A Child Prodigy

A new-born-baby-a new life, a new hope...perhaps a future Prime Minister, perhaps a scientific genius: no wonder even the poorest families lavish care and love on their youngest offspring.

When James and Harriet Mill's first baby was born in 1806, they had a pretty good idea that he was no ordinary child. At the age of three John Stuart Mill learned the Greek alphabet and long lists of Greek words with their English equivalents.

At the age of eight he read as many books in Greek as a modern classics student would read in his first year at university - not to mention all the important history books in English that existed then. At sixteen he tackled advanced mathematical problems and learned to speak fluent French.

John Stuart Mill became the most important economic and philosophical thinker in Britain in the 19th Century. He was a humanist and above all devoted to improving the conditions of the working classes.

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The Golden Age

In 1593 Christopher Marlowe was killed in a fight in a pub. He was 29 years old and had been acting as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I. But he had already written some of the finest verse drama in the English Language - plays like Edward II and Dr. Faustus.

Shakespeare was also 29. His greatest play were yet to be written. Ben Jonson the great comic dramatist was 21. He wrote The Alchemist and Volpone, and Shakespeare acted in some of his early plays.

London was the capital of a rich and powerfull nation, and the men of letters were also men of action.

John Donne fought in a naval battle against the King of Spain in 1596. He wrote vigorous love poetry:

'Dear love for nothing less than thee

Would I have broke this happy dream.'

'For God's sake hold your tongue and let me love'

In later life he became Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, and sometimes lay on his tomb in a shroud, meditating upon death. His religious poetry has the same vigour:

'Death, be not proud, though some have called thee,

Might and dreadful, for, thou art not so.'

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No Man Is An Island

'No man is an island' said John Donne, the 17th Century poet. Everything we do has repercussions beyond our wildest imaginings.

An old lady picks a rose and, in so doing, disturb a bee. The bee files through the window of a passing car and stings the driver. A clear case of cause and effect.

Of course if the driver had had a second cup of coffee after lunch, he would not have been passing at that moment... and is a tourist had not asked him the way at the traffic lights, he would not have opened his window... and so on, and so on.

Experts investigating a plane crash recently found that the absence of a rubber washer, worth about 10p had been the cause of disaster. No one will ever know if the true cause was not somebody's second cup of coffee.

Generations of English children have learned this cautionary rhyme:

'For want of a nail, a shoe was lost,

For want of a shoe, a horse was lost,

For want of a horse, a rider was lost,

For want of a rider, a battle was lost,

For want of a battle, a kingdom was lost,

- and all for want of a horseshoe nail.'

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