The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1870-01-20
SeDsifivemess OF DgfOrmesI
People.


In the Stowe-ByrOn controversy, ref
erence has repeatedly been made -t0
that defOrmity of the poet to which ne
was so nervOusly sensitive-his club
foot, or rather feet. When Mr.. Trel-
awney uncovered the corpse Of Byron,
at MissOlDnghi, he saw that ''both his
feet were cIubbed and Withered to the
knee; the form and face Of an Apollo,
with the feet and legs of a sylvan
satyr." ("RecOllectiOus'' From a
note in MOore's "IItfe," it seems that
Byron, when at Harrow, at the speech
making, spoke Lattmjo, and would
have spoken as -Draaces, but feared
the taunt, pedi5usqIe fltgaci5us, would
derive point from his lameness. This
little lame boy was already a poet;
and 1t IS a curious coincidence that
his great contemporary, ScOtt-whO,,
when Byron was at Harrow, was then
about 80 years of age, and was estab- p
fishing his fame as the author Of the
aMinstrelsy of the Scottish BOrdern--
was also lame; and, when a little
lame boy, he, too, had scribbled verse,
and, at Sandy-KOwne and Kelso, had
found a recompense in Percy's ''R i
iques" for those youthful sports in
which he was denied by his inaFmity
from participating. The poet Home
pitied the child "with the withered
limb" which, he thought, doomed,
him "tO a life of tnertness and moru-
| fcatiOn." Yet Scott grew up to be u
stout and sturdy walker; and ByrOn1
powers as a swimmer were almost uu-
surpassed, although zone day. after u
bathe, he held out his leg to Mr.. Trel-
awney, saying, ~ hope this aCcursed
limb will be knocked off in the war;
Scott would seem to have accepted his
/ bodily infrmity with resignation,
/ Byron with impatience; although
both these lame poets aud brilliant
contemporaries could use their feet,
either On land or in the water, with
such effective power. In the year be-
fore the lame poet, Scott, was bOrn,-
there died another lame poet, Mark
/ IAkenside, the author Of THE Pleasures
\ of Imagination" who was as a'utely
sensitive as Byron himstl II to his own
Ilameness, though from a very differ
ent cause to that which troubled the
J spirit OF the well born lord. For
| Akenside was the son of a butcher at
Newcastle-on-Tyne; and, when he
was a child, his fathers Cleaver feil
upon his foot and lamed him for life
} Akenside, therefore, blushed with false
pride. regarding his lameness as a per-
RI petual reminder of his lOwly birth
2 Perhaps the most remarkable case Of
t lameness on record is that of Archbi
shop Laud, who tells US, in his diary,
that he was lamed in one leg "by the
biting of bugs" Medical knowledge
: has made such rapid strides since the
= not very distant day when the emil
} nent surgeon, CheSeIden, said ne knew
of no way to cure 2 club foot and
= since the year 1910, when the OrthO-
D poedic Hospital was founded, such q
? defOrmity as that from which Byron
! suffered has been, in numerous cases,
5 removed, and in many more cases at
? tleviated. Mechanical inventions have
= also been wOndrOusly advanced, and,
a thanks to the aid afforded by one Of
f these ingenious devices, Mdlle Carlotta
Patti was enabled to conceal her lame
S ness, and to appear for the first time
{ Gn 1862, at the Academy of Music,
f New York, in the character Of AnItla,
D in ola SOnnambuIa" When Samuel
' Foote was hmed by broken leg, he
t received, in compensation, the patent
/, Of "the little theatre" in the Haymar-
I ket.