Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual IndustryEdgar, John G. (John George)
General
Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry
Edgar, John G. (John George)
Biography; Biography -- Juvenile literature
miraculous escape from drowning, and which he ever afterward ascribed
to a special interposition of Providence in his behalf. Along with a
young companion, he had gone to bathe in a river in the neighborhood
of the school; and, in their haste and carelessness, they had mistaken
a deep pool for the place where they usually immersed themselves. They
were just on the point of plunging in when a voice called on them to
wait, and, at the moment, an equestrian appeared at their side, quite
as suddenly and opportunely as the two strange horsemen did at Lake
Regillus. He demanded if they could swim, and on being answered in the
negative, threatened them with a sharp castigation unless they walked
off immediately. Thus menaced, and considering that they were at the
moment liable to be lashed with peculiar facility and effect, the
gentle youths clutched up their raiment, and, in fear and trembling,
fled from the spot.
While encouraging and cultivating his turn for general literature,
Shore had not lagged behind his fellows in the proper studies of
the school; and in the course of time he was sent to Harrow, then
flourishing under the auspices of Dr. Sumner. There he was placed
on the fifth form, between Sheridan and Halhead; Dr. Parr being
tutor of the three. Shore applied himself to his classic studies,
and showed so keen a sense of their beauties that he became a great
favorite with the learned and fastidious head-master; though it was
augured, that of the three leading boys, Halhead was the one destined
to immortal distinction. And while events were proving the fallacy
of this prognostication, Harrovian prophets were preparing another
proof of the vanity of human anticipations by assigning to Sir George
Sinclair the prospective triumphal crown in preference to Lord Byron
and Sir Robert Peel. Shore left when on the point of succeeding to the
captaincy of the school. When Warren Hastings, at once the ablest and
most unscrupulous governor whom India ever saw, obtained a writership
and was shipped off to Bengal, his withdrawal from studies which
seemed likely to make so clever a youth one of the first scholars of
the age not only elicited an indignant remonstrance from the master
of Westminster, but even prompted that worthy individual to make the
generous and disinterested offer of sending so promising a pupil to
Oxford at his own expense; but it does not appear that the fate of the
future friend, associate, and successor of Hastings, excited equal
interest or pity in the breast of Dr. Sumner. However, their intimacy
had become such that a correspondence was commenced between them,
which did not cease till death put a period to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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