British Visitors Research Articles

The first English visitor to Indonesia?

The first English visitor to Indonesia?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau vu par un visiteur anglais en août 1776

Peter France : Jean-Jacques Rousseau seen by an English visitor, august 1776. In August 1776 Thomas Bentley, the associate of Josiah Wedgwood, visited Paris and went to see Rousseau, taking him books and letters from English admirers. His recently discovered diary includes an account of their conversation, which is here presented in translation. First the two men discuss the books brought by Bentley ; these concern the American question and English attempts to set up a philosophical liturgy inspired by Benjamin Franklin. The conversation then moves to the difference between goodness and virtue, the superiority of animals to men and questions concerning education, clothing, natural science, geology, the origins of the earth and atheism. Bentley's account closes with an enthusiastic sketch of Rousseau's character.

The Experience of the Noumenal in Goethe and Wordsworth

Goethe, on the other hand, almost consciously seems to have avoided any acquaintance with Wordsworth, in spite of several attempts by a number of English visitors to act as intermediaries. All George Bancroft can report is: ... of Wordsworth ... he knew nothing.4 And Henry Crabb Robinson was even afraid to mention Wordsworth's name: [Goethe] speaks of me as a sort of missionary on behalf of English poetry. He was not aware that I had not the courage to name the poet to whom I was and am most attached-Wordsworth; for I

The University of London and Industrial Progress 1880-1914

In the discussion of the retardation in growth or efficiency of British industry, compared with rising competitors in Germany and the United States before I9I4, both contemporaries and subsequent historians have stressed defects in scientific education as contributing factors. The mood of self-denigration and doubt felt in this area by the late Victorians and Edwardians was fed by the recognition of the superiority of German industry in the production of such chemical-based industries as drugs, dyes, and optical glass, and of the United States in machine tools and other labour and skill saving technologies. All this troubled British entrepreneurs, educators, and politicians, and became crystallized in the public mind and parlance by the 'Made in Germany' scare of the late i88os and the 'American invasion' of the I89os. As we feared Germany as a trade rival, so also we admired her as a paragon in the fields of higher education and science. Her Technical High Schools in applied science and engineering, the pioneering work of her universities in organic, physical, and hydrocarbon chemistry, and the emphasis laid by her large firms on scientific research, were all examples to which numerous British visitors paid tribute towards the end of the century. And yet, in their concern to spur on change at home, many propagandists like Haldane and others

Transatlantic Crossing: American Visitors to Britain and British Visitors to America in the Nineteenth Century

Transatlantic Crossing: American Visitors to Britain and British Visitors to America in the Nineteenth Century

British Visitors

British Visitors

Stephen Bordley of Colonial Annapolis

Previous articleNext article No AccessStephen Bordley of Colonial AnnapolisJoseph C. MortonJoseph C. Morton Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Winterthur Portfolio Volume 51969 Published for the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Inc. Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/495784 Views: 4Total views on this site Copyright 1969 The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur MuseumPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Review. Voltaire's British Visitors, ed. by Sir Gavin de Beer and A.-M. Rousseau

Review. Voltaire's British Visitors, ed. by Sir Gavin de Beer and A.-M. Rousseau

Voltaire as an Actor

AT THE AGE OF EIGHTY-THREE, Voltaire confided to the Marquis de Thibouville: m'interesse toujours au tripot malgre mon age, mes maladies, la perte du peu de talent que j'avais et la mort qui me talonne. Je suis comme les vieux debauches qui meurent en cajolant les dames. 1 Voltaire loved the stage with the kind of passion usually reserved for a mistress, but which rarely survives undimmed in the course of a long lifetime. We have the word of one of his secretaries that science, history, theology, and the writing of novels were mere pastimes compared with the composition of his plays.2 Once a play was on paper, his greatest concern was to ensure that every detail of the performance was exactly as he wanted it, if necessary by constantly harrassing actors and friends and deploying all his considerable arsenal of persuasion. A born dramatist, actor and director, Voltaire was also an avid spectator, enthusiastic to the point of eccentricity. Nothing illustrates his total involvement in the artificial world of the theater better than the numerous accounts of his behavior at performances of his own plays, from the famous occasion when he jumped on the stage of the Comedie Frangaise to harangue the unappreciative audience of Artemire to his appearances at the little Chatelaine Theatre near Ferney, where, having finally abandoned his acting career, he still contrived to be part of the spectacle. Seated in his private box, which was on the stage itself, in view of the audience, he could be seen in full wig and Regency costume applauding vigorously, scolding, shouting encouragement, weeping copiously or beside himself with rage, depending on whether the performance was to his liking or not. One British visitor complained, with some justice, that his frequent and outrageous interruptions destroyed

Bridging Two Disciplines

Bernard is a gambling man. Just before Christmas of his senior year at college, with his last $40 in hand, he sat down to a game of poker, won $1,000 and paid the tuition for his last semester at McGill University. That was in 1930. Since then, with his gambler's luck, a remarkable store of scientific intuition, a touch of genius-and 15 hours a day of hard work-Bernard has lead the infant discipline of pharmacology to adulthood as one of the most important and rapidly expanding fields of biomedical research. Guided by whose insights show no regard for traditional theories, drug studies evolved from an imprecise and descriptive activity to a sophisticated science. He has made his mark by supplying the two essential ingredients to fruitful scientific inquiry: ideas and manpower. Brodie intuitively knows where the interesting things are, branching out freely in any direction in pursuit of a hypothesis, and he's always had the ability to select damn good younger colleagues, according to Dr. Sidney Udenfriend whom Dr. describes as one of his more brilliant proteges. Dr. Udenfriend is one of some 300 scientists trained in Brodie's sprawling laboratory of chemical pharmacology which occupies two floors at the National Institutes of Health. There, a favorite laboratory activity is playing consequences. Having come up with a hypothesis to explain some chemical or physiological phenomenon, Dr. and co-workers gamble-following the consequences of its being true instead of looking for reasons why it cannot be true. One round-played by Dr. and two graduate students-developed the hypothesis that special enzymes in the liver metabolize drugs that simulate foreign organic compounds ingested in food and that these enzymes evolved as the need for them developed. Hence. not all species need enzymes to metabolize foreign compounds. Many fish and aquatic amphibia, for example, dispose of most foreign material by excreting them through permeable gill membranes. Land-living reptiles, however, with their impermeable skins, need and have enzymes to convert foreign substances to components their systems can handle. From reptiles, the enzymes next appeared in birds and mammals. The animals, in fact, inherited them from the reptiles. for nature usually retains a good thing, Dr. says. But consequences didn't end there. Out of these academic studies of the evolution of enzymes came a finding of considerable practical value. In trying to prove that 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny,' graduate student Roger Maickel and an English visitor discovered that the newborn of mammals lacked drug-metabolizing enzymes, Dr. points out. At first newborns drink their mother's milk which is free of organic substances that have to be metabolized and so they have no need of enzymes. From this it follows that drugs should be given to babies only under exceptional circumstances. For all the pharmacologists he's trained, Bernard Brodie-otherwise known as Steve because everyone named is called Steve-was not trained in his own field. His doctorate is in chemistry from New York University. He went into pharmacology afterward because, he says, he was lucky enough to have teachers who advised him while he was still young. My mentor, in organic chemistry, advised me to go into pharmacology because I was unable to remember simple structures or the Geneva nomenclature and because I was accident prone. He introduced me to Dr. George B. Wallace, that kind and gentle teacher who was willing to take into his department an ugly duckling because he foresaw that one day biochemistry and pharmacology would have to come together. From him I learned about intuition in science and the value of the working hypothesis. Later, Dr. worked under Dr. James A. Shannon, now director of

The Case for Mao

Anything written about China, other than for the daily press, risks being out of date long before it gets into print. By the time this is being read, the differences between Chairman Mao and the administrative set-up in Peking may have been finally resolved, or shelved; there may even have been an intervention — though it is difficult to conceive of the Americans being foolish enough to back it — from Chiang Kai Shek. In theory, he has been awaiting just such a time of internecine strife to send an expeditionary force across to the mainland. That is, of course, if the strife is really as violent as we have been led to believe. English visitors recently (January 1967) in Canton suggest that although a few months ago there was a serious likelihood of the army under Mao moving from Shanghai against an army raised from Peking by Liu Shao Chi, this clash has been averted, and rumours of violent deaths by the hundreds in cities like Nanking seem to lack foundation.No doubt a movement with the youthful intensity of the Red Guards will not fade back into obscurity without some violence somewhere — you can’t summon up this massive support from a nation’s youth (their ages seem to range from 10 to 18) and then deprive it of an active outlet. But before we jump to hasty conclusions we should be very wary of press reports, particularly from correspondents who, though they may have been inside China for a week or so (it doesn’t seem to be all that difficult to get in) can’t converse with the Chinese without an interpreter,

An English Visitor's Comments on The American Religious Scene, 1846

Few religious thinkers in modern times displayed a keener foresight and perception than John Henry Newman. The extraordinary talent he possessed in that regard rarely showed to better advantage than during Vatican Council II when repeated approbation was expressed in both the formal debates and in the private discussions of the bishops, the periti, and others in attendance at Rome for the theological views that Newman had held—often at the price of grave misunderstanding—a century or more ago. The two particulars which perhaps received more notice than any others were the ideas set forth in his famous essay in The Rambler for July, 1859, “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine,” a new edition of which was published as recently as 1961, and the Essay on the Dcvelopnient of Christian Doctrine, written while Newman was still an Anglican, and which was published in November, 1845, a few weeks after he had been received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850's

Europeans have been coming to America and commenting about the nature of American technology for over a century. Despite the evident economic changes in the course of this century, the comments on the differences between American and European technology—or, more properly for the nineteenth century, on the differences between American and British technology—have stayed remarkably constant. The factors noted by a few British visitors of the 1850's, perhaps the first technically qualified foreign group to take a careful look at American manufacturing, still form the backbone of discussion today. Chief among the factors noted is the high cost of American labor, but this explanation of American peculiarities by no means stands alone.

The Turks and Caicos Islands—Some Impressions of an English Visitor

The Turks and Caicos Islands—Some Impressions of an English Visitor

Shar Bazher and the Basin of the Qalachuwalan

The qaza (district) of Shar Bazher is that part of the liwa (province) of Sulaimani 'Iraqi Kurdistan which lies to the north of Sulaimani town between Azmir, one of the parallel NW.-SE. ridges of the Zagros system,1 and the Persian frontier It is approached from Sulaimani by three principal passes: Qayawan to the north, Azmir to the north-east, and Goyzha to the east. Of the seventeen British travellers who visited the liwa of Sulaimani before August 1914, and whose narratives I have traced, six out of the first seven crossed Shar Bazher: Sir Robert Ker Porter (1818)2; C. J. Rich, the Hon. East India Company's Resident at Baghdad (1820)3; A. N. Groves, Plymouth Brother Missionary (1829)4 ; Captain R. Mignan, Bombay Army (1830)5 ; James Baillie Fraser (1834)6; and Lieutenant-Colonel J. Shiel, later H.M. Minister at Tehran (1836). Of these Groves's diary has very little to say about geography, and Shiel {Journal of the R.G.S., 8, 1838) merely mentions, tantalizingly, that he travelled in a NNE. direction by a well-known route'' to Sardasht Persia. The next and only other British visitor was Captain Bertram Dickson, British Vice-Consul at Van (about 1909), who, an admirable generalized description of the highlands of Kurdistan {Geogr. J.y 35, 1910), makes a brief reference to the district. For the blank period the British list, a reason for which I am quite unable to suggest, we have some notes by Colonel E. J. Chirikov, the Russian delegate on the Turco-Persian Boundary Commission set up under the terms of the Treaty of Erzurum of 1847,7 and the narratives of two European travellers, A. Clement (1856) and C. de Korab Brzezowski (1869). (See my article A Third Note on Rock Monuments Southern Kurdistan. Geogr. J.y 77, 1930.) This and the neighbouring parts of 'Iraq have since been surveyed, and the maps on the Vinch scale printed by the 'Iraqi Survey Department 1927 remain the basis for all subsequent compilations. But as far as I am aware the only description of, or record of travel in, this glorious country published since 1914 is the short paper by Dr. F. M. Halley referred to below. I trust therefore that the following notes, based on several visits which I paid to Shar Bazher between 1919 and 1929, will still be of interest. The prospect that greeted my eyes when I reached the top of Azmir for the first time offered a striking contrast to the broad, orderly, synclinal valleys enclosed by the other parallel ranges to the south-west: a confusion of lofty ridges running all directions, massive buttresses, bulging domes, neat rounded cones, wild crags and

John Morgan's visit to Voltaire

VOLTAIRE once complained that since he had settled on the shores of Lake Leman, he had acted as host to three or four hundred Englishmen, all but one of whom had forgotten him completely. This was, of course, a typical Voltairean expression and quite untrue. The identity of about sixty of Voltaire’s British visitors has been established,2 half of whom have left accounts of their visits to the old man which show that he was in no danger of passing into oblivion in their minds.

The surgical pathology of rectal cancer

N English visitor to the United States A of America is bound to be overwhelmed at first by the realization of what a lot the OId World has to learn from the New, especiahy in the organization and application of scientific knowledge. I have been very conscious of this when studying the organization of pathoIogic services in your hospitals \vhich fill me with admiration and envy. Even in the specia1 subject on which this article is based, I know ful1 well that I have learned much in the past and am still learning from American pathologists and surgeons. At the same time I venture to think that 1 have something to give in return because for twenty-live years I have been in charge of the Department of Pathology at St. Mark’s Hospital, London, a special hospital for the treatment of diseases of the rectum and coIon. Soon after I was appointed pathoIogist to this hospital in rg23 I developed a method of examining specimens of intestinal cancer so as to learn as much as possible in each case about the origin, structure and spread of the tumor. I have been fortunate in having been able to continue this work without interruption over a long period, so that in more than 3,000 cases full detaiIs are now available as to the size and position of the primary tumor, the extent of local and venous spread, and the exact number, size and position of a11 Iymphatic metastases. This experience has Ied us at St. Marks to adopt a threefoId cIassification of intestinal cancer based on the gross characteristics, histology and extent of spread of the tumor. This has proved to be of special value from the point of view of prognosis after surgical treatment.

English visitors in Switzerland—The cantonal archives at Lausanne

English visitors in Switzerland—The cantonal archives at Lausanne

English visitors in Switzerland

English visitors in Switzerland

English visitors in Switzerland

English visitors in Switzerland