“... notion of ‘opposite sexes’. The consequences of this unease could be severe. In 1746, Charles Hamilton, an itinerant quack doctor in the southwest of England, was reported to the authorities by his wife of two months for ‘pretending herself a man’. He was publicly whipped in four different towns, then sentenced to six months’ hard labour. (By the ...”

“... weale.’ The precise date is not clear; my own preference is early September, just after James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, arrived in England from the Continent. The phrase reads that if Mary (then living in France) did not accept what Cecil considered a reasonable solution to the Scottish revolt, ‘then humbly they [the Scottish Parliament] may commit the ...”

“... English political nation a great deal, but in 1603 the skilful diplomacy of her chief minister, Robert Cecil, escorted James VI, King of Scots, to the thrones of England and Ireland, with far less fuss than everyone had feared. The entire archipelago was for the first time in its history united under a single monarch, and moreover under the ruler of the ...”

“... to be returned to the rooms they occupied when the Fricks were in residence. A portrait of Emma Hamilton by George Romney, which for many years was displayed in the living hall, now hangs over the fireplace in Frick’s bedroom, as it did during his lifetime. The contents of the Boucher Room (so-called because its focal point is a series of mid-18th-century ...”

“... to Glasgow,’ she said, ‘but it would cost you a fortune to get back in a taxi. Even to get to Hamilton costs £22. But there’s nothing much else. There’s always a bit of trouble at the pubs. That’s the way it is, round here. We’re really just a town in the middle of the countryside.’Then to Ayrshire. We got to Montgreenan House Hotel in ...”

“... am I neglected? is he/she overrated? – they would quickly decline into paranoia. When Robert Frost died, John Berryman’s first response was It’s scary. Who’s Number One? Who’s Number One? Cal’s Number One, isn’t he? – which at least has the virtue of transparency. But as we modestly (and necessarily) insist that we’re just ...”

“... took a taxi, unless she hadn’t a penny, even for the Tube, whereupon she walked, as the painter Robert Colquhoun did on the evening of one of his openings, from the Colony Room to the Whitechapel Gallery, three miles in the pouring rain.Francis Bacon​ was 39 when he tipped up at the club in 1948. He was introduced to it by Brian Howard, the poet and ...”

“... the delicate, ‘fey-looking’ Duncan, has a weird job in a candle factory: his old friend Robert Fraser can’t believe it when he finds him there, working in what is essentially sheltered employment for people too damaged to do anything else. Plus, Duncan has moved in with an elderly man he calls Uncle Horace, although he is no relation, ‘the man ...”

“... Robert Lowell wrote the poem ‘Water’ about being on the coast of Maine in the summer of 1948 with Elizabeth Bishop; he put it first in his collection For the Union Dead, which he published in 1964. He sent Bishop a draft of the poem in March 1962, explaining that it was ‘more romantic and grey than the whole truth, for all has been sunny between us ...”

“... have some outstanding people on its list. Trinity has its share, including Berkeley, Swift, Rowan Hamilton, Lecky, Dowden, Bury, Douglas Hyde, J.M. Synge, Samuel Beckett. Since 1952, and beginning with McConnell, Trinity has gradually acknowledged its responsibility not only to the past but to Irish taxpayers. It has opened its gate for more students. For ...”

“... references than I picked up; answers, on a postcard please, not to me but to Ackroyd, c/o Hamish Hamilton, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ. What is all this about? ‘The alert reader’, says Ackroyd, will understand: but this is a book which wears its messages openly upon its sleeve, and only the most myopic reader will miss them. In the first place, the ...”

“... wormwood to the Calvinist Scot), ‘Hudson’s Statue’ (a proposed monument to a Mid-Victorian Robert Maxwell), ‘Stump Oratory’ (politicians’ lies). Carlyle’s intention was to wield what he called ‘the red hot poker’ – whether to cauterise or do an Edward II on the body politic is not clear. The whole is suffused with his mood of ...”

“... subservience of 21st-century citizens to 18th-century political solutions, foremost among them Robert Dahl in his devastating audit of the American political system, How Democratic Is the American Constitution? (2002). Dahl’s attempt to stir Americans from their cultic attachment to the founders is more than matched, however, by the efforts of ...”

“... Jung ascribed to Hitler, is probably worse, and probably less probable. For those familiar with Robert Musil’s The Man without Qualities, the question is whether we’re in the hands of the existential-fool murderer Moosbrugger or the supercilious and beguiling industrialist Arnheim. But why choose? We should consider the possibility that Trump and his ...”

“... On receipt of a first draft of what would end up as Canto II, the one that begins ‘Hang it all, Robert Browning’, Homer records that reading it made him feel ‘like one going up in an Airship – The Mechanician has honoured me with a seat – and we are soon up in the pure azure – Time and space are nothing.’ He modestly declares his opinion of ...”