A Walk from London to John O'Groat's: With Notes by the WayBurritt, Elihu
History
A Walk from London to John O'Groat's: With Notes by the Way
Burritt, Elihu
Agriculture -- Great Britain; England -- Description and travel
intermediate positions of public honor and trust, to that of Finance
Minister for India, and died at the meridian of his manhood in that
country of dearly-bought distinctions.
On Tuesday, Sept. 8th, I commenced my walk northward from this
threshold town of Scotland. Followed down the Teviot to Denholm,
the birth-place of the celebrated poet and linguist, Dr. John
Leyden, another victim who offered himself a sacrifice to the costly
honors and emoluments of East Indian official life. One great
thought fired his soul in all the perils and privations of that
deadly climate. It was to ascend one niche higher in knowledge of
oriental tongues than Sir William Jones. He labored to this end
with a desperate assiduity that perhaps was never surpassed or even
equalled. He died hugging the conviction that he had attained it.
This little village was his birthplace. Here he wrote his first
rhymes, and wooed and won the first inspirations of the muse. His
heart, as its last pulses grew weaker and slower, in that far-off
heathen land, took on its child-thoughts again and its child-
memories; and his last words were about this little, rural hamlet
where he was born. A beautiful monument has been erected to his
memory in the centre of the large common around which the village is
built. On each of the four sides of the monument there is a tribute
to his name and worth; one from Sir Walter Scott, and one taken from
his own poems, entitled "Scenes of my Infancy," a touching appeal to
his old friends and neighbors to hold him in kind remembrance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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