THE LEARNED SMITH.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 203, 11 August 1927, Page 6

THE LEARNED SMITH.

MASTERING THE CLASSICS. WHILE TOILING AT THE FORGE. A blacksimth is the last man to whom one looks, as a rule for the sort of learning that scholars acquire. Elihu Burritt, famous in two continents as “The learned blacksmith," for that reason is a man whose memory should be kept alive (says T.P.’s and Cassell’s Weekly). Born in New England in 1810, he was of Welsh descent, a remote ancestor of his having emigrated from Glamorganshire in 1651. The smithy was only one of his fields of energy. He qutted it, at one time, to become a grocer, and at another, to labour as a commercial traveller. But it was mainly in the smithy that he acquired his remarkable erudition, specialising first in mental arithmetic and then in languages, both living and dead. MISCELLANEOUS STUDIES. He used to set himself quaint sums to work out in his head while shoeing horses, considering, for example: " How many barleycorns, at three to the inch, would it take to go round the earth at the Equator?" When his computations were checked, they were always found to be correct. How many languages he mastered while thus toiling with his hands, nobody knows. Very likely he himself did not know. Here, however, is a passage from his diary, for the year 1837, which shows how miscellaneous his studies were: “June 20: Twenty-five lines Hebrew; French; 10 pages Cuvier’s Theory; eight lines Syriac; 10 do. of Polish; 15 names of stars; 10 hours’ forging. "June 20: Twenty-five lines Hebrew; eight of Syriac; 1 I hours’ forging. "June 21: Fifty-five lines Hebrew; eight lines of Syriac; J 1 hours’ forging.” Soon he was able to transfer his activities from the forge to the platform, where he became a popular lecturer, always announced as “the learned blacksmith." He urged among other things, universal peace, universal penny postage, and the emancipation of the slaves. THE POSTMAN POET. His zeal for these causes brought him to Europe, where he attended innumerable conferences, and resided for many years. For some time he held the office of American Consul at Birmingham, though General Grant, on becoming President, removed him from the post to make room for one of his political supporters. In the course of a walking tour he made the acquaintance of Edward Capern, the postman poet, whom he accompanied, one day, on his round from Bideford to Buckland Brewer, explaining to the servants at every house at which he called how great an honour it was to them to receive their letters from the hands of a votary of the Muses.