“There is one great resource which I trust will never abandon us, and which has shone forth in the English character, by which we have preserved our existence and fame as a nation, which I trust we shall be determined never to abandon under any extremity, but shall join hand and heart in the solemn pledge that is proposed to us, and declare to His...

Fair VENUS holds up the contrary Theam Affected to the Lusitanian-Nation, For the much likeness she observ’d in Them To her old ROME, for which she had such passion, In their great hearts, in the propitious beam Of their to-AFFRICK-fatal constellation, And in the charming musick of their Tongue, Which...

In sunny clime behold an Empire rise, Fair as its oceans, glorious as its skies! ‘Mid seas serene of mild Pacific smiles— Republic of vast federated isles —Ernest Jones, ‘The New World: A Democratic Poem’ (1850) Introduction The London Journal remarked in 1877 that ‘there has not elapsed, within...

A lot of work goes into writing essays on this site and I thoroughly enjoy it. I’m currently working an essay on Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (1831) which will, when finished, I predict, total more than 6,000 words. Indeed, the average word count for a single essay now goes up to at least 5,000 words (such was the case with my essay on Juana...

Late 19th century Argentine copy of Juana Manso’s Misterios del Plata Introduction In 1898, F.A. Kirkpatrick, an essayist for the British Cornhill Magazine declared that, ‘for extraordinary, incredible, diabolical wickedness, the name of [Juan Manuel de] Rosas has become a proverb in South America … when the people of the River...

An election as depicted in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers. The unreformed parliament Prior to 1832 the only people who could vote in General Elections in the United Kingdom were men who owned freehold property that was worth over 40 shillings. On very rare occasions women could also cast a vote at general elections in the eighteenth century...