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A learned book, filled with tidbits like the making of papyrus, from fibers of the homonymous plant with their natural agglutination, and the British Empire's seizure of the tablets of Nineveh (I oppose to the French, indeed Napoleon's, seizure of art from Rome). I admire Battles' quasi-humility when he notes that "most books are bad" and "fail to rise above the... confusions of their times (in this respect, I'm sure

In his long Latin elegiac poem to Dr Ingelo, accompanyng Cromwell's ambassador to Sweden, AM compares Queen Christina to Elizabeth I: For Queen Christina rules over a ferocious people, and imposes virgin rule, like the return of Eliz: Ipsa licet redeat...Eliza, and seeing her portrait, she too is Scepter-bearing, worthy a goddess. Her eyes, too, shoot spears and arrows of battle (ll 22-47).

I'm re-memorizing the six poems I knew in the 70s, and adding closer readings of his Latin poems--like Hortus, where he spells out the (Latin) names of the trees themselves he will carve in them: Platanus, Ulmus.

Delightful, especially on clerics and family meals. The author's father and brothers were clerics, like Jane Austen's..so perhaps clerical families can crate writers who are, in contrast, a hoot.

Pierotto the contadino has some great swears, like Giudasnague, dioporco,etc. fun to see Don Giovanni use religion for his excuse on dumping his wife he captured from a nunnery.

Sto leggendo questo libro in italiano, nelle pezze. Che bella, che suocera di Gala Eluard pensava che ha rubato la marmellata!