THIS WEEK’S ANNIVERSARIES

Evening Star, Issue 19918, 14 July 1928, Page 13

THIS WEEK’S ANNIVERSARIES

JULY S Tliis is tho anniversary of Shelley’s death, which occurred in 1822. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in affluence, lived a tempestuous life of magnificent achievement, and was drowned in a storm in the Gulf of Spezia. A blueeyed, golden-haifed boy ' of .3 refined typo, he ehdured much in the rough and tumble school of life, particularly at Eton. He went to Oxford, and was expelled from University , College for Jus share in a small pamphlet entitled ‘The Necessity of Atheism.’ From motives ol chivalry, when he was nineteen, ho married Harriet Westbrook, aged sixteen, the daughter of a coffee-house keeper. Full of enthusiasm as an apostle of Liberty, he took up the cause of Catholic emancipation, and spoke from the same platform as Daniel O’Connell. Domestic and financial complications followed, and then Shelley went to the Continent, where, on the shores of Lake he met Byron. After tho death of his wife Harriet, from whom.ho was separated, ho married Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. From this'on ho lived chiefly in. Italy, and there many of his most famous poems were written. Then tho tragedy of his death came. Leaving tho port of Leghorn in favourable weather, in a sailing boat, with a. friend, a storm sprang up, and both were drowned. Tho bodies were later found on tho shore near Via Reggio, and they were, by special permission, consumed by fire in tho presence of Trolawny, Leigh Hunt, and Byron. Tho ashes of Shelley were placed in a casket and were interred in tho Protestant burial ground at Romo. Towards tho end of Ins brief hie, the passion of this temperamental genius for reforming the world according to Ids ideas abated somewhat, and his fierce atheism ycildcd to a spiritual conception of the universe.

( JULY 9 More interest to-day is taken in air routes than in sea routes, but 400 years ago bold seamen were:opening up the wonders of tho world do the astonished people of Europe. It was on July 8, 1497, that Vasco da Gama set out from Lisbon on an adventure that ended in a discovery second in importance only to that by "Columbus a few years beiorc. On this voyage, Da Gama found the sea route to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. This daring seaman had been so successful in his earlier ventures that the Portuguese King, Manoel the Fortunate, gave him tour vessels and ICO iflen. and told him to make further explorations. At the same time he was furnished with letters to all the potentates ho was likely to meet, among them the mythical Prcstor John, supposed to bo reigning in splendour somewhere in Africa. After rounding the Cape, Da Gama wont on to India. Ho called at'Calicut, but had a hostile reception, and with difficulty escaped. But this marked tho beginning of an era of prosperity for Portugal. The riches of India were exploited by tho expeditions, and factories and traowig stations ! established. On one occasion, tho old sea dog, Da Gama, had to be called from his retirement to settle trouble in Southern India. Ho did it effectively J if mercilessly. Tho Portuguese in--1 creased their conquests enormously, and their territory was ruled by a viceroy. To-day, Portuguese India has a total area of 1,470 square miles, with a population of 605,000 —a small slice out ot a-great country. JULY 10 Before engines were used in aircraft, many experiments were made with ballooous. The modern balloon in a practical form dates from 1752. Two years later, two Englishmen crossed ,fcho Channel from Dover to France. .When tho Civil War broke out. in-Affierica, balloons were first used in’ warfare during the siege of Paris in 1870/ they were employed to carry mails out of the bcleagured city. In ..tho South African War, captive balloons were used for observation purposes. In the Great War the “aerial navies, grappling in tho central blue” wore composed of machines having a vastly more important function. Guo man tried to roach the North Polo in a balloon. This was Solomon August Andrce, a Swede, i lo was an enthusiastic airman, born beloro his, time. Having worked out a plan, lie wont to Spitsbergen with two companions, and on July 10, 1897, they leit in la balloon on their polar quest. They were never heard of again. Search expeditions found buoys dropped from the balloon, but of tho explorers there was no sign. Their winding sheet was the arctic snow. JULY 11 John Jamieson] D.D., died on July 11, 1838. it may be supposed that not very many people, even in Otago, possess his monumental work, ‘ Etymological Dictionary of tho Scottish Language,’ in four volumes. They sit down to read their Burns without its illuminating help. Such a task in authorship would have killed most men. Not so Dr Jamieson, liaie and hearty, ho lived to be seventy-nine. He was a minister, pastor of the secession (antiburgher) congregation at Forfar, and afterwards at Edinburgh. Ho may have excelled in the pulpit, but a man of his hobbies, if we may so call them, could not have had much time in which to visit the members of his congregation. One wonders whether so much labour spent on his dictionary was worth while, but the answer seems to ho in tlie affirmative when one roads a verse;like this;— Anld banldrons by the ingle sits, An’ wi’ her loof her face a washin’; But Willie’s wife is nne sae trig, She dights her grunzio wi’ a hushion; Her walio uievos like mkidcn-crocls, Her face wad fylc tho Logan wafer; Sic a wife as W illio had, I wad na gie a button for her. Dr,Jamieson tried unsuccessfully to prove that the Scottish language is really the Pictish language, and that the Piets, were not Celts, but Scandinavian Goths. His contention was notreceived with enthusiasm in his native land. - JULY 12 This is a black day in the history of our association with India, for on July 12, 1.857, tho dreadful massacre at Cawnpore occurred. At tho outbreak of the mutiny in 1857, Cawnpore contained about 1,000 Europeans, 560 being women ami children. For throe, weeks the defenders held out against the mutineers under tho infamous Nana Sahib. _At last they surrendered on tho promise of a safe-conduct to Allahabad. The Sepoys accompanied (he party to the banfis of the'Ganges, and there treacherously murdered the men. The women and children, 125 in number, were taken back to Cawnpore, and on his defeat by Havelock Nana Sahib gave orders for the instant massacre of his helpless prisoners. Some were in the last stages of; sickness, but all, dead and dving, wore cast into a well, ’Hie scone ol the massacre is now occupied by memorial gardens. Over the well itsel) a . mound has been raised, its summit crowned by an octagonal Gothic enclosure, with a white marble angel in tho centre. JULY 13 ■ Bertrand Du Gneseiin lived in the days when knighthood was in flower. Ho wns a very perfect knight himself, who performed wondrous feats of arms. By rights ho should have been tall and handsome, like the pictures we see ol

Sir Lancelot and other knights of tho Round Table. Alas! he was short, bowlegged, and very ugly, so tradition says. Yet the ladies loved him greatly, and perhaps because of their good offices there was no difficulty in raising large sums to ransom him on two occasions when he was in captivity. Ho fought tho English for twenty-six years. At Poitiers lie showed great valour and military skill. He was taken prisoner first by Sir John Chandos, and later by the Black Prince. Ho was ransomed after each occasion—a bad bargain for tho English—for in 1370 ho began a campaign which in a few years ended in their possessions being captured by the French, with tho exception of a few fortified towns. While lighting in Languedoc Du Guesclin was taken ill, and died on July 13, 1380, at tho age of sixty, or a little more. At the lime of his death he was Constable of France, and was regarded as tho greatest knight in Christendom. JULY 14 This day marks a notable incident in the French Revolution, for on July 14, 1792, tho Bastille was stormed. The event was of no great moment in itself, loading only to the release of three unknown prisoners—one of whom had been there for thirty years—and of lour forgers, but the Bastille had long been | regarded as;the stronghold and symbol | of tyranny. Its destruction, therefore, was hailed as the downfall of an evil system. Built first as a fortress in 1370, it was afterwards appropriated ■as a prison. In tho underground dunpons unfortunate people languished, hoping against hope, till their very existence was forgotten, and they died in their noisome cells. The people lodged in the Bastille were not as a rule ordinary criminals. They were chiefly the victims of political machinations and court intrigues. Many wore innocent of any offence whatever. They incurred the displeasure of royalty, or of a powerful personage, and that was the end of them. Sometimes, too, inconvenient relatives were kept in the obscurity of the Bastille. The horrors attendant on the revolution were great, but they were the expression of centuries of oppression, during which, in many instances, the poorer people had no more individual freedom than the cattle in the field. Among notable people who were confined in the Bastille were the mysterious Man With the Iron Mask, Voltaire, ami Cardinal Do Rohan. The anniversary of the taking of the Bastille is still kept as a national holiday in ’Fra nco, and on the site of tlio i prison is a bronze figure of Liberty.