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If on St Vincent's Day the sky is clear
More wine than water will crown the year.
Traditional
Remember on St Vincent's Day
If that the sun his beams display,
Be sure to mark his transient beam
Which through the window sheds a gleam;
For 'tis a token bright and clear,
Of prosperous weather all the year.
Traditional
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
Francis Bacon, English Renaissance polymath, born on January 22, 1561, died on
April 9, 1626;
Of Truth
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Francis Bacon; Of Death
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Francis Bacon; Of Revenge
Francis
Bacon
It is yet a higher speech of his than the other, "It is true
greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a
god."
Francis Bacon; Of Adversity
Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.
Francis Bacon; Of Adversity
He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Francis Bacon; Of Marriage and Single Life
Men in great place are thrice servants,—servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.
Francis Bacon; Of Great Place
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said,
"If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."
Francis Bacon; Of Boldness
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.
Francis Bacon; Of Goodness
The remedy is worse than the disease.
Francis Bacon; Of Seditions
I had rather believe all the fables in the legends and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind.
Francis Bacon; Of Atheism
In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say,
"The world says," or "There is a speech abroad."
Francis Bacon; Of Cunning
There is a cunning which we in England call "the turning of the cat in the pan;" which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.
Francis Bacon; Of Cunning
Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands.
Francis Bacon; Of Fortune
If a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.
Francis Bacon; Of Fortune
Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business.
Francis Bacon; Of Youth and Age
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon; Of Studies
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Francis Bacon
Lord Bacon was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any country, ever produced.
Alexander Pope , 1741
The Nowing ones complane of my book the fust edition had no stops I put in A nuf here and they may pepper and salt it as they please.
Lord Timothy Dexter, American eccentric, born on January 22,
1747
IME the first Lord in the younited States of A mericary Now of Newburyport it is the voise of the peopel and I cant Help it and so Let it goue Now as I must be Lord there will foller many more Lords pretty soune for it dont hurt A Cat Nor the mouse Nor the son Nor the water Nor the Eare then goue on all is Easey Now bons broaken all is well all in Love Now I be gin to Lay the corner ston and the kee ston with grat Remembrence of my father Jorge Washington the grate herow 17 sentreys past before we found so good a father to his shildren and Now gone to Rest
Lord Timothy Dexter
The wisdom displayed in Shakespeare was equal in profoundness to the great Lord Bacon's
Novum Organum. WilliamHazlitt (1778 - 1830)
In the Assuming trade three separate and independent cults are transacting business. Two of these cults are known as the Shakespearites and the Baconians, and I am the other
one – the Brontosaurian.
The Shakespearite knows that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's Works; the Baconian knows that Francis Bacon wrote them; the Brontosaurian doesn't really know which of them did it, but is quite composedly and contentedly sure that Shakespeare didn't, and strongly suspects that Bacon did. We all have to do a good deal of assuming, but I am so fairly certain that in every case I can call to mind the Baconian assumers have come out ahead of the Shakespearites. Both parties handle the same materials, but the Baconians seem to me to get much more reasonable and rational and persuasive results out of them than is the case with the Shakespearites. The Shakespearite conducts his assuming upon a definite principle, an unchanging and immutable
law – which is: 2 and 8 and 7 and 14, added together, make 165. I believe this to be an error. No matter, you cannot get a habit-sodden Shakespearite to cipher-up his materials upon any other basis. With the Baconian it is different. If you place before him the above figures and set him to adding them up, he will never in any case get more than 45 out of them, and in nine cases out of ten he will get just the proper 31. Mark Twain, from 'Is
Shakespeare Dead?'; My Autobiography
The English Renaissance lasted from about 1580 to 1626, and produced some of the world's most outstanding literature. At the core of this output was Sir Francis Bacon, a prodigious writer and philosopher. By opening the rational world to the creative mind, Bacon set the foundations upon which modern society has been built. In his major work,
The Advancement of Learning, Bacon proposed the Novum Organum, a "new tool" for the rational mind: inductive reasoning. Better-known today as the scientific method, inductive reasoning replaced the syllogistic simplicity of Aristotelian deductive reasoning with the creative act of hypothesis and experiment. Consider Bacon's statement:
"If a man will begin with certainties,
he will end in doubts;
but if he will be content to begin with doubts,
he will end in certainties." Source:
SirBacon.com
See here of causes why in London
So many men are made and undone
That Arts and honest trading drop
to swarm about ye Devil's Shop
Who cuts out Fortune's Golden Haunches
Trapping their souls with lots and chances
Sharing 'em from Blue Garters down
To all blue aprons in the town.
Here all religions flock together,
Like tame and wild fowl of a father
Leaving their strife, Religious bustle
Kneel down to play at pitch and Hustle
Thus, when the Shepherds are at play
Their flocks must surely go astray.
the woeful cause yet in these times
Honour, and honesty are crimes.
That publickly are punished by
Self interest and Vilany;
So much for monys magick power
Guess at the rest, you find out more. William Hogarth,
'An Emblematic Print
on the South Sea', 1720
I have given the name Manly Cove to this place today, because of the confidence and manly behaviour shown by the natives. They seemed desirous of our hats and attempted to seize some. Like King, Bowes had to order pants to be pulled down for the
'Indians'. They expressed a wish to know of what sex we were.
Captain Arthur Phillip, from the log of HMS Supply, January 22, 1788 –
Manly, near Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour)
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
Lord Byron, English poet, born on January 22, 1788
The Night is also a religious concern – and even more so – when I viewed the Moon and Stars through Herschell's telescope – and saw that they were worlds.
Lord Byron
Man! Thou pendulum between a smile and tear.
Lord Byron
Society is now one polished horde
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
Lord Byron
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly lives on.
Lord Byron
'Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction.
Lord Byron
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence.
Lord Byron
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause for breath,
And love itself have rest.
Lord Byron
Oh! too convincing – dangerously dear –
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!
Lord Byron
Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
Lord Byron
What a strange thing is the propagation of life! – A bubble of Seed which may be spilt in a whore's lap – or in the Orgasm of a voluptuous dream – might (for aught we know) have formed a Caesar or a Buonaparte – there is nothing remarkable recorded of their Sires – that I know of.
Lord Byron
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires.
Lord Byron
There is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
Lord Byron
The reason that adulation is not displeasing is that, though untrue, it shows one to be of consequence enough, in one way or other, to induce people to lie.
Lord Byron
I am sure of nothing so little as my own intentions.
Lord Byron
I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.
Lord Byron
Through life's road so dim and dirty
I have dragged to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing except thirty-three.
Lord Byron; for his 33rd birthday, 1821
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yes, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
Lord Byron; 'On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year' (1824)
Friendship is Love without his wings.
Lord Byron
There is a gulf where thousands fell,
There all the bold adventurers came;
A narrow sound, though deep as hell,
'Change Alley is the dreadful name. Dean Swift, on the Stock Exchange scandal of the South Sea Bubble, 1720
To be aware that we are asleep is to be on the point
of waking; and to be aware that we are only partially awake is the first
condition of becoming and making ourselves more fully awake.
Alfred Orage, British intellectual, born on January 22, 1873; 'Are
We Awake?'
We do not turn on the lights over the whole house when we are only using
one floor. That would be a waste of light. Similarly we ought not to be using
energy on all three stories of our organism when we are only actually using one
of them.
Alfred Orage; 'Economizing our
Energy'
It is possible to have aesthetic emotions and not
have human emotions.
Alfred Orage;
'On
Love'
He was a man who could be both perfectly right and
wholly wrong, but when he was wrong one respected him all the more, as a man who
was seeking the essential things ... TS Eliot on Alfred
Orage
Orage’s impersonality was his greatness, and the
breadth of his mind was apparent in the speed with which he threw over a
cumbrous lot of superstitions, and a certain number of fairly good ideas, for a
new set of better ones. Ezra Pound on Alfred
Orage
Talkies, squeakies, moanies, songies, squawkies ... Just give them ten years to develop and you're going to see the greatest artistic medium the world has known. DW Griffith, American director, born on January 22, 1875
Remember how small the world was before I came along. I brought it all to life: I moved the whole world onto a 20-foot screen. DW Griffith
Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow. DW Griffith
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? What art? What science? DW Griffith
Oh, that peace may come! (referring to the war in South Africa then in progress). Last words of Britain's Queen Victoria, who died on January 22, 1901
Saturday I think was the most dismal, awful day that could be imagined. All the shops were closed, and every place of business. No papers published. Nothing but church bells to be heard for the memorial services. Not a scrap of colour to be seen anywhere, and even the weather seemed to be in mourning, for snow was falling on the ground and gave the effect of black and white. Every house had drawn blinds from one till four, and the place looked like a blind town.
Joan Kyffin Willington (ed.), Maisie: her life in her letters from 1898 to
1902, 1992 (referring to the death of Queen Victoria)
Today 23 years ago dear Grandmama died. I wonder what she would have thought of a Labour Government. George V of the
United Kingdom, as Ramsay MacDonald formed Britain's first Labour Government, January 22, 1924
A deacon of Saragossa
or Zaragoza,
Spain, as it is more correctly called,
Vincent was
martyred c. 304 during the Emperor Diocletian's persecution of
Christians. Imprisoned in Valencia
for his faith, and tortured on a gridiron – a story perhaps adapted from
the martyrdom
of another son of Huesca
in Aragon,
Spain, St Lawrence
– Vincent, like many early martyrs in the early hagiographic
literature, succeeded in converting his jailer. Though he was finally
offered release if he would consign Scripture
to the fire, Vincent refused.
Vincent represents a Christianization of the ancient Greek sun god Apollo,
whose rites were performed at this time of year to bring warmth back to
the frozen land. Consequently, St Vincent and his feast day are associated
with fire, just as we noted on January 20 and 21 for
the Eve and Night of St Agnes.
St Vincent was cheerful under torture. He was broiled over fire, put in
a dungeon, bound in stocks and left without provisions. When God sent
angels to comfort him, the jailer saw the cell full of light and St
Vincent singing praises to God, and was converted on the spot. Some parts
of St Vincent's supposed bones are still preserved in religious houses in France.
His body was thrown among the rushes in a marsh,
but was defended from beasts and birds of prey by a raven. Angels also
looked after the mangled and burned body of this archetype of suffering
and rebirth – Apollo/Vincent. Dacian had the body cast into the sea, but
it came to shore and was buried by a pious widow.
There
was an old saying "Vincenti
festo, si sol radiet, memor esto", ("... merely calling us
to remember if the sun shone on that day" – Robert
Chambers)
"The matter
was a mystery to modern investigators of folk lore, till a gentleman
residing in Guernsey, looking through some family documents of the
sixteenth century, found a scrap of verse expressed in old provincial
French:
Prens garde au
jour St Vincent
Car, sy ce jour tu vois et sent
Que le soleil soiet cler et bian,
Nous érons du vin plus que l'eau.
"Dr Foster in the 'Perennial calendar'
is at a loss for the origin of the command, but he thinks it may have
been derived from a notion that the sun would not shine unominously on
the day whereon the saint was burnt." William
Hone, The
Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co.,
London, 1878; 1825-'26
edition online
[But see Pennick,
Nigel, The
Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA,
1992, p34, which gives the whole text; surely this clears up any mystery
about this proverb – PW]
Apperson finishes it:
'Tis a token, bright and clear,
That you will have a prosperous year.
Pennick (Pennick,
Nigel,
The
Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA,
1992) says that St Vincent is a Christianization of the Graeco-Roman
sun god Apollo
(pictured).
Apollo
('destroy' or 'excite'), is a god in Greek and Roman mythology, the son of Zeus and Leto, and the
twin of Artemis
(goddess of the hunt). In later times he became equated with Helios, god
of the sun, and by proxy his sister was equated with Selene,
goddess of the moon. Later, he was known primarily as a solar
deity. In Etruscan mythology, he was known as Aplu.
The Celts revered him under synonyms. The sixth-century BCE Greek historian
Hecateus wrote that an unnamed island we today can clearly identify as
Britain, was inhabited by the Hyperboreans who
"venerate Apollo more
than any other god" and that Apollo returned to the island every
nineteen years, to much celebration. Hecateus did not know it but he was
describing the 19-year lunar metonic cycle
(enneadecaeteris) which was unknown to Greek
scholars until a century after the historian wrote.
Around the new year people greet each
other with gong xi fa cai, often translated as
'congratulations and be prosperous'. Traditionally, red packets ('hong
bao') are passed out on Chinese New Year's Eve, and then Chinese New
Year is celebrated with firecrackers.
The New Year's Eve dinner is very large and
traditionally includes chicken. However,
the New Year's day dinner is typically vegetarian. Many dishes with
various symbolic meanings are associated with the Chinese New Year:
Traditionally, red
packets (Mandarin:
'hong bao'; Hokkien:
'ang pow' (POJ:
'âng-pau'); Hakka:
'fung bao'; Cantonese:
'lai see') are passed out during the Chinese New
Year's celebrations, from married couples to unmarried people
(usually children). Chinese New Year is celebrated with firecrackers,
dragon
dances and lion
dances. Typically the game of mahjong
is played in some families.
A reunion dinner is held on New
Year's Eve where members of the family, near and far, get
together for celebration. The New Year's Eve dinner is very large
and traditionally includes chicken.
Fish is included, but not eaten up completely (and the remaining
stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase 'nián nián yǒu yú',
or 'every year there is fish/leftover' is a homophone for phrases
which could mean 'be blessed every year' or 'have profit every
year', since 'yú' is also the pronunciation for 'profit'. A
type of black hair-like algae, pronounced 'fat choy' in Cantonese,
is also featured in many dishes since its name sounds similar to
'prosperity'.
When is it?
The date of the Chinese New Year is
determined by the Chinese calendar, a lunisolar
calendar. The same calendar is used in countries that have
adopted the Confucian
and Buddhism
tradition and in many cultures influenced by the Chinese,
notably the Koreans, the Tibetans,
the Vietnamese and the pagan Bulgars.
Chinese New Year starts on the first day of the new year containing
a new moon (some sources even include New Year's Eve) and ends on
the Lantern Festival fifteen days later. This occurs around the
time of the full moon as each lunation
is about 29.53 days in duration. In the Gregorian
calendar, the Chinese New Year falls on different dates each
year, on a date between January
21 and February
21.
Many non-Chinese people confuse their Chinese birth-year with
their Gregorian birth-year. Because the Chinese New Year starts in
late January to mid February, the Chinese year of dates from January
1 until that day in the new Gregorian year remain unchanged
from the previous Gregorian year. For example, the 1989 year of the
snake began on February
6, 1989.
The year 1990 (the year following 1989) is considered by some people
to be the year of the horse. However, the 1989 year of the snake
officially ended on January
26, 1990,
because the zodiac does not end on January
1. This means that anyone
born from January 1 to January
25, 1990
was actually born in the year of the snake rather than the year of
the horse.
Seventh day of the new year
The seventh day traditionally is known as
the common man's birthday, the day when everyone grows one year
older. It is also the day when tossed fish salad, yusheng,
is eaten. People get together to toss the colourful salad and make
wishes for continued wealth and prosperity. This is celebrated
primarily amongst the Chinese in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia
and Singapore.
Festivities
The New Year season lasts fifteen days. The
first week is the most important and most often celebrated with
visits to friends and family as well as greetings of good luck. The
celebrations end on the important and colourful Lantern
Festival on the evening of the 15th day of the month.
However, Chinese believe that on the third day of the Chinese New
Year it is not appropriate to visit family and friends, and call the
day 'chec hao', meaning 'easy to get into arguments'.
"All that has been said about New Year's celebrations in general applies to the Chinese New Year. We find the world falling into chaos, even as it is reborn. Here chaos takes the form of demons that threaten the well-being of the community. The first duty, then, of celebrants on this day is to expel demons by lighting fireworks and making as much noise as possible. Another weapon in the arsenal against evil is the color red. On this day in China, streets and homes are draped with endless red decorations. This may seem like innocent fun, but at its heart these acts are a magical necessity to protect oneself from chaos. The ritual aspect of this activity is brought to light by the street performance of the dragon with numerous human legs. Once the community is purified, good fortune throughout the year is assured by making offerings to the gods of health and wealth. Offerings can also be given to your ancestors and to monks and priests. The Chinese ginger jar, a ceramic pot with a lid, was originally created for holding gifts of ginger, candy, or tea. Once the contents were used, the jar was returned to the person who gave the gift. Unlike the astrology of the West, which proceeds through all twelve signs of the zodiac each year, the Chinese system aligns each year in a twelve-year cycle with one of the signs." Source: Robert Place, Llewellyn;
quoted in GrannyMoon's Morning Feast
1561Sir
Francis Bacon,
1st Viscount St Alban
(d. April 9, 1626), early
English philosopher, lawyer, linguist, composer, mathematician, geometer, musician, poet, painter, astronomer, classicist, philosopher, historian, theologian, architect, father of modern science, patron of modern
democracy. Some
assert that he was the illegitimate son of Queen
Elizabeth I of
England.
His philosophical works lay out a complex methodology for scientific
inquiry, often called the Baconian method.
Bacon was Lord Chancellor of the realm, and man of letters, author of the Rosicrucian-inspired utopianNew
Atlantis (1627). The English poet Alexander Pope called him "The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind". Pope also wrote, in
1741, "Lord Bacon
was the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any country, ever
produced."
Many respectable scholars believe that it was actually
Bacon who wrote the plays of William
Shakespeare, claiming that the
supposedly uneducated Shakespeare could not possibly have done so.
While the theory is perhaps fanciful (we can deduce a little about Shakespeare's probable education),
it certainly has persisted for a long time.
In 1621 Lord Bacon
was accused of accepting bribes as Lord Chancellor. To this, he
pleaded guilty and was fined £40,000, banished from the court and
disqualified from holding office. He was also sentenced to
imprisonment in the Tower of London. The banishment, fine, and
imprisonment were remitted, but his career as a public servant was
finished. However, such was his popularity and the public perception
of his relative innocence, his disfavour with the Crown, the
Lords and the people did not last long.
When he was 21, Bacon
met the
alchemist and original 007, John Dee(1527 - 1609).
On August 11, 1582
there was an entry in Dee's journal that they met at Mortlake – the young Bacon
came to the famous alchemist to learn about the ancient Hebrew
esoteric numerical code known as the Gematria, one of the oldest cipher
systems known, dating from 700 BCE. Esoteric themes are threaded through much of
Bacon's writing and we can only guess at Dee's influence.
Bacon died on April 9, 1626, ironically, a victim of scientific inquiry. He was out riding in his coach on a cold day with Dr Witherborne, the physician to
King James I, on the Holloway Road to Highgate, near London.
Always exercising his inquiring mind, Bacon had noticed that cold meats seemed not to go rotten as quickly as others, so it suddenly occurred to the great experimental scientist that flesh might be preserved in snow as well as in salt. The two men got out of the carriage and bought a hen from the cottage of a poor woman and helped each other to stuff the bird with snow by way of experiment. Sadly, poor Francis Bacon got a bad chill and could not return home, spending several days seriously ill at the nearby home of the
Earl of
Arundel, in a bed which was damp, having been unused for some time. His health deteriorated till the great man finally died.
Against cold meats was he insured?
For frozen chickens he procured
brought on the illness he endured,
and never was this Bacon cured. – PW
So desiring you to be good to concealed poets, I continue, yours very assured, Fr. Bacon. Francis Bacon to the poet John Davies, 1603
The most prodigious wit, that ever I knew of my nation, and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordship's name, though he be known by another. Tobie Matthew; letter to Francis Bacon, 1623
Bacon
and the serving boys
John Aubrey in his Brief Lives
states that Bacon was "a pederast". Bacon's fellow
parliamentary member Sir Simonds D'Ewes in his Autobiography and
Correspondence writes of Bacon: "yet would he not
relinquish the practice of his most horrible & secret sinne of
sodomie, keeping still one Godrick, a verie effeminate faced youth,
to bee his catamite and
bedfellow". Bacon's mother Lady Ann Bacon expressed clear
exasperation with what she believed was her son's behaviour. In a
letter to her other son Anthony, she complains of another of
Francis's companions "that bloody Percy" who, she writes,
he kept "yea as a coach companion and a bed companion".
Bacon exhibited a strong penchant for young Welsh serving-men. One
such person, Francis Edney, received the enormous sum of two hundred
pounds in Bacon's will. Source:
Wikipedia
To the most iudicious, and
learned, Sir FRANCIS BACON, Knight.
THE Viper here, that stung the sheepheard swaine,
(While careles of himselfe asleepe he lay,)
With Hysope caught, is cut by him in twaine,
Her fat might take, the poison quite away,
And heale his wound, that wonder tis to see,
Such soveraigne helpe, should in a Serpent be.
By this same Leach, is meant the virtuous King,
Who can with cunning, out of manners ill,
Make wholesome lawes, and take away the sting,
Wherewith soule vice, doth greeue the virtuous still:
Or can prevent, by quicke and wise foresight,
Infection ere, it gathers farther might.
Peacham, Henry, Minerva Britanna or A Garden of Heroical Deuises, furnished, and adorned with Emblemes and Impresa's of sundry natures, Newly devised, moralized, and
published, Wa Dight, London, 1612
1747 (Some sources say February 22)
'Lord' Timothy
Dexter (d. October 26,
1806),
American eccentric businessman and author. I would venture to say
that few men have ever combined in their life's narrative such wacky
individuality and incredible good fortune.
In 1769, aged 22, he began working in Newburyport, Massachusetts,
in his trade as a leather-dresser, but he had been working since he
was only eight years old, as a farm laborer before his
apprenticeship. He prospered sufficiently to attract a rich widow
named Elizabeth (Lord) Frothingham (d. July 3, 1809), whom he married
on May 22,
1770, and
sufficiently to buy a big house in which they settled with her four
children (they later had a son and daughter of their own) and set up
a glover's shop.
He
once gave Elizabeth $2000 to leave him and hired her back for the
same sum two weeks later.
Despite his lack of education, Dexter had the Midas
touch in business. At the end of the American War of Independence
he bought large amounts of European currencies that were worthless
at the time. When trade connections resumed, he had amassed a
fortune. He built two ships and began an export business to West
Indies and to
Europe.
He shipped warming pans to the former, which is, of course, a
tropical region, where they were discovered by his captain to be
useful ladles for the local molasses
industry. Dexter
made a good profit. Asian merchants bought the mittens for export to
Siberia.
His next venture was the proverbial 'selling coal to Newcastle',
which should have signalled certain failure, but Dexter's ships arrived as the city was crippled by a
coalminers' strike and Dexter gained an enormous profit.
He exported bibles
to East Indies and stray cats to Caribbean
islands and again somehow turned a profit ...
1788Lord
Byron(George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron; d. April
19, 1824),
English Romantic
poet. Byron was
famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb, a former lover who
continued to stalk him for many years, as "Mad, bad and
dangerous to know". Some surmise that bipolar disorder caused his tempestuous
moods.
George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron
His friend Shelley wrote that inside his house, allowed to wander
around, he kept eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an
eagle, a crow, a falcon, five peacocks, two guinea-hens, and an
Egyptian crane.
"Byron was born at
his father's rooms on Halles Street in London's fashionable
Mayfair section. His mother had ridden at Captain Byron's
insistence from Aberdeen so that his son could be born on English
soil.
The poet's mother said that this prenatal coach ride accounted
for her son's malformed leg. Another theory is that as a prudish
Scottish lady she demanded that the attending physician use what
was called a birthing tent, a black sheet that preserved the
woman's modesty but made the doctor literally work in the dark.
The nature of Byron's physical impairment has always been
mysterious, because prosthetic devices for both legs were found
after his death, none of them indicating malformation. So what
probably happened is that deprivation of oxygen in those
critical early moments led to motor dysfunction."Source
'So we'll go no more a roving'
Lord Byron
So
we'll go no more a roving so
late into the night Though
the heart be still as loving And
the moon be still as bright.
For
the sword outwears the sheath, And
the soul wears out the breast, And
the heart must pause to breathe, And
Love itself have rest.
Though
the night was made for loving, And
the day returns too soon, Yet
we'll go no more a roving By
the light of the moon.
Disillusioned with
his colleagues by 1894,
he left the Independent Labour Party and emigrated to Australia where he stayed until his death.
Like The
Bulletin of Sydney, his journal, Champion, published
from Melbourne, was a significant influence on culture and radical
politics of the time.
His obituary in The
Times of May
2, 1928, said: "Champion was an exceedingly able writer and
the wielder of a caustic pen. He had, however, the temperament of an
aristocrat and an inborn sympathy with Conservative traditions, both
of which prevented him from really understanding and sympathizing
with the minds of the masses whom he endeavoured to lead."
"... the son of Major-General J. H.
Champion, and was born in India on 22 January 1859. He was educated
at Marlborough College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and
entering the army fought with the artillery in the Afghan war. He
resigned his commission and joined the socialist movement in 1882,
became honorary secretary of the social democratic federation, and
wrote and worked for a socialist paper, Justice. In 1886 with
John Burns, H. M. Hyndman and J. Williams he was indicted for
sedition in connexion with the Trafalgar Square riots, but was
acquitted. Champion was also conducting a paper called To-Day,
and in 1885-6 Bernard Shaw's early novel Cashel Byron's
Profession appeared in it as a serial. It was published
separately by Champion in 1886. This was the first work of Shaw's
published in book form. In 1889 Champion was one of the leaders of
the dock labourers' strike, to the funds of which a large sum was
sent from Australia. Soon afterwards he had a disagreement with some
of his fellow socialists, broke away, and for a time was
assistant-editor of the Nineteenth Century. He stood as an
independent candidate for the house of commons at Aberdeen, but,
though he polled fairly well, was defeated and soon afterwards went
to Melbourne. In 1895 he established a weekly paper the Champion
which lasted until 1897, and he also published in Melbourne in 1895 The
Root of the Matter, a series of dialogues on social questions.
This book which gave a very reasonable and moderate statement of the
socialist position attracted less attention than it deserved.
Champion could not, however, find his place in politics in
Australia. He could not see eye to eye with the Labour party, and a
statement, possibly made in haste, that this party consisted of
lions led by asses did not help the position. He was an unsuccessful
candidate for South Melbourne for the Victorian legislative
assembly, and then settled down as a leader writer for The Age.
His wife successfully conducted the Book Lovers' Library and
Bookshop, and in connexion with this Champion published an
interesting literary monthly paper, the Book Lover, which ran
from 1899 to 1921. He had a long period of ill-health before his
death at Melbourne on 30 April 1928. He married Elsie Belle,
daughter of Lieut.-Colonel Goldstein, who survived him. He had no
children.
"Champion did not fulfil in Australia
the promise of his early years. He had much ability and a pleasant
personality, but his way in politics was barred because he was
unable to completely conform to the policies of any of the parties.
He interested himself in social movements, was a foundation member
of the anti-sweating league, and he organized the first appeal which
resulted in the foundation of the Queen Victoria hospital for women
and children. He also founded the Australasian authors' agency and
published a few volumes of books with literary
merit." Source
"Champion was one of the breed of socialists thrown up by H. M. Hyndman's Fabians of the 1880s. He was born at Poona in 1857, the son of a British army officer, and had his early education at Marlborough College. From 1876 to 1878 he was a cadet officer at Woolwich Military Academy, where he excelled in Latin and Greek. He received his commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1878 and was posted to India. When stricken with fever at Quetta he was sent home on leave, at the end of which he was in 1882 appointed adjutant at Portsmouth. In the same year he left the army and
joined the publishing house of Kegan, Paul and Company and became associated with Hyndman and Herbert Burrows. He arrived at Melbourne in August 1890 and was caught up in the maritime strike. He preached against the strike and was obliged to go back to England. In March 1894 he was again in Melbourne, writing on social and industrial topics for the Age. After clashing with David Syme, he began the weekly
Champion on 22 June 1895, both as a means of livelihood and as a medium to further his political ambitions.
"Champion was quick to see the merit of
[Henry] Lawson's verse but equally quick to suggest where the line of improvement lay. In his first notice on 22 February he observed:
'The proletarian predominates over the poet, and there is much froth yet to be blown off the top of this new-drawn pewter pot of Parnassus
brew.' Champion heard Professor T. G. Tucker in the Wilson Hall on 25 April tell the Princess Ida Club that in his view poetry was
'the exquisite expression of an exquisite impression'. He asked in his next
Champion how Lawson's 'When Your Pants Begin to Go' fitted into the Tuckerian definition of poetry." Roderick, Colin, Henry Lawson: a life, Angus and Robertson. Sydney,
1991, p. 141
I write
and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall
leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian
people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of
Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common
assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian
peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear,
remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will
have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of
years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles,
and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they
will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave
Russia.
Brothers
will kill brothers, and they will kill each
other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no
nobles in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the
sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed,
you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your
children or relations will remain alive for more than
two years. They will be killed by the Russian people ... I
shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong,
think of your blessed family.
Words written by Grigory Rasputin in a letter to
the Tsarina Alexandra,
December 7, 1916.
Twenty-three days later, Rasputin was killed, by two relatives of the Tsar Nicholas
II.
Nineteen months after Rasputin's death, the Tsar and his family lay dead.
Source
Although popular
with the public, Griffith's famous 1915 film, Birth of a
Nation, depicted African Americans as savages while glorifying the
Ku Klux Klan
and was controversial from its first release. The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
campaigned against the film, but was unsuccessful in suppressing it. On December 15,
1999, declaring that Griffith "helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes,"
Directors Guild of America's National Board
– without membership consultation – announced it would rename the
DW Griffith Award, the Guild's highest honour.
Your family and friends will get a
kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!!
You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your
own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)
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1720The beginning of the infamous South Sea Bubble – the name given to the economic
bubble that occurred due to overheated speculation
in and subsequent disastrous collapse of the South Sea Company.
In
1717, in England, a
group of speculative merchants (including the English statesman Robert Harley, 1st
Earl of Oxford, and Edward
Gibbon, the grandfather of the famous historian), who had
formed a huge corporation called the South Sea Company, proposed to the
government that they should take on the national debt of 30,981,712 pounds. The
public had confidence in the scheme and stock rose from 130 per cent to 300.
Only soon-to-be Prime Minister Robert Walpole opposed the scheme, and he warned the country of the likely
consequences, but was ignored.
The speculators spread
rumours about their prospects in places such as Mexico and Peru, and stock went
to 400, then settled at 330. Soon after the bill was passed by parliament, the
stocks went up to 340. Crafty speculators made huge profits with sham or 'bubble' companies. The Prince of Wales
(later King George I)
was said to have reaped 40,000
pounds. Such investors merely put money in to raise the public hope, only to
pull it out again as stocks rose. One of the schemes was "A company for
carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it
is".
Satirists as eminent as Swift produced
caricatures of bubble companies in verse and on playing cards. By May 28 the
shares sold at 890; soon they hit 1000. The inevitable happened, and stock
slumped. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had profited by nearly 800,000 pounds.
The poet John Gay was one of those wiped out. Many prominent members of the
establishment were bankrupted for their fraud and speculation.
"King George I also became involved as his two mistresses, the Countess of Darlington and the Duchess of Kendal were heavily involved in the South Sea Company and were blamed by the populace as being responsible.
"One of the ladies was jeered by a mob when out in her carriage. 'Goot people, why do you abuse us? We come for all your goots'. (She had a very strong German accent.) A voice from the crowd shouted back
'Yes, dam ye, and for all our chattels too!'" Source
1778 The Board of War (USA) induced Congress to
approve an invasion of Canada. The invasion proved impractical, and its
commander, Gilbert
du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, was recalled on March 2.
1789 The first
American novel was published – The Power
of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature
Founded in Truth (printed in Boston, Massachusetts), long thought to
be by Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, but now attributed to William
Hill Brown(1765 1793).
"Morton,
Sarah Wentworth,1759–1846,
American author, b. Boston. Under her pseudonym, Philenia, she wrote such
works as Ouâbi: Or the Virtues of Nature (1790), a sentimental Native
American romance. Morton was long thought to be the author of the first
American novel, The Power of Sympathy (1789), a book that is now
attributed to William Hill Brown."Source
1888 In Paris, France, an attempt to kill Louise Michel
resulted in her being wounded. The budding anarchist testified on behalf of her
attacker, arguing for his acquittal.
On October 15, 1839 she
proposed to her German cousin, Prince Albert
of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819 - 1861), and when he died of typhoid, she entered a
forty-year period of mourning for him. She had nine children and 37 surviving
great-grandchildren in many of the royal families of Europe.
Mrs Brown
As well as being known as the Widow of Windsor, Queen Victoria
was also known as 'Mrs Brown' because she relied increasingly on a
Scottish retainer, John Brown. The nickname was long perceived as
a joke. The recently discovered diaries of Lewis
Harcourt, a politician of the time, may lend credence to the story. The
diaries contain a report that one of the Queen's chaplains, Rev. Norman Macleod,
made a deathbed confession to Harcourt repenting of his action in presiding over
Queen Victoria's marriage to John Brown. Debate continues over whether the
marriage actually happened. Some scholars insist that Victoria would never have
married a servant and even doubt that the relationship was even romantic. They
doubt the veracity of Harcourt's account and question why a royal chaplain would
confess to a politician. Others are equally certain that Victoria was in love
with Brown and regard Harcourt's account as confirmation that a marriage
actually occurred. Supporters of the Brown marriage theory regard Harcourt as a
well-placed source with no obvious reason to place a false story in his private
diaries. In the final analysis there is no way to be absolutely certain of the
truth. (Victoria requested that mementos of both Prince Albert and John
Brown be placed in her coffin, a request which horrified her family, who
disliked Brown intensely). Source: Wikipedia
1902 A successful
experiment by Guglielmo Marconi
to transmit from Cornwall to the Isle of Wight, UK, was
conducted.
1905'Bloody Sunday' in St Petersburg, beginning of the 1905
revolution.
About one hundred thousand
demonstrating workers, women and children were fired upon by Cossack troops in
Saint Petersburg, Russia. At least 500 of the strikers were killed, with some
estimates of 1,000, and 3,000 wounded. The
general population of Russia was appalled, and many went on strike – it was
the beginning of the first Russian Revolution. The tsar was even forced to establish a
limited consultative parliament called the State Duma. However, he also put
Pyotr Stolypin in charge of a
reign of terror that saw thousands executed.
On the day following Bloody Sunday, the anarchist Voline formed
part of the first Soviet, created to assist the victims of repression.
1905The funeral of Louise Michel. A
procession of more than 100,000 people accompanied the coffin of the anarchist Louise Michel to the Levallois
cemetery where she was buried. The Lepine prefect, who tried to follow the
procession, was driven off by the anarchists. Benoît
Broutchoux
and Charles Malato spoke at the massive gathering in the final graveside
ceremony.
1907 A huge tsunami (or
tidal wave) killed about 1,500 people in the Dutch East Indies (later
Indonesia).
1917 Death of Emma Miller (b.
1839),
pioneer Australian feminist, foundation president of the Woman's Equal Franchise Association between
1894 and 1905. The flag at Brisbane's Trade Hall flew at half mast when Emma Miller died.
1926 An interview
with famed American horticulturist Luther Burbank,
in the San Francisco Bulletin, entitled 'I'm an Infidel, Declares
Burbank, Casting Doubt on Soul Immortality Theory' brought him many thousands
of letters from the public, most of it opposing his skepticism. The great
endeavours the 77-year-old atheist made to write dignified replies to his
critics wore him out and he died soon after.
1980In Moscow, Andrei
Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped invent the Soviet Union's
first hydrogen bomb, and his wife Elena Bonner were arrested. Sakharov had
criticised the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan; he was soon stripped
of his numerous scientific honuors, and both were banished to remote Gorky.
1998
Suspected UnabomberTheodore
Kaczynski pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence of life without the
possibility of parole.
2001
USA: Four of the Texas
7 were caught at a convenience store in Woodland
Park, Colorado and a fifth killed himself inside a motor home.
2001
The famed twin boy guerrilla leaders of Burma,
Johnny
and Luther Htoo, held a press conference and declared that they wanted to
finish fighting. They were aged about 12 or 13.
2002AOL
Time Warner brought a federal suit against Microsoft
alleging that the market for AOL's Netscape
Navigator Internet browser was harmed when Microsoft started to give away a
competing browser.
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