Category: Biographies
The following pages have been compiled from various sources, and from an extensive course of reading. The Editor has in some instances placed his authorities in the notes at the bottom of the page; and, where he has copied from former writers, he has inserted the names of thos...
The following pages have been compiled from various sources, and from an extensive course of reading. The Editor has in some instances placed his authorities in the notes at the...
2. Part 2“I should deprive myself of a very sincere gratification, if I finished this letter, with the business that occasions it. You must suffer me to thank you for the very high degre...
3. Part 3By one of the laws of Solon all the products of the earth were forbidden to be exported from Athens; under this law the exportation of figs was prohibited, and it is from this c...
4. Part 4The palace of Ptolemy Philadelphus was the asylum of learned men whom he admired and patronized. He paid particular attention to Euclid, Theocritus, Callimachus, and Lycophron,...
5. Part 5The present form of our English heroic rhyme in couplets, is a modern species of versification. The measure generally used in the days of queen Elizabeth, king James, and king C...
6. Part 6The bishop of Durham wrote a treatise containing rules for the management of the library above-mentioned, describing how the books were to be preserved, and upon what conditions...
7. Part 7Though the use of the Rack does not appear to have been known in this country until the 26th year of Henry the Sixth, and though it was never authorized by the law, yet to borro...
8. Part 8“Tuesday, 24th August, (1773) set out for Dr. Majendie’s at Kew Green. The Doctor told me that he had not seen the king yesterday, but had left a note in writing, to intimate, t...
9. Part 9To what a miserable state the queen was reduced may be seen in the following extract from De Retz’s Memoirs, (vol. 1. p. 261.) “Four or five days before the king removed from Pa...
10. Part 10“The writs were directed to all the Earls and Barons by name, to the number of 110; but the writs to the cities and boroughs are more remarkable, especially as they are the firs...
11. Part 11To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt. The use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of...
12. Part 12At the ideal coronation of king Arthur, just mentioned, a tournament is described, as exhibited in its highest splendour. “Many knights,” says this Armoric chronicler, “famous f...
13. Part 13It appears that Buckingham, during his stay in Spain, behaved with great insolence to the Earl of Bristol, the English ambassador at that court. In a letter, written by the Earl...
14. Part 14The ancient inhabitants of the British Islands, painted their skins in various grotesque figures, with the juice of woad. This custom of tattooing was in use both by the Britons...
15. Part 15John Tradescant the son, and his wife, joined in a deed of gift, by which their friend Elias Ashmole was entitled to this collection after the decease of the former. On that eve...
16. Part 16The poor guards, whom my slight liberality the day before had endeared to me, let me go quietly with my company, and were not so strictly on the watch as they usually had been;...
17. Part 17It has always been urged against king James the second, as a proof of the inveterate cruelty of his disposition, that he should have ordered the Duke of Monmouth into his presen...
18. Part 18Our present business is to investigate the antiquity and variety of sepulchral monuments, which have been erected as memorials of the illustrious dead, in the cathedral, convent...
19. Part 19As Grecian architecture had a little dawning in Edward the sixth’s time, and made a further progress in the three succeeding reigns, we find, in the great number of monuments wh...