Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/274

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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

but to turn it out to play for a season. All great men of letters have, therefore, been enthusiastic walkers (exceptions, of course, excepted). Shakespeare, besides being a sportsman, a lawyer, a divine, and so forth, conscientiously observed his own maxim, 'Jog on, jog on, the footpath way'; though a full proof of this could only be given in an octavo volume. Anyhow, he divined the connection between walking and a 'merry heart'; that is, of course, a cheerful acceptance of our position in the universe founded upon the deepest moral and philosophical principles. His friend, Ben Jonson, walked from London to Scotland. Another gentleman of the period (I forget his name) danced from London to Norwich. Tom Coryate hung up in his parish church the shoes in which he walked from Venice and then started to walk (with occasional lifts) to India. Contemporary walkers of more serious character might be quoted, such as the admirable Barclay, the famous Quaker apologist, from whom the great Captain Barclay inherited his prowess. Every one, too, must remember the incident in Walton's Life of Hooker. Walking from Oxford to Exeter, Hooker went to see his godfather, Bishop Jewel, at Salisbury. The bishop said that he would lend him