rom this
threshold town of Scotland. Followed down the Teviot to Denholm,
the birth-place of the celebrated poet and linguist, Dr. John
Leyden, another victim who offered himself a sacrifice to the costly
honors and emoluments of East Indian official life. One great
thought fired his soul in all the perils and privations of that
deadly climate. It was to ascend one niche higher in knowledge of
oriental tongues than Sir William Jones. He labored to this end
with a desperate assiduity that perhaps was never surpassed or even
equalled. He died hugging the conviction that he had attained it.
This little village was his birthplace. Here he wrote his first
rhymes, and wooed and won the first inspirations of the muse. His
heart, as its last pulses grew weaker and slower, in that far-off
heathen land, took on its child-thoughts again and its child-
memories; and his last words were about this little, rural hamlet
where he was born. A beautiful monument has been erected to his
memory in the centre of the large common around which the village is
built. On each of the four sides of the monument there is a tribute
to his name and worth; one from Sir Walter Scott, and one taken from
his own poems, entitled "Scenes of my Infancy," a touching appeal to
his old friends and neighbors to hold him in kind remembrance.

All this section is as fertile as it can be in the sceneries and
historical associations favorable for inspiring a strong-hearted
love of country, and for the development of the poetry of romantic
patriotism. It was pleasant to emerge from the dark, cold, barren
border-land, from the uncivilized mountains, standing sullen in the
wild, shaggy chevelure of nature, and to walk again between towering
hills dressed in the best toilet of human industry, crowned with
golden wheatfields, and zoned with broad girdles of the greenest
vegetation. It is when these contrasts are suddenly and closely
brought within the same vista that one sees and feels how the
Creator has honored the labor of human hands, and lifted it up into
partnership with His omnipotences in chronicling the consecutive
centuries of the earth in illuminated capitals of this joint
handwriting. It is a grand and impressive sight--one of those dark-
browed hills of the Border-land, bearded to its rock-ridged forehead
with such bush-bristles and haired with matted heather. In nature
it is what a painted Indian squaw in her blanket, eagle feathers and
mocc