Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica

Nicolas_Joseph_Laurent_Gilbert

Nicolas-Joseph-Laurent Gilbert (December 15, 1750 – November 16, 1780) was a French poet born at Fontenoy-le-Château, Vosges, Lorraine.
Having completed his education at the college of Dole, he devoted himself for a time to a half-scholastic, half-literary life at Nancy, but in 1774 he found his way to the capital. As an opponent of the Encyclopaedists and a panegyrist of Louis XV, he received considerable pensions. He died in Paris in 1780 from the results of a fall from his horse.
The satiric force of one or two of his pieces, as Mon Apologie (1778) and Le Dix-huitième Siècle (1775), would alone be sufficient to preserve his reputation, which has been further increased by modern writers, who, like Alfred de Vigny in his Stello (chaps. 7-13), considered him a victim to the spite of his philosophic opponents. His best-known verses are the Ode imitée de plusieurs psaumes, usually entitled Adieux à la vie.
Among his other works may be mentioned Les Familles du Darius et d'Eridame, histoire persane (1770), Le Carnaval des auteurs (1773), Odes nouvelles et patriotiques (1775). Gilbert's Œuvres complètes were first published in 1788.

Emmanuel_Hiel

Emmanuel Hiel (30 May 1834 – 27 August 1899), was a Flemish-Dutch poet and prose writer.
Hiel was born at Sint-Gillis-bij-Dendermonde. During his life he held various jobs, from teacher and government official to journalist and bookseller, busily writing all the time both for the theatre and the magazines of North and South Netherlands. His last posts were those of librarian at the Industrial Museum and professor of declamation at the Conservatoire in Brussels.Hiel took an active and prominent part in the so-called Flemish movement in Belgium, and his name is constantly associated with those of Jan van Beers, Jan Frans Willems, and Peter Benoit. Benoit set some of Hiel's verses to music, notably in his oratorios Lucifer (performed in London at the Royal Albert Hall and elsewhere) and De Schelde ("The Scheldt"). The Dutch composer Richard Hol (of Utrecht) composed music for Hiel's Ode to Liberty, and van Gheluwe used Hiel's verses in his Songs for Big and Small Folk (second edition, much enlarged, 1879). That music greatly contributed the popularity of Hiel's writing in schools and among Belgian choral societies.Hiel also translated several foreign lyrics. His rendering of Tennyson's Dora was published in Antwerp around 1871. For the national festival of 1880 at Brussels, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Belgian independence, Hiel composed two cantatas, Belgenland ("The Land of the Belgians") and Rer Belgenland ("Honour to Belgium"), which, set to music, were much appreciated.Hiel's efforts to counteract Walloon influences and bring about a rapprochement between the Netherlanders in the north and the Teutonic racial sympathizers across the Rhine made him very popular with both. A volume of his best poems was in 1874 the first in a collection of Dutch authors published in Leipzig, Germany.He died in 1899 at Schaerbeek.

Charles_Mathews

Charles Mathews (28 June 1776, London – 28 June 1835, Devonport) was an English theatre manager and comic actor, well known during his time for his gift of impersonation and skill at table entertainment. His play At Home, in which he played every character, was the first monopolylogue and the defining work in the genre.

Mariano_Fortuny_(painter)

Marià Josep Maria Bernat Fortuny i Marsal (Catalan pronunciation: [məɾiˈa ʒuˈzɛb məˈɾi.ə βəɾˈnat fuɾˈtuɲ i məɾˈsal]; Spanish: Mariano José María Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal; June 11, 1838 – November 21, 1874), known more simply as Marià Fortuny or Mariano Fortuny, was the leading Spanish painter of his day, with an international reputation. His brief career encompassed works on a variety of subjects common in the art of the period, including the Romantic fascination with Orientalist themes, historicist genre painting, military painting of Spanish colonial expansion, as well as a prescient loosening of brush-stroke and color.

Wilhelm_von_Kaulbach

Wilhelm von Kaulbach (15 October 1805 – 7 April 1874) was a German painter, noted mainly as a muralist, but also as a book illustrator. His murals decorate buildings in Munich. He is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.

Pierre-Chéri_Lafont

Pierre-Chéri Lafont (16 May 1797 – 19 April 1873) was a French actor, born at Bordeaux.

Abandoning his profession as assistant ship's doctor in the navy, he went to Paris to study singing and acting. He had some experience at a small theater, and was preparing to appear at the Opéra Comique when the director of the Vaudeville offered him an engagement. Here he made his debut in 1821 in La Somnambule, and his good looks and excellent voice soon brought him into public favor. After several years at the Nouveautés and the Vaudeville, on the burning of the latter in 1838 he went to England, and married, at Gretna Green, Jenny Colon, from whom he was soon divorced. On his return to Paris, he joined the Variétés, where he acted for fifteen years in such plays as Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Le Lion empaillé, Une dernière conquête, etc.
Another engagement at the Vaudeville followed, and one at the Gaîté, and he ended his brilliant career at the Gymnase in the part of the noble father in such plays as Les Vieux Garçons and Nos bons villageois. On 12 July 1848 he married the dancer Pauline Leroux.
He died in Paris on 19 April 1873 and is buried in Montmartre Cemetery with Pauline Leroux.