[The History of England from the Accession of James II. by Thomas Babington Macaulay]@TWC D-Link book
The History of England from the Accession of James II.

CHAPTER XIX
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Fine gentlemen and fine ladies were invited to the show, were hospitably regaled, and were delighted by seeing the divers in their panoply descend into the river and return laden with old iron, and ship's tackle.

There was a Greenland Fishing Company which could not fail to drive the Dutch whalers and herring busses out of the Northern Ocean.

There was a Tanning Company which promised to furnish leather superior to the best that was brought from Turkey or Russia.
There was a society which undertook the office of giving gentlemen a liberal education on low terms, and which assumed the sounding name of the Royal Academies Company.

In a pompous advertisement it was announced that the directors of the Royal Academies Company had engaged the best masters in every branch of knowledge, and were about to issue twenty thousand tickets at twenty shillings each.

There was to be a lottery; two thousand prizes were to be drawn; and the fortunate holders of the prizes were to be taught, at the charge of the Company, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Spanish, conic sections, trigonometry, heraldry, japanning, fortification, bookkeeping and the art of playing the theorbo.


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