This book looks at the aristocratic adoption of Roman ideals in eighteenth-century English culture.

In the mid-eighteenth century, English gentlemen filled their houses with copies and casts of classical statuary while the following generation preferred authentic antique originals. By charting this changing preference within a broader study of material culture, Joan Coutu examines the evolving articulation of the English gentleman. Then and Now consists of four case studies of mid-century collections. Three were amassed by young aristocrats - the Marquis of Rockingham, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earl of Huntingdon - who, consistent with their social standing, were touted as natural political leaders. Their collections evoke the concept of gentlemanly virtue through example, offering archetypes to encourage men toward acts of public virtue. As the aristocrats matured in the politically fractious realm of the 1760s, such virtue could become politicized. A fourth study focuses on Thomas Hollis, who used his collection to proselytize his own unique political ideology. Framed by studies of collecting practices earlier and later in the century, Coutu also explores the fluid temporal relationship with the classical past as the century progressed, firmly situating the discussion within the contemporaneous emerging field of aesthetics. Broadening the focus beyond published texts to include aesthetic conversations among the artists and the aristocracy in Italy and England, Then and Now shows how an aesthetic canon emerged - embodied in the Apollo Belvedere, the Venus de’ Medici, and the like - which shaped the Grand Manner of art.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 was a decisive moment in England's history; an invading Dutch army forced James II to flee France, and his son-in-law and daughter, William and Mary, were crowned as joint sovereigns. The wider consequences were no less startling: war in Ireland, union with Scotland, Jacobite intrigue, deep involvement in two major European wars, Britain's emergence as a great power, a 'financial revolution', greater religious toleration, a riven Church, and the rapid growth of parliamentary government. Such changes were only part of the transformation of English society at the time. A torrent of new ideas from such figures as Newton, Defoe, and Addison, spread through newspapers, periodicals, and coffee-houses, provided new views and values that some embraced and others loathed. England's horizons were also growing, especially in the Caribbean and American colonies. For many, however, the benefits were uncertain: the slave trade flourished, inequality widened, and the poor and 'disorderly' were increasingly subject to strictures and statutes. If it was an age of prospects it was also one of anxieties. This new text provides a truly general overview of England between the Glorious Revolution and the death of George I and Newton. Part of the New Oxford History of England series, it is a wide ranging survey that combines the rich secondary literature with extensive primary research. It looks at politics, religion, economy, society, and culture and seeks to place England in its British, European, and world contexts. It includes an annotated bibliography and will prove invaluable to a wide range of students of the period.

In the eighteenth century 'virtue' was a word to conjure with. It called to mind heroic predecessors from the Roman Republic such as Cato and Brutus and invoked qualities of personal integrity, selflessness and a concern for the common good, which, though urgently needed, seemed desperately lacking, both in the ruthless party struggles of the age of Anne and subsequently in the all-pervading political corruption of the Walpole administration. When the longed-for political saviour failed to materialize it was increasingly felt that if virtue existed at all then it would have to be sought for among the lower orders of society or else in provincial areas, where simpler and nobler values might still prevail. But with the coming of the French Revolution and Romanticism virtue began to lose its powerful resonances - it now seemed naive and simplistic, all too ready to deny both the complexities of human nature and the possibility of determination by external cultural forces.

This is the first book of Akenside criticism to be published since C. T. Houpt's biographical and critical study, which initially appeared in 1944. This important collection of essays examines the full range of Akenside's poetical output, from his earliest published work to the later odes and posthumous published poems.

How did eighteenth-century travellers experience, describe and represent the urban environments they encountered as they made the Grand Tour? This fascinating book focuses on the changing responses of the British to the cities of Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice, during a period of unprecedented urbanisation at home. Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material, including travel accounts written by women, Rosemary Sweet explores how travel literature helped to create and perpetuate the image of a city; what the different meanings and imaginative associations attached to these cities were; and how the contrasting descriptions of each of these cities reflected the travellers' own attitudes to urbanism. More broadly, the book explores the construction and performance of personal, gender and national identities, and the shift in cultural values away from neo-classicism towards medievalism and the gothic, which is central to our understanding of eighteenth-century culture and the transition to modernity.

Britain's Imperial Muse explores the classics' contribution to British imperialism and to the experience of empire in India through the long 19th century. It reveals the classics role as a foundational source for positive conceptions of empire and a rhetorical arsenal used by commentators to justify conquest and domination, especially of India.