Sir Thomas More

Wednesday

Roger Kimball

Trump is working overtime to restore the rule of law

In the matter of Donald Trump v. Leviathan, let me begin by stipulating that Sir Thomas More was right in A Man for All Seasons when he remonstrated with his future son-in-law William Roper.  Roper was urging More to arrest the scheming Richard Rich, whose machinations would eventually lead to More’s execution. But, More points out, Rich had broken no law.   William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that! Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?

Putin tariffs

Thursday

James Panero

Holbein at the Morgan

There’s a moment in portraiture when people started having a mind of their own. All of a sudden you see it in the faces: the eyes, the brow, the lip. We are no longer looking at a figure for all time — or even a sitter in a moment in time — but at something more like “me time.” The focus is not on outward appearances but inward looking. These people are lost in thought. That’s just where Hans Holbein the Younger, the great portraitist of the early sixteenth century, found them. The German artist, born into a family of painters around 1497, could conjure the smallest details at his fingertips. He quickly became the most sought-after portraitist in Europe and, by 1536, the court painter of Henry VIII (at a time when Henry himself was courting).

Holbein

Monday

Grayson Quay

The Tudor roots of wokecraft

In January 2019, I received an email from an administrator at Georgetown University, where I was a graduate student. She and my department chair wanted to meet with me to “discuss concerns that have been raised by some of your peers about classroom comments and behavior.” This meeting, they told me, would “function as the start of a conversation.” They didn’t say where the conversation might lead. I concluded that the next step would be a formal disciplinary hearing. I was terrified. Three-quarters through a two-year program, I was in danger of being forced to leave without a degree. And for what? I scanned my memory for deviant statements. There were a few: I’d alluded in print to certain essential biological differences between men and women.

reformation