Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Sir Thomas Roe had some difficulty making an impression on Emperor Jehangir.
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© Konstantin hramov, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Flemish merchants hoping to prosper in Russia’s commercial capital received a nasty shock.
© jimmyweee, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Ivan the Terrible offered free trade to English merchants throughout his dominions.
© Krzysztof Golik, Wikimedia. Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Rudyard Kipling believed that a better appreciation of ancient Greece and Rome could help the English be less insular.
By William Heath (1795-1840), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Faced with a choice between silence, dungeon or exile, William Cobbett chose exile — and then had to make sense of it.
By Robert Scott Tait (?1816-1897), Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
Leigh Hunt looks back to a memorable event in a long life.