The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
A succession of religious leaders came to Kiev, hoping to win the wild barbarian Prince to their cause.
The Christianity that spread across England in the 7th century spread to Kiev in the 10th, but there it had to compete not just with paganism but with Islam, Judaism, and other flavours of Christianity — and also with Vladimir, Grand Prince of Kiev (r. 980-1015), who liked his religion spicy.
JB Cramer was one of the finest pianists of his day, though his reverence for Mozart made his own music more popular in the drawing room than the concert hall.
In 1772, Wilhelm Cramer, a virtuoso violinist from Stuttgart in the Duchy of Württemberg, settled in London, becoming a leading figure in concert halls and in the Court of King George III. Soon afterwards, his infant son Johann Baptist Cramer (1771-1858) joined him in England.
Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley says that the pinnacle of political achievement is the government not of others, but of ourselves.
Percy Shelley’s sonnet ‘Political Greatness’ was published after his death by his widow, Mary. Shelley rejected any theory of social order based on coercion, whether by explicit legislation or by the tyranny of unbreakable custom. Humanity will never be served by mastering others; it is mastering yourself that is the true humanism.
Poet Percy Shelley calls on November’s sister months to watch by the graveside of the dead Year.
‘Autumn: A Dirge’ was published by Percy Shelley’s widow Mary in 1824, two years after Percy’s death in Italy at the age of just twenty-nine. Unlike his contemporary John Keats, Shelley makes no attempt to evoke Autumn’s golden harvests, but calls on all but the most carefree summer months to keep vigil by the dying Year.
Poet John Keats speaks of the beauties of Autumn, her colours, her sounds and her rich harvest.
On a walk beside the River Itchen near Winchester, on 19th September 1819, the young poet John Keats was deeply moved by the sights and sounds of autumn. His lyric poem ‘To Autumn’ is widely regarded as one of the most perfectly formed poems in the English language.
Elizabethan courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney shows that a nobleman can also be a gentleman.
Writer and courtier Sir Philip Sidney died on October 17th, 1586, from a wound he had suffered while fighting in support of Dutch independence from Spain at the Battle of Zutphen on September 22nd. He was just 31. The account below is by Philip’s devoted friend Fulke Greville, who served James I as Chancellor of the Exchequer.