“Life of Sir Robert Peel,”—Justin McCarthy.
Justin McCarthy, an eminent Irish politician, journalist, historian, novelist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Cork, November 22, 1830, and died April 24, 1912. He has written: “A History of Our Own Times,” “History of the Four Georges,” “A Fair Saxon,” “Lady Judith,” “The Story of Gladstone’s Life,” “Modern England,” “The Reign of Queen Anne,” “Reminiscences,” “The Story of an Irishman,” “Irish Recollections,” etc. Also the biographies of Sir Robert Peel, Pope Leo XIII, and W. E. Gladstone.
Spinoza was truly, what Voltaire has with rather less justice called Clark, a reasoning machine.
—Hallam on Spinoza.
Benedict Spinoza, a renowned philosopher, was born at Amsterdam, November 23, 1632, and died at The Hague, February 21, 1677. He wrote: “Tractate on God and Man and Man’s Felicity,” “Theologico-Political Tractate,” and his most famous work, “Ethics Demonstrated Geometrically.”
Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.
—Laurence Sterne.
Laurence Sterne, an English novelist of great fame, was born at Clonmel, Ireland, November 24, 1713, and died in London, March 18, 1768. His most noted works are: “Tristram Shandy,” “The Sermons of Mr. Yorick,” and “A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.”
Since the seventeenth century, we have had no poet of the highest order, though Shelley, had he lived, would perhaps have become one. He had something of that burning passion, that sacred fire, which kindles the soul, as though it came fresh from the altar of the gods. But he was cut off in his early prime, when his splendid genius was still in its dawn.
“History of Civilization in England,” Vol. II, p. 397 (1861),—Henry Thomas Buckle.