On the 20th of April, 1814, the Grand Jury for the City of London, at the Sessions-House, in the Old Bailey, returned a True Bill, which set forth: [First Count.]—That at the times of committing the several offences in this Indictment mentioned, there was, and for a long time before, to wit, two years and upwards, had been an open and public war between our Lord the King and his Allies, and the then... more...

PREFACE The translations included in this volume were written at various times during the last ten years for use in connexion with College Lectures, and a long holiday, for which I have to thank the Trustees of the Balliol College Endowment Fund, as well as the Master and Fellows of Balliol College, has enabled me to revise them and to furnish them with brief introductions and notes. Only those... more...

Chapter I: Philosophical Method Among the Americans I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and they care but little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them. Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that almost all the... more...

When some years ago we took the liberty, in a volume of our so-called "Confessions," to introduce to our reader's acquaintance the gentleman whose name figures in the title page, we subjoined a brief notice, by himself, intimating the intention he entertained of one day giving to the world a farther insight into his life and opinions, under the title of "Loiterings of Arthur... more...

THE FIRST CHAPTER. INAS. 689. After that Ceadwalla, late K. of the Westsaxons was gone to Rome, where he departed this life (as afore is shewed) his coosen Inas or Ine was made king of the Westsaxons, begining his reigne in the yéere of our Lord 689, in the third yeere of the emperor Iustinianus the third, the 11 yéere of the reigne of Theodoricus K. of France, and about the second The Britains... more...

LETTER I.THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION.FROM PIDGIE TO HIS COUSIN BENNIE.Marblehead, July 1st, 1846. Do you remember, my dear cousin, how scornfully we used to look at "little crooked Massachusetts," as we called it, on the map, while comparing the other States with good old Virginia? I don't believe that we ever even noticed such a town in it as Marblehead; and yet here I am, in that very... more...

INTRODUCTION [The Dramatic Romances,...] enriched by some of the poems originally printed in Men and Women, and a few from Dramatic Lyrics as first printed, include some of Browning's finest and most characteristic work. In several of them the poet displays his familiarity with the life and spirit of the Renaissance—a period portrayed by him with a fidelity more real than history—for he enters... more...

The mail ship, MR4, spun crazily through space a million miles off her trajectory. Her black-painted hull resembled a long thermonuclear weapon, and below her and only a scant twenty million miles away burned the hungry, flaming maw of the Sun. The atomic-powered refrigeration units of the MR4 were working full blast—and still her internal and external temperatures were slowly and inexorably rising.... more...

All sorts of toys were to be found in that toy-shop. It was truly a place to please any child! A little girl, who had come to stay there with her aunt—the owner of the shop—and her little cousin, was always to be found amongst the toys; she was forever picking up and admiring this one, stroking that one, nursing another. All her spare moments were spent in the shop. It so happened one evening that... more...

THE AULD DOCTOR. O' a' the jobs that sweat the sarkGie me a kintra doctor's wark,Ye ca' awa' frae dawn till dark,Whate'er the weather be, O! Some tinkler wife is in the strae,Your boots are owre the taps wi' clayThrough wadin' bog an' sklimmin' braeThe besom for to see, O! Ye ken auld Jock o' Windybarns?The bull had near ca'ed oot his... more...