Here’s some fairly minor walking lore relating to James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799), a Scottish judge, linguist, and
(I suppose you’d have to say) philosopher, one of the early theorists of
evolution. On no obvious scientific basis he posited the notion that men were
descended from apes. He’s
even mentioned in Martin Chuzzlewick.
He seems not to have been taken all that
seriously by contemporaries. According to
a piece in The Herald and Genealogist, Volume the Third, 1866, “it is said that
Lord Kames, to whom he would on one occasion have yielded precedence, declined
it, saying. ‘By no means, my Lord, you must walk first, that I may see your
tail’.”
That's him below on the far right, Lord Kames on far left, Hugo Arnot in the middle: the etching is by John Kay:
And he's the fellow second from the right in this one:
There’s another walking story about Monboddo that I have
yet to fully fathom. On one occasion he came out of court to find it was raining. A sedan chair was waiting for him but he
declined to use it, calmly placed his wig in the chair, and walked home in the
rain. Some sources say this was because he employed the methods of “the ancients”
to keep fit, but that hardly seems a complete explanation.
