Text this colour is a link for Members only. Support us by becoming a Member for only £3 a month by joining our 'Buy Me A Coffee page'; Membership gives you access to all content and removes ads.
Text this colour links to Pages. Text this colour links to Family Trees. Place the mouse over images to see a larger image. Click on paintings to see the painter's Biography Page. Mouse over links for a preview. Move the mouse off the painting or link to close the popup.
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
On 26th October 1825 Alexander Munro was born.
Around 1852. Alexander Munro. "Paulo and Francesca".
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1852. 30th December 1852. Went down to Dante G. and William Rossetti's chambers at 14 Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge. Met there Wells, J. P. Seddon, Clayton, and Mr. Munro, Mr. Stephens and Mr. Hughes. Rossetti showed me his studio but none of his works (which is his way). He had for our entertainment a series of anastatic drawings designed and coloured by the Hon. Mrs. Boyle, some of which as beautiful in feeling, natural simplicity, and colour, and in poetical treatment as almost anything I have seen. They illustrate a nursery rhyme. Also a quantity of Gavarni's works, and a grand and most striking mask of Dante taken from a caste of his face in death; a tracing of his head in Giotto's fresco with the eye imperfect; a pen and ink sketch by Millais from Keats' "Isabella." In the physical way, roast chestnuts and coffee, honey, and hot spirits. His room has a jolly balcony overhanging the river, the reflection of the lights on the bridge and quays, etc., were charming. Conversation throughout delightful, resulting methought from the happy and gentlemanly freedom of the company generally. There was only one of D. G. Rossetti's works to be seen in the room, and that was a sketch, study of a man, back view. Gabriel Rossetti invited me to his studio next Thursday.
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1853. 6th January 1853. To Rossetti's, Blackfriars Bridge. Met there W. Holman Hunt, J. E. Millais, J. P. Seddon, Clayton, Munro, whose charming group of Francesca and her lover was in Rossetti's studio, Stephens, Blanchard, C. Lucy, a Scotchman and a foreigner. Millais somewhat egotistical and little real, his attention being easily distracted. He jerked out some good remarks. Spoke highly of Ruskin as a friend of Art; said that Mrs. R. was sitting for one of his pictures1. Hunt struck me as a thoroughly genuine, humorous, good-hearted, straightforward English-like fellow. Said he was bound for Syria before long. Millais spoke highly of Charles Collins as a good religious man?
Note 1. Probably "The Order of Release".
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1855-1857. 2nd July 1857. W. Allingham and Alex. Munro came and breakfasted with me. Afterwards skirmished and rhapsodised and ecstasised over the new Tennyson, and Millais' and Rossetti's illustrations. A. said that when Tennyson was reading his "Maud" at Oxford, Carlyle, as he himself said, "Went out into the fields; I didn't want to hear his 'Maud,' I have read it before. Besides, I don't like to see a noble fellow like that letting hilnself out through such a gimlet hole" (meaning poetry).
On 1st January 1871 Alexander Munro died.