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Porson, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Porson, Richard, 1759–1808, English classical scholar, b. Norfolk. A poor boy, he showed such astonishing powers of memory that patrons sent him through Eton and Cambridge. He was appointed regius p...

York, Frederick Augustus, duke of

(Encyclopedia)York, Frederick Augustus, duke of, 1763–1827, second son of George III of England. In the French Revolutionary Wars he commanded (1793–95) the unsuccessful English forces in Flanders. Despite his ...

Capote, Truman

(Encyclopedia)Capote, Truman käpōˈtē [key], 1924–84, American author, b. New Orleans as Truman Streckfus Persons. During his lifetime, the witty, diminutive writer was a well-known public personage, hobnobbin...

Palmer, George Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Palmer, George Herbert, 1842–1933, American educator, philosopher, and author, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1864, Andover Theological Seminary, 1870, studied (1867–69) in Europe. He became tutor in G...

pragmatism

(Encyclopedia)pragmatism prăgˈmətĭzəm [key], method of philosophy in which the truth of a proposition is measured by its correspondence with experimental results and by its practical outcome. Thought is consid...

Dummer, Jeremiah, 1645–1718, early American silversmith and engraver

(Encyclopedia)Dummer, Jeremiah, 1645–1718, early American silversmith and engraver, b. Newbury, Mass. He was apprenticed (1659) to John Hull and set up as a silversmith in Boston c.1666. He held several public of...

Leggett, Sir Anthony James

(Encyclopedia)Leggett, Sir Anthony James, 1938–, British physicist, Ph.D. Oxford, 1964. He was a professor at Sussex Univ., England, from 1967 to 1983, when he joined the faculty at the Univ. of Illinois at Urban...

Keith, James Francis Edward

(Encyclopedia)Keith, James Francis Edward, 1696–1758, Scottish field marshal of Prussia; brother of George Keith, 10th earl marischal [marshal] of Scotland. He participated in the Jacobite uprising of 1715 and in...

Monboddo, James Burnett, Lord

(Encyclopedia)Monboddo, James Burnett, Lord, 1714–99, English writer, b. Scotland. A pioneer in anthropology, he wrote Of the Origin and Progress of Language (6 vol., 1774–92), in which he anticipated Darwin an...

Mirrlees, Sir James Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Mirrlees, Sir James Alexander, 1936–2018, Scottish economist, Ph.D. He taught at Cambridge (1963–69, 1995–2003), Oxford (1969–95), and Chinese University of Hong Kong (2002–18). Building on ...