accession by his uncle, the 

 deposed sultan Kai Khosrou, who thus recovered his lost dignity. 

 He reigned after this, says the Oriental history, with great power and 

 dignity ; he was afterwards concerned in the disputes of the pretenders 

 to the Greek'empire, and in one of these he perished in a personal 

 encounter with Lascaris, one of the competitors. He left two sons, 



Azzoddin Kai Kaus, who died after a reign of a year, in 1219, and 



Alaoddin Kaikobad, who succeeded his brother. He is the Aladdin 

 of the writers on the Crusades ; and was one of the greatest princes 

 of this dynasty. He extended the dominions of his family in the 

 East, and governed with extraordinary prudence and firmness. He 

 died in 1236. His son 



Gaiathoddin Kai Khosrou II. was a voluptuous and uxorious prince, 

 during whose reign the dominions of his house became tributary to 

 the Mogols. He died in 1244. His son 



Azzoddin succeeded him, and being required by Oktay, the khan of 

 the Mogols, to come to do him homage, he sent his brother Roknoddin 

 in his stead. The result of this was, that when a Tartar lieutenant 

 or viceroy was sent into Rum, it was with the commission to put Rok- 

 noddin in the place of his brother. A division was afterwards effected, 

 Azzoddin receiving the Western and Roknoddin the Eastern provinces. 

 Azzoddin however was again deposed, and Roknoddin, whom he had 

 attempted to murder, was placed in his room by the Tartars. On 

 this occasion Azzoddin fled to the Greek emperor (1261), who for 

 some time amused him with promises ; but at length Azzoddin, per- 

 ceiving or fearing the emperor's intention to make him prisoner, 

 intrigued to bring the Tartars upon the emperor, and thus escaped. 

 After this his name does not appear again in history. Of the remaining 

 sultans, 



Kai Khosrou III., son of Roknoddin, slain in 1283; 



Gaiathoddin Massoud II., son of Azzoddin Kai Kaus, who died in 

 1288; and 



Kai Kobad, the nephew of Massoud, who was put to death in 1300, 

 little is on record beyond the dates annexed to their names. From 

 the time of Gaiathoddin Kai Khosrou, the Seljuk sultans had been in 

 fact mere pageants under the actual government of the Mogols, who 

 summoned them to do the most servile homage, deposed and set them 

 up, and even put them to death at their pleasure. Out of the wrecks 

 of this empire arose that of the Othmans, or Turks, founded by 

 Othman, a Seljuk captain. 



SELKIRK, ALEXANDER, was born at Largo, on the coast of Fife, 

 in 1676, and bred to the sea. Having engaged in the half-piratical 

 half-exploring voyages in the American seas, into which the spirit of 

 adventure then led so many of our countrymen, he quarrelled with 

 his captain, one Straddling, by whom he was set on shore on the 

 uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, with a few books, his nautical 

 instruments, a knife, boiler, axe, gun, powder and ball, for his whole 

 equipment, in September 1704. After four years and four months' 

 residence, he was taken off by two English vessels, commanded by 

 Captain Woods Rogers, in February 1709, in the account of whose 

 voyage we find the following passage . " At first the terror and lone- 

 liness of the place sunk deeply on his spirits ; but in time he became 

 inured to it, and got the better of his melancholy. He had erected 

 two huts, one of which served him for a kitchen, the other for a 

 dining-room and bed-chamber ; they were made of pimento wood, 

 which supplied him also with fire and candle, burning very clear, and 

 yielding a most refreshing fragrant smell; the roof was of long grass, 

 and his wainscoting the skins of goats, near five hundred whereof he 

 had killed during his residence here, and caught above five hundred 

 more, which he marked on the ears, and then set at liberty. When 

 his ammunition was exhausted, he caught them by running ; and so 

 practised was he in that exercise, that the swiftest goat on the island 

 was scarcely a match for him. On his being first abandoned here, he 

 relished his food, which was boiled goat's flesh and crawfish, but 

 indifferently, for want of salt ; however, in time he got the better of 

 the nicety of his palate, and was well enough pleased with the seasoning 

 of the pimento fruit. When his clothes were worn out, he made 

 himself a covering of goat-skin, joined together with thongs which he 

 had cut with his knife, and which he run through holes made with a 

 nail instead of a needle : he had a piece of linen by him, of which he had 

 made a sort of shirt, and this was sewn in the same manner. He bad 

 no shoes left in a month's time : his feet, having been so long bare, 

 were now become quite callous; and he was some time on board 

 before he could wear a shoe. The rats at first plagued him very 

 much, growing so bold as to gnaw his feet and clothes while he slept : 

 however, he soon taught them to keep at greater distance, with the 



assistance of some cats that had been left ashore by the ships; of 

 these and a few kids he made pets, and used to divert himself by 

 teaching them a thousand tricks." He had one narrow escape, having 

 fallen over a precipice while in the act of catching a goat : on recover- 

 ing his senses, he found the animal dead under him. Thirty years 

 after, the first goat shot by Anson's crew was found to be marked as 

 above described. After his knife was worn out, he managed to forge 

 others from old iron hoops. He had some difficulty in returning to 

 the use of speech, and in reconciling himself to the ship's provisions 

 and to spirits. Rogers made him his mate, and he returned to England 

 in 1711. It is said that he gave his papers to Defoe, who stole from 

 them the story of ' Robinson Crusoe ; ' but the above extract, which 

 on that account we have given at full length, shows that whatever 

 communications may have passed between Defoe and Selkirk, the 

 former can have borrowed little beyond the mere idea of a man being 

 left alone on a desert isle, there being scarcely anything common to 

 the adventures of the real and the fictitious solitary. (Voyage of 

 Capt. Rogers, in Collect, of Voyages, 12mo, Lond., 1756; Chalmers, 

 Biog.) 



*SELLON, PRISCILLA LYDIA, a daughter of Captain W. E. 

 Sellon, R.N., was born about the year 1820. She was led by the 

 public appeals of the Bishop of Exeter to devote herself, in co- 

 operation with the clergy of Devonport, to the visiting of the sick and 

 poor of that place and of Plymouth, and especially in the endeavour . 

 to seek out and bring under educational influence the wretched and 

 neglected children of those towns. Her name however first attracted 

 public attention in 1849, when, in conjunction with the Rev. Dr. Pusey 

 of Oxford [PuSET, E. B.], she commenced the experiment of estab- 

 lishing an order of religious ladies at Devonport as a Protestant sister- 

 hood, in imitation or emulation of the religious orders of the Roman 

 Catholic Church. Their chief duties were to nurse the sick, and to 

 carry on schools for the education of poor children in the three towns 

 of Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport. The institution at first was 

 placed under the superintendence and control of the Bishop of Exeter, 

 Dr. Phillpotts; and the sisterhood gained gieat applause for their 

 efficiency in acting as nurses during the prevalence of cholera in 

 1848-49. A violent agitation however was raised at Plymouth against 

 Miss Sellon and her community, who were accused of being emissaries 

 of Rome in disguise ; and on finding that some of the practices 

 adopted in the sisterhood were not in accordance with the spirit of 

 the Established Church, the Bishop of Exeter withdrew from them 

 his episcopal sanction and patronage. As with the institutions whose 

 general system she has imitated, Miss Sellon's Protestant Sisters of 

 Mercy are divided into classes, and such of them as reside in the 

 establishment live in community and wear a peculiar garb, their time 

 being given either to the active duties of benevolence, or to reading, 

 prayer, and religious meditation or quiet occupation. The chief 

 difference between this Protestant and the Roman Catholic institutions 

 would indeed seem to be in the fact that in Miss Sellon's community 

 the vows are not irrevocable; but of course there are other differences 

 arising from the peculiarities of the Romish discipline, which could 

 only be distantly imitated in any Protestant establishment. Miss 

 Sellon afterwards established branches of her community at Bristol, 

 in London, and in other places, over which she exercises a general 

 inspection in conjunction with Dr. Pusey. Her community however 

 having lost the sanction of the Bishop of Exeter, has not succeeded 

 in obtaining the formal approval of any other member of the episco- 

 pal bench, and occupies accordingly a very anomalous position in the 

 Established Church. 



SELVA, GIANNANTONIO, was born of respectable parents, at 

 Venice, June 13, 1753, and had for his earliest instructor his uncle 

 the Abbate Gianmaria Selva, a man of considerable literary and scien- 

 tific attainments. His inclination leading him to make choice of art 

 as his future profession, he was placed under Pietro Antonio Novell! 

 (a painter who died in 1804, aged seventy-five); but after he had 

 grounded himself in drawing and the elements of painting, he passed 

 to the study of architecture, and became a pupil of Temanza [Ts- 

 MANZA, TOMASSO]. In 1778 he set out for Rome, where besides 

 studying the various architectural monuments of that capital, he 

 became intimately acquainted with Pindemonte, Piranesi, Battoni, 

 Quarenghi, and others, who either then were, or afterwards became 

 distinguished, for among them was Canova, with whom he visited 

 Naples, Pompeii, Caserta, and Psestum. While at Rome, he also 

 obtained the notice and favour of his countryman the noble Girolamo 

 Zulian, who was there in quality of ambassador from the republic, 

 and who was a liberal encourager of art. By him Selva was commis- 

 sioned to embellish and fit up a saloon in his palace expressly for an 

 entertainment given to the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his 

 bride ; before which he had been similarly employed by the Senator 

 Rezzonico to decorate an apartment for him, which was to have been 

 done by Quarenghi, but that architect was then obliged to depart for 

 Russia. [QUARENGHI, GIACOMO.] On quitting Rome Selva visited 

 Frauce and England, in both which countries he diligently collected 

 information of every kind bearing upon architecture and building; and 

 returned to Venice at the close of 1780. There, as opportunity offered, 

 he introduced various practical improvements, and among then^greater 

 attention to internal convenience and disposition of plan, setting also 

 the example of a more sober taste in design. Among the private 



