Biographical Extracts
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Biographical Extracts’
Elizabethan courtier and soldier Sir Philip Sidney shows that a nobleman can also be a gentleman.
Writer and courtier Sir Philip Sidney died on October 17th, 1586, from a wound he had suffered while fighting in support of Dutch independence from Spain at the Battle of Zutphen on September 22nd. He was just 31. The account below is by Philip’s devoted friend Fulke Greville, who served James I as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Composer Ethel Smyth buys a new-fangled ladies’ bicycle, and scandalises the neighbours.
Ethel Smyth (to rhyme with ‘Forsyth’) was a successful composer of opera and orchestral music, whose lightly-written memoirs – she was acquainted with Brahms, Grieg and several other public figures in music – were also well received. Here, she recalls her scandalous purchase of a ladies’ bicycle in 1894.
George Stephenson won the admiration of French navvies by showing them how a Geordie works a shovel.
George Stephenson was arguably history’s most influential engineer, yet he never really gave up being a Northumberland miner. He always retained his Geordie ordinariness, and was never happier than when he was among his fellow working men.
Sir James Melville eavesdrops on Queen Elizabeth I’s music practice, and incurs Her Majesty’s displeasure.
In 1564, Mary Queen of Scots had recently returned to Edinburgh after the death of her husband King Francis II of France. Meanwhile down in London, her cousin Queen Elizabeth I kept asking Mary’s visiting courtier, Sir James Melville, which of the two Queens was the taller, the prettier, and the more musical?
Pauline de Meulan’s magazine Publiciste was close to going out of business when an anonymous contributor stepped in.
François Guizot (1787-1874) was the 17th Prime Minister of France, and a historian with a particular affection for England. ‘If he was treated with harshness by his political enemies,’ wrote Samuel Smiles, ‘his consolation was in the tender affection which filled his home with sunshine.’
A literary man tries to trick Samuel Johnson into an honest opinion, which was neither necessary nor very rewarding.
James Macpherson published two poems, ‘Fingal’ in 1762 and ‘Temora’ a year later, which he said were translations of Irish oral tradition. He attributed them to Ossian, the legendary 3rd century Irish bard, who told of the ‘endless battles and unhappy loves’ of his father Fingal and son Oscar. Dr Johnson was, like most modern scholars, unconvinced.