Bald's Leechbook ii.22–4

XXII […] Ac mon sceal sona on fruman þa ær genemnedan beþunga. ne drince he wines naht. 7 gif se lifersioca mon blodes to fela hæbbe þonne sceal him mon ær eallum oþrum læcedomum blod lætan of þam swiðran earme on þære | niþeran ædre. Gif þa mon ne mæge eaþe geredian þonne sceal mon on þære middel ædre blod lætan. þa þe þæt ne doþ on micel earfeþu becumað.

XXIII Hwæt him sie to forganne on liferadle hwæt him sie to healdanne ge on læcedomum ge on mete.

For þon is þearf micel þæt mon nauþer ne sealfa ne baþu ne onlegena ær to nyde. ær him mon blod læte þam þe fela blodes hæfþ. æfter þon þe se lichoma sie þurh þa blodlæse geclæsnad. þæs mannes bileofa is to besceawianne. ærest him is to sellanne þæt þone innoð stille 7 smeþe. ne sie scearp ne to afor. ne slitende. ne swigene.

ælc broþ is to forganne for þon þe hit biþ þindende 7 yfele wætan wyrcþ. ægru sint to forganne forþonþe hira wæta bið fæt 7 maran hæto wyrcð. hlafes cruman gif hie beoþ ofþænde oþþe gesodene sint to þicganne ac na to swiðe. oþre wætan mete gearwa 7 cocnun|ga ealle sint to forbeodanne. 7 eal þa wætan þing 7 þa smerewigan 7 oster hlafas 7 eal swete þing þe wyrcað aþundenesse. ge þa scearpan afran þing sint to fleonne. forþonþe þa sint fortynende þa innoþas. 7 gesamniað þone swile 7 unyþelice meltað. forðon ne æppla ne win nis to sellanne. forðonþe hie habbað hatne bræþ þam is to þicganne unscearp win.

Your excellent Essay towards The Natural History of the Earth, ha's obliged and even commanded, the true Friends of Religion, and Philosophy, to serve you with as many Communications as they can, that may be subservient unto your Noble Intention. But the Letters wherewith you have honoured me, have laid me under your more particular Commands, to supply you with such Subterraneous Curiosities, as may have been in these Parts of America mett withal. I do with much Alacrity apply myself immediately to obey your Commands, in one Remarkable Instance, wherein I apprehend myself best able to do it; reserving for another Opportunity (if perhaps, I find myself a Master of) any further Treasures, worthy to be laid before a Person of so clear a Judgment, & so reaching a Sagacity. And that I go cheerfully about this Point of my Obedience, you will conclude it, when you see me begin with assuming the Air of telling you, That you must look upon all the American Curiosities which are sent you.

So began Cotton Mather's “Curiosa Americana” in 1712, a rich collection of epistolary essays on early modern science and the American natural world. One of only eight colonial fellows of the Royal Society of London, Mather obliged Dr. John Woodward's request over the span of many years. As secretary of the Royal Society, geologist, and member of the Royal College of Physicians, Woodward (1665–1728) particularly welcomed Mather's far-ranging Curiosa on the flora and fauna of the New World – including medicinal plants, passenger pigeons, rattlesnakes, fossils, and moose – as well as remarkable phenomena like monstrous births, Parhelia, and hurricanes.

In the context of the ‘Waldstein’ and the ‘Appassionata’ sonatas Lewis Lockwood has described the sonata in F Op. 54 as their ‘diminutive sibling’, qualifying the descriptor with Beethoven's remark about the Symphony No. 8, that ‘it's so much better’. Indeed, for the French Erard's wider range, the two sonatas Opp. 53 and 57 stand like two mountains surrounding a beautiful hill, a metaphor for the sonata Op. 54, composed in 1804 and which, intriguingly, remains within the 5-octave compass of the pre-Erard piano. Op. 54, like Op. 78 in F sharp, composed in 1809 alongside Op. 79 in G and the Fantasy Op. 77, with which it which it was published in 1810, comprises only two movements.

In this chapter I investigate the way in which spatial structure responds to the two-movement format, showing the potential for register to pair the movements. After some general observations about pairing, I analyse the sonatas Op. 54 and Op. 78, highlighting their individual qualities and the way in which Beethoven has deliberately shaped space to enable the two movements of each sonata to complement and complete each other.

The analytic literature about Op. 54 and Op. 78, less voluminous than for the more famous and ‘titled’ sonatas, most frequently focuses on the specific, unusual feature of their being sonatas with only two movements, rather than the conventional three or even four. The question as to the relationship between the two movements is an important issue which influences analytical interpretations, and discussions tend to range from technical to aesthetic, from tonal, motivic and formal connections to those of character and mood. The crucial question here is to what extent and in what ways space and register contribute to the contrast and connections between the movements.

The play Gildon and Gosling attached to The Life of Mr Thomas Betterton was a box office banker well into the eighteenth century. Between 1706 and 1790 it appeared in sixteen editions from booksellers in London and Dublin, one of them in a reprint of Gildon's book and five in adapted form.1 Other plays by Betterton might have been candidates: his Webster adaptation, The Roman Virgin, or the lost The Woman Made a Justice. But the success enjoyed by The Amorous Widow on the Restoration stage made it an obvious candidate for inclusion in a tribute volume. Precisely when it was written and first performed is not certain. John Downes includes it in a group of plays that premiered sometime between the autumn of 1669 and late 1670, all of which reflect the growing influence of French comedy. It is possible that the first edition of 1706 is itself an adaptation. Acts 3, 4 and 5 feature dance set pieces that showcased the talents of French performers brought in by Betterton from 1698 (Betterton's long-serving prompter, John Downes, took a dim view of his master's investment, describing ‘Monsieur L’Abbe’ and his colleagues as ‘Exorbitantly Expensive’). For the nine seventeenth- century performances of the play recorded in The London Stage, there is no mention of dancing, while the scripting that surrounds the three dance episodes has a distinctly hurried quality.

In recent decades, David Cannadine's fundamental historical argument has been that the historian's rich understanding of the past is needed if perspective and proportion are to be applied to topics and public debates which will otherwise be suffocated by partisan, shrill or superficial analyses. In an interview in 2017, he argued that one job of historians was to show how political structures, arrangements and assumptions have constantly changed over time – so that they could supply current decision-makers with a more nuanced context for their decision-making. In a discussion with Zeinab Badawi four years later, he suggested that the difference between the professional biographer and the historical biographer was that the latter was concerned with the broader contexts and constraints within which individuals worked, rather than just their life-stories. His biographical essay on Margaret Thatcher was preoccupied with setting her life ‘in a broader historical context’, as was his survey of the changing identities and objectives of the National Trust over time. His edited volume on Admiral Nelson two hundred years after his death at Trafalgar was subtitled ‘context and legacy’.

As these examples indicate, he has applied this argument particularly to the study of institutions and individuals in modern Britain. He has been our age's most prolific and incisive advocate of the benefits of contextualisation for studying both. Sometimes this approach has aimed to complicate oversimplified prejudices, as in his essay on Thatcher. More often it has simplified complexity, providing readers with a clear map through thickets of dense historical material.

This chapter looks at Pastor Daniel Kolawole Olukoya, a Yoruba (Nigerian) general overseer and Pentecostal leader and analyzes his publications and sermons, taking into account my field observations. Discussion about him becomes essential as he is the sole Yoruba Pentecostal leader whose primary doctrinal focus is on witchcraft; some of the interviewees in this study have been in contact with him, his spiritualities, and similar pastors during their Christian journeys. Although many scholars have written extensively about this Pentecostal leader, this chapter chooses a firsthand textual analysis of his sermons, messages, beliefs, and practices that influence the proliferation of child witchcraft in Yorubaland and beyond Nigeria.

Analysis of this megapastor (including interviewees) demands adherence to a consistent theoretical framework. The pastor's understanding of himself is clearly expressed in his leadership, personality, and interactions with his family, members of his church, and outsiders. Adding to Blumer's triad of core realities, Schwalbe proposes three methodological practices concerning power: linking meaning to power, looking for inequalities rendered invisible by exercising power, and turning a symbolic interactionist eye on ourselves.

Late on in A View of the Present State of Ireland, Irenius turns his thoughts to ‘plant[ing] a good towne’ by Bantry Bay, on land escheated to Elizabeth I but ‘forcibly kept from her, by a rough tayle kerne that proclaimes him selfe the bastarde sonne of the Erle of Clancar, beinge called Donnell Mac Chartie’. It would be ‘meet’, Irenius suggests, ‘to cut of[f]’ the rough-tailed Mac Carthy to ensure that the earl's estates revert to the Crown on his demise. The danger is that, in spite of the fact that, technically,

In 1596, when Edmund Spenser was writing A View, Domhnall Mac Carthaigh Mór, earl of Clancarty, was indeed on his deathbed, but those in Spenser's sights here are not Domhnall Mac Carthaigh, père or fils naturel, but ‘some others’ whom he does not name. Not mentioned but very much in the picture are Hugh O’Neill and Fínghin Mac Carthaigh Reagh – the ‘Machiavellian ambodexter’ whom O’Neill would later invest as the next Mac Carthaigh Mór. Spenser's inclination to camouflage such players beneath indirection and anonymity captures a general truth about the View's relationship with the Gaelic Irish.

This chapter will outline the extant medical texts in Old English, first considering what is meant by a medical text, and surveying those writings which fit the definition. Despite the small size of the corpus, many recipes or clusters of recipes exist in different versions, permitting the illustration of textual variation between witnesses, which will be important throughout the book. Finally, the chapter will provide an overview of Old English medical language as it pertains to other medical literatures, specifically Latin. This survey excludes some texts which were included by Cockayne in his Leechdoms, specifically the marginalia and prognostics, which have been excellently discussed by other authors, while it considers some manuscript witnesses which were unknown to Cockayne.

Some texts which may be considered a priori medical have been omitted due to their incidental transmission as encyclopaedic extracts in commonplace books, such as some of the prognostics in London, BL Cotton Tiberius A. iii which concern childbirth, disease or death. These texts are omitted because they fall outside the scope of this book, which is to document the reception of known late antique medical texts in early medieval England, although Claire Burridge has recently demonstrated the enormous value of studying those recipe collections which cannot be tied directly to these traditions.

The manuscript basis of the Old English medical corpus

Only eight manuscripts, including single-leaf documents, transmit Old English medical recipes as their primary contents, as opposed to marginalia, compared to the hundreds of extant Latin manuscripts from the Continent.

William Young made his first recorded speech in the Commons on the poor law in 1788. His engagement with the topic was to last throughout his parliamentary career. At about the same time he also began to intervene in debates on the slave trade. This too was to concern him for many years. His resignation from the Commons in 1807 occurred in the same year as the aboli¬tion of the trade. Young disliked the slave trade in principle, accepted the need for it to be regulated, and hoped that at some time in the future the import of fresh African labour into the West Indies would become superfluous and thus that the trade would wither away. From the outset, however, he totally opposed any proposal for immediate abolition of the trade. Over the years his opposition to abolition became increasingly embattled and intransigent.

Young played a prominent role in the early inquiries into the slave trade. He provided material for the Committee of the Privy Council investigating the trade in 1788. He was a member of the House of Commons Select Com¬mittee appointed in January 1790 to hear evidence on the trade, chairing the Committee on occasions. He was no doubt heavily engaged in selecting documents and witnesses to put the case against abolition and in coaching witnesses as to how to present their evidence. In March 1791 the London Committee of West India Merchants and Planters, the core of the very pow¬erful British West Indian lobby, appointed him as their ‘primary spokesman’ to argue their case against abolition to the House of Commons. Young worked closely with Wilberforce in setting a timetable for Commons debates that would be acceptable both to the abolitionists and their opponents.2 He spoke in all the major debates on the slave trade, except for that of 1792, when he was in the Caribbean.

INTRODUCTION

The composite manuscript edited below bears many resemblances to the better-known True Narrative of the Sufferings and Relief of a Young Girle, published in 1698, which is edited as the subsequent text in the present volume. However, the manuscript also contains revealing differences, of three types. First, it contains additional documents that are not included in the True Narrative – most strikingly, a tract by James Williamson criticising the evidence used in the witchcraft trials. Second, it omits some of the documents published in the True Narrative. Third, there are intriguing differences in some of the documents that are common to both texts. For instance, both texts contain the central narrative of Christian Shaw's demonic possession, but in two noticeably different versions. These differences may reveal much about how the narrative was compiled, and help us to understand the bizarre events that it related. At the end of the edition, a further short document is added as an appendix: a contemporary newsletter relating yet another version of some of these events.

The manuscript: description, date, purpose

The ‘Bargarran Witches’ manuscript, as it is known by its present holders, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, is an untitled foolscap volume in original binding containing the texts of a number of documents relating to the Bargarran witchcraft case. The manuscript was bought in London for the Library by George Neilson, who published one of its documents in 1910 – a sermon by James Hutchison, minister of Kilallan, that he preached in Paisley on 13 April 1697 to the commissioners of justiciary trying the accused witches. Neilson noted internal evidence that the volume had been in the possession of the Shaw of Bargarran family in the eighteenth century, and it seems reasonable

Q. In this chapter, we want to explore your abiding love of certain genres of music and the composers who wrote masterworks for them. Of course, this includes the guitar and other instrumental pieces, but it also embraces musical theater, i.e., both opera and zarzuela (operetta). Who are some of your favorite opera composers?

A. We could go on and on and on, but over the years, I have had a tremendous love for Italian opera. I am especially fond of Mozart's Italian operas, The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, though I also adore The Magic Flute. I never tire of listening to those works, and I have returned to them over and over during my life. I also love the operas of Verdi and Puccini. I’m overwhelmed with their dramatic gift, their ability to tell a story, and how masterfully they merge words and music. They delve into the deepest part of the listener's spirit, so that you don't just listen with your ears and with your mind; indeed, their operas tap into the deepest emotions.

So, listening to opera is for me a way to work through some deep emotions. It's like having the Ultimate Therapist, because you work through your unhappiness, your anger, your depression, through everything. And at the end, there is beauty in all of it. The music of those three composers, Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini, speaks to me about life.

Holst's self-esteem as a composer grew very quickly during 1914–1916, for those were the years dominated by the composition of his largest orchestral work, The Planets, Op. 32 [H125]. Astrology was nothing new to him and he may have been exposed to it at a very young age. Raymond Head comments,

Holst himself comments from a 1914 perspective:

The first movement of The Planets, “Mars: The Bringer of War,” was begun in early 1914 and, true to its subtitle, was entirely sketched out before World War I had begun. “Mars” had not been inspired by that particular war; neither had his musical documentary on the horrors of war, A Dirge for Two Veterans [H121] (1914).