- Industry: Library & information science
- Number of terms: 49473
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
English general, and distinguished as the last sent out to subdue the revolt in the American colonies, and, after a victory or two, being obliged to capitulate to General Gates at Saratoga, fell into disfavour; defended his conduct with ability and successfully afterwards; devoted his leisure to poetry and the drama, the "Heiress" in the latter his best (1723-1792).
Industry:Language
Engraver and author, born at Fisherrow; engraved Wilkie's works, and wrote on art (1784-1868).
Industry:Language
Politician and Socialist, born at Vauxhall, of humble parentage; bred to be an engineer; imbibed socialistic ideas from a fellow-workman, a Frenchman, a refugee of the Commune from Paris; became a platform orator in the interest of Socialism, and popular among the working class; got into trouble in consequence; was four times elected member of the London County Council for Battersea; and has been twice over chosen to represent that constituency in Parliament; b. 1858.
Industry:Language
Popular author, born in New York; a farmer, a cultured man, with a great liking for country life and natural objects, on which he has written largely and con amore; b. 1837.
Industry:Language
Admiral, fourth son of the preceding; having failed to compel the French to raise the blockade of Minorca, was recalled, in deference to popular clamour, and being tried and condemned as guilty of treason, was shot at Portsmouth, a fate it is now believed he did not deserve, and which he bore like a man and a Christian (1704-1757).
Industry:Language
Poet and stenographer, born near Manchester; invented a system of shorthand, now superseded, and which he had the sole right of teaching for 21 years; contributed as "John Shadow" to the Spectator; author of the pastoral, "My Time, O ye Muses, was Happily Spent"; his poetry satirical and genial (1692-1763).
Industry:Language
Naval officer, grandfather of the poet, nicknamed from his misfortunes "Foul-weather Jack"; accompanied Anson in his voyage round the world, but was wrecked in his ship the Wager; suffered almost unexampled hardships, of which he wrote a classical account on his safe return home; he rose to the rank of admiral, and commanded the squadron in the West Indies during the American war; died in England (1723-1786).
Industry:Language
An eloquent Scotch preacher, born at Greenock, Principal of Glasgow University, famous for a sermon entitled "The Religion of Common Life" preached before the Queen at Crathie in 1855; made a special study of the philosophy of religion, and wrote eloquently on it, more especially the Christian version of it (1820-1898).
Industry:Language
An American statesman, born in S. Carolina, of Irish descent; all through his public life in high civic position; leader of "the States rights" movement, in vindication of the doctrine that the Union was a mere compact, and any State had a right to withdraw from its conditions; and champion of the slave-holding States, regarding slavery as an institution fraught with blessing to all concerned. His chief work is a treatise on the "Nature of Government" (1789-1850).
Industry:Language
Or Cauvin, the great Reformer, born at Noyon, in Picardy; devoted for a time to the law, was sent to study at the university of Orleans, after having mastered Latin as a boy at Paris; became acquainted with the Scriptures, and acquired a permanently theological bent; professed the Protestant faith; proceeded to Paris; became the centre of a dangerous religious excitement; had to flee for his life from France; retired to Basel, where he studied Hebrew and wrote his great epoch-making book, the "Institutes of the Christian Religion"; making after this for Strassburg, he chanced to pass through Geneva, was arrested as by the hand of God to stay and help on God's work in the place, but proceeded with such rigour that he was expelled, though recalled after three years; on his return he proposed and established his system of Church government, which allowed of no license in faith any more than conduct, as witness the burning of Servetus for denying the doctrine of the Trinity; for twenty years he held sway in Geneva, and for so long he was regarded as the head of the Reformed Churches in Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, and France. Besides his "Institutes," he found time to write Commentaries on nearly all the books of the Bible; was a man of masculine intellect and single-hearted devotion to duty, as ever in the "Great Taskmaster's" eye. His greatest work was his "Institutes," published in Basel in 1535-36. It was written in Latin, and four years after translated by himself into French. "In the translated form," says Prof. Saintsbury, "it is beyond all question the first serious work of great literary merit not historical in the history of French prose.... Considering that the whole of it was written before the author of it was seven-and-twenty, it is perhaps the most remarkable work of its particular kind to be anywhere found; the merits of it being those of full maturity and elaborate preparation rather than of youthful exuberance" (1509-1564).
Industry:Language
