The Extra‐Parliamentary Organisation of the Whig Junto in the Reign of William III

There is much evidence for the parliamentary organisation of the whig junto in Queen Anne's reign, but little for its extra‐parliamentary organisation. This note gives evidence for such extra‐parliamentary organisation late in the reign of William III from letters by both James Vernon and Robert Harley, which describe meetings of the junto and some of its supporters in the country houses of followers in the summers of 1698, 1699 and 1700.     

H.G. Wells and the New Liberalism

This article offers a new interpretation of H.G. Wells's politicalthought in the Edwardian period and beyond. Scholars have emphasisedhis socialism at the expense of his commitment to liberalism,and have misread his novel The New Machiavelli as an anti-Liberaltract. Wells spent much effort in the pre-1914 period in thequest for a ‘new Liberalism’, and did not believethat socialists should compete directly with the Liberal Partyfor votes. It was this latter conviction that lay behind hismuch misunderstood dispute with the Fabian Society. His politicalsupport for Churchill was one sign of his belief in the compatibilityof liberalism and socialism, in which he was far from uniqueat the time. He also engaged, somewhat idiosyncratically, withthe ‘servile state’ concept of Hilaire Belloc. Althoughhe did not articulate his Liberal identity with complete consistency,he did so with increasing intensity as the First World War approached.This helps explain why key New Liberal politicians includingChurchill, Lloyd George and Masterman responded to his ideassympathetically. The extent of engagement between Wells andthe ‘New Liberalism’ was such that he deserves tobe considered alongside Green, Ritchie, Hobson and Hobhouseas one of its prophets.     

The Debate in the House of Lords on 'No Peace without Spain', 7 December 1711: A New Source

The debate in the house of lords on 'No Peace without Spain' in December 1711 was the first test of the strength of the administration of Robert Harley, earl of Oxford, in the upper House. Though there are more sources for this debate than is normal for proceedings in the Lords, few can claim to be by eyewitnesses. A newly 'discovered' anonymous letter from an eyewitness found in the papers of the lord great chamberlain's office in the Parliamentary Archives gives a detailed account of this important debate.     

周公旦为鲁国始封之君说

谁是鲁国的始封之君 ,周公旦抑或其子伯禽 ?自古至今聚讼未决。今天的学者多主“伯禽封鲁”说 ,其主要依据为《鲁颂·宫》与《左传》定公四年所载的两条材料 ,但这两条材料明显有可疑之处。“伯禽封鲁”说之所以影响大 ,盖由崔述的鼓荡所致 ,然而崔氏的考证远非一贯正确。《左传》僖公二十四年说“鲁”是“文之昭”,这是一条铁证 ,证明了周公旦是鲁国的始封之君。历史上 ,周公旦曾两次封于鲁。但由于他是武王、成王两代人的助手 ,所以两次受封均不曾就国 ,而是由其长子伯禽代就封 ,故有“伯禽封鲁”说     

A Biographical Note on James Maxwell,Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod

This note seeks to clarify the course of the career of James Maxwell, gentleman usher of the black rod in several earlier Stuart parliaments. Maxwell was a Scot who followed James I south in 1603, serving in his household and that of Charles I, first as a gentleman usher daily waiter, and from 1619 as a groom of the bedchamber. In 1620 he secured the office of black rod. In 1642 he failed to follow the king to Oxford but remained with the parliament at Westminster, although largely delegating his duties as black rod to his associate, Alexander Thayne. In 1647, he was allowed by parliament to attend the king at Holdenby House. He died in 1650 as earl of Dirletoun in Scotland, although the circumstances in which he acquired this title are obscure.     

Machiavelli’s passions

In his years as Florentine Secretary, Machiavelli repeatedly faced the problem of interpreting the gestures and words of statesmen that were masters of deception. The strategy he developed to uncover these statesmen’s intentions was based on the analysis of human passions, on uncovering the fundamental trait that defined a man’s character. I apply Machiavelli’s strategy of interpretation to Machiavelli himself and uncover the irreconcilable disconnect which shaped his personal tragedy. On one hand, he related to his objects of desire by entirely abandoning himself to them, regardless of how unachievable they were. On the other, to obtain these objects of desire his analytical mind developed strategies which took pride in their adherence to what he called the “effectual truth of the matter.” His incapacity to reconsider his objectives in light of the means at his disposal and his tendency to transfer all of himself into his objectives determined Machiavelli’s successes and failures. He repeatedly failed when he had to set his own goals, or when he approached a problem with empathy. He succeeded when he was given precise and limited objectives and when he understood that he did not share the goals of those he was studying.     

Shakespeare as a method. Carl Schmitt’s reading of Othello and Hamlet

While in the 1960s Allan Bloom suggested to read William Shakespeare’s works through the prism of political philosophy, a decade earlier Carl Schmitt used the works of English poet in a reverse way: he read political philosophy and history through Shakespeare. Deprived – under the influence of Leo Strauss – from the possibility of considering Thomas Hobbes a decisionist thinker, Schmitt in his ‘Hamlet or Hecuba’ used Shakespeare’s most famous work to interpret origins of disappearance of the state of emergency from English soil. Shakespeare was seen by Schmitt as a writer who captured the Sixteenth and seventeenth century changes in thinking about sovereignty and the state. Interestingly, Schmitt did not use Shakespeare as method for the first time: in first decades of twentieth century, in his diary, he made ‘Othello’ a prism through which he read his love life. Because the author of ‘The Concept of the Political’ is one of the less methodologically cohesive writers of twentieth century, his usage of Shakespeare twice, in different circumstances, is interesting. In an article, author links ‘Hamlet or Hecuba’ with Schmitt’s geopolitical works and presents Shakespeare’s works as the coherent method of interpretation in Schmitt’s philosophy of decisionism.     

鲁迅的文献学成就

在文献学方面,鲁迅的成就主要体现在辑佚、校勘和考证等三个方面。在辑佚方面,他力求穷尽所有资料,所辑佚文无论是数量还是质量都堪称一流;在校勘方面,他精通版本之学,对校勘原则有深刻的把握,能够熟练运用各种校勘方法;在考证方面,他主要利用比较的方法、推理与实证相结合的方法以及钩稽之法来考辨史实,解决疑难问题。     

The Norman invasion of Gwent: a reassessment

Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, William fitz Osbern was created earl of Hereford. Most historians suggest he overran all Gwent east of the Usk before his return to the continent in 1071. This article will argue that his occupation of Gwent was more limited and was possibly confined to the territories claimed by Harold Godwinson, once earl of Hereford, before his death at Hastings. Instead, the accession of William Rufus in 1087 is seen as the context for a new aggressive policy towards South Wales. In the next fifteen years, Gwent and its neighbouring kingdoms of Morgannwg and Bucheiniog were overrun by William's marcher lords.     

The Norman invasion of Gwent: a reassessment

Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, William fitz Osbern was created earl of Hereford. Most historians suggest he overran all Gwent east of the Usk before his return to the continent in 1071. This article will argue that his occupation of Gwent was more limited and was possibly confined to the territories claimed by Harold Godwinson, once earl of Hereford, before his death at Hastings. Instead, the accession of William Rufus in 1087 is seen as the context for a new aggressive policy towards South Wales. In the next fifteen years, Gwent and its neighbouring kingdoms of Morgannwg and Bucheiniog were overrun by William's marcher lords.     

C.S. Lewis: an Irish writer

This article examines the effect of C.S. Lewis's Irish background on his work. It attempts to contradict the assumption that this Belfast-born writer should be included in the English and not the Irish canon. It emphasises that Lewis saw himself as Irish, was seen by others as Irish, and that his Irish background, contrary to what some have written, was important to him throughout his lifetime. It goes on to demonstrate the ways in which his work was influenced by his youth in Ireland and by the Irish mythology that he loved. Furthermore, this article maintains that, as a child of pre-partition Ireland with roots throughout the island, Lewis was influenced by the country as a whole, not just his native Ulster. Finally, it attempts to understand why Lewis, a proud Irishman, did not do more to promote himself as an Irish writer.     

Professor C.F.J. Muller as historikus

Joseph Booth's influence on the development of early Christianity in Malâwi has been exaggerated at the expense of the Africans actually involved. Around the turn of the century he introduced a number of industrial missions into the country, but his connection with them was short-lived. Almost as quickly as he set them up he was expelled from their ranks for reasons of financial mismanagement. This happened at least eight times during his missionary career. Money matters proved to be his undoing with Africans as well. Booth's false promises of financial aid to struggling Seventh Day Baptists resulted in an active campaign on their part to rid themselves of him. He also parted ways with John Chilembwe, Elliott Kamwana and Jordan Ansumba. Booth was a man full of contradictions. While preaching brotherhood he quarrelled with everyone; an advocate of Africa for the Africans, he demanded total sub-service from those around him. His anti-colonial message was blighted by taking advantage of a friendship with Harry Johnston to acquire large tracts of land from Africans for very little money. Joseph Booth was an emotionally troubled individual who did more to hinder the spread of Christianity in Central Africa than help it.     

Botanical exchanges: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Duchess of Portland

In 1766 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in exile from France and Switzerland, came to England, where he made the acquaintance of Margaret Cavendish Harley Bentinck, Duchess of Portland. The two began to botanise together and to exchange letters about botany. These letters contain salient statements about Rousseau's views on natural theology, gardens, botanical texts and exotic botany. This exchange entailed not only discussions about plant identifications and other botanical matters, but most important, reciprocal gifts of books and specimens in the manner of gentlemanly scientific correspondence of the period. Rousseau volunteered his services as the Duchess's ‘herborist’ or plant collector, and collected specimens and seeds in her behalf; these were destined for her own extensive herbaria and other natural history collections. Rousseau, who elsewhere denied female talent for science, admired the Duchess's knowledge of natural history, acknowledging his own as inferior. Their correspondence ended when the Duchess sent him the Herbarium amboinense of Georg Rumpf (Rumphius), an important work of exotic botany. Rousseau considered exotic botany to be the antithesis of the domination-free nature from which he derived solace and inspiration.     

Saussure and his intellectual environment

SUMMARY

The present study paints the intellectual environment in which Ferdinand de Saussure developed his ideas about language and linguistics during the fin de siècle. It sketches his dissatisfaction with that environment to the extent that it touched on linguistics, and shows the new course he was trying to steer on the basis of ideas that seemed to open new and exciting perspectives, even though they were still vaguely defined. As Saussure himself was extremely reticent about his sources and intellectual pedigree, his stance in the lively European cultural context in which he lived can only be established through textual critique and conjecture. On this basis, it is concluded that Saussure, though relatively uninformed about its historical roots, essentially aimed at integrating the rationalist tradition current in the sciences in his day into a new, ‘scientific’ general theory of language. In this, he was heavily indebted to a few predecessors, such as the French philosopher-psychologist Victor Egger, and particularly to the French psychologist, historian and philosopher Hippolyte Taine, who was a major cultural influence in nineteenth-century France, though now largely forgotten. The present study thus supports Hans Aarsleff's analysis, where, for the first time, Taine's influence is emphasised, and rejects John Joseph's contention that Taine had no influence and that, instead, Saussure was influenced mainly by the romanticist Adolphe Pictet. Saussure abhorred Pictet's method of etymologising, which predated the Young Grammarian school, central to Saussure's linguistic education. The issue has implications for the positioning of Saussure in the history of linguistics. Is he part of the non-analytical, romanticist and experience-based European strand of thought that is found in art and postmodernist philosophy and is sometimes called structuralism, or is he a representative of the short-lived European branch of specifically linguistic structuralism, which was rationalist in outlook, more science-oriented and more formalist, but lost out to American structuralism? The latter seems to be the case, though phenomenology, postmodernism and art have lately claimed Saussure as an icon.     

The Speaker in the Age of Party, 1672–1715

The discussion by King Charles II and his senior advisors in 1672 of the choice of a new Speaker for the forthcoming parliamentary session reveals both the way in which the appointment was prepared and the government's considerations in the appointment. Prominent among them was the Speaker's personal influence, and his personal views on the great issue to be debated, the Declaration of Indulgence. The choice of Sir Job Charlton, and the behaviour of his successor, Sir Edward Seymour, in the chair, mark a new phase in the history of the speakership, in which Speakers are less likely to be lawyers, for whom the office was a step on the road to high legal office, and more likely to be significant political leaders with their own influence and following. After the 1688 revolution, the tendency for Speakers to be party political leaders became still more marked. Nevertheless, the country ideology espoused by several of them, including Paul Foley, Robert Harley and the tory, Sir Thomas Hanmer, provides a pedigree for the model of the impartial speakership whose invention is often attributed to Arthur Onslow.     

Li Hanjun's views on socialism

This article examines Li Hanjun's views on socialism. Li Hanjun was one of the main founders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and expressed his vision and ideas of socialism during the 1920s. Like many other Communists in the early CCP, he was convinced that China should take a socialist road. Yet, in respect to how to realise socialism and what kind of socialist society should be built, Li held a view different from most of them. In his opinion, the governing institutions in a socialist society should be democratic and autonomous rather than centralist and bureaucratic; production and distribution should be administered and managed by an association of free and equal producers in the form of cooperatives instead of by the state and its officials. These views were quite distinct from the Soviet centralised state socialism and the dictatorship by a ruling elite. However, his ideas and designs of the economic and political institutions in socialist society were consonant with Marx on many points. Besides examining Li Hanjun's socialist views, this research also attempts to explore his philosophical inclinations and political orientation, in order to explain why he could conceive such special ideas of a socialist fabric.