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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 ...
Electoral Prince Palatine; succeeded to the Palatinate in 1610, and three years later married Elizabeth, daughter of James I. of England; an attempt to head the Protestant union of Germany and his usurpation of the crown of Bohemia brought about his ruin and expulsion from the Palatinate in 1620 by the Spaniards and Bavarians; he took refuge in Holland, but two years later his principality was given to Bavaria by the emperor (1596-1632).
Industry:Language
Eminent historian, born at Putney, near London, of good parentage; his early education was greatly hindered by a nervous complaint, which, however, disappeared by the time he was 14; a wide course of desultory reading had, in a measure, repaired the lack of regular schooling, and when at the age of 15 he was entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, he possessed, as he himself quaintly puts it, "a stock of erudition which might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy might have been ashamed"; 14 months later he became a convert to Roman Catholicism, and in consequence was obliged to quit Oxford; in the hope of reclaiming him to the Protestant faith he was placed in the charge of the deistical poet Mallet, and subsequently under a Calvinist minister at Lausanne; under the latter's kindly suasion he speedily discarded Catholicism, and during five years' residence established his learning on a solid foundation; time was also found for the one love episode of his life—an amour with Suzanne Curchod, an accomplished young lady, who subsequently became the wife of the French minister M. Neckar, and mother of Madame de Stael; shortly after his return to England in 1758 he published in French an Essay on the Study of Literature, and for some time served in the militia; in 1774, having four years previously inherited his father's estate, he entered Parliament, and from 1779 to 1782 was one of the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations; in 1776 appeared the first volume of his great history "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," the conception of which had come to him in 1764 in Rome whilst "musing amongst the ruins of the Capitol"; in 1787 his great work was finished at Lausanne, where he had resided since 1783; modern criticism, working with fresh sources of information, has failed to find any serious flaw in the fabric of this masterpiece in history, but the cynical attitude adopted towards the Christian religion has always been regarded as a defect; "a man of endless reading and research," was Carlyle's verdict after a final perusal of the "Decline," "but of a most disagreeable style, and a great want of the highest faculties of what we would call a classical historian, compared with Herodotus, for instance, and his perfect clearness and simplicity in every part"; he, nevertheless, characterised his work to Emerson once as "a splendid bridge from the old world to the new" (1737-1794).
Industry:Language
Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary; succeeded to the throne in 1848 on the abdication of his uncle, Ferdinand I.; the Hungarian difficulty has been the chief problem of his reign, with which he at first dealt in a spirit of harsh oppression, but since 1866 a milder policy has been adopted, and the desire for national autonomy was met by the creation of a dual monarchy in 1867, Francis being crowned king of Hungary; other important events have been the cession of Lombardy to Sardinia in 1859 and of Venetia in 1866, after an unsuccessful war with Prussia; born 1830.
Industry:Language
Emperor of Germany (1556-64), born at Alcalá, in Spain, son of Philip I., married Anna, a Bohemian princess, in 1521; was elected king of the Romans (1531), added Bohemia and Hungary to his domains (1503-1564).
Industry:Language
Emperor of Germany (1619-37), grandson of the preceding and son of Charles, younger brother of Maximilian II., born at Gratz; his detestation of the Protestants, early instilled into him by his mother and the Jesuits, under whom he was educated, was the ruling passion of his life, and involved the empire in constant warfare during his reign; an attempt on the part of Bohemia, restless under religious and political grievances, to break away from his rule, brought about the Thirty Years' War; by ruthless persecutions he re-established Catholicism in Bohemia, and reduced the country to subjection; but the war spread into Hungary and Germany, where Ferdinand was opposed by a confederacy of the Protestant States of Lower Saxony and Denmark, and in which the Protestant cause was in the end successfully sustained by the Swedish hero, Gustavus Adolphus, who had opposed to him the imperial generals Tilly and Wallenstein; his reign is regarded as one of disaster, bloodshed, and desolation to his empire, and his connivance at the assassination of Wallenstein will be forever remembered to his discredit (1578-1637).
Industry:Language
Emperor of Germany (1637-57), son of the preceding, born at Gratz; more tolerant in his views, would gladly have brought the war to a close, but found himself compelled to face the Swedes reinforced by the French; in 1648 the desolating struggle was terminated by the Peace of Westphalia; the rest of his reign passed in tranquillity (1608-1657).
Industry:Language
Emperor of Germany, born at Potsdam; bred for the army; rose to command; did signal service at Koniggratz in 1860, and again in 1870 in the Franco-German War; married the Princess Royal of England; succeeded his father, but fell a victim to a serious throat malady after a reign of only 101 days, June 18 (1831-1888).
Industry:Language
Encyclopedist, born near Aberdour, in Aberdeenshire, of humble parentage; graduated at Aberdeen, and became a schoolmaster at Tillydesk, and afterwards held the post of head-master of Gordon's Hospital in Aberdeen; in 1853 joined the staff of Messrs. W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh, and became eventually editor of the first edition of their encyclopedia (1861-1868); amongst other work done for the Messrs. Chambers were various manuals on astronomy, geography, etc.; was a man of wide and accurate scholarship (1810-1877).
Industry:Language
English artist, President of the Royal Society of Water-Color Painters; was for long an illustrator of books, among the number an edition of Shakespeare; he was a Chevalier of the Legion of honor (1817-1897).
Industry:Language
English barrister, born at Egham, in Surrey; devoted to the study of Early and Middle English Literature; founder and director of numerous societies for promoting the study of special works, such as the Early English Text, Chaucer, Ballad, and New Shakespeare Societies, and editor of publications in connection with them; was in his early days a great authority on boating and boat-building; born 1825.
Industry:Language
