Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias

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Encyclopedias

sortes virgilianae

Language; Encyclopedias

Consulting the pages of Virgil to ascertain one's fortune, by opening the book at random, putting the finger on a passage and taking that for the oracle of fate one is in quest of.

Stafford

Language; Encyclopedias

County town of Staffordshire, on the Sow, 29 m. NNW. of Birmingham; has two fine old churches, St. Mary's and St. Chad's, interesting architecturally, King Edward's grammar school, and Stafford ...

Danish statesman, bred to medicine; became minister of Charles VII., took advantage of his imbecility and directed the affairs of government, roused the jealousy of the nobles, and he was arrested, ...

thinker

Language; Encyclopedias

Defined to be "one who, with fresh and powerful glance, reads a new lesson in the universe, sees deeper into the secret of things, and carries up the interpretation of nature to higher levels; one ...

Sir William Temple

Language; Encyclopedias

Diplomatist and essayist, born in London, and educated at Cambridge; travel on the Continent, courtship, and marriage, and some years of quiet and studious retirement in Ireland, occupied him during ...

Viscount Strangford Percy C. S. Smythe

Language; Encyclopedias

Diplomatist; graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1800; entered the diplomatic service, and in the following year succeeded to the title; was ambassador to Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, and Russia; ...

Abbé Terray

Language; Encyclopedias

Dissolute financier of Louis XV.; "paying eightpence in the shilling, so that wits exclaim in some press at the play-house, 'Where is Abbé Terray that he might reduce it to two-thirds!'"; lived a ...