How many real people are named in the opening pages of chapter one?

Nathaniel Hawthorne (Preface to The House of the Seven Gables): (1804-1864) American novelist and short story writer.

Robert Browning (Mr Sludge, The Medium): (1812-1889) English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.

Thomas Carlyle: (1795-1881) Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.

George Eliot: (1819-1880) Mary Anne Evans, better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era.

Giambattista Vico: (1668-1744)  Italian political philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist.

Lord Leighton: (1830-1896) English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical and classical subject matter.

Edward Gibbon: (1737-1794) English historian and Member of Parliament.

Venerable Bede: (673-735) a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth. He is well known as an author and scholar, and his most famous work, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People) gained him the title "The Father of English History".

Christina Rossetti: (1830-1894) English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems.