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poet laureate

(Encyclopedia)poet laureate lôˈrēĭt [key], title conferred in Britain by the monarch on a poet whose duty it is to write commemorative odes and verse. It is an outgrowth of the medieval English custom of having...

Ossory, Thomas Butler, earl of

(Encyclopedia)Ossory, Thomas Butler, earl of ŏsˈərē [key], 1634–80, Irish nobleman; son of James Butler, 12th earl and 1st duke of Ormonde. Created earl of Ossory in 1662, he was made (1665) lieutenant genera...

Yeats, Jack Butler

(Encyclopedia)Yeats, Jack Butler yāts [key], 1871–1957, Irish painter, son of the painter John Butler Yeats and brother of the poet William Butler Yeats. He began his career as an illustrator and produced his fi...

Garth, Sir Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Garth, Sir Samuel, 1661–1719, English poet and physician, b. Yorkshire. He studied medicine at Leiden and Cambridge. His chief work is the satirical poem The Dispensary (1699), in which he advocates...

Bamford, Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Bamford, Samuel, 1788–1872, English weaver, poet, and social reformer. Always sympathetic toward the working class, he was jailed in 1819 for his part in the Peterloo massacre. His dialect verses we...

Heine, Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Heine, Heinrich hīnˈrĭkh hīˈnə [key], 1797–1856, German poet, b. Düsseldorf, of a Jewish family. One of the greatest of German lyric poets, he had a varied career. After failing in business h...

Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Samuel, two books of the Bible, originally a single work, called First and Second Samuel in modern Bibles, and First and Second Kingdoms in the Septuagint. They are considered part of “Deuteronomist...

Baggesen, Jens

(Encyclopedia)Baggesen, Jens yĕns bägˈəsən [key], 1764–1826, Danish poet and satirist, b. Sjæland. Although a Germanophile, Baggesen was considered the leading Danish poet of his day. His elegant, imaginati...

Belloc, Hilaire

(Encyclopedia)Belloc, Hilaire (Joseph Hilaire Pierre Belloc) bĕlˈŏk [key], 1870–1953, English author, b. France. He became a British subject in 1902, and from 1906 to 1910 was a Liberal member of Parliament fo...

Churchill, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Churchill, Charles chûrˈchĭl [key], 1731–64, English poet and satirist. Upon his family's insistence he took religious orders in 1756, but life as a London dandy suited him more, and he resigned ...