937
The French revolution failed because real liberty cannot be enforced overnight, or indeed enforced at all.
By 1793, William Pitt, Prime Minister for ten years, was thoroughly disillusioned with the French Revolution. The kind of liberty Pitt enjoyed at home, Sir Reginald Coupland reminds us, comes from peoples and not from governments, and takes centuries and not days to mature.
Posted March 2 2018
938
Some likened tax-and-spend to a refreshing shower of rain, but for William Cobbett the rain wasn’t falling mainly on the plain man.
William Cobbett castigated the Government for overtaxing employers, and then congratulating themselves on handing out a little welfare to the underpaid and unemployed while pocketing the difference. Better, Cobbett said, to stop the job-killing taxes, so the working man can have a fair crack at dignified independence.
Posted March 1 2018
939
William Wordsworth watches a playful kitten, and makes himself a promise.
Cats have inspired a great deal of poetic affection, and here William Wordsworth adds his own tribute to our feline friends, drawn from a much longer poem written in 1804. One budding mouser playing with autumn leaves sets Wordsworth thinking about staying young.
Posted February 28 2018
940
Lord Salisbury seeks to calm the Viceroy of India’s nerves in the face of anti-Russian hysteria.
In 1877, military advisers urged Britain to ready themselves for war against the Russian Empire, citing St Petersburg’s diplomatic ties with Afghanistan, and warning that the Russians ‘could’ invade Turkey or even India. Lord Salisbury, Secretary of State for India, wrote to the Viceroy, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, urging calm.
Posted February 28 2018
941
In the last of his twelve labours, the hero must snatch the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld.
The twelfth and final Labour of Heracles sees him despatched to the Underworld, the realm of Hades, to fetch Cerberus, a three-headed guard dog with snakes for a mane, and just for good measure, a venomous serpent for a tail.
Posted February 27 2018
942
Henry Tilney teases a bewildered Catherine Morland for her lazy vocabulary.
Catherine Morland has been invited for a walk near Bath by Eleanor Tilney and her brother, the Revd Henry Tilney. Henry finds Catherine’s artless simplicity irresistible, but cannot help teasing her; and after she praises her favourite novel, ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’, with a tame adjective, Henry is merciless.
Posted February 26 2018