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Royal Society [ Institutions / Clubs & Societies ]

… of men that met in Oxford to discuss similar matters in the 1650s. Granted in 1662, the Royal Society’s first charter stated that the group were concerned with ‘matters philosophical, mathematical, and mechanical’ and that their work, … to the Académie des Sciences in Paris where a smaller group of men applied themselves to the sciences and arts on state salaries. Historians do, however, consider the Royal Society a ‘corporate enterprise’, having a formal … Chicago Press, 2004); Pamela Long, Artisan/Practitioners and the Rise of the New Sciences, 1400-1600 (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2011). The reality was quite different. In the History of the Royal Society (1667), an apologist …

English Novel [ Literary & Artistic genres ]

… and resistance. From the outset, the eighteenth-century novel displayed a subversive purpose, expressed through the stated intention of some writers, pioneers of a new literary craft, to conceive their works as a reaction against and … from the preface to the  Miscellanies  implicitly alludes to Defoe’s account, not without a hint of irony. The author states: ‘[…] my Design is not to enter the Lists with that excellent Historian, who from Authentic Papers and Records, … with novel writing: it pertains to literary analysis and takes on an aesthetic and technical dimension. As the joint stated ambition of early eighteenth-century novelists was to lay the foundations of a new ‘Species of Writing’, 8  the …

Parish churches [ Institutions ]

… internalized social discipline. In practice, the results of this ‘confessionalization’ process involving both Church and state remained patchy, as communities negotiated regimes reflecting local as well as central priorities. 3  By this … see the  visitation returns  for Devon parishes in 1744 and 1779). Religious gatherings symbolized Christian unity and a state of charity among neighbours, while absences and excommunications signalled social exclusion. Restrictions of space, … parish monopoly since the Reformation, fundamental changes occurred in the Interregnum – when Presbyterianism became the state religion – and the Glorious Revolution – when the Toleration Act of 1688 officially allowed Protestant …

Merchants [ Commerce ]

… 5 Merchants were active participants in what historians have called ‘polite and commercial society’. 6  In  The Present State of Great Britain  (1716), it was declared that: ‘next to the purity of religion we are the most considerable of any … and extensiveness of our trade’. 7  Contemporaries saw commerce as the foundation of British greatness, driving the state’s power and wealth. This culture of commerce crossed party divisions and social boundaries, and became an essential … 1727-1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 7 . John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia: Or, the Present State of Great Britain (London: Timothy Goodwin, Matthew Wotton, Benjamin Tooke, Daniel Midwinter, and Jacob Tonson, …

Sympathy (in Adam Smith's moral philosophy) [ Feelings & Emotions / Character ]

Scriblerus Club [ Clubs & Societies / Associational culture ]

… and ‘The British Academy’. Thus, Swift felt that an association of eminent men of letters could be beneficial to the state of language, literature, and culture in general. Alexander Pope, on the other hand, had previous to the … periodical, The Works of the Unlearned, almost like an academy ex negativo . It was this idea, to think about the state of learning by providing ludicrous examples of un learning, that would form the conceptual core of the club. Still, …