This thesis traces the dynamic between labour and learning as it was figured by Scottish writers in the period 1759-1828. Vocational specialization and engagement with a literary field that traversed professional and disciplinary boundaries were the twin imperatives of the Scottish Enlightenment’s modernising credo. But the division of labour was also associated with a narrowing of intellectual and moral capacity thought to be incompatible with the exhortations of politeness and civility. Leisured cultivation offered readers and writers a middle ground in which to negotiate between these contradictory demands. This study explores the way in which this culture of intellectual improvement was claimed by authors and readers involved in manual labour as a counterinfluence to the rigours of work, and as a civilizing prerogative that extended to all social levels. But others registered significant anxiety towards the destabilising effects of excessive delicacy or refinement, and feared that these might be exacerbated by contact with the necessity of bodily labour. I argue that this contributed to a redressing of the content and purpose of popular education that sought to match it to the role of the lower classes within the economic and political order. Particular attention is paid in the following study to authors who either claimed or were ascribed a labouring identity such as Robert Burns and James Hogg, but I also deal with lesser-known writers, and frame their engagement with intellectual improvement through broader eighteenth-century discourses on the division of labour and the theory of mind. In doing so, I discuss a variety of genres and forms, including philosophical and economic treatises, poetry, memoir, biography, the novel, and the literary periodical.

This thesis focuses on some of the most significant and least understood aspects of the life of London publisher Henry Colburn (c.1784-1855). Its purposes are to correct the misinformation currently in circulation, to introduce new information, and to reassess Colburn‘s reputation and accomplishments in light of this evidence. The thesis first examines the errors and limitations of previous appraisals of Colburn and how various primary sources can be used to correct and augment them. It next considers Colburn‘s early years before surveying his periodical publications and his controversial publicity methods. The thesis briefly recounts Colburn‘s involvement with the ‘silver-fork’ school of fiction and then examines in greater depth his relationships with writer Benjamin Disraeli and one-time business partner Richard Bentley. Colburn‘s two marriages are also studied as the focus of the thesis moves onto the latter half of his career, his retirement, and his death. The final chapter tenders some general conclusions based on the foregoing matter and suggests further avenues of study concerning Colburn, his role in the history of publishing, and his place in the traditional paradigms of Romantic and Victorian literary culture.

This thesis examines concepts of disease existing in the Anglo-Saxon period. The focus is in particular on the conceptual intricacies pertaining to pestilence or, in modern terms, epidemic disease. The aim is to (1) establish the different aspects of the cognitive conceptualisation and their representation in the language and (2) to illustrate how they are placed in relation to other concepts within a broader understanding of the world. The scope of this study encompasses the entire corpus of Old English literature, select Latin material produced in Anglo-Saxon England, as well as prominent sources including works by Isidore of Seville, Gregory of Tours, and Pope Gregory the Great. An introductory survey of past scholarship identifies main tenets of research and addresses shortcomings in our understanding of historic depictions of epidemic disease, that is, a lack of appreciation for the dynamics of the human mind. The main body of research will discuss the topic on a lexico-semantic, contextual and wider cultural level. An electronic evaluation of the Dictionary of Old English Corpus establishes the most salient semantic fields surrounding instances of cwealm and wol (‘pestilence’), such as harmful entities, battle and warfare, sin, punishment, and atmospheric phenomena. Occurrences of pestilential disease are distributed across a variety of text types including (medical) charms, hagiographic and historiographic literature, homilies, and scientific, encyclopaedic treatises. The different contexts highlight several distinguishable aspects of disease, (‘reason’, ‘cause’, ‘symptoms’, ‘purpose’, and ‘treatment’) and strategically put them in relation with other concepts. Connections within this conceptual network can be based on co-occurrence, causality, and analogy and are set within a wider cultural frame informed largely though not exclusively by Christian doctrine. The thesis concludes that Anglo-Saxon ideas of disease must be viewed as part of a complex web of knowledge and beliefs in order to understand how they can be framed by various discourses with more or less diverging objectives. The overall picture emerging from this study, while certainly not being free from contradiction, is not one of superstition and ignorance but is grounded in observation and integrated into many-layered systems of cultural knowledge.