Envelopes are the paper covers that inclose letters or notes. They became common shortly after the introduction of the penny postage system in 1840 and were at first made chiefly by hand, but since the end of the 19th century were not only shaped, but folded, gummed, etc, by machinery. Envelopes for letters were first mentioned by Jonathan Swift in 1726. Research Envelope
Tale of a Tub is a satirical poem written by Jonathan Swift in 1696, and first published anonymously in 1704. The satire is directed against church divisions and deals with three brothers: Peter (the Church of Rome), Martin (Luther) and Jack (Calvin). It is generally accepted that the poem prevented Jonathan Swift's preferment to a bishopric. Research Tale of a Tub
Charles Boyle, the Earl of Orrery, was a British diplomatist and writer. He was born in 1676 and died in 1731. He was nominally the editor of the edition of the Epistles of Phalaris which led to a famous controversy with Bentley and to Jonathan Swift's Battle of the Books. He served in the army and as a diplomatist, and wrote a comedy and some worthless verse. The astronomical apparatus called the orrery took its name from him. Research Charles Boyle
Drapier is an old alternative name for a Draper. The name was assumed by Jonathan Swift in writing the Drapier's Letters against the contract for copper coinage given to Wood in 1722. Research Drapier
Dr George Berkeley was an Irish philosopher and missionary. He was born in 1685 and died in 1753. He was educated and became a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1707. He went to England in 1713, and soon came to be on friendly terms with Steele, Addison, Arbuthnot, and Jonathan Swift.
In 1713 he went to the Continent as chaplain to LordPeterborough, and travelled as far as Leghorn, but did not stay long. He went abroad again in 1716, this time as tutor to a young man, and his stay lasted four years, the greater part of the time being spent in Italy. In 1721 he was appointed chaplain to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Grafton. By a legacy from Miss Vanhomrigh (Jonathan Swift's Vanessa) in 1723 his fortune was considerably increased.
In 1724 he became Dean of Derry. Between 1721 and 1724 he held several offices in Dublin University, and in 1721 had been made DD. He now published his proposals for providing the American plantations with a better supply of religious teachers, and for the conversion of the American natives to Christianity by the establishment of a college in the Bermuda Islands; and subscriptions having been raised, he set sail for Rhode Island in 1728, proposing to wait there until a promised grant of 20,000 pounds had been obtained from the government. The scheme, which was not particularly promising, never got a start, however, and in 1732 he returned to London, where he stayed about two years.
In 1734 he obtained the bishopric of Cloyne, where he spent almost the whole of the remainder of his life. In 1752, giving up the cares of his bishopric, he went to England, and he died suddenly at Oxford in 1753.
George Berkeley holds an important place in the history of philosophy. His new theory of vision was his first remarkable contribution to the subject of philosophy or psychology. In it he maintains that sight gives us nothing beyond sensations that are quite incomplete in themselves, and must be supplemented by tactual sensations, or sensations derived from the sense of touch, and that sight by itself can tell us nothing of distance. By his idealistic metaphysical theory he maintains that the belief in the existence of an exterior material world is false and inconsistent with itself;
that those things which are called sensible material objects are not external but exist in the mind, and are merely impressions made on our minds by the immediate act of God, according to certain rules termed laws of nature, from which he never deviates; and that the steady adherence of the Supreme Spirit to these rules is what constitutes the reality of things to his creatures, and so effectually distinguishes the ideas perceived by sense from such as are the work of the mind itself or of dreams, that there is no more danger of confounding them together on this hypothesis than on that of the existence of matter.
Berkeley was admirable as a writer; as a man he was said by his friend Pope to be possessed of 'every virtue under heaven'. His most celebrated philosophical works are: Essay towards a new Theory of Vision, 1709; a Treatise concerning the Principles of HumanKnowledge, 1710, in which his philosophical theory is fully set forth; Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, 1713; Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, 1732; and Theory of Vision, vindicated and explained, 1733. Another publication of some note in its day was Siris, Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water, 1744. Tar-water, the use of which he had learned in America, he regarded as a sort of panacea, good for man and beast, at all times and in all circumstances and all ailments. Other works of his are of a mathematical and theological order. The only complete collection is that of Professor A. CampbellFraser, first edition, three volumes, 1871, with a fourth volume containing Life and Letters; second edition, much improved, with new prefaces, annotations, and Life, 1901. Research George Berkeley
Henry St John Bolingbroke (ViscountBolingbroke) was an English statesman and political writer. He was born in 1678 at Battersea, London and died in 1751. Educated at Eton and at Oxford, where he had a reputation both for ability and libertinism. In 1700 he married a considerable heiress, the daughter of Sir Henry Winchcomb, but they speedily separated. In 1701 he obtained a seat in the House of Commons, attaching himself to Harley and the Tories. He at once gained influence and became secretary of war in 1706, though he retired with the ministry in 1708. He continued, however, to maintain a constant intercourse with the queen, who preferred him to her other counsellors, and on the overthrow of the Whig ministry in 1710, after the Sacheverell episode, he became one of the secretaries of state. In 1712 he was called to the House of Lords by the title of ViscountBolingbroke, and in 1713, against much popular opposition, concluded the Peace of Utrecht. At this period the Tory leaders were intriguing to counteract the inevitable accession of power which the Whigs would receive under the House of Hanover; but shortly after the conclusion of the peace a contention fatal to the party broke out between the lord high-treasurer (Harley, Earl of Oxford) and Bolingbroke.
Queen Anne, provoked by Oxford, dismissed him, and made Bolingbroke prime-minister, but died herself four days later. The Whig dukes at once assumed the power and proclaimed the elector king. Bolingbroke, dismissed by King George while yet in Germany, fled to France in March, 1715, to escape the inevitable impeachment by which, in the autumn of that year, he was deprived of his peerage and banished.
James III., the Pretender, invited him to Lorraine and made him his secretary of state, but dismissed him in 1716 on a suspicion of treachery. He remained for some years longer in France, where (his first wife having died) he married the Marquise de Villette, niece of Madame de Maintenon, occupying himself with various studies. In 1723 he was permitted to return to England, living at first retired in the country in correspondence with Jonathan Swift and Pope. He then joined the opposition to the Walpole ministry, which he attacked during eight years in the Craftsman and in pamphlets with such vigour and skill that in 1735 a return to France became prudent, if not necessary.
In 1742, on the fall of Walpole, he came back in the expectation that his allies would admit him to some share of power; but, being disappointed in this respect, he withdrew entirely from politics and spent the last nine years of his life quietly at Battersea, dying in 1751. He wrote an excellent and forcible style, his chief works being A Dissertation upon Parties; Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, on the Idea of a Patriot King, and on the State of Parties at the Accession of George I; Letters on the Study of History (containing attacks on Christianity), and other works. Pope was indebted to him for suggestions for his Essay on Man. He was clever and versatile, but reportedly unscrupulous and insincere. Research Henry Bolingbroke
Henry Brooke was an Irish dramatist and novelist. He was born in 1703 and died in 1783. He was educated at Dublin University and was a friend of Jonathan Swift, Pope and Garrick. Research Henry Brooke
Isaac Bickerstaff was an Irish dramatic writer. He was born in 1735 and died in 1812. He wrote many successful pieces for the stage, some of which are still popular, and was a friend of Garrick, Boswell, etc
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