Tag Archives: Sir Walter Scott

hard bargains: acre 1191

The immediate cause of the Third Crusade was the fall of Jerusalem in 1187. Not surprisingly brutality was familiar to both Muslims and Christians during the fighting. There is no record of Saladin ever using his sword, except of course … Continue reading

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wedgwood and company: men for all seasons

They were the most brilliant group in England, and quite possibly the most eccentric. Some are forgotten today, but some of them changed the world…. Eighteenth century England. Gifted, intelligent, and odd, it was a curious mixture of brilliance and … Continue reading

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garibaldi : romance for the authentic

They don’t make them like that anymore. He was one of the first stars of the media age of mass produced and disseminated images. it was the beginning of celebrity as the basis for our communal lives; the most significant … Continue reading

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ROYAL COLLECTORS: DROLL PRINCES AND PRICELESS PAINTINGS

Sometimes, it may be wiser to not have loved and lost, or to have bothered even loving at all…especially in the case of the portraits of King Henry VIII’s wives. Nonetheless, the British royal Collection is a fascinating grouping of … Continue reading

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REGAL MORTGAGE CRISIS: Princely Bling

This is the era of the Napoleonic Wars, of the Battle of Waterloo and the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Nelson. The waltz was a scandalous new dance craze, and stylish women cropped their hair … Continue reading

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A NORTHERN WIZARD: Writing For Love, Money & “The Great Unknowns”

Like Dickens and Balzac, he wrote because he could not help writing, but he did not think that the chief business of life was to be put into literature; and much as he appreciated his contemporary fame, he does not appear to have cared … Continue reading

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AVOIDING THOSE PERIPHERAL REGIONS OF ROMANCE

Call it a poetic faith whose satisfying sense of wonder compelled them to stop short of that marvellous and enticing flame of Promethean enchantment. Heros zigzagging with tolerable chance. “…in the preface to Tom Jones , Fielding formally asserted his belief … Continue reading

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A RAKE IN PROGRESS: WRITING ROWDY,RAW & REGAL

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu prettily characterises Fielding and this capacity for happiness which he possessed, in a little notice of his death when she compares him to Steele, who was as improvident and as happy as he was, and says … Continue reading

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ONCE UPON A TIME…

Napoleon’s armies overran Germany….”but not only did we seek something of consolation in the past, our hope, naturally, was that this course of ours should contribute somewhat to the return of a better day.” While “foreign persons, foreign manners, and … Continue reading

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GRIMM TERRORS: PASSION FOR THE PRIMITIVE

“The consonants of primitive Germanic keep consistently to the same mouth areas as the corresponding consonants in the older Indo-European languages”.  So said the Brothers Grimm in stating their famous law for linguists. Dull fellows? Hardly. Their terrifying tales have … Continue reading

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