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Breath of Fire III

Breath of Fire III is a role-playing video game developed and published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation console as part of the Breath of Fire series. It was released in Japan on September 11, 1997, and in North America and Europe in 1998. It is the first game in the franchise to feature three-dimensional graphics and voice acting. On August 25, 2005, the game was ported and released for the PlayStation Portable handheld system in Japan, and was also released in Europe on February 3, 2006.

The story takes place in a fantasy world where humans live alongside anthropomorphic creatures, and centers on Ryu, the last of The Brood (a race of people who can transform into powerful dragons), as he searches the world to uncover the mystery of his people and reunite with his surrogate family. Ryu's journey takes him into adulthood where he is joined by a number of other characters who aid him in his quest. The game received mostly positive reviews upon release, though the jazz-inspired soundtrack by company composers Yoshino Aoki and Akari Kaida was widely derided as being both inappropriate to the atmosphere and unmemorable. Critics generally remarked that Breath of Fire III lacks innovation but is highly engaging due to the craftsmanship and attention to detail in both the story and gameplay. It would go on to sell more than 679,000 copies in Japan and the United States.

On January 27, 2016, Capcom announced that Breath of Fire III would be re-released as a download in the US in February through the PlayStation Network for the PlayStation Vita, PSTV, and other PSP hardware compatible devices.

Gameplay
Breath of Fire III is a traditional console role-playing game that requires the player to accomplish story-based objectives while battling enemy creatures in a number of fantasy environments. Presented from an overhead isometric viewpoint, the player may rotate the game's camera in any direction around the central character, as well as tilt it up or down to see over or under impeding objects. When traveling through the game's environment, each character can perform a unique special ability that allows the player to solve puzzles or destroy objects, as well as gain access to otherwise hidden areas. The game uses three-dimensional graphics for scenery, buildings, and other objects, while still retaining two-dimensional sprites for characters.

The game introduces a number of new features to the series, including the Master System, which allows any of the game's playable characters to apprentice under specific non-player characters known as masters, which allows them to learn new skills and influence their statistics. An additional feature, the Fairy Village, gives the player the ability to influence the growth of a small town of faeries, which in turn gives them access to special items or in-game features such as mini-games and a sound test. While journeying on the world map, players may set up camp, which can replenish a character's health by resting, as well as allowing them to speak directly to any member of their party. Other series mainstays such as fishing return with a new, expanded interface and point allocation system that keeps track of what fish a player has caught and their size.

Battles in Breath of Fire III occur randomly when a player travels through hostile areas or dungeons during the course of the story. Using a turn-based strategy approach, the game allows a player to input commands at the start of each combat round, which are then carried out in accordance with each character's "agility" rating. A player may choose to attack, defend, cast magic spells, use items, change equipment, or flee from battle entirely. Players can combine chrysms of various attributes in order to let Ryu transform into different dragon forms. While previous Breath of Fire titles allowed groups of four characters to participate in combat, Breath of Fire III restricts the party limit to only three, yet offers a new "formation" system that allows for characters to be arranged in certain patterns for tactical benefits. Battles are won when all enemies are defeated, yielding experience points that go towards gaining characters' levels, which in turn leads to higher statistics and new skills.

Characters
The main character in Breath of Fire III is Ryu. As a member of the ancient Brood race, Ryu is a human with the ability to transform into powerful dragons, an ability he does not fully understand, but pieces together as time goes on. He is accompanied on his quest by several other playable characters, including Nina, a winged princess from the Kingdom of Wyndia and powerful magician; Rei, member of the cat-like Woren tribe and skilled thief; Teepo, an orphaned rogue and longtime friend of Rei's with no memory of his past; Momo, daughter of a famous engineer and inventor; Garr (Garland in the Japanese version ), an experienced warrior and member of a group known as the Guardians who serve the goddess Myria; and Peco (Pecoros in the Japanese version ), a onion-like creature with limited speech and a connection with nature.

Balio and Sunder, brothers and horse-men, act as mercenaries to a powerful crime lord and frequent adversaries of Ryu. Their boss, Mikba, is the head of a criminal organization with the ability to transform into a demon. Deis returns as a powerful sorceress who knows the secrets of the past. Myria, an ancient Goddess of Destruction, serves as the antagonist once more, though her motives have changed, and she is instead set on preserving the lives of humanity by ordering the deaths of the dragons.

Ryu, Teepo and Rei run afoul of the giant woodsman Bunyan; Mygas, a traveling wizard who is camped outside of McNeil village; and the self-doubting master of non-lethal combat, Durandal, who provides the party with the skills to impress Hondara, the benevolent Urkan priest who despises violence. Fahl, the tipsy barkeep from Genmel and friend of Balio and Sunder will become one with them after those villains are defeated and if they have fought 30 battles without resting. A strange fishman named Giotto teaches skills once the party reaches a high-enough fishing level. Once Ryu and his team fix Rhapala's lighthouse situation and meet the fairies, the errant fairy Meryleep turns up at a secluded pond, asking for her flower jewel which was stolen by a crow. The party can also use Peco to communicate with Yggdrasil trees. Near the end of the game, the dragon spirit Ladon offers to communicate with Ryu in a similar fashion.

Story
Ryu, a preserved baby dragon unearthed by miners, inadvertently shifts form into a young blue-haired boy and is taken in by wandering thieves named Rei and Teepo, members of the cat-like Woren clan. They believe Ryu to be just an abandoned child.

The trio are hired by a hooded figure named Loki to steal all the money from the town's corrupt mayor. They break into the manor, pilfer the gold, and re-distribute his money among the villagers. The mayor hires two hitmen, the horse brothers Balio and Sunder, to exact revenge on the gang for their theft. Balio and Sunder burn down the trio's home, attack them, and leave them for dead. Ryu awakens in the care of a woodsman who fished him out of the river and found no trace of his friends. Ryu leaves Yraald Region. Ryu comes across Balio and Sunder in Mt. Myrneg. He is stabbed and reanimates into a dragon. The horse brothers take him to the Royal Family in Wyndia to sell him, but he transforms back to human. Balio, Sunder, and Ryu are locked up in the prison, where they meet Nina, child daughter of the King. Balio and Sunder trick Nina into releasing them and Ryu breaks out of his cell. Nina saves Ryu from Balio and Sunder, who are now on their trail.

Ryu and Nina come across a large tower and meet Momo, an inventor and engineer who is researching chrysm. They escape the tower by rocket when bounty hunters arrive looking for them. Momo leads Ryu and Nina to a chrysm research facility. The institute's chairman and colleague of Momo's late father, Dr. Palet, informs the party of a mutant creature causing trouble at the biological waste dump. After defeat, the mutant plant creature gives up its offspring, whom Nina names Peco, to be cared for in its absence. They hop onto a cart to be smuggled back to Wyndia, unaware that Palet sold them out to Balio and Sunder. They are recaptured by Balio and Sunder, transported back to Genmel, and signed up to fight in the arena. Garr, a seasoned warrior, beats Ryu in the arena, and demands Ryu as his prize, sidestepping his deal with the horse brothers. With Garr's help, the team defeats the horse brothers.

Garr agrees to help the group find Rei and Teepo, on the condition that Ryu accompany him to a sacred temple far to the east. They travel to Urkan Region, and arrive at the temple. Inside, Garr reveals the Brood, the race of dragons that once populated the world, was slaughtered by Garr and his fellow guardians at the behest of Myria, an ancient goddess who promised an age of peace in return. Ryu being the last living dragon, Garr attempts to slay him. Ryu beats him and escapes. Having been easily defeated by a child of the Brood, Garr has an epiphany: the Brood did not really fight back against him and the other guardians.

Several years later, reports of a rampaging dragon lead Garr to Ryu, now a young adult. Garr asks forgiveness for his actions against his people and entreats Ryu to help him discover the true motivation behind Myria's genocide of the Brood. Back in Yraald Region, the pair regroups with Nina, who led a regiment in arresting Mayor McNeil for his involvement with the attempt on Ryu's life and the destruction of their home. A weretiger has moved through the village, and Loki was mauled. They track the weretiger, revealed to be Rei. Rei has not seen Teepo since the incident.

The team reunites with Momo, who has been performing experiments at the plant institute with Peco. The party receives information about Myria's whereabouts from a deity named Deis. After traversing the ocean, the group proceeds to the last known village of the Brood, Dragnier. They learn of a battle with Myria millennia ago. The party crosses a desert, and find the ruined city of Caer Xhan, which contains an escalator leading to Myria's fortress.

The group fights its way into the facility's inner sanctum, where they meet Teepo. After surviving the attack by Balio and Sunder by drawing on his latent dragon powers, Teepo was contacted by the Goddess, who convinced him to live in peaceful seclusion in her fortress to spare the world from his destructive power. Unable to convince Ryu or his friends to do the same, Teepo morphs into his Dragon Lord form and fights them to the death. The group makes their way to Myria. She reveals that she exterminated the dragons centuries ago for the same reason she destroyed the world's advanced technology: to keep humanity from inadvertently destroying itself. She presents Ryu the same choice she gave Teepo: to live the rest of his life in peace within her station or be destroyed.

If the player complies with Myria, the game ends with Ryu in Eden. If the player challenges her, the spirit of the great tree Yggdrasil channels itself through Peco and tells Myria she is taking her power too far. Ryu and his friends overcome Myria and then flee the station as it crumbles. Garr reveals that his life must end with Myria's, turning to stone. Deis, now revealed to be Myria's sister, appears before Myria as the station falls apart, stating that they will henceforth leave the world in humanity's hands. Ryu, Nina, Momo, Rei, and Peco begin their long journey home.

Development
Breath of Fire III was developed by members of Capcom's Development Studio 3, including director Makato Ikehara and producers Yoshinori Takenaka and Hironobu Takeshita. The game was the first in the series to feature three-dimensional environments, which were used in conjunction with hand-drawn character sprites designed by series artist Tatsuya Yoshikawa. Yoshikawa created multiple designs for many of the game's characters during production, with some in-game character sprites such as young Ryu and Teepo and adult Nina not matching their final promotional artwork. Before its release in Japan, Breath of Fire III was preceded by a promotional trailer that appeared on a demo disc of Resident Evil 2 that came bundled with the Japanese version of Resident Evil: Director's Cut. Capcom USA announced in August 1997 that the title would receive an English localization in North America, with the release date originally set for January 1998, which would eventually get pushed back to the following March. In Europe, the game was published through French publisher Infogrames (Instead of Capcom's main European partner Virgin Interactive) and was released in October 1998. In June 2005, Capcom announced that it would be porting Breath of Fire III to the PlayStation Portable handheld system alongside a similar port of Mega Man Legends, with both to be released the following August. The port features a new title logo graphic, and was re-programmed to make use of the handheld's native 16:9 widescreen display. An expanded version of the title's fishing minigame is also included, which can be shared with another PlayStation Portable owner using the system's GameShare function, with the Japanese release including a full-color fishing guidebook as a bonus. An English version of the port was later made available exclusively in Europe in February 2006, which contained the same translation as the original PlayStation release.

On January 27, 2016, Capcom announced that Breath of Fire III would be re-released in February as a download through the PSN network for the PS Vita, PSTV, and other PSP hardware compatible devices. The release announcement applies only to the PlayStation Network's US store.

Audio
The music of Breath of Fire III was composed by Yoshino Aoki and Akari Kaida, two members of Capcom's internal sound team who also provided the vocals for the title's ending song "Pure Again". While previous games in the series used more traditional orchestral compositions, the soundtrack to Breath of Fire III features a jazz-inspired motif that focuses on instruments such as piano and xylophone. In September 1997, Capcom released the Breath of Fire III Original Soundtrack published by First Smile Entertainment, which features 31 select songs from the game across a single disc. A complete musical selection for the game would not be made available until March 2006, when the company released the Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box boxset containing music from the first five games in the series. Capcom had originally intended to use the theme song "Machi" (街, lit. City) by rock band Sophia for an opening animation that was to be included in the game but later discarded. The song would later appear in the game's television commercial in Japan, and would be released as a single in July 1997 by Toy's Factory.

In December 1997, Capcom's released the Breath of Fire III Drama Album, a radio drama which features re-enactments of scenes from the game performed by new and returning voice actors. Some characters, such as Momo, Garr, and Peco, are re-cast, now voiced by Kotono Mitsuishi, Akio Ōtsuka, and Yukiko Matsuura respectively, while Kappei Yamaguchi now performs as both child and adult Ryu, and Kyoko Hikami returns as the voice of Nina, who also sings the album's image song, "Harmonica". The album also includes new voiced roles such as Tomohiro Nishimura as Balio, Takehito Koyasu as Sunder, and Sayaka Narita and Omi Minami as Bambi and Bimbi, a team of reporters created especially for the album.

Reception
Breath of Fire III was met with a mostly positive response in Japan, with Famitsu Weekly awarding it 28 out of 40 possible points, while Dengeki PlayStation Magazine awarded it a 79% average. It was also met with a positive critical reception in Europe, with Computer and Video Games awarding it a full five-star rating, concluding that it is a "totally engrossing RPG" and "highly recommended."

Reviewing the Japanese release as an import, GamePro called it "a very enjoyable RPG in which sure craftsmanship is easily evident", giving praise to the colorful graphics and well-constructed battle system yet criticizing its soundtrack, remarking that it "veers widely from unmemorable electronica to hopeless schmaltz, and more often than not, it doesn't add to the atmosphere of the story."

Reception for Breath of Fire III in North America was positive, with the game holding a GameRankings score of 74% based on 12 reviews, all of them from North American publications. GameSpot declared that despite taking the series into 3D gaming, it was still a very "standard" role-playing game, stating that "even with its handful of new features, Breath of Fire III breaks little new ground." IGN similarly declared that "[f]or an RPG, Breath of Fire presents nothing incredibly new, story-wise, however the way in which everything in the game is arranged and executed shows an incredible amount of attention to detail and depth," additionally giving praise to the game's "memorable characters" and "immersive" gameplay. In their review of the North American release, GamePro disagreed about the story, describing it as complex and full of surprising twists and turns. Though they criticized the long load times, frequent battles, and especially the music, describing it as "a compilation of elevator and mall music", they concluded that the epic story line and innovations such as rotating the isometric view to find hidden items and playing the first half of the game as a child make it a worthwhile purchase for RPG fans.

The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly described Breath of Fire III as highly traditional in both story and graphics, but also highly worthwhile due to the massive length, gripping story, and gameplay features like the ability to morph into different dragons. Next Generation likewise considered Breath of Fire III a gift for lovers of traditional, pre-Final Fantasy VII RPGs, particularly praising the English translation, well-developed characters, hand-drawn sprites, and detailed world. They stated that "Breath of Fire III is more than matched against the new breed of visually flashy RPGs on the market." Game Informer called it a "fairly straight-forward RPG" with colorful graphics and good characters, but found the long load times and high rate of enemy encounters to be a hindrance. PlayStation: The Official Magazine called the game a "must buy", calling attention to the game's "clever use of sound effects, detailed animation, and well-written, often humorous dialogue," adding that "to shrug this game off as 'more of the same' in the role-playing department would be a crime." The North American version would go on to sell 230,000 copies in its first year.

PlayStation Portable
The re-release of Breath of Fire III for the PlayStation Portable was received similarly to the first in Japan, with Famitsu giving the game a marginally better score of 29 out of 40.

European reviewers of the game were mixed. Some, like Eurogamer, were critical of the game's aged presentation and gameplay, claiming that "with nine years of intervening genre development since its inception, this is no wunderkind," citing the port's long load times and slow gameplay to be its downfall. Others, such as Play Magazine, found it to be "pretty generic, as all RPGs never fail to be, but does it all expertly, providing a great adventure that will soak up some hours." Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine called the game "archaic yet charming" and recommended it only as a window into the genre's past. The PlayStation Portable version held a score on GameRankings of 71% at the time of the site's 2019 closure.

Sales
The original PlayStation release sold 425,497 copies in Japan during 1997, making it the 24th most-bought game that year, as well as qualifying it for Sony's "PlayStation the Best" distinction, which allowed it to be re-released in December 2000 at a reduced price. The game sold a further 230,800 copies in the United States, adding up to a total of at least 0 units sold in Japan and the United States.

The PSP version sold 23,448 units in Japan, enough to qualify for a re-release under Capcom's "CapKore" label at a reduced price in January 2007. This adds up to a total of at least 0 copies sold for both the PlayStation and PSP platforms in Japan and the United States.

title: Breath of Fire III


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File:ThrustElectron.png

An image of the Acorn Electron version of Thrust, taken using the ElectrEm emulator.

Fair use rationale
Use of this copyrighted image in the article Thrust (video game) is believed to be fair use on the grounds that:

 * No equivalent image is available in the public domain or could be created that would adequately give the same information
 * It is used here strictly for educational purposes
 * Use of the image will not significantly detract from the copyright holder's ability to sell the image
 * Use of the image adds significantly to the article

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: File:ThrustElectron.png


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Alfred Gray (mathematician)

Alfred Gray (October 22, 1939 – October 27, 1998) was an American mathematician whose main research interests were in differential geometry. He also made contributions in the fields of complex variables and differential equations.

Short biography
Alfred Gray was born in Dallas, Texas to Alfred James Gray & Eloise Evans and studied mathematics at the University of Kansas. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1964 and spent four years at University of California, Berkeley. From 1970–1998 he was a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

He died in Bilbao, Spain of a heart attack while working with students in a computer lab at Colegio Mayor Miguel de Unamuno around 4 AM, on October 27, 1998.

Mathematical contributions
In the broad area of differential geometry, he made specific contributions in classifying various types of geometrical structures, such as (Kähler manifolds and almost Hermitian manifolds).

Gray introduced the concept of a nearly Kähler manifold, gave topological obstructions to the existence of geometrical structures, made several contributions in the computation of the volume of tubes and balls, curvature identities, etc. He published a book on tubes and is the author of two textbooks and over one hundred scientific articles. His books were translated into Spanish, Italian, Russian and German. He was a pioneer in the use of computer graphics in teaching differential geometry (particularly the geometry of curves and surfaces) and of using electronic computation in teaching both differential geometry and ordinary differential equations.

title: Alfred Gray (mathematician)


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Battletoads (Game Boy video game)

Battletoads is a 1991 action game originally released by Rare in 1991 exclusively for the Nintendo Game Boy. Despite having the same title as the original Battletoads game, Battletoads for Game Boy is a completely different game with unique levels. It was never ported to any other systems.

Gameplay

The game is single-player only. The player controls Zitz, and is given three lives and three continues to complete the game, after which they must start over. The gameplay is a mix of side-scrolling fighting and various vehicle races, consisting of eight stages. As with the original Battletoads, the Game Boy game is known to be difficult to beat, requiring fast reflexes, memorization of obstacles, and patience. This is also one of the two Battletoads games in which the player does not have to confront the Dark Queen herself, although she still taunts the player in cutscenes before the levels in a similar fashion to other games in the series.

The game sees Zitz travel to the planet Armageddon to rescue fellow Battletoads Rash and Pinple, who have been captured by the Dark Queen's lacks Robo-Manus, who serves as the final boss. Zitz's mission begins on Armagedda's surface, where Psyko-Pigs and rat-piloted UFOs roam about to destroy intruders. When fighting them, Zitz is capable of unleashing powerful finishing combos. In the second stage, Zitz must pilot a speeder bike through a deadly obstacle course. The speeder bike is armed with a laser cannon, allowing Zitz to shoot down incoming enemies and also battle Scuzz the Rat who appears piloting the Rat Rocket at the end. In the third stage in the dark caverns of Armagedda, Zitz must use the vines to swing across large gaps. Stage four has Zitz hitting the waves on a jet-ski, dodging logs and rafting rats. Stage five poses a foot-race in a zig-zagging path in which Zitz must escape from a constantly rolling brain-like boulder while minding the sudden turns and not stopping. Stage six has Zitz rappelling down a chasm, dodging birds, spikes, and Saturn Toadtraps. In stage seven, Zitz straps on a jet pack and flies high to the tip-top while avoiding barricades, laser beams, and enemies during the flight under a 99-second time limit. In the final stage, Zitz must keep balance and avoid obstacles as he runs around circular platforms in which there's a pseudo 3D effect of running around the platforms before the final battle with Robo-Manus.

Release
The game was released in North America in November 1991, published by Tradewest, and in Europe during 1992, published by Nintendo. Both of these releases feature the same cover art as the NES release of Battletoads. The game was released in Japan on January 7, 1994, published by NCS long after its western releases. The Japanese version portrays the same cover art as that of the Japanese version of Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, which was released in Japan the same day.

Reception
GameRankings, a game review aggregator, assigned Battletoads for the Game Boy an averaged score of 77.67% based on three reviews.

title: Battletoads (Game Boy video game)


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Lord David Cecil

Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil, CH (9 April 1902 – 1 January 1986) was a British biographer, historian, and scholar. He held the style of "Lord" by courtesy as a younger son of a marquess.

Early life and studies
David Cecil was the youngest of the four children of James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury, and the former Lady Cicely Gore (second daughter of Arthur Gore, 5th Earl of Arran). His siblings were Lady Beatrice Edith Mildred Cecil (afterwards Baroness Harlech), Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury (1893–1972) and Lady Mary Alice Cecil (afterwards Mary Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire). Cecil was a delicate child, suffering from a tubercular gland in his neck at the age of 8 years, and after an operation he spent a great deal of time in bed, where he developed his love of reading.

Because of his delicate health his parents sent him to Eton College later than other boys, and he survived the experience by spending one day a week in bed. After school he went on to Christ Church, Oxford, as an undergraduate.

Career
Cecil read Modern History at Oxford and in 1924 obtained first-class honours. From 1924 to 1930 he was a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. With his first publication, The Stricken Deer (1929), a sympathetic study of the poet Cowper, he made an immediate impact as a literary historian. Studies followed on Walter Scott, early Victorian novelists and Jane Austen.

In 1939 he became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, where he remained a Fellow until 1969, when he became an Honorary Fellow.

In 1947 he became Professor of Rhetoric at Gresham College, London, for a year; but in 1948 he returned to the University of Oxford and remained a Professor of English Literature there until 1970. For a time Cecil was an associate of the literary group known as the "Inklings", which included notable authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield. While a professor at New College Cecil's pupils included Kingsley Amis, Bidhu Bhusan Das, R. K. Sinha, John Bayley, the Milton scholar Dennis Burden, and Ludovic Kennedy. Neil Powell describes Amis's relationship with him, or lack of a relationship, as follows:

"[Amis's] allocated supervisor was Lord David Cecil, who seemed disinclined to supervise anything at all; after a term and a half had passed without any contact between them, Kingsley decided to go in search of him at New College. This caused much amusement at the porters' lodge, as if he had asked for the Shah of Persia: 'Oh no, sir. Lord David? Oh, you'd have to get up very early in the morning to get hold of him. Oh dear, oh dear. Lord David in college, well I never did.'"

During his academic career Cecil published studies of Hardy, Shakespeare, Thomas Gray, Dorothy Osborne and Walter Pater. As well as his literary studies he also published a two-volume historical biography of Lord Melbourne (to whom he was distantly related) and appreciations of visual artists – Augustus John, Max Beerbohm, Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones. In retirement he published further literary and biographic studies of Walter de la Mare, Jane Austen, Charles Lamb and Desmond MacCarthy, as well as a history of his own family, The Cecils of Hatfield House and an account of Some Dorset Country Houses. His anthology of writers who had given him special pleasure, Library Looking Glass, appeared in 1975.

Family and personal life
In 1932 Cecil married Rachel MacCarthy, daughter of the literary journalist Sir Desmond MacCarthy. They had three children, including actor Jonathan Cecil.

Publications

 * The Stricken Deer or The Life of Cowper (1929) [on the poet William Cowper; this won the 1929 James Tait Black Memorial Prize]
 * Sir Walter Scott: The Raven Miscellany (1933)
 * Early Victorian Novelists : essays in revaluation (1934)
 * Jane Austen (1936)
 * The Young Melbourne and the Story of his Marriage with Caroline Lamb (1939; reprinted 1948 and 1954)
 * The English Poets (1941)
 * The Oxford Book of Christian Verse (1941) [editor]
 * Men of the R.A.F. (1942) [with Sir William Rothenstein]
 * Hardy the Novelist: an Essay in Criticism (1942) [Clark Lectures]
 * Antony and Cleopatra, the fourth W. P. Ker memorial lecture delivered in the University of Glasgow, 4 May 1943 (1944)
 * Poetry of Thomas Gray (1945) [Warton Lecture]
 * Two Quiet Lives (1948) [on Dorothy Osborne and Thomas Gray]
 * Poets & Story-tellers (1949) [essays]
 * Reading as One of the Fine Arts (1949) inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 28 May 1949
 * Lord M, or the Later Life of Lord Melbourne (1954)
 * Walter Pater--the Scholar Artist (1955) Rede Lecture
 * Augustus John: Fifty-two Drawings (1957)
 * The Fine Art of Reading and Other Literary Studies (1957)
 * Modern Verse in English 1900-1950 (1958) [editor with Allen Tate]
 * Max (1964) [biography of Max Beerbohm]
 * Visionary and Dreamer : Two poetic painters, Samuel Palmer & Edward Burne-Jones (from the A.W. Mellon Lectures, 1969)
 * The Bodley Head Beerbohm (1970) [editor]
 * Max Beerbohm: Selected Prose (1970) [editor]
 * A Choice of Tennyson's Verse (1971) [editor]
 * The Cecils of Hatfield House: a Portrait of an English Ruling Family (1973)
 * Walter de la Mare (1973) [English Association leaflet]
 * A Victorian Album: Julia Margaret Cameron and her Circle (1975) [with Graham Ovenden]
 * Library Looking-Glass: A Personal Anthology (1975) [anthology]
 * Lady Ottoline's Album (1976)
 * A Portrait of Jane Austen (1978)
 * A Portrait of Charles Lamb (1983)
 * Desmond MacCarthy, the Man and His Writings (1984) [editor]
 * Some Dorset Country Houses (1985)
 * A Choice of Bridges's Verse (1987) [editor]

title: Lord David Cecil


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Graham Farish

Graham Farish is a Chinese-owned brand of N gauge British railway models. The Graham Farish Ltd company was founded in 1928 in the UK and Kader Group of Hong Kong bought the firm in 2001. Kader's subsidiary, Bachmann Industries absorbed its operations and the models are made in China.

History
The Poole, Dorset based manufacturer of radio parts and kits entered the model railway business in the late 1940s, after the need for radio sets dropped post World War II. The early 1950s models focused on British OO gauge, and they manufactured track, wagons and other supporting items. Many of the more obscure items such as the Graham Farish Coronation figures (by Russell Gammage) from 1953 are considered collectors items.

Originally the OO railway locomotives were powered by an unconventional 2 pole DC electric motor. Unfortunately many of their diecast items were manufactured with impure mazac, which was all that was available immediately after the War. MZAC is an alloy of Magnesium, Aluminium, Zinc and Copper similar to Zamak), which later crumbled due to Zinc pest.

Graham Farish really found its market niche with the arrival of N scale becoming the major supplier of British outline N scale models under the GRAFAR label at a time when the market was shrinking and the other OO gauge players were suffering badly. The initial range in 1970, started with the 9400 Pannier Tank loco, 4 wheel coaches, bogie 'suburban' stock (based on Period 2 LMS suburban stock) and 'Mainline' bogie stock (based on Southern coaches); which have appeared in Caledonian, LMS, GWR, LNER and SR liveries.

After the withdrawal of two competitive mass-market manufacturers, the Italy-based Lima and German based Minitrix, from the late 1980s Grafar was the only major supplier of British outline models in N scale - predicating its withdrawal from the OO scale market in light of greater competition in the developing collector scale market. Early 1970s products were made with three pole armature motors. They were also equipped with all brass gears. In the early 1980s the motors were improved with five pole armatures. At about the same the gears were replaced with white nylon gears, which were only produced for a short time. The nylon gears were replaced with thin black plastic gears; these could suffer from splits, making the models run badly or not at all. These gears were eventually all replaced by thicker plastic gears, to produce a much more reliable and popular range of locomotives. By the late 1990s the GRAHAM FARISH N Gauge Range 350 lines including a huge variety of Locomotives, Coaches, Wagons, Buildings and complete train sets from starter sets all the way up to the 8 ft x 2 ft 6in Magnum Layouts which came complete with all track laid, and a full set of building kits to complete it.

Takeover by Kader
In 2001, Graham Farish was purchased by Kader Industries of Hong Kong, and absorbed by its subsidiary Bachmann Industries. Bachmann immediately closed the Poole facility and moved production to China, setting about improving the at times poor model robustness of the products by redesigning and latterly reintroducing the entire range.

Bachmann have since increased the size of the Farish range, by duplicating models introduced to the Bachmann OO range: the detail investigation and pre-production of an original railway vehicle is more detailed for an OO scale model, while for production into N scale there is a simply a down-scaling of most components for production. Hence normally, an OO scale Bachmann Branchline model is followed between 6 months to a year later by an N scale Graham Farish model – with the Voyager diesel set being an example.

Bachmann have introduced a selection of models; the BR Standard 3MT 2-6-2T, the LMS Jubilee, Rebuilt Scot, Black 5, Stanier Class 8F, B1 4-6-0, 4MT 2-6-0, A1 (including new-build Tornado 60163), Period 3 coaches and LMS brake (or guards) van; for the modern era, classes 03, 04, 08 and 14 diesel shunters, class 42 'Warship', class 24 class 37, class 47, class 66 freight locos, prototype Deltic, classes 108, 101, 153 DMU and a variety of freight wagons.

Comparison
Graham Farish products are generally divided into two categories. British made equipment is sought more by collectors because it is older and British, while model railway users generally prefer the more robust and detailed Chinese-built models. The way to tell these two types apart is that UK built models have a yellow sticker on the ends of the box and models built in China have a white sticker on the end.

title: Graham Farish


text:
Islam in Korea

Islam is a minor religion in South Korea and North Korea. The Muslim community is centered in Seoul and Busan and there are a few mosques around the country. According to the Korea Muslim Federation, there are about 200,000 Muslims living in South Korea, and about 70 to 80 percent are foreigners. Seoul alone has 40% of South Korea's total Muslim population. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hosted an Iftar dinner during the month of Ramadan every year since 2004.

Early history
During the middle to late 7th century, Muslim traders had traversed from the Caliphate to Tang China and established contact with Silla, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea. In 751, a Chinese general of Goguryeo descent, Gao Xianzhi, led the Battle of Talas for the Tang dynasty against the Abbasid Caliphate but was defeated. The earliest reference to Korea in a non-East Asian geographical work appears in the General Survey of Roads and Kingdoms by Istakhri in the mid-9th century.

The first verifiable presence of Islam in Korea dates back to the 9th century during the Unified Silla period with the arrival of Arab navigators and traders. According to numerous Muslim geographers, including the 9th-century Muslim Persian explorer and geographer Ibn Khordadbeh, many of them settled down permanently in Korea, establishing Muslim villages. Some records indicate that many of these settlers were from Iraq. Korean records suggest that a large number of the Muslim foreigners settled in Korea in the 9th century CE led by a man named Hasan Raza Further suggesting a Middle Eastern Muslim community in Silla are figurines of royal guardians with distinctly Persian characteristics. In turn, later many Muslims intermarried with Koreans. Some assimilation into Buddhism and Shamanism took place owing to Korea's geographical isolation from the Muslim world.

In 1154, Korea was included in the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi's world atlas, Tabula Rogeriana. The oldest surviving Korean world map, the Gangnido, drew its knowledge of the Western Regions from the work of Islamic geographers.

Goryeo period
According to local Korean accounts, Muslims arrived in the peninsula in the year 1024 in the Goryeo kingdom, a group of some 100 Muslims, including Hasan Raza, came in September of the 15th year of Hyeonjong of Goryeo and another group of 100 Muslim merchants came the following year.

Trading relations between the Islamic world and the Korean peninsula continued with the succeeding kingdom of Goryeo through to the 15th century. As a result, a number of Muslim traders from the Near East and Central Asia settled down in Korea and established families there. Some Muslim Hui people from China also appear to have lived in the Goryeo kingdom.

With the Mongol armies came the so-called Saengmogin, this group consisted of Muslims from Central Asia. In the Mongol social order, Saengmogin occupied a position just below the Mongols themselves, and exerted a great deal of influence within the Yuan dynasty.

The first named Muslim of Korean provenance, Ramadan ibn Alauddin, died in 1349.

Small-scale contact with predominantly Muslim peoples continued on and off. During the late Goryeo, there were mosques in the capital Kaesong, called Yegung, whose literary meaning is a "ceremonial hall".

One of those Central Asian immigrants to Korea originally came to Korea as an aide to a Mongol princess who had been sent to marry King Chungnyeol of Goryeo. Goryeo documents say that his original name was Samga but, after he decided to make Korea his permanent home, the king bestowed on him the Korean name of Jang Sunnyong. Jang married a Korean and became the founding ancestor of the Deoksu Jang clan. His clan produced many high officials and respected Confucian scholars over the centuries. Twenty-five generations later, around 30,000 Koreans look back to Jang Sunnyong as the grandfather of their clan: the Jang clan, with its seat at Toksu village.

The same is true of the descendants of another Central Asian who settled down in Korea. A Central Asian named Seol Son fled to Korea when the Red Turban Rebellion erupted near the end of the Mongol's Yuan dynasty. He, too, married a Korean, originating a lineage called the Gyeongju Seol that claims at least 2,000 members in Korea.

Soju
Soju was first distilled around the 13th century, during the Mongol invasions of Korea. The Mongols had acquired the technique of distilling arak from the Muslim World during their invasion of Central Asia and the Middle East around 1256, it was subsequently introduced to Koreans and distilleries were set up around the city of Kaesong. Indeed, in the area surrounding Kaesong, Soju is known as arak-ju.

There are many restrictions in Muslim community including dietary and clothing; drinking alcohol and eating pork is forbidden. However, Korea’s soju export to Islamic countries are increasing, especially Indonesia, a largest Muslim community country, increased 10.1% from 2017. While Islamic countries enforce their dietary rules, they allow alcohol imports for the non-Muslims and foreigners living in Indonesia are permitted to not follow the Islamic dietary laws.

Study of the Huihui Lifa

In the early Joseon period, the Islamic calendar served as a basis for calendar reform owing to its superior accuracy over the existing Chinese-based calendars. A Korean translation of the Huihui Lifa "Muslim System of Calendrical Astronomy", a text combining Chinese astronomy with the zij works of Jamal al-Din, was studied during the time of Sejong the Great in the 15th century. The tradition of Chinese-Islamic astronomy survived in Korea up until the early 19th century.

Decree against the Huihui community
In the year 1427, Sejong ordered a decree against the Huihui (Korean Muslim) community that had had special status and stipends since the Yuan dynasty. The Huihui were forced to abandon their headgear, to close down their "ceremonial hall" (Mosque in the city of Kaesong) and worship like everyone else. No further mention of Muslims exist during the era of the Joseon.

Later periods
Islam was practically non-existent in Korea by roughly the 16th century, although memories of it and a minor Islamic presence survived until the 19th century and onwards. It is believed that many of the religious practices and teachings did not survive. However, in the 19th century, Korean settlers in Manchuria came into contact with Islam once again. It was re-introduced in a more concerted way than the centuries before in the 20th century.

20th-century re-introduction

During the Korean War, Turkey sent a large number of troops to aid South Korea under the United Nations command called the Turkish Brigade. In addition to their contributions on the battlefield, the Turks also aided in humanitarian work, helping to operate war-time schools for war orphans. Shortly after the war, some Turks who were stationed in South Korea as UN peacekeepers began preaching Islam to Koreans. Early converts established the Korea Muslim Society (한국이슬람협회) in 1955, at which time the first South Korean mosque was erected at Imun-dong. The Korea Muslim Society grew large enough to become the Korea Muslim Federation in 1967.

Islam in North Korea
The Pew Research Center estimated that there were 3,000 Muslims in North Korea in 2010, up from 1,000 in 1990. The Iranian embassy in Pyongyang hosts Ar-Rahman Mosque, the only mosque in the country.

Islam in South Korea
In 1962, the government of Malaysia (then Malaya) offered a grant of 33,000 USD for a mosque to be built in Seoul. However, the plan was derailed due to inflation. The Seoul Central Mosque was finally built in Seoul's Itaewon neighborhood in 1976. Today there are also mosques in Busan, Anyang, Gyeonggi, Gwangju, Jeonju, Daegu, and Kaesong. According to Lee Hee-Soo (Yi Huisu), president of the Korea Islam Institute, there are about 10,000 listed Muslims (mostly foreign guest workers) in South Korea.

Seoul also hosts a Hussainiya near Samgakji station for offering salah and memorializing the grandson of Muhammad, Husayn ibn Ali. Daegu also has a hussainiya(İmambargah). The Korean Muslim Federation said that it would open the first Islamic primary school, Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Elementary School, in March 2009, with the objective of helping foreign Muslims in South Korea learn about their religion through an official school curriculum. Plans are underway to open a cultural center, secondary schools and even university. Abdullah Al-Aifan, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Seoul, delivered $500,000 to KMF on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government. The Korean Muslim Federation provides halal certificates to restaurants and businesses. Their halal certificate is recognized by the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (JAKIM), and there are a total of 14 KMF-halal approved restaurants in South Korea as of January 2018.

Before the formal establishment of an elementary school, a madrasa named Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz Madrasa functioned since the 1990s, where foreign Muslim children were given the opportunity to learn Arabic, Islamic culture, and English.

Many Muslims in Korea say their different lifestyle makes them stand out more than others in society. However, their biggest concern is the prejudice they feel after the September 11 attacks. A 9-minute report was aired on ArirangTV, a Korean cable station for foreigners, on Imam Hak Apdu and Islam in Korea.

Migrant workers from Pakistan and Bangladesh make up a large fraction of the Muslim population. The number of Korean Muslims was reported by The Korea Times in 2002 as 45,000 while the Pew Research Center estimated that there were 75,000 South Korean Muslims in 2010, or one in every five hundred people in the country. Muslim immigration rates show a consistent upward trend. Among Muslim communities, there are two distinct groups: Traditional and immigrant Muslims. The "traditional" community of Muslims are usually Korean converts to Islam, while immigrants are people who migrated from Islamic countries to Korea for jobs, increasing the awareness of the religion and to escape hardship. Said migrants usually hail from regions such as the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The immigration of non-Koreans had increased 9.2% compared to 2017, and among the people, the highest age group that decides to migrate are between 20–29, followed up with age of 10–19.

title: Islam in Korea


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Korovin Volcano

Korovin Volcano is one of four volcanic centers of the Atka Volcanic Complex, located near the town of Atka on the northeast part of Atka Island in the Aleutian Islands chain, Alaska, United States. At 5,030 ft, Korovin is the highest point on the island.

Other cones of the Atka Volcanic Complex include Mount Kliuchef at 4,760 ft, Konia Volcano at 3,691 ft and Sarichef Volcano at 3,465 ft along with the Atka Caldera located between Kliuchef and Sarichef. Korovin is the most active of the four vents, but there have also been a couple historical eruptions attributed to nearby Kliuchef. Fumaroles and hydrothermal vents regularly steam from both peaks. A short-lived explosion occurred from the summit crater of Korovin on March 27, 2024 with no reports of ash emission. There were also reports of recent eruptions at the volcano in 2002, 2004 and 2005 which are considered questionable.

title: Korovin Volcano


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Midem

Midem is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l'Édition Musicale, which is organised annually in and around the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. The trade show, organized by Reed MIDEM, a subsidiary of Reed Exhibitions, is billed as the leading international business event for the music ecosystem and has been held since 1967. Several thousand musicians, producers, agents, managers, lawyers, executives, entrepreneurs and journalists from around the globe regularly attend the event, which is usually held at the end of January or early February. While delegates from recording, artist management, and publishers network, new artists showcase their material. Also live music is on show in the evenings.

The event is developing like the industry and is now focused on the core music business (labels, publishers, rights societies and more), the technology sector (startups, developers and big tech companies), and brands and the agencies that represent them (for music and brand campaigns). Since 2007, the Midemlab competition for companies working in musictech has grown in importance. SoundCloud, Spotify and Songkick are among the companies that have risen to prominence after showcasing there.

In December 2021, RX France - the organisers of Midem - made an announcement that they were cancelling the 2022 edition. A statement on their website stated simply, "Due to the lasting pandemic and following a review of its activity, RX France has decided to no longer continue to organize the Midem event." In a separate communication, Midem Director Alexandre Deniot announced that RX France and the city of Cannes were in "exclusive and advanced discussions for the latter to take over the Midem brand".

Business role
Midem provides a forum for business talks, political and legal discussions. It is a market where global distribution and music deals are sealed. It also is a platform for showcasing new artists, musical trends and music-related products and services. So-called musictech, or music technology services, has featured more prominently over later years.

Attendance
In January 2013, Midem was attended by 6,400 delegates from 3,000 companies (out of which 1,350 had stands or pavilions of their own). The event was covered by 350 international journalists. Although there are attendees from all over the world, the majority of delegates have been from Western Europe and North America. In 2015 many more international delegates registered.

In 2020 and again in 2021, the event went entirely online due to COVID-19 restrictions. Not only was the south of France still undergoing curfews and restrictions, it was felt that many international participants would not be able to reach Cannes, and major companies would be reticent about sending employees into a potentially infectious environment. Midem promised to be back in Cannes in June 2022. This has been put in jeopardy by the December 2021 decision to stop running Midem in its current form.

Ceremony awards
The conference has held some ceremonies awards, including Midem Videoclips Awards in the 1980s, compiled by Music Box and Eurotipsheet. Prebilled as an "international" competition, it recognized videos of European and Saxo-Anglo artists. The record companies submitted their videos for competition.

In 1992, it was created the International Visual Music Awards, in association with SACEM (the French society for authors, composers, and publishers of music). In 1994, Billboard reported the ceremony was simply called the MIDEM Awards. In 2000, the MidemNet Award was created. Other ceremonies includes International Classical Music Awards, and the Cannes Classical Awards.

title: Midem


text:
Oxford religious poetry anthologies

Several anthologies of religious poetry have been published by Oxford University Press.

Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1921)
The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse was a poetry anthology edited by Daniel Howard Sinclair Nicholson and Arthur Hugh Evelyn Lee, and published in 1921 by the Oxford University Press. The compilation contains much religious verse, mainly from English Christian traditions, and some from other religions.

Present are poems by A. E. Waite and the young Aleister Crowley. Lee, an Anglican clergyman, associated with Waite. Nicholson later published a work on mysticism and St. Francis of Assisi. They both joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Lee in 1908, and Nicholson in 1910; both were friends of Charles Williams.

Eclecticism is shown by the presence of: Alfred Gurney, a clerical friend of Christina Rossetti; Edward Carpenter, Fabian socialist and homosexual; Frederic W. H. Myers, academic and psychic researcher; John Addington Symonds, aesthete; Walter Leslie Wilmshurst, writer on freemasonry and Wagner; Darrell Figgis, better known as a novelist and Sinn Féin member; George Santayana, the philosopher; Fred G. Bowles who was a Tin Pan Alley lyricist.

The poets included in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse were:

Lascelles Abercrombie

William Alexander

Edwin Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Philip James Bailey

Elsa Barker

George Barlow

Clifford Bax

Henry Charles Beeching

Arthur Christopher Benson

John Stuart Blackie

Francis William Bourdillon

Fred G. Bowles

Emily Brontë

Thomas Edward Brown

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Buchanan

Alice Mary Bunston

John Byrom

Bliss Carman

Edward Carpenter

Henry Bernard Carpenter

Edward Caswall

Madison Julius Cawein

Nora Chesson

G. K. Chesterton

Wilfred Rowland Childe

Amy Clarke

Ellen Mary Clerke

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Henry Constable

James H. Cousins

William Cowper

Dinah Maria (Mulock) Craik

Christopher Pearse Cranch

Richard Crashaw

Arthur Shearly Cripps

Aleister Crowley

Victor James Daley

Thom Davies

William James Dawson

Margaret Deland

Aubrey Thomas De Vere

Ella Dietz

Richard Watson Dixon

Digby Mackworth Dolben

John Donne

Edward Dowden

Augusta Theodosia Drane

Agnes Mary Frances Duclaux

John Charles Earle

Edwin J. Ellis

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Frederick William Faber

Michael Field

Darrell Figgis

Phineas Fletcher

Christina Catherine Fraser-Tytler

Harold E. Goad

Eva Gore-Booth

Edmund Gosse

John Gray

Dora Greenwell

Alfred Gurney

Christopher Harvey

Frances Ridley Havergal

Robert Stephen Hawker

William Ernest Henley

George Herbert

Robert Herrick

Emily Henrietta Hickey

Kathleen Tynan Hinkson

Horace Holley

Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes

Paul Hookham

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gertrude M. Hort

Lord Houghton

Laurence Housman

Jean Ingelow

Harriet Eleanor Hamilton King

Archibald Lampman

Richard Le Gallienne

Ruth Temple Lindsay

Alfred Comyn Lyall

George MacDonald

James Clarence Mangan

Andrew Marvell

John Masefield

Eugene Mason

George Meredith

Alice Meynell

Richard Monckton Milnes

Susan Mitchell

Harold Monro

Lewis Morris

John Spencer Muirhead

Frederic W. H. Myers

Sarojini Nayadu

Henry Newbolt

John Henry Newman

Roden Noel

Alfred Noyes

Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

Henry Nutcombe Oxenham

John Oxenham

Francis Turner Palgrave

Coventry Patmore

Joseph Mary Plunkett

Edgar Allan Poe

Alexander Pope

May Probyn

Francis Quarles

James Rhoades

James Rennell Rodd

Richard Rolle

Christina Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

George William Russell (A. E.)

George Santayana

William Bell Scott

William Sharp

Percy Bysshe Shelley

R. A. Eric Shepherd

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Robert Southwell

James Stephens

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Joshua Sylvester

John Addington Symonds

Arthur Symons

John Bannister Tabb

Rachel Annand Taylor

Alfred Tennyson

Edith Matilda Thomas

Francis Thompson

Thomas Traherne

Herbert Trench

Richard Chenevix Trench

Evelyn Underhill

Henry Vaughan

C. M. Verschoyle

Samuel Waddington

Arthur Edward Waite

Clarence A. Walworth

Frederick William Orde Ward

David Atwood Wasson

Isaac Watts

Charles Weekes

Walt Whitman

Oscar Wilde

Sarah Williams

Walter Leslie Wilmshurst

William Wordsworth

W. B. Yeats

Oxford Book of Christian Verse (1940)
Edited by Lord David Cecil. Poets included were:

Joseph Addison

Matthew Arnold

John Austin

William Baldwin

Barnabe Barnes

William Barnes

Richard Baxter

Joseph Beaumont

Joseph Hilaire Belloc

William Blake

Edmund Bolton

Horatius Bonar

Katherine Bradley

Robert Bridges

Sir Thomas Browne

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Robert Browning

Robert Williams Buchanan

John Bunyan

John Byrom

Thomas Campion

Patrick Carey

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle

Geoffrey Chaucer

G. K. Chesterton

John Clare

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Henry Constable

Edith Cooper

Abraham Cowley

William Cowper

George Crabbe

Richard Crashaw

Samuel Crossman

Sir John Davies

Richard Watson Dixon

Philip Doddridge

Digby Mackworth Dolben

John Donne

Gavin Douglas

William Drummond of Hawthornden

John Dryden

William Dunbar

T. S. Eliot

Michael Field

Giles Fletcher

Phineas Fletcher

Humphrey Gifford

Sidney Godolphin

Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke

William Habington

John Hall

Christopher Harvey

Robert Stephen Hawker

Reginald Heber

Robert Henryson

George Herbert

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke

Robert Herrick

Thomas Heywood

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Lionel Johnson

Ben Jonson

John Keble

Thomas Ken

Charles Kingsley

John Lydgate

Andrew Marvell

James Merrick

Alice Meynell

Henry Hart Milman

John Milton

Henry More

William Morris

Frederic W. H. Myers

John Mason Neale

John Henry Newman

John Newton

John Norris of Bemerton

Clement Paman

Coventry Patmore

Thomas Pestel

Ruth Pitter

Alexander Pope

Francis Quarles

Sir Walter Ralegh

Richard Rolle of Hampole

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

William Shakespeare

Thomas Shepherd

Sir Edward Sherburne

James Shirley

Fredegond Shove

Sir Philip Sidney

John Skelton

Christopher Smart

Robert Southwell

Samuel Speed

Edmund Spenser

Richard Stanyhurst

William Force Stead

Jeremy Taylor

Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson

Francis Thompson

James Thomson

Augustus Montague Toplady

Thomas Traherne

Richard Chenevix Trench

Henry Vaughan

Edmund Waller

Nathaniel Wanley

Thomas Washbourne

Isaac Watts

James, John and Robert Wedderburn

Charles Wesley

Samuel Wesley (poet)

Robert Wild

Charles Williams

Richard Wilton

William Wordsworth

Sir Henry Wotton

Edward Young

New Oxford Book of Christian Verse (1981)
Edited by Donald Davie. Poets included were:

Joseph Addison

Cliff Ashby

W. H. Auden

William Baldwin

Clifford Bax

Richard Baxter

Wendell Berry

John Berryman

Sir John Betjeman

Thomas Binney

William Blake

Anne Bradstreet

Robert Bridges

John Bunyan

Robert Burns

John Byrom

Thomas Campion

Geoffrey Chaucer

John Clare

Jack Clemo

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

William Cowper

Richard Crashaw

Peter Dale

Elizabeth Daryush

Emily Dickinson

Philip Doddridge

John Donne

H.D.

John Dryden

William Dunbar

Timothy Dwight IV

T. S. Eliot

John Meade Falkner

Padraic Fallon

Giles Fletcher

George Gascoigne

Sidney Godolphin

Fulke Greville

Isaac Hann

Reginald Heber

George Herbert

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke

Robert Herrick

Geoffrey Hill

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Julia Ward Howe

Alexander Hume

Elizabeth Jennings

David Jones

Ben Jonson

John Keble

Thomas Ken

William Kethe

Thomas Kinsella

William Langland

Janet Lewis

Henry Francis Lyte

Andrew Marvell

Alice Meynell

John Milton

Alexander Montgomerie

James Montgomery

Edwin Muir

James McAuley

John Mason Neale

John Henry Newman

John Newton

Urian Oakes

Edward Perronet

F. T. Prince

Matthew Prior

Francis Quarles

Christina Rossetti

William Shakespeare

Sir Philip Sidney

C. H. Sisson

Christopher Smart

Stevie Smith

Robert Southwell

Edmund Spenser

Nahum Tate

Edward Taylor

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

R. S. Thomas

Francis Thompson

Augustus Montague Toplady

Thomas Traherne

Henry Vaughan

Jones Very

Edmund Waller

Robert Penn Warren

Thomas Washbourne

Isaac Watts

Charles Wesley

John Brooks Wheelwright

William Whiting

John Greenleaf Whittier

Charles Williams

William Wordsworth

Sir Thomas Wyatt

title: Oxford religious poetry anthologies


text:
User:Hetch

Intro
My name's John. I live in Ireland.

I have no grand motive or backing agenda for my contributions here - I'll just add stuff that I know if it's absent.

This page is an example. I'm only editing it so that it's not empty!

April 18, 2017

Latest
Just discovered the Irish Wikipedians' notice board! Good idea that.

April 14, 2005

title: User:Hetch


text:
SaGa Frontier 2

SaGa Frontier 2 (サガ フロンティア 2) is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the PlayStation. It is the eighth original game in the SaGa series. Initially released in Japan in April 1999, an English version was made available in North America in February 2000 by Square Electronic Arts and in PAL regions the following March by Square. Development for the title was headed by series creator Akitoshi Kawazu, with music by Masashi Hamauzu. The game features an art style unique to the series at the time it was released, utilizing hand-painted watercolor backdrops and characters to give the game a storybook feel. Like other SaGa games, gameplay is largely non-linear, giving the player multiple paths to follow in order to complete the game.

Set in the fictional world of Sandail, the game's plot, as well as location and character names, draw heavily from medieval Germanic and Anglo-Saxon influence. The game's plot is divided into two separate stories, with the player given the option to control either Gustave XIII, an exiled would-be heir on a quest to reclaim his throne, or William Knights, a young man investigating the death of his parents, with both scenarios eventually intertwining in a larger plot involving the fate of the world. SaGa Frontier 2 was met with generally positive reviews, with the Japanese version receiving three re-issues in June 2000, March 2002, and July 2006 respectively.

Gameplay
SaGa Frontier 2 is a role-playing video game featuring two-dimensional character sprites on hand-drawn backgrounds. Players advance through the game by completing story-based missions and interacting with non-player characters to move the plot forward. At the start of the game, the player is given the option of assuming the role of one of two heroes, each with their own individual stories and objectives. Like previous titles in the SaGa series, the game's plot progresses in a mostly non-linear fashion, with a heavier emphasis on exploration and battling than adhering strictly to the narrative. While the player is restricted by the basic flow of the story, they are free to travel to many parts of the game world whenever they choose, and must traverse harsh dungeon environments and defeat enemies to affect their current place in the story.

Battles in SaGa Frontier 2 utilize a turn-based approach where the player must input specific commands for each character at the beginning of each combat round, with each action taking place in accordance with a character's speed rating. In any given round, player may choose to attack an enemy with an equipped weapon, as well as use magic spells to cause harm to their opponent or aid their allies. By continually attacking an enemy with weapons, characters randomly learn special weapon skills that can deal more damage, as well as combine with other party member's attack to form combo attacks. Combat scenarios are divided into three separate types, which are either selectable by the player or dictated automatically by the plot - Duel, which allows one-on-one combat; Team, where up to four characters may take part against an entire enemy group; or Strategic, which can contain a large number of characters in a strategy-like scenario. Each character may equip up to two different kinds of weapons, and may become more specialized in a particular field of combat by assigning them "roles", which increase their proficiency with certain weapon and spell combinations as well as give them additional abilities. By winning battles, characters may increase their statistics based on their actions in combat, thus becoming more powerful.

Plot
SaGa Frontier 2 has two separate storylines: one is the history of Gustave XIII of the country of Finney, and the other concerns a character named Wil Knights. The game takes place in the land of Sandail, with the game's timeline spanning several decades.

Gustave XIII is the former prince of Thermes, the capital of Finney, and was intended to be the heir to the throne of his father, Gustave XII. The son is disinherited and exiled by his father when, at the age of 7, he fails to manifest any magical abilities, known as Anima, during a ritual known as the Firebrand Ceremony. His mother, Queen Sophie, unsuccessfully tries to prevent Gustave XIII's banishment. She and Gustave XIII are banished from the castle by Gustave XII and are forced to live in the slums of Thermes. Master Cielmer, a magician as well as teacher and councilor to Gustave XIII assists both mother and son in escaping Thermes and seeking asylum in the city Gruegel in the kingdom of Na. Despite being granted a mansion to live in by the king of Na, Gustave is still resentful of his rejection and lack of magical powers.

At age seventeen he apprentices as a blacksmith and learns to fight, and it is during his period his mother dies. He then moved to the city-state of Wide where he insinuates himself with the ruler and overthrows him. Five years later, Gustaves father dies, and at the behest of his best friend Kelvin decides to claim the throne. A war then breaks out between Gustave XIII and his half-brother in which Gustave conquers Finney and becomes the ruler of all the surrounding kingdoms except Na. This one holdout is controlled by Phillip, Gustave's brother, who blames Gustave for their mother's death. During the subsequent conflict, Gustave admits he lacks magical powers, and abdicates in favor of Phillip. Gustave then builds a city of his own called Hahn Nova, but it is overrun by monsters and burned to the ground. The fate of Gustave and his friends is left a mystery.

The secondary playable storyline in the game is that of Wil Knights, who is a member of a rich family of "diggers"; after the death of his parents, Wil relocated to the kingdom of Westia. At the age of fifteen Wil sets out to become a famous digger: after hearing about a legendary object known as "The Egg", Wil sets out to find it. After adventures in the Arctic region of Weissland, Wil becomes known as "Tycoon Wil", though he continues to search for the Egg. Wil then has a son named Rich who goes in search of the Egg and finds a young woman named Misty in possession of it. And even though his wife announces their baby girl Ginny has been born, he becomes obsessed with the woman and the Egg, and never returns from his quest.

The final part of the story involves Ginny Knights following the path of her father and grandfather in searching for the legendary object. Upon hearing of the evil powers of the Egg, and its role in leading her father to his death, Ginny decides to find and destroy the object. She eventually discovers the Egg is now possessed by "Fake Gustave", a pretender to the throne of Finney trying to take power in the wake of Gustave XII's death.

Development
SaGa Frontier 2 was first announced in a September 1998 issue of Japanese The PlayStation magazine, where Square claimed the game would be taking a stylistic departure from the original SaGa Frontier released one year earlier, as well as confirming the title's release for spring 1999. A representative from the company stated that they would be abandoning the CG full-motion videos and computer-style graphics of the previous title to focus on a more traditional, hand-drawn look. The game's art style was achieved by using hand-drawn and painted artwork produced on a canvas that would be scanned and digitized to produce the game's backgrounds and character sprites. Many of the game's towns, locations, and characters draw heavily from medieval Germanic influence, with much of the story taking place within a fictional time-frame similar to the 13th century. New features not seen in the previous SaGa Frontier title include compatibility with the PlayStation's DualShock analog controller and PocketStation peripheral device for accessing additional content.

The North American version was announced at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles by Square. On February 15, 2000, the game was released in that region by Square Electronic Arts, and was made available in PAL regions the following March. A promotional movie for SaGa Frontier 2 was included on the SquareSoft 2000 Collector's CD Vol. 3, which was packaged with the initial North American release of Vagrant Story.

Music
While Kenji Ito served as composer for most of the previous SaGa games, the music for SaGa Frontier 2 was written by series newcomer Masashi Hamauzu, who had previously provided the soundtrack for Square's Chocobo no Fushigina Dungeon two years earlier. SaGa Frontier 2's music was recorded at Sunrise Studio in Tokyo, and on April 21, 1999, Square released the three-disc SaGa Frontier II Original Soundtrack in Japan courtesy of publisher DigiCube. The soundtrack features German track names to keep with the game's eastern European theme, and was popular enough to be re-issued on the Square Enix Music label in February 2006. In July 1999, an album called Piano Pieces "SF2" was released featuring piano renditions of music from the game, featuring arrangements from Hamauzu himself along with Naoko Endo, Daisuke Hara, Mikiko Saiki, Daisuke Karasuda, and Michiko Minakata.

Reception
The game received above-average reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. Eric Bratcher of NextGen said of the game, "If you thought FFVIII was unoriginal, this is the game for you. If you liked FFVIII, this is still the game for you." In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 35 out of 40. Game Informer gave the game a positive review while it was still in development.

GameSpot praised the Japanese import's art design in a time when three-dimensional computer graphics were becoming more prominent, stating "[t]he title's relaxed and flowing tones are a pleasant breeze of creativity when compared with most titles' CG, polygons, and pixel-perfect graphics. The unique presentation is SaGa Frontier 2s greatest strength, triumphantly stating: There is still a place for two-dimensional graphics." However, the website felt that the import may alienate fans of the original SaGa Frontier for taking too many liberties with gameplay and style, and that while players were still free to explore scenarios at their own pace, the story itself was more linear than the average SaGa title. SaGa Frontier 2's graphics were also praised by IGN who called the game "beautiful" with a "romantic soundtrack that is of the utmost quality. But it isn't too memorable." IGN's biggest problem with the title was its low replay value and weak presentation, which the website felt didn't take full advantage of the PlayStation's CD format by including an opening movie or character voices, ultimately calling it a "slightly above average game".

In one review, The Enforcer of GamePro said, "SaGa Frontier 2 comes to the battlefield ready to take on the RPG heavyweights with an excellent story-driven adventure that will appeal to the true diehard fan. If you've already finished FFVIII and [you] need another challenge, SF2 won't steer you wrong." E. Coli said in another review, "This is a promising year for Square with such releases as Front Mission 3, Legend of Mana, and Vagrant Story, just to name a few, waiting in the wings. While waiting for those titles to hit our shores, however, RPG fans will have SaGa Frontier 2 to lean on as a solid story that is sure to please role-players and strategy fans alike."

AllGame gave the game four-and-a-half stars out of five, saying that it "not only improves on the original American release, but sets a new watermark for other RPGs to follow. With so many things packed into this game, you'll be playing it for a long time. Once again, Square Soft has outdone themselves and rules the roost."

SaGa Frontier 2 was a bestseller in Japan. The game has sold over 675,000 units in Japan as of December 2004. Like SaGa Frontier, the game has been re-released several times over the years, once in 2000 as part of the Square Millennium Collection, again in 2002 as part of the PSone Books best-seller range, and again in 2004 as a part of the Square Enix Ultimate Hits line.

title: SaGa Frontier 2