“... This collection of essays is undeniably a book for academic inmates (if the race of lexicographers may be so described), with a content that only occasionally extends a broad appeal to the friendly layman. Its editor, the distinguished Dr Burchfield, describes it as being ‘Mainly concerned with large historical, period, or regional dictionaries, including ...”

“... had possessed the native cynicism of Leigh Hunt himself, or – a rather different kind – of Robert Bloomfield, the rustic poet who in 1804 had been paid nearly £4000 for his two little volumes, he would have ruined his gift but he might have made big money. As it was, his best things are so good because they were not the things he wanted to do. The ...”

“... 1975), and in English by Natalie Zemon Davis (The Return of Martin Guerre, 1983) and Robert Darnton (The Great Cat Massacre, 1984), involves giving a detailed description of events in the lives of ordinary people and is almost always based on court records – A Trial of Witches is a good, The Bewitching of Anne Gunter a fine, and Shaman of ...”

“... until two years after the Regency was established, he repeatedly describes her as a Georgian. That may be justified if the implication is that her intellect was formed early in her life, but to establish the point would take a deal more exploration of the discernible intellectual influences than the professor provides. It would take more than exploration to ...”

“... gone to Saudi Arabia, leaving a broken marriage behind? One or other of her conversation partners may be responsible. There are brief excursions from the central dialogues: one to the old lady’s husband, Robert, who hears a susurrus of women’s voices in his flat in Positano. Beneath the old woman’s bedroom, by a ...”

“... in bandages, thereby disguising himself for the benefit of the pilot – hardly accustomed, one may suppose, to seeing his fellow Monegasques similarly attired when they have dental troubles. The fugitive was subsequently said to have been seen in the Caracoles restaurant in Barcelona, at the Plaza Hotel in Montevideo, and at the Cistercian monastery of ...”

“... broth, or something or other’. She and Mary had to sit up to wake him from nightmares. ‘You may think we were busy enough.’ Busy indeed they were, incredibly, devotedly busy, and only about poor Coleridge does Dorothy ever reveal any resentment of the fact. Frugal and temperate as he was, William was not always demanding coffee ‘or something or ...”

“... and given to ‘voyeurism’ and even to ‘intellectual onanism’, whatever that may mean. The celibate clergy are described, without a hint of irony, as ‘phallocentric’. A reader does not have to be an apologist for the old regime, or even, for that matter, for the Church, to feel that Darmon’s moralising approach, much coarser as well ...”

“... out. In 1851, in a note on ‘Pre-Raphaelitism’, Ruskin wrote: ‘Now in order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it: They must not do too much of it: and they must have a sense of success in it – not a doubtful sense, such as needs some testimony of other people for its confirmation, but a ...”

“... in 1655 – ‘The only thing I wish for is that you (who are more capable of it than anyone) may consider that task which Descartes started but did not finish, of strengthening our hopes of immortality’ – not realising that the gap between Hobbism and respectability was now too wide to be bridged by a joke. Another letter from Leibniz, which contains ...”

“... Cock is a steroid for the hormonal crisis currently under way in American bookshops. 1992 has Robert Bly and his middle-aged Boy Scouts leaping through forests dressed in feathers and pounding drums to scare the furry creatures, consecrate testosterone, and push the sale of Iron John. In Revolution From Within, Campfire Girl Gloria Steinem chronicles her ...”

“... with a method for determining the number of molecules in a given volume of air. While this may now sound rather quaint, before 1905 the existence of atoms and molecules was not taken for granted. This Brownian motion paper is one of the most frequently cited scientific publications of the 20th century, since the theory has many applications, ranging ...”

“... 14th century; the Van Eycks had forebears and colleagues involved in this production line, such as Robert Campin, who also embraced oil paint. Captivated by pictorial exports from Siena, Flemings were now keen to commission works that stood halfway between the public arrays of stone-carved saints and the little pictures in books meant for private enjoyment ...”

“... remained one of Evelyn’s friends for most of his life. He also enjoyed what was called, after Robert Boyle had popularised the term, ‘seraphick love’ with Anne Russell (whom he dubbed ‘Platona’) and Elizabeth Carey (who became his ‘Electra’). It is exceptionally hard to describe what Evelyn felt for these women: probably it is best to say that ...”

“... of blood sacrifice, whereby Ireland might be spiritually resurrected. Pearse’s own cult of Robert Emmet, the doomed leader of the insurrection of 1803, has tended to reinforce this view. Wolfe Tone, the republican leader of the 1798 rebellion, the largest in Irish history, was the most revered of all Irish nationalists, but though Tone’s centenary ...”