Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

← Page 1

799

Dare to Be Yourself

Samuel Smiles warns us against pursuing popularity for its own sake, saying that it is a kind of cowardice.

Samuel Smiles was uncharacteristically severe on those statesmen who court popularity by deceitful talk or by whipping up hatreds. By implication, however, he was equally severe on those who allow such rogues to do so simply because they will not, or dare not, think for themselves.

Read

Picture: © Buchhändler, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.

800

A Tale Worth All His Fortune

William Cobbett recalls his first taste of classic literature, for which he had to go without his supper.

At eleven, William Cobbett’s (1763-1835) ambition was to be a gardener at Kew. It would be a step up from clipping hedges and weeding flower beds for the Bishop of Winchester back home in Farnham, but it meant walking all the way to Richmond, a distance of nearly thirty miles as the crow flies, and with threepence all his wealth.

Read

Picture: © Len Williams, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

801

A Change of Heart

An irate coal merchant squares up to the oh-so-righteous gentleman who didn’t like the way he was treating his horse.

Following the death of William Wilberforce, the great anti-slavery campaigner, on July 29th, 1833, an impressive list of statesmen requested a fitting funeral in Westminster Abbey. Ordinary people grieved in their many thousands too, and a generation later Travers Buxton recalled that this affection was of long standing.

Read

Picture: From the East Riding Archives, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: No known copyright restrictions.. Source.

802

Wilberforce Contra Mundum

John Wesley wrote to a young William Wilberforce to encourage him in his campaign against the slave trade.

A few days before he died on on March 2nd, 1791, at the age of 87, John Wesley wrote to a young MP, fellow ‘methodist’ William Wilberforce. While these were not Wesley’s last recorded words (which were ‘The best of all is, God is with us’) his letter has the air of a departing Elijah wishing upon Elisha a double share of his spirit.

Read

Picture: Photo by Adam Carr, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

803

A Victim of His Success

Economist Adam Smith so changed the conversation in Britain that most people take his groundbreaking insights for granted.

Adam Smith’s free market ‘Wealth of Nations’ had an immediate and highly beneficial impact on British economic policy, one whose ripples spread across the world. Yet as biographer Richard Haldane explains, so successful was Smith in changing the conversation that most people have now forgotten all about him.

Read

Picture: © Stormy Clouds, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

804

An Embarrassment of Heroes

John Buchan warned that the great figures of history are often beyond their biographers’ comprehension.

John Buchan had little time for the kind of historian who makes a career out of rubbishing reputations, pulling the great (if flawed) figures of history down from their pedestals in the hope of some scattered applause from his peers. Some giants of history are quite simply too big for their critics.

Read

Picture: By Carole Raddato, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.