*** 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).
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 £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 (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.
Rochecliffe (Dr. Anthony), formerly Joseph Albany, a plotting royalist.—Sir W. Scott, Woodstock (time, commonwealth).
Rochester (The earl of), the favorite of Charles II., introduced in high feather by Sir W. Scott in Woodstock, and in Peveril of the Peak in disgrace.
Rochester (Edward). Brusque, cynical lover of Jane Eyre. Having married in his early youth a woman who disgraces him and then goes crazy, he shuts her up at Thornhill, and goes abroad. He returns to find a governess there in charge of his child-ward; falls in love with her, and would marry her, but for the discovery of his insane wife. Jane Eyre leaves him, and is lost to him until he is almost blind from injuries received in trying to rescue his wife from burning Thornhill. Jane marries and ministers unto him.—Charlotte Bronté, Jane Eyre (1847).