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John Hall-Stevenson
John Hall-Stevenson (1718–March 1785), in his youth known as John Hall, was an English country gentleman and writer. He is memorialised as "Eugenius" in Laurence Sterne's novels ''Tristram Shandy'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy''. Life Hall-Stevenson was the son of Joseph Hall of Durham by his marriage to Catherine, sister and heiress of Lawson Trotter of Skelton Castle at Skelton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire.Sidney Lee, '' Stevenson, John Hall-'' in ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (1885–1900), vol. 54 On 16 June 1735, at the age of seventeen, he matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge as a fellow-commoner. He quickly struck up a close and lifelong friendship with Laurence Sterne, who was five years older. They referred to each other as cousins, but no kinship is known. Hall was precociously ribald and loved Rabelaisian literature. He left Cambridge without a degree in about 1738 and made the grand tour. On his return to England at the age of twenty, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landed Gentry
The landed gentry, or the ''gentry'', is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. While distinct from, and socially below, the British peerage, their economic base in land was often similar, and some of the landed gentry were wealthier than some peers. Many gentry were close relatives of peers, and it was not uncommon for gentry to marry into peerage. It is the British element of the wider European class of gentry. With or without noble title, owning rural land estates often brought with it the legal rights of lord of the manor, and the less formal name or title of ''squire'', in Scotland laird. Generally lands passed by primogeniture, and the inheritances of daughters and younger sons were in cash or stocks, and relatively small. Typically the gentry farmed some of their land, as well as exploiting timber, minerals such as coal, and owning mills and other sources of income, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean De La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, as well as in French regional languages. After a long period of royal suspicion, he was admitted to the French Academy and his reputation in France has never faded since. Evidence of this is found in the many pictures and statues of the writer, later depictions on medals, coins and postage stamps. Life Early years La Fontaine was born at Château-Thierry in France. His father was Charles de La Fontaine, maître des eaux et forêts – a kind of deputy-ranger – of the Duchy of Château-Thierry; his mother was Françoise Pidoux. Both sides of his family were of the highest provincial middle class; though they were not noble, his father was fairly wealthy. Jean, the eldest child, was educa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tory (British Political Party)
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The Tory ethos has been summed up with the phrase "God, King, and Country". Tories are monarchists, were historically of a high church Anglican religious heritage, and opposed to the liberalism of the Whig faction. The philosophy originates from the Cavalier faction, a royalist group during the English Civil War. The Tories political faction that emerged in 1681 was a reaction to the Whig-controlled Parliaments that succeeded the Cavalier Parliament. As a political term, Tory was an insult derived from the Irish language, that later entered English politics during the Exclusion Crisis of 1678–1681. It also has exponents in other parts of the former British Empire, such as the Loyalists of British America, who opposed US secession duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whig (British Political Party)
The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the new Liberal Party with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s, and other Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Liberals' rival, the modern day Conservative Party, in 1912. The Whigs began as a political faction that opposed absolute monarchy and Catholic Emancipation, supporting constitutional monarchism with a parliamentary system. They played a central role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and were the standing enemies of the Roman Catholic Stuart kings and pretenders. The period known as the Whig Supremacy (1714–1760) was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 and the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715 by Tory rebels. The Whigs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Stuart, 3rd Earl Of Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, (; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British nobleman who served as the 7th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He was arguably the last important royal favourite in British politics. He was the first prime minister from Scotland following the Acts of Union in 1707. He was also elected as the first president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland when it was founded in 1780. Biography Early life and rise to prominence He was born in Parliament Close, nearby to St Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh on 25 May 1713, the son of James Stuart, 2nd Earl of Bute, and his wife, Lady Anne Campbell. He attended Eton College from 1724 to 1730. He went on to study civil law at the Universities of Groningen (1730–1732) and Leiden (1732–1734) in the Netherlands, graduating from the latter with a degree in civil law. A close relative of the Clan Campbell ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Critical Review
''The Critical Review'' was a British publication appearing from 1756 to 1817. It was first edited by Tobias Smollett, from 1756 to 1763. Contributors included Samuel Johnson, David Hume, John Hunter, and Oliver Goldsmith. Early years The Edinburgh printer Archibald Hamilton started publishing ''The Critical Review'' in 1756 with Tobias Smollett as its first editor. The content was mainly book reviews, which were often long and favourable, with copious verbatim quotations. The Tory and High Church perspectives of contributors came through clearly, however. Besides Smollett, the writers of the first two volumes have been identified as John Armstrong, Samuel Derrick, Thomas Francklin, and Patrick Murdoch. After a libel against Admiral Sir Charles Knowles in the ''Review'', Smollett was sentenced to a fine of £100 and three months in King's Bench Prison. In 1763 he retired from the ''Review'', but left it as an influential publication. Sources External links Full textsat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tobias Smollett
Tobias George Smollett (baptised 19 March 1721 – 17 September 1771) was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for picaresque novels such as ''The Adventures of Roderick Random'' (1748), ''The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle'' (1751) and ''The Expedition of Humphry Clinker'' (1771), which influenced later novelists, including Charles Dickens. His novels were liberally altered by contemporary printers; an authoritative edition of each was edited by Dr O. M. Brack Jr and others. Early life and family Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton in present-day West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, and baptised on 19 March 1721 (his birth date is estimated as 3 days previously). He was the fourth son of Archibald Smollett of Bonhill, a judge and landowner, laird of Bonhill, living at Dalquhurn on the River Leven, who died about 1726, when Smollett was just five years old. His mother Barbara Smollett née Cunningham brought the family up there, until she died about 1766. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Gray
Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classics, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his ''Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,'' published in 1751. Gray was a Self-criticism, self-critical writer who published only 13 poems in his lifetime, despite being very popular. He was even offered the position of Poet laureate, Poet Laureate in 1757 after the death of Colley Cibber, though he declined. His writing is conventionally considered to be Preromanticism, pre-Romantic but recent critical developments deny such Teleology, teleological classification. Early life and education Thomas Gray was born in Cornhill, London. His father, Philip Gray, was a scrivener and his mother, Dorothy Antrobus, was a milliner. He was the fifth of twelve children, and the only one to survive infancy.John D. Baird, 'Gray, Thomas (1716–1771)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought. His ''Discourse on Inequality'' and ''The Social Contract'' are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. Rousseau's sentimental novel ''Julie, or the New Heloise'' (1761) was important to the development of preromanticism and romanticism in fiction. His ''Emile, or On Education'' (1762) is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society. Rousseau's autobiographical writings—the posthumously published '' Confessions'' (composed in 1769), which initiated the modern autobiography, and the unfinished '' Reveries of the Solitary Walker'' (composed 1776–1778)—exemplified the late 18th-century " Age of Sensibility", and featured an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for content acquis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whigs (British political party), Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London, reviving the Gothic Revival, Gothic style some decades before his Victorian era, Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic fiction, Gothic novel, ''The Castle of Otranto'' (1764), and his ''Letters'', which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes. In 2017, a volume of Walpole's selected letters was published. The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he became the 4th and last Earl of Orford of the second creation on his nephew's death in 1791. Early life: 1717–1739 Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of Prime Minister ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wilkes
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of his voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives. In 1768, angry protests of his supporters were suppressed in the Massacre of St George's Fields. In 1771, he was instrumental in obliging the government to concede the right of printers to publish verbatim accounts of parliamentary debates. In 1776, he introduced the first bill for parliamentary reform in the British Parliament. During the American War of Independence, he was a supporter of the American rebels, adding further to his popularity with American Whigs. In 1780, however, he commanded militia forces which helped put down the Gordon Riots, damaging his popularity with many radicals. This marked a turning point, leading him to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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