“... as a mere imitator. Richard Dana thought his ‘Marco Bozzaris’ was America’s best lyric poem. John Quincy Adams referred to one of his poems in a speech to the House of Representatives in 1836. Most inexplicable of all, on 15 May 1877, fifty thousand people gathered in Central Park to see President Hayes unveil a statue of Halleck in the so-called ...”

“... Curiously, the first historian to query this complacent picture was the future arch-Eurosceptic, John Redwood, in his Reason, Ridicule and Religion: The Age of Enlightenment in England 1660-1750 (1976). This told the story of the assault on orthodox Christianity launched during the Augustan age by a variegated cast of libertine rakes, deists and heterodox ...”

“... the real-life Rochester, Alexander Larman provides a workmanlike account of an improvident life. John Wilmot was born in 1647 on All Fools’ Day. His father, one of Charles II’s most stalwart lieutenants, had fought for the king and fled the field with him after the royalist defeat at the battle of Worcester. The two men escaped together to Paris, where ...”

“... who, over the years, have been enlightened enough to publish and keep in print the works of many major and minor modern poets (for which they should be saluted). The cost of permissions which this firm levies is so high as to make low-sale critical monographs unviable: indeed, as far as one can make out, Faber do not recognise fair dealing as applicable to ...”

“... ward off chaos. The military theme in his work fits into this picture. Like Ted Hughes, one of his major influences, Longley had a father who fought in the First World War and the imagery of the Somme – corpses, helmets, gas-masks – keeps on turning up in his Irish landscapes. Anyone who digs around Longley’s poems is liable to find well-preserved stone ...”

“... superintendent for Indian affairs’ in British North America; in addition, he served as a major general in charge of various military forces during the decade-long struggle known in the colonies as the French and Indian War (1754-63). His wealth and social standing grew in parallel to his political importance. He eventually owned some 170,000 acres, a ...”

“... and Regulatory Reform Bill currently before Parliament. This outrageous bill would allow major changes to Parliamentary legislation to be undertaken directly by the government.) The whole of this line of thought is present in MacCormick’s book. But it is not present as a line of thought, and it is not conspicuous. It takes shape in fits and ...”

“... blow. The bolt pierced his cheek to a depth of six inches, miraculously missing the brain and major blood vessels, but sticking fast in the back of the skull, whence it had to be removed with specially made pincers by a London surgeon. Honey was applied as an antiseptic and alcohol to clean the wound, and after twenty days’ bed rest, the prince ...”

“... since Eliot and the leading poets (now dead) of my own Thirties generation, there have been no major poets, no “good” poets at all; and perhaps only six middling poets worth attending to – six poets in England (and as far as long or short sight tells me, fewer still in the United States).’ That every year new maggots make new flies is what ...”

“... their movies in parking lots or off of trucks until they are chased away by the police. The critic John Anderson who has written a book about Sundance calls it ‘a progressive event that recognises the right of every American to get her or his movie on-screen.’ And yet, as Andy Klein, another journalist, complains, Sundance is ‘about as useful’ for ...”

“... ever made in the UK. It was Howard Hunt who broke the story that the CIA funded Animal Farm, John Halas and Joy Batchelor’s 1954 version of George Orwell’s political allegory of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath, played out in a British farmyard. Cashing in on his Watergate notoriety, the rogue spook and sometime spy novelist took credit in ...”

“... selling of securities caused prices to collapse. Between 20 and 30 July, the price of shares in major businesses fell dramatically: Canadian Pacific Railway and Rio Tinto Copper dropped 15 and 24 per cent respectively. With everyone looking to sell, and almost no one to buy, the market in securities evaporated. On Sunday, 26 July, the bourses in Vienna and ...”

“... such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organisations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party’s expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The bulk of US Jewry, meanwhile, is more inclined to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a ...”

“... eventual downfall in 1536. Eric Ives’s biography of Anne, published in 2004, revealed her as a major player in the early English Reformation, the beginning of a Reformation unique in Europe in having two women among its leading architects: Anne Boleyn and her daughter. The uncharitable (a category that includes most English historians since ...”

“... be it is also one of the more worrying symptoms of a bizarre and poignant neurological disorder. John suffers from dysphasia – or aphasia as it is also called; and it is one of the many paradoxes of his condition that although he can hear perfectly, he cannot monitor what he is saying, or rather not saying. The buffer which in normal speech-processing ...”