1555
An 18th century bon viveur and virtuoso violinist, Thomas Erskine is currently being ‘rediscovered’ by the classical music industry.
Thomas Erskine (1732-1781), 6th Earl of Kellie, was a Scottish musician and composer, who also founded a racy ‘gentleman’s club’ in Edinburgh called the Capillaire. His music has long been forgotten, and much of it is lost, but people are at last realising just how good some of it is.
Picture: From Wikimedia Commons.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1556
Richard Trevithick’s boss hailed the engineer as a genius. Today he’d have been fired. (Oh, and the train was delayed.)
Richard Trevithick neglected the job he was hired for, and diverted Research and Development funds into a hare-brained private project to get a steam engine to haul itself and some waggons along a railway not designed for that purpose. In 1803, his boss hailed him as a genius. Today, he’d have been fired.
Picture: © chris55, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1557
A fox tries to save herself from a fall, but finds she would have been better off taking the tumble.
Picture: © Peter Trimming, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1558
Some people disparage what they can’t have.
In this Aesop’s Fable, a hungry fox tries to hide his own failings by laying the blame on someone else.
Picture: © Graham, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1559
Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps with nearly 50,000 men and 38 elephants is the stuff of legend.
In 218 BC the North African empire of Carthage and the Roman Republic stood, as they often did, on the brink of war. But when war came, it came not from Africa but from Cartagena on the east coast of Spain.
Picture: By TL. From Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Free Art Licence.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015
1560
Handel called it ‘Air and Variations’, but by Charles Dickens’s day everyone knew it as ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’.
‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’ wasn’t the name given to this piece by Handel; so how did it get it?
Picture: © Jorge Royan, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.. Source.
Posted March 13 2015