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Excerpt from The History and Antiquities of Eyam: With a Full and Particular Account of the Great Plague, Which Desolated That Village, A. D. 1666 Country villages, in a great measure, afford but few circumstances sufficiently important for historical compilation: indeed, general interest cannot be excited by occurrences of a purely local character; and, therefore, all histories of small places, divested of imaginary incidents, must be strictly confined to the notice of their respective inhabitants. A well-written history of Eyam, a sequestered village in the Peak, would, however, be well worthy of public perusal: this "little mountain city" being "overshadowed by the spirit of old" - hallowed by the ever-present shades of the greatest of moral heroes - encircled with an enduring and a dazzling halo of genius, must ever render it a place of sleep, general, and intense interest. The awful circumstance connected with the local history of this romantic village - its desolation by the plague A.D. 1666, - has, from its occurrence, strongly elicited the attention and notice of a great portion of the sympathizing and thinking public. This may be inferred from the calamitous event having at sundry times called into action the highly classic pens of the following elegant authors: - Dr. Meas, Miss Anna Seward, Allan Cunningham, E. Rhodes, S. T. Hall, William and Mary Howitt, S. Roberts, J. Holland, and a many others, who have, in verso and prose, laudably endeavoured to perpetuate the sufferings of a joint number of mortals, who, like Codrus and Curtius, offered themselves up a self-sacrifice for the salvation of their country. Highly commendable as are the brief descriptions of these illustrious authors, on this painfully interesting subject, they are, however, respectively deficient in ample detail, - in correct data, - in the enumeration of material circumstances, - and in being compiled from cursory, casual, and erroneous information: defects, which could nave been avoided only by a long residence in the locality. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.