“... is reproduced on the dust-jacket of Marvell and Liberty, a collection of essays which, like David Norbrook’s recent Writing the English Republic, chimes with the discontent that a significant percentage of British people now feels about the monarchy. That sense of friendship, of a shared and living republican culture, is present in Melville’s many ...”

“... available to historians – such as letters, journals, parish registers, court records – may contain bits and pieces of detailed material of this sort, they can never be fitted together into a single coherent whole. And it is no use guessing on the basis of analogy from present to past. ‘Conjectural history’ is a waste of time. This thesis seems ...”

“... of reach for those who need it most urgently, but cannot pay for a lawyer. He and his successors (David Gauke is the fourth justice secretary in three years) failed to resist the cuts that by 2020 will have reduced the Ministry of Justice’s budget by 40 per cent in a decade, and have already caused it to lose many of its senior and most competent civil ...”

“... Andrea Lee remarks in passing she could well investigate at large. She joins the marchers in the May Day parade and shares their exhilaration, feeling ‘a wild, childish excitement’. Yet without explanation her report turns hostile: ‘The rain began to come down harder, and still the monstrous, disorganised spectacle went on, inspiring joy in no one I ...”

“... propose a man’s health on his 359th [it was actually the 361st] birthday,’ Shaw said, ‘you may be sure that … what his health requires is country air … But Stratford wants a new theatre. The Memorial is an admirable building, adapted for every conceivable purpose – except that of a theatre.’ Shaw’s fellow governors felt it necessary to make ...”

“... civilisation. This new understanding of Sign – as any of the natural and regional sign languages may be called – matters to all of us. It will, I think, have profound effects on what future generations think that language ‘is’. In speaking of ‘natural’ languages I mean just that: languages that evolve in the ways in which spoken languages do, but ...”

“... to have fallen on Robert Rhodes James. If so, it is an excellent decision. Meanwhile Mr David Carlton has produced a scholarly, well-written work of some five hundred pages. The author admits very fairly that it is in the nature of an interim verdict since the official records of the 1950s, including the Suez crisis, are closed under the Thirty Year ...”

“... debt-ridden lawyer-politician from achieving his potential income. Indeed, ‘O’Connell may well have had more at stake in the Catholic question, materially speaking, than any other person in the United Kingdom.’ His resentment was both intensified and balanced by a remarkable self-confidence, and MacDonagh is particularly good at showing how the ...”

“... the president on the dark and seedy streets of the wrong side of Washington says in language that may seem a little advanced for the 1860s: ‘Well, I’ll be fucked.’ Lincoln says: ‘I wouldn’t bet against it.’ The posters for the movie, its length (two and a half hours) and the general air of piety that surrounds Lincoln’s name lead us to expect ...”

“... and I said it was. She asked me if anything was the matter, and I denied it.’ His first novel may be thought to have furnished a model for the clifftop-to-shoreline murder site in le Carré’s 23rd. He was outshone by the blaze and sophistication of le Carré’s success. His friend’s discriminating treatment of the secret service was seen by him as a ...”

“... as art. Avedon, he reported, had said: ‘You know, Peter – sometimes I think that Susan may be the enemy.’Of course, Hujar’s problem with Sontag may have been that she failed to mention him in On Photography. He tended to begrudge other photographers their fame or success, even snubbing Beaton and Arbus out of ...”

“... have a tendency to roll over if they hit a fixed object, such as a guard rail. Market forces may cause industry to act where government has failed. Bradsher wrote last year that gas prices in the US would have to hit $2.50 a gallon and stay there for a while to have any negative impact on SUV sales. (A gallon of petrol in the UK costs $5.75, a figure ...”

“... climate, our deafening present’ to European traditions resulted in a realist tradition which may turn out to be America’s greatest contribution to 19th and 20th-century painting. Professor Novak’s book is fascinating because she sets about showing how the work of the prolific and confident landscape painters of the mid-1800s can be related to ...”

“... between ‘Useless Man’, a dirge from Bowery’s trash art noise band Minty, and a rendition of David Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’. What might Bowery have identified with in the latter song? I ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no hair? Or something to do with salacious self-mythology? Sordid details following …He was born in 1961 and grew up in ...”

“... mosques. Below, at the foot of the Western Wall of the Second Temple, the Orthodox pray; they may not set foot on the Mount itself. In this city the most palpable fake and the most obvious bit of tourist razzmatazz acquires some mythical resonance. Incidentally, it is remarkably beautiful and has a benign winter climate; these qualities no doubt enhanced ...”