Early Modern Whale

1 st voice Humour, say, what makest thou here In the presence of a queen? 2 nd voice Princes hold conceit most dear, ...

"Foole that I was, who had so faire a state Fower or five thousant by the year at least And waste it so as I have done of late On Whore...

I had seen various references by social historians to the 1650 Act of Parliament by which the Puritan House of Commons sought to make fornic...

My latest thing (Tudor portrait memorial brasses) being recondite even by my standards - though I found a nice example in the University Chu...

My latest toy is something called a USB turntable, by Ion. This spins your time-hallowed vinyl in the old way, but connects umbilically to y...

‘Whipping Tom’, the subject of a news pamphlet and this street ballad, made his way to London in 1681. Contemporaries thought that he was e...

Back to the English landscape today, opting to go to a Church I'd been saving up, that at Ewelme in Oxfordshire (the odd name is Old Eng...

I can't continue with matters early modern without some reaction to my first trip to America. So here's your blogger and, sliding in...

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks. I am off with my son Tim to America, a first visit for both of us. A fly-drive, with large ...

Apart from the animals they knew well, much early modern zoology was suffused with folklore and traditional fantasies. I was reminded of thi...

Thomas Shipman: 'The Kiss, To Mrs. C.' Hold not your Lips so close; dispence Treasures, Perfumes, and Life from thence. ...

I bought this photographic print from one of my regular postcard dealers last weekend. There's no date or names, just the stamped 'H...

‘On lute strings cat-eaten’ Are these the strings that poets feign Have clear’d the Ayre, and calm’d the main? Charm’d wolves, ...

I am not at all a hot weather person. I cycled this morning, and returned so over-heated, thirsty and tired that I set about a large amount ...

George Daniel, of Beswick (his dates were 1616–1657) vowed that he would never again take razor to his beard after the execution of Charles ...

I spent an almost spookily quiet Sunday (the England match was on TV) cycling in rural Hampshire. After two visits to churches, one of whic...

On Sunday, as I was coming back from completing the 105 mile 'Circuit of the Cotswolds' Ride (I was rider 396) http://www.circuitoft...

I’ve been unable to get on-line, my ISP having problems. I’ve anyway been reasonably busy with the effort to get degree results out afte...

Posting on the number of the beast reminded me of Dame Helen Gardner - not that the late Merton Professor of English was in any way satanic ...

The world seems to have survived 6.6.06, despite those ominous words, ‘Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of t...