Andrew Marvell,the Lord Maynard and the Ballastage Office

In the Restoration, Andrew Marvell was elected to the Elder Brethren of the London (Deptford) Trinity House (May 1674). Some “new” documents reveal him assisting that shipmasters’ corporation in its business. In this work, he was helping to protect a charity, shoring up a corporate bulwark against the rising tide of Court interest; he was soon to lament in An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government (1677). At issue was the drafting of letters rejecting a claim by the Lord Maynard, a prominent courtier who, with the support of James Duke of York and of Charles II, sought the reversion of the Ballastage Office. That lucrative office was a major resource for the London Trinity House, and one which fuller profits it was reluctant to concede. Whatever Marvell's own observation of decorum, the heavy correction of his initial draughts shows his more abrupt style coming under review, with a more flourishing courtliness characterizing the final letters sent by the group.     

Andrew Marvell and the Dutch fifth column: new evidence from a copy of Mr Smirke with authorial annotations

ABSTRACT

This essay discusses a previously unknown copy of Andrew Marvell’s Mr Smirke, which features annotations in his hand. We argue that the recipient of the volume was the Anglo-Dutch agent “William Freeman”, who was closely involved with a Dutch fifth column, set up by William of Orange and his spymaster Pierre Du Moulin, which lobbied Parliament during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The essay discusses further archival evidence of Marvell’s links to Freeman and argues that their connection persisted after the end of the Third Anglo-Dutch war. Finally, the essay argues that these links throw new light onto the development of Marvell’s late prose work, An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government, which is more closely influenced by other pamphlets associated with William’s propaganda efforts in England in the 1670s than has been hitherto realised.     

Original DocumentsRalph Lord Cromwell

The excavation of four ploughed-out round barrows in Milton Keynes has produced evidence of relevance to barrow design, ceramic chronology, economy, settlement patterns and population in the second millennium B.C.

The chronological usefulness of Longworth's Collared Urn Classification is considered and a long survival of All-Over-Cord Beaker tradition in southern Britain is suggested. Three of the sites produced a mixed flint assemblage ranging in date from Mesolithic to Bronze Age. A local pastoral economy, possibly associated with transhumance, is indicated at two sites. It is suggested that barrow distribution coincided with settlement distribution. An estimate is made of the proportion of the population who received barrow burial and a formula is derived for computing the size of local Bronze Age populations.     

豳公盨与益启传说的再认识

豳公盨铭文的再读,对弄清迄今争讼不绝的启益关系的悬案的来源有很大帮助。现存的战国以后文献的分析与豳公盨铭文的佐证指向“启干益位”说;“益干启位”说有可能是源于西周中期以后,人们对豳公盨“益奸懿德”一句的误读;“益启揖让”是孟子对上古时代禅让故事的深化。     

中国人"上帝"观念的演变

老天爷,又名“天”、“上帝”、“太一”、“昊天大帝”、“皇天大帝”、“玉皇大帝”等,是中国土权威最高的神。自古及今,中国神祗众多,但是,能有老天爷那样影响时间之长、影响范围之广、影响人口之多鲜为人见,因此,对老天爷这尊民间大神进行深入的研究,对我国宗教学及民俗学等都有一定的理论意义。     

蓝毗尼——佛祖诞生地

<正>在尼泊尔旅行期间,中国驻尼使馆的朋友为我们策划线路时,建议我们一定要去蓝毗尼,说蓝毗尼如同圣城麦加、耶路撒冷的地位,是佛祖释迦牟尼诞生地。这样的诱惑当然让我们难以拒绝,于是,怀揣一颗虔诚之心,我们踏上了蓝毗尼的朝圣之旅。世界文化遗产:蓝毗尼蓝毗尼位于尼泊尔南部特莱平原的鲁潘德希县,从首都加德满都到蓝毗尼的公路约300公里,是尼泊尔的主要交通干道,虽然许多路段崎岖难行,但是路两侧