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What be deemed out of character, we may merely add, in some of the occupations in which this excellent clergyman was wont to employ himself, ought to be judged of with a reference both to the times in which he was born and grew up, and to the simple and sequestered population among whom it was his lot to pass his life. "Had he lived," says Mr. Wordsworth, justly," at a later period, the principle of duty would have produced application as unremitting; the same energy of character would have been displayed, though in many instances with widely different effects."

CHAPTER XVI.

Pursuit of Knowledge by Travellers.-Lithgow; Walking Stewart; Athenian Stuart; Niebuhr; Ledyard; Belzoni.-Conclusion.

BOOKS, immense as their value really is, are overrated when it is supposed that they may be made to teach us everything. Many of the items which constitute the mass of human knowledge have not yet found their way into books, but remain still loose and ungathered among the habits and daily transactions of society, or of some particular portion of it, from intercourse with which they are much more easily and perfectly learned than they could be from books, were they actually to be there recorded. But much

of what meets us in our direct intercourse with the world, and supplies us with the richest sources of reflection and speculation, does not admit of being transferred to books at all. Indeed what should any one of us know of that country, or portion of society, with which we happen to be most familiar, if all our knowledge of it consisted merely either of what has been, or of what could be, set down about it in books? What mere description, even the most minute and faithful, ever placed before any man an exact representation even of a scene in the world of inanimate nature? The copy, it is true, simply by virtue of its being a copy, may have charms which the reality wants; but that is not the question. The one is something entirely different from the other, and produces a different impression upon the mind. Much more must this be the case when the subject of the description is something that, from the more various, complicated, and shifting nature of its re

lations and lineaments, and from much of its character not shewing itself to the eye at all, still less admits of being thrown into the shape of a picture. The moral condition, indeed, of a country and its inhabitants is constituted by so multifarious a concourse of circumstances, that their number and diversity alone would preclude them from being adequately represented in their working and effect by any description. To be felt and understood in their real power and combined agency, they must be seen and experienced. A general judgment with regard to the matter may undoubtedly be formed from the reports of others; and from such reports also, filled up and coloured by the mind of the reader or hearer, a sufficiently vivid picture of something having a certain resemblance to the original may be drawn; but the real features of that original are nevertheless sure to be in a thousand respects misconceived. Hence with regard to certain subjects, and these neither the least interesting nor the least important to be known, travelling becomes a means of acquiring knowledge, for which in fact there is no substitute. Crowded, too, as is this path of enterprise with so many both of the hazards and the opportunities most alluring to a warm imagination, it is not to be wondered at that it should always have had a peculiar charm for active and adventurous spirits, and that in no other pursuit whatever should greater toils, privations, and dangers have been encountered and over

come.

In the small space that now remains to us we cannot attempt to enumerate many names from the long catalogue of celebrated travellers; but our work would be very incomplete without a reference to a few of the most distinguished of those examples which recent times have afforded of this species of devotion in the pursuit of knowledge. There is no other, as

we have just remarked, which has sustained men in the endurance of more severe and prolonged sufferings, or more frequently tempted them to peril everything, even life itself, in the effort to attain their object.

Some have performed journeys of wonderful extent and difficulty on foot. Of this class is WILLIAM LITHGOW, who was born in Scotland about the end of the sixteenth century. This person, in a history of his adventures, which he published in 1614, and which has been more than once reprinted, computes the extent of his pedestrian wanderings over various countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, at no less than thirty-six thousand miles. He underwent many hardships in the course of his peregrinations; but the worst misfortune which befell him was what he suffered on his return home, when he was seized at Malaga, in Spain, by the Inquisition, and subjected both to the ordinary and the extraordinary torture. So dreadfully was he disabled by the injuries he received on this occasion, that after he reached England, and it was proposed that he should make his appearance at Court to present his book to James I., he had to be carried thither on a litter, his worn and emaciated form exciting the astonishment of all who looked on it. Lithgow, who afterwards recovered his health, died in 1640. The late Mr. JOHN STEWART, commonly called Walking Stewart, affords us another instance which deserves to be commemorated under this head. Mr. Stewart had only recently gone out to Madras as a writer in the service of the East India Company, when, in the year 1765, he formed the extraordinary resolution of leaving the Presidency, and setting out to travel on foot over the world. first thing which he did, in pursuance of this determination, was to write a letter to the Directors, in which he told them that he 66 was born for higher pursuits than to be a copier of invoices and bills of

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lading to a company of grocers, haberdashers, and cheesemongers." This heroic epistle, which doubtless not a little amused the persons to whom it was addressed, is said to be still preserved among the records of the Company. Its spirited author lost very little time, after despatching it, in proceeding to execute his project. He first directed his course to Delhi; and he subsequently visited in the same manner almost every other part of the Indian peninsula, and even extended his excursions to Persia, and, crossing the Red Sea, traversed a considerable portion of the opposite continent of Africa. Finally, he determined to make out the journey to Europe on foot, which he actually accomplished, arriving at length in safety at Marseilles, after surmounting a long succession of difficulties by the most unconquerable perseverance. He then made a tour through Spain, and afterwards walked across France to his native country. But he had not come home, even after all this exertion, to repose from his toils. He soon after set out on a pedestrian perambulation over England, Scotland, and Ireland; and, that finished, he proceeded to the New World, and walked over the greater part of the United States. Such performances will be acknowledged to have amply earned for their author the epithet by which he was distinguished.

Walking Stewart must not be confounded with Mr. JAMES STUART, commonly called Athenian Stuart, from his splendid work entitled "The Antiquities of Athens," who, it so happens, is also famous for his travels, a considerable part of which was performed on foot. Indeed, Stuart's life is altogether a fine instance of devotion to the pursuit of knowledge. He was born in London in 1713, and by the early death of his father was left, while yet a boy, to support his mother and her three younger children, by the exer

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