#Sir Thomas Warton

[fideidefenswhore]

On 16 June [1556], Giovanni Micheli, the Venetian ambassador, wrote to the Doge to say that Sir Thomas Pope, 'a rich and grave man of good name', had been appointed [Elizabeth's] governor. He was an urbane and scholarly man, much preoccupied at this time by his new foundation at Oxford, about which Elizabeth asked lively and intelligent questions. It was in Micheli's opinion that she might be said to be 'in ward and custody though in such decorous and honourable form', as was becoming to her position as heiress to the throne. He records that Pope's custody lasted from June to October 1556, but Pope's biographer, Thomas Warton, suggests he was at Hatfield for a longer period, mentioning that on Shrove Tuesday 1556 he arranged a masque at his own expense to amuse Elizabeth. She was serenaded by twelve minstrels, while forty-six lords and ladies dressed in crimson satin embroidered with gold and pearls took part. There was a tournament, a banquet of seventy dishes and a play about Holofernes; but the Queen objected, requiring Sir Thomas to take his duties more seriously.

The Word of a Prince: A Life of Elizabeth I from Contemporary Documents [Perry, Maria]

[tudorqueen6]

Lawrence Washington of Sulgrave Manor

I found that the ancestor of US President George Washington, Lawrence Washington (c.1500-1584), father to Robert (c.1554-1619), on 26 July 1529, was a bailiff at Warton (in the Barony of Kendal) to Sir William Parr, Baron Parr of Horton, uncle to Queen Catherine. Lawrence was the son of John and Margaret Washington. By his mother, he was a nephew of Sir Thomas Kytson of Hengrave, son of Robert of…

[leanstooneside]

To each his own (LIFESAVER)

◊ DANDY HOLL FOURTH O

◊ DANDY PRESIDENT POLK'S

◊ DANDY THOMAS WARTON

◊ DANDY FORTIN

◊ DANDY UNCLE SAM

◊ DANDY MASON

◊ DANDY SEZ JOHN C. CALHOUN

◊ DANDY ARNOLD

◊ DANDY KING TO

◊ DANDY HONORABLE MR. BAGOWIND

◊ DANDY PENELOPE

◊ DANDY SIR GAWAINS

◊ DANDY EARNEST

◊ DANDY GREEN MAN

[serafino-finasero]

Portrait of Sir Thomas Wharton, 1639 | Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599--1641)

[therealprincesszeanah]

My Decade in Books

I was tagged by @the-forest-library to outline my decade in books! It will be rough because I have been very hit or miss in tracking my reading throughout the years, but I will do my best. I can't remember how to make this a read more, so I apologize in advace for mobile users. If anyone reads through this bless you.

2010: A year of great highs and some serious lows. I was still in high school so I was plagued by the books from required reading lists, such as The Alchemist, Of Mice and Men, and Lord of the Flies. I also read The Lovely Bones at the behest of a friend, which I still regret because it was so awful and weird. But 2010 was also the year I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Pride and Prejudice for the first time! If I recall though, I did not actually finish Pride and Prejudice at this time because I was reading it for a book report and there wasn't time to read the last 40 pages or so and get the assignment done. I still loved it though. A Thousand Splendid Suns was an instant favorite and if I recall was my go-to response to "What's your favorite book" for the next couple of years. I also spent a summer reading Sarah Dessen books which is an eternal mood.

2011: Still in high school and still being required to read books that just Aren't Good, like The Scarlett Letter and The Dante Club. BUT this year the required reading had some great treasures! I read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time, as well as Night by Elie Wiesel. In the summer I picked up one of the more "popular" books that came out that year from the library called Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffith and it was so dumb that I was pretty much turned off of contemporary adult lit for a good bit. I read a couple more duds that summer at the recommendation of a friend (The Penny by Joyce Meyer and Love Walked In by Maria Des Los Santos). This was also the year I read The Epic of Gilgamesh out loud to my brother (his choice 🤷🏼‍♀️) on our annual roadtrip to North Carolina.

2012: The year I devoured the entirety of The Hunger Games. I remeber borrowing them all from various friends at school and reading them late into the night each time, taking like 2 or 3 days total on each. The required high school reading list this year was still terrible, with The Awakening and As I Lay Dying making an appearance. This was the year I read Macbeth though and to this day that is still my favorite Shakespeare play. We also read The Posionwood Bible which I remember having a love-hate relationship with. It's one of the few books I want to go back to and see if I'll like it more now that I'm not being forced to read it. This summer was the summer me and two of my best friends at the time read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society aloud to each other. To this day we still call one of my friends Clovis, after one the characters in that book. Another instant favorite. That summer my brother also attempted to start a book club, so we all read Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (his choice again) which I shockingly remember enjoying. Another book I surprisingly liked that year was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I had to read for a group project.

2013: This was a GREAT year of reading. The required reading list had some duds as always (The Master Buidler by Henrik Isben and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett), but this year we read The Crucible which I LOVED. We also read Heda Gabler (Isben) which I actually did NOT like, but for the associated project my friends and I wrote a song about the play, then filmed and edited an entire music video in the span of like three days. So that was definitely a highlight. That summer I read a couple more duds, The Graceling by Kristin Cashore and Go Ask Alice, which I had picked up at a garage sale for a quarter. I also read Hosseini's newest book that came out the previous year, and while it wasn't on par with A Thousand Splendid Suns, it was still good. After that I really started LIVING. I read The Help (and cried), I read Anne of Green Gables for the first time (and cried), I read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and then ended the year with the most beautiful book, The Book Thief. I got it for Christmas and read it every second I had on our annual trip to North Carolina. I finished it in the car ride home and sobbed, much to the concern of my dad and brother.

2014: This is where my reading takes a serious nose dive as this spans the semesters in college where I was transitioning from majoring in pre-vet science into majoring in English. I read Twelfth Night in my first English Lit class in college, as well as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, some Chaucer, and 2/3 of Evelina by Frances Burney, which I absolutely loved but time didn't permit me to finish this one until years later. That spring break I borrowed and read The Fault In Our Stars. That summer I borrowed and read The Kite Runner (still think A Thousand Splendid Suns is Hosseini's best work). I vaguely remember being in a World Literature class the fall semester of this year and reading The Tempest, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (which I LOVED), but I don't remember much else from that class. I thiiink this is also the year I reread Harry Potter during the summer, but I don't remember. I know I reread the series in college, it's just all such a blur now 🤷🏼‍♀️

2015: The Fault In Our Stars the previous year put me on a serious John Green kick in the start of 2015. I read Papertowns on my flight home from my spring break trip to NY. Later that year I borrowed An Abundance of Katherines from a friend and which pretty much turned me off of John Green forever. I took my first American Lit class in college this year and realized I just don't like much American Lit. We read Fight Club, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer by Edith Warton, Tender is the Night and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and I liked approximately zero of them. This year was the BEST year though because it was also the year I took a class just about the Brontë sisters. We read Jane Eyre (my third time at this point, I think. Always a favorite), Wuthering Heights (hated it) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (an absolute DELIGHT. Became one of my all-time favorites and my go-to recommendation for a couple of years). I ended the year reading a couple of quick, fun, cozy books during the holidays: Where'd You Go Bernadette and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (my first time and I absolutely loved it).

2016: This year had a BUNCH of lows, but there were a few standout stars. After a much needed schedule change at the beginning of the year, I ended up in another American Lit class which further my disdain for the subject. We read Typee by Hermamn Melville (snoozefest), My Ántonia by Willa Cather, half of some book by Keruac I think (so boring and uninspiring I don't even remember anything besides that I hated it and it had a red cover) and Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin. We did also read a collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor and that was actually enjoyable, so there's hope for me and American authors yet. This was the year I also had my absolute FAVORITE professor for a Victorian Lit class. The theme was Scandal and Outrage or something like that so we read Alice and Wonderland, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and (most unfortunately) Tess of the D'ubervilles by Thomas Hardy. To be fair, at this time I actually probably only read like half of it due to all my other course work this semester, but it just was Not Good. The only high point from my lit classes this year was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. An absolute treasure. That summer was a summer of duds. I read Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (truly cursed), Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell (just didn't really connect with the characters), and the absolure WORST BOOK Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I'm not sure a book had ever made me as upset, or rage induced as this book did, but to this day I am still so mad I wasted time with it. I spent a lot of the year sloughing through a book I borrowed from the family I babysit for called The Myserious Benedict Society. I didn't finish it until the next year, but it took me forever to get through. The only other highlight of this year was reading Ender's Game aloud to my husband. That book took me by surprise in a great way. I did not expect to love it as much as I did. We also read the sequel this year, Speaker For the Dead, which although very different from Ender's Game was still good in its own rite.

2017: This year is when things really start picking up for me again. Toward the end of college, I was feeling very burnt out and uninspried by reading (probably because all of the lows the previous year). I rounded out my degree in one last lit class (another American Lit class of ALL classes), but since it was early American Lit, I actually did enjoy it a bit more. We read Native creation myths, Lousia May Alcott short stories, some Whitman and other authors from that movement and then rounded out the semester with Uncle Tom's Cabin. That summer after graduation was when I decided to work my through every book on my bookshelf, which was a pivotal turning point for me because I began to be excited about reading again. That summer I reread Little Women for the first time in years and absolutely LOVED it. I spent the rest of the year with Jane Austen, reading Persausion, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. This was also the year I started reading Harry Potter to my husband (his first time reading the series!).

2018: My bookshelf goal still continues. This year I revisited the Brontë sisters, finally read Evelina in it's entirety (LOVED IT), revisted Sarah Dessen in the summer (for the first time since high school), and revisted some childhood classics (The Tale of Despereaux and The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, as well as the BFG by Rold Dahl). I reread the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society in preparation for the Netflix movie and finished two Harry Potter books with my husband. I ended the year with Little Men (so sweet 😭) and A Christmas Carol.

2019: I finally finished the first shelf (of three) of my bookcase. I spent almost half of my year in The Count of Monte Cristo and what a wondeful half year that was. Such a great story! I gave two haunts from required read past another chance: Scarlett Letter and Tess of the D'ubervilles. I was not a fan. I read three books by a local author from my childhood and The Outsiders. I finished the year returning to A Thousand Splendid Suns and was again taken away by how moving and beautiful it was. Also finished The Goblet of Fire with my husband during our annual trip to North Carolina.

Something I really enjoyed about this was not only seeing the ebbs and flows of my reading throughout the years, but seeing the common threads throughout the last decade. Road trips, certain books that kept coming up, friends and family I shared books with. This was a really fun thing to do for me so thank you Mable for tagging me! I don't have any one else to tag, but I highly encourage you to do it! It's so fun to see how books shaped the past 10 years. Tag me if you do. 💓

[ashmoleanmuseum]

Sir Joshua Reynolds

English painter, collector and writer Sir Joshua Reynolds was born #onthisday in 1723.

Reynolds specialised in portraiture and promoted the 'Grand Style' of painting, which was inspired by the idealism of classical and renaissance art. Before Reynolds, the Grand Manner was typically used for historical paintings only, but he successfully adapted it to portraiture, creating a new style of the art form. He was also one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy of the Arts.

Here are three portraits by Reynolds from our collection, two of which can be seen on display on our second floor.

James Paine, Architect, and his Son, James by Joshua Reynolds, 1764. Oil on canvas.

Dr Joseph Warton by Joseph Reynolds, 1777. Oil on canvas.

Miss Elizabeth Keppel, later Mrs Thomas Meyrick by Joshua Reynolds, 1782. Oil on canvas.

[harvard-art-museums-prints]

Literary Party at Sir Joshua Reynolds (James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Charles Burney, David Garrick,Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Pasquale Paoli, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Warton), William Walker, 19th century, Harvard Art Museums: Prints

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/279218

[kslsrsc]

Letter from Samuel Johnson to Thomas Warton, 1780

Mistakes have plagued postal services for decades, as is made clear by this letter from Dr. Samuel Johnson from 1780, featured in the  Frances W. and H. Jack Lang Letter Collection. Johnson received Mr. Wharton’s mail by mistake and, before realizing it was not addressed to him, he opened and began reading it. To the messenger’s credit, it seems that the error was on the part of Johnson’s friend and biographer, James Boswell, who accidentally included the letter in a parcel addressed to Johnson. 

Sir

I have your pardon to ask for an involuntary fault. In a parcel sent from Mr. Boswel I found the inclosed letter, which without looking on the direction I broke open, but finding that I did not understand it, soon saw it belonged to you. I am sorry for this appearance of a fault, but believe me, it is only the appearance. I did not read enough of the letter to know its purport. I am

Sir Your most humble servant Sam: Johnson

Bolt court Fleet Street. May 9 80

[ashmoleanmuseum]

Sir Joshua Reynolds

English painter, collector and writer Sir Joshua Reynolds was born #onthisday in 1723.

Reynolds specialised in portraiture and promoted the 'Grand Style' of painting, which was inspired by the idealism of classical and renaissance art. Before Reynolds, the Grand Manner was typically used for historical paintings only, but he successfully adapted it to portraiture, creating a new style of the art form. He was also one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Here are three portraits by Reynolds from our collection, two of which can be seen on display on our second floor.

James Paine, Architect, and his Son, James by Joshua Reynolds, 1764. Oil on canvas.

Dr Joseph Warton by Joseph Reynolds, 1777. Oil on canvas.

Miss Elizabeth Keppel, later Mrs Thomas Meyrick by Joshua Reynolds, 1782. Oil on canvas.