OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Caxton

* related authors: William Caxton.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, quotes, Wikidata item.
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William Caxton,
THE FIRST ENGLISH PRINTER.
We have Caxton's own authority for saying that he was born in "Kent in the Welde," although other counties have claimed the honour of his birth. The date of his nativity is uncertain. Oldys places it at 1412, but later authorities at 1422-3. In 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, an eminent Mercer in London. After serving his time he went into business in Bruges, in Belgium, where he resided twenty-four years, acting as agent for the Mercers' Company, and greatly prospered. In 1464 he acted as "Ambassador" or "Deputy" in making a treaty of trade and commerce between Edward IV., and Philip, Duke of Burgundy. He subsequently acted as secretary or agent to Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, and while in her service he translated, from the French, Raoul le Ferre's Recueil des Histoires de Troye, the original of which was the first book printed by him on his return to England. For about this time Caxton had become acquainted with that art, either from Ulric Zell, of Cologne, or Colard Mansion, of Bruges. His printing press was set up in Westminster some time between 1474 and 1477. Tradition says that the first book printed was one on the Game of Chesse, a first edition of ​which however, had already appeared at Bruges. Whilst conducting his press he was patronized by Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII., and many of the nobility, and continued busy at the new art till his death, in 1492. Caxton's life has been written by Oldys in the "Biographia Britannica," by John Lewis (1738), by Charles Knight, and by William Blades (1861).
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Gostling

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William Gostling
ANTIQUARY,
Was born at Canterbury in 1705. He was educated at the King's School there, for the church, and became Vicar of Stone, in the Island of Oxney, and Minor Canon of the Cathedral of Canterbury. He wrote several antiquarian treatises, the best known of which is ** A Walk in and about the City of Canterbury." He died in 1777.
[See "Gentleman's Magazine," 1777; "Hasted's Kent," and "Nichols's Literary Anecdotes"]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Harvey

* related authors: William Harvey (1578-1657).
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, quotes, Wikidata item.
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William Harvey,
PHYSICIAN AND ANATOMIST,
Whose discovery of the circulation of the blood completely revolutionised the science of medicine, was born at Folkstone, 1st April, 1578. He was educated at Canterbury, and at Caius College, Cambridge, subsequently studying medicine and anatomy in the universities of France, Germany, and Italy. On his return to London he became a member of the College of Physicians, and was appointed to deliver the Lumleian lectures at S. Bartholomew's Hospital. It was at this time that he first gave the world a glimpse of his grand discovery, which he himself affirms, first dawned upon him from a study of the valves of the veins, as exhibited by Fabricius ab Aquapendente, his master when at Padua. It was not till 1628, however, that ​he published his mature views of the subject in the treatise "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis." He acted as physician to James I and Charles I. During the troubles of the civil war his house in London was pillaged and his papers burnt. The second part of his great work treating de Generatione Animalium, etc., was published by Dr. George Ent, another Kentish man (q. v.) in 1651. Before his death, which took place in June 1658, Harvey made over his paternal estate to the College of Physicians, and appointed a stipend for the orator and for the keeper of the Library and Museum. The fame and merits of this good and great man are too conspicuous to be dilated upon. The College of Physicians honoured his memory in 1766 by publishing a splendid edition of his works, with his life in elegant latin by Dr. Lawrence.
[See "Biographia Britannica,"; "Rees's Cyclopædia" Aikins's "Memoirs of Medicine."]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Hazlitt

* related authors: William Hazlitt (1778-1830).
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, quotes, Wikidata item.
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William Hazlitt
CRITIC,
Was the son of a Unitarian Minister, and was born at Maidstone in 1778. He began life as an artist, but soon relinquished the pencil for the pen. His first publication was an Essay on the "Principles of Human Action," in ​1803. This he followed up by numerous publications of great merit, including a "Life of Napoleon," in 1828; but his chief reputation rests in his criticisms of English dramatic and other literature which appeared in a variety of publications. He died Sept. 18th 1830, and was buried at St. Ann's, Soho.
[See "Gentleman's Magazine," 1830, and Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors."]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Darell

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William Darell,
ANTIQUARY,
Was probably a member of the ancient family of the Darels of Calehill, whose name appears on the Roll of Battle Abbey, as accompanying the Conqueror into England. Entering the Church, he was appointed a prebend in Canterbury Cathedral in 1554, and subsequently became one of the chaplains to Queen Elizabeth. He was a friend of William Lord Cobham, Constable of Dover Castle, to whom he dedicated a history of that famous stronghold. This work, originally written in Latin, was translated by Alexander Campbell, and published, with plates, in 1797. Darell died in 1584.
[See "Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigienses."]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Fuller

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William Fuller
IMPOSTOR,
This notorious impostor, the rival of Titus Oates, known popularly as "Cheat-master General," was born at Milton, in 1672. Though by no means a Kentish "Worthy," his name can hardly be omitted from a list of celebrities. He was bred a Roman Catholic, and was page to Lady Milfort. In 1670 he was sent with dispatches to England, from Mary of Modena. These, instead of delivering as directed, he took to King William III. He lived some time in luxury on the reward of his treachery. When the proceeds had been spent he tried to raise more funds by ​fabricating plots in the manner of Gates. These being detected, he was convicted and sentenced to fine and the pillory. He wrote a life of himself when in the Queen's Bench prison, published in 1782, and referred to by Macaulay. His death occurred about the year 1717.
[See his Life, by Abel Roper]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Fulman

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William Fulman,
ANTIQUARY,
Was the son of a tradesman of Penshurst, where he was born in 1632. He was sent by Dr. Hammond, the incumbent of Penshurst, to be educated at Oxford, but was ejected by the Parliamentary visitors along with his patron. After the Restoration, he obtained the living of Meysey Hampton, in Gloucestershire, where he died in 1688. He was well read in antiquities, and wrote historical notices of the University of Oxford, ("Academiæ Oxoniensis Notitia.") "Comments on Bishop Burnet's History of the Reformation," and edited the works of Charles I., and of his patron, Dr. Hammond.
[See "Wood's Athenæ Oxon.," by Bliss."]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Huntington

* related authors: William Huntington.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, Wikidata item.
William Hunt
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William Huntington
CALVINISTIC PREACHER,
William Huntington, or Hunt, as he was originally called, was the son of a farm labourer, and born in a house between Cranbrook and Goudhurst, in 1744. He was first an errand boy, then a day labourer, then a cobbler. He was for several years given to dissipation; but, according to his own account, being converted, he took to the study of the Bible, and became a preacher. He lived for some time at Thames Ditton, but removed to London, where his followers built for him a chapel in Titch-field, and afterwards a larger one in Grays-Inn Road. Here, though, as he confesses, an ignorant man, he attracted large congregations by a colloquial and homely style of eloquence popular with the vulgar. He died at Tunbridge Wells in 1813. He was a singular personage, "singular in his outset and career, singular in his opinions, singular in his appearance, singular in his chapel and style of preaching," and to this singularity he doubtless owed such success as attended him. He signed himself W. Huntington, S.S. (Sinner Saved), and caused the same letters ​to be engraved on bis belongings, and, when he became wealthy, on the panels of his carriage and the harness of his horses. He wrote, as he himself tells us, "more than a hundred little books, calculated," as he thinks, "to suit the earnest enquirer, the soul in bondage, in the furnace, in the path of tribulation, or in the stronghold of Satan." These works were edited by his son, Ebenezer, in 1838, and they were reviewed, with an account of the Author, by Robert Southey in the "Quarterly Review," vol. xxiv, (q. v.)
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William James Chaplin

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William James Chaplin,
THE HEAD OF THE GREAT FIRM OF CHAPLIN & HORNE,
Was born at Rochester in 1787, and his history affords a remarkable example of a man rising from the humblest ranks, by talents and energy, to a foremost place with ​the wealthy and influential. Before railways were in operation he succeeded in becoming one of the largest coach-proprietors in the kingdom, possessing sixty-four stage coaches, worked by fifteen hundred horses, and returning yearly more than half a million sterling. This capital he gradually removed into railways in England, France, and Holland; particularly into the London and South Western Railway, of which he became a director and Chairman. In 1845 he was Sheriff of London, and in 1847 was elected M.P. for Salisbury, for which he continued to sit till 1857. He died April 24th, 1859.
[See "Men of the Time," ed. 1856.]
# Men of Kent and Kentishmen/William Lambe

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William Lambe,
PHILANTHROPIST,
Was a native of Sutton Valence. He was sometime a gentleman of the chapel to King Henry VIII, and a great favourite of that prince. He was a member of the Clothworkers' Company, "and among many other extensive ​charities, out of his great love of learning, and for the place where he was born, erected at his own cost and charges in 1578, a free Grammar School in the parish, for the education and instruction of youth, allowing yearly to the master £20, and £10 to the usher, and to the former a good house and garden to reside in." He also founded at Town Sutton six almshouses, having an orchard and gardens to them, for the benefit of six poor inhabitants, and allotted the sum of two pounds to be paid to each of them yearly. He died in the year 1580.
[See "Fuller's Worthies," "Stow's Survey of London," and "Hasted's Kent."]
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/To Fitz-Greene Halleck

* related authors: Fitz-Greene Halleck.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
I see the sons of genius rise  The nobles of our land,  And foremost in the gathering ranks  I see the poet-band.  That priesthood of the Beautiful  To whom alone 't is given  To lift our spirits from the dust,  Back to their native heaven.  But there is one among the throng  Not passed his manhood's prime,  The laurel-wreath upon his brow  Has greener grown with time;  And in his eye yet glows the light  Of the celestial fire,  But cast beside him on the earth  Is his neglected lyre.  The lyre whose high heroic notes  A thousand hearts have stirred  Lies mute---the skilful hand no more  Awakes one slumbering chord.  O poet, rouse thee from thy dreams!  Wake from the voiceless slumbers,  And once again give to the breeze  The music of thy numbers.  Sing! for our country claims her bards,  She listens for thy strains;  Sing! for upon our jarring earth  Too much of discord reigns.
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/To Captain West, of the Steamer Atlantic

The gathering clouds around us lower,  The tempest wildly raves,  But fearlessly our noble ship  The angry ocean braves,  And buoyant as a sea-bird rides  The crested mountain waves.
 The gale, the storm, the night may come,  No fear disturbs the breast;  Our ship is strong,---our Captain brave,---  And we securely rest.  Long life to him and all his Line!  Health to the gallant West!
 Pilgrims to many lands are we,  And now our travel o'er  Once more beneath the Stars and Stripes  We near our native shore;  And since we parted from it last  Who does not love it more?
 Adieu, new friends and old, adieu!  May every wandering breeze  That meets you on the Voyage of Life  Be far less rude than these  That our good ship has met so well  Upon the wintry seas.
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/To Emma

I look within those deep, dark, lustrous eyes,  And there I read thy heart's sweet mysteries;  There, like those lakes that mirror earth and sky,  The lights and shadows of the future lie.  For thee ambition has no clarion call;  Thou 'lt seek no home in court, or princely hall,  Where folly reigns, and the world's votaries throng  To wile the hours with mirth, and dance, and song.  Nor wilt thou seek to blazon high thy name,  As woman may, upon the scroll of Fame.  But there 's an empire o'er which thou wouldst reign,  Yet should thy subjects wear no despot's chain.  It is the empire of the Heart. It shall be thine,  And o'er it thou shalt reign by "right divine."
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/To George Peabody

No Eastern tale, no annals of the past,  Of Greece or Rome, deeds such as thine relate,  Deeds kings and emperors might emulate,  That o'er thy native land new luster cast;  The land that opens all her wide domain  To the oppressed of every name and zone,  And with a spirit generous as thine own,  Pours forth the gifts her boundless stores contain;  The land that shall embalm thy memory  In love and honor, while long ages hence  The bounteous stream of thy beneficence,  Bearing along to millions yet to be  Tributes of light and love, its course shall run,  Still widening as it flows, like the broad Amazon!
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/Lines to ----

I thank thee---not for that kind deed alone,  Though deep within my heart the record lies,  Engraved with those few pleasant memories,  That like stray sunbeams on my life have shone:  I thank thee most for this---that when belief  In human worth was darkening into doubt,---  As one by one, I marked with bitter grief  Those I had reverenced with a faith devout  Turn recreant back upon their heavenward way  And sink before me into common clay;  That thou dost come my faith to reassure,  My wavering trust in goodness to restore,  And bid my fainting hope take wing once more.
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/On receiving a picture of an Italian Countess

Oh lovely semblance of a lovelier face!  Upon thy classic contour as I gaze,  My eager thought flies through dividing space;  And to the living picture tribute pays.
 I see that brow with thought and goodness crowned,  I see those eyes with deep affection shine;  I hear the language from those sweet lips sound,  By poets made immortal and divine.
 I would that I might follow my free thought,  And see this gentle stranger face to face;  For such fair spirits I have ever sought,  And such would ever hold in my embrace.
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/To Charles Butler

Thus, one by one, dear friend, the years flow by,  That bear us onward to the silent land.  And one by one, around us falling lie,  The loved ones we have walked with, hand in hand.
 And thus, the hour comes swiftly, surely on;  I see its shadow darkly toward us creep,  When one shall go, and one be left alone,  To bear life's chain, alone to wait and weep.
 How sad, how dark, did not the heavenly stars,  Twin stars of Faith, and Hope, rise on our way,  To shed their luster through our prison-bars,  To light our path on to eternal day!
 That day that knows no cloud, no change, no night,  Where tears, and pain, and sorrow, enter never,  Where the beloved on earth again unite,  Where one in God, they part no more forever.
# Memoirs of Anne C. L. Botta/To Anna

For thee, the Sibyl in the future sees  A lovely cottage hidden by the trees;---  Round its white porch are trained the clustering vines;  Beneath its roof perpetual summer shines---  The heart's sweet summer that shall take its dyes  From the clear sunshine of thine azure eyes.  The nightingale shall sing thee to thy dreams;  The lark shall wake thee with morn's earliest beams;  The flocks and herds shall own thy gentle care;  All living things thy kind regard shall share.  And as thou wanderest midst the lovely scene,  The flowers shall claim thee for their fairy queen.  And here, where Nature wears her loveliest spell,  Shalt thou, her fairest work, serenely dwell;  Far from the world's "ignoble strife" and care,  With some loved spirit "for thy minister,"  Thy life like some fair stream shall glide away,  And thou shalt sleep, to wake in the Eternal Day.
# More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/Ian H. T. Mackenzie

IAN H. T. MACKENZIE
2nd Lieut., Highland Light Infantry
Desire
THIS is my desire Which burns the fuel of my soul. O terrible white fire! Leaping to blister the sky. Beyond my sight; Ever reaching higher; My strength and my delight; Oh out of my control! This is my desire:—
To hear the song that beauty sings, To refashion the earth with the joy of things, To grasp in a corner of my mind The sunlit clouds, the driving wind. To let imagination fly Up the beauty of the sky. To hold it with me when I go To sing my song on earth below.
​This is the desire Which burns the fuel of my soul. O terrible white fire! Leaping to blister the sky. Beyond my sight; Ever reaching higher; My strength and my delight; Oh out of my control! This is my desire.
And So Man Lives
AND so man lives Between those shadowy gates Where darkness covers up his memory, And thought with thought forever separates The disconnected things that he can see. Those two strange steeps: One whence he wakes, And how he cannot tell; One in which he falls And knows not how he fell, Where life with memory breaks.
​Memory like water Surging round our ears Brings its echoes, softer Than the sound of laughter— Laughter of some strange forgotten years.
Someone gazing in a stream sees reflections hurry by;
Someone underneath a tree searching all its greenery;
Someone looking at a face holds a flying memory.
Broken images that pass Through a twisted looking-glass; Things we do and things we say Ever fluttering away.
Disconnected things we see In the brightness of the day:
Just a flower growing there In the happiness of air.
​Tiny little birds that sing In the melody of spring.
What we are and what we see Are only shreds of memory. Broken shreds and fragments pass Through a twisted looking-glass.
# More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/Gerald M. Cooper

GERALD M. COOPER
2nd Lieut., Scots Guards
Sonnets
I
WEARY of strife and sickening at the thought My soul desires release, and as I gaze Upon the barrenness that war hath wrought, Another vision rises in a haze Of phantasy—I see a place of rest All bathed in sunlight and the scent of flowers, Where Time has fall'n asleep on Nature's breast, And none may mark the tread of passing hours. And in the fairest part of all, that seems The very home of all things pure and good, A woman sits with half-closed eyes, and dreams In ecstasy of perfect motherhood. O wondrous mystery! Behold, the earth Blossoms again in mystic second birth.
II
A dark grey sky that merges in the west Into pale primrose, where the fading day Still lingers like an echo half-expressed Of some forgotten glory. By the way, Outlined in black against the sky, there stands A wayside crucifix among the corn; Waiting with tired eyes and outstretched hands, In patient expectation of the morn.
The gentle whisper of the poplar trees Is hardly loud enough to break the spell Of mystic silence. From the church tower's height Comes, wafted onward by the dying breeze, The solemn tolling of a single bell; Then silence and the mystery of night.
# More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/K. M. Scobie

K. M. SCOBIE
2nd Lieut., R.G.A.
Lunae
HAVE you ridden alone in the country ever By the dusty light of the harvest-moon? —Cycled intent in a vain endeavour To match your speed to your soul's quick tune When there's never a sound to break the magic; For the tyres' crisp whir on the powdered road And the hoot of an owl in the distance, tragic, Are pricking your heart with a fairy goad?
Then the hawthorn hedges, sweet dissembling, Stealthily close on your path, till fear Of their dense bulk looms; and your heartsick trembling Shakes into stillness as you swing clear. Then the high haw-hedges furious will bide, Drawing back from the light of the moon: But the black trees haste down the silver hillside. You know in your heart that you laughed too soon.
​They reach the roadside; and, leaning over, Wait for your coming. A swerving flash Through their clutching fingers—then dreaming clover, And corn amazed at your passing dash Over the bridge as the water glides black Darker than death in a dream: then pales. The enchanted ground from the village slides back. Voices and lights: and the magic fails.
# More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series/John Mason

JOHN MASON
Captain, Royal Scots
My Country
THERE is no dearer land in all the world Than thee, my country, girded by the sea, Where rocks re-echo to the bounding waters hurl'd, And all is endless sight and mystery to me. The silent distances of hills, replete With tideless joy, eternal hope Upspringing with the eagle's pennon-beat, Free to the airs, with ne'er a tether-rope To check its flight.
The sky above may weep, and seldom smile, And mirky be the frown upon thy brow. Yet O! thy mountain woods and endless mile Of sea, sing joy unbound, and life, that now Expansive breathes the freshness of the free. Thy piney airs and salt-sea breezes blown, With peaty scent and loamy breath of lea Seek out the soul that nowhere else hath known The like to thee.
​There is no dearer land in all the world Than thee, my country, girded by the sea. 'Twere joy to those who bear the flag unfurl'd In ruthless strife to keep thine acres free, To dip the hand in blood, the face to scar With sword of death, that thou unconquered may For Freedom stand, the vanquisher of war, Chaste guardian of the unprotected way To peace and right.