ROBIN 74 ROBINS to you whose hands are clean," he cried, but the Right sat in stony silence. "Pres- ident of Assassins, I demand to be heard," he cried, but his voice died down in his throat. "The blood of Danton chokes him," cried Gamier. An unknown deputy named Louchet proposed that Robes- pierre should be arrested, and at the fatal words his power crumbled into ruins. His younger brother and Lebas demanded to be included in the honorable sentence. Vain attempts were made by the Jacobin Club and the Commune to save their hero, but Paris refused to move, and even Hen- riot's artillerymen to obey. Robespierre broke his arrest and flew to the City Hall, whereupon the Convention at once declared him out of the law. The Na- tional Guard under Barras turned out to protect the Convention, and Robespierre had his lower jaw broken by a shot fired by a gendarme named Meda. Next day (July 28; 10th Thermidor, 1794) he died, with Saint-Just, Couthon, and 19 others by the guillotine. ROBIN, AMERICAN, or MIGRAT- ING THRUSH, the Tardus migratorius; specific character dark-ash color ; beneath, brownish-red ; head and tail black; the two exterior feathers of the latter white at the inner tip. The robin is found in summer throughout North America from Alaska to Mexico. They retire from higher latitudes only as their food begins to fail, or till driven S. by inundating snows. During the winter months they are numerous in the Southern States. Even as far N. as Boston robins are some- times seen in the depth of winter. Toward the close of January the robin is still in South Carolina, and about the second week of March begins to appear in the Middle States. By the 10th of March they may also be heard in New England. The eggs, about five, are of a bluish-green, and without spots. They raise several broods in a season. ROBIN GOODFELLOW, the same as Puck. ROBIN HOOD, the hero of a group of old English ballads, represented as an outlaw and a robber, but of a gallant and generous nature, whose familiar haunts are the forests of Sherwood and Barnsdale, where he fleets the time care- lessly in the merry greenwood. He is ever genial and good-natured, religious, re- spectful to the Virgin and to all women for her sake, with a kind of gracious and noble dignity in his bearing. He lives by the king's deer, though personally most loyal, and wages ceaseless warfare on all proud bishops, abbots, and knights, taking of their superfluity, and giving liberally to the poor and to all honest men in distress, of whatever degree. Hft is unrivalled with the bow and quarter- staff; but in as many as eight of th extant ballads comes off the worse in tlu combat with some stout fellow, whom he thereupon induces to join his company. His chief comrades are Little John, Scath- lok (Scarlet), and Much; to these the "Gest" adds Gilbert of the White Hand and Reynold. A stalwart curtal friar, called Friar Tuck in the title though not in the ballad, fights with Robin Hood, and apparently accepts the invitation to join his company, as he appears later in two broadsides which also mention Maid Ma- rion. Such is the romantic figure of the greatest of English popular heroes — a kind of yeoman counterpart to the knightly Arthur. The earliest notice of Robin Hood yet found is that pointed out by Percy in "Piers Plowman," which, according to Skeat, cannot be older than about 1377. In the next century we find him men- tioned in Wyntoun's "Chronicle of Scot- land" (1420). Bower, in his "Scotichro- nicon" (1441-1447), describes the lower orders of his time as entertaining them- selves with ballads both merry and serious about Robin Hood, Little John, and their mates, and preferring them to all others ; and Major or Mair (1470-1550) says in his "Historia Maioris Britannia?" that Robin Hood ballads were sung all over Britain. The last passage gives appar- ently the earliest mention of those more romantic and redeeming features of Robin Hood which earned him a place in Fuller's "Worthies of England." Fragments of two Robin Hood plays exist, one dating from 1475, the other printed by Copland with the "Gest" about 1550. The latter is described in the title as "very proper to be played in May- games." Robin Hood was a popular figure in these during the 16th century, as we find from Stow, Hall, and other writers, and there is evidence that in this con- nection he was known as far N. as Aber- deen. ROBINS, ELIZABETH (MRS. GEORGE RICHMOND PARKES), an American actress and writer, born in Louisville, Ky. She was educated in Zanesville, Ohio, but the larger part of her life was spent in England. She at- tained success on the stage in the inter- pretation of Ibsen's plays. She was best known, however, as a novelist. Her books include "Below the Salt" (1896); "The Open Question" (1898) ; "The Magnetic North" (1904) ; "The Convert" (1907) ; "My Little Sister" 1912; "Way Stations" (1913). She lectured widely on the woman suffrage movement.
