#Thomas Babington Macaulay

[dragonunsleeping]

Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the gate: ‘To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods,

– Thomas Babington Macaulay, Horatius

#poetry #Thomas Babington Macaulay

[versey21]

14th June

The Battle of Naseby by Thomas Babington Macaulay

The Battle of Naseby was fought on this day in 1645 and proved to be the final battle of the first of several civil wars that wracked the United Kingdom in the seventeenth century. The last Royalist army in the field of any significance, was decisively defeated by the Parliamentary forces led by Oliver Cromwell. King Charles I surrendered to the Parliament soon after. Excerpts from Macauley’s partisan poem follow.

After the Battle of Naseby, 14th June, 1645 by William Barnes Wollen

The Battle of Naseby

Oh! wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north.

With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red?

And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout?

And whence be the grapes of the wine-press that ye tread?

…

It was about the noon of a glorious day in June,

That we saw their banners dance and their cuirasses shine,

And the man of blood was there, with his long essenced hair,

And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke and Rupert of the Rhine.

…

Their heads all stopping low, their points all in a row:

Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dikes,

Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst,

And at a shock have scatter’d the forest of his pikes.

…

Where be your tongues, that late mock’d at heaven and hell and fate?

And the fingers that once were so busy with your blades?

Your perfum’d satin clothes, your catches and your oaths?

Your stage-plays and your sonnets, your diamonds and your spades?

Down, down, for ever down with the mitre and the crown,

With the Belial of the court, and the Mammon of the Pope!

There is woe in Oxford halls, there is wail in Durham’s stalls;

The Jesuit smites his bosom, the bishop rends his cope.

…

And the kings of earth in fear shall shudder when they hear

What the hand of God hath wrought for the Houses and the Word!

Thomas Babington Macauley was a nineteenth century British Whig politician and historian. His identification with the Parliamentary cause in this poem was probably genuine: the Whig Party could trace its descent from the Parliamentary opponents of absolute monarchy. The Royalist faction who supported the Stuart Kings, eventually evolved into the Whigs’ political opponents: the Tories.

#poetry #english civil war #thomas babington macaulay #whigs

[elegantzombielite]

"Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present."

Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman

(25 October 1800-1859)

#athoughtfortoday #Thomas Babington Macaulay #Golden age #degeneracy #contrast

[ijustkindalikebooks]

“What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!” ― Thomas Babington Macaulay, 

#booklr #books #bookblr #fiction #book #quotes #book quotes #quotations #quote #book quote #reading #thomas babington macauley #books & libraries #bookworm #books and reading #new books

[tiny-librarian]

The Victorian historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, referring to the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, famously wrote:

There is no sadder spot on Earth. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster and St Paul’s, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities: but with whatever is darkest in human nature and human destiny; with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries  of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, and the ornaments of courts.

Each year, since at least the 1960s, on the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution, a bunch of red roses - such as appear on her coat of arms - has been delivered anonymously to the Tower, with a request that it be placed on her memorial. The flowers, sent by a shop in London on the instructions of an undisclosed firm of trustees, are always accompanied by a card bearing only the dedication Queen Anne Boleyn 1536. This request is complied with by the Yeoman Warders, who lay the flowers on Anne’s grave and only remove them when they have withered. 

The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn - Alison Weir

#Anne Boleyn #the tower of london #tudor era #execution #british history #long live the queue

[chartmyfixations]

cris watches dr. who: s02e08 - "The Impossible Planet"

"I had that job once, I was a dinner lady. Not that I'm calling you a lady. Although I don't know, you might be... Do they pay you?"

Rose sees the “Welcome to hell"-graffiti and just has to laugh. She has grown so supremely unbothered with this kind of nonsense, it's hilarious

Blackspeak!

Squiddies!

I like that the Ood look terrifying, but are actually kind of sweet

Shakycammm

Danny from Ethics is kinda hot

I love how Rose is immediately triggered by people potentially being slaves, addresses the servants respectfully and instantly tries to unionize them. Good for her

I would love being a chief dramatist

This must be why the last episode was so lame: this one got all the budget. I love the Alien-esque set design of the space station, the claustrophobic hallways and the sucking black hole

TARDES are plants?! I could grow one? Hold on, I suddenly have a great idea for some merchandise...

Any one of you a talented synthetic bioflorist?

gdi, sexy Danny from Ethics is kind of a bigot

SPACE HORROR! Gotta be one of my favourite genres. I really like this episode, it's so much less predictable than the last one

Thomas Babington Macaulay poetry! Neat!

Trap doors? That's not a trap door. That's a seal. Usually used to seal things away. Do not open that thing!

waitwaitwait ABBADON? The literal Beast? We're dealing with THE FUCKING DEVIL?

7 out of 8 TARDES. I can't wait for the next episode, let's gOoOo!

#cris watches #cris watches dr who #doctor who #dr who #rose tyler #billie piper #the tenth doctor #tenth doctor #10th doctor #david tennant #s02e08 #the impossible planet #7 out of 8 tardes #the ood

[empirearchives]

The concept of ‘legitimacy’ as a matter of sovereignty first enters English discourse as a response to Napoleon

Excerpt from British Radicals and 'Legitimacy': Napoleon in the Mirror of History by Stuart Semmel

———

The introduction of ‘legitimacy’ into British political discourse seems to have been directly connected to the peculiar case of Napoleon. His superficial similarity to a king, in the wake of France’s republican experiment, made it necessary to distinguish him from other monarchs by dwelling on the quality he lacked, that of hereditary descent from a line of kings. Perhaps the earliest appearance of the new usage came in 1801, when the True Briton newspaper contrasted the ‘obtrusive upstart’ Napoleon with France’s ‘legitimate Monarchs’. The adjective occurred frequently in discussions of Napoleon (an 1803 broad-side, for example, called on the French to remove Bonaparte from ‘his usurped station . . . and hail the return of their legitimate prince’). The ultra-loyalist journalist Lewis Goldsmith employed the word frequently — as when he bemoaned Napoleon’s placing members of his own ‘bastard family on the thrones of ancient legitimate monarchs’. Goldsmith, in accusing the entire Bonaparte clan of bastardy, was not claiming that every member had been born out of wedlock. The new meaning rather accused Napoleon and his siblings of having been born outside of dynasty. Even as we chart the emergence of the new usage, however, Goldsmith’s language should remind us that the older meaning lurked underneath the surface (as it perhaps still lurks). The double meaning was present in contemporaries’ minds, as occasional wordplay suggested — not least because it was a common loyalist tactic to question the purity of Napoleon’s mother, and thus Napoleon's paternity. . .

As far as its critics were concerned, the virtue now trumpeted by continental dynasts amounted to nothing less than the ‘old doctrine of Divine Right, new-vamped up’, as the radical journalist William Hazlitt put it. ‘Legitimacy’ seemed an anachronism to Hazlitt, a ‘mock-doctrine’ dug up by ‘resurrection-men’. Thomas Babington Macaulay, in a similar spirit, would write in 1825 of ‘the doctrine of Divine Right’ having ‘come back to us, like a thief from transportation, under the alias of Legitimacy’. To those who worried about the strength of the executive, the new term ‘legitimacy’ seemed a bare-faced admission of a plot, on the Stuart model, against British liberties. Necessity had often been invoked, during the French wars, to justify infringements on traditional freedoms. Many now shared Hazlitt’s foreboding, expressed as news of Napoleon’s 1814 fall reached Britain, that ‘The restoration of the Bourbons in France will be the re-establishment of the principles of the Stuarts in this country’.

#napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #napoleonic era #napoleonic #first french empire #19th century #french empire #france #history #sovereignty #legitimacy #Stuart Semmel #Semmel #quotes #British #British Radicals and 'Legitimacy': Napoleon in the Mirror of History #Napoleon in the Mirror of History #British Radicals #England #Hazlitt #William Hazlitt

[belle-keys]

“I have conversed both [in India] and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues... I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. Honours might be roughly even in works of the imagination, such as poetry, but when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded, and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable."

– Thomas Babington Macaulay in his 1835 “Minute Upon Indian Education”.

This quote by Thomas Macaulay lives in my head rent-free. I think it perfectly summarizes the nasty Eurocentric impact of the British Empire on past and current perceptions of language and culture. The conclusion that what is native to the lands they colonized is fundamentally inferior is a view that is still rampant, overtly or subtly, everywhere.

#poc dark academia #dark academia #south asian history #british empire #colonization #colonialism #south asia #english literature #orientalism #babel an arcane history #babel #languages #literature

[catenaaurea]

No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheater. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series from the pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and useful vigor...

Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshiped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s...

The Arabs have a fable that the Great Pyramid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone of all the works of men bore the weight of the flood. Such as this was the fate of the Papacy. It had been buried under the great inundation, but its deep foundations had remained unshaken, and, when the waters abated, it appeared alone amidst the ruins of a world which had passed away. The republic of Holland was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the Great Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian League, and the House of Bourbon, and the parliaments and aristocracy of France...But the unchangeable Church was still there.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, The Church of Rome

#not catechism #nearing the end of that manual #and Koch is dropping bomb after bomb on me

[metamatar]

We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.

To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

#sorry but i have unlocked too many anti colonial feelings for a while #colonialism

[vympr]

“But homosexuality is strictly forbidden in India … because Hinduism …,” he stammered, as she beamed with satisfaction.

“Was.”

“What?”

“Same-sex marriage was legalized in India in twenty-eighteen, the same year as it was in Germany. Any more questions?”

But the new guy was so pitifully shaken by this that he couldn’t stop, and just kept digging himself an even deeper hole. “Sure, twenty-eighteen. But … before then?”

“You heard correctly!” Saraswati’s mood shifted faster than the weather, and suddenly she displayed warmth and interest. “I’m glad you brought this topic up. The legal prohibition of homosexuality, incidentally, was introduced by the Brits—by our old friend Thomas Babington Macaulay, in eighteen-sixty-one. So it didn’t stem from somesupposedly genuine Indian homophobia, it stemmed from a genuinely British homophobia. Nevertheless, we do of course share responsibility for the fact that it took us until twenty-eighteen to expunge that from the penal code.”

The new kid was so relieved by Saraswati’s apparent praise that he didn’t even realize he was speaking his thoughts out loud: “But it’s really Islam, above all, that’s the homophobic religion …”

“Oh really? In all the other so-called Oriental countries, the situation was basically the same, insofar as any laws restricting homosexuality were instituted by the colonial administrations. But, certainly, there are statements condemning homosexuality throughout the Quran,” Saraswati conceded. “That said, throughout the entire Ottoman Empire—which lasted over five hundred years—not a single person was convicted for consensual homosexual acts. People were convicted for raping men, but not for loving.”

Identitti, Mithu Sanyal

#2022 books #rape mention cw

[alphaman99]

"The law, unfortunately, has always been retained on the side of power; laws have uniformly been enacted for the protection and perpetuation of power."-- Thomas Cooper (1759-1839)

Source: Liberty of the Press, 1830

-

"Institutions purely democratic must, sooner, or later, destroy liberty or civilization or both."- Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) [Lord Macaulay] 1st Baron Macaulay, British historian

Source: Letter to H.S. Randall, May 23, 1857

[coolfamousquotescom]

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

Thomas Babington Macaulay

#reference #life #coolFamousQuotes #reading #success #book #words #quote #love #writers #writing #thoughts #quotes #quotation #quoteoftheday

[justanerdgirl]

Some excerpts from The Lone Wanderer by Tatyana Grigoryeva, 1967

This book contains an essay on life and literary activity of Japanese writer Kunikida Doppo. In addition to it, one can get some new intrresting information about the literary tendencies of the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century.

It is my own translation from Russian. English is not my first language, so I'm sorry in advance for all the misspellings and strange-looking grammatical constructions if there are any. Please, enjoy:)

...Doppo's appearance is preserved in his diary. In 1891, a passionate, eager and full of hope young man is building his character; composure, courage, persistence – are his ideals. He approaches life consciously, greedily pounces on the first book he gets in his hands, be it a political or economic treatise or fiction. He reads Byron and (Thomas Babington) Macaulay with equal zeal. He enthusiastically undertakes the organization of a revolt against the appointment of a new director, which goes against the wishes of the students. The school still remembered the words of Azusa Ono, a leader of the "freedom and people's rights" movement, which were said by him at the opening ceremony of the school, "The independence of a country is based on the independence of the people; the independence of the people is rooted in the independence of their spirit. The spiritual independence of the people is actually determined by the independence of science ..."

Nevertheless, the strike failed. The rebel was expelled. With broken hopes and incompleted education, he went to his parents in the village. In a neighboring village, he started teaching literature, mathematics and English. He was teaching children in his own way, instilling a love of freedom in them.

But Doppo hadn't been teaching for a long time. His father had changed his workplace again, and in June 1892 Doppo together with his younger brother Shuji, whom he treated with touching tenderness and with whom he was rarely separated, went to Tokyo. With his father's money, he begins publishing the magazine Literature for Youth ("Seinen bungaku", 青年文學) However, he had to abandon this idea soon. His father was fired, and the aspiring publisher was left without any funds. From February 1893, Doppo started keeping a diary, which he called Candid Notes ("Azamukazaru no ki", 欺かざるの記). The subtitle says – "thoughts, feelings, facts". We can learn from this diary what did the writer live by, what worried him. On February 3, 1893, Doppo started the first page and on May 18, 1897, he finished the last one. Here are four years of doubts and disappointments, the collapse of previous ideas and the birth of new views on the world, society, and human life.

The melancholic tone of the diary reflected the melancholic mood of the author. From the very first lines, there is a breath of sadness. Doppo was only twenty-two, and such a discouragement already! Or could it be because he was twenty-two? The dreams inspired by his youth, the ones gleaned from the books, had left him one after another. There is no longer an enthusiastic youth in front of us, but a man overcome with doubts.

This diary is interesting both as a confession of person and as a document of the century. The personality of the writer is the key to the era he lived in. A generation is visible in the personality.

It took him several years of painful reflection to make a choice, to determine his own path.

It is February, 1893. Doppo received the news: his father was fired. There his job search began. He felt depressed. Melancholic. Frustrated. Despairing, sometimes. The ideals in which he managed to believe, the ideals of "love, truth and work", were not confirmed. But he had no right to doubt, he had to give the salvation to all the people, make them free them from their suffering. Like Hamlet, he felt great responsibility for what was happening around him, and he was ready to accept the same fate:

The century has been shattered — and the worst of all

Is the fact that I was born to restore it.

But how? How could he give the freedom to people? Maybe through a political struggle?

"Thinking about the meaning of politics, I came to the conclusion that politics contains almost all public affairs. It is not only politics in the narrow sense of the word, it is also religion, education, and literature... If human is a social animal, then a political one, too..."

With a heavy heart, Doppo was accepting his parents' help, despite the fact that they were barely scraping by themselves. In his diary he wrote, "I was brought up by my parents and circumstances. My parents are praying for my success and expect it from me. As for me, I'm not afraid of hunger at all, but my mother and father should not starve. I will pull myself together, end up my moping and find my own place in life. I have no right to upset my parents"...

To be continued, I believe!

#literature #japanese literature #kunikida doppo #bsd #bungo stray dogs

[aboutanancientenquiry]

“Why Was Herodotus So Important to History?

Curated by TheCollector

Herodotus was a great geographer and writer from ancient Greece, who travelled the world in search of stories from the past. His monumental, 9-volume anthology The Histories, published in the 5th century BCE, was so significant, even during his lifetime, that he became widely recognized as the “father of history,” a title he has continued to hold through the centuries. Leading by example, his ability to weave historical facts into deeply compelling narratives went on to inspire generations of writers, historians, academics and philosophers to follow. Let’s take a closer look at the reasons why Herodotus was so important to the development of history.

Herodotus Wrote the First Ever History Book

Herodotus, The Histories, 15th century manuscript, image courtesy of Christie’s

Nowadays history is a vast and long-ranging field of research, but during Herodotus’ day in ancient Greece, it was an entirely different scenario. No one before Herodotus had actually written a clear and chronological timeline of real historical events – instead, texts tended to merge historical fact with Greek mythological fantasy. Herodotus broke the mold by travelling far and wide around the world in search of factual research. He then compiled together his findings into one long story, a 9-volume series of books titled The Histories. Its ambitious scope was unlike anything anyone had ever encountered before, and he went on to influence many generations of leading writers to follow. Fascinatingly, the word history that we use today is even evolved from the Greek word ‘historia’, meaning enquiry or research.

Herodotus Told Stories Many Had Ever Heard Before

Relief of a Persian Guard from the palace of Xerxes, 5th century BCE, image courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston

In The Histories, Herodotus focused on the Greco-Persian wars, examining the way society changed before, during and after the cataclysmic conflicts between Greece and Persia that took place. Epic struggles on a grand scale are the backdrop for Herodotus’s writings, but he also wrote about individual lives and rich, descriptive details about the world as he saw it, telling rich and colorful stories that many had never heard before. He observed the wonders and horrors of ancient Egypt, described gold-digging ants the size of dogs and Xerxes, the Persian king who punished the sea by whipping it and trying to burn it with red-hot iron brands.

He Showed How Entertaining History Could Be

Herodotus statue, image courtesy of Brewminate

Herodotus was a brilliant writer with a real knack for telling stories. While he may have embellished his facts here and there, much of what he wrote is believed to be true, or as close to the truth as you could get in ancient times. He proved that it was possible to tell factual stories in a highly entertaining way that could captivate the reader’s imagination. Amazingly, Herodotus performed his entire 9-volume series of books at the Olympic Games to a captivated audience, followed by thunderous applause. Legend has it some were even moved to tears by the emotive power of his writing and storytelling. 19th century historian Thomas Babington Macaulay said of Herodotus that he: “wrote as it is natural that he should write. He wrote for a nation susceptible, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of novelty and excitement.”

He Opened Up Philosophical Ways of Thinking About History

Herodotus seated marble statue, image courtesy of World News

As well as showing how entertaining history could be, Herodotus also examined how we could use historical research to ask philosophical questions about the nature of society and civilization. In The Histories, he explored how significant events could teach us moralizing messages about life. Contemporary historian Barry S. Strauss writes how Herodotus examines three core philosophical themes in The Histories which are: “the struggle between East and West,” “the power of liberty”, and “the rise and fall of empires.” Herodotus also demonstrates his belief that the world is ruled by fate and chance, and that mankind’s great weakness of hubris can bring about its downfall.”

Source: https://www.thecollector.com/why-was-herodotus-so-important-to-history/

Very good introductory article for a broader public! Now, of course Herodotus never claimed that he visited India and that he saw there gold digging giant ants and he attributes this story (which is a part of his description of the organization and the resources of the Persian Empire) to Persian sources. It is very probable that the explanation of this story as figured in The Histories is that Herodotus’ source confused the really existing gold digging marmots of modern day Pakistan with the ants, as the words for marmot and for ant sound very similar in Old Persian. Moreover, the story that Herodotus read the whole of his work at Olympia and that the adolescent Thucydides has been moved to tears by this reading is of rather anecdotical character (although Herodotus did read publicly parts of his work and his influence on Thucydides is immense). I have also some doubts about whether Herodotus can be seen as the historian of the struggle between “East’ and ‘West”, as these terms are rather anachronistic and may lead to confusions or exploitation of Heroodtus’ work for modern agendas. But of course the opposition between despotism/imperialism and freedom is central in The Histories, although Herodotus tries to be objective toward the Persians and to avoid caricaturing them. Despite these clarifications I found useful to make, I repeat that this is a very good article explaining to a broader public why Herodotus is so important. 

#herodotus #the histories #ancient greel classics #history

[tesserariuss]

The measure of a man’s character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.

Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay