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Christopher Smart's Asylum Confinement
The English poet Christopher Smart (1722–1771) was confined to mental asylums from May 1757 until January 1763. Smart was admitted to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Upper Moorfields, London, on 6 May 1757. He was taken there by his father-in-law, John Newbery, although he may have been confined in a private madhouse before then. While in St Luke's he wrote ''Jubilate Agno'' and ''A Song to David'', the poems considered to be his greatest works. Although many of his contemporaries agreed that Smart was "mad", accounts of his condition and its ramifications varied, and some felt that he had been committed unfairly. Smart was diagnosed as "incurable" while at St Luke's, and when they ran out of funds for his care he was moved to Mr. Potter's asylum, Bethnal Green. All that is known of his years of confinement is that he wrote poetry. Smart's isolation led him to abandon the poetic genres of the 18th century that had marked his earlier work and to write religious poetry such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Smart From NPG Retouched
Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or '' Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Christ" or "Anointed", and φέρειν (''phérein''), "to bear"; hence the "Christ-bearer". As a given name, 'Christopher' has been in use since the 10th century. In English, Christopher may be abbreviated as "Chris", "Topher", and sometimes " Kit". It was frequently the most popular male first name in the United Kingdom, having been in the top twenty in England and Wales from the 1940s until 1995, although it has since dropped out of the top 100. The name is most common in England and not so common in Wales, Scotland, or Ireland. People with the given name Antiquity and Middle Ages * Saint Christopher (died 251), saint venerated by Catholics and Orthodox Christians * Christopher (Domestic of the Schools) (fl. 870s), Byzantine general * Christopher Lekapenos (died 931), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grub Street
Until the early 19th century, Grub Street was a street close to London's impoverished Moorfields district that ran from Fore Street east of St Giles-without-Cripplegate north to Chiswell Street. It was pierced along its length with narrow entrances to alleys and courts, many of which retained the names of early signboards. Its bohemian society was set amidst the impoverished neighbourhood's low-rent dosshouses, brothels and coffeehouses. Famous for its concentration of impoverished "hack writers", aspiring poets, and low-end publishers and booksellers, Grub Street existed on the margins of London's journalistic and literary scene. According to Samuel Johnson's ''Dictionary'', the term was "originally the name of a street... much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production is called grubstreet". Johnson himself had lived and worked on Grub Street early in his career. The contemporary image of Grub Street was popularise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Cowper
William Cowper ( ; 26 November 1731 – 25 April 1800) was an English poet and Anglican hymnwriter. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th-century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him "the best modern poet", whilst William Wordsworth particularly admired his poem ''Yardley-Oak''. After being institutionalised for insanity, Cowper found refuge in a fervent evangelical Christianity. He continued to suffer doubt and, after a dream in 1773, believed that he was doomed to eternal damnation. He recovered and wrote more religious hymns. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered, and to the series of Olney Hymns. His poem "Light Shining out of Darkness" gave English the phrase: "God moves ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jubilate Agno Let
Psalm 100 is the 100th psalm in the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible. In English, it is translated as "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands" in the King James Version (KJV), and as "O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands" in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Its Hebrew name is he, lit=Mizmor l'Todah, text=מִזְמוֹר לְתוֹדָה, label=none and it is subtitled a "Psalm of gratitude confession". In the slightly different numbering system in the Greek Septuagint version of the Bible, and in the Latin Vulgate, this psalm is Psalm 99. In the Vulgate, it begins Jubilate Deo (alternatively: "Iubilate Domino"), or Jubilate, which also became the title of the BCP version. People who have translated the psalm range from Martin Luther to Catherine Parr, and translations have ranged from Parr's elaborate English that doubled many words, through metrical hymn forms, to attempts to render the meaning of the Hebrew as idiomatically as possible in a modern language (of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Board Of Green Cloth
The Board of Green Cloth was a board of officials belonging to the Royal Household of England and Great Britain. It took its name from the tablecloth of green baize that covered the table at which its members sat. It audited the accounts of the Royal Household and made arrangements for royal travel. It also sat as a court upon offences committed within the verge of the palace. While it existed until modern times, its jurisdiction was more recently limited to the sale of alcohol, betting and gaming licences for premises falling within the areas attached to or governed by the Royal Palaces. Until 2004, the Board had jurisdiction as a licensing authority over a number of premises in Westminster (that were within the "verge" of Buckingham Palace) that would have otherwise been the responsibility of the local magistrates' court, including Carlton House Terrace, the northern end of Whitehall and the National Gallery. The Board of Green Cloth disappeared in the reform of local governme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hester Thrale
Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (née Salusbury; later Piozzi; 27 January 1741 or 16 January 1740 – 2 May 1821),Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating years, recorded her birth as 16 January 1740. The provisions of the British Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, implemented in 1752, altered the official British dating method to the Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on 1 January (it had been 25 March). These changes resulted in dates being moved forward 11 days, and for those between 1 January and 25 March, an advance of one year. For further explanation, see: Old Style and New Style dates. a Welsh-born diarist, author and patron of the arts, is an important source on Samuel Johnson and 18th-century English life. She belonged to the prominent Salusbury family, Anglo-Welsh landowners, and married first a wealthy brewer, Henry Thrale, then a music teacher, Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Her '' Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Law
William Law (16869 April 1761) was a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. Previously William Law had given his allegiance to the House of Stuart and is sometimes considered a second-generation non-juror. Thereafter, Law first continued as a simple priest (curate) and when that too became impossible without the required oath, Law taught privately, as well as wrote extensively. His personal integrity, as well as his mystic and theological writing greatly influenced the evangelical movement of his day as well as Enlightenment thinkers such as the writer Dr Samuel Johnson and the historian Edward Gibbon. In 1784 William Wilberforce (1759–1833), the politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to stop the slave trade, was deeply touched by reading William Law's book ''A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Lif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Epistle To The Thessalonians
The First Epistle to the Thessalonians is a Pauline epistle of the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is attributed to Paul the Apostle, and is addressed to the church in Thessalonica, in modern-day Greece. It is likely among the first of Paul's letters, probably written by the end of AD 52,Raymond E. Brown, ''An Introduction to the New Testament'', Anchor Bible, 1997. pp. 456–66. though some scholars believe the Epistle to the Galatians may have been written by AD 48. Background and Audience Thessalonica is a city on the Thermaic Gulf, which at the time of Paul was within the Roman Empire. Paul visited Thessalonica and preached to the local population, winning converts who became a Christian community. There is debate as to whether or not Paul's converts were originally Jewish. The Acts of the Apostles describes Paul preaching in a Jewish synagogue and persuaded people who were already Jewish that Jesus was the Messiah, but in 1 Thessalonians itself Paul sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Paul (apostle)
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; la, Paulus Tarsensis AD), commonly known as Paul the Apostle and Saint Paul, was a Christian apostle who spread the teachings of Jesus in the first-century world. Generally regarded as one of the most important figures of the Apostolic Age, he founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD. According to the New Testament book Acts of the Apostles, Paul was a Pharisee. He participated in the persecution of early disciples of Jesus, possibly Hellenised diaspora Jews converted to Christianity, in the area of Jerusalem, prior to his conversion. Some time after having approved of the execution of Stephen, Paul was traveling on the road to Damascus so that he might find any Christians ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include ''Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and ''The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play ''Irene''. After nine years' effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated ''The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue ''The History of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ''Odes'' as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."Quintilian 10.1.96. The only other lyrical poet Quintilian thought comparable with Horace was the now obscure poet/metrical theorist, Caesius Bassus (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient Receptions of Horace'', 280) Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (''Satires'' and '' Epistles'') and caustic iambic poetry ('' Epodes''). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hilliad
''The Hilliad'' was Christopher Smart's Mock-heroic, mock epic poem written as a literary attack upon John Hill (author), John Hill on 1 February 1753. The title is a play on Alexander Pope's ''The Dunciad'' with a substitution of Hill's name, which represents Smart's debt to Pope for the form and style of ''The Hilliad'' as well as a punning reference to the ''Iliad''. In "Book the First" of ''The Hilliad'', Hillario is seduced by a Sibyl to give up his career as an apothecary and instead becomes a writer. However, his fortune quickly descends with Hillario ultimately turning into the "arch-dunce". The origins of the work come from a dispute between Hill and Henry Fielding; a "paper war" that involved a widespread literary dispute, Hill turned his attention to Smart and published attacks upon Smart's ''Poems on Several Occasions''. In response, Smart wrote ''The Hilliad'', claiming it as the "balance due" on Hill's treatment towards his person and poetry. The work was responded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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