Scottish poet and philosopher. His best known work, Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) was both successful and influential. His poem The Minstrel (1771-1774) details the natural education of a young shepherd who eventually attains poetic genius. He published a number of other philosophical, theological, and linguistic works, several collections of poems, and, in 1778, a collection entitled Essays on Poetry and Music As They Affect the Mind.

Also known as "The Thunderbolt," Bayezid I was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1389–1402. Bayezid I founded what would become the first centralized Ottoman state grounded in traditional Muslim and Turkish institutions. Bayezid was captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and died in captivity the following year. The Ottoman Interregnum was triggered as a result of Bayezid's death.

English Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons and an aquaintance of Alexander Pope.

A member of Jesus's Twelve Apostles. He is referred to as Nathanael in the Fourth Gospel of the New Testament. Stories of his martyrdom describe two methods; in one, he was flayed alive. This version is featured in works by several prominent artists, including Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Ribera.

Popular Irish actor and founder of Crow Street Theatre, a contemporary of David Garrick who challenged Garrick's position as the foremost actor of the era.

Friend of William Collins and John Home. In The History of the Rebellion in the Year 1745 (1802), Home tells of how Barrow, an Englishman but then a student at Edinburgh, escaped with Home and others from the Castle of Doune after the Battle of Falkirk (1746).

His Argenis (1621) was a very popular romance narrative poem.

Poet, chaplain of the Church of England, and later Benedictine monk, Barclay is best remembered for his work The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde, a translation of the German satire Das Narrenschiff by Sebastian Brant.

Barbauld's career opened under her birth name, Anna Aikin, with publication by the Warrington Academy's Eyres Press of Corsica: An Ode (1768), followed by Poems, also first published at Warrington by Eyres Press (1772) before being reprinted in London by Joseph Johnson (1773). The same year, she collaborated with her brother, John Aikin, on a volume of Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose (1773).

Italian writer, soldier, monk, and bishop, best known for his Novelle, a collection of short stories published in four volumes between 1554 and 1573. Bandello's work popularized the genre of the short story, a trend which influenced the literature of England, France, and Spain for the remainder of the sixteenth century. Bandello's stories have been adapted into plays by dramatists such as John Webster, Philip Massinger, and John Fletcher, but the most famous adaptation of his work is Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.