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An Incredible Likeness!
An incredible likeness! A bust of Friedrich Charles Timothy Emmerich (1786-1820), preacher at the Church of Saint Thomas in Strasbourg, who looks remarkably like Alfie Allen, Theon Greyjoy of "Game of Thrones"
NB! · Books · Mores · Paris · Humour
There’s a damn’d Love-trick new brought oer from France
There’s a damn’d Love-trick new brought oer from France. In short, John Dryden holds France to be the lawgiver of sex between men. The tragedy “The Duke of Guise” dates from 1683, and the idea is alive and well to this day
NB! · Archive · Books · Science · Nature
No one ever saw a genuine barometz, and the search for it went on until the end of the eighteenth century
No one ever saw a genuine barometz, and the search for it went on until the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing from a book by the German Friedrich Justin Bertuch
The East · Books · Nature · Ethnography
The Myth of the Baranets in European Literature and Its Possible Origin in Cotton
From the Middle Ages onwards, European literature mentions a mythical plant-animal known as the Baranets, sometimes called the Boranets or Boramets. It is also known as the Tartar lamb or the Scythian lamb. The first mentions of the Baranets appear in the notes of medieval travellers; in time the
NB! · Archive · Books · Nature
The Scythian or Tartarian Lamb
The Scythian or Tartarian Lamb (Borametz). Drawing from Claude Duret's "Admirable History of Plants" (Histoire admirable des plantes), 1605
NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Humour
The original text on the horseshoe cast by the horse of King James II
The original text on the horseshoe cast by the horse of King James II. See for yourself, if you doubt it
Archive · Books · Monarchies · Observations
The Kelso pavement horseshoe and two origin stories, James II or Charles Edward Stuart
In the Scottish town of Kelso, not far from historic Roxburgh, where in 1460 James, King of Scots, was mortally wounded by a fragment of an exploding cannon, there is a curiosity of a particular kind: a large horseshoe set into the paving stones. It is held that on this
NB! · Monarchies · People
Today marks the death of James II of Scotland: what, one might ask, could that possibly have to do with a horseshoe?
Aristocracy · Architecture · The East · Observations · Humour
The Mukhranbatoni House in Tbilisi, completed in 1899, and the legend of Pushkin's parquet
The Tbilisi house of the Mukhranbatoni on Loris-Melikov Street, renamed Gudiashvili Street, is now partly residential. It was built to the commission of Prince Ivan Bagration-Mukhransky in the style of the French Renaissance, to a design by Kornely Tatishchev, a celebrated architect of his day. When I visited
Aristocracy · Architecture · The East · Observations
The Bagration-Mukhransky princes' house in Tbilisi and the aristocratic club on Golovinsky Prospect
I once told of the house of the Princes Bagration-Mukhransky in Tbilisi, which stood not far from the aristocratic club, also owned by the Mukhranbatoni, on Golovinsky Prospect, now Rustaveli Avenue. I have long been meaning to tell one story that connects me with this building
Observations · Mores · Humour
A Victorian expression for chronic idlers who were born a bit tired
In Victorian times there was a common expression, "born a bit tired", applied to chronic idlers from whom one could not expect even a couple of hours' work a day. A rather topical notion.