Literary almanac ...

... poet Anthony Thwaite turns 77 today.

... in 1626 a theological treatise eventually published as Vox Piscis was delivered top Cambridge University.

... Anna Akhmatova was born in 1889.

.. Jean Anouilh was born in 1910. ("Beauty is one of the rare things that do not lead to doubt of God. ")

... Dr. John Fell was born in 1625:

Tom Brown, author of The Dialogues of the Dead, about to be expelled from Oxford for some offence, was pardoned by Fell on the condition of his translating extempore the 33rd epigram of Martial:

"Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere - quare; Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te."

To which he immediately replied with the well-known lines:

I do not love thee, Dr Fell,

The reason why I cannot tell;

But this I know, and know full well,

I do not love thee, Dr Fell.