Martin Folkes (1690-1754): Newtonian, Antiquary, Connoisseur is a cultural and intellectual biography of the only President of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries. Sir Isaac Newton's protégé, astronomer, mathematician, freemason, art connoisseur, Voltaire's friend and Hogarth's patron, his was an intellectually vibrant world. Folkes was possibly the best-connected natural philosopher and antiquary of his age, an epitome of Enlightenment sociability, and yet he was a surprisingly neglected figure, the long shadow of Newton eclipsing his brilliant disciple. A complex figure, Folkes edited Newton's posthumous works in biblical chronology, yet was a religious skeptic and one of the first members of the gentry to marry an actress. His interests were multidisciplinary, from his authorship of the first complete history of the English coinage, to works concerning ancient architecture, statistical probability, and astronomy. Rich archival material, including Folkes's travel diary, correspondence, and his library and art collections permit reconstruction through Folkes's eyes of what it was like to be a collector and patron, a Masonic freethinker, and antiquarian and virtuoso in the days before 'science' became sub-specialised. Folkes's virtuosic sensibility and possible role in the unification of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society tells against the historiographical assumption that this was the age in which the 'two cultures' of the humanities and sciences split apart, never to be reunited. In Georgian England, antiquarianism and 'science' were considered largely part of the same endeavour.

This special edition of History of Universities, Volume XXXV/1, studies and reappraises the often ignored history of eighteenth-century Oxford, caught as it is between the upheavals of the Stuart century and the reformation of the Victorian era.

"Edward Lye (1694-1767) was an important contributor to the advancement of our understanding of the structure of the English language, its vocabulary, and its literature. Compared with the work of more celebrated pre-nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxonists and antiquaries, Lye's was a scholarly output of less original talent and reach (the role he gave himself was 'to remove the rubbish out of the way, as an underworkman'), but in the course of editing, improving, and publishing the hitherto unpublished work of others he made genuine advances in scholarship, particularly in the areas of English lexicography and Gothic studies. The Lye correspondence - in the main a collection of scholarly letters that are also sometimes the personal communications of friends - indicates how varied his interests were, how widely he read, and how frequently he discussed texts, elucidated cruces, and established correct textual readings, often for the first time." "This edition presents the 193 letters known to have passed between Edward Lye and forty-five correspondents between 1729 and Lye's death in 1767. English translations are provided for letters written in Latin, Greek, and Swedish, as well as for words and passages in other languages (e.g. Old English, Gothic, Hebrew) discussed in the correspondence. The introduction provides a biography of Lye and a detailed examination of his major scholarly accomplishments: the edition of Franciscus Junius's Etymologicum Anglicanum, published in 1743 with extensive improvements and additions by Lye; the publication in 1750 of Eric Benzelius's edition and Latin translation of the Gothic Gospels (Sacrorum evangeliorum versio Gothica), together with Lye's own contribution of corrections and notes, preface, and a Gothic grammar; the Dictionarium Saxonico- et Gothico-Latinum, completed posthumously by Owen Manning and published in 1772; and an unfinished translation into Latin of the Old English poems of the Caedmon Manuscript (Oxford, Bodl. MS. Junius 11)." "Supporting materials, including biographical records and documents relevant to the edited letters and Lye's publications, are presented in several appendices; there are also biographical notes on Lye's correspondents and a bibliography of manuscripts and printed works. This book will be of value to all those interested in Germanic philology, the history of Old English and Gothic scholarship, and the work of the sixteenth- to eighteenth-century antiquaries in England and northern Europe."--BOOK JACKET.

Following the appointment of its first aristocratic Grand Masters in the 1720s and in the wake of its connections to the scientific Enlightenment, 'Free and Accepted' Masonry became part of Britain's national profile and the largest and most influential of Britain's extensive clubs and societies. The organisation did not evolve naturally from the mediaeval guilds and religious orders that pre-dated it but was reconfigured radically by a largely self-appointed inner core at London's most influential lodge, the Horn Tavern. Freemasonry became a vehicle for the expression of their philosophical and political views, and the 'Craft' attracted an aspirational membership across the upper middling and gentry. Through an examination of previously unexplored primary documentation, Foundations contributes to an understanding of contemporary English political and social culture and explores how Freemasonry became a mechanism that promoted the interests of the Hanoverian establishment and connected the metropolitan and provincial elites. The book explores social networks centred on the aristocracy, parliament, the learned and professional societies, and the magistracy, and provides pen portraits of the key individuals who spread the Masonic message. Foundations and Schism (Sussex Academic, 2013), have been described as 'the most important books on English Freemasonry published in recent times', providing 'a precise, social context for the invention of English Freemasonry'. Berman's analysis throws a new and original light on the formation and development of what rapidly became a national and international phenomenon.