Sir David Brewster relates that in the year 1566, an accident occurred to Tycho Brahe, at Wittenberg, which had nearly deprived him of his life. On the 10th of December, Tycho had...
The house of Gibbon, in which he completed his "Decline and Fall," is in the lower part of the town of Lausanne, behind the church of St. Francis, and on the right of the road lead...
During the residence of Lord Byron at Venice, a clerk was sent from the office of Messrs. Vizard and Co., of Lincoln's Inn, to procure his lordship's signature to a legal instrumen...
Alas! poor Morris--writes one--we knew him well. Who that has once read or heard his songs, can forget their rich and graceful imagery; the fertile fancy, the touching sentiment, a...
Sheridan's wit was eminently brilliant, and almost always successful; it was, like all his speaking, exceedingly prepared, but it was skilfully introduced and happily applied; and...
In October, 1841, Dr. Chalmers commenced two series of biblical compositions, which he continued with unbroken regularity till the day of his decease, May 31, 1847. Go where he mig...
Campbell was a great lover of submarine prospects. "Often in my boyhood," says the poet, "when the day has been bright and the sea transparent, I have sat by the hour on a Highland...
Alexander Newell, Dean of St. Paul's, and Master of Westminster School, in the reign of Queen Mary, was an excellent angler. But Fuller says, while Newell was catching of fishes, B...
The following characteristic story of these two "intellectual gladiators" is related in "A New Spirit of the Age." Leigh Hunt and Carlyle were once present among a small party of e...
Sydney Smith writes:--If men are to be fools, it were better that they were fools in little matters than in great; dulness, turned up with temerity, is a livery all the worse for t...
Towards the close of the last century, there met at Mrs. Montague's a literary assembly, called "The Blue-Stocking Club," in consequence of one of the most admired of the members,...
Lord Elibank made a happy retort on Dr. Johnson's definition of oats, as the food of horses in England, and men in Scotland. "Yes," said he, "and where else will you see such horse...
The royal patent, by which the performance of the regular drama was restricted to certain theatres, does not appear to have fostered this class of writing. Dr. Johnson forced Golds...
Mr. Samuel Ireland, originally a silk merchant in Spitalfields, was led by his taste for literary antiquities to abandon trade for those pursuits, and published several tours. One...
The story of Evelina being printed when the authoress was but seventeen years old is proved to have been sheer invention, to trumpet the work into notoriety; since it has no more t...
Dr. Still, though Bishop of Bath and Wells, seems not to have been over fond of water; for thus he sings:-- "A stoup of ale, then, cannot fail, To cheer both heart and soul; It hat...
This question has not yet been satisfactorily answered. In 1812, Dr. Mason Good, in an essay he wrote on the question, passed in review all the persons who had then been suspected...
The following, one of the latest productions of the poet Moore, addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne, shows that though by that time inclining to threescore and ten, he retained a...
A Quarterly Reviewer, in discussing an objection to the Copyright Bill of Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, which was taken by Sir Edward Sugden, gives some curious particulars of the progeny...
Sheridan made his appearance one day in a pair of new boots; these attracting the notice of some of his friends: "Now guess," said he, "how I came by these boots?" Many probable gu...
Coleridge, among his many speculations, started a periodical, in prose and verse, entitled The Watchman, with the motto, "that all might know the truth, and that the truth might ma...
Men before they die see and comprehend enigmas hidden from them before. The greatest poet, and one of the noblest thinkers of the last age, said on his death-bed:--"Many things obs...
And who was Mrs. Southey?--who but she who was so long known, and so great a favourite, as Caroline Bowles; transformed by the gallantry of the laureate, and the grace of the parso...
Lamb lies buried in Edmonton churchyard, and the stone bears the following lines to his memory, written by his friend, the Rev. H. F. Cary, the erudite translator of Dante and Pind...
It was suggested to a distinguished gourmet, what a capital thing a dish all fins (turbot's fins) might be made. "Capital," said he; "dine with me on it to-morrow." "Accepted." Wou...
Much has been said of the state of insanity to which the author of the Ode to the Passions was ultimately reduced; or rather, as Dr. Johnson happily describes it, "a depression of...
Mr. Speaker Abbott having spoken in slighting terms of some of Moore's poems, the poet wrote, in return, the following biting epigram: "They say he has no heart; but I deny it; He...
The craft of authorship is by no means so easy of practice as is generally imagined by the thousands who aspire to its practice. Almost all our works, whether of knowledge or of fa...
Mr. Pitt was accustomed to relate very pleasantly an amusing anecdote of a total breach of memory in some Mrs. Lloyd, a lady, or nominal housekeeper, of Kensington Palace. "Being i...
Boileau, the celebrated French comedian, usually passed the summer at his villa of Auteuil, which is pleasantly situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne. Here he took delig...