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Pepysian Library
The Pepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is the personal library collected by Samuel Pepys which he bequeathed to the college following his death in 1703. Background Samuel Pepys was a lifelong bibliophile and carefully nurtured his large collection of books, manuscripts, and prints. At his death, there were more than 3,000 volumes, including the diary, all carefully catalogued and indexed; they form one of the most important surviving 17th-century private libraries. Pepys made detailed provisions in his will for the preservation of his book collection, and when his nephew and heir, John Jackson, died in 1723, it was transferred intact to Magdalene. The bequest included all the original bookcases and his elaborate instructions that placement of the books "... be strictly reviewed and, where found requiring it, more nicely adjusted". Under the terms of the bequest, none of the books may be sold, and no additional ones may be added to the library. The library is hous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wynkyn De Worde
Wynkyn de Worde (died 1534) was a printer and publisher in London known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognised as the first to popularise the products of the printing press in England. Name Wynkyn de Worde was a German immigrant to England. His name is given in the forms ''Wynkyn de Worde'', ''Wynken de Worde'', ''Wynkyn de Word'', ''Wijnkijn de Worde'', and ''Winandus van Worden'' ("Wynkyn" is a diminutive of "Wynand"). It is also given 15 times in the sacrist's roll of Westminster Abbey and in city records as variants of "John Wynkyn", including ''John Wynkyn'', ''Johannes Wynkyn'', ''Jan Wynkyn'', and ''Jan van Wynkyn''. He is also recorded as ''Willelmo Wynkyn'' ("William Wynkyn") once and as ''Mr. Wylkyns'' eight times. His son Richard is recorded as ''Richard Wynkyn'' and ''Rycharde de Worde''. Some authors have therefore concluded that his real name was John Wynkyn (or Wynand) and that "de Worde" was "merely a place name," while others have concluded tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics, and he is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC. His influence on the Latin language was immense. He wrote more than three-quarters of extant Latin literature that is known to have existed in his lifetime, and it has been said that subsequent prose was either a reaction against or a return to his style, not only in Latin but in European languages up to the 19th century. Cicero introduced into Latin the arguments of the chief schools of Hellenistic philosophy and created a Latin philosophical vocabulary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that he built himself, the other scientist being Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in 1676. An impoverished scientific inquirer in young adulthood, he found wealth and esteem by performing over half of the architectural surveys after London's great fire of 1666. Hooke was also a member of the Royal Society and since 1662 was its curator of experiments. Hooke was also Professor of Geometry at Gresham College. As an assistant to physical scientist Robert Boyle, Hooke built the vacuum pumps used in Boyle's experiments on gas law, and himself conducted experiments. In 1673, Hooke built the earliest Gregorian telescope, and then he observed the rotations of the planets Mars and Jupiter. Hooke's 1665 book ''Micrographia'', in which he coined the term "cell", ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoclassical Architecture
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing styles of architecture in most of Europe for the previous two centuries, Renaissance architecture and Baroque architecture, already represented partial revivals of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome and (much less) ancient Greek architecture, but the Neoclassical movement aimed to strip away the excesses of Late Baroque and return to a purer and more authentic classical style, adapted to modern purposes. The development of archaeology and published accurate records of surviving classical buildings was crucial in the emergence of Neoclassical architecture. In many countries, there was an initial wave essentially drawing on Roman architecture, followed, from about the start of the 19th century, by a second wave of Greek Revival architec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reliques Of Ancient English Poetry
The ''Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'' (sometimes known as ''Reliques of Ancient Poetry'' or simply Percy's ''Reliques'') is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765. Sources The basis of the work was the manuscript which became known as the Percy Folio. Percy found the folio in the house of his friend Humphrey Pitt of Shifnal, a small market town of Shropshire. It was on the floor, and Pitt's maid had been using the leaves to light fires. Once rescued, Percy would use just forty-five of the ballads in the folio for his book, despite claiming the bulk of the collection came from this folio. Other sources were the Pepys Library of broadside ballads collected by Samuel Pepys and ''Collection of Old Ballads'' published in 1723, possibly by Ambrose Philips. Bishop Percy was encouraged to publish the work by his friends Samuel Johnson and the poet William Shenstone, who also found and contributed ballads. Percy did no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballads
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating eight and six syllable lines. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or roc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Play Of The Weather
''The Play of the Weather'' is an English interlude or morality play from the early Tudor period. The play was written by John Heywood, a courtier, musician and playwright during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I and published by his brother-in-law, William Rastell, in 1533 as ''The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers''. It represents the Roman deity Jupiter on earth asking mortals to make cases for their preferred weather following heavenly dissension among the gods. It is the first published play to nominate "The Vice" on its title page. Date There has been much critical debate concerning the dating of the play since David Bevington's assertion in 1968 that it was written in the 1520s. Greg Walker suggested that it was written and performed between 1529-30 but later modified this to 1533 on the basis of the argument made by Axton and Happe in the introduction to their edition of Heywood's plays. The play is often dated on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Heywood
John Heywood (c. 1497 – c. 1580) was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs. Although he is best known as a playwright, he was also active as a musician and composer, though no musical works survive. A devout Catholic, he nevertheless served as a royal servant to both the Catholic and Protestant regimes of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. Life Heywood was born in 1497, probably in Coventry, and moved to London some time in his late teens. He spent time studying at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford, but did not obtain a degree. His language skills can be seen by his adaptation of his play Johan Johan from the French ''La Farce du paste''. His name first appears in the King Henry VIII's Household Books in 1519 as a 'synger', a job for which he received quarterly payments of 100 shillings. In 1521 he began receiving annual rents from lands in Essex, lands recently seized by the crown which made Heywood wealthy and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almanac
An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar. Celestial figures and various statistics are found in almanacs, such as the rising and setting times of the Sun and Moon, dates of eclipses, hours of high and low tides, and religious festivals. The set of events noted in an almanac may be tailored for a specific group of readers, such as farmers, sailors, or astronomers. Etymology The etymology of the word is disputed. The earliest documented use of the word in any language is in Latin in 1267 by Roger Bacon, where it meant a set of tables detailing movements of heavenly bodies including the Moon. It has been suggested that the word ''almanac'' derives from a Greek word meaning ''calendar''. However, that word appears only o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (the first English circumnavigation, the second carried out in a single expedition, and third circumnavigation overall). This included his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and his claim to New Albion for England, an area in what is now the U.S. state of California. His expedition inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas, an area that had previously been largely unexplored by Western shipping. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for three constituencies; Camelford in 1581, Bossiney in 1584, and Plymouth in 1593. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received on the ''Golden Hind'' in Deptford. In the same year, he was appointed mayor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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