1.
1730s in archaeology
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The decade of the 1730s in archaeology involved some significant events. 1738, Herculaneum is rediscovered, buried in volcanic ash near Pompeii,1732, John Horsley - Britannia Romana. 1735, Prospero Alpini - Historiæ Ægypti Naturalis,1736, Francis Drake - Eboracum 1731, December 8 - Antiquarian John Freeman buries a time capsule in the grounds of his house at Fawley Court in England
2.
1731 in architecture
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The year 1731 in architecture involved some significant events. Basilica of Superga in Italy, designed by Filippo Juvarra, is completed, cumbernauld House in Scotland, to designs by William Adam, is built. Hôtel Peyrenc de Moras in Paris, designed by Jean Aubert, is completed, jakobstad Church in Finland, designed by Johan Knubb, is built. Jerusalems Church in Berlin, designed by Philipp Gerlach, is completed, royal Theatre in Mantua, Italy, designed by Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena, is built. Trooditissa Monastery on Cyprus is built, staircase of Schloss Bruchsal in Baden is designed by Balthasar Neumann
3.
Irish poetry
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Irish poetry includes poetry in two languages, Irish and English. The earliest surviving poems in Irish date back to the 6th century and this culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century. Poetry in Irish represents the oldest vernacular poetry in Europe, the earliest examples date from the 6th century, and are generally short lyrics on themes from religion or the world of nature. They were frequently written by their authors in the margins of the illuminated manuscripts that they were copying. The best known example is Pangur Bán and it was practical for poems to be short because the Irish recognized that it was necessary to use any means necessary to make the poems lasting in their oral culture. To accomplish such a feat as well as they have, they used complicated rhyme schemes that would render a poem nonsensical if any of the key words were changed from the original version, in an oral culture, Irish poetry had many uses. A poem could be used to both the poet and the subject of the poem, oftentimes kings would commission poets to create a piece about them. Such poems would be passed on to descendants so they would remember the deeds of past generations. Kings would also commission poets to write poems of advertisement, speaking of the greatness and worthiness. Oral poetry, because it was in the vernacular, was used for entertainment. Poems that were entertaining could also be informative, teaching people lessons or offering them wisdom of experience for dealing with situations they would encounter in their everyday lives. Finally, poems, especially those featured in the sagas, were thought to be an instrument of the supernatural, Another source of early Irish poetry is the poems in the tales and sagas, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Unlike many other European epic cycles, the Irish sagas were written in prose, Irish bards formed a professional hereditary caste of highly trained, learned poets. As officials of the court of king or chieftain, they performed a number of official roles and they were chroniclers and satirists whose job it was to praise their employers and damn those who crossed them. It was believed that a well-aimed bardic satire, glam dicin, the Metrical Dindshenchas, or Lore of Places, is probably the major surviving monument of Irish bardic verse. It is a great onomastic anthology of naming legends of significant places in the Irish landscape, the earliest of these date from the 11th century, and were probably originally compiled on a provincial basis. As a national compilation, the Metrical Dindshenchas has come down to us in two different recensions. Knowledge of the real or putative history of local places formed an important part of the education of the elite in ancient Ireland, verse tales of Fionn and the Fianna, sometimes known as Ossianic poetry, were extremely common in Ireland and Scotland throughout this period
4.
The Gentleman's Magazine
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The Gentlemans Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922 and it was the first to use the term magazine for a periodical. Samuel Johnsons first regular employment as a writer was with The Gentlemans Magazine, the original complete title was The Gentlemans Magazine, or, Traders monthly intelligencer. Caves innovation was to create a monthly digest of news and commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in and it carried original content from a stable of regular contributors, as well as extensive quotations and extracts from other periodicals and books. Cave, who edited The Gentlemans Magazine under the pen name Sylvanus Urban, was the first to use the magazine for a periodical. Contributions to the magazine took the form of letters, addressed to Mr. Urban. The iconic illustration of St. Johns Gate on the front of each issue depicted Caves home, in effect, before the founding of The Gentlemans Magazine, there were specialized journals, but no such wide-ranging publications. Samuel Johnsons first regular employment as a writer was with The Gentlemans Magazine, during a time when parliamentary reporting was banned, Johnson regularly contributed parliamentary reports as Debates of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia. Though they reflected the positions of the participants, the words of the debates were mostly Johnsons own, the name Columbia, a poetic name for America coined by Johnson, first appears in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament in the magazine. A skilled businessman, Edward Cave developed a distribution system for The Gentlemans Magazine. It was read throughout the English-speaking world and continued to flourish through the 18th century and it went into decline towards the end of the 19th century and finally ceased general publication in September 1907. However, issues consisting of four each were printed in very small editions between late 1907 and 1922 in order to keep the title formally in print. This 75-volume index gives the name and an abbreviated reference to the date, event. This index covers the years 1731–1850, the index is available at the Family History Library as FHL book 942 B2g Index and is also available on microfilm or microfiche. An abstract of the contents of The Gentleman’s Magazine from 1731 to 1868 was published by George L. Gomme in 1891. He describes it as excerpts from the publications containing local history and information, topographical details. Gommes work has been digitized and indexed by Ancestry. com and is available online to Ancestry subscribers or at subscribing libraries, a four-volume set of indexes was compiled by Samuel Ayscough with some assistance or later editing by John Nichols and by Gabriel Richard. Covering 1731–1786, and volume 4 contains an Index of Names of Persons covering 1731–1818, the indexes are by surname only and are available online for free through Google Books, Ayscough, Samuel, Nichols, John
5.
Edward Cave
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Edward Cave was an English printer, editor and publisher. He coined the term magazine for a periodical, founding The Gentlemans Magazine in 1731, the son of a cobbler, Cave was born in Newton near Rugby, Warwickshire and attended Rugby School, but was expelled after being accused of stealing from the headmaster Henry Holyoake. He worked at a variety of jobs, including timber merchant, when no one showed any interest, Cave took on the task by himself. The Gentlemans Magazine was launched in 1731 and soon became the most influential and he devoted all his energy to the magazine, and rarely left its offices at St Johns Gate, Clerkenwell. He made use of a number of contributors, most famously Samuel Johnson. Cave himself often contributed pieces to the Magazine under the pen name of Sylvanus Urban and he also obtained a licence from Lewis Paul for 250 spindles for his patent roller-spinning machine, a precursor of the water frame. In 1742 he bought Marvels Mill at Northampton and converted this to a cotton mill and this was apparently profitable, but only modestly so. He is buried at St. James Church, Clerkenwell, online page images of Gentlemens Magazine Covering v.1 through v.20. Daily Life in Georgian England as Reported in the Gentlemans Magazine
6.
Ashburnham House
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Ashburnham House is an extended seventeenth-century house on Little Deans Yard in Westminster, London, United Kingdom, which since 1882 has been part of Westminster School. It is occasionally open to the public, when its staircase, the masonry embrasures in the front room on the ground floor expose the houses mediaeval origins from before the sixteenth-century dissolution of the Monastery, and perhaps from before the Conquest. There has been a building on the site since the eleventh century, the Ashburnham family lived in the house for less than eighty years until John, 1st Earl Ashburnham sold the lease to the Crown in 1730. These books and manuscripts now form the heart of the collections of the British Library, a fire in Ashburnham House on 23 October 1731 damaged many items, a contemporary records Dr. Bentley leaping from a window with the priceless Codex Alexandrinus under one arm. The manuscript of Beowulf was among those that damage, a fact reported in The Gentlemans Magazine. In 1739 the Dean and Chapter bought back the property from the Crown for ₤500, and it reverted to the use of the Priors direct equivalent, the sub-dean. The house was the location of Westminsters first day-house, also known as Ashburnham House
7.
Cotton library
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The Cotton or Cottonian library was collected privately by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton MP, an antiquarian and bibliophile, and was the basis of the British Library. Cottons skill lay in finding, purchasing and preserving these ancient documents, the leading scholars of the era, including Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, and James Ussher, came to use Sir Roberts library. Richard James acted as his librarian, the library is of especial importance for sometimes having preserved the only copy of a work, such as happened with Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. At the time of the dissolution of monasteries, official records and important papers were poorly kept. Sir Robert collected and bound over a hundred volumes of official papers, such important evidence was highly valuable at a time when the politics of the Realm were historically disputed between the King and Parliament. Sir Robert knew his library was of public interest and, although he made it freely available to consult. On 3 November 1629 he was arrested for disseminating a pamphlet held to be seditious, Sir Roberts library included his collection of books, manuscripts, coins and medallions. After his death the collection was maintained and added to by his son, Sir Thomas Cotton, Sir Roberts grandson, Sir John Cotton, donated the Cotton library to Great Britain upon his death in 1702. At this time, Great Britain did not have a library. It went first to Essex House, The Strand, which, however, was regarded as a risk, and then to Ashburnham House. From 1707 the library housed the Old Royal Library. Ashburnham House also became the residence of the keeper of the libraries, Richard Bentley. The manuscript of The Battle of Maldon was destroyed, and that of Beowulf was heavily damaged, also severely damaged was the Byzantine Cotton Genesis, the illustrations of which nevertheless remain an important record of Late Antique iconography. Mr. Speaker Onslow, as one of the trustees of the library, directed. The published report of work is of major importance in bibliography. Fortunately, copies had been made of some, but by no means all, of works that were lost. In 1753 the Cotton library was transferred to the new British Museum, at the same time the Sloane Collection and Harley Collection were acquired and added, so that these three became the Museums three foundation collections. The Royal manuscripts were donated by George II in 1757, in 1973 all these collections passed to the newly established British Library
8.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
9.
The Battle of Maldon
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The Battle of Maldon is the name given to an Old English poem of uncertain date celebrating the real Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion. Only 325 lines of the poem are extant, both the beginning and the ending are lost, the poem is told entirely from the perspective of the English, and names many individuals that Mitchell and Robinson believe were real Englishmen. The poem as we have it begins with the Anglo-Saxon warriors dismounting to prepare for battle, a Viking messenger offers the English ealdorman Byrhtnoth peace if he will consent to pay tribute. Byrhtnoth angrily refuses, telling the messenger that he fight the heathen Vikings in defense of his land. Not all the English are portrayed as heroic however, one, Godric the son of Odda, flees the battle with his brothers and, most improperly, the poem as it has come down to us ends with another Godric disappearing from view. This time, it is Godric, the son of Æthelgar, advancing into a body of Vikings, ofermōde, occurring in line 89, has caused much discussion. Literally high spirits or overconfidence, ofermōde is usually translated as pride, both Glenn and Alexander translate it as arrogance and Bradley as extravagant spirit. In 1731, the only manuscript of the poem was destroyed in the fire at Ashburnham House that also damaged and destroyed several other works in the Cotton library. The poem has come down to us thanks to the transcription of it made c,1724, which was published by Thomas Hearne in 1726. After being lost, the transcription was found in the Bodleian Library in the 1930s. Who made this original transcription is still unclear, some favouring John Elphinstone, according to some scholars, the poem must have been written close to the events that it depicts, given the historical concreteness and specificity of the events depicted in the poem. According to Irving, the events told with such clarity could only have been composed shortly after the events had taken place. While this may seem strange to an audience, who are used to “realistic fiction. Niles, in his essay “Maldon and Mythopoesis”, also argues for a composition date. He states that the three references to Æthelred the Unready necessitate an early composition date, before Æthelred had achieved his reputation for ineffectiveness. This argument hinges upon Byrhtnoth’s, and the poet’s, degree of knowledge of Aethelred’s ill reputation, if Byrhtnoth had known of Aethelred’s nature, would he have been willing to sacrifice himself for an undeserving king, effectively throwing away his own life and those of his men. Niles indicates that this not appear to be supportable through the actions. Apparently Byrhtnoth did not know of the nature, and most likely the poet himself did not know of the king’s nature either
10.
Beowulf
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Beowulf is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative lines. It may be the oldest surviving poem in Old English and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature. A date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars, the only certain dating pertains to the manuscript, the author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the Beowulf poet. The poem is set in Scandinavia, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendels mother attacks the hall and is also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and later king of the Geats. After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, after his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory. The full poem survives in the known as the Nowell Codex. It has no title in the manuscript, but has become known by the name of the storys protagonist. In 1731, the manuscript was damaged by a fire that swept through Ashburnham House in London that had a collection of medieval manuscripts assembled by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. The Nowell Codex is currently housed in the British Library, the poem may have been brought to England by people of Geatish origins. Others have associated this poem with the court of King Alfred the Great or with the court of King Cnut the Great. The poem deals with legends, was composed for entertainment, though Beowulf himself is not mentioned in any other Anglo-Saxon manuscript, scholars generally agree that many of the other personalities of Beowulf also appear in Scandinavian sources. This does not only people, but also clans and some of the events. Three halls, each about 50 metres long, were found during the excavation, the majority view appears to be that people such as King Hroðgar and the Scyldings in Beowulf are based on real historical people from 6th-century Scandinavia. 19th-century archeological evidence may confirm elements of the Beowulf story, Eadgils was buried at Uppsala according to Snorri Sturluson. When Eadgils mound was excavated in 1874, the finds supported Beowulf and they showed that a powerful man was buried in a large barrow, c 575, on a bear skin with two dogs and rich grave offerings. These remains include a Frankish sword adorned with gold and garnets and he was dressed in a costly suit made of Frankish cloth with golden threads, and he wore a belt with a costly buckle
11.
American poetry
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Unsurprisingly, most of the early colonists work relied on contemporary British models of poetic form, diction, and theme. However, in the 19th century, a distinctive American idiom began to emerge, the history of American poetry is not easy to know. The received narrative of Modernism proposes that Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot were perhaps the most influential modernist English-language poets in the period during World War I. But this narrative leaves out African American and women poets who were published, by the 1960s, the young poets of the British Poetry Revival looked to their American contemporaries and predecessors as models for the kind of poetry they wanted to write. There are 14 such writers whom we might on that basis call American poets, early examples include a 1616 testimonial poem on the sterling warlike character of Captain John Smith and Rev. One of the first recorded poets of the British colonies was Anne Bradstreet, the poems she published during her lifetime address religious and political themes. She also wrote tender evocations of home, family life and of her love for her husband, edward Taylor wrote poems expounding Puritan virtues in a highly wrought metaphysical style that can be seen as typical of the early colonial period. This narrow focus on the Puritan ethic was, understandably, the dominant note of most of the written in the colonies during the 17th. Of course, being a Puritan minister as well as a poet, a distinctly American lyric voice of the colonial period was Phillis Wheatley, a slave whose book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published in 1773. She was one of the poets of her day, at least in the colonies. The 18th century saw an emphasis on America itself as fit subject matter for its poets. The work of Rebecca Hammond Lard, although old, still apply to life in todays world. She writes about nature, not only the nature of environment, on the whole, the development of poetry in the American colonies mirrors the development of the colonies themselves. The early poetry is dominated by the need to preserve the integrity of the Puritan ideals that created the settlement in the first place, as the colonists grew in confidence, the poetry they wrote increasingly reflected their drive towards independence. This shift in subject matter was not reflected in the mode of writing which tended to be conservative and this can be seen as a product of the physical remove at which American poets operated from the center of English-language poetic developments in London. The first significant poet of the independent United States was William Cullen Bryant, whose contribution was to write rhapsodic poems on the grandeur of prairies. Formed the Fireside Poets were a group of 19th-century American poets from New England, the poets primary subjects were the domestic life, mythology, and politics of the United States, in which several of the poets were directly involved. Other notable poets to emerge in the early and middle 19th century include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Sidney Lanier, and James Whitcomb Riley
12.
Nathaniel Bacon (Virginia colonist and rebel)
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Nathaniel Bacon was a colonist of the Virginia Colony, famous as the instigator of Bacons Rebellion of 1676, which collapsed when Bacon himself died from dysentery. Bacon was born on January 2,1647, in Friston Hall in Suffolk, England, to merchant parents Thomas Bacon. Nathaniel was one of their children and received an education at Cambridge University. He went on a tour of Europe under the tutelage of John Ray. Nathaniel married Elizabeth Duke, the daughter of Sir Edward Duke, after accusations that Nathaniel cheated another young man of his inheritance, Thomas Bacon gave his son the considerable sum of £1,800 and the young man sailed into exile across the Atlantic. Upon arriving in Virginia, Nathaniel Bacon bought two frontier plantations on the James River, since his cousin was a prominent militia colonel and friend of governor William Berkeley, Bacon settled in Jamestown, the capital. Soon Bacon was himself appointed to the governors council, berkeleys wife, Frances Culpeper, may also have been Bacons cousin by marriage. Maryland Governor Calvert protested the incursion, and the Susquehannock retaliated, Maryland militia then joined Virginia forces, and attacked a fortified Susquehannock village. After five chiefs had accepted the Maryland leaders invitation to parley, they were slaughtered, the Susquehannocks retaliated in force against plantations, killing 60 settlers in Maryland and another 36 in their first assault on Virginia soil. Then other tribes joined in, killing settlers, burning houses and fields and slaughtering livestock as far as the James, frontier settlers dismissed the plan as expensive and inadequate, and also questioned it as a possible excuse to raise tax rates. In the meantime, Bacon, whose overseer on a James River plantation had been killed by Indian raiders, emerged as a rebel leader. When Berkeley refused to grant Bacon a military commission to attack all Indians, Bacon mustered his own force of 400-500 men and moved up the James River to attack the Doeg and Pamunkey tribes. Although both had lived peaceably with the colonists, and had not attacked the frontier settlements. In March, Berkeley had attempted to secure warriors from the Pamunkey tribe to fight hostile tribes pursuant to earlier treaties, the Pamunkey queen Cockacoeske passionately reminded the Governors Council of the deaths 20 years ago of her husband and 100 warriors who provided in a similar situation. The chairman had ignored her complaint, instead continued to demand more warriors, Berkeley did arrest Bacon and remove him from the Council, but Bacons men quickly secured his release, and forced Berkeley to hold legislative elections. Meanwhile, Bacons men continued their offensive against the Pamunkeys, who fled into Dragon Swamp, when the friendly Occoneechee managed to capture a Susquehannock fort, Bacons forces demanded all the spoils, although they had not assisted in the fighting. They then attacked the Oconeechee by treachery, killing men, women and children, despite Bacons outlaw status, voters of Henrico County elected him to the recomposed House of Burgesses. That body enacted a number of sweeping reforms, limiting the governors powers and they also made the sale of any arms to any Indian subject to the death penalty
13.
English poetry
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This article focuses on poetry written in English from the United Kingdom, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The article does not include poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, the earliest surviving English poetry, written in Anglo-Saxon, the direct predecessor of modern English, may have been composed as early as the 7th century. This is generally taken as marking the beginning of Anglo-Saxon poetry and it is possible to identify certain key moments, however. The Dream of the Rood was written before circa AD700, by and large, however, Anglo-Saxon poetry is categorised by the manuscripts in which it survives, rather than its date of composition. While the poetry that has survived is limited in volume, it is wide in breadth, beowulf is the only heroic epic to have survived in its entirety, but fragments of others such as Waldere and the Finnesburg Fragment show that it was not unique in its time. Other genres include much religious verse, from works to biblical paraphrase, elegies such as The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin, and numerous proverbs, riddles. With one notable exception, Anglo-Saxon poetry depends on alliterative verse for its structure, with the Norman conquest of England, beginning in 1111 the Anglo-Saxon language rapidly diminished as a written literary language. The new aristocracy spoke predominantly Norman, and this became the language of courts, parliament. While Anglo-Norman or Latin was preferred for high culture, English literature by no means died out, other transitional works were preserved as popular entertainment, including a variety of romances and lyrics. With time, the English language regained prestige, and in 1362 it replaced French and Latin in Parliament, the reputation of Chaucers successors in the 15th century has suffered in comparison with him, though Lydgate and Skelton are widely studied. A group of Scottish writers arose who were believed to be influenced by Chaucer. The rise of Scottish poetry began with the writing of The Kingis Quair by James I of Scotland, the main poets of this Scottish group were Robert Henryson, William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas. The Renaissance was slow in coming to England, with the generally accepted start date being around 1509 and it is also generally accepted that the English Renaissance extended until the Restoration in 1660. However, a number of factors had prepared the way for the introduction of the new learning long before this start date. A number of medieval poets had, as noted, shown an interest in the ideas of Aristotle. The introduction of printing by Caxton in 1474 provided the means for the more rapid dissemination of new or recently rediscovered writers and thinkers. Caxton also printed the works of Chaucer and Gower and these books helped establish the idea of a poetic tradition that was linked to its European counterparts. In addition, the writings of English humanists like Thomas More and Thomas Elyot helped bring the ideas, the establishment of the Church of England in 1535 accelerated the process of questioning the Catholic world-view that had previously dominated intellectual and artistic life
14.
Nicholas Amhurst
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Nicholas Amhurst was an English poet and political writer. Amhurst was born at Marden, Kent and he was educated at Merchant Taylors School, and at St Johns College, Oxford. In 1719 he was expelled from the university, ostensibly for his irregularities of conduct and he had satirized Oxford morals in Strepkons Revenge, a Satire on the Oxford Toasts, and he attacked from time to time the administration of the university and its principal members. An old Oxford custom permitted, on occasions, some person to deliver from the rostrum a humorous, satirical speech. This orator was known as Terræ filius, in 1721 Amhurst produced a series of bi-weekly satirical papers under this name, which ran for seven months and incidentally provides much curious information. These publications were reprinted in 1726 in two volumes as Terræ Filius, or, the Secret History of the University of Oxford and he collected his poems in 1720, and wrote another university satire, Oculus Britanniæ, in 1724. On leaving Oxford for London he became a prominent pamphleteer on the opposition side, on the 5 December 1726 he issued the first number of The Craftsman, a weekly periodical, which he conducted under the pseudonym of Caleb DAnvers. Nevertheless it reached a circulation of 10,000 copies and was one of the biggest magazines of its time with such as Henry Fielding, John Gay. For this success Amhursts editorship was not perhaps chiefly responsible and it was founded, and in the beginning financed, by Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke and William Pulteney, the latter being a frequent and caustic contributor. He therefore desired to be appointed censor of all plays brought on the stage and this was regarded as a suspected libel, and a warrant was issued for the arrest of the printer. Amhurst surrendered himself instead, and suffered a short imprisonment and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Amhurst, Nicholas. Nicholas Amhurst at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
15.
Robert Dodsley
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Robert Dodsley was an English bookseller, poet, playwright, and miscellaneous writer. Dodsley was born near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where his father was master of the free school and he is said to have been apprenticed to a stocking-weaver in Mansfield, from whom he ran away, going into service as a footman. Profits and fame from his literary works enabled Dodsley to establish himself with the help of his friends as a bookseller at the sign of Tullys Head in Pall Mall, London. He soon became one of the foremost publishers of the day, one of his first publications was Samuel Johnsons London for which he paid ten guineas in 1738. He published many of Johnsons works, and he suggested and helped to finance Johnsons Dictionary, pope also made over to Dodsley his interest in his letters. In 1738, the publication of Paul Whiteheads Manners was voted scandalous by the House of Lords, Dodsley published for Edward Young and Mark Akenside, and in 1751 brought out Thomas Grays Elegy. He was also publisher to the Rev. Joseph Spence and Joseph Warton, and collaborated with John Baskerville, in 1759 Dodsley retired, leaving the conduct of the business to his brother James, with whom he had been in partnership for many years. He died and was buried at Durham while he was on a visit to his friend Joseph Spence. This was followed by a farce called The Toy-Shop, in which the toymaker indulges in moral observations on his wares. Dodsley is, however, best known as the editor of two collections, one of plays, and one of poems, the first was the Select Collection of Old Plays. Given his literary circle, he was able to fill three volumes of poetry by the time of the first edition on 15 January 1748. By March 1755 it had entered four editions and he added a fourth volume, in 1745 he published a collection of his dramatic works, and some poems which had been issued separately, in one volume under the modest title of Trifles. His tragedy of Cleone had a run at Covent Garden,2000 copies being sold on the day of publication. To these various works, Horace Walpole, Akenside, Soame Jenyns, Lord Lyttelton, Lord Chesterfield, Burke and he produced and published more successful works towards the end of his life. The Select Fables of Esop, which remained in print in various editions for many decades, for which he, the Works of William Shenstone was brought out as a memorial after Shenstones sudden death, and was very selectively edited so as to show that writer at his best. A Select Collection of Old Plays,12 Volumes,123456789101112 Reed, Isaac, ed. A Select Collection of Old Plays,12 Volumes,123456789101112 Collier, John Payne, ed. A Select Collection of Old Plays, cS1 maint, Date format 12 Volumes,123456789101112 Hazlitt, W. Carew, ed
