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Category Archives: Art and architecture
Spring and Port Wine
… is the name of a play and then a film about Bolton, in northern England. However, I’m borrowing the title because I’ve just spent a few spring days in (O)Porto, where the wine comes from. My Portuguese vocabulary has … Continue reading
Posted in Art and architecture, Biography, Gardening, History, The Naval Chronicle, Travel and Exploration
Tagged botanical gardens, Charles Napier, Porto, Portugal
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The Huguenots
I have mentioned before the industrious Samuel Smiles, Victorian believer in hard work and self-education (otherwise known as pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps) as the way to social improvement and financial prosperity. His 1867 work on the Huguenot communities … Continue reading
The Diary of John Evelyn
One of my vital tools as a scribbler of blogs on books is a little pack of those things – I don’t even know what they are called – which you can stick on to a page to mark a … Continue reading
Illustrations of Roman London
Charles Roach Smith was born on the Isle of Wight in 1806, and reared by his mother and older sisters after his father’s death when he was six years old. He was educated in Hampshire, and then brought back to … Continue reading
Posted in Archaeology, Art and architecture, Biography, History
Tagged Archaeology, Charles Roach Smith, City of London, Guildhall Museum, Roman London
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The Roll Call
…or, to give it its full title, Calling the Roll after an Engagement, Crimea, a large military history painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874, was so popular as an exhibit that a policeman, ‘poor, hot man’, had to … Continue reading
Cambridge Library Collection Blog 