91
The Romans did bring some blessings to Britain, but none so great as the one they did not mean to bring.
In his Child’s History of England Dickens was consistently severe on the abuse of power. The Romans, who ruled here from the first century to the start of the fifth, did not escape his censure. He admitted they had exercised a degree of civilising influence, but in his judgment the most civilising influence in their time had been Christianity, for it exposed the frauds of Britain’s indigenous pagan elite, the Druids.
Posted April 9 2024
92
If Parliament is going to force its will on distant peoples, it must also give them the vote.
In 1775, anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp leapt to the defence of inhabitants of Britain’s thirteen American colonies, who were demanding to be represented in the House of Commons if they were expected to obey the laws passed there. No government, Sharp declared, is legitimate if the common people who are expected to obey its decisions — whether at home or far abroad — are not closely and frequently involved in the decision-making process.
Posted April 8 2024
93
Ralph Waldo Emerson wondered why New Yorkers elected to Congress the kind of man they would turn out of their own homes.
American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson was unimpressed with the quality of the Representatives that the people of New York sent to Congress. They were the kind of men most people would banish from their homes, but New Yorkers were quite happy to send them to the House if it meant their Party secured a majority and dipped into the pork barrel.
Posted January 27 2024
94
When William Cobbett told his son James to be conscientious about his grammar lessons, he was drawing on hard-won experience.
In one of his letters on English grammar written to his son James, William Cobbett recalled his own quest to learn French many years before. It is not enough, he said, when learning a language to flick casually through a textbook. It is necessary to take each lesson and learn it by heart with absolute precision. The labour would be well rewarded.
Posted January 27 2024
95
The study of history can distract us from pressing modern problems, but failing to study it is much worse.
John Buchan — novelist, wartime spymaster, and Governor-general of Canada — was also a historian in his own right, and the editor-in-chief of the multi-volume Nations of Today just after the Great War. In his introduction, Buchan picked up on George Santayana’s famous warning that ‘those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it’.
Posted January 22 2024
96
Sir George MacMunn traces Kipling’s masterly handling of English and of storytelling to reading the King James Bible aloud.
In his biography of Rudyard Kipling, Sir George MacMunn drew attention to the impact on Kipling’s work, in prose as well as in verse, of the Authorized or ‘King James’ translation of the Bible, published in 1611 under King James VI and I. MacMunn reminds us that reading the King James Bible out aloud is one of the best and most proven ways for a writer to gain an appreciation of good English — and good stories.
Posted January 21 2024