James Paull
1770 – 15 April 1808

James Gillray’s High Flying Candidate, James Paull is the man being flung by Admiral Hood and Richard Sheridan

Born at Perth, Scotland, he was the son of a tailor and clothier. Educated at the University of St Andrews. When 18 he went to India, in the ship of Sir Home Popham. In 1790 he settled at Lucknow. Paull was involved in a duel with Michael George Prendergast in 1795; he was wounded, and in later life lost the use of his right arm. In 1801 he left Lucknow and came to England for a time, but returned again to India.

Prominent in commerce life at Lucknow, Paull was sent to Lord Wellesley as a delegate of its traders. For a time they were on good terms, but they quarrelled.

In the latter part of 1804 Paull returned to England. He was elected Member of Parliament for Newtown in 1805. He had many friends, among whom was William Windham, and William Cobbett. Paull supported the Whigs and Prince George; but when the Ministry of All the Talents was formed, it was impossible for the new government, which included Lord Grenville, to support him in his opposition to Wellesley. The Prince of Wales asked him, through John McMahon to desist from any further proceedings.

Paull instead spent the session of 1806 in moving for additional papers and in formulating his charges against the viceroy Wellesley. He supported the parallel campaign against Wellesley by Charles Maclean. The friends of Lord Wellesley tried in July 1806 to force his hand, but, through the interposition of Sir Samuel Romilly, were prevented from carrying out their purpose. Paull widened his parliamentary interests, and succeeded to a limited extent in getting extra-parliamentary support from the direction of the East India Company. But he also touched on other areas, and began to associate with troublemaker MPs, Thomas Jones and Richard Bateman-Robson. A dissolution of parliament then intervened.

Paull, now was disappointed in his obtaining a seat for one of Prince George’ boroughs, stood for Westminster against Sheridan and Sir Samuel Hood. Sir Francis Burdett had met him at Cobbett’s, and had introduced him to John Horne Tooke. Burdett had himself been asked to stand for Westminster, but declined in favour of Paull, supporting him with all his influence and subscribing £1,000 towards the expenses of the campaign.

The poll lasted fifteen days, when Hood and Sheridan were elected. On one occasion, when the candidates were on the hustings, a stage was brought from Drury Lane, with four tailors seated at work, a live goose, and several cabbages.

The defeated candidate, who polled 4,481 votes, petitioned against the return, and the matter came before the House of Commons in 1807, when the allegations were voted “false and scandalous”.
Paull stood again for Westminster at the election in 1807 with even less success. Horne Tooke was now estranged. Cobbett was still his friend and praised him in his Political Register, for his beliefs; but finally changed his mind thinking Paull wanted to be rich rather than a true representative.
Paull had a falling out with Burdett, and a duel ensued at Coombe Wood. On the second exchange of shots, both were badly wounded.

As a consequence of the duel, Burdett got much support. At the close of the election Burdett and Lord Cochrane had 5,134 and 3,708 votes respectively, while Paull obtained only 269.

Paull neglected his wounds, and suffered for three months. His election expenses had exhausted his resources. For some weeks he showed signs of mental derangement. He lost over 1,600 guineas at a gaming-house in Pall Mall on the night of 14 April 1808.

On the following day Paull deliberately attempted suicide, by piercing his right arm, and then by cutting his throat. He died at his house on 15 April 1808.

(DWW-The life of Paull seems to be tied up in trying to implicate Wellesley which did not come to fruition, and in duels. I believe that were you to see such a person in any literature you would cast him as a comic tragic figure.)

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The stories of Humphrey and Gwendolyn. Published separately in: A Trolling we Will Go, Trolling Down to Old Mah Wee and Trollings Pass and Present. These are the tales of how a simple Woodcutter and an overly educated girl help save the kingdom without a king from an ancient evil.

Long forgotten is the way to fight the Trolls. Beasts that breed faster than rabbits it seems, and when they decide to migrate to the lands of humans, their seeming invulnerability spell doom for all in the kingdom of Torahn. Not only Torahn but all the human kingdoms that border the great mountains that divide the continent.

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Edwin Henry Landseer
7 March 1802 – 1 October 1873

Edwin Landseer

Landseer was born in London, the son of the engraver John Landseer. He was something of a prodigy whose artistic talents were recognised early on. He studied under several artists, including his father, and Benjamin Robert Haydon. Landseer’s life was entwined with the Royal Academy. At the age of just 13 he exhibited works there. He was elected an Associate at the age of 24, and an Academician five years later in 1831. He was knighted in 1850, and although elected President in 1866 he declined the invitation.

In his late 30s Landseer suffered nervous breakdown, and for the rest of his life was troubled by recurring bouts of melancholy, hypochondria, and depression, aggravated by alcohol and drug use. The last few years of his life Landseer’s mental stability was problematic. He was declared insane in July 1872.

Landseer was a notable figure in art, and his works can be found in Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kenwood House and the Wallace Collection in London. He also collaborated with fellow painter Frederick Richard Lee.

Landseer’s reputation as an animal painter was unrivalled. Much of his fame was generated by the publication of engravings of his work, many of them by his brother Thomas.

Reproductions of Landseer’s works were common in middle-class homes, while he was popular with the aristocracy. Queen Victoria commissioned numerous pictures from the artists. Initially asked to paint various royal pets, he then moved on to portraits of ghillies and gamekeepers. Then Victoria commissioned a portrait of herself, as a present for Prince Albert.

Landseer taught both Victora and Albert to etch, and made portraits of Victoria’s children as babies, usually in the company of a dog. He also made two portraits of Victoria and Albert dressed for costume balls, at which he was a guest himself. One of his last paintings was a life-size equestrian portrait of the Queen, shown at the Royal Academy in 1873, made from earlier sketches.

Landseer was associated with Scotland, and the Highlands in particular. The Hunting of Chevy Chase (1825–6) and An Illicit Whiskey Still in the Highlands (1826–9), and his more mature achievements such as the majestic stag study Monarch of the Glen (1851) and Rent Day in the Wilderness (1855–68). In 1828 he was commissioned to produce illustrations for the Waverley Edition of Sir Walter Scott’s novels.

The Hunting of Chevy Chase

An Illicit Whiskey Still in the Highlands

Monarch of the Glen

Rent Day in the Wilderness

The name Landseer came to be the official name for the variety of Newfoundland dog that features a mix of both black and white; it was this variety Landseer popularised in his paintings celebrating Newfoundlands as water rescue dogs. Off to the Rescue (1827), A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society (1838), and Saved (1856).

Off to the Rescue

A Distinguished Member of the Humane Society

Saved

Laying Down The Law (1840) satirises the legal profession through anthropomorphism. It shows a group of dogs, with a poodle symbolising the Lord Chancellor.

Laying Down the Law

The Shrew Tamed, entered at the 1861 Royal Academy Exhibition, caused controversy because of its subject matter. It showed a powerful horse on its knees among straw in a stable while a lovely young woman lies with her head pillowed on its flanks. Equestrienne, Ann Gilbert, applying the taming techniques of the famous ‘horse whisperer’ John Solomon Rarey. Some concluded Landseer was referencing the famous courtesan Catherine Walters, then at the height of her fame.

The Shrew Tamed

In 1858 the government commissioned Landseer to make four bronze lions for the base of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square.There was a delay when he asked to be supplied with copies of casts of a real lion he knew were in the possession of the academy at Turin. The casts did not arrive until the summer of 1860. The lions were made at the Kensington studio of Carlo Marochetti. Work was slowed by Landseer’s ill health. The sculptures were installed in 1867.

Landseer’s death on 1 October 1873 was widely marked in England: shops and houses lowered their blinds, flags flew at half-staff, his bronze lions at the base of Nelson’s column were hung with wreaths, and large crowds lined the streets to watch his funeral cortege pass.

Landseer was rumoured to be able to paint with both hands at the same time, for example, paint a horse’s head with the right and its tail with the left, simultaneously. He was also known to be able to paint extremely quickly—when the mood struck him. He could also procrastinate, sometimes for years, over certain commissions.

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Witnessing his cousin marry for love and not money, as he felt destined to do, Colonel Fitzwilliam refused to himself to be jealous. He did not expect his acquaintance with the Bennet Clan to change that.

   Catherine Bennet, often called Kitty, had not given a great deal of thought to how her life might change with her sisters Elizabeth and Jane becoming wed to rich and connected men. Certainly meeting Darcy’s handsome cousin, a Colonel, did not affect her.

   But one had to admit that the connections of the Bingleys and Darcys were quite advantageous. All sorts of men desired introductions now that she had such wealthy new brothers.

   Kitty knew that Lydia may have thought herself fortunate when she had married Wickham, the first Bennet daughter to wed. Kitty, though, knew that true fortune had come to her. She just wasn’t sure how best to apply herself.

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Richard Keppel Craven
1 June 1779 – 24 June 1851

Richard Keppel Craven

Keppel Craven was the third son of William Craven, 6th Baron Craven and Lady Elizabeth Berkeley, daughter of the 4th Earl of Berkeley. Lady Elizabeth divorced Craven (DWW-a very rare occurrence) when Keppel was three and moved to France with him. There was a promise to return Keppel to his father when he was eight. This condition was not fulfilled.

They returned to England in 1791 to send Keppel to school at Harrow under an assumed name. He was soon recognised by his likeness to Lady Elizabeth, and henceforth was called by his family name.

His father died in 1791 and his mother then married Christian Frederick Charles Alexander, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. Craven accepted the marriage and after the margrave’s death in 1805 he went to live with his mother in Naples.

In 1814 he accepted the post of one of the Chamberlains to Princess Caroline of Wales, without receiving any emolument; but this occupation lasted for a short time only, until the princess departed for Geneva. Six years afterwards he was called on to give evidence at her trial. Keppel stated that he never saw any impropriety in her conduct either at Milan or Naples.

He published in 1821 A Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, and in 1838 Excursions in the Abruzzi and Northern Provinces of Naples, in 2 vols. The former of these two works is embellished with views from his own sketches.

Having received a considerable addition to his fortune, in 1834 he purchased a convent in the mountains near Salerno and received his visitors there. He was for many years the intimate friend and inseparable companion of Sir William Gell. (DWW-I suspect they were an item.)

Another of his highly esteemed acquaintances was Lady Blessington. He died in 1851, aged 72, being the last of a triumvirate of British literati, scholars, and gentlemen who resided in Naples for many years.

Besides the two works already mentioned, there was published in London in 1825 a book entitled Italian Scenes: a Series of interesting Delineations of Remarkable Views and of Celebrated Remains of Antiquity. Chiefly sketched by the Hon. K. Craven.

Amid a cacophony of cranking sprockets and cogs, in chuffs of steam and soot, comes the expansion of classic literature into alternative Steampunk masterpieces. Follow nine skilled authors as they lead old friends and new acquaintances through Jamaica, Singapore, Cape Town, Denmark, Paris, London, and Geneva on a phantasmagorical Steampunk World Tour.
Tropic of Cancer: Edward Rochester battles the elements and Bertha Mason to save his brother and his own soul.
Sense and Cyborgs: Privateer Margaret Dashwood makes port at Singapore to get her husband back on his feet.
Micawber and Copperfield (by David W. Wilkin): Commander Wilkins Micawber III of the RDC’s Golden Mary and Midshipman Daniel Copperfield create a legacy of loyalty in the Royal Dirigible Corps. Stationed in Southern Africa, just after the Zulu war, trouble is brewing for the Boers are not pleased that the British Empire has seen fit to annex their lands and put them under the yoke of their ‘protection.’ (From David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.)
Little Boiler Girl: Power has a price, and one city unwittingly demands an enslaved child pay it.
The Clockwork Ballet: At the Palais Garnier, the Phantom trips the light fantastic with Meg Giry, the prima ballerina of his mechanical troupe.
His Frozen Heart: Jacob Marley saves Ebenezer Scrooge from robbing his wife’s grave and selling his soul.
Our Man Fred: Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, and his fiancé, Mary, protect the Empire from mechanized malfeasance.
Lavenza, or the Modern Galatea: Victor Frankenstein’s bride discovers more than his horrific experiments on her wedding day.
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Samuel Bagster the Elder
26 December 1772-28 March 1851

Samuel Bagster was born the second son of George and Mary Bagster, of St. Pancras. He was educated at Northampton under the Rev. John Ryland, and, after serving an apprenticeship with William Otridge, commenced business as a general bookseller in 1794 in the Strand, where he remained until 1816.

A few years before he left, the rarity and consequent costliness of all polyglot bibles gave him the idea of supplying the want of a handy and inexpensive edition. He first brought out a Hebrew Bible, which was followed by the Septuagint, both in foolscap octavo.

The production of English bibles was a monopoly in the United Kingdom, confined in England to the king’s printer and the two great universities, in Scotland to Sir D. H. Blair and John Bruce, and in Ireland to Mr. Grierson. It had been decided, however, that the patent did not apply to bibles printed with notes.

In 1816 Bagster published ‘The English version of the polyglot bible’, containing a selection of over 60,000 parallel references, mainly selected and verified by himself. The book was extremely successful.

In 1816 he moved to 15 Paternoster Row. The first issue of the ‘Biblia Sacra Polyglotta Bagsteriana’ appeared between 1817 and 1828, four volumes containing, the prolegomena of Dr. Samuel Lee, the Hebrew Old Testament with points, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint Greek version of the Old Testament, the Latin Vulgate, the authorised English version, the Greek Textus Receptus of the New Testament, and the Peshito or ancient Syriac version.

A folio edition of the polyglot was published in 1828, repeated in 1831, and subsequently, presenting eight languages at the opening of the volume, and including all the ancient and modern versions above mentioned. Copies of the different texts and translations were brought out separately, and in various combinations. Although best known for publishing religious works, other books were sometimes issued, including ‘A Synoptical Compend of British Botany, Arranged After the Linnean System’ by John Galpine.

In consequence of the arbitrary regulations of the excise authorities, paper could only be had of certain sizes. It was partially owing to Bagster’s exertions that the rules were modified. Two other forms of the English bible were issued, and, all of them harmonising page for page, began what is known as the ‘Facsimile Series.’

In 1822 Bagster made the acquaintance of the self-taught Orientalist, William Greenfield, of whose life he wrote an interesting account in the ‘Imperial Magazine’. Greenfield had suggested a lexicon to the polyglot edition of the Hebrew Bible, which caused him to be engaged as a proof-reader to the various learned publications Bagster was then bringing out.

In 1824 Bagster circulated the prospectus of a polyglot grammar in twenty or thirty languages upon the principles of comparative philology. Greenfield in 1827 edited for the publisher his ‘Comprehensive Bible,’ with 4,000 illustrative notes, 500,000 marginal references, a general introduction, and a variety of other useful information.

Bagster’s Syriac New Testament (1828–29) Hebrew New Testament (1830), Polymicrian Greek Lexicon (1829), Schmidt’s Greek Concordance (1829), and, in fact, all the small and beautifully printed Polymicrian series, were also edited by Greenfield.

‘The English Hexapla,’ giving the six most important versions in our tongue of the New Testament, being those of Wyclif (1380), Tyndale (1534), Cranmer (1539), the Genevan (1557), the Anglo-Rhemish (1582), and the authorised (1611), together with the Greek text after Scholz, and a valuable historical account of the English translations.

Another noteworthy publication was the ‘Bible of every land,’ supplying specimens of over 270 different languages and versions.

Bagster married in 1797 Miss Eunice Birch, who survived him twenty-six years, dying on the eve of her 99th birthday.

These last few weeks I have been profiling here at The Things That Catch My Eye, chapters excerpted from Steam and Thunder, and The Prize is Not as Great As You Think. See the sidebar for all the chapters of each book.

I still have another chapter or two of the Prize to impart, but I am stopping midway in each book so that I have whetted your appetites. I also have found that many unscrupulous people will cut and paste my writing and others into one long document and claim that they have written the story I have. Thus it is best to only show half the book to you all.

But the whole story not having been revealed, so to the publishing story.

I want to have these two books be Kickstarter projects but to elevate our normal publication scheme. I want to use a professional cover, and illustrations for each chapter. To do this, I need feedback. One that you would like to see the books done so.

But also I need to work up the budget and need quotes from professionals in the field. Those who would like a gig as an illustrator for the books, or more than one. And copyeditors. Please send me your info in the comments section.

The funding level will be calculated to ensure that these professionals who contribute will get paid for their work!

Illustrators, especially if you can emulate the style of CE Brock would be perfect.

There is even a link on the Right Sidebar. But those new to the Blog might not realize that, so here is our periodic reminder that we have such a service for you to avail yourself of.

There are now more than 450 pins of various people, art, drawings of locations, etc. at the board.

Please enjoy.

If anyone knows of someone who would like to discuss designing a cover for RAP, please get in contact with us.

Otherwise we may end up with this

For our many other works, one of the things we would like to see is having pen & ink or pencil illustrations at the beginning of each chapter. Can you draw like CE Brock? He did amazing work for the books and stories of Jane Austen in the early 1900s.

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