The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
George Berkeley warned that industry, not financial speculation, was the guarantee of a nation’s wealth.
In 1721, Bishop Berkeley published an agonised response to the frenzy for get-rich-quick schemes then gripping the country, of which the infamous South Sea Company was just one startling example. The nation’s economy, he said, needed money and credit to cycle steadily through honest industry. Too many people were taking them out and staking them on the wheel of fortune.
Scotsman James Boswell always spoke good English when in England, but he was careful to leave a little Scots in.
James Boswell, Dr Johnson’s Scottish friend, believed that when anyone moves to a new area, the locals should not have to sweat at trying to understand him for any longer than is necessary. Migrants such as he was have a duty to learn to speak good English — but not too good.
Daniel Defoe wondered whether goodness was not preferable to greatness.
In 1722 the Duke of Marlborough died, the most celebrated English general of the War of the Spanish Succession, during which he never suffered a defeat. The splendour of the ceremonies, the national mourning, the monuments in his honour, the wealth he had accumulated, Daniel Defoe described them all; and then he reminded us: he is dead.
The weight of the crown that Anne Boleyn wore proved too heavy to bear.
On Saturday afternoon, May 31st, 1533, Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, was taken from the Tower of London to Westminster Hall, to be crowned in the Abbey next morning. The wider public was disgusted by the way Henry had jilted Catherine, by a two-year affair, a secret marriage, and a controversial divorce (in that order); yet crowded streets were hung with bunting, and the cavalcade was magnificent.
Gregory urged the persecuted Christians of Nazianzus to be the better men.
From 361 to 363, the Roman Empire was ruled by Julian the Apostate, so named because he had been brought up as a Christian but had chosen Roman paganism instead. In 362, Julian began a systematic persecution of Christians, leading to anger and rebellion. Gregory, a priest in the town of Nazianzus, told his parishioners not to play Julian’s game — even when the tables were turning.
Mary Mitford makes an appeal for the traditional village cricket match.
In 1819, Lady’s Magazine began publishing Mary Mitford’s sketches of village life in Berkshire, and was rewarded with a satisfying leap in circulation from 250 to 2,000. This extract comes from the beginning of a reflection on the superiority of village cricket over the professional game; given that Mary was writing to help pay off her father’s huge gambling debts, her point of view is understandable.