Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

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37

Always Keep A-Hold of Nurse

In this ‘Cautionary Tale’, we hear what happened when naughty Jim gave his nurse the slip.

Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children first appeared in 1907. For nearly two hundred years, writers of the calibre of Isaac Watts had been turning out poetry of moral improvement for children, and for almost as long writers of the calibre of Lewis Carroll had been poking fun at it. This was the first tale in Belloc’s collection.

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Picture: © Martin Falbisoner (1978-), Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.. Source.

38

Picking on Cotton

The politicians of Georgian England went to surprising lengths to shield domestic businesses from overseas competition.

A feature of the eighteenth century was the Government’s ongoing, desperate and self-defeating attempt to support English industry by slapping taxes, tariffs and regulations on overseas competitors. Here, historian William Lecky looks at a few of the more egregious examples, from banning foreigners’ products to denying them technology.

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Picture: © Auckland Museum, Wikimedia COmmons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

39

Who Are We to Criticise?

Thomas Carlyle felt that English criticism of Goethe revealed more about his critics than his poems.

Thomas Carlyle was one of the first English critics to appreciate the worth of German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). His fellow critics were much less kind, and Carlyle leapt to Goethe’s defence. A writer may be faulted only if he fails to give adequate expression to his own ideas, he said. We cannot fault him for failing to express ours.

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Picture: By Sir John Everett Millais (?-1896), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

40

A Ministering Angel

As Lord Marmion lies dying on Flodden Field, there is no one near to tend him but the woman he has wronged.

It is 1513, and Lord Marmion has been mortally wounded on the battlefield of Flodden. As he lies there, his lifeblood ebbing away, a woman kneels beside him. Clare feels no love for him, and the ungoverned passion he feels for her has spread death and dishonour all around. Yet her heart is not as hard as his.

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Picture: By Edvard Munch (1863–1944), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

41

The Court of the Past

We should not force ourselves and ‘our values’ onto the writers of the past.

In Sesame and Lilies, John Ruskin warned us not to try to manipulate the great writers of the past into agreeing with us or our times. And if we have so little respect for them as to want to try, we would be better off not entering the ‘court of the past’ at all.

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Picture: By John Ruskin, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

42

Arthur’s Prayers

On his first night in a school dorm, Arthur dared not do anything without seeking approval — with one exception.

Dr Thomas Arnold, the (real life) headmaster of Rugby School, has decided that it would settle Tom Brown down to be given some responsibility; so he has asked Tom to take a rather delicate new boy, thirteen-year-old Arthur, under his wing. Tom is called to action from Arthur’s first night in the dormitory.

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Picture: By George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.