- Industry: Library & information science
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
A desert in Upper Egypt; the retreat in early times of a number of Christian hermits.
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A distinguished ambassador, born in London, son of a well-connected merchant, and cousin to Canning the statesman; passed from Cambridge to the Foreign Office in 1807 as a précis-writer to his cousin; in three years had risen to the post of minister-plenipotentiary at Constantinople, where he speedily gave evidence of his remarkable powers as a diplomatist by arranging unaided the treaty of Bucharest (1814) between Russia and Turkey, and so setting free the Russian army to fall upon Napoleon, then retreating from Moscow; as minister to Switzerland aided the Republic in drawing up its constitution, and in the same year (1815) acted as commissioner at the Congress of Vienna; was subsequently employed in the United States and various European capitals, but his unrivalled knowledge of the Turkish question brought him again, in 1842, to Constantinople as ambassador, where his remarkable power and influence over the Turks won him the title of "Great Elchi"; exerted in vain his diplomatic skill to prevent the rupture between Turkey and Russia, which precipitated the Crimean War; resigned his embassy in 1858; was raised to the peerage in 1852; sat in Parliament for several years previous to 1842, but failed to make his mark as a debater; ranks among the great ambassadors of England (1786-1880).
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A distinguished Turkish general, born in Roumelia; entered the army in 1854, fought in various wars, became director of the Military Academy at Constantinople; distinguished himself in the Servian War of 1876, and was elected governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina; during the Russian-Turkish War made a gallant attempt to clear the enemy from the Shipka Pass, but as commander of the Danube army was defeated near Philippopolis (1878), and subsequently court-martialled and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, but was pardoned by the sultan (1838-1883).
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A district of Kent and suburb of London, to the SE. of which it lies 7 m., includes the Surrey parish of Lambeth, where in 1852-54 the Crystal Palace was erected and still stands, a far-famed sight of London, containing valuable collections illustrative of the arts and sciences, and surrounded by a magnificent park and gardens.
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A Dominican monk, born at Leipzig; was employed in the sale of indulgences to all who subscribed to the fund for building St. Peter's at Rome, in opposition to whom and his doings Luther published his celebrated theses in 1517, and whose extravagances involved him in the censure of the Church (1455-1519).
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A drunken sot of a tinker in the "Induction" to "Taming of the Shrew."
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A Dutch entomologist, born at Amsterdam, where he settled as a doctor, but turning with enthusiasm to the study of insect life, made important contributions to, and practically laid the foundations of, entomological science (1637-1680).
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A dynasty of Scotch and finally English kings as well, commenced with Robert II., who was the son of Marjory, Robert the Bruce's daughter, who married Walter, the Lord High Steward of Scotland, hence the name, his successors being Robert III., James I., James II., James III., James IV., and James V., Mary Queen of Scots, and James VI. in Scotland, and ended with James II. of England, who was expelled from the throne for an obstinacy of temper which characterised all the members of his house, "an unfortunate dynasty," too, being appointed at length to rule at a time and over a people that thought kings were born for the country and not the country for kings, a dictum which they stubbornly refused to concede, thinking that the nation existed for them instead of them for the nation. The line became extinct by the death of Cardinal York in 1807, who survived his brother Charles Edward 19 years.
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A fabled animal, an invention of the ancient Egyptians, with the body and claws of a lioness, and the head of a woman, or of a ram, or of a goat, all types or representations of the king, effigies of which are frequently placed before temples on each side of the approach; the most famous of the sphinxes was the one which waylaid travellers and tormented them with a riddle, which if they could not answer she devoured them, but which Oedipus answered, whereupon she threw herself into the sea. "Such a sphinx," as we are told in "Past and Present," "is this life of ours, to all men and nations. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of womanly celestial loveliness and tenderness, the face and bosom of a goddess, but ending in the claws and the body of a lioness ... is a heavenly bride and conquest to the wise and brave, to them who can discern her behests and do them; a destroying fiend to them who cannot. Answer her riddle—Knowest thou the meaning of to-day?—it is well with thee. Answer it not; the solution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws."
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A famous ballet-dancer, born at Stockholm, the daughter of an Italian ballet-master; made her début in Paris in 1827 and soon became the foremost danseuse of Europe; married Count de Voisins in 1832; retired from the stage in 1847 with a fortune, which she subsequently lost, a misfortune which compelled her to set up as a teacher of deportment in London (1804-1884).
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