Clay Lane: the Blog

8 Monday

by Ben Jonson

Introduction — Ben Jonson’s collection of short poems Underwoods was published in 1640, soon after he died. He tells us that it takes its title from a habit of classical poets, who liked to call their miscellanies ‘Woods’. If Jonson’s earlier poems were his woods, he said, then these little additions were shrubs on the woodland floor. The following lines are a reflection on the value of a life.

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9 Monday

Music Video

Julius Benedict (1804-1885), Piano Concerto in E-Flat Major, Op. 89: II. Andante. Played by Howard Shelley, with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

Sir Julius Benedict (1804-1885) was a Germen-born conductor and composer who studied with Hummel and Weber, and was acquainted with Beethoven. In 1825, he took a conductor’s post in Naples. In 1834 he moved to Paris, and the following year settled in London, where he became a conductor in theatres and concert halls, a prolific composer, and a tireless promoter of provincial musical festivals and popular concerts. He was knighted in 1871. The recording below is of the Andante from his Piano Concerto in E flat, of 1867.

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10 Monday

The Character of George Washington

by Thomas Jefferson

Introduction — In 1814, former US President Thomas Jefferson (who had served from 1801 to 1809) wrote a letter to Walter Jones (1776-1861), a lawyer whom Jefferson had appointed US attorney for the District of Columbia in 1802. In his letter, Jefferson reminisced about George Washington, supreme commander of the American revolutionary army and first President of the USA.

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11 Monday

Amen to That

by John Bright

Introduction — On January 13th, 1878, John Bright MP assured his constituents in Birmingham that reports of an imminent Russian invasion of Europe were utter delusion. Some in the Commons said that sending troops to aid Turkey in the Russo-Turkish War (now a year old) was in the ‘British interest’, but Bright reminded them how the Crimean War in 1853-56 had achieved nothing but a million dead young men.

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12 Sunday

Arena

Use the following words in sentences of at least ten words in length. Make sure you use them as nouns.

IArena. IICost. IIIDecision. IVIntention. VMatter. VIQualm. VIIWalk.

Based on an exercise in Think and Speak (1929) by NL Clay.

13 24 May

Q & A

Suggest answers to these questions, in passages of at least 20 words.

1 If the earth isn’t flat, why does it look flat?

2 How can I tell whether a word is being used as a noun?

3 Why is it that the thing we are searching for is always in the last place we look?

Based on an exercise in Think and Speak (1929) by NL Clay, and Better English: Fifth Year (1930) by Harry Jewett Jeschke, Milton C. Potter and Harry O. Gillet.

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