Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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1099

Dr Johnson and the Critic’s Ambush

A literary man tries to trick Samuel Johnson into an honest opinion, which was neither necessary nor very rewarding.

James Macpherson published two poems, ‘Fingal’ in 1762 and ‘Temora’ a year later, which he said were translations of Irish oral tradition. He attributed them to Ossian, the legendary 3rd century Irish bard, who told of the ‘endless battles and unhappy loves’ of his father Fingal and son Oscar. Dr Johnson was, like most modern scholars, unconvinced.

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Picture: By Rosser1954 (Roger Griffith), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

1100

The Economic Case for Sovereignty

A nation with its own laws and a strong sense of shared cultural identity makes good economic sense.

Adam Smith argues that preferring to live in a sovereign nation, with a strong sense of shared cultural identity and well-drafted, homemade laws, is not a matter of prejudice. It is a matter of sound economic reasoning, for every country of the world.

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Picture: © Jonathan Billinger, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

1101

A Solemn Duty

Monsieur St Aubert falls seriously ill on a walking tour with his daughter Emily, and before the end asks an unexpected favour.

Monsieur St Aubert’s wife has recently been carried off by a sudden illness. Now he too has fallen sick, a long way from home, and lies on his deathbed. At his side is his affectionate young daughter Emily, and in the little time remaining he extracts a solemn promise.

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Picture: © San Kukai, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

1102

The Fairly Honest Lawyer

Andre-Louis Moreau lives for vengeance on the master swordsman who killed his friend.

André-Louis Moreau, a lawyer by training, is broke and a wanted man in Paris. Passing by the fencing school of M. Bertrand des Amis, André reads a notice inviting applications for the post of fencing instructor. Unfortunately, as he is compelled to acknowledge, he can’t fence.

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Picture: By Domenico Angelo (?1717-1802), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

1103

‘The Overland Mail’

A tribute to the postal workers of British India, and to the kind of empire they helped to build.

‘The Overland Mail’ is a tribute to the runners who carried letters across India during the Raj, and in particular the personal and business letters of the Indian Civil Service to which young Englishmen were posted. Among other things, Kipling’s poem is a welcome reminder that by Victoria’s day, the British Empire was increasingly united by trade, services and communications rather than by armies or centralised political will.

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Picture: Anonymous, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.

1104

The Sneeze of History

It was the opinion of Leo Tolstoy that even Napoleon was never master of his own destiny.

Thomas Carlyle was a famous proponent of the ‘Great Men’ theory of history, which holds that world-changing events are moved by bold, iron-willed men of vision. Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was not of this brotherhood. In his classic War and Peace, he reminded us that even a man as great as Napoleon is much less in control of his own destiny than we might imagine.

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Picture: By Vasily Vereshchagin, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.