A Book of English Prose: Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High SchoolsLubbock, Percy
General
A Book of English Prose: Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools
Lubbock, Percy
Readers (Secondary)
100 Frank Osbaldistone, the hero of Scott's novel _Rob Roy_, goes to
Yorkshire on a visit to his uncle, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, whom he
has never seen. As he approaches his destination he falls in with a
young lady on horseback, who turns out to be Diana Vernon, a niece of
Sir Hildebrand's. The period of the story is early in the eighteenth
century.
106 _The 'Festin de pierre'_: Moliere's play, in which the hero, Don
Juan, rashly invites the statue of a man he has murdered to dine with
him. The invitation is unexpectedly accepted.
107 Coleridge, the poet, was an old friend and school-fellow of
Charles Lamb's.
109 An imaginary dialogue between the two philosophers. Plato, born
427 B.C., was some years the older of the two.
111 Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, with whom Plato had lived for a
time, was overthrown and expelled by his subjects, and driven to
support himself as a schoolmaster at Corinth.
_The Demiurgos_: the Creator.
113 Mrs Elton, in Jane Austen's novel _Emma_, is the somewhat
meddlesome wife of the village parson. Mr Knightley is a gentleman
living at Donwell, in the neighbourhood. The rest of the people named
are other neighbours and friends, one of them, Mr Woodhouse, being an
old gentleman of valetudinarian habits.
118 Coleridge, as a young man (he was born in 1772), was for a time in
the habit of preaching in Unitarian chapels.
122 This is an extract from a letter of Keats to a friend, written in
1818.
124 _The Flight to Varennes_: by the middle of 1791 the French
Revolution had gone so far that the king and queen were practically
prisoners in the palace of the Tuileries at Paris. They at last
determined to try to escape, and the arrangements for their flight were
carried out, in all possible secrecy, by Choiseul, an officer of the
French army, and Fersen, a young Swedish count. Carlyle's vivid
account tells how the start was made; but the royal party were stopped
at Varennes, not far from the frontier, and brought back to Paris.
_the Carrousel_, or 'tilting-ground,' was an open space in front of the
Tuileries.
130 _Trial of the Seven Bishops_: James II, in 1687, issued a
'declaration of indulgence,' promising to suspend certain laws against
Roman Catholics. His command that this declaration should be read in
all parish churches was resisted by seven bishops, who were accordingly
brought to trial for sedition. The declaration was very unpopular in
the country, so that the result of the trial was anxiously awaited.
135 _Cimon_ was one of the Athenian commanders in the Persian war. He
died in 449 B.C.
140 The scene of Hawthorne's novel, _The House of the Seven Gables_,
is laid in a small town in New England.
148 Mr Weston was in the plot with the highwayman to rob Dr Barnard.
He had himself tampered with his own pistols (in the stable at
Maidstone) so that they should miss fire. Hence his peevishness with
Denis Duval, for so unexpectedly routing the thief.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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