The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

499

© MM, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Speech Therapy Plutarch

Demosthenes was about sixteen when he decided he wanted to be a lawyer, but he was the most unpromising advocate imaginable.

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500

By Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1735-1811), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Blind Date Sir Bernard Burke

After two punishing years rising to the top of the East India Company’s armed forces in India, Robert Clive could not spare the time to go courting.

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501

Attributed to Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873), from the National Trust via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

The Dog in the Manger Sir Roger L’Estrange

A mean-spirited dog denies to others what he has no appetite for himself.

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502

© Alexander P. Kapp, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Spinning Mule Robert Chambers

It was not just his own family that wanted to know what Samuel Crompton was doing by night in his quaint Bolton workshop.

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503

By William Powell Frith (1819-1909), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

A Corant On the Heath Walter Pope

Highwayman Claude Du Vall robbed a carriage on Hampstead Heath in the most courteous manner imaginable.

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504

From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

‘Really, I do not see the signal!’ Robert Southey

During the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, Horatio Nelson decided it was time to turn a blind eye.

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