"Selkirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... male twins in the house of a Madame le Brun. The parents in 1749 returned to Scotland where one of the children died; in 1761 the Duke of Douglas had himself followed. Three claimants took the field, the Duke of Hamilton as heir male of line, the Earl of Selkirk as heir of provision under former deeds, and Archibald Steuart or Douglas. Lady Jane died in 1753, and Sir John in 1764, both on their death-beds testifying to the legitimacy of their surviving child. The Duke of ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... hill you follow Dr. Brown into the valley of Yarrow, and the deep black pools, now called the "dowie dens," and so, "through the pomp of cultivated nature," as Wordsworth says, to the railway at Selkirk, passing the plain where Janet won back Tamlane from the queen of the fairies. All this country was familiar to Dr. Brown, and on one of the last occasions when I met him, he was living at Hollylea, on ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... world where all boys are citizens, and lived with them there upon the same familiar terms as they lived with Robinson Crusoe. Their father once told them that Robinson Crusoe had robbed the real narrative of Alexander Selkirk of the place it ought to have held in the remembrance of the world; and my boy had a feeling of guilt in reading it, as if he were making himself ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... their clinging to a mast, Upon a desert island were eventually cast. They hunted for their meals, as ALEXANDER SELKIRK used, But they couldn't chat together—they had ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... the writings of Doctor Shaw—the high and ample space he filled in the opinion of the country, particularly of those who best knew him, and the honourable testimony which one of the most enlightened personages who in this age have done honour to the peerage of Great Britain (lord Selkirk) has borne to his talents and virtues, would prompt us to enlarge upon this theme, if we did not feel that it would be injuring the matter to take it out of the hands of the editor, J. E. Hall, Esq. whose words, as being much preferable to any thing we could ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... its rivers, lakes, forests, animals, men, and commerce, including an account of the various Indian tribes, and the trading companies dealing with them. The trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company, Lord Selkirk's colony on Red River, Labrador, Newfoundland, the British Possessions on the West coast, Russian America, are successively treated. Next the Indians in Canada and the United States are considered at length, in respect of their history, traditions, languages, monuments, customs, the influence ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... The Earl of Selkirk was a Scottish nobleman who had his country seat at the mouth of the Dee, and Jones made up his mind that he was just the man to serve for a hostage. At any rate, he could not be put to a better use and certainly would not suspect the purpose of the American vessel which, as night was closing ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... partial to them. His ready participation in these popular amusements was one cause of his acquiring the title of the King of the Commons, or Rex Plebeiorum, as Lesley has latinized it. The usual prize to the best shooter was a silver arrow. Such a one is preserved at Selkirk and at Peebles. At Dumfries a silver gun was substituted, and the contention transferred to firearms. The ceremony, as there performed, is the subject of an excellent Scottish poem, by Mr. John Mayne, entitled the Siller Gun 1808, which surpasses ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... and economical effects of these changes have been traced by Lord Selkirk with great precision and accuracy. But the change, though steadily and rapidly progressive, has nevertheless been gradual; and, like those who drift down the stream of a deep and smooth river, we are not aware of the progress ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... he could settle down to that life of loneliness. Hitherto he had not lived the life of a Crusoe or Selkirk; but now he was destined to know what real solitude was. John Stevens at last began to take some interest in his domestic affairs. He sadly missed the thousand little attentions which feminine instincts suggested ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... their own way into so many homes. Among these, the one that brings quickest response from hearts that understand is his little poem, "On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture." beginning with the striking line, "Oh, that those lips had language." Another, called "Alexander Selkirk," beginning, "I am monarch of all I survey," suggests how Selkirk's experiences as a castaway (which gave Defoe his inspiration for Robinson Crusoe) affected the poet's timid nature and imagination. Last and most famous of all is his immortal "John Gilpin." Cowper was in a terrible fit ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... enchanted him, but as he had sailed along nearly a thousand miles without seeing any shore that was not miserable, it is not to be wondered at that he reported the whole land to be worthless. He was subsequently engaged in other voyages of discovery, in one of which he rescued the famous Alexander Selkirk from his lonely island; but, amid all his subsequent adventures, he never entertained the ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... This threatens absolutely Syrian drought. As the Selkirk election comes on Monday, I go out to-day to Abbotsford, and carry young Davidoff and his tutor with me, to see our quiet way of managing the choice ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the House of Peers was certainly a large minority. The rat Peers were Duke of Queensbury, Marquis of Lothian, Bishop Watson, Lord Malmesbury, Earl of Abergavenny, Lord Chedworth, Lord Audley, Lord Eglinton; and all of the armed neutrality, who are: Duke of Northumberland, Lord Rawdon, Lord Selkirk, Lord Breadalbane, Lord Hawke, Lord Kinnaird, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Huntingdon; Lord Lonsdale absent; Lord Lansdowne with us, and spoke better than I ever heard him in my life, fewer flourishes, and less rhodomontade. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... who could but did not;" and, secondly, I refer to Lord Cockburn's pages for an anecdote which illustrates the perverted feeling I refer to, now happily no longer existing. It relates the opinion expressed by an old drunken writer of Selkirk (whose name is not mentioned) regarding his anticipation of professional success for Mr. Cranstoun, afterwards Lord Corehouse. Sir Walter Scott, William Erskine, and Cranstoun, had dined with this Selkirk writer, and Scott—of hardy, strong, and healthy frame—had ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... had the old hunter forced long trails into the unknown country and blazed the way for those who were speedily to follow by thousands. To him Yukon and Selkirk were household words. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... companions," was his paternal great-grandmother, Mrs. John Lang. Her husband, who died shortly afterwards, so that she was a widow when Scott conversed with her, chanced to be chief magistrate of Selkirk. His family was aroused late one night by the sound of a carriage hurrying down the steep and narrow street. Lord Napier was bringing, probably from Hawick, the tidings that the beacons were ablaze. The town-bell was instantly rung, the inhabitants met in the marketplace, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott |
