ROBINSON 



ROC 



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church, and in 1613 met Episcopius, Arminius' 

 successor, in debate. In 1620, after a memorable 

 sermon, he saw the younger members of his con- 

 gregation set sail in the Speedwell (which vessel 

 they afterwards changed for the Mayflower). He 

 himself intended to, and his son in 1631 did, 

 follow them to Massachusetts. He died at Ley- 

 den in March 1625. His works, with a memoir 

 by R. Ashton, were collected in 3 vols. (Lond. and 

 Boston) in 1851. In 1891 a large bronze tablet to 

 his memory was placed by the American Congrega- 

 tional churches on the outer wall of St Peter's, 

 Leyden, in one of whose vaults he is buried. 



Robinson* MARY, poetess, born at Leaming- 

 ton, 27th February 1857, resided long in Italy, 

 and in 1888 was married to M. Darmesteter, the 

 French Orientalist, and became a resident in Paris. 

 Amongst her poetical works are A Handful of 

 Honeysuckle ( 1878 ), a translation of Euripides' 

 Hippolytus ( 1881 ), The New Arcadia ( 1881 ), Hongs, 

 Ballads, and a Play ( 1886 ). She has also written 

 Lives of Emily Bronte (1883) and Margaret of 

 Angouleme (1880), and a historical work, The End 

 of the Middle Ages ( 1889). 



Robison. JOHN, was born at Boghall in Stir- 

 lingshire in 1739, and educated at Glasgow grammar- 

 school and university. He devoted himself early 

 to physical science, became acquainted with Jaines 

 Watt and Dr Black, and succeeded to the latter's 

 chair on his transference to Edinburgh in 1766. 

 Four years later he went to Russia as secretary to 

 Admiral Knowles, who had been appointed presi- 

 dent of the Russian Board of Admiralty. In 1774 

 he accepted the chair of Natural Philosophy at 

 Edinburgh, but he made an indifferent lecturer, 

 and disliked experiments. He died January 28, 

 1805. His Elements of Mechanical Philosophy was 

 edited by Sir D. Brewster (4 vols. 1822). His 

 foolish Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the 

 Religion* and Governments of Europe, carried on 

 in the Secret Meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati, 

 and Reading Societies ( 1797 ) is a lasting monument 

 of fatuous credulity. 



Rob Roy (Gaelic, 'Red Robert'), the Scottish 

 Robin Hood, was born in the year 1671, the second 

 son of Lieut. -colonel Donald Macgregor of Glen- 

 gyle. Till 1661 the ' wicked clan Gregor ' had for 

 more than a century been constantly pursued with 

 fire and sword ; the very name was proscribed. 

 But from that year until the Revolution the severe 

 laws against them were somewhat relaxed ; and Rob 

 Roy, who married a kinswoman, Mary Macgregor, 

 lived quietly enough as a grazier on the Braes of 

 Balqiihidder. From youth, however t he was a 

 master of the claymore, the uncommon length of his 

 arms giving him much advantage, for without stoop- 

 ing he could tie the garters of his Highland hose, 

 2 inches below the knee. Then his herds were so 

 often plundered by ' broken men ' from the north 

 that he had to maintain a band of armed followers 

 to protect both himself and such of his neighbours 

 as paid him blackmail. And so with those followers, 

 t<|xMising in 1691 the Jacobite cause, he did a little 

 plundering for himself, and, two or three years later 

 having purchased from his nephew the lands of 

 Craigroyston and Inversnaid, laid claim thence- 

 forth to be chief of the clan. In consequence of 

 losses incurred about 1712 in unsuccessful specula- 

 tions in cattle, for which he had borrowed money 

 from the Duke of Montrose, his lands were seized, 

 his houses plundered, and his wife shamefully used, 

 turned adrift with her children in midwinter. Mad- 

 dened by these misfortunes, Rob Roy gathered his 

 clansmen and made open war on the duke, sweeping 

 nway the whole cattle of a district, and kidnapping 

 his factor with rents to the value of more than 

 3000 Scots. This was in 1716, the year after the 



Jacobite rebellion, in which at Sheriffmuir Rob 

 Roy had ' stood watch ' for the booty, and had been 

 sent by the Earl of Mar to raise some of the clan 

 Gregor at Aberdeen, where he lodged with a kins- 

 man, Professor Gregory. Marvellous stories' are 

 current round Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond 

 ( where a cave near Inversnaid still bears his name ) 

 of his hairbreadth escapes from capture, of his 

 evasions when captured, and of his generosity to 

 the poor, whose wants he supplied at the expense 

 of the rich. They in return gave him timely 

 warning of the designs of his two arch-foes, the 

 Dukes of Montrose and Athole, and of the red-coats 

 they called to their aid from Dumbarton and Stir- 

 ling; besides, Rob Roy enjoyed the protection of 

 the Duke of Argyll, having assumed the name 

 Campbell, his motner's. Late in life he is said to 

 have turned Catholic, but in the list of subscribers 

 to the Episcopalian church history of Bishop Keith 

 occurs the name 'Robert Macgregor alias Rob- 

 Roy.' The history came out in 1734, and on the 

 28th December of that same year Rob Roy died in 

 his own house at Balqiihidder. He left five sons, 

 two of whom died in 1734 James, an outlaw, in 

 Paris ; and Robin, the youngest, on the gallows at 

 Edinburgh for abduction. 



See the introduction and notes to Scott's Bob Roy 

 (1817); Dorothy Wordsworth's Tour in Scotland in 1803, 

 with her brother's poem ; and the Lives of Rob Roy by 

 K. Macleay ( 1818 ; new ed. 1881 ) and A. H. Millar ( 1883 ). 



Robsart, AMY. See LEICESTER, EARL OF. 



Itobsoii. FREDERICK, whose real name was F. 

 R. BROWXBILL, low comedian, was born at Margate 

 in 1821. He was apprenticed to a London copper- 

 plate engraver ; but became smitten with stage 

 fever and took to the actor's life (1844). From 

 1853 he was inseparably associated with the Olym- 

 pic Theatre of London, where he attracted large 

 audiences for years by his representations in comedy, 

 farce, and burlesque. An actor of original genius, 

 Robson excelled in parts that were grotesque, 

 eccentric, quaintly humorous or droll ; he was 

 particularly effective in sudden transitions from 

 comicality to pathos, and the reverse, and in the 

 delineation of violent and tumultuous passion. He 

 gave a vivid portrait of the street outcast as Jem 

 Baggs in the Wandering Minstrel, in which he 

 sang the once celebrated ' Villikins and his Dinah.' 

 He burlesqued Macbeth and Shylock, uniting in 

 his playing the ludicrous and the terrible. One of 

 his principal characters was Desmarets, a spy of 

 Fouche's, a shabby -looking, fawning, cunning, 

 malicious old man in the play Plot and Passion. 

 Others of his strongest impersonations were as the 

 dwarf in Planche's Yellow Dwarf, the Doge of 

 Duralto, Daddy Hardacre, Sampson Burr, and 

 Uncle Zachary in Peter and Paul. He died 12th 

 August 1864. See Dutton Cook in Gentleman's 

 Magazine (1882), and G. A. Sala in Atlantic 

 Monthly (1863). 



Rqbnritc, a flameless explosive, composed of 

 chlorinated dinitro-benzene mixed with sufficient 

 ammonium nitrate to completely oxidise it. 



Roc, or RUKH, a fabulous bird of immense size, 

 able to carry off an elephant in its talons. The 

 idea is familiar in the East, and every reader will 

 remember it in the Arabian Nights' Entertain- 

 ments. Colonel Yule pointed out that the huge 

 fronds of the Raphia (q.v. ) palms were brought 

 from Madagascar as roc's feathers. Mythical birds 

 of similar size and strength were the Arabian 'ankd 

 and the Persian simurgh. The amni or sinamrii 

 was an older Persian supernatural bird ; the Indian 

 garuda, which bears Vishnu, is the king of birds. 

 It has been suggested, without good grounds, that 

 the legends of the roc might have originated in 

 traditions of extinct birds of great size, like the 



