[…] A near-nude dance of dates, Brilliant in darkness — 1617, Then 1500, and so back, gyrates To reach — harsh braking on the Time Machine — To 1321, anno felice For Dante, paradised with Beatrice.

[W]hile all mourned and honoured the dead, thou hast lived to merit our hate and execration—lived to unite thyself with the vile tyrant who murdered thy nearest and dearest— […]

Some of the world's leading intellects were meeting there.

Among other liberties, they were permitted to assart their lands in Woodford and many other places, and enclose them with a ditch and low hedge, that they might take of their woods at pleasure; to have the forfeiture of their own men; to hunt the fox, hare, and cat, in the forest; that their dogs should not be expediated†. […] † Expediating dogs, according to the forest laws, signifies to cut out the ball of dogs' fore-feet; the mastiff is to have only the three claws of the fore-foot, on the right side, cut off next the skin, for the preservation of the king's game. Every one that keeps any great dog, not expediated, forfeits 3s. 4d. to the king.