Word: earling
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Since Shakespeare's only patron was the young Earl of Southampton-a delicately hued blond boy who for years was the despair of his family because he took no interest in girls-the sonnets might seem, to any reasonable man, to have been written to him. Ah, but wait. They are prefaced with a dedication signed T. T., addressed to W. H., "the only begetter of these poems...
Wilde Theories. T. T. is understood to be Thomas Thorpe, Shakespeare's publisher. But who is W. H.? Encountering this conundrum, scholarly parties have scattered like quail. Some insisted that the poems were not written to Southampton but to William Herbert (W. H.), the Earl of Pembroke. Others pointed out that the initials of Southampton's given name, Henry Wriothesley (rhymes with grizzly), come out W. H. when reversed. Most ingenious of all was Oscar Wilde's theory. For reasons best known to himself, Wilde invented a homosexual figure called Will Hughes, by whom, he stoutly asserted...
...week, it was hardly surprising that the press leaped enthusiastically back into the business of keeping the current political score. With undisguised impatience, the New York Daily News exhorted Republicans "to make up for lost time" and also suggested a first move: "An all-out attack on Chief Justice Earl Warren's commission to investigate the Kennedy murder, plus a drive to persuade Congress to give Warren & Co. the heave." So that none of its readers would miss the point, the News detailed the rationale behind its strategy: "In view of the Earl Warren Supreme Court's long...
...seen made a cardinal, "nor will it be difficult for you to favor your family"-thus suggesting the marriage of piety and expedience that so corrupted the Roman Catholic church and led at last to the Reformation. "Practice all the arts that ever coquette did, to please," writes the Earl of Chesterfield to his son Philip in 1752; "be alert and indefatigable in making every man admire, and every woman in love with you"-and the lines might serve as a maxim for all the ambitious nobles insinuating themselves to favor in the British court of George...
...with their advice than they are today. He includes Benjamin Franklin's famed advice in 1745, listing the advantages of an elderly mistress: "The pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and frequently superior, every knack being by practice capable of improvement." The Earl of Pembroke, anxious to see his son restore the family fortunes by settling into a good marriage instead of a military career, writes with Georgian bluntness: "I wish you would draw, not your sword, but your precious member...