1.
Thomas Gray
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Thomas Gray was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, 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 12 children, and he lived with his mother after she left his abusive and mentally unwell father. Grays mother paid for him to go to Eton College where two of his uncles worked, Robert and William Antrobus, Robert became Grays first teacher and helped inspire in Gray a love for botany and observational science. Grays other uncle, William, became his tutor and he recalled his schooldays as a time of great happiness, as is evident in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College. Gray was a delicate and scholarly boy who spent his time reading and avoiding athletics and he lived in his uncle’s household rather than at college. He made three friends at Eton, Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole, Thomas Ashton. The four prided themselves on their sense of style, sense of humour and they were called the quadruple alliance. In 1734 Gray went up to Peterhouse, Cambridge and he wrote letters to friends listing all the things he disliked, the masters and the Fellows. Intended by his family for the law, he spent most of his time as an undergraduate reading classical and modern literature, in 1738 he accompanied his old school-friend Walpole on his Grand Tour of Europe, possibly at Walpoles expense. The two fell out and parted in Tuscany, because Walpole wanted to attend parties and Gray wanted to visit all the antiquities. They were reconciled a few years later and it was Walpole who later helped publish Grays poetry. When Gray sent his most famous poem, Elegy, to Walpole, Walpole sent off the poem as a manuscript, Gray then published the poem himself and received the credit he was due Gray began seriously writing poems in 1742, mainly after his close friend Richard West died. He moved to Cambridge and began a programme of literary study, becoming one of the most learned men of his time. Gray was a brilliant bookworm, a quiet, abstracted, dreaming scholar and he became a Fellow first of Peterhouse, and later of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Gray moved to Pembroke after the students at Peterhouse played a prank on him, Gray spent most of his life as a scholar in Cambridge, and only later in his life did he begin traveling again. Although he was one of the least productive poets, he is regarded as the foremost English-language poet of the mid-18th century, in 1757, he was offered the post of Poet Laureate, which he refused. Gray was so self-critical and fearful of failure that he published only thirteen poems during his lifetime and he once wrote that he feared his collected works would be mistaken for the works of a flea
2.
William Blackstone
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Sir William Blackstone SL KC was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the controversial Commentaries on the Laws of England, born into a middle-class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1738. After switching to and completing a Bachelor of Civil Law degree, he was made a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford on 2 November 1743, admitted to Middle Temple, and called to the Bar there in 1746. Blackstone is considered responsible for completing the Codrington Library and Warton Building, on 3 July 1753 he formally gave up his practice as a barrister and instead embarked on a series of lectures on English law, the first of their kind. In November 1765 he published the first of four volumes of Commentaries on the Laws of England, considered his magnum opus and he remained in this position until his death, on 14 February 1780. Blackstones controversial legacy and main work of note is his Commentaries, designed to provide a complete overview of English law, the four-volume treatise was repeatedly republished in 1770,1773,1774,1775,1778 and in a posthumous edition in 1783. Legal education in England had stalled, Blackstones work gave the law at least a veneer of scholarly respectability, williams father, Charles Blackstone, was a silk mercer from Cheapside, the son of a wealthy apothecary. He became firm friends with Thomas Bigg, a surgeon and the son of Lovelace Bigg, after Biggs sister Mary came to London, Charles eventually persuaded her to marry him in 1718. This was not seen as a match for her, but the couple lived happily and had four sons. Charles and Henry, both fellows of New College, Oxford and took holy orders. Their last son, William, was born on 10 July 1723, although Charles and Mary Blackstone were members of the middle class rather than landed gentry, they were particularly prosperous. Tax records show Charles Blackstone to have been the second most prosperous man in the parish in 1722 and this, along with Thomas Biggs assistance to the family following Charles death, helps explain the educational upbringing of the children. William Blackstone was sent to Charterhouse School in 1730, nominated by Charles Wither, William did well there, and became head of the school by age 15. However, after Charles death the family declined, and after Mary died the familys resources largely went to meet unpaid bills. William was able to remain at Charterhouse as a poor scholar, Blackstone revelled in Charterhouses academic curriculum, particularly the Latin poetry of Ovid and Virgil. He began to note as a poet at school, writing a 30-line set of rhyming couplets to celebrate the wedding of James Hotchkis. He also won a medal for his Latin verses on John Milton, gave the annual Latin oration in 1738. On 1 October 1738, taking advantage of a new scholarship available to Charterhouse students, Blackstone matriculated at Pembroke College, Blackstone was particularly good at Greek, mathematics and poetry, with his notes on William Shakespeare being included in George Steevens 1781 edition of Shakespeares plays
3.
Horace
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Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses and caustic iambic poetry and his career coincided with Romes momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavians right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas. Some of the writings contained in his writings can be supplemented from the short. He was born on 8 December 65 BC in the Samnite south of Italy and his home town, Venusia, lay on a trade route in the border region between Apulia and Lucania. Various Italic dialects were spoken in the area and this perhaps enriched his feeling for language and he could have been familiar with Greek words even as a young boy and later he poked fun at the jargon of mixed Greek and Oscan spoken in neighbouring Canusium. Literary Latin must have sounded to him like a semi-foreign language, one of the works he probably studied in school was the Odyssia of Livius Andronicus, crammed into Italian boys with threats and floggings by teachers like the Orbilius mentioned in one of his poems. School was made particularly irksome by a number of his fellow pupils, the army veterans could have been settled there at the expense of local families uprooted by Rome as punishment for their part in the Social War. Such state-sponsored migration must have added still more variety to the area. According to a tradition reported by Horace, a colony of Romans or Latins had been installed in Venusia after the Samnites had been driven out early in the third century. In that case, young Horace could have felt himself to be a Roman though there are indications that he regarded himself as a Samnite or Sabellus by birth. Italians in modern and ancient times have always been devoted to their towns, even after success in the wider world. Images of his setting and references to it are found throughout his poems. Horaces father was probably a Venutian taken captive by Romans in the Social War, either way, he was a slave for at least part of his life. He was evidently a man of strong abilities however and managed to gain his freedom, thus Horace claimed to be the free-born son of a prosperous coactor. The father spent a fortune on his sons education, eventually accompanying him to Rome to oversee his schooling. The poet later paid tribute to him in a poem that one scholar considers the best memorial by any son to his father. As it is now, he deserves from me unstinting gratitude, I could never be ashamed of such a father, nor do I feel any need, as many people do, to apologize for being a freedmans son
4.
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
5.
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
6.
John Milton
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John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, man of letters, and civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of flux and political upheaval. Miltons poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self-determination, Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as a poem which. The phases of Miltons life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart Britain, the Restoration of 1660 deprived Milton, now completely blind, of his public platform, but this period saw him complete most of his major works of poetry. Miltons views developed from his extensive reading, as well as travel and experience. By the time of his death in 1674, Milton was impoverished and on the margins of English intellectual life, yet famous throughout Europe, John Milton was born in Bread Street, London on 9 December 1608, the son of composer John Milton and his wife Sarah Jeffrey. The senior John Milton moved to London around 1583 after being disinherited by his devout Catholic father Richard Milton for embracing Protestantism, in London, the senior John Milton married Sarah Jeffrey and found lasting financial success as a scrivener. He lived in and worked from a house on Bread Street, the elder Milton was noted for his skill as a musical composer, and this talent left his son with a lifelong appreciation for music and friendships with musicians such as Henry Lawes. Miltons fathers prosperity provided his eldest son with a tutor, Thomas Young. Research suggests that Youngs influence served as the introduction to religious radicalism. After Youngs tutorship, Milton attended St Pauls School in London, there he began the study of Latin and Greek, and the classical languages left an imprint on his poetry in English. Miltons first datable compositions are two psalms done at age 15 at Long Bennington, one contemporary source is the Brief Lives of John Aubrey, an uneven compilation including first-hand reports. In the work, Aubrey quotes Christopher, Miltons younger brother, When he was young, he studied hard and sat up very late. In 1625, Milton began attending Christs College, Cambridge and he graduated with a B. A. in 1629, and ranked fourth of 24 honours graduates that year in the University of Cambridge. Preparing to become an Anglican priest, Milton stayed on to obtain his Master of Arts degree on 3 July 1632, Milton was probably rusticated for quarrelling in his first year with his tutor, Bishop William Chappell. He was certainly at home in the Lent Term 1626, there he wrote his Elegia Prima, a first Latin elegy, to Charles Diodati, based on remarks of John Aubrey, Chappell whipt Milton. This story is now disputed, though certainly Milton disliked Chappell, historian Christopher Hill cautiously notes that Milton was apparently rusticated, and that the differences between Chappell and Milton may have been either religious or personal. It is also possible that, like Isaac Newton four decades later, Milton was sent home because of the plague, in 1626, Miltons tutor was Nathaniel Tovey
7.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
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Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was an English aristocrat, letter writer and poet. Aside from her writing, Lady Mary is also known for introducing and advocating for smallpox inoculation to Britain after her return from Turkey and her writings usually address and challenge the hindering contemporary social attitudes towards women and their intellectual and social growth. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was born Mary Pierrepont in May 1689, her baptism took place on 26 May, at a few days old and she was the eldest child of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, and his first wife, Mary Pierrepont. Her mother had three children, two girls and a boy, before dying in October 1692. The children were raised by their Pierrepont grandmother until Mary was nine years old, Lady Mary was then passed to the care of her father upon her grandmothers death. She began her education in her fathers home, family holdings were extensive, including Thoresby Hall and Holme Pierrepont Hall in Nottinghamshire, and a house in West Dean in Wiltshire. She also corresponded with two bishops, Thomas Tenison and Gilbert Burnet, by 1710 Lady Mary had two possible suitors to choose from, Edward Wortley Montagu and Clotworthy Skeffington. Lady Mary corresponded with Edward Wortley Montagu via letters from 28 March 1710 to 2 May 1711, after May 1711 there was a break in contact between Lady Mary and Edward Wortley Montagu. Marys father, now Marquess of Dorchester, rejected Wortley Montagu as a prospect because he refused to entail his estate on a possible heir and her father pressured her to marry Clotworthy Skeffington, heir to an Irish peerage. In order to avoid marriage to Skeffington, she eloped with Wortley, the marriage license is dated 17 August 1712, the marriage probably took place on 23 August 1712. The early years of Lady Mary Wortley Montagus married life were spent in the country and she had a son, Edward Wortley Montagu the younger, on 16 May 1713, in London. A couple of later, on 1 July 1713 Lady Marys brother, aged twenty, died of smallpox. On 13 October 1714, her husband accepted post as Junior Commissioner of Treasury, when Lady Mary joined him in London, her wit and beauty soon made her a prominent figure at court. In December 1715, Lady Mary contracted smallpox and she survived, but while she was ill someone circulated the satirical court eclogues she had been writing. One of the poems was read as an attack on Caroline, Princess of Wales, in 1716, Edward Wortley Montagu was appointed Ambassador at Istanbul. In August 1716, Lady Mary accompanied him to Vienna, and thence to Adrianople and he was recalled in 1717, but they remained at Istanbul until 1718. While away from England, the Wortley Montagus had a daughter on 19 January 1718, after an unsuccessful delegation between Austria and Turkey/Ottoman Empire, they set sail for England via the Mediterranean, and reached London on 2 October 1718. During her visit she was charmed by the beauty and hospitality of the Ottoman women she encountered
8.
Tobias Smollett
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Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. His novels were amended liberally by printers, an edition of each of his works was edited by Dr. O. M. Brack. Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton, in present-day West Dunbartonshire and he was the fourth son of Archibald Smollett of Bonhill, a judge and land-owner who died about 1726, and Barbara Cunningham, who died about 1766. His career in medicine came second to his ambitions, during 1739 he went to London to seek fortune as a dramatist. Unsuccessful, he obtained a commission as a surgeon on HMS Chichester and travelled to Jamaica. During 1742 he served as a surgeon during the campaign to capture Cartagena. On his return, he established practice in Downing Street and married a wealthy Jamaican heiress, Anne Nancy Lascelles and she was a daughter of William Lascelles. They had one child, a daughter Elizabeth, who died aged 15 years about 1762 and he had a brother, Capt. James Smollet, and a sister, Jean Smollett, who married Alexander Telfair of Symington, Ayrshire. Jean succeeded to Bonhill after the death of her cousin-german, Mr. Commissary Smollett and they lived in St. John Street off Canongate, Edinburgh and had a son who was in the Military. The Adventures of Roderick Random was modelled on Le Sages Gil Blas, after that Smollett finally had his tragedy, The Regicide, published, though it was never performed. During 1750, Smollett was granted his MD degree in Aberdeen, and also travelled to France, having lived for a brief time in Bath, he returned to London and published The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom during 1753. He was now recognised as an author, whose novels were published by the well-known London bookseller Andrew Millar. Smollett became associated with the likes of David Garrick, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Johnson, during 1755 he published an English translation of Miguel de Cervantess novel Don Quixote, which he revised during 1761. During 1756, he became editor of the magazine The Critical Review, Smollett then began what he regarded as his major work, A Complete History of England, from 1757 to 1765. During this period he served a prison sentence for libel. Having suffered the loss of a daughter, he went abroad with his wife, and he also published The History and Adventures of an Atom, which gave his opinion of British politics during the Seven Years War in the guise of a tale from ancient Japan. He also re-visited Scotland and this visit helped inspire his last novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, published during the year of his death
9.
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
10.
William Livingston
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William Livingston served as the Governor of New Jersey during the American Revolutionary War and was a signer of the United States Constitution. Livingston was the son of Philip Livingston and was born in Albany in the Province of New York, Livingston received his early education from local schools and tutors. At age 14, Livingston was sent to live for a year with an Anglican missionary among the Iroquois Indians in the Mohawk Valley and he enrolled at Yale College upon his return in 1738 and graduated in 1741. He went on to New York City, where he studied law and became a law clerk for James Alexander and he was admitted to the bar in 1748 and began his practice in New York City. In 1752, along with William Smith and John Morin Scott he founded a weekly journal, the Reflector was New Yorks first serial non-newspaper publication and the only one being published in British North America at the time. It was used as a platform for challenging the powerful De Lancey/Anglican faction, publication of the Reflector ceased with the fifty-second issue after political pressure was brought to bear upon its printer, James Parker. Livingston served one term in the New York Assembly, but he remained active in its affairs until his political allies lost power in 1769. In 1770, he moved to Elizabethtown, where he built a country home to house his growing family. The house, known as Liberty Hall, still stands today, after attaining considerable influence amongst the local patriots, Livingston was elected to serve as one of New Jerseys delegates to the Continental Congress. He served from July 1774 to June 1776, in October 1775, he was commissioned a brigadier general of the New Jersey Militia. In August 1776, he was elected Governor of New Jersey and was reelected to the each year until his death in 1790. For much of the time between 1776 and 1779, the family was located in Parsippany for safety, Liberty Hall was frequently visited by British troops or naval forces since there was a substantial reward for Livingstons capture. The family returned in 1779 to begin restoring their looted home and he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1782. Livingston led the New Jersey Delegation to the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was one of the signers of the Constitution, Livingston married Susannah French in New Jersey in 1745. They went on to have 13 children, Livingston died on July 25,1790 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and was originally buried at Trinity Church, Manhattan, but on May 7,1844 was reinterred at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Livingstons daughter, Sarah, was born in 1756 and was educated at home in penmanship, English grammar, the Bible, and classic literature. At a time when women were relegated to the kitchen, she was brought up to be politically aware. She married John Jay at the age of 17 and became United States First Lady while Jay served as the President of the Continental Congress from 1778–1779
11.
William Mason (poet)
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William Mason was an English divine, poet, amateur draughtsman, author, editor and gardener He was born in Hull and educated at Hull Grammar School and St Johns College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1754 and held a number of posts in the church, in 1747 his poem Musaeus, a Monody on the Death of Mr. Pope was published to acclaim and quickly went through several editions. Summarizing this poem, a threnody, William Lyon Phelps writes, Musaeus was a monody on the death of Pope, there is nothing remarkable about these imitations. His garden designs included one for the Viscount Harcourt and he entered the Church in 1754, and in 1762 became the precentor and canon of York Minster. He was the friend, executor, and biographer of Thomas Gray, in 1775 The Poems of Mr. Gray. To which are prefixed Memoirs of his Life and Writings by W. Mason and he was also a friend of Horace Walpole and Joshua Reynolds. Masons artwork was considered worthy of showing at the Royal Academy between 1782 and 1786, in 1785 he was William Pitt the Youngers choice to succeed William Whitehead as Poet Laureate but refused the honour. Two of his works of scenes at the York racecourse, A Country Racecourse with horses preparing to start, were reproduced as mezzotint illustrations in 1786 by Francis Jukes in collaboration with Robert Pollard. In 1797 Mason hurt his shin on a Friday while stepping out of his carriage and he was able to officiate in his church at Aston on the Sunday, but died from the injury on the following Wednesday,7 April. Memorial inscriptions for Mason may be found in the church at Aston near Rotherham where he was rector, a cenotaph was also erected by Countess Harcourt in the gardens at Nuneham Courtenay. He was the guardian of Francis Ferrand Foljambe during his minority, Poets Corner Author and Bookinfo. com Translation into French of The English Garden with five drawings. William Mason at the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 William Mason at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive Lee, Sidney, ed. Mason, William
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