- Industry: Library & information science
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
A celebrated English actor and playwright, born at Truro, Cornwall, of a good family; was educated at Oxford, and studied law, but ruined himself by gaming, and took to the stage; he became the successful lessee of Haymarket Theatre in 1747, where, by his inimitable powers of mimicry and clever comedies, he firmly established himself in popular favour (1720-1777).
Industry:Language
A celebrated English divine; Royalist in sympathy, he continued throughout the Puritan ascendency loyal to the English Church, and on the Restoration became Dean of Christ Church and a royal chaplain; was a good man and a charitable, and a patron of learning; in 1676 was raised to the bishopric of Oxford; was the object of the well-known epigram, "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell" (1625-1686).
Industry:Language
A celebrated equestrian order in ancient Rome, supposed to have been instituted by Romulus; at first purely military, it was at length invested with the judicial functions of the Senate, and the power of farming out the public revenues; gradually lost these privileges and became defunct.
Industry:Language
A celebrated French novelist, born at Champceri, near Autun, Burgundy; at the age of 16 she was married to the Comte de Genlis, who eventually fell a victim to the fury of the Revolution; in 1770 she was a lady-in-waiting to the Duchesse de Chartres, and 12 years later became governess to the children of the Duc d'Orléans, amongst whom was the future king of the French, Louis-Philippe; the Revolution drove her to Switzerland, but on the elevation of Napoleon she returned to Paris, and received from him a pension, which continued to be paid her even under the restored Bourbon dynasty: she was a voluminous writer of moral tales, comedies, etc., and her works amount to about 90 vols., among them the celebrated "Mémoirs" of her life and times; she was ill-natured, and in her "Memoirs" inaccurate, as well as prejudiced (1746-1830).
Industry:Language
A celebrated French novelist, born at Saint-Lò, in La Manche; started his literary career as one of Dumas' assistants, but made his first independent success in the Revue des Deux Mondes by a series of tales, romances, etc., begun in 1848; in 1862 he was elected a member of the Academy, and later became librarian to Louis Napoleon; his novels, of which "Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre" and "Sibylle" are the most noted, are graceful in style, and reveal considerable dramatic force, but often lapse into sentimentality, and too often treat of indelicate subjects, although in no spirit of coarseness (1812-1890).
Industry:Language
A celebrated French painter, born at Vésoul; he studied at Paris under Paul Delaroche, with whom he subsequently travelled in Italy; he travelled in the East and familiarised himself with Eastern scenes; in 1863 he was appointed professor of Painting in the Paris School of Fine Arts; among his most famous pictures, all characterised by vivid coloring and strong dramatic effect, are "The Age of Augustus and the Birth of Christ," "Roman Gladiators in the Amphitheatre," "Cleopatra and Caesar," etc.; born 1824.
Industry:Language
A celebrated German classicist and theologian, called the "German Cicero," born at Tennstadt, Thuringia; professor of Philology in Leipzig, and afterwards of Theology; edited various classical works, his edition of Cicero specially noted; was the first to apply impartial textual criticism to the Bible, and to him, in consequence, we owe the application of a more correct exegesis to the biblical writings (1707-1781).
Industry:Language
A celebrated German hymn-writer of the Lutheran Church, born at Grafenhainichen, in Saxony; in 1657 he became dean of St. Nicholas in Berlin, an appointment he held till 1666, when he was deposed for his embittered opposition to the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches; he was subsequently pastor at Lubben; his hymns, 123 in number, rank amongst the finest of their class (1607-1676).
Industry:Language
A celebrated German mathematician and astronomer, born at Brunswick; was director of the observatory at Gottingen for 40 years; was equally great on theory of numbers and practice of calculation; he made important discoveries in magnetism, and was pronounced by Laplace the greatest mathematician in Europe (1775-1855).
Industry:Language
A celebrated German philosopher, born in Upper Lusatia; a man of an intensely thoughtful and noble nature; studied theology at Jena, and afterwards philosophy; became a disciple of Kant, and paid homage to him personally at Konigsberg; was appointed professor of Philosophy at Jena, where he enthusiastically taught, or rather preached, a system which broke away from Kant, which goes under the name of "Transcendental Idealism," and which he published in his "Wissenschaftslehre" and his "System der Sittenlehre"; obliged to resign his chair at Jena on a charge of atheism, he removed to Berlin, where he rose into favour by his famous "Address to the Germans" against the tyranny of Napoleon, and after a professorate in Erlangen he became head of the New University, and had for colleagues such men as Wolff, Humboldt, Scheiermacher, and Neander; he fell a victim to the War of Independence which followed, dying of fever caught through his wife and her nursing of patients in the hospitals, which were crowded with the wounded; besides his more esoterico-philosophical works, he was the author of four of a popular cast, which are worthy of all regard, on "The Destiny of Man," "The Nature of the Scholar," "The Characteristics of the Present Age," and "The Way to the Blessed Life"; "so robust an intellect, a soul so calm," says Carlyle, "so lofty, massive, and immovable, has not mingled in philosophic discussion since the time of Luther ... the cold, colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and clear, like a Cato Major among degenerate men; fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe" (1762-1814).
Industry:Language
