UC-NRLF 
 
 *$B 285 775 
 
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 SELF-HELP: 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
 
 CHARACTER AND CONDUCT, 
 
 BY SAMUEL SMILES, 
 AUTHOR OF " THE LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHKNSON. 
 
 " This above all, To thine own self be true ; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then h false to any man." 
 
 SnAKSPEARE. 
 
 A REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 T I C K N O R AND FIELDS 
 
 MDCCCLXVI. 
 
THE American edition of " SELF-HELP," published bj 
 Messrs. TICKNOR AND FIELDS, is the only one authorized by 
 me, as they did me the honor to enter into an arrangement, 
 previous to the publication of the work in England, to bring 
 if out simultaneously in the United States. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE origin of this book may be briefly told. 
 
 Some fifteen years since, the author was requested 
 to deliver an address before the members of some 
 evening classes, which had been formed in a northern 
 town for mutual improvement, under the following 
 circumstances : 
 
 Two or three young men of the humblest rank re- 
 solved to meet in the winter evenings, for the purpose 
 of improving themselves by exchanging knowledge 
 with each other. Their first meetings were held in 
 the room of a cottage in which one of the members 
 lived ; and, as others shortly joined them, the place 
 soon became inconveniently filled. When summer 
 set in, they adjourned to the cottage garden outside ; 
 and the classes were then held in the open air, round 
 a little boarded hut used as a garden-house, in which 
 those who officiated as teachers set the sums, and 
 gave forth the lessons of the evening. When the 
 weather was fine, the youths might be seen, until a 
 late hour, hanging round the door of the hut like a 
 cluster of bees; but sometimes a sudden shower of 
 
 M288339 
 
Iv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 rain would dash the sums from their slates, and dis- 
 perse them for the evening unsatisfied. 
 
 Winter, with its cold nights, was drawing near, and 
 what were they to do for shelter ? Their numbers 
 had by this time so increased, that no room of an or- 
 dinary cottage could accommodate them. Though they 
 were for the most part young men earning compara- 
 tively small weekly wages, they resolved to incur the 
 risk of hiring a room ; and, on making inquiry, they 
 found a large, dingy apartment to let, which had been 
 used as a temporary Cholera-hospital. No tenant 
 could be found for the place, which was avoided as if a 
 plague still clung to it. But the mutual improvement 
 youths, nothing daunted, hired the cholera-room, at so 
 much a week, lit it up, placed a few benches and a 
 deal table in it, and began their winter classes. The 
 place soon presented a busy and cheerful appearance 
 in the evenings. The teaching may have been, as no 
 doubt it was, of a very rude and imperfect sort ; but 
 it was done with a will. Those who knew a little 
 taught those who knew less, improving themselves 
 while they improved the others ; and, at all events, 
 setting before them a good working example. Thus 
 these youths and there were also grown men 
 amongst them proceeded to teach themselves and 
 each other, reading and writing, arithmetic and geog- 
 raphy ; and even mathematics, chemistry, and some 
 of the modern languages. 
 
 About a hundred young men had thus come to- 
 gether, when, growing ambitious, they desired to have 
 lectures delivered to them ; and then it was that the 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 author became acquainted with their proceedings. A 
 party of them waited on him, for the purpose of in- 
 viting him to deliver an introductory address, or, as 
 they expressed it, " to talk to them a bit ; " prefac- 
 ing the request by a modest statement of what they 
 had done and what they were doing. He could not 
 fail to be touched by the admirable self-helping spirit 
 which they had displayed ; and, though entertaining 
 but slight faith in popular lecturing, he felt that a 
 few words of encouragement, honestly and sincerely 
 uttered, might not be without some good effect. And 
 in this spirit he addressed them on more than one 
 occasion, citing examples of what other men had 
 done, as illustrations of what each might, in a greater 
 or less degree, do for himself ; and pointing out that 
 their happiness and well-being as individuals in after- 
 life, must necessarily depend mainly upon themselves, 
 upon their own diligent self-culture, self-discipline, 
 and self-control, and, above all, on that honest and 
 upright performance of individual duty, which is the 
 glory of manly character. 
 
 There was nothing in the slightest degree new or 
 original in this counsel, which was as old as the Prov- 
 erbs of Solomon, and possibly quite as familiar. But 
 old-fashioned though the advice may have been, it 
 was welcomed. The youths went forward in their 
 course ; worked on with energy and resolution ; and, 
 reaching manhood, they went forth in various direc- 
 tions into the world, where many of them now occupy 
 positions of trust and usefulness. Several years after 
 the incidents referred to, the subject was unexpect- 
 
n INTRODUCTION. 
 
 edly recalled to the author's recollection by an even- 
 ing visit from a young man, apparently fresh from 
 the work of a foundry, who explained that he was 
 now an employer of labor and a thriving man ; and 
 he was pleased to remember with gratitude the words 
 spoken in all honesty to him and to his fellow-pupila 
 years before, and even to attribute some measure of 
 his success in life to the endeavors which he had 
 made to work up to their spirit. 
 
 The author's personal interest having in this way 
 been attracted to the subject of 'Self-Help, he was ac- 
 customed to add to the memoranda from which he had 
 addressed these young men ; and to note down occa- 
 sionally in his leisure evening moments, after the 
 hours of business, the results of such reading, obser- 
 vation, and experience of life, as he conceived to bear 
 upon it. One of the most prominent illustrations 
 cited in his earlier addresses, was that of George Ste- 
 phenson, the engineer ; and the original interest of 
 the subject, as well as the special facilities and oppor- 
 tunities which the author possessed for illustrating 
 Mr. Stephenson's life and career, induced him to 
 prosecute it at his leisure, and eventually to publish 
 his biography. The present volume is written in a 
 similar spirit, as it has been similar in its origin. The 
 illustrative sketches of character introduced, are, 
 however, necessarily less elaborately treated, being 
 busts rather than full-length portraits, and, in many 
 of the cases, only some striking feature has been 
 noted ; the lives of individuals, as indeed of nations, 
 often concentrating their lustre and interest in a few 
 
INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 passages. Such as the book is, the author now leaves 
 it in the hands of the reader ; in the hope that the 
 lessons of industry, perseverance, and self-culture, 
 which it contains, will be found useful and instruc- 
 tive, as well as generally interesting. 
 
 London, September, 1859. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 SELF-HELP, -NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 Spirit of self-help Institutions and men National progress and 
 decay Government a reflex of the individualism of a nation 
 JTrue liberty_jrpghg /in ATinrnntpj* Tr.norgotiV self-help a prominent 
 feature in the English- character The greatest workers have 
 sprung from the ranks Uses of biography Marked individuality 
 cf the Englishman His school of practical life Opinions of for- 
 eigners as to English character : Goethe, Wiese, Rendu Energy 
 of character exhibited in the humbler ranks Barbers Shaks- 
 peare Day -laborers Weavers Shoemakers Tailors 
 Humble origin of many eminent men Discovery of a geologist by 
 Sir R. Murchison Industry honorably recognized in England 
 Joseph Brotherton W. S. Lindsay The middle classes New- 
 ton and Adams Sons of clergymen Sons of attorneys Sons of 
 tradesmen Richard Owen Individual application the price of 
 success Riches not necessary The wealthy classes Scientific 
 men: Bacon, Boyle, Cavendish, Rosse Eminent politicians : Peel, 
 Brougham, Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli The national character put 
 to the test in India Montalembert's opinion Modern heroism 
 
 Page 15-39 
 
 CHAPTER H. 
 LEADERS OF INDUSTRY, INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS. 
 
 Industry of the English nation Work the best educator- The great 
 inventors principally working men Forgotten inventors Inven- 
 tion of the steam-engine James Watt Establishment of the 
 a* 
 
: CONTENTS. 
 
 cotton manufacture Sir Richard Arkwright Business qualities 
 of Matthew Boulton The Peels of South Lancashire Robert 
 Peel His invention of calico-printing His character described 
 by his son The first Sir Robert Peel (of Bury); his small begin- 
 nings as a manufacturer Peel's marriage His success Josiah 
 Wedgwood, founder of the Staffordshire Potteries; his industry, 
 energy, and success Herbert Minton Industrial heroes. 40-66 
 
 CHAPTER m. 
 APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 Fortune on the side of the industrious Genius is patience Newton 
 and Kepler G. P. Bidder Industry ~o7~emment men Repeti- 
 tion of effort Sir Robert Peel's cultivation of memory in Drayton 
 Church Facility comes by practice Impatience deprecated 
 Cheerfulness Sydney Smith Dr. Hook Hope, an important. 
 element in character Carey, the missionary Anecdote of Dr. 
 Young Anecdote of Audubon, the ornithologist Anecdote of 
 Mr. Carlyle and the MS. of his " French Revolution " Persever- 
 ance displayed in the discovery ef the Nineveh marbles by Rawlin- 
 son and Layard Sir Walter Scott's perseverance John Britton 
 Loudon Samuel Drew Joseph Hume 67-95 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 HELPS AND OPPORTUNITIES, SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS. 
 
 No great result achieved by accident Newton's discoveries Dr. 
 Young Intelligent observation Galileo Inventions of Brown, 
 Watt, and Brunei, accidentally suggested Philosophy in little 
 things Franklin and Galvani Discovery of steam-power Op- 
 portunity must be seized or made Humble tools of great workers 
 
 Lee and Stone's opportunities for learning Sir Walter Scott's 
 Dr. Priestley Sir Humphry Davy Faraday Davy and Cole- 
 ridge Cuvier and Hugh Miller Sir Joseph Paxton Dalton's 
 industry Examples of improvement of time Elihu Burritt 
 Daguesseau and Bentham Melancthon and Baxter Writing 
 down observations Great note-makers John Hunter ; his pa- 
 tient study of little things Harvey Jenner Sir Charles Bell 
 
 Dr. Marshall Hall Sir William Herschel William Smith, the 
 geologist Hugh Miller Sir R. Murchison 96-134 
 
CONTENTS. xi 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 WORKERS IN ART. 
 
 Sir Joshua Roynolds's belief in the force of industry English artists 
 self-educated Michael Angelo an indefatigable worker Art, a 
 long labor Wilson Early indications of artistic taste Ho- 
 garth's habits of observation and industry Banks Mulready 
 Nollekens Career of Flaxman Chantrey Wilkie and Haydon 
 
 Turner Privations endured by artists Martin Pugin 
 Kemp Gibson Thorburn Noel Paton James Sharpies 
 Industry of musicians ; Haydn, Beethoven, Bach, Meyerbeer Dr. 
 Ariie William Jackson 135-179 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 INDUSTRY AND THE ENGLISH PEERAGE. 
 
 The peerage fed from the industrial ranks Intermingling of classes 
 
 Peers among mechanics Peerages founded by London trades- 
 men and merchants Perseverance of Richard Foley, founder of 
 the Foley peerage Adventurous career of Sir William Phipps, 
 founder of the Normanby peerage Sir William Petty, founder of 
 the Lansdowne peerage Jedediah Strutt, founder of the Belper 
 peerage Naval and military peers Peerages founded by lawyers 
 
 Lord Mansfield Lord St. Leonards Lord Tenterden Lord 
 Campbell Lord Eldon Lord Langdale 180-201 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 ENERGY AND COURAGE. 
 
 Energy characteristic of the Teutonic race The foundations of 
 strength of character Force of purpose Power of will Coura- 
 geous working The will practically free Words of Lammenais 
 and Buxton Where there is a will there is a way Suwarrow 
 Napoleon Wellington Promptitude of action The energy dis- 
 played by Englishmen in India Warren Hastings Napier 
 The Indian swordsman The recent rebellion The Lawrences 
 Nicholson Siege of Delhi Hodson Missionary laborers 
 Henry Martyn John Williams David Livingstone Howard 
 The career of Jonas Han way The labors of Granville Sharp 
 Clarkson Fowell Buxton. . . , 202-251 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BUSINESS QUALITIES. 
 
 Hazlitt's definition of the man of business His chief qualities 
 Men of genius men of business Shakspeare, Chaucer, Spenser, 
 Milton, Cowper, Scott, Wordsworth Ricardo, Grote, Mill In- 
 dustry and application the price of success Lord Melbourne's 
 advice The school of difficulty wholesome Conditions of suc- 
 cess in law Too much ease not good for_a man Causes of fail- 
 ure Every man his own best friend or worst enemy Dr. Johnson 
 on the alleged injustice of "the world " Practical qualities nec- 
 essary in business Attention to small matters Accuracy 
 AVords of Mr. Dargan Charles James Fox Method Lord Bur- 
 leigh and De Witt, their dispatch of business Promptitude 
 Economy of time Punctuality Energy Tact Routine and 
 Red-Tapeism The Duke of Wellington's career as a man of busi- 
 ness Honesty the best policy Integrity in business Words of 
 Baron Dupin Trials and temptations of trade Confidence re- 
 posed by business men in each other Dishonesty in business 
 The " happy warrior " David Barclay 252-278 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 MONEY, USE AND ABUSE. 
 
 The right use of money a test of practical wisdom Economy nec- 
 essary to independence The improvident classes helpless Im- 
 portance of frugality as a public question Words of Richard 
 Cobden and John Bright Independence within reach of most 
 working men High purposes of economy Advice given to Fran- 
 cis Horner by his father Robert Burns Living within the 
 means Wasters Running into debt The debtor a slave 
 Haydon's debts Fichte Dr. Johnson on debt The Duke of 
 Wellington on debt Washington Earl St. Vincent Beginning 
 well Living too high, a vice in England Napier's general order 
 to his officers in India Resistance to temptation Hugh Miller's 
 case High standard of living necessary Secret of money-mak- 
 ing embodied in popular proverbs Career of Thomas Wright 
 All honest industry honorable An illustrious sweep -Qlere 
 money-making The " love of money " Worldly success The 
 power of money over-estimated Joseph Brotherton Rfcgj>ecta-__ 
 bility, its highest standard/;. 279-3 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 Culture must include all parts of man's nature Physical culture 
 Words of Milton Neglect of bodily exercise produces mental 
 green-sickness as well as ill health Words of Hodson Free use 
 of the body and limbs neglected Uses of mechanical work Early 
 physical self-culture of Newton Success of professional men very 
 much a question of health Lawj^ers and legislators Lords Pal- 
 merston and Brougham Health of Sir Walter Scott The divines 
 Barrow, Fuller, and Clarke Diligent application necessary for 
 self-culture Eesolute purpose Plodding is on the road of genius 
 
 Thoroughness Lord St. Leonards and Bulwer Lytton Defi- 
 nite objects in study Having to rely upon one's own resources 
 useful J]yils of want of confidence Popular roads to knowledge 
 
 Labor-saving processes fallacious Labor indispensable Im- 
 patience to be avoided The best culture is self-culture Dr. 
 Arnold Knowledge and wisdom "Knowledge is power," so is 
 ignorance Importance of literary culture probably overrated 
 Books not the best teachers The discipline of life and action more 
 valuable Self-discipline and self-control Self-respect Knowl- 
 edge as a means of " getting on " Words of Southey Competi- 
 tive examination, its possible evils 309-336 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 FACILITIES AND DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 Facilities of modern times Mechanism of the age Wordsof Ruskiu 
 
 Mechanical expedients of " progress " Mechanical education 
 Cramming Knowledge made pleasant Amusement Novel- 
 reading Pursuit of pleasure Benjamin Constant Augustin 
 Thierry Coleridge and Southey Robert Nicoll Uses of diffi- 
 culty Beethoven's opinion of Rossini Mendelssohn Experience 
 learned by encounter with difficulty Adversity and prosperity 
 The battle of life an up-hill fight Difficulty the best school of 
 discipline Disraeli, Henry Clay, Curran Professors Murray aud 
 Moor William Chambers William Cobbett Sir Samuel Rom- 
 illy _ John Leyden Professor L^e Late learners Illustrious 
 dunces Barrow, Clarke, Swift, Chalmers, Sheridan. Scott, Cl at 
 terton, Clive, Howard, and others The difference between boya 
 consists in energy Their success in life depends on perseverance. 
 
 337-370 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 EXAMPLE, MODELS. 
 
 Example a great teacher Influence of conduct Parental example 
 
 No act without its train of consequences Words of Babbage 
 Human responsibility Every person owes a good example to 
 others Doing, not telling Mrs. Chisholm Dr. Guthrie and 
 John Pounds. Example works in unseen directions Good models 
 of conduct The company of our betters Francis Homer's 
 views on personal intercourse The Marquis of Lansdowne and 
 Malesherbes Fowell Buxton and the Gurney family Personal 
 influence of John Sterling Influence of artistic genius upon others 
 
 Example of the brave an inspiration to the timid Biography 
 valuable as furnishing high models of character Lives influenced 
 by biography Romilly, Franklin, Drew, Alfieri, Loyola, Wolff 
 Horner, Reynolds Examples of cheerfulness Dr. Arnold's in- 
 fluence over others Career of Sir John Sinclair. . . . 371-395 
 
 CHAPTER XUI. 
 
 CHARACTER, THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 Character the noblest possession of a man Character of Francis 
 Horner Franklin Character is power Its higher qualities 
 Lord Erskine's rules of conduct A high standard of life necessary 
 Truthfulness Wellington's character of Peel Be what you 
 seem Integrity and honesty of action Importance of habits 
 Habits constitute character Growth of habit in youth Trivial 
 [things indicate character Manners and morals Civility and its 
 opposite Anecdote of Abernethy Prejudices Men of the great 
 heart of no exclusive rank or class The Grants, " Brothers Cheery- 
 ble " The Gentleman Lord Edward Fitzgerald Honor, probity, 
 rectitude The gentleman will not be bribed Anecdotes of Wel- 
 lington and Wellesley The poor may be rich in spirit A noble 
 peasant Anecdotes of the Emperor of Austria, and two English 
 navvies Truth makes the success of the gentleman Courage 
 and gentleness Gentlemen in India Outram, Henry Lawrence, 
 Lord Clyde Private soldiers at Agra The wreck of the Birken- 
 head The exercise of power the crucial test of the gentleman 
 Sir Ralph Abercrombie Fuller's character of Sir Francis Drake. 
 
 396-422 
 
SELF-HELP, &c. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SELF-HELP, NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 " The worth of a State, hi the long run, is the worth of the indiyiduall 
 composing it." J. S. Mill. 
 
 "We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men." B. Dis- 
 raeli. 
 
 " HEAVEN helps those who help themselves," is a well- 
 tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results 
 of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the 
 root of all genuine growth in the individual ; and ; exhib- 
 ited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of 
 national vigor and strength. Help from without is often 
 enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably 
 invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a 
 certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of 
 doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to 
 over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable ten- 
 dency is to render them comparatively helpless. 
 
 Even the best institutions can give a man no active 
 aid. Perhaps the utmost they can do is, to leave him 
 free to develop himself and improve his individual con- 
 dition. But in all times men have been prone to believe 
 that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by 
 
16 NATIONAL PROGRESS. CHAP. I, 
 
 j means of institutions rather than by their own conduct, 
 Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human ad- 
 vancement has always been greatly over-estimated. To 
 constitute the millionth part of a legislature, by voting 
 for one or two men once in three or five years, however 
 conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise 
 but little active influence upon any man's life and charac- 
 ter. /Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly 
 understood, that the function of government is negative 
 and restrictive, rather than positive and active ; being re- 
 solvable principally into protection, protection of life, 
 liberty, and property. Hence the chief " reforms " of the 
 last fifty years have consisted mainly in abolitions and 
 disenactments. But there is no power of law that can 
 make the idle man industrious, the thriftless provident, or 
 the drunken sober ; though every individual can be each 
 and all of these if he will, by the exercise of his own 
 free powers of action and self-denial. Indeed, all expe- 
 rience serves to prove that the worth and strength of 
 a state depend far less upon the form of its institutions 
 than upon the character of its men. For the nation is 
 only the aggregate of individual conditions, and civiliza- 
 tion itself is but a question of personal improvement. 
 
 National progress is the sum of individual industry, 
 energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual 
 idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed 
 to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be 
 found to be only the outgrowth of our own perverted life ; 
 and though we may endeavor to cut them down and 
 extirpate them by means of law, they will only spring 
 up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, 
 unless the conditions of human life and character are 
 radically improved. If this view be correct, then it fol- 
 
CHAP. . WHO ARE THE FREE. 17 
 
 lows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy con- 
 sist, not so much in altering laws and modifying insti- 
 tutions, as in helping and stimulating men to elevate and 
 improve themselves by their own free and independent 
 action. 
 
 The government of a nation itself is usually found to 
 be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The 
 government that is ahead of the people will be inevita- 
 bly dragged down to their level, as the government that 
 is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In 
 the order of nature, the collective character of a nation 
 will as surely find its befitting results in its law and 
 government, as water finds its own level. The noble 
 people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt 
 ignobly. Indeed, liberty is quite as much a moral as a 
 political growth, the result of free individual action, 
 energy, and independence. It may be of comparatively 
 little consequence how a man is governed from without, 
 whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself 
 from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled 
 by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the 
 thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. 
 There have been, and perhaps there still are, so-called 
 patriots abroad, who hold it to be the greatest stroke for 
 liberty to kill a tyrant, forgetting that the tyrant usually 
 represents only too faithfully the millions of people over 
 whom he reigns. But nations who are enslaved at heart 
 cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters or of in- 
 stitutions ; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that 
 liberty solely depends upon, and consists in government, 
 so long will such changes, no matter at what cost they be 
 effected, have as little practical and lasting result as the 
 shifting of the figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid 
 
18 HOW ENGLAND BECAME WHAT SHE IS. CHAP. I. 
 
 foundations of liberty must rest upon individual charac- 
 ter ; which is also the only sure guarantee for social secu- 
 rity and national progress. In this consists the real 
 strength of English liberty. Englishmen feel that they 
 are free, not merely because they live under those free 
 institutions which they have so laboriously built up, but 
 because each member of society has to a greater or less 
 extent got the root of the matter within himself; and 
 they continue to hold fast and enjoy their liberty, not by 
 freedom of speech merely, but by their steadfast life and 
 energetic action as free individual men. 
 
 Such as England is, she has been made by the think- 
 ing and working of many generations ; the action of even 
 the least significant person having contributed towards 
 the production of the general result. Laborious and pa- 
 tient men of all ranks, cultivators of the soil and ex- 
 plorers of the mine, inventors and discoverers, 
 tradesmen, mechanics, and laborers, poets, thinkers, 
 and politicians, all have worked together, one genera- 
 tion carrying forward the labors of another, building up 
 the character of the country, and establishing its pros- 
 perity on solid foundations. This succession of noble 
 workers, the artisans of civilization, has created 
 order out of chaos, in industry, science, and art ; and as 
 our forefathers labored for us, and we have succeeded to 
 the inheritance which they have bequeathed to us, so is it 
 our duty to hand it down, not only unimpaired, but im- 
 proved, to our successors. 
 
 This spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic 
 action of individuals, has in all times been a marked fea- 
 ture in the English character, and furnishes the true 
 measure of our power as a nation. Rising above the 
 heads of the mass, there have always been a series of 
 
CHAP. I. LIFE A SOLDIER'S BATTLE. 19 
 
 individuals distinguished beyond others, who have com- 
 manded the public homage. But our progress has been 
 owing also to multitudes of smaller and unknown men. 
 Though only the generals' names may be remembered in 
 the history of any great campaign, it has been mainly 
 through the individual valor and heroism of the privates 
 that victories have been won. And life, too, is " a soldier's 
 battle," men in the ranks having in all times been amongst 
 the greatest of workers. Many are the lives of men un- 
 written, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced 
 civilization and progress as the more fortunate great 
 whose names are recorded in biography. Even the 
 humblest person, who sets before his fellows an example 
 of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of purpose in 
 life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the 
 well-being of his country ; for his life and character pass 
 unconsciously into the lives of others, and propagate 
 good example for all time to come. 
 
 Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are, 
 nevertheless, most instructive and useful, as helps, guides, 
 and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost 
 equivalent to gospels teaching high living, high think- 
 ing, and energetic action for their own and the world's 
 good. British biography is studded over, as " with patines 
 of bright gold," with illustrious examples of the power of 
 self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working, and stead- 
 fast integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble and 
 manly character ; exhibiting in language not to be mis- 
 understood, what it is in the power of each to accomplish 
 for himself; and illustrating the efficacy of self-respect 
 and self-reliance in enabling men of even the humblest 
 rank to work out for themselves an honorable compe- 
 tency and a solid reputation. 
 
20 ENGLISH PRACTICAL EDUCATION. CHAP. t. 
 
 Foreign observers have noted, as one of the most 
 marked characteristics of the Englishman, his strong 
 individuality and distinctive personal energy, refusing 
 to merge himself in institutions, but retaining through- 
 out his perfect freedom of thought, and speech, and ac- 
 tion. " Que j'aime la hardiesse Anglaise ! que j'aime 
 les gens qui disent ce qu'ils pensent ! " was the expres- 
 sive exclamation of Voltaire. It is this strong individ- 
 ualism which makes and keeps the Englishman really 
 free, and brings out fully the action of the social body. 
 The energies of the strong form so many living centres 
 of action, round which other individual energies group 
 and cluster themselves ; thus the life of all is quickened, 
 and, on great occasions, a powerful energetic action of 
 the nation is secured. 
 
 It is this energy of individual life and example acting 
 throughout society, which constitutes the best practical 
 education of Englishmen. Schools, academies, and col- 
 leges, give but the merest beginnings of culture in com- 
 parison with it. Far higher and more practical is the 
 life-education daily given in our homes, in the streets, be- 
 hind counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, 
 in counting-houses and manufactories, and in all the busy 
 haunts of men. This is the education that fits English- 
 men for doing the work and acting the part of free men. 
 This is that final instruction as members of society, which 
 Schiller designated " the education of the human race," 
 consisting in action, conduct, self-culture, self-control, 
 all that tends to discipline a man truly, and fit him for 
 the proper performance of the duties and business of life, 
 a kind of education not to be learned from books, or 
 acquired by any amount of mere literary training. With 
 his usual weight of words, Bacon observes, that " Studies 
 
CHAP. I. GOETHE'S OPINION OF ENGLISHMEN. 21 
 
 teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without 
 them, and above them, won by observation ; " a remark 
 that holds true of actual life, as well as of the cultivation 
 of the intellect itself. For all observation serves to illus- 
 trate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself 
 by work much more than by reading, that it is life 
 rather than literature, action rather than study, and char- 
 acter rather than biography, which tend perpetually to 
 renovate mankind. 
 
 Goethe, in one of his conversations with Eckermann 
 at Weimar, once observed, " It is very strange, and I 
 know not whether it lies in mere race, in climate and 
 soil, or in their healthy education, but certainly Eng- 
 lishmen seem to have a great advantage over most other 
 men. We see here in Weimar only a minimum of 
 them, and those, probably, by no means the best speci- 
 mens, and yet what splendid fellows they are! And 
 although they come here as seventeen-year-old youths, 
 yet they by no means feel strange in this strange land ; 
 on the contrary, their entrance and bearing in society 
 is so confident and quiet that one would think they 
 were everywhere the masters, and the whole world be- 
 longed to them." " I should not like to affirm, for all 
 that," replied Eckermann, "that the English gentle- 
 men in Weimar are cleverer, better educated, and bet- 
 ter hearted than our young men." " That is not the 
 point," said Goethe; "their superiority does not lie in 
 such things ; neither does it lie in their birth and fortune ; 
 it lies precisely in their having the courage to be what 
 nature made them. There is no halfness about them. 
 They are complete men. Sometimes complete fools, also, 
 that 1 heartily admit; but even that is something, and 
 
22 VALUE OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM. CHAP. I 
 
 has its weight." Thus, in Goethe's eyes, the English- 
 man fulfilled, to a great extent, the injunction given by 
 Lessing to those who would be men : " Think wrongly if 
 you please, but think for yourself" 
 
 Another foreigner, a German, Herr Wiese,* in con- 
 trasting the English and German systems of education, 
 Ihe one aiming chiefly at the culture of character, the 
 sther of intellect, has observed, that in the lives of 
 celebrated men, English biographers lay far more stress 
 upon energy of purpose, patience, courage, perseverance, 
 and self-control, than upon their scientific ardor or 
 studiousness in youth ; that, in short, the English give 
 the chief prominence to the individual element, and at- 
 tach far more value to character than to intellect, a 
 remark not less true than tending to important con- 
 clusions ; as pointing, indeed, to the fundamental charac- 
 teristics of our national strength, the product, as it is, 
 of individual thinking, individual action, and individual 
 character. 
 
 Take, again, the opinion of a well-known French writ- 
 er, M. Rendu, f as to what constitutes the essential value 
 of the English system. He holds that it best forms the 
 social being, and builds up the life of the individual, 
 whilst at the same time it perpetuates the traditional life 
 of the nation ; and that thus we come to exhibit what 
 lias so long been the marvel of foreigners, a healthy 
 activity of individual freedom, and yet a collective obe- 
 dience to established authority, the unfettered energetic 
 action of persons, together with the uniform subjection of 
 
 * Deutsche Briefe iiber Englische Erziehung. 
 f De 1' Instruction Primaire & Londres, dans ses Rapports aveo 
 l'Etat Social. 
 
CHAP. I. GREAT MEN OF HUMBLE ORIGIN. 23 
 
 all to the national code of Duty. Whilst French insti- 
 tutions educate the soldier and the functionary, English 
 institutions, which give free action to every man and 
 woman, and recognize an educator in each, cultivate the 
 citizen, ready alike for the business of practical life and 
 for the responsible duties of the home and the family. 
 And although our schools and colleges may, like those 
 of France and Germany, turn out occasional forced speci- 
 mens of over-cultured minds, what we may call the 
 national system does on the whole turn out the largest 
 number of men, who, to use Rendu's words, "reveal to 
 the world those two virtues of a lordly race, persever- 
 ance in purpose, and a spirit of conduct which never 
 fails." 
 
 It is this individual freedom and energy of action, so 
 cordially recognized by these observant foreigners, that 
 really constitutes the prolific source of our national growth. 
 For it is not to one rank or class alone that this spirit 
 of free action is confined, but it pervades all ranks and 
 classes ; perhaps its most vigorous outgrowths being 
 observable in the commonest orders of the people. 
 
 Men great in science, literature, and art, apostles of 
 great thoughts and lords of the great heart, have sprung 
 indiscriminately from the English farm and the Scotch 
 hill-side, from the workshop and the mine, from the black- 
 smith's stithy and the cobbler's stool. The illustrations 
 which present themselves are indeed so numerous, that 
 the difficulty consists in making a selection from them, 
 such as should fall within the compass of a reasonable 
 book. Take for instance, the remarkable fact, that from 
 the barber's shop rose Sir Richard Arkwright, the in- 
 ventor of the spinning-jenny, and the founder of the 
 cotton manufacture of Great Britain ; Lord Tenterden, 
 
24 SHAKSPEARE. CHAP. L 
 
 one of the most distinguished of English Lord Chief Jus- 
 tices ; and Turner, the very greatest among landscape- 
 painters. 
 
 No one knows to a certainty what Shakspeare was ; 
 but it is unquestionable that he sprang from a veiy humble 
 rank. His father was a butcher and grazier ; and Shaks- 
 peare himself is supposed to have been in early life a 
 wool-comber ; whilst others aver that he was an usher 
 in a school, and afterwards a scrivener's clerk. He 
 truly seems to have been "not one, but all mankind's 
 epitome." For such is the accuracy of his sea-phrases 
 that a naval writer alleges that he must have been a 
 sailor ; whilst a clergyman infers from internal evidence 
 in his writings, that he was probably a parson's clerk ; 
 xnd a distinguished judge of horseflesh insists that he 
 jaust have been a horse-dealer. Shakspeare was cer- 
 tainly an actor, and in the course of his life "played 
 many parts," gathering his wonderful stores of knowl- 
 edge from a wide field of experience and observation. 
 In any event, he must have been a close student, and a 
 hard worker ; and to this day his writings continue to 
 exercise a powerful influence upon the formation of Eng- 
 lish character. 
 
 The common class of day-laborers has given us Brind- 
 ley the engineer, Cook the navigator, and Burns the 
 poet. Masons and bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson, 
 who worked at the building of Lincoln's Inn, with a 
 trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket, Edwards 
 and Telford the engineers, Hugh Miller the geologist, 
 and Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor ; whilst 
 among distinguished carpenters we find the names of 
 Inigo Jones the architect, Harrison the chronometer- 
 maker, John Hunter the physiologist, Homoey and Opie 
 
CHAP. I. EMINENT MECHANICS. 25 
 
 the painters, Professor Lee the Orientalist, and John 
 Gibson the sculptor. 
 
 From the weaver class have sprung Simpson the math- 
 ematician, Bacon the sculptor, the two Milners, Adam 
 Walker, John Foster, Wilson the ornithologist, Dr. Liv- 
 ingstone the missionary traveller, and Tannahill the poet. 
 Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel the great 
 Admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the essay- 
 ist, Gifford the editor of the " Quarterly Review," Bloom- 
 field the poet, and William Carey the missionary ; whilst 
 Morrison, another laborious missionary, was a maker of 
 shoe-lasts. Within the last year, a profound naturalist has 
 been discovered in the person of a shoemaker at Banff, 
 named Thomas Edwards, who, while maintaining himself 
 by his trade, has devoted his leisure to the study of natural 
 science in all its branches, his researches in connection with 
 the smaller crustacese having been rewarded by the dis- 
 covery of a new species, to which the name of " Praniza 
 Edwardsii " has been given by naturalists. 
 
 Nor have tailors been altogether undistinguished, Jack- 
 son the painter having worked at that trade until he 
 reached manhood. But, what is perhaps more remark- 
 able, one of the gallantest of British seamen, Admiral 
 Hobson, who broke the boom at Vigo, in 1702, originally 
 belonged to this calling. He was working as a tailor's 
 apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight, when 
 the news flew through the village, that a squadron of 
 men-of-war were sailing off the island. He sprang from 
 the shopboard, and ran down with his comrades to the 
 beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight. The tailor-boy 
 was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor ; 
 and springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, 
 gained the admiral's ship, and was accepted as a volun- 
 
 2 
 
2t> EGBERT DICK, THE GEOLOGIST. CHAP. I. 
 
 teer. Years after, he returned to his native village full 
 of honors, and dined off bacon and eggs in the cottage 
 where he had worked as a tailor's apprentice. 
 
 Cardinal Wolsey, Defoe, Akenside, and Kirke White, 
 were the sons of butchers ; Bunyan was a tinker, and 
 Joseph Lancaster a basket-maker. Among the great 
 names identified with the invention of the steam-engine 
 are those of Newcomen, Watt, and Stephenson ; the first 
 a blacksmith, the second a maker of mathematical instru- 
 ments, and the third an engine-fireman. Huntingdon the 
 preacher was originally a coal-heaver, and Bewick, the 
 father of wood-engraving, a coal-miner. Dodsley was a 
 footman, and Holcroft a groom. Baffin the navigator be- 
 gan his seafaring career as a man before the mast, and Sir 
 Cloudesley Shovel as a cabin-boy. Herschel played the 
 oboe in a military band. Chantrey was a journeyman car- 
 ver, Etty a journeyman printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence 
 the son of a tavern-keeper. Michael Faraday, the son of 
 a poor blacksmith, was in early life apprenticed to a book- 
 binder, and worked at that trade until he reached his 
 twenty-second year ; he now occupies the very first rank 
 as a philosopher, excelling even his master, Sir Humphry 
 Davy, in the art of lucidly expounding the most difficult 
 and abstruse points in natural science. 
 
 Not long ago, Sir Roderick Murchison discovered at 
 Thurso, in the far north of Scotland, a profound geologist, 
 in the person of a baker there, named Robert Dick. 
 When Sir Roderick called upon him at the bakehouse in 
 which he baked and earned his bread, Robert Dick de- 
 lineated to him, by means of flour upon a board, the 
 geographical features and geological phenomena of his 
 native county, pointing out the imperfections in the exist- 
 ing maps, which he had ascertained by travelling over 
 
CHAP. I. THE TRUE WORKER. 27 
 
 the country in his leisure hours. On further inquiry. 
 Sir Roderick ascertained that the humble individual be- 
 fore him was not only a capital baker and geologist, but 
 a first-rate botanist. " I found," said the Director-Gen- 
 eral of the Geographical Society, " to my great humilia- 
 tion, that this baker knew infinitely more of botanical 
 science, ay, ten times more, than I did ; and that there 
 were only some twenty or thirty specimens of flowers 
 which he had not collected. Some he had obtained as 
 presents, some he had purchased, but the greater portion 
 had been accumulated by his industry, in his native 
 county of Caithness ; and the specimens were all ar- 
 ranged in the most beautiful order, with their scientific 
 names affixed." 
 
 It is the glory of our country that men such as these 
 should so abound ; not all equally distinguished, it is true, 
 but penetrated alike by the noble spirit of self-help. 
 They furnish proofs of cheerful, honest working, and 
 energetic effort to make the most of small means and 
 common opportunities. For opportunities, as we shall 
 afterwards find, fall in the way of every man who is re- 
 solved to take advantage of them. The facts of natur* 
 are open to the peasant and mechanic, as well as to the 
 philosopher, and by nature they are alike capable of 
 making a moral use of those facts to the best of their 
 power. Thus, even in the lowliest calling, the true 
 worker may win the very loftiest results. 
 
 The instances of men in this country who, by dint of 
 persevering application and energy, have raised them- 
 selves from the humblest ranks of industry to eminent 
 positions of usefulness and influence in society, are in- 
 deed so numerous that they have long ceased to be re- 
 garded as exceptional. Looking at some of the more 
 
28 JOSEPH BROTHERTON. CHAP, 1. 
 
 remarkable; instances, it might almost be said that early 
 encounter with difficulty and adverse circumstances was 
 the necessary and indispensable condition of success. 
 The House of Commons has always contained a con- 
 siderable number of such self-raised men, fitting rep- 
 resentatives of the industrial character of the British 
 people; and it is to the credit of our legislature that 
 such men have received due honor there. When the 
 lute Joseph Broth erton, member for Salford, in the 
 course of the discussion on the Ten Hours' Bill, detailed 
 with true pathos the hardships and fatigues to which he 
 had been subjected when working as a factory boy in a 
 cotton-mill, and described the resolution which he had 
 then formed, that if ever it was in his power he would 
 endeavor to ameliorate the condition of that class, Sir 
 James Graham rose immediately after him, and declared, 
 amidst the cheers of the House, that he did not before 
 know that Mr. Brotherton's origin had been so humble, 
 but that it rendered him more proud than he had ever 
 before been of the House of Commons, to think that a 
 person risen from that condition should be able to sit side 
 by side, on equal terms, with the hereditary gentry of the 
 land. 
 
 There is a member of the present House of Commons, 
 whom we have heard introducing his recollections of past 
 times with the words, " When I was working as a weaver 
 boy at Norwich ; " and there are many more who have 
 sprung from conditions equally humble. But perhaps 
 the most interesting story of difficulties encountered and 
 , overcome by manful struggle, is that of the present mem- 
 ber for Sunderland, Mr. W. S. Lindsay, the well-known 
 shipowner. It was told by himself, in his own simple 
 words, to the electors of Weymouth some years ago, in 
 
CHAP. I. MR. W. S. LINDSAY. 29 
 
 answer to an attack which had been made upon him by 
 his political opponents. At the age of fourteen, he said, 
 he had been left, an orphan boy, to push his way in the 
 world. He left Glasgow for Liverpool with only four 
 shillings and sixpence in his pocket; and so poor was 
 he that the captain of a steamer had pity on him, and 
 had told him that he would give him his passage if he 
 would trim the coals in the coal-hole. He did so, and 
 thus worked his passage. He remembered that the fire- 
 man gave him a part of his homely dinner, and never 
 did he eat a dinner with such relish, for he felt that he 
 had worked for it and earned it; and he wished the 
 young to listen to his statement, for he himself had de- 
 rived a lesson from that voyage which he had never for- 
 gotten. At Liverpool, he remained for seven weeks 
 before he could get employment ; he abode in sheds, and 
 his four and sixpence maintained him, until at last he 
 found shelter in a West Indiaman. He entered as a boy, 
 and before he was nineteen he had risen to the command 
 of an Indiaman. At twenty-three he retired from the 
 sea ; his friends, who when he wanted assistance had 
 given him none, having left him that which they could no 
 longer keep. He settled on shore ; his career had been 
 rapid ; he had acquired prosperity by close industry, by 
 constant work, and by keeping ever in view the great 
 principle of doing to others as you would be done by. 
 
 But the same characteristic feature of energetic indus- 
 try happily has its counterpart amongst the other ranks 
 of the community. The middle and well-to-do classes 
 are constantly throwing out vigorous offshoots in all direc- 
 tions, in science, commerce, and art, thus adding effec- 
 tively to the working power of the country. Probably the 
 very greatest name in English philosophy is that of Sir 
 
80 EMINENT MIDDLE-CLASS MEN. CHAP. L 
 
 Isaac Newton, who was the son of a yeoman, the owner 
 and farmer of a little property at Woolsthorpe, in Lincoln- 
 shire, worth only about thirty pounds a year. The dis- 
 tinguished astronomer Adams, the discoverer of Neptune, 
 was born in the same condition of life ; his father being a 
 small farmer on one of the bleakest spots on Dartmoor, a 
 region in which, however sterile the soil may be, it is clear 
 that nature is capable of growing the manliest of men. 
 
 The sons of clergymen, and ministers of religion gen- 
 erally, have particularly distinguished themselves in our 
 country's history. Amongst them we find the names of 
 Drake and Nelson, celebrated in naval heroism ; of Wol- 
 laston, Young, Playfair, and Bell, in science ; of Wren, 
 Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, in art ; of Thurlow and 
 Campbell, in law ; and of Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, 
 Coleridge, and Tennyson, in literature. Lord Hardinge, 
 Colonel Edwardes, and Major Hodson, so honorably 
 known in Indian warfare, were also the sons of clergy- 
 men. Indeed, the empire of England in India was won 
 and held chiefly by men of the middle class, such as 
 Clive, Warren Hastings, and their successors, men, for 
 the most part, bred in factories, and trained to habits of 
 practical business. 
 
 Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, 
 Smeaton the engineer, Scott and Wordsworth, and Lords 
 Somers, Hardwick, and Dunning. Sir William Black- 
 stone was the posthumous son of a silk-mercer. Lord 
 Gifford's father was a grocer at Dover ; Lord Denman's 
 a physician ; Judge Talfourd's a country brewer ; and 
 Lord Chief Baron Pollock's was a rather celebrated sad- 
 dler at Charing Cross. Layard, the discoverer of the mon- 
 uments of Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a London 
 solicitor's office ; and Sir William Armstrong, the inventor 
 
CHAP. I. PRICE PAID FOR DISTINCTION. 3i 
 
 of hydraulic machinery and of the Armstrong ordnance, 
 was also trained to the law, and even practised for some 
 time as an attorney. Milton was the son of n London 
 scrivener, and Pope and Southey were the sons of linen- 
 drapers. Professor Wilson was the son of a Paisley man- 
 ufacturer, and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant. 
 Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country 
 apothecary's apprentice. Speaking of himself, Davy 
 once said, " What I am I have made myself ; I say this 
 without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart." Rich- 
 ard Owen, the Newton of natural history, began life as a 
 midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of scientific 
 research in which he has since become so distinguished, 
 until comparatively late in life. He laid the foundations 
 of his knowledge while engaged in cataloguing the mag- 
 nificent museum of specimens accumulated by the indus- 
 try of John Hunter, a work which occupied him at the 
 College of Surgeons during a period of not less than ten 
 years. 
 
 In all these cases strenuous individual application was 
 the price paid for distinction ; excellence of any sort be- 
 ing invariably placed beyond the reach of indolence. It 
 is the diligent hand and head alone that maketh rich 
 in self-culture, growth in wisdom, and in business. Even 
 when men are born to wealth and high social position, any 
 solid reputation which they may individually achieve is 
 only attained by energetic application ; for though an 
 inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance 
 of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man 
 may pay others for doing his work for him, but it is im- 
 possible to get his thinking done for him by another, or 
 to purchase any kind of self-culture. Indeed, the doc- 
 trine that excellence in any pursuit is to be achieved by 
 
32 ANECDOTE OF BISHOP GROSTESTE. CHAP. L 
 
 laborious application only, holds as true in the case of the 
 man of wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose 
 only school was a cobbler's stall, or Hugh Miller, whose 
 only college was a Cromarty stonequarry. 
 
 The knowledge and experience which produce wis- 
 dom, can only become a man's individual possession and 
 property by his own free action ; and it is as futile 
 to expect these without laborious, painstaking effort, as 
 it is to hope to gather a harvest where the seed has not 
 been sown. It is related of Grosteste, an old bishop of 
 Lincoln, possessing great power in his day, that he was 
 once asked by his stupid and idle brother to make a great 
 man of him. " Brother," replied the bishop, " if your 
 plough is broken, I'll pay for the mending of it ; or, if 
 your ox should die, I'll buy you another ; but I cannot 
 make a great man of you ; a ploughman I found you, and 
 I fear a ploughman I must leave you." 
 
 Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary 
 for man's highest culture, else had not the world been so 
 largely indebted in all times to those who have sprung 
 from the humbler ranks. An easy and luxurious exist- 
 ence does not train men to effort or encounter with diffi- 
 culty ; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power 
 which is so necessary for energetic and effective action in 
 life. Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it 
 may, by vigorous self-help, be converted even into a bless- 
 ing; rousing a man to that struggle with the world in 
 which, though some may purchase ease by degradation, 
 the right-minded and true-hearted will find strength, con- 
 fidence, and triumph. Bacon says, " Men seem neither 
 to understand their riches nor their strength ; of the for- 
 mer they believe greater things than they should ; of the 
 latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach 
 
CHAP. I. SELF-DENIAL. 33 
 
 a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own 
 sweet bread, and to learn and labor truly to get his liv- 
 ing, and carefully to expend the good things committed 
 to his trust." 
 
 Riches are so great a temptation to ease arid self-indul- 
 gence, to which men are by nature prone, that the glory 
 is all the greater of those who, born to ample fortune, 
 nevertheless take an active part in the work of their 
 generation, who " scorn delights and live laborious 
 days." It is to the honor of the wealthier ranks in 
 this country that they are not idlers ; for they do their 
 fair share of the work of the state, and usually take 
 more than their fair share of its dangers. It was a 
 fine thing said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular 
 campaigns, observed trudging along through mud and 
 mire by the side of his regiment, " There goes 15,000/. a 
 year ! " and in our own day, the bleak slopes of Sebasto- 
 pol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to 
 the like noble self-denial and devotion on the part of our 
 gentler classes ; many a gallant and noble fellow, of rank 
 and estate, having risked his life, or lost it, in one or 
 other of those fields of action, in the public service of his 
 country. 
 
 Nor have the wealthier classes been undistinguished in 
 the more peaceful pursuits of philosophy and science. 
 Take, for instance, the great names of Bacon, the father 
 of modern philosophy, and of Worcester, Boyle, Caven- 
 dish, Talbot, and Rosse, in science. The last named may 
 be regarded as the great mechanic of the peerage, a man 
 who, if he had not been born a peer, would probably have 
 taken the highest rank as an inventor. So thorough is 
 ois knowledge of smith-work that he is said to have been 
 pressed on one occasion to accept the foremanship of a 
 
 2* 
 
34 SIR ROBERT PEEL. OHAP. I. 
 
 large workshop, by a manufacturer to whom his rank waa 
 unknown. The great Rosse telescope, of his own fabri- 
 cation, is certainly the most extraordinary instrument of 
 the kind that has yet been constructed. 
 
 But it is principally in the departments of politics and 
 literature that we find the most energetic laborers amongst 
 our higher classes. Success in these lines of action, as in 
 all others, can only be achieved through industry, practice, 
 and study; and the great minister or parliamentary leader, 
 must necessarily be amongst the very hardest of workers. 
 Such are Palmerston and Derby, Russell and Disraeli, 
 Gladstone and Bulwer. These men have had the benefit 
 of no Ten Hours' Bill, but have often, during the busy 
 season of Parliament, worked " double shift," almost day 
 and night. One of the most illustrious of such workers in 
 modern times was unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel. 
 He possessed in an extraordinary degree the power of con- 
 tinuous intellectual labor, nor did he spare himself. His 
 career, indeed, presented a remarkable example of how 
 much a man of comparatively moderate powers can ac- 
 complish by means of assiduous application and indefati- 
 gable industry. During the forty years that he held a seat 
 in Parliament, his labors were prodigious. He was a most 
 conscientious man, and whatever he undertook to do, he 
 did thoroughly. All his speeches bear evidence of his 
 careful study of everything that had been spoken or writ- 
 ten on the subject under consideration. He was elaborate 
 almost to excess ; and spared no pains to adapt himself to 
 the various capacities of his audience. Withal, he pos- 
 sessed much practical sagacity, great strength of purpose, 
 and power to direct the issues of action with steady hand 
 and eye. In one respect he surpassed most men : his 
 principles broadened and enlarged with time ; and age, 
 
CHAP. I. INDUSTRY OF LORD BROUGHAM. 3>5 
 
 instead of contracting, only served to mellow and ripen his 
 nature. To the last he continued open to the reception of 
 new views, and, though many thought him cautious to 
 excess, he did not allow himself to fall into that indis- 
 criminating admiration of the past, which is the palsy of 
 many minds similarly educated, and renders the old age 
 of many nothing but a pity. 
 
 The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has be- 
 come almost proverbial. His public labors have extended 
 over a period of upwards of sixty years, during which he 
 has ranged over many fields, of law, literature, politics, 
 and science, and achieved distinction in them all. How 
 he contrived it, has been to many a mystery. Once, when 
 Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to undertake some 
 new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no 
 time, " but," he added, " go with it to that fellow Broug- 
 ham, he seems to have time for everything." The secret 
 of it was, that he never left a minute unemployed ; withal 
 he possessed a constitution of iron. When arrived at an 
 age at which most men would have retired from the world 
 to enjoy their hard-earned leisure, perhaps to doze away 
 their time in an easy chair, Lord Brougham commenced 
 and prosecuted a series of elaborate investigations as to 
 the laws of light, and he submitted the results to the 
 most scientific audiences that Paris and London could 
 muster. About the same time, he was passing through 
 the press his admirable sketches of the " Men of Science 
 and Literature of the Reign of George III.," and taking 
 his full share of the law business and political discussions 
 in the House of Lords. Sydney Smith once recom- 
 mended him to confine himself to only the transaction of 
 BO much business as three strong men could get through. 
 But such was Brougham's love of work, long become 
 
56 SIR E. BULWER LYTTON. CHAP. I. 
 
 a habit, that no amount of application seems to have 
 been too great for him ; and such was his love of excel- 
 lence, that it has been said of him, that if his station in 
 life had been only that of a shoeblack, he would never 
 have rested satisfied until he had become the best shoe- 
 black in England. 
 
 Another hard-working man of the same class is Sir 
 E. Bulwer Lytton. Few writers have done more, or 
 achieved higher distinction in various walks, as a nov- 
 elist, poet, dramatist, historian, essayist, orator, and pol- 
 itician. He has worked his way step by step, disdainful 
 of ease, and animated throughout only by the ardent 
 desire to excel. On the score of mere industry, there 
 are few living English writers who have written so much, 
 and none that have produced so much of high quality. 
 The industry of Bulwer is entitled to all the greater 
 praise that it has been entirely self-imposed. To hunt, 
 and shoot, and live at ease, to frequent operas, and 
 clubs, and Almack's, enjoying the variety of London 
 sight-seeing, morning calls, and parliamentary small-talk 
 during the " season," and then off to the country man- 
 sion, with its well-stocked preserves, and its thousand de- 
 lightful out-door pleasures, to travel abroad, to Paris, 
 Vienna, or Rome, all this is excessively attractive to a 
 lover of pleasure and a man of fortune, and by no means 
 calculated to make him buckle to steady, continuous 
 labor of any kind. Yet these pleasures, all within his 
 reach, Bulwer must, as compared with men born to simi- 
 lar estate, have denied himself in assuming the position 
 and pursuing the career of a literary man. Like Byron, 
 his first effort was poetical ("Weeds and Wild Flowers "), 
 and a failure. His second was a novel (" Falkland "), and 
 it proved a failure too. A man of weaker stuff would 
 
CHAP. I. MR. DISRAELI. 37 
 
 have dropped authorship ; but Bulwer had pluck and per 
 severance ; and he worked on, determined to succeed. He 
 was incessantly industrious, read prodigiously, and from 
 failure went courageously onwards to success. " Pelham " 
 followed "Falkland" within a year, and the remainder 
 of Bulwer's literary life, now extending over a period of 
 thirty years, has been a succession of triumphs. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of 
 industry and application in working out an eminent public 
 career. His first achievements were, like Bulwer's, in lit- 
 erature ; and he reached success only through a succession 
 of failures. His " Wondrous Tale of Alroy " and " Rev- 
 olutionary Epic" were laughed at, and regarded as indi- 
 cations of literary lunacy. But he worked on in other 
 directions, and his " Coningsby," " Sybil," and " Tancred," 
 proved the sterling stuff of which he was made. As an 
 orator, too, his first appearance in the House of Commons 
 was a failure. It was spoken of as " more screaming 
 than an Adelphi farce." Though composed in a grand 
 and ambitious strain, every sentence was hailed with 
 " loud laughter." " Hamlet " played as a comedy were 
 nothing to it. But he concluded with a sentence which 
 embodied a prophecy. Writhing under the laughter with 
 which his studied eloquence had been received, he ex- 
 claimed, " I have begun several times many things, and 
 have succeeded in them at last. I shall sit down now, 
 but the time will come when you will hear me." The 
 time did come ; and how Disraeli succeeded in at length 
 commanding the rapt attention of the first assembly of 
 gentlemen in the world, affords a striking illustration of 
 what energy and determination will do ; for Disraeli 
 earned his position by dint of patient industry. He did 
 not, as many young men do, having once failed, retire 
 
38 THE ENGLISH I* INDIA. CHAP. I. 
 
 dejected, to mope and whine in a corner, but pluckily set 
 himself to work. He carefully unlearned his faults, stud- 
 ied the character of his audience, practised sedulously the 
 art of speech, and industriously filled his mind with the 
 elements of parliamentary knowledge. He worked pa- 
 tiently for success ; and it came, but slowly ; then the 
 House laughed with him, instead of at him. The recol- 
 lection of his early failure was effaced, and by general 
 consent he was at length admitted to be one of the most 
 finished and effective of parliamentary speakers. 
 
 Illustrious as are the instances of strong individual- 
 ity which we have thus rapidly cited, the number might 
 be largely increased even from the list of living men. 
 One of our most distinguished writers has, it is true, la- 
 mented the decay of that strength of individual character 
 which has been the glory of the English nation ; yet, if 
 we mistake not, no age in our history so little justifies 
 such a lament as the present. Never did sudden calam- 
 ity more severely test the individual pluck, endurance, 
 and energy of a people, than did the recent outbreak of 
 the rebellion in India ; but it only served to bring out 
 the unflinching self-reliance and dormant heroism of the 
 English race. In that terrible trial all proved almost 
 equally great, women, civilians, and soldiers, from 
 the general down through all grades to the private and 
 bugleman. The men were not picked, they belonged 
 to the same every-day people whom we daily meet at 
 home, in the streets, in workshops, in the fields, at 
 clubs ; yet when sudden disaster fell upon them, each 
 and all displayed a wealth of personal resources and en- 
 ergy, and became as it were individually heroic. Indeed 
 in no age of England have the finest qualities of men 
 been so brilliantly displayed ; and there are perhaps no 
 
CHAP. I. HEKOES OF PEACE. 39 
 
 names in our history which outshine those of the modern 
 heroes of India. Montalembert avows that they "do 
 honor to the human race." Citing the great names 
 of Havelock, Nicholson, Peel, Wilson, and Neill, to 
 which might be added that of Outram, " the Bayard of 
 India," he goes on to say, " it is not only such names, 
 great beyond comparison, it is the bearing in every re- 
 spect of this handful of Englishmen, surprised in the 
 midst of peace and prosperity by the most frightful and 
 most unforeseen of catastrophes. Not one of them shrank 
 or trembled, all, military and civilians, young and old, 
 generals and soldiers, resisted, fought and perished with 
 a coolness and intrepidity which never faltered. It is in 
 this circumstance that shines out the immense value of 
 public education, which invites the Englishman from his 
 youth to make use of his strength and his liberty, to as- 
 sociate, resist, fear nothing, be astonished at nothing, and 
 to save himself, by his own sole exertions, from every 
 sore strait in life." 
 
 Equally brilliant instances of individual force of char- 
 acter are also to be found in more peaceful and scientific 
 walks. Is there not Livingstone, with a heroism greater 
 than that of Xavier, penetrating the wilds of South Af- 
 rica on his mission of Christian civilization ; Layard 
 laboring for years to disinter the remains of the buried 
 city of Babylon ; Rawlinson, the decipherer of their 
 cuneiform inscriptions ; Brooke, establishing a nucleus 
 of European enterprise and colonization amongst the 
 piratical tribes of the Indian Ocean ; Franklin, Maclure, 
 Collinson, M'Clintock, and others, cleaving their way 
 through storms, and ice, and darkness, to solve the prob- 
 lem of the northwest passage ; enterprises which, for 
 individual daring, self-denial, energy, and heroism, are 
 unsurpassed by those of any age or country. 
 
40 ENGLISH INDUSTRY. CHAP. IL 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 J,KADERS OP INDUSTRY, INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS. 
 
 " Rich are the diligent, who can command 
 
 Time, nature's stock ! and could his hour-glass fall, 
 Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand, 
 And, by incessant labor, gather all." D^Avenant. 
 
 ONE of the most strongly marked features of the Eng- 
 lish people is their indomitable spirit of industry, stand- 
 ing out prominent and distinct in all their past history, 
 and as strikingly characteristic of them now as at any 
 former period. It is this spirit, displayed by the com- 
 mons of England, which has laid the foundations and 
 built up the industrial greatness of the empire, at home 
 and in the colonies. This vigorous growth of the nation 
 has been mainly the result of the free industrial energy 
 of individuals ; and it has been contingent upon the 
 number of hands and minds from time to time actively 
 employed within it, whether as cultivators of the soil, 
 producers of articles of utility, contrivers of tools arid 
 machines, writers of books, or creators of works of art. 
 And while this spirit of active industry has been the vital 
 principle of the nation, it has also been its saving and 
 remedial one, counteracting from time to time the effects 
 of errors in our laws and imperfections in our constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 The career of industry which the nation has pursued, 
 has also proved its best education. As steady application 
 

 CHAP TI. LABOR THE BEST OF TEACHERS. 41 
 
 to work is the healthiest training for every individual, so^ 
 is it the best discipline of a state. Honorable industry 
 always travels the same road with enjoyment and duty ; 
 and progress is altogether impossible without it. The 
 idle pass through life leaving as little trace of their exist- 
 ence as foam upon the water, or smoke upon the air ; 
 whereas the industrious stamp their character upon their 
 age, and influence not only their own but all succeeding 
 generations. Labor is the best test of the energies of_ 
 men, and furnishes an admirable training for practical 
 wisdom. Nor is a life of manual employment incom- 
 patible with high mental culture. Hugh Miller, than 
 whom none knew better the strength and the weakness 
 belonging to the lot of labor, stated the result of his ex- 
 perience to be, that work, even the hardest, is full of 
 pleasure and materials for self-improvement. He held 
 honest labor to be the best of teachers, and that the 
 school of toil is the noblest of schools, save only the 
 Christian one, that it is a school in which the ability 
 of being useful is imparted, the spirit of independence 
 learnt, and the habit of persevering effort acquired. He 
 was even of opinion that the training of the mechanic, 
 by the exercise which it gives to his observant faculties, 
 from his daily dealing with things actual and practical, 
 and the close experience of life which he acquires, bet- 
 ter fits him for picking his way through the journey of 
 life, and is more favorable to his growth as a Man, em- 
 phatically speaking, than the training afforded by any 
 other condition. 
 
 The array of great names which we have already cur- 
 sorily cited, of men springing from the ranks of the indus- 
 trial classes, who have achieved distinction in various 
 walks of life, in science, commerce, literature, and art. 
 
42 INVENTION OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. CHAP. II. 
 
 shows that at all events the difficulties interposed by 
 poverty and labor are not insurmountable. As re- 
 spects the great contrivances and inventions which have 
 conferred so much power and wealth upon the nation, it 
 is unquestionable that for the greater part of them we 
 have been mainly indebted to men of the very humblest 
 rank. Deduct what they have done in this particular 
 line of action, and it will be found that very little indeed 
 remains for other men to have accomplished. The names 
 of many meritorious inventors have been forgotten ; only 
 the more distinguished men who have marked an epoch 
 in the history of invention have been remembered ; 
 such, for instance, as those connected with the develop- 
 ment of the gigantic powers of the steam-engine. Yet 
 there are hundreds of ingenious but nameless workmen, 
 who have from time to time added substantial improve- 
 ments to that wonderful machine, and contributed greatly 
 to the increase of its powers and the extension of its prac- 
 tical uses. There are, also, numerous minor inventions, 
 
 such, for instance, as the watch which we carry in our 
 pocket, each important in its way, the history of which 
 has been altogether lost ; and though we have succeeded 
 to the ample inheritance which the inventors have be- 
 queathed to us, we know not the names of many of our 
 benefactors. 
 
 Though the invention of the working steam-engine 
 the king of machines belongs, comparatively speaking, 
 to our own epoch, the idea of it was born many centuries 
 ago. Like other contrivances and discoveries, it was effect- 
 ed step by step, one man transmitting the result of his 
 labors, at the time apparently useless, to his successors, 
 who took it up and carried it forward another stage, 
 the sentinels of the great idea answering each other across 
 
CHAP. II. JAMES WAIT. 43 
 
 the heads of many generations. The idea promulgated 
 by Hero of Alexandria was never altogether lost; but, 
 like the grain of wheat hid in the hand of the Egyptian 
 mummy, it sprouted and grew vigorously when brought 
 into the full light of modern science. The steam-engine 
 was nothing, however, until it emerged from the state of 
 theory, and was taken in hand by practical mechanics ; 
 and what a noble story of patient, laborious investigation, 
 of difficulties encountered and overcome by heroic in- 
 dustry, does not that marvellous machine tell of ! It is* 
 indeed, in itself, a monument of the power of self-help i 
 man. Grouped around it we find Savary, the Corals)" 
 miner ; Newcomen, the Dartmouth blacksmith ; Cawltrv 
 the glazier ; Potter, the engine-boy ; Smeaton, the en 
 gineer ; and, towering above all, the laborious, patient 
 never-tiring James Watt, the mathematical instrument 
 maker. 
 
 Watt was one of the most industrious of men. Wha* 
 ever subject came under his notice in the course of h?* 
 business, immediately became to him an object of study 
 and the story of his life proves, what all experience con 
 firms, that it is not the man of the greatest natural vigo* 
 and capacity who achieves the highest results, but he who 
 employs his powers with the greatest industry and the 
 most carefully disciplined skill, the skill that comes by 
 labor, application, and experience. Many men in his 
 time knew far more than Watt, but none labored so as- 
 siduously as he did to turn all that he did know to useful 
 practical purposes. He was, above all things, most per- 
 severing in his pursuit of facts. He cultivated carefully 
 that habit of active attention on which all the higher 
 working qualities of the mind mainly depend. Indeed, 
 Mr. Edgeworth entertained the opinion, that many of the 
 
44 CONDENSING STEAM-ENGINE. CHAT. H. 
 
 great differences of intellect which are found in men de- 
 pend more upon the early cultivation of this habit of 
 attention, than upon any great disparity between the 
 powers of one individual and another. 
 
 Even when a boy, Watt found science in his toys. The 
 quadrants lying about his father's carpenter's shop led 
 him to the study of optics and astronomy ; his ill health 
 induced him to pry into the secrets of physiology ; and 
 his solitary walks through the country attracted him to 
 the study of botany, history, and antiquarianism. While 
 carrying on the business of a mathematical instrument- 
 maker, he received an order to build an organ ; and, 
 though without any ear for music, he undertook the study 
 of harmonics, and successfully constructed the instrument. 
 And, in like manner, when the little model of New- 
 comen's steam-engine, belonging to the University of 
 Glasgow, was placed in his hands for repair, he forthwith 
 set himself to learn all that was then known about heat, 
 evaporation, and condensation, at the same time plod- 
 ding his way in mechanics and the science of construc- 
 tion, the results of which he at length embodied in the 
 condensing steam-engine. 
 
 For ten years he went on contriving and inventing, 
 with little hope to cheer him, with few friends to en- 
 courage him, struggling with difficulties, and earning 
 but a slender living at his trade. Even when he had 
 brought his engine into a practicable working condition, 
 his difficulties seemed to be as far from an end as ever ; 
 and he could find no capitalist to join him in his great 
 undertaking, and bring the invention to a successful prac- 
 tical issue. He went on, meanwhile, earning bread for 
 his family by making and selling quadrants, making and 
 mending fiddles, flutes, and other musical instruments 
 
CHAP. II. IMPROVEMENT OF THE STEAM-ENGINE. 45 
 
 measuring mason work, surveying roads, superintending 
 the construction of canals, or doing anything that turned 
 up, and offered a prospect of honest gain. At length, 
 Watt found a fit partner in another eminent leader of in- 
 dustry, Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham ; a skilful, 
 energetic, and far-seeing man, who vigorously undertook 
 the enterprise of introducing the condensing engine into 
 general use as a working power ; and the success of both 
 is now matter of history. 
 
 A succession of eminent workmen have, from time to 
 time, added new power to the steam-engine ; and, by 
 numerous modifications, rendered it capable of being ap- 
 plied to nearly all the purposes of manufacture, driv- 
 ing machinery, impelling ships, grinding corn, printing 
 books, stamping money, hammering, planing, and turning 
 iron ; in short, of performing any description of mechan- 
 ical labor where power is required. One of the most 
 useful modifications in the engine was that devised by 
 Trevithick, another Cornish miner, and eventually per- 
 fected by George Stephenson, the colliery engineman, in 
 the invention of the railway locomotive, by which social 
 changes of immense importance have been brought about, 
 of even greater consequence, considered in their results 
 on human progress and civilization, than the condensing 
 engine of Watt. These successive advances, however, 
 have not been the result of the genius of any one in- 
 ventor ; but of the continuous and successive industry 
 and inventiveness of many generations. What Mr. 
 Robert Stephenson recently said of the locomotive, at a 
 meeting of engineers at Newcastle, is true of nearly 
 every other capital invention : " It is due," he said, " not 
 to one man, but to the efforts of a nation of rjtechanical 
 engineers." 
 
46 COTTON MANUFACTURE OF GREAT BRITAIN. CHAP. II. 
 
 One of the first grand results of Watt's invention, 
 which placed an almost unlimited power at the command 
 of the producing classes, was the establishment of the 
 cotton manufacture of Great Britain. The person most 
 closely identified with the foundation of this great branch 
 of industry was unquestionably Sir Richard Arkwright, 
 whose practical energy and sagacity were perhaps even 
 more remarkable than his mechanical inventiveness. His 
 originality as an inventor has indeed been called in 
 question, like that of Watt and Stephenson. Arkwright 
 probably stood in the same relation to the spinning- 
 machine that Watt did to the steam-engine and Ste- 
 phenson to the locomotive. He gathered together the 
 scattered threads of ingenuity which already existed, and 
 wove tfcem, after his own design, into a new and original 
 fabric. Though Lewis Paul, of Birmingham, patented 
 the invention of spinning by rollers thirty years before 
 Arkwright, the machines constructed by him were so im- 
 perfect in their details, that they could not be profitably 
 worked ; and, therefore, the invention was practically a 
 failure. Another obscure mechanic, a reed-maker of 
 Leigh, named Thomas Highs, is also said to have in- 
 vented the water-frame and spinning-jenny ; but they, 
 too, proved unsuccessful for the same reason. When the 
 demands of industry are found to press upon the re- 
 sources of inventors, you will generally find the same idea 
 floating about in many minds ; such has been the case 
 with the steam-engine, the safety-lamp, the electric tele- 
 graph, and many other inventions. Many ingenious 
 minds labor in the throes of invention, until at length 
 the master-mind, the strong practical man, steps forward, 
 and straightway delivers them of their idea, applies the 
 principle successfully, and the thing is done. Then there 
 
CHAP. II. RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, BARBER. 47 
 
 is a loud outcry amongst all the smaller contrivers, who 
 see themselves distanced in the race ; and hence men, 
 such as Watt, Stephenson, and Arkwright, have so often 
 to defend their reputation and their rights as practical and 
 successful inventors. 
 
 Richard Arkwright, like most of our great mechani- 
 cians, sprang from the ranks. He was born in Preston 
 in 1732. His parents were very poor, and he was the 
 youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school ; 
 the only education he received he gave to himself; and 
 to the last he was only able to write with difficulty. 
 When a boy, he was apprenticed to a barber, and after 
 learning the business, he set up for himself in Bolton in 
 1760, occupying an underground cellar, over which he 
 put up the sign, " Come to the subterraneous barber, 
 he shaves for a penny." The other barbers found their 
 customers leaving them, and reduced their prices to his 
 standard ; when Arkwright, determined to push his trade, 
 announced his determination to give " A dean shave for 
 a half-penny," After a few years he quitted his cellar, 
 and became an itinerant dealer in hair. At that time 
 wigs were worn, and this was an important branch of the 
 barbering business. He went about buying hair, and was 
 accustomed to attend the hiring fairs throughout Lanca- 
 shire resorted to by young women, for the purpose of 
 securing their long tresses ; and it is said that in negotia- 
 tions of this sort he was very successful. He also dealt 
 in a chemical .hair-dye, which he used adroitly, and thereby 
 secured a considerable trade. Being of a mechanical turn, 
 he devoted a good deal of his spare time to contriving mod- 
 els of machines, and, like many self-taught men of the same 
 bias, he endeavored to invent perpetual motion. He fol- 
 lowed his experiments so devotedly that he neglected his 
 
48 RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, INVENTOR. CHAP. II. 
 
 business, lost the little money he had saved, and was 
 reduced to great poverty. His wife for he had by 
 this time married was impatient at what she conceived 
 to be a wanton waste of time and money, and in a mo- 
 ment of sudden wrath, she seized upon and destroyed his 
 models, hoping thus to remove the cause of the family 
 privations. Arkwright was a stubborn and enthusiastic 
 man, and he was provoked beyond measure by this con- 
 duct of his wife, which he never forgave ; and he, in 
 consequence, separated from her. 
 
 In travelling about the country, Arkwright had be- 
 come acquainted with a person named Kay, a clock-maker 
 at Warrington, who assisted him in constructing some of 
 the parts of his perpetual-motion machinery. It is sup- 
 posed that he was first informed by Kay of the principle 
 of spinning by rollers. The idea at once took firm pos- 
 session of his mind, and he proceeded to devise the pro- 
 cess by which it was to be accomplished, Kay being able 
 to tell him nothing on this point. Arkwright now aban- 
 doned his business of hair collecting, and devoted himself 
 to the perfecting of his machine, a model of which, con- 
 structed by Kay, under his directions, he set up in 
 the parlor of the Free Grammar School at Preston. 
 Being a burgess of the town, he voted at the contested 
 election at which General Burgoyne was returned ; but 
 such was his poverty, and such the tattered state of his 
 dress, that a number of persons subscribed a sum suffi- 
 cient to have him put in a state fit to appear in the poll- 
 room. The exhibition of his machine in a town where 
 BO many work-people lived by the exercise of manual 
 labor proved a dangerous experiment ; there were omi- 
 nous growlings heard outside from time to time, and 
 Arkwright, remembering the fate of poor Hargreaves'a 
 
CHAP.H. RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, MANUFACTURER. 49 
 
 spinning-jenny, which had been pulled to pieces only a 
 short time before by a Blackburn mob, wisely deter- 
 mined on packing up his model and removing to a less 
 dangerous locality. He went accordingly to Nottingham, 
 where he applied to some of the local bankers for pecu- 
 niary assistance ; and the Messrs. Wright consented to 
 advance him a sum of money on condition of sharing in 
 the profits of the invention. The machine, however, not 
 being perfected so soon as they had anticipated, the bank- 
 ers recommended Arkwright to apply to Messrs. Strutt 
 and Need, the former of whom was the ingenious inven- 
 tor and patentee of the stocking-frame. Mr. Strutt was 
 quick to perceive the merits of the invention, and a part- 
 nership was entered into with Arkwright, whose road to 
 fortune was now clear. The patent was secured in the 
 name of " Richard Arkwright, of Nottingham, clock- 
 maker," and it is a remarkable fact, that it was taken out 
 in 1769, the very same year in which Watt secured the 
 patent for his steam-engine. A cotton-mill was first 
 erected at Nottingham, driven by horses ; and another 
 was shortly after built, on a much larger scale, at Crom- 
 ford, in Derbyshire, turned by a water-wheel, from which 
 circumstance the spinning-machine came to be called the 
 water-frame. 
 
 Ark wright's labors, however, were, comparatively 
 speaking, only begun. He had still to perfect all the 
 working details of his machine. It was in his hands the 
 subject of constant modification and improvement, until 
 eventually it was rendered practicable and profitable in 
 an eminent degree. But success was only secured by 
 long and patient labor ; for some years, indeed, the specu- 
 lation was disheartening and unprofitable, swallowing up 
 a very large amount of capital without any result. When 
 
50 BEATEN, NOT SUBDUED. CHAP. JL 
 
 success began to appear more certain, then the Lanca- 
 shire manufacturers fell upon Arkwright's patent to pull 
 it in pieces, as the Cornish miners fell upon Boulton and 
 Watt, to rob them of the profits of their steam-engine. 
 Arkwright was even denounced as the enemy of the 
 working people ; and a mill which he built near Chorley 
 was destroyed by a mob in the presence of a strong force 
 of police and military. The Lancashire men refused to 
 buy his materials, though they were confessedly the best 
 in the market. Then they refused to pay patent-right 
 for the use of his machines, and combined to crush him 
 in the courts of law. To the disgust of right-minded 
 people, Arkwright's patent was upset. But though 
 beaten, he was not subdued. He established large mills 
 in other parts of Lancashire, in Derbyshire, and at New 
 Lanark, in Scotland. The mills at Cromford also came 
 into his own hands at the expiring of his partnership 
 with Strutt, and the amount and the excellence of his 
 products were such, that in a short time he obtained so 
 complete a control of the trade, that the prices were 
 fixed by him, and he governed the main operations of 
 the other cotton-spinners. 
 
 Arkwright was a tremendous worker, and a man of 
 marvellous energy, ardor, and application in business. 
 At one period of his life he was usually engaged, in the 
 severe and continuous labors involved by the organiza- 
 tion and conduct of his numerous manufactories, from 
 four in the morning until nine at night. At fifty years 
 of age he set to work to learn English grammar, and 
 improve himself in writing and orthography. When he 
 travelled, to save time, he went at great speed, drawn by 
 four horses. Be it for good or for evil, Arkwright was 
 Ihe founder in England of the modern factory system, 
 
CHAP. II. MATTHEW BOULTON. 51 
 
 a branch of industry which has unquestionably proved 
 a source of immense wealth to individuals and to the 
 nation. 
 
 It is not every inventor, however skilled, who is a 
 veritable Leader of Industry like Arkwright. Many dis- 
 tinguished inventors are found comparatively helpless in 
 the conduct of business, which demands the exercise of 
 different qualities, the power of organizing the labor 
 of large numbers of men, promptitude of action on emer- 
 gencies, and sagacious dealing with the practical affairs 
 of life. Thus Watt hated that jostling with the world, 
 and contact with men of many classes, which are usually 
 encountered in the conduct of any extensive industrial 
 operation. He declared that he would rather face a 
 loaded cannon than settle an account or make a bargain ; 
 and there is every probability that he would have de- 
 rived no pecuniary advantage whatever from his great 
 invention, or been able to defend it against the repeated 
 attacks of the mechanical pirates who fell upon him in 
 Cornwall, London, and Lancashire, had he not been so 
 fortunate as to meet, at the great crisis of his career, with 
 the illustrious Matthew Boulton, " the father of Birming- 
 ham/' 
 
 Boulton was a man of essentially different qualities from 
 Watt, but quite as able in his own way. He was one 
 of the first of the great manufacturing potentates now so 
 numerous in the northern and midland counties. Boul- 
 ton's commencement in life was humble ; his position be- 
 ing only that of a Birmingham button-maker. In his 
 case, as in every other, it was not the calling that ele- 
 vated the man, but the man that elevated the calling. He 
 was gifted by nature with fine endowments, which he cul- 
 tivated to the utmost. He possessed a genius for business 
 
52 MATTHEW BOULTON. CHAP. II 
 
 of the highest order ; being of sound understanding and 
 quick perception, and prompt to carry out the measures 
 which his judgment approved. Hence he rarely, if ever, 
 failed ; for his various enterprises, bold though they were, 
 were always guided by prudence. He was not a man to 
 drive a wedge the broad end foremost ; because he pos- 
 sessed an admirable tact, polished by experience, which 
 enabled him unerringly to 'determine when and how to 
 act. He actively conducted his business, and ne\er 
 allowed himself to be driven by it. He threw into his 
 daily labors his individual uprightness and integrity, 
 qualities which are the glory of every man's character, 
 whatever his position in life may be. And although he 
 prospered and became rich, according to his deserts, it 
 might be said of him with truth, that there was not a 
 dirty shilling in all that he earned. 
 
 Beside being great as a man of business, Boulton was 
 a highly cultivated man of science, a generous patron of 
 art, and a diligent cultivator of literature ; but t)m chief 
 aim and labor of his life was the practical introduction 01 
 Watt's steam-engine as the great working-power of Eng- 
 land. With pride he said to Boswell, when visiting Soho, 
 " I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have, 
 POWER." " He had," continues Boswell, " about seven 
 hundred people at work ; I contemplated him as an iron 
 chieftain ; and he seemed to be a father of his tribe." 
 Mrs. Schimmel Penninck characterizes him as a man of 
 noble, open, and cordial manners, and of princely munifi- 
 cence ; <k he went among his people," she says, " like a 
 monarch bestowing largess." He was a true lord and 
 leader of industry. Every step in his career was won 
 by honest work and valiant effort. No envy follows the 
 career of such a man ; but praise, reward, ard blessings. 
 
CHAP. II. THE PEEL FAMILY. 53 
 
 When he died, he was followed to the grave by the entire , 
 body of his workmen, and there was scarcely a dry eye 
 amongst them. 
 
 All other great branches of industry in Britain furnish 
 equally illustrious examples of energetic men of business, 
 who have been the source of untold benefits to the neigh- 
 borhoods in which they have labored, and of greatly 
 increased power and wealth to the community at large. 
 Amongst such might be cited the Strutts of Belper ; the 
 Tennants of Glasgow; the Marshalls and Gotts of 
 Leeds ; the Peels, Ashworths, Birleys, Fieldens, Ashtons, 
 Heywoods, and Ainsworths of South Lancashire. For 
 the present, however, we shall confine ourselves to a 
 single family, since become eminently distinguished in 
 connection with the political history of England ; we 
 refer to the Peels of South Lancashire. 
 
 The founder of the Peel family, about the middle of last 
 century, was a small yeoman, occupying the Hole House 
 Farm, near Blackburn, from which he afterwards re- 
 moved to a house situated in Fish Lane in that town 
 Robert Peel, as he advanced in life, saw a large family 
 of sons and daughters growing up about him ; but the 
 land about Blackburn being somewhat barren, it did not 
 appear to him that agricultural pursuits offered a very 
 encouraging prospect for their industry. The place had, 
 however, long been the seat of a domestic manufacture, 
 the fabric called " Blackburn grays," consisting of linen 
 weft and cotton warp, being chiefly made in that town 
 and its neighborhood. It was then customary previ- 
 ous to the introduction of the factory system for indus- 
 trious yeomen with families to employ the time nol 
 occupied in the fields in weaving at home ; and Robert 
 Peel accordingly began the domestic trade of calico- 
 
54 THE PEEL FAMILY. 
 
 making. He was honest, and made an honest article ; 
 thrifty and hard-working ; and his trade prospered. He 
 was also enterprising, and was one of the first to adopt 
 the carding cylinder, then recently invented. 
 
 But Robert Peel's attention was principally directed to 
 the printing of calico, then a comparatively unknown 
 art, and for some time he carried on a series of ex- 
 periments with the object of printing by machinery. The 
 experiments were secretly conducted in his own house, 
 the cloth being ironed for the purpose by one of the 
 women of the family. It was then customary, in such 
 houses as the Peels, to use pewter plates at dinner. 
 Having sketched a figure or pattern on one of the plates, 
 the thought struck him that an impression might be got 
 from it in reverse, and printed on calico with color. In a 
 cottage at the end of the farm-house lived a woman who 
 kept a calendering machine, and going into her cottage, 
 he put the plate with color rubbed into the figured part 
 and some calico over it through the machine, when it was 
 found to leave a satisfactory impression. Such is said to 
 have been the origin of roller printing on calico. Robert 
 Peel shortly perfected his process, and the first pattern 
 he brought out was a parsley leaf; hence he is spoken of 
 in the neighborhood of Blackburn to this day as u Pars- 
 ley Peel." The process of calico-printing by what is 
 called the mule machine, that is, by means of a wooden 
 cylinder in relief, with an engraved copper cylinder, 
 was afterwards brought to perfection by one of his sons, 
 the head of the firm of Messrs. Peel and Co., of Church. 
 Stimulated by his success, Robert Peel shortly gave up 
 farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about two 
 miles from Blackburn, he devoted himself exclusively to 
 the printing business. There, with the aid of his sons. 
 
CHAP. II. THE PEEL FAMILY. 55 
 
 who were as energetic as himself, he successfully carried 
 on the trade for several years ; and as the young men 
 grew up towards manhood, the concern branched out into 
 various firms of Peels, each of which became a centre of 
 industrial progress and remunerative employment to large 
 numbers of people. 
 
 From all that can now be learned of the character of 
 the original and untitled Robert Peel, he must have been 
 a remarkable man, shrewd, sagacious, and far-seeing. 
 But very little is known of him excepting from tradition, 
 and the sons of those who knew him are fast passing 
 away. Tt is not the lives of such men that are usually 
 recorded in books. The men who " say good things " 
 have always a better chance of being remembered in lit- 
 erature than those who do them. Men who write a play, 
 or a book of poetry, will secure a biography, where men 
 who establish new branches of industry, or give a fresh 
 impulse to society in connection with invention and pro- 
 duction, are shortly forgotten. Nevertheless, the works 
 of such public benefactors live after them, and their be- 
 neficent example is reproduced in the action and char- 
 acter of their successors. His son, Sir Robert, the first 
 Baronet, thus modestly spoke of his father, the founder 
 of the family : " He moved in a confined sphere, and em- 
 ployed his talents in improving the cotton trade. He had 
 neither the wish nor opportunity of making himself ac- 
 quainted with his native country, or society far removed 
 from his native county of Lancaster. I lived under his 
 roof till I attained the age of manhood, and had many 
 opportunities of discovering that he possessed, in an emi- 
 nent degree, a mechanical genius and a good heart. He 
 had many sons, and placed them all in situations where 
 thry, might be useful to each other. The cotton trade 
 
56 THE PEEL FAMILY. CHAP. II. 
 
 was preferred as best calculated to secure this object ? 
 and by habits of industry, and imparting to his offspring 
 an intimate knowledge of the various branches of the cot- 
 ton manufacture, he lived to see his children connected 
 together in business, and, by their successful exertions, 
 become without one exception, opulent and happy. 
 My father may be truly said to have been the founder 
 of our family ; and he so accurately appreciated the im- 
 portance of commercial wealth in a national point of view, 
 that he was often heard to say that the gains to individ- 
 uals were small compared with the national gains arising 
 from trade." 
 
 Sir Robert Peel (the first baronet), and the second 
 manufacturer of the name, inherited all his father's enter- 
 prise, ability, and industry. His position at starting in 
 life, was little above that of an ordinary working man ; 
 for his father, though laying the foundations of future 
 prosperity, was still struggling with the difficulties aris- 
 ing from insufficient capital. When Robert was only 
 twenty years of age, he determined to begin the business 
 of cotton-printing, which he had by this time learnt with 
 his father, on his own account. His uncle, James Ha- 
 worth, and William Yates of Blackburn, joined him in 
 his enterprise ; the whole capital which they could raise 
 amongst them amounting to only about 500L, the principal 
 part of which was supplied by William Yates. His father 
 kept a small inn in Blackburn, where he was well known, 
 as " Yates o' th' Bull ; " and having saved money by his 
 business, he was willing to advance sufficient to give his 
 son a start in the lucrative trade of cotton-printing, then 
 in its infancy. Robert Peel, though comparatively a mere 
 youth, supplied the practical knowledge of the business ; 
 but it was said of him, and proved true, that he * carried 
 
CHAP. II. LADY PEEL. 5/ 
 
 an old head on young shoulders." A ruined corn-mill, 
 with its adjoining fields, was purchased for a comparatively 
 small sum, near the then insignificant town of Bury, where 
 the works long after continued to be known as "The 
 Ground ; " and a few wooden sheds having been run up, 
 the firm commenced their cotton-printing business in a 
 very humble way in the year 1770, adding to it that of 
 cotton-spinning a few years later. The frugal style in 
 which the partners lived may be inferred from the fol- 
 lowing incident in their early career. William Yates, 
 being a married man with a family, commenced house- 
 keeping on a small scale, and to oblige Peel, who was 
 single, he agreed to take him as a lodger. The sum 
 which the latter first paid for board and lodging, was only 
 8s. a week ; but Yates, considering this too little, insisted 
 on the weekly payment being increased a shilling, to 
 which Peel at first demurred, and a difference between 
 the partners took place, which was eventually compro- 
 mised by the lodger paying an advance of sixpence a 
 week. William Yates's eldest child was a girl named 
 Ellen, and she very soon became an especial favorite 
 with the young lodger. On returning from his hard day's 
 work at " The Ground," he would take the little girl upon 
 his knee, and say to her, " Nelly, thou bonny little dear, 
 wilt be my wife ? " to which the child would readily an- 
 swer " Yes," as any child would do. " Then I'll wait for 
 thee, Nelly ; I'll wed thee, and none else." And Robert 
 Peel did wait. As the girl grew in beauty towards 
 womanhood, his determination to wait for her was strength- 
 ened ; and after the lapse of ten years years of close 
 application to business and rapidly increasing prosperity 
 ^- Robert Peel married Ellen Yates when she had com- 
 pleted her seventeenth year ; and the pretty child, whom 
 3* 
 
58 THE PEEL FIRMS. CHAP. II. 
 
 her mother's lodger and father's partner had nursed upon 
 his knee, became Mrs. Peel, and eventually Lady Peel, 
 the mother of the future Prime Minister of England. 
 Lady Peel was a noble and beautiful woman, fitted to 
 grace any station in life. She possessed rare powers of 
 mind, and was, on every emergency, the high-souled and 
 faithful counsellor of her husband. For many years after 
 their marriage, she acted as his amanuensis, conducting 
 the principal part of his business correspondence, for Mr. 
 Peel himself was an indifferent and almost unintelligible 
 writer. She died in 1803, only three years after the 
 Baronetcy had been conferred upon her husband. It is 
 said that London fashionable life so unlike what she 
 had been accustomed to at home proved injurious to 
 her health ; and old Mr. Yates was afterwards accustomed 
 to say, " if Robert hadn't made our Nelly a ' Lady/ she 
 might ha' been living yet." 
 
 The career of Peel, Yates, & Co., was throughout one 
 of great and uninterrupted prosperity. Sir Robert Peel 
 himself was the soul of the firm ; to great energy and 
 application uniting much practical sagacity, and first-rate 
 mercantile abilities qualities in which many of the early 
 cotton-spinners were exceedingly deficient. He was a 
 man of iron mind and frame, and toiled unceasingly. In 
 short, he was to cotton-printing what Arkwright was 
 to cotton-spinning, and his success was equally great. 
 The excellence of the articles produced by the firm se- 
 cured the command of the market, and the character of 
 the firm stood preeminent in Lancashire. Besides greatly 
 benefiting Bury, the partnership planted similar extensive 
 works in the neighborhood, on the Irwell and the Roch ; 
 and it was cited to their honor, that, whilst they sought to 
 raise to the highest perfection the quality of their manu- 
 
CHAP. II. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. 59 
 
 factures, they also endeavored, in all ways, to promote the 
 well-being and comfort of their work-people. Even in 
 the most unfavorable times, their " hands " never wanted 
 work. Sir Robert Peel was quick to appreciate the value 
 of all new processes and inventions ; in illustration of 
 which we may allude to his .adoption of the process for 
 producing what is called resist work in calico printing. 
 This is accomplished by the use of a paste, or resist, on 
 such parts of the cloth as are intended to remain white. 
 The person who discovered the paste was a traveller for 
 a London house, who sold it to Mr. Peel for an inconsid- 
 erable sum. It required the experience of a year or two 
 to perfect the system and make it practically useful ; but 
 the beauty of its effect, and the extreme precision of out- 
 line in the pattern produced, at once placed the Bury 
 establishment at the head of all the factories for calico 
 printing in the country. Other firms, conducted with 
 similar spirit, were established by members of the same 
 family at Burnley, Foxhill-bank, and Altham, in Lanca- 
 shire ; Salley Abbey, in Yorkshire ; and afterwards at 
 Burton-on-Trent, in Staffordshire ; these various establish- 
 ments, whilst they brought immense wealth to the proprie- 
 tors, setting an example to the whole cotton trade, and 
 training up many of the most successful printers and 
 manufacturers in Lancashire. 
 
 That the force and development of a country depends 
 mainly upon the industry and energy of its individual 
 men, cannot be better illustrated than by the career of 
 Another distinguished workman, Josiah Wedgwood, the 
 founder of the Staffordshire Potteries. His father was a 
 poor potter at Burslem, barely able to make a living at 
 his trade. He died when Josiah was only eleven years 
 old, and at that early age he began to work as a thrower 
 
60 JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. CHAP. H. 
 
 at his elder brother's wheel. The boy never received 
 any school education worthy of the name, and all the 
 culture which he afterwards received, he obtained for 
 himself. About the time when the boy began to work 
 at the potter's wheel, the manufacture of earthenware 
 could scarcely be said to exist in England. What was 
 produced was altogether unequal to the supply of our 
 domestic wants, and large quantities of the commoner 
 sort of ware were imported from abroad, principally 
 from Delft, in Holland, whence it was usually known by 
 tne name of u Delft ware." Porcelain for the rich was 
 chielty imported from China, and sold at a very high 
 price. No porcelain capable of resisting a scratch with 
 a hard point had as yet been made in this country. The 
 articles of earthenware produced in Staffordshire were oi 
 MIC coarsest quality, and were for the most part hawked 
 '"jout by the workmen themselves and their families, or 
 
 / peddlers, who carried their stocks upon their backs. 
 Whilst working with his brother as a thrower, Wedg- 
 
 cood caught the smallpox, then a most malignant dis- 
 ease : he was thrown into ill health, and the remains 
 of the disease seem to have settled in his left leg, so 
 that he was under the necessity of having it amputated, 
 which compelled him to relinquish the potter's wheel. 
 Some time after this we find him at Stoke, in partnership 
 with a man named Harrison, as poor as himself, in fact 
 both were as yet but in the condition of common work- 
 men. Wedgwood's taste for ornamental pottery, however, 
 already began to display itself; and, leaving Harrison, 
 we then find him joined to another workman named 
 Whieldon, making earthenware knife-handles in imita- 
 tion of agate and tortoise-shell, melon table-plates, green 
 pickle-leaves, and such like articles. Whieldon being 
 
CHAP. II. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. 61 
 
 unwilling to pursue this fanciful branch of trade, Wedg- 
 wood left him and returned to Burslem, where he set up 
 for himself in a small thatched house, and went on with 
 the production of his articles of taste. He worked away 
 industriously, employed a few hands under him, and grad- 
 ually prospered. He was a close inquirer and an accu- 
 rate observer in his peculiar line of business ; and among 
 other facts which came under his notice, was this impor- 
 tant one, that an earth containing silica, which was 
 black before calcination, became white after exposure to 
 the heat of a furnace. This fact, observed and pondered 
 over, led to the idea of mixing silica with the red pow- 
 der of the potteries, and to the discovery that the mixture 
 becomes white when calcined. He had but to cover this 
 material with a vitrification of transparent glaze, to obtain 
 one of the most important products of fictile art, that 
 which, under the name of English earthenware, was to 
 attain the greatest commercial value, and to become of 
 the most extensive utility. 
 
 Wedgwood now took new premises, and began to 
 manufacture white stoneware on a large scale, and after- 
 wards cream-colored ware, which acquired great celeb- 
 rity. The improvement of pottery became his passion, 
 and was never lost sight of for a moment. Whatever he 
 undertook to do he worked at with all his might, anima- 
 ted by the determination to excel. He now devoted 
 himself to patient chemical investigation, and as his means 
 increased, he spared neither labor nor expense in pur- 
 suing his improvements. He sought the society of men 
 of science, art, and learning ; and gleaned something 
 valuable from them all. Even when he had acquired 
 a competency, he went forward perfecting his manu- 
 facture, until, his example extending in all directions, the 
 
62 JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. CHAP. II. 
 
 industry of the entire district was stimulated, and a great 
 branch of British industry was eventually established on 
 firm foundations. He was cheerfully assisted in his ob- 
 jects by persons of rank and influence ; for, working in 
 the truest spirit, he readily commanded the help and en- 
 couragement of all true workers. He made for Queen 
 Charlotte the first royal table-service of English manu- 
 fajture, of the kind afterwards called " Queen's-ware," 
 and was forthwith appointed her Royal Potter, a title 
 which Wedgwood more prized than if he had been cre- 
 ated a baron. Valuable sets of porcelain were intrusted 
 to him for imitation, in which he succeeded to admiration. 
 Sir William Hamilton lent him specimens of ancient art, 
 from Herculaneum, of which Wedgwood's ingenious work- 
 men produced the most accurate and beautiful copies. 
 The Duchess of Portland outbid him for the Barberini 
 Vase when that article was offered for sale ; he bid as 
 high as seventeen hundred guineas for it, but her grace 
 secured it for the sum of eighteen hundred guineas ; but 
 when she learned Wedgwood's object she at once gener- 
 ously lent him the vase to copy. He produced fifty copies 
 at a cost of about 2,500?., and his expenses were not cov- 
 ered by their sale ; but he gained his object, which was 
 to show that whatever had been done, that English skill 
 and energy could and would accomplish. 
 
 Wedgwood called to his aid the crucible of the chemist, 
 the knowledge of the antiquary, and the skill of the 
 artist. He found out Flaxman when a youth, and while 
 he liberally nurtured his genius drew from him a large 
 number of beautiful designs for his pottery and porcelain ; 
 converting them by his manufacture into objects of taste 
 and excellence, and thus making them instrumental in 
 the diffusion of classical art amongst the people. By 
 
CHAP. II. JOSIAH \\EDGWOOD. 63 
 
 careful experiment and study he was even enabled to re- 
 discover the art of painting on porcelain or earthenware 
 vases and similar articles, an art practised by the an- 
 cient Etruscans, but which had been lost since the time 
 of Pliny. He distinguished himself by his own contribu- 
 tions to science, and his name is still identified with the 
 pyrometer which he invented. He was also an indefati- 
 gable supporter of all measures of public utility ; and 
 the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal, which 
 completed the navigable communication between the 
 eastern and western sides of the island, was mainly due 
 to his public-spirited exertions allied to the engineering 
 skill of Brindley. The road accommodation of the dis- 
 trict being of an execrable character, he planned and 
 executed a turnpike-road through the Potteries, ten miles 
 in length. The reputation he achieved was such that 
 his works at Burslem, and subsequently those at Etruria, 
 which he founded and built, became a point of attraction 
 to distinguished visitors from all parts of Europe. 
 
 The result of Wedgwood's labors was, that the manu- 
 facture of pottery, which he found in the very lowest 
 condition, became one of the staples of England; and 
 instead of importing what we needed for home use from 
 abroad, we became large exporters to other countries, 
 supplying them with earthenware even in the face of 
 enormous prohibitory duties on articles of British prod- 
 uce. Wedgwood gave evidence as to his manufactures 
 before Parliament in 1785, only some thirty years after 
 he had begun his operations ; from which it appeared, that 
 from providing only casual employment to a small num- 
 ber of inefficient and badly remunerated workmen, there 
 were then about 20,000 persons deriving their bread 
 directly from the manufacture of earthenware, without 
 
64 HERBERT MINTON. CHAP. II 
 
 taking into account the increased numbers to which it 
 gave employment in coal-mines, and in the carrying trade 
 by land and sea, and the stimulus which it gave to em- 
 ployment in many ways in various parts of the country. 
 Yet, important as had been the advances made in his 
 time, Mr. Wedgwood was of opinion that the manufacture 
 was but in its infancy, and that the improvements which 
 he had effected were of but small amount compared with 
 those to which the art was capable of attaining, through 
 the continued industry and growing intelligence of the 
 manufacturers, and the natural facilities and political ad- 
 vantages enjoyed by Great Britain ; an opinion which has 
 been fully borne out by the progress which has since been 
 effected in this important branch of industry. 
 
 Not to speak of Spode, Davenport, Ridgway, and others 
 equally distinguished, we may briefly notice the late Mr. 
 Herbert Minton, as actively taking up the work at the 
 stage at which Wedgwood left it, carrying the manufac- 
 ture on to new triumphs, and greatly extending this 
 branch of industry. Mr. Minton was not so much a 
 highly educated man, nor an economist, nor inventor, as 
 characterized by the inexhaustible activity and ceaseless 
 energy which he brought to bear upon the creation of a 
 colossal business, employing some 1,500 skilled artisans. 
 He possessed a clear head, a strong body, rare powers of 
 observation, and great endurance ; he was, besides, pos- 
 sessed by that pride and love of his calling without which 
 so much perseverance and devotion to it could scarcely 
 have been looked for. Withal he was kindly and genial, 
 commanding hosts of friends and cooperators; his rivals 
 themselves regarding him with admiration, and looking 
 up to him as the prince of his order. Like Wedgwood, 
 be employed first-rate artists, painters in enamel, 
 
CHAP. II. ritfRBERT MINT ON. 65 
 
 sculptors, designers of flowers and figures, and spar- 
 ing neither pains nor expense in securing the best work- 
 men, whether English or foreign. The talents of the 
 men employed by him were carefully discriminated and 
 duly recognized, and merit felt stimulated by the hope 
 of promotion and reward. The result soon was that 
 articles of taste, which had formerly been of altogether 
 exceptional production, became objects of ordinary supply 
 and demand; and objects of great artistic beauty, the 
 designs of which were supplied by the best artists, were 
 placed within reach of persons of moderate means. The 
 quality of the articles manufactured at his works became 
 so proverbial, that one day when Pickford's carrier rudely 
 delivered a package from his cart at the hall-door of an 
 exhibition of ceramic manufactures, and the officer in 
 waiting expostulated with the man on his incautious 
 handling of the package, his ready answer was : " Oh, 
 never fear, sir ; it's Minton's, it won't break." 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that Mr. Minton, by his 
 unaided energy and enterprise, and at his own risk, was 
 enabled successfully to compete with the Sevres manufac- 
 tures of France, which are produced by the cooperation 
 of a large number of talented men, and the assistance of 
 almost unlimited state funds. In many of the articles 
 exhibited at Paris in 1851, Mr. Minton's even excelled 
 those of similar character produced at the Imperial man- 
 ufactory. In hard porcelain also, he outvied the best 
 specimens of Meissen and Berlin ware ; in Parian, he 
 was only approached by Copeland ; whilst in the manu- 
 facture of encaustic tiles he stood without a rival. In 
 perfecting these several branches Mr. Minton had many 
 difficulties to encounter and failures to surmount, but with 
 true English energy and determination to succeed, he 
 
66 HEROES OF ENGLAND. CHAP. II, 
 
 surmounted them all, and at length left even the best 
 of the ancient tiles far behind. Like Wedgwood, he 
 elevated the public taste, introduced beautiful objects of 
 art into the homes of the people, and by founding new 
 branches of industry, mainly by his energy and ability, 
 he nobly earned the claim to be regarded as a great 
 national benefactor. 
 
 Men such as these are fairly entitled to rank among 
 the heroes of England. Their patient self-reliance amidst 
 trials and difficulties, their courage and perseverance in 
 the pursuit of worthy aims and purposes, are no less 
 heroic of their kind than the bravery and devotion of the 
 soldier and the sailor, whose duty and whose pride it is 
 heroically to defend what these valiant leaders of industry 
 h*ve as heroically achieved. 
 
CHAP. III. FORTUNE FAVORS INDUSTRY. 67 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 " See first that the design is wise and just ; 
 
 That ascertained, pursue it resolutely. 
 
 Do not for one repulse forego the purpose 
 
 That you resolved to effect." 
 " Allez en avant, et la foi vous viendra ! " D'Alembert. 
 
 THE greatest results in life are usually attained by 
 simple means, and the exercise of ordinary qualities. 
 The common life of every day, with its cares, necessities, 
 and duties, affords ample opportunity for acquiring experi- 
 ence of the best kind ; and its most beaten paths provide 
 the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room 
 for self-improvement. The great high-road of human 
 welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well- 
 doing ; and they who are the most persistent, and work 
 in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most success- 
 ful. 
 
 Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness ; but 
 fortune is not so blind as men are. Those who look into 
 practical life will find that fortune is usually on the 
 side of the industrious, as the winds and waves are on 
 the side of the best navigators. Success treads on the 
 heels of every right effort ; and though it is possible to 
 overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, 
 as is sometimes done, still, in any worthy pursuit, it is 
 meritorious. Nor are the qualities necessary to insure 
 
C8 GENIUS DEFINED. CHAP. III. 
 
 success at all extraordinary. They may, for the most 
 part, be summed up in these two, common sense and 
 perseverance. Genius may not be necessary, though 
 even genius of the highest sort does not despise the exer- 
 cise of these common qualities. The very greatest men 
 have been among the least believers in the power of 
 genius, and as worldly wise and persevering as successful 
 men of the commoner sort. Some have even defined 
 genius to be only common sense intensified. A distin- 
 guished teacher and president of a college spoke of it as 
 the power of making efforts. John Foster held it to 
 be the power of lighting one's own fire. Buffon said of 
 genius, It is patience. 
 
 Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very- 
 highest order, and yet, when asked by what means he 
 had worked out his extraordinary discoveries, he modestly 
 answered, " By always thinking unto them." At another 
 time he thus expressed his method of study : " I keep 
 the subject continually before me, and wait till the first 
 dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and 
 clear light." It was in Newton's case, as it is in every 
 other, only by diligent application and perseverance that 
 his great reputation was achieved. Even hits recreation 
 consisted merely in a variety in his industry, leaving 
 one subject only to take up another. To Dr. Bentley he 
 said : " If I have done the public any service, it is due 
 to nothing but industry and patient thought." So Kepler, 
 another great philosopher, speaking of his studies and his 
 progress, said : " As in Virgil, ' Fama mobilitate viget, 
 vires acquirit eundo,' so it was with me, that the diligent 
 thought on these things was the occasion of still furthei 
 thinking ; until at last I brooded with the whole energy 
 of my mind upon the subject." 
 
CHAP. III. BIDDER, THE ENGINEER. 69 
 
 The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer in- 
 dustry and perseverance, have led many distinguished 
 men to doubt whether the gift of genius be so exceptional 
 an endowment as it is generally supposed to be. Thus 
 Voltaire held that it is only a very slight line of separation 
 that divides the man of genius from the man of ordinary 
 mould. Beccaria was even of opinion that all men migh 
 oe poets and orators, and Reynolds that they might be 
 painters and sculptors. If this were really so, that stolid 
 Englishman might not have been so very far wrong after 
 all, who, on Canova's death, inquired of his brother whether 
 it was " his intention to carry on the business ! " Locke, 
 Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men have an 
 equal aptitude for genius ; and that what some are able 
 to effect under the influence of the fundamental laws 
 which regulate the march of intellect, must also be within 
 the reach of others who, in the same circumstances, apply 
 themselves to like pursuits. But while admitting to the 
 fullest extent the wonderful achievements of labor, and 
 xlso recognizing the fact that men of the most distinguished 
 genius have invariably been found the most indefatigable 
 workers, it must nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, 
 without the original endowment of heart and brain, no 
 amount of labor, however well applied, would have pro- 
 duced a Shakspeare, a Newton, a Beethoven, or a Michael 
 Angelo. 
 
 We have, however, a recent reassertor of the power 
 of perseverance in a distinguished living engineer, Mr. 
 G. P. Bidder, so well known in his youth as the wonder- 
 ful Calculating Boy. In a charmingly modest account 
 which he lately gave of himself before the Institute of 
 Civil Engineers, Mr. Bidder insisted that his remarkable 
 oower of mental calculation, a power exhibited by so few 
 
70 MDDER, THE ENGINEER. CHAP. III. 
 
 that we must account it as abnormal, can be acquired by 
 any one who will devote time, attention, and persever- 
 ance to the subject. " I have endeavored," he said, " to 
 examine my own mind, to compare it with that of others, 
 and to discover if such be the case ; but I can detect no 
 particular turn of mind, beyond a predilection for figures, 
 which many possess almost in an equal degree with my- 
 self. I do not mean to assert that all minds are alike 
 constituted to succeed in mental computations ; but I do 
 say that, so far as I can judge, there may be as large a 
 number of successful mental calculators as there are who 
 attain eminence in any other branch of learning." Mr. 
 Bidder urged that the proficiency at which he eventually 
 arrived was mainly the result of assiduous application. 
 His father was a working mason, and his elder brother, 
 who pursued the same calling, first taught the little boy 
 to count 100. He counted the numbers over and over 
 in tens. The numerals became as it were his friends, and 
 he knew all their relations and acquaintances. He next 
 set about learning the multiplication table in his own way, 
 by means of peas or marbles ; and a small bag of shot 
 which he obtained, proved a great treasure to him. These 
 he arranged into squares, each line consisting of an equal 
 number of shot, and, counting their sides, he thus learned 
 to multiply up to 10 times 10. Opposite his father's 
 house lived a blacksmith, who, not having any children, 
 had taken a nephew as his apprentice. With this old 
 gentleman the boy Bidder struck up an acquaintance, 
 and was allowed the privilege of running about his work- 
 shop. As his strength increased he was raised to the 
 dignity of being permitted to blow the bellows for him, 
 and on winter evenings he was allowed to perch himself 
 on the forge-hearth, listening to his stories. On one of 
 
CHAP. III. BIDDER, THE ENGINEER. 71 
 
 these occasions somebody by chance mentioned a sum, 
 perhaps 9 times 9, which the boy at once answered cor- 
 rectly. This excited a little astonishment, and then other 
 questions were put to " fickle " him, but which he answer- 
 ed with equal facility. The numbers multiplied were so 
 high, that the old gentleman's nephew had to work up 
 the sums with chalk upon a board, to see that they were 
 right, and they were found so. The boy became talked 
 of as a wonder, and half-pence began to flow into his 
 pocket ; so that, what with the gain and the eclat, he 
 became still more attached to the science of arithmetic ; 
 and he got on by degrees until the multiple of figures 
 which he could accomplish arrived at thousands, and he 
 eventually became familiar with the multiplication table 
 up to a million. Thb " Extraordinary Calculating Boy " 
 was regarded as one of the prodigies of the day. The 
 phrenologists had a cast taken of his " organs," and he 
 was cited in the "Phrenological Magazine" as a remarka- 
 ble proof of the correctness of their " science." Some 
 time after this he commenced the business of life as a 
 clerk in an assurance office, which he left to enter the ser- 
 vice of a well-known engineer, the late Mr. H. K-. Palmer. 
 His advance was rapid, and his reputation soon became 
 distinguished, a result due no less to his perseverance 
 than to his eminent engineering ability. For he brought 
 the same habit of study and application to the business 
 of his profession, that he had already trained in master- 
 ing the science of numbers. Speaking to his friends of 
 the Civil Engineers' Institute, he said : " I have sacri- 
 ficed years of labor ; I have striven with much persever- 
 ance to obtain, and to retain, a power or mastery over 
 numbers, which will, probably, at all times be as rare as 
 its utility in the ordinary affairs of life. Far be it from 
 
72 VALUE OF PERSEVERANCE. CHAP. III. 
 
 me to say, however, that it has been of little use to me. 
 Undoubtedly the acquirement has attracted towards me 
 a degree of notice which has ended in raising me from 
 the position of a common laborer in which I was born, to 
 that of being able to address you as one of the Vice- 
 Presidents of this distinguished Society." 
 
 Dalton, the chemist, always repudiated the notion of 
 nis being "a genius," attributing everything which he 
 had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation. 
 John Hunter said of himself, " My mind is like a bee- 
 hive ; but full as it is of buzz and apparent confusion, it 
 is yet full of order and regularity, and food collected with 
 incessant industry from the choicest stores of nature." 
 We have, indeed, but to glance at the biographies of 
 great men to find that the most distinguished inventor?, 
 artists, thinkers, and workers of all sorts, owe their suc- 
 cess, in a great measure, to their indefatigable industry 
 and application. They were men who turned all things 
 to gold, even time itself. Disraeli the elder held that 
 the secret of all success consisted in being master of your 
 subject, such mastery being attainable only through con- 
 tinuous application and study. Hence it happens that 
 the men who have most moved the world, have not been 
 BO much men of genius, strictly so called, as men of in- 
 tense mediocre abilities, untiring workers, persevering 
 self-reliant, and indefatigable ; not so often the gifted, of 
 naturally bright and shining qualities, as those who have 
 applied themselves diligently to their work, in whatever 
 line that might lie. " Alas ! " said a widow, speaking of 
 her brilliant but careless son, " he has not the gift of con- 
 tinuance." Wanting in perseverance, such volatile na- 
 tures are outstripped in the race of life by the diligent 
 and even the dull. " Che va piano, va longano, e va 
 
CHAP. III. ANECDOTE OF SIR R. PEEL. 73 
 
 lontano," says the Italian proverb : who goes slowly, goes 
 long, and goes far. 
 
 Hence, a great point to be arrived at is to get the 
 working quality well trained. When that is done, the 
 race will be found comparatively easy. We must repeat 
 and again repeat; facility will come with labor. Not 
 even the simplest art can be accomplished without it; 
 and what difficulties it is found capable of achieving ! It 
 was by early discipline and repetition that the late Sir 
 Robert Peel cultivated those remarkable, though still 
 fliodiocre powers, which rendered him so illustrious an 
 ornament of the British senate. When a boy at Dray- 
 ton Manor, his father was accustomed to set him up at 
 table to practise extemporaneous speaking ; and he early 
 accustomed him to repeat as much of the Sunday's ser- 
 mon as he could carry away in his memory. Little 
 progress was made at first, but by steady perseverance 
 the habit of attention soon became powerful, and the ser- 
 mon was at length repeated almost verbatim. When 
 afterwards replying in succession to the arguments of his 
 parliamentary opponents, an art in which he was per- 
 haps unrivalled, it was little surmised that the extraor- 
 dinary power of accurate remembrance which he dis- 
 played on such occasions had been originally diligently 
 trained under the discipline of his father in the parish 
 church of Drayton. 
 
 It is indeed marvellous what continuous application will 
 effect in the commonest of things. It may seem a simple 
 affair to play upon a violin ; yet what a long and labori- 
 ous practice it requires ! Giardini said to a youth who 
 asked him how long it would take to learn it, " Twelve 
 hours a day for twenty years together." Industry, it is 
 said, fait Vours danser. The poor figurante must devote 
 4 
 
74 CHEERFULNESS. CHAP. III. 
 
 years of incessant toil too her profitless task before she 
 can shine in it. When Taglioni was preparing herself 
 for her evening exhibition, she would, after a severe two 
 hours' lesson from her father, fall down exhausted, and 
 had to be undressed, spunged, and resuscitated, totally un- 
 conscious. The agility and bounds of the evening were 
 insured only at a price like this. The enormous pre- 
 paratory training and labor undergone by these " ar- 
 tists" is enough to shame the indolent and the supine 
 engaged in more worthy pursuits. Less than half of 
 such application devoted to self-culture or to self-improve- 
 ment of any kind, could scarcely fail in insuring success 
 and leading to distinction. 
 
 Progress, however, of the best kind, is comparatively 
 slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once ; and 
 we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step 
 by step. De Maistre says that " to know how to wait is 
 the great secret of success." We must sow before we 
 can reap, and often have to wait long, content meanwhile 
 to look patiently forward in hope ; the fruit best worth 
 waiting for often ripening the slowest. But " time and 
 patience," says the Eastern proverb, " change the mul- 
 berry leaf to satin." 
 
 To wait patiently, however, men must work cheerfully. 
 Cheerfulness is an excellent working quality, imparting 
 great elasticity to the character. As a bishop has said, 
 " Temper is nine tenths of Christianity ; " so are cheer- 
 fulness and diligence nine tenths of practical wisdom. 
 They are the life and soul of success, as well as of happi- 
 ness ; perhaps the very highest pleasure in life consisting 
 in clear, brisk, conscious working ; energy, confidence, 
 and every other good quality mainly depending upon it. 
 Sydney Smith, when laboring as a parish priest at Foston- 
 
CHAP. in. HOPE. 75 
 
 le-Clay, in Yorkshire, though he did not feel himself 
 to be in his proper element, went cheerfully to work in 
 the firm determination to do his best. " I am resolved," 
 he said, " to like it, and reconcile myself to it, which is 
 more manly than to feign myself above it, and to send up 
 complaints by the post of being thrown away, and being 
 desolate, and such like trash." So Dr. Hook, when 
 leaving Leeds for a new sphere of labor, said, " Wher- 
 ever I may be, I shall, by God's blessing, do with my 
 might what my hand findeth to do ; and if I do not find 
 work, I shall make it." 
 
 Laborers for the public good especially, have to work 
 long and patiently, often uncheered by the prospect of 
 immediate recompense or result. The seeds they sow 
 sometimes lie hidden under the winter's snow, and before 
 the spring comes the husbandman may have gone to his 
 rest. It is not every public worker who, like Rowland 
 Hill, sees his great idea bring forth fruit in his lifetime. 
 Adam Smith sowed the seeds of a great social ameliora- 
 tion in that dingy old University of Glasgow, where 
 he so long labored, there laying the foundations of his 
 " Wealth of Nations ; " and seventy years passed before 
 his work bore substantial fruits, nor indeed are they all 
 gathered in yet. 
 
 Nothing can compensate for the loss of hope in a man, 
 
 it entirely changes the character. " How can I work, 
 
 how can I be happy," said a great but miserable 
 thinker, " when I have lost all hope ? " Hope is like the 
 sun, which, is we journey towards it, casts the shadow of 
 our burden behind us. One of the most cheerful and 
 courageous, because one of the most hopeful of workers, 
 was Carey, the missionary. When in India, it was no 
 uncommon thing for him to weary out three pundits, who 
 
76 DR. YOUNG. CHAP. Ill 
 
 officiated as his clerks, in one day, he himself taking rest 
 only in change of employment. Carey, himself the son 
 of a shoemaker, was supported in his labors by Ward, 
 the son of a carpenter, and Marshmau, the son of a 
 weaver. By their labors, a magnificent college was 
 erected at Serampore ; sixteen flourishing stations were 
 established ; the Bible was translated into sixteen lan- 
 guages, and the seeds were sown of a beneficent moral 
 revolution in British India. Carey was never ashamed 
 of the humbleness of his origin. On one occasion, when 
 at the Governor- General's table, he overheard an officer 
 opposite him asking another, loud enough to be heard, 
 whether Carey had not once been a shoemaker: "No, 
 sir," exclaimed Carey immediately, " only a cobbler." An 
 eminently characteristic anecdote has been told of his per- 
 severance as a boy. When climbing a tree, one day, his 
 foot slipped, and he fell to the ground, breaking his leg by 
 the fall. He was confined to his bed for weeks, but 
 when his strength had grown again and he was able to 
 walk without support, the very first thing he did was to 
 go and climb that tree. Carey had need of this sort of 
 dauntless courage for the great missionary work of his 
 life, and nobly and resolutely did he do it. 
 
 It was a maxim of Dr. Young, the philosopher, that 
 " Any man can do what any other man has done ; " and 
 it is unquestionable that he himself never recoiled from 
 any trials to which he determined to subject himself. It 
 is related of him, that the first time he mounted a horse, 
 he was in company with the grandson of Mr. Barclay, of 
 Ury, the well-known sportsman, when the horseman who 
 preceded them leapt a high fence. Young wished to 
 imitate him, but fell off" his horse in the attempt. With- 
 out saying a word, he remounted, made a second effort, 
 
CHAP. III. AUDUB 3N, THE OKNITHOLOGIST. 77 
 
 and was again unsuccessful, but this time he was not 
 thrown further than on to the horse's neck, to which he 
 clung. At the third trial, he succeeded, and cleared the 
 fence. 
 
 The story of Timour the Tartar, learning a lesson of 
 perseverance under adversity from the spider, is well 
 known, and need not be repeated ; but not less interesting 
 is the following anecdote of Audubon, the American or- 
 nithologist, related by himself: "An accident," he says, 
 " which happened to two hundred of my original draw- 
 ings, nearly put a stop to my researches in ornithology. 
 I shall relate it, merely to show how far enthusiasm 
 for by no other name can I call my perseverance may 
 enable the preserver of nature to surmount the most dis- 
 heartening difficulties. I left the village of Henderson, 
 in Kentucky, situated on the banks of the Ohio, where I 
 resided for several years, to proceed to Philadelphia on 
 business. I looked to my drawings before my departure, 
 placed them carefully in a wooden box, and gave them in 
 charge of a relative, with injunctions to see that no in- 
 jury should happen to them. My absence was of several 
 months ; and when I returned, after having enjoyed the 
 pleasures of home for a few days, I inquired after my box, 
 and what I was pleased to call my treasure. The box 
 was produced and opened ; but, reader, feel for me, a 
 pair of Norway rats had taken possession of the whole, 
 and reared a young family among the gnawed bits of 
 paper, which, but a month previous, represented nearly 
 a thousand inhabitants of air ! The burning heat which 
 instantly rushed through my brain was too great to be en- 
 dured without affecting my whole nervous system. I slept 
 for several nights, and the days passed like days of obliv- 
 ion, until the animal powers being recalled into action, 
 
78 THOMAS CARLYLE. CHAP. IIL 
 
 through the strength of my constitution, I took up my 
 gun, my note-book, and my pencils, and went forth to the 
 woods as gayly as if nothing had happened. I felt pleased 
 that I might now make better drawings than before ; and, 
 ere a period not exceeding three years had elapsed, my 
 portfolio was again filled." 
 
 The accidental destruction of Sir Isaac Newton's papers, 
 by his little dog "Diamond" upsetting a lighted taper upon 
 his desk, by which the elaborate calculations of many years 
 were in a moment destroyed, is a well-known anecdote, 
 and need not here be repeated : it is said that the loss 
 caused the philosopher such profound grief that it seriously 
 injured his health, and impaired his understanding. An 
 accident of a somewhat similar kind happened to the MS. 
 of Mr. Carlyle's first volume of his " French Revolution " 
 He had lent the MS. to a literary neighbor to peruse. 
 By some mischance or other, it had been left lying on the 
 parlor floor, and become forgotten. Weeks ran on, and 
 the historian sent for his MS., the printers being loud for 
 " copy." Inquiries were made, and then it was found that 
 the maid-of-all-work, finding what she conceived to be 
 a bundle of waste paper on the floor, had used it to light 
 the kitchen and parlor fires with ! Such was the answer 
 returned to Mr. Carlyle ; and his consternation and despair 
 may be imagined. There was, however, no help for him 
 but to set himself resolutely to work to rewrite his book ; 
 and he turned to and did it. He had no draft, and was 
 compelled to rake up from his memory facts, ideas, and 
 expressions, which had long since been dismissed. The 
 composition of the book in the first instance had been a 
 work of real pleasure ; the rewriting of it a second time 
 was one of pain and anguish almost beyond belief. That 
 he persevered and finished the volume under such circum 
 
?HAF. III. THE CUNEIFORM CHARACTER. 79 
 
 itances, afford* an instance of determination of purpose 
 which has seldom been exceeded. 
 
 The lives of all eminent inventors are eminently illus- 
 trative of the same quality of perseverance. George 
 Stephenson, when addressing young men, was accus- 
 tomed to sum up his best advice to them in the words, 
 " Do as I have done persevere." He had worked 
 at the improvement of his locomotive for some fifteen 
 years before achieving his decisive victory at Rainhill; 
 and Watt was engaged for some thirty years upon the 
 condensing engine before he brought it to perfection. But 
 there are equally striking illustrations of perseverance to 
 be found in every other branch of science, art, and indus- 
 try. Perhaps one of the most interesting is that con- 
 nected with the disentombment of the Nineveh marbles, 
 and the discovery of the long-lost cuneiform or arrow- 
 headed character, in which the inscriptions on them are 
 written, a kind of writing which had been lost to the 
 world since the period of the Macedonian conquest of 
 Persia. 
 
 An intelligent cadet of the East India Company, sta- 
 tioned at Kermanshah, in Persia, had observed the curi- 
 ous cuneiform inscriptions on the old monuments in the 
 neighborhood, so old that all historical traces of them 
 had been lost, and amongst the inscriptions which he 
 copied was that upon the celebrated rock of Behistun, 
 a perpendicular rock rising abruptly some 1 ,700 feet from 
 the plain, the lower part bearing inscriptions for the space 
 of about three hundred feet, in three languages, the 
 Persian, Scythian, and Assyrian. Comparison of the 
 known with the unknown, of the language which survived 
 with the language that had been lost, enabled this cadet 
 to acquire some knowledge of the cuneiform character 
 
80 AUSTEN LAYARD. CHAP. III. 
 
 and even to form an alphabet. Mr. (afterwards Sir 
 Henry) Rawlinson sent his tracings home for examina- 
 tion. No professors in colleges knew anything about the 
 cuneiform character ; but there was a ci-devant clerk of 
 the East India House, a modest unknown man of the 
 name of Norris, who had made this little-understood 
 subject his study, to whom the tracings were submitted ; 
 and so accurate was his knowledge, that, though he had 
 never seen the Behistun rock, he pronounced that Raw- 
 linson had not copied the puzzling inscription with proper 
 exactness. Rawlinson, who was still in the neighborhood 
 of the rock, compared his copy with the original, and 
 found that Norris was right ; and by further comparison 
 and careful study the knowledge of the cuneiform writing 
 was thus greatly advanced. 
 
 But to make the learning of these two self-taught men 
 of avail, a third laborer was necessary in order to supply 
 them with material for the exercise of their skill. Such 
 a laborer presented himself in the person of Austen Lay- 
 ard, originally an articled clerk in the office of a London 
 solicitor. One would scarcely have expected to find in 
 these three men, a cadet, an India House clerk, and a 
 lawyer's clerk, the discoverers of a forgotten language, 
 and of the buried history of Babylon ; and yet it was so. 
 Layard was a youth of only twenty-two, travelling in 
 the East, when he was possessed with a desire to pene- 
 trate the regions beyond the Euphrates. Accompanied 
 by a single companion, trusting to his arms for protection, 
 and, what was better, to his cheerfulness, politeness, and 
 chivalrous bearing, he passed safely amidst tribes at 
 deadly war with each other ; and, after the lapse of many 
 years, with comparatively slender means at his command, 
 but aided by intense labor and perseverance, resolute will 
 
CHAP. in. SIR WALTER SCOTT. 81 
 
 and purpose, and almost sublime patience, borne up 
 throughout by his passionate enthusiasm for discovery 
 and research, lie succeeded in laying bare and digging 
 up an amount of historical treasures, the like of which 
 has probably never before been collected by the industry 
 of any one man. Not less than two miles of bas-reliefs 
 were thus brought to light by Mr. Layard. The selec- 
 tions of these valuable antiquities now placed in the Brit- 
 ish Museum were found so curiously corroborative of the 
 Scriptural records of events which occurred some three 
 thousand years ago, that they burst upon the world almost 
 like a new revelation. And the story of the disentomb- 
 ment of these remarkable works, as told by Mr. Layard 
 himself in his " Monuments of Nineveh," will always be 
 regarded as one of the most charming and unaffected 
 records which we possess of individual enterprise, indus- 
 try, and energy. 
 
 Literary life affords abundant illustrations of the same 
 power of perseverance ; and perhaps no career is more 
 instructive, viewed in this light, than that of Sir Walter 
 Scott. His admirable working qualities were trained in 
 a lawyer's office, where he pursued for many years a 
 routine of drudgery scarcely above that of a mere copy- 
 ing clerk. His daily dry routine made his evenings, 
 which were his own, all the more sweet ; and he gener- 
 ally devoted them to reading and study. He himself 
 attributed to his prosaic office discipline that habit of 
 steady, sober diligence, in which mere literary men are 
 so often found wanting. As a copying clerk he was al- 
 lowed 3d. for every page containing a certain number of 
 words ; and he sometimes, by extra work, was able to 
 copy as many as one hundred and twenty pages in twen- 
 ty-four hours, thus earning some 30s. ; out of which he 
 4* 
 
82 SIB WALTER SCOTT. CHAP. IIL 
 
 would sometimes purchase an odd volume otherwise 
 beyond his means. During his after-life Scott was wont 
 to pride himself upon being a man of business, and he 
 averred, in contradiction to what he called the cant of 
 sonneteers, that there was no necessary connection be- 
 tween genius and an aversion or contempt for the com- 
 mon duties of life. On the contrary, he was of opinion 
 that to spend some fair portion of every day in any mat- 
 ter-of-fact occupation, was good for the higher faculties 
 themselves in the upshot. While afterwards acting as 
 clerk to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, he performed 
 his literary work chiefly before breakfast, attending the 
 court during the day, where he was occupied in ordinary 
 drudgery, such as authenticating registered deeds and 
 writings of various kinds ; on the whole, says Lockhart, 
 " it forms one of the most remarkable features in his his- 
 tory, that throughout the most active period of his literary 
 career, he must have devoted a large proportion of his 
 hours, during half at least of every year, to the conscien- 
 tious discharge of professional duties." It was a prin- 
 ciple of action which he laid down for himself, that he 
 must earn his living by business, and not by literature ; 
 he said, " I determined that literature should be my staff, 
 not my crutch, and that the profits of my literary labor, 
 however convenient otherwise, should not, if I could help 
 it, become necessary to my ordinary expenses." 
 
 His punctuality was one of the most carefully culti- 
 vated of his habits, otherwise it had not been possible for 
 him to get through so enormous an amount of literary 
 labor. He made it a rule to answer every letter received 
 by him, on the same day, except where inquiry and de- 
 liberation were requisite. Nothing else could have ena- 
 bled him to keep abreast with the flood of communications 
 
CHAP. HI. SIR W ALTER SCOTT. 83 
 
 that poured in upon him and put his good nature to the 
 severest test. It was his practice to rise by five o clock, 
 and light his own fire. He shaved and dressed with 
 deliberation, and was seated at his desk by six o'clock, 
 all his papers arranged before him in the most accurate 
 order, with his books of reference marshalled round him 
 on the floor, while at least one favorite dog lay watching 
 his eye, outside the line of books. Thus by the time the 
 family assembled for breakfast, between nine and ten, he 
 had done enough to use his own words to break 
 the neck of the day's work. But with all his diligent 
 and indefatigable industry, and his immense knowledge, 
 the result of many years' patient labor, Scott always 
 spoke with the greatest modesty of his own powers. On 
 one occasion he said, " Throughout every part of my 
 career I have felt pinched and hampered by my own 
 ignorance." 
 
 Such is true wisdom and humility ; for the more a man 
 really knows, the less conceited will he be. The student 
 at Trinity College who went up to his professor to take 
 leave of him because he had " finished his education," 
 was wisely rebuked by the professor's reply, " Indeed ! I 
 am only beginning mine." The superficial person who 
 has obtained a smattering of many things, but knows 
 nothing well, may pride himself upon his gifts ; but the 
 sage humbly confesses that "all he knows is, that he 
 knows nothing," or like Newton, that he has been only 
 engaged in picking shells by the sea-shore, while the 
 great ocean of truth extends itself all unexplored before 
 him. 
 
 The lives of second-rate literary men furnish equally 
 remarkable illustrations of the power of perseverance. 
 The late John Britton, author of " The Beauties of Eng- 
 
84 JOHN BRITTON. CHAP. IIL 
 
 land and Wales," and of many valuable architectural 
 works, furnished a striking instance of well-directed ap- 
 plication. He was born in a miserable cot in Kingston, 
 Wiltshire. His father had been a baker and maltster 
 but was ruined in trade, and became insane, while Britton 
 was yet a child. The boy received very little schooling, 
 but a great deal of bad example, which happily did not 
 destroy him. He was early in life set to labor with an 
 uncle, a tavern-keeper in Clerkenwell, under whom he 
 bottled, corked, and binned wine, for more than five years. 
 His health failing him, his uncle turned him adrift in the 
 world, with only two guineas, the fruits of his five years' 
 service, in his pocket. During the next seven years of his 
 life he endured many vicissitudes and hardships. Yet he 
 says, in his autobiography, " in my poor and obscure 
 lodgings, at eighteen pence a week, I indulged in study, 
 and often read in bed during the winter evenings, because 
 I could not afford a fire." Travelling on foot to Bath, he 
 there obtained an engagement as a cellar-man, but shortly 
 after we find him back in the metropolis again, almost 
 penniless, shoeless, and shirtless. He succeeded, how- 
 ever, in obtaining employment as a cellar-man at the 
 London Tavern, and it was his duty to be in the cellar 
 from seven in the morning until eleven at night. His 
 health broke down under this confinement in the dark, 
 added to the heavy work ; and he then engaged himself, 
 at fifteen shillings a week, to an attorney, for he had 
 been diligently cultivating the art of writing during the 
 few spare minutes that he could call his own. While in 
 this employment, he devoted his leisure principally to 
 perambulating the bookstalls, where he read books by 
 snatches which he could not buy, and thus picked up a 
 good deal of odd knowledge. Then he shifted to another 
 
CHAP. III. LOUDON, THE LANDSCAPE GAEDENER. 85 
 
 office, at the advanced wages of twenty shillings a week, 
 still reading and studying. At twenty-eight he was able 
 to write a book, which he published under the title of 
 " The Enterprising Adventures of Pizarro ; " and from 
 that time until quite recently, during a period of about 
 fifty-five years, Britton was occupied in laborious literary 
 occupation, chiefly connected with English antiquities. 
 The number of his published works is not fewer than 
 eighty-seven ; the most important being " The Cathedral 
 Antiquities of England," in fourteen volumes, a truly 
 magnificent work; itself the best monument of John 
 Britton's indefatigable industry. 
 
 Loudon, the landscape gardener, was a man of some- 
 what similar character, possessed of an extraordinary 
 working-power. The son of a farmer near Edinburgh, 
 he was early inured to work. His skill in drawing plans 
 and making sketches of scenery induced his father to train 
 him for a landscape gardener. During his apprenticeship 
 he sat up two whole nights every week to study ; yet he 
 worked harder during the day than any laborer. During 
 his studious hours he learned French, and before he was 
 eighteen translated a life of Abelard for an Encyclopaedia. 
 He was so eager to make progress in life, that when only 
 twenty, while working as a gardener in England, he 
 wrote down in his note-book, " I am now twenty years of 
 age, and perhaps a third part of my life has passed away, 
 and yet what have I done to benefit my fellow-men ? " 
 an unusual reflection for a youth of only twenty. From 
 French he proceeded to learn German, and rapidly mas- 
 tered that language. He now took a large farm for the 
 purpose of introducing Scotch improvements in the art 
 of agriculture, and soon succeeded in realizing a consider- 
 able income. The continent being thrown open on the 
 cessation of the war, he proceeded to travel for the pur- 
 
86 SAMUEL DREW. CHAP. III. 
 
 pose of observation, making sketches of the system of 
 gardening in all countries, which he afterwards intro- 
 duced in the historical part of his laborious Encyclopaedia 
 of Gardening. He twice repeated his journeys abroad 
 for a similar purpose, the result of which appeared in his 
 Encyclopedias ; perhaps amongst the most remarkable 
 works of their kind, distinguished for the immense mass 
 of useful matter which they contain, all collected by dint 
 of persevering industry and labor, such as has rarely 
 been equalled. 
 
 The career of Samuel Drew is perhaps less known, but 
 is no less remarkable than any of those which we have 
 cited. His father was a hard-working laborer of the par- 
 ish of St. Austell, in Cornwall. Though poor, be con- 
 trived to send his two sons to a penny-a-week school in 
 the neighborhood. Jabez, the elder, took delight in learn- 
 ing, and made great progress in his lessons ; but Samuel, 
 the younger, was a dunce, notoriously given to mischief 
 and playing truant. Hence it was principally to his 
 mother that he was indebted for nearly all the reading 
 and writing that he learned in youth. When about eight 
 years old he was put to manual labor, earning three half- 
 pence a day as a buddle boy at a tin mine. 
 
 His mother having died, the boy was allowed to grow 
 up altogether neglected by his father, who, being a Wes- 
 ley an local preacher, was so much occupied by his class 
 engagements that he had no time to devote to the training 
 of his own children. When about ten years old, the boy 
 was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and while in this em- 
 ployment he endured many hardships, living, as he used 
 to say, " like a toad under a harrow." He often thought 
 of running away and becoming a pirate, or something of 
 that sort, and he seems to have grown in recklessness as 
 
CHAP. III. SAMUEL DREW, SMUGGLER. 87 
 
 he grew in years. In robbing orchards he was always a 
 leader ; and, as he grew older, his greatest delight was in 
 taking part in a poaching or smuggling exploit. Whea 
 about seventeen, before his apprenticeship was out, he 
 ran away from his home, with sixteen pence half-penny in 
 his pocket. His intention was to enter on board a man- 
 of-war ; but, sleeping in a hay-field for the night cooled 
 him a little, and, in passing through Liskeard, he applied 
 to a master shoemaker for employment, and obtained it. 
 While there, his brother, who was in search of him, hear- 
 ing of the lad's whereabouts, found him out, and took him 
 home again; then he was employed for a time in the 
 ordinary labors of a small farm, and in running the post 
 between St. Austell and Bodmin. 
 
 Drew next removed to the neighborhood of Plymouth 
 to work at his shoemaking business, and while at Caw- 
 eand he won a prize for cudgel-playing, in which he 
 seems to have been an adept. While living in this neigh- 
 borhood he had nearly lost his life in one of the smug- 
 gling exploits in which he still continued eager to join, 
 partly induced by the love of adventure, and partly by 
 the love of gain, for his regular wages were not more 
 than eight shillings a week. One night notice was given 
 throughout Crafthole, that a smuggler was off the coast, 
 and ready to land her cargo ; on which the male popula- 
 tion of the place nearly all smugglers made for the 
 shore. One party remained on the rocks to make signals, 
 and dispose of the goods as they were landed ; and an- 
 other manned the boats, Samuel Drew being of the latter 
 party. The night was intensely dark, and but little prog- 
 ress had been made in landing the vessel's cargo, when 
 the wind rose, with a heavy sea. The men in the boats, 
 however, determined to persevere, and several trips were 
 
88 SAMUEL DREW, SHOEMAKER. CHAP. III. 
 
 made between the smuggler, now standing farther out to 
 sea, and the shore. One of the men in the boat in which 
 Drew was, had his hat blown off by the wind, and in 
 attemptiag to recover it, the boat was upset. Three of 
 the men were immediately drowned, and Samuel and two 
 or three others clung to the boat for a time, but finding it 
 drifting fast out to sea, they took to swimming. They 
 were about two miles from shore, in an intensely dark 
 night. After being about three hours in the water, Drew 
 reached some rocks near the shore, with one or two 
 others, where he remained benumbed with cold till morn- 
 ing, when he and his companions were discovered and 
 taken off, more dead than alive. A keg of brandy from 
 the cargo just landed was brought, the head knocked in 
 with a hatchet, and a bowlful of the liquid presented to 
 the survivors ; and, shortly after, Drew was able to walk 
 two miles through the deep snow, to his lodgings. 
 
 This was a very unpromising beginning of a life, and 
 yet this same Drew, scape-grace, orchard-robber, shoe- 
 maker, cudgel-player, and smuggler, outlived the reck- 
 lessness of his youth, and became distinguished as a 
 minister of the Gospel and a writer of good books. 
 Happily, before it was too late, the energy which char- 
 acterized him was turned into wholesome directions, and 
 rendered him as eminent in usefulness as he had before 
 been in wickedness. His father again took him back to 
 St. Austell, and found employment for him as a journey- 
 man shoemaker. Perhaps his recent escape from death 
 had tended to make the young man serious, and we 
 shortly find him, attracted by the forcible preaching of 
 Dr. Adam Clarke, become a member of the Wesleyan 
 Methodists. His brother having died about the same 
 time, the impression of seriousness was deepened ; and 
 
CHAP, III. SAMUEL DEEW, STUDENT. 89 
 
 thenceforward he was an altered man. He recommenced 
 the work of education, for he had almost forgotten how to 
 read and write ; and even after several years' practice, a 
 friend compared his writing to the traces of a spider 
 dipped in ink, and set to crawl upon paper. Speaking 
 of himself, about the same time, Drew afterwards said, 
 " The more I read, the more I felt my own ignorance ; 
 and the more I felt my ignorance, the more invincible 
 became my energy to surmount it. Every leisure mo- 
 ment was now employed in reading one thing or another. 
 Having to support myself by manual labor, my time for 
 reading was but little, and to overcome this disadvantage, 
 my usual method was to place a book before me while at 
 meat, and at every repast I read five or six pages." The 
 perusal of Locke's " Essay on the Understanding " gave 
 the first metaphysical turn to his mind. " It awakened 
 me from my stupor," said he, " and induced me to form 
 a resolution to abandon the grovelling views which I had 
 been accustomed to entertain." 
 
 Drew now began business on his own account, though 
 his whole capital was only fourteen shillings ; but his 
 steady good character being now proved, a neighboring 
 miller volunteered a loan, which was accepted, and, suc- 
 cess attending his industry, the debt was repaid at the 
 end of a year. He started in life with a determined 
 resolution to " owe no man anything," and he held to it 
 in the midst of many privations. Often he went to bed 
 eupperless, to avoid rising in debt. His ambition was to 
 achieve independence by industry and rigid economy, and 
 in this he gradually succeeded. In the midst of incessant 
 toil, he labored to carry forward the cultivation of his 
 mind, studying even astronomy, history, and metaphysics. 
 He was induced to pursue the latter study chiefly be- 
 
90 SAMUEL DREW, POLITICIAN. CHAP. III. 
 
 cause it required fewer books to consult than either of 
 the others. " It appeared to be a thorny path," he said, 
 "but I determined, nevertheless, to enter, and accord- 
 ingly began to tread it." 
 
 Added to his labors in shoemaking and metaphysics, 
 Drew became a local preacher and a class leader ; over 
 flowing with activity he also entered eagerly into the 
 discussion of politics, and he even ran some risk of be- 
 coming a gad-about and busybody. Politicians resorted to 
 his shoemaking shop to talk politics, and he went to theirs 
 for a similar purpose. This so encroached upon his time 
 that he found it necessary sometimes to work until mid- 
 night to make up for the hours lost during the day. 
 Shoemakers are proverbially political characters, and 
 Drew's fervor soon became the talk of the village. While 
 busy one night hammering away at a shoe-sole, a little boy, 
 seeing a light in the shop, put his mouth to the keyhole 
 of the door, and called out in a shrill pipe, " Shoemaker ! 
 shoemaker ! work by night and run about by day ! " A 
 friend, to whom Drew afterwards told the story, asked, 
 " And did you not run after the boy, and strap him ? " 
 " No, no," was the reply ; " had a pistol been fired off at 
 my ear, I could not have been more dismayed or con- 
 founded. I dropped my work, and said to myself, ' True, 
 true ! but you shall never have that to say of me again.' 
 To me that cry was as the voice of God, and it has been 
 a word in season throughout my life. I learnt from it 
 not to leave till to-morrow the work of to-day, or to idle 
 when I ought to be working." 
 
 From that moment Drew dropped politics, and stuck 
 to his daily work, and to self-improvement in his spare 
 hours ; but he never allowed the latter to interfere with 
 his business* though it frequently broke in upon his rest. 
 
CHAP. III. SAMUEL DREW, METAPHYSICIAN. 91 
 
 He married, and thought of emigrating to America ; but 
 he remained working on. His literary taste first took 
 the direction of poetical composition ; and from some of 
 the fragments which have been preserved, it appears that 
 his speculations as to the immateriality and immortality 
 of the soul had their origin in these poetical musings. 
 His study was the kitchen, where his wife's bellows 
 served him for a desk ; and he wrote amidst the cries 
 and cradlings of his children. Paine's " Age of Reason " 
 having come out about this time, and excited great in- 
 terest amongst young readers, he composed a pamphlet in 
 refutation of its arguments, which was published. He 
 used afterwards to say that it was the " Age of Reason " 
 that made him an author. Various pamphlets from his 
 pen now appeared in rapid succession, and a few years 
 later, whilst still working on at shoemaking, he wrote 
 and published his admirable " Essay on the Immaterial- 
 ity and Immortality of the Human Soul," which he sold 
 for twenty pounds, a great sum in his estimation at the 
 time. The book went through many editions, and is still 
 prized. 
 
 He was in no wise puffed up by his success, as many 
 young authors are, but, long after he had become cele- 
 brated as a writer, used to be seen sweeping the street 
 before his door, or helping his apprentices to carry in the 
 winter's coals. Some one telling him that he compro- 
 mised his dignity by so doing, he replied, " The man who 
 is ashamed to carry in his own coals deserves to sit all 
 the winter by an empty grate." Nor could he, for some 
 time, bring himself to regard literature as a profession to 
 live by. His first care was to secure an honest liveli- 
 hood by his business, and to put into the " lottery of liter- 
 ary success," as he termed it, only the surplus of his 
 
02 JOSEPH HUME, SURGE OTf. CHAP. III. 
 
 time. But a new and honorable sphere of life now 
 opened before him ; and, at the invitation of Dr. Coke, 
 he entered into an engagement with that gentleman to 
 assist him in the arrangement and completion of certain 
 works in which he was engaged. He continued an ac- 
 tive literary career in connection with the Wesleyan 
 body, editing one of their magazines, and superintending 
 the publication of many of their denominational works, 
 writing also in the " Eclectic Review," compiling and 
 publishing a valuable history of his native county, Corn- 
 wall, with numerous other works. Of himself he truly 
 said, " Raised from one of the lowest stations in society, I 
 have endeavored through life to bring my family into a 
 state of respectability, by honest industry, frugality, and a 
 high regard for my moral character. Divine Providence 
 smiled on my exertions, and crowned my wishes with 
 success." 
 
 The late Joseph Hume pursued a different career in 
 life, but worked in an equally conscientious spirit. He 
 was a man of moderate parts, but of great industry, and 
 unimpeachable honesty of purpose. The motto of his 
 life was "Perseverance," and well he acted up to it. 
 His father dying while he was a mere child, his mother 
 opened a small shop in Montrose, and toiled hard to 
 maintain her family and bring them up respectably. 
 Joseph she put apprentice to a surgeon, and educated for 
 the medical profession. Having got his diploma, he made 
 several voyages to India as ship's surgeon,* and after- 
 wards obtained a cadetship in the Company's service. 
 
 * It was characteristic of Mr. Hume, that, during these profes- 
 sional voyages between England and India, he should diligently apply 
 his spare time to the study of navigation and seamanship ; and many 
 years after, it proved of use to him in a remarkable manner. In 
 
CHAP. III. JOSEPH HUME, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. 93 
 
 None worked harder, or lived more temperately, than ho 
 did ; and, securing the confidence of his superiors, who 
 found him a capable man in the performance of his duty, 
 they gradually promoted him to higher rank. In 1803 
 he was with the division of the army under General 
 Powell in the Mahratta war ; and the interpreter having 
 died, Hume, who had meanwhile studied and mastered 
 the native languages, was appointed to the office. He 
 was also made chief of the medical staff. But as if 
 this were not enough to occupy his full working-power, 
 he undertook in addition the offices of paymaster and 
 postmaster, and satisfactorily performed their duties. He 
 also undertook large contracts for supplying the commis- 
 sariat, which he conducted with advantage to the army 
 and profit to himself. After about ten years' unremitting 
 labor, he returned to England with a competency; and 
 one of his first acts was to make provision for the poorer 
 members of his family. 
 
 But Joseph Hume was not a man idly to enjoy the 
 fruits of his industry ; indeed, work and occupation were 
 necessary for his comfort and happiness. To make him- 
 self fully acquainted with the actual state of his own 
 
 1825, when on his passage from London to Leith by a sailing smack, 
 the vessel had scarcely cleared the mouth of the Thames when a sud- 
 den storm came on, she was driven out of her course, and, in the 
 darkness of the night, she struck on the Goodwin Sands. The cap- 
 tain, losing his presence of mind, seemed incapable of giving coherent 
 orders, and it is probable that the vessel would shortly have become 
 a total wreck, had not one of the passengers suddenly taken the com- 
 mand and directed the working of the ship, himself taking the helm 
 while the danger lasted. The vessel was thus saved, and the stranger 
 was Mr. Hume. Mr. Reid, of Banchory, was one of the numerous 
 passengers on board, and but for him we should never have heard of 
 the story, for Joseph Hume was one of the last men to boast of his 
 own prowess. 
 
94 JOSEPH HUME, HIS PERSEVERANCE. CHAP. HI. 
 
 country and the condition of the people, he visited every 
 town in the United Kingdom which enjoyed any degree 
 of manufacturing celebrity. Afterwards he travelled 
 abroad, gathering a store of experience of men and 
 states. Returned to England, he entered Parliament in 
 1812, and continued a member of that assembly, with a 
 short interruption, for a period of about thirty-four years. 
 His first recorded speech was on the subject of public 
 education, and throughout his long and honorable career 
 he took an active and earnest interest in that and all 
 other questions calculated to elevate and improve the 
 condition of the people, criminal reform, savings-banks, 
 free-trade, economy and retrenchment, extended repre- 
 sentation, and such like measures, all of which he inde- 
 fatigably promoted. Whatever subject he undertook, he 
 worked at with all his might. He was not a good speak- 
 er, but what he said was believed to proceed from the lips 
 of an honest, single-minded, accurate man. If ridicule, 
 as Shaftesbury says, be the test of truth, Joseph Hume 
 stood the test well. No man was more laughed at, but 
 there he stood perpetually, and literally, " at his post." 
 He was usually beaten on a division, but the influence 
 -which he exercised was nevertheless deeply felt, and 
 many important financial improvements were effected by 
 him even with the vote directly against him. The amount 
 of hard work which he contrived to get through was some- 
 thing extraordinary. He rose at six, wrote letters and 
 arranged his papers for the House ; then, after breakfast, 
 he received persons on business, sometimes as many as 
 twenty in a morning. The House rarely assembled with- 
 out him, and though the debate were prolonged to two or 
 three o'clock in the following morning, be sure you would 
 find Mr. Hume's name in any division that took place- 
 
CHAP. III.. JOSEPH HUME. <J5 
 
 In short, to perform the work which Mr. Hume did, ex- 
 tending over so long a period, in the face of so many ad- 
 ministrations, week after week, year after year, to be 
 outvoted, beaten, laughed at, standing on many occasions 
 almost alone, to persevere in the face of every discour- 
 agement, preserving his temper unruffled, never relaxing 
 in his energy or his hope, and living to see the greater 
 number of his measures adopted with acclamation, must 
 be regarded as one of the most marvellous things of its 
 kind in the history of human character. 
 
i>6 WILSON, THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER. CHAP. IV 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HELPS AND OPPORTUNITIES SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS. 
 
 ''Neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can do 
 much ; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps, of which the 
 need is not less for the understanding than the hand." Bacon. 
 
 " Opportunity has hair in front, behind she is bald ; if you seize her by 
 the forelock you may hold her, but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself 
 can catch her again.'' From the Latin. 
 
 ACCIDENT does very little towards the production of 
 any great result in life. Though sometimes what is called 
 " a happy hit " may be made by a bold venture, the old 
 and common highway of steady industry and application 
 is the only safe road to travel. It is said of the land- 
 scape-painter Wilson, that when he had finished a picture 
 in a tame, correct manner, he would step back to some 
 distance, with his pencil fixed at the end of a long stick, 
 and after gazing earnestly on his work, he would suddenly 
 dash up, and by a few bold touches give a brilliant finish 
 to his painting. But it will not do for every one who 
 would produce an effect, to throw his brush at the canvas 
 in the hope of producing a picture. The capability of 
 putting in these last vital touches is acquired only by 
 the labor of a life ; and the probability is, that the artist 
 who has not carefully trained himself beforehand, in 
 attempting to produce a brilliant effect at a dash, will 
 only produce a blotch. 
 
 Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always 
 
CHAP. IV. DISCOVERIES NOT ACCIDENTAL. 97 
 
 mark the true worker. The greatest men are not those 
 who " despise the day of small things," but those who 
 improve them the most carefully. Michael Angelo was 
 one day explaining to a visitor at his studio, what he had 
 been doing at a statue since his previous visit. " I have 
 retouched this part, polished that, softened this fea- 
 ture, brought out that muscle, given some expression 
 to this lip, and more energy to that limb." " But these 
 are trifles." remarked the visitor. "It may be so," re- 
 plied the sculptor, "but recollect that trifles make per- 
 fection, and perfection is no trifle." So it was said of 
 Nicholas Poussin, the painter, that the rule of his conduct 
 was, that " whatever was worth doing at all was worth 
 doing well ; " and when asked, late in life, by his friend 
 Vigneul de Marville, by what means he had gained so 
 high a reputation among the painters of Italy, Poussin em- 
 phatically answered, " Because I have neglected nothing." 
 Although there are discoveries which are said to have 
 been made by accident, if carefully inquired into, it will 
 be found that there has really been very little that was 
 accidental about them. For the most part, these so-called 
 accidents have only been opportunities, carefully im- 
 proved by genius. The fall of the apple at Newton's 
 feet has often been quoted in proof of the accidental char- 
 acter of some discoveries. But Newton's whole mind 
 had already been devoted for years to the laborious and 
 patient investigation of the subject of gravitation ; and 
 the circumstance of the apple falling before his eyes was 
 suddenly apprehended only as genius could apprehend it, 
 and served to flash upon him the brilliant discovery then 
 bursting on his sight, In like manner, the brilliantly- 
 colored soap-bubbles blown from a common tobacco-pipe, 
 though " trifles light as air " in most eyes, suggested 
 
98 INTELLIGENT OBSERVATION. CHAP. IV. 
 
 to Dr. Young his beautiful theory of " interferences," and 
 led to his discovery relating to the diffraction of light. 
 Although great men are popularly supposed only to deal 
 with great things, men such as Newton and Young were 
 ready to detect the significance of the most familiar and 
 simple facts ; their greatness consisting mainly in their 
 wise interpretation of them. 
 
 The difference between men consists, in a great meas- 
 ure, in the intelligence of their observation. The Rus- 
 sian proverb says of the non-observant man, " He goes 
 through the forest and sees no firewood." " The wise 
 man's eyes are in his head," says Solomon, " but the fool 
 walketh in darkness." " Sir," said Johnson, on one occa- 
 sion, to a fine gentleman just returned from Italy, " some 
 men will learn more in the Hampstead stage than others 
 in the tour of Europe." It is the mind that sees as 
 well as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe noth- 
 ing, men of intelligent vision penetrate into the very 
 fibre of the phenomena presented to them, attentively 
 noting differences, making comparisons and detecting 
 their underlying idea. Many, before Galileo, had seen 
 a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a meas- 
 ured beat ; but he was the first to detect the value of the 
 fact. One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after 
 replenishing with oil a lamp which hung from the roof; 
 left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of 
 only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea 
 of applying it to the measurement of time. Fifty years 
 of study and labor, however, elapsed before he completed 
 the invention of his Pendulum, an invention, the im- 
 portance of which, in the measurement of time and in 
 astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overvalued. In 
 like manner, Galileo, having casually heard that one 
 
CHAP. IV. SUSPENSION BRIDGE -THAMES TUNNEL. 99 
 
 Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle-maker, had presented to 
 Count Maurice of Nassau an instrument by means of 
 which distant objects appeared proximate to the beholder, 
 addressed himself to the cause of such a phenomenon, 
 which led to the invention of the telescope, and thus 
 proved the commencement of important astronomical dis- 
 coveries. Discoveries such as these could never have 
 been made by a negligent observer, or by a mere passive 
 listener. 
 
 While Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown was 
 occupied in studying the construction of bridges, with the 
 view of contriving one of a cheap description to be thrown 
 across the Tweed, near which he lived, he was walking in 
 his garden one dewy autumn morning, when he saw a 
 tiny spider's net suspended across his path. The idea 
 immediately occurred to him, that a bridge of iron ropes 
 or chains might be constructed in like manner, and the 
 result was the invention of his Suspension Bridge. So 
 James Watt, when consulted about the mode of carrying 
 water by pipes under the Clyde, along the unequal bed 
 of the river, turned his attention one day to the shell of 
 a lobster presented at table ; and from that model he in- 
 vented an iron tube, which, when laid down, was found 
 effectually to answer the purpose. Sir Isambert Brunei 
 took his first lessons in forming the Thames Tunnel from 
 the tiny ship worm : he saw how the little creature per- 
 forated the wood with its well-armed head, first in one 
 direction and then in another, till the archway was com- 
 plete, and then daubed over the roof and sides with a 
 kind of varnish ; and by copying this work exactly on 
 a large scale, Brunei was at length enabled to accomplish 
 his great engineering work. 
 
 It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which 
 
100 CLOSE OBSERVATION OF LITTLE THINGS. CHAP. IV 
 
 gives these apparently trivial phenomena their value. So 
 trifling a matter as the sight of sea-weed floating past his 
 ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose 
 amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to assure 
 them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off. 
 There is nothing so small that it should remain forgotten ; 
 and no fact, however trivial, but may prove useful in some 
 way or other if carefully interpreted. Who could have 
 imagined that the famous "chalk cliffs of Albion" had 
 been built up by tiny insects, detected only by the help 
 of the microscope, of the same order of creatures that 
 have gemmed the sea with islands of coral ! And who 
 that contemplates such extraordinary results, arising from 
 infinitely minute operations, will venture to question the 
 power of little things ? 
 
 It is the close observation of little things which is the 
 secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in 
 every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accu- 
 mulation of small facts, made by successive generations 
 of men, the little bits of knowledge and experience care- 
 fully treasured up by them growing at length into a 
 mighty pyramid. Though many of these facts and ob- 
 servations seemed in the first instance to have but slight 
 significance, they are all found to have their eventual uses, 
 and to fit into their proper places. Even many specula- 
 tions seemingly remote, turn out to be the basis of results 
 the most obviously practical. In the case of the conic 
 sections discovered by Apollonius Pergaeus, twenty cen- 
 turies elapsed before they were made the basis of astron- 
 omy, a science which enables the modern navigator to 
 steer his way through unknown seas, and traces for him 
 in the heavens an unerring path to his appointed haven. 
 And had not mathematicians toiled for so long, and, to 
 
CHAP. IV. MIGHT IN LITTLE THINGS. 101 
 
 uninstructed observers, apparently so fruitlessly, over the 
 abstract relations of lines and surfaces, it is probable that 
 but few of our mechanical inventions would have seen 
 the light. 
 
 When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of 
 lightning and electricity, it was sneered at, and people 
 asked, " Of what use is it ? " To which his apt reply 
 was, " What is the use of a child ? It may become a 
 man ! " When Galvani discovered that a frog's leg 
 twitched when placed in contact with different metals, it 
 could scarcely have been imagined that so apparently in- 
 significant a fact could have led to important results. Yet 
 therein lay the germ of the Electric Telegraph, which 
 binds the intelligence of continents together, and probably 
 before many years elapse will " put a girdle round the 
 globe." So too, little bits of stone and fossil, dug out of 
 the earth, intelligently interpreted, have issued in the 
 science of geology and the practical operations of mining, 
 in which large capitals are invested and vast numbers 
 of persons profitably employed. 
 
 The gigantic machinery employed in pumping our 
 mines, working our mills and manufactories, and driving 
 our steam-ships and locomotives, in like manner depends 
 for its supply of power upon so slight an agency as little 
 drops of water expanded by heat, that familiar agency 
 called steam, which we see issuing from the common tea- 
 kettle spout, but when pent up within an ingeniously 
 contrived mechanism, displays a force" equal to that of 
 millions of horses, and contains a power to rebuke the 
 waves and to set even the hurricane at defiance. The 
 same power at work within the bowels of the earth haa 
 been the cause of many of those semi-miraculous catas- 
 
102 THE ART OF SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES. CHAP. IV. 
 
 trophes, volcanoes and earthquakes, which have play 
 ed so mighty a part in the history of the globe. 
 
 It is said that the Marquis of Worcester's attention 
 was first accidentally directed to the subject of steam 
 power, by the tight cover of a vessel containing hot 
 water having been blown off before his eyes, when con- 
 fined a prisoner in the Tower. He published the result 
 of his observations in his " Century of Inventions," which 
 formed a sort of text-book for inquirers into the powers 
 of steam for several generations, until Savary, New- 
 comen, and others, applying it to practical purposes, 
 brought it to the state in which Watt found it when called 
 upon to repair a model of Newcomen's engine, which be- 
 longed to the University of Glasgow. This accidental 
 circumstance was an opportunity for Watt, which he was 
 not slow to improve ; and it was the labor of his life to 
 bring the steam-engine to perfection. 
 
 This art of seizing opportunities and turning even acci- 
 dents to account, bending them to some purpose, is a great 
 secret of success. Dr. Johnson has defined genius to be 
 " a mind of large general powers accidentally determined 
 in some particular direction." Men who are resolved to 
 find a way for themselves, will always find opportunities 
 enough ; and if they do not lie ready to their hand, they 
 will make them. It is not those who have enjoyed the 
 advantages of colleges, museums, and public galleries, 
 that have accomplished the most for science and art ; nor 
 have the greatest mechanics and inventors been trained 
 in mechanics' institutes. Necessity, oftener than facility, 
 has been the mother of invention ; and the most prolific 
 school of all has been the school of difficulty. Some of 
 the very best workmen have had the most indifferent 
 tools to work with. But it is not tools that make the 
 
CHAP. IV. BUDE SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS. 103 
 
 workman, but the trained skill and perseverance of the 
 man himself. Indeed it is proverbial that the bad work- 
 man never yet had a good tool. Some one a?ked Opie 
 by what wonderful process he mixed his colors. " I 
 mix them with my brains, sir," was his reply. It is the 
 same with every workman who would excel. Ferguson 
 made marvellous things, such as his wooden clock, that 
 accurately measured the hours, by means of a common 
 penknife, a tool in everybody's hand ; but then everybody 
 is not a Ferguson. A pan of water and two thermome- 
 ters were the tools by which Dr. Black discovered latent 
 heat ; and a prism, a lens, and a sheet of pasteboard 
 enabled Newton to unfold the composition of light and 
 the origin of colors. An eminent foreign savant once 
 called upon Dr. Wollaston, and requested to be shown 
 over his laboratories, in which science had been enriched 
 by so many important discoveries, when the doctor took 
 him into a little study, and, pointing to an old tea-tray on 
 the table, containing a few watch-glasses, test papers, a 
 small balance, and a blowpipe, said, " There is all the 
 laboratory that I have ! " 
 
 Stothard learned the art of combining colors by closely 
 studying butterflies' wings ; he would often say that no 
 one knew what he owed to these tiny insects. A burnt 
 stick and a barn-door served Wilkie in lieu of pencil and 
 canvas. Bewick first practised drawing on the cottage 
 walls of his native village, which he covered with his 
 sketches in chalk ; and Benjamin West made his first 
 brushes out of the cat's tail. Ferguson laid himself down 
 in the fields at night in a blanket, and made a map of the 
 heavenly bodies by means of a thread with small beads 
 on it stretched between his eye and the stars. Franklin 
 first robbed the thunder-cloud of its lightning by means 
 
104 SCOTT. SELF-IMPROVEMENT. CHAP. IV, 
 
 of a kite made with two cross sticks and a silk handker- 
 chief. Watt made his first model of the condensing 
 steam-engine out of an old anatomist's syringe, used to 
 inject the arteries previous to dissection. Gifford worked 
 his first problem in mathematics, when a cobbler's ap- 
 prentice, upon small scraps of leather, which he beat 
 smooth for the purpose ; whilst Rittenhouse, the astron- 
 omer, first calculated eclipses on his plough handle. 
 
 The most ordinary occasions will furnish a man with 
 opportunities or suggestions for improvement, if he be but 
 prompt to take advantage of them. Professor Lee waa 
 first attracted to the study of Hebrew by finding a Bible 
 in this language in a synagogue, while working as a com- 
 mon carpenter at the repairs of the benches. He be- 
 came possessed with a desire to read the book in the orig- 
 inal, and, buying a cheap second-hand copy of a Hebrew 
 grammar, he set to work and soon learnt the language 
 for himself. As Edmund Stone said to the Duke of Ar- 
 gyle, in answer to his Grace's inquiry, how he, a poor gar- 
 dener's boy, had contrived to be able to read Newton's 
 Principia in Latin, " One needs only to know the twenty- 
 four letters of the alphabet in order to learn everything 
 else that one wishes." Application and persreverance, 
 and the diligent improvement of opportunities, will do 
 the rest. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott found opportunities for self-improve- 
 ment in every pursuit, and turned even accidents to ac- 
 count. Thus it was in the discharge of his functions as 
 a writer's apprentice that he first penetrated into the 
 Highlands, and formed those friendships among the sur- 
 viving heroes of 1745 which served to lay the foundation 
 of a large class of his works. Later in life, when em- 
 ployed as quartermaster of the Edinburgh Light Cavalry, 
 
CHAP. IV PRIESTLY. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. 105 
 
 he was accidentally disabled by the kick of a horse, and 
 confined for some time to his house ; but Scott was a 
 sworn enemy to idleness, and he forthwith set his mind 
 to work, and in three days composed the first canto of 
 " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," his first great original 
 work. 
 
 The attention of Dr. Priestley, the founder of a new 
 department of science, and the discoverer of many gases, 
 was accidentally drawn to the subject by the circumstance 
 of his residing in the neighborhood of a large brewery. 
 Being an attentive observer, he noted, in visiting the 
 brewery, the peculiar appearances attending the extinc- 
 tion of lighted chips in the gas floating over the fer- 
 mented liquor. He was forty years old at the time, and 
 knew nothing of chemistry ; he obtained access, how- 
 ever, to books, which taught him little, for as yet nothing 
 was known on the subject. Then he commenced experi- 
 menting, devising his own apparatus, which was of the 
 rudest description. The curious results of his first experi- 
 ments led to others, which in his hands shortly became 
 the science of pneumatic chemistry. About the same time, 
 Scheele was obscurely working in the same direction in 
 a remote Swedish village ; and he discovered several new 
 gases, with no more effective apparatus at his command 
 than a few apothecaries' phials and pigs' bladders. 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy, when an apothecary's apprentice, 
 performed his first experiments with instruments of the 
 rudest description. He extemporized the greater part of 
 them himself, out of the motley materials which chance 
 threw in his way. The pots and pans of the kitchen, 
 and the phials and vessels of his master's surgery, were 
 "emorselessly put in requisition. It happened that a 
 French vessel was wrecked off the Land's End, and the 
 5* 
 
106 PROFESSOR FARADAY. CHAP. IV. 
 
 surgeon escaped, bearing with him his case of instru- 
 ments, amongst which was an old-fashioned clyster appa- 
 ratus ; this article he presented to Davy, with whom he 
 had become acquainted. The apothecary's apprentice re- 
 ceived it with great exultation, and forthwith employed it 
 as part of a pneumatic apparatus which he contrived, after- 
 wards using it to perform the duties of an air-pump in 
 one of his experiments on the nature and sources of heat. 
 In like manner Professor Faraday, Sir Humphry 
 Davy's scientific successor, made his first experiments in 
 electricity by means of an old bottle, while he was still a 
 working bookbinder. And it is a curious fact that Fara- 
 day was first attracted to the study of chemistry by hear- 
 ing one of Sir Humphry Davy's lectures on the subject 
 at the Royal Institution. A gentleman, who was a mem- 
 ber, calling one day at the shop where Faraday was em- 
 ployed in binding books, found him poring over the article 
 " Electricity " in an Encyclopedia placed in his hands to 
 bind. The gentleman, having made inquiries, found he 
 was curious about such subjects, and gave him an order 
 of admission to the Royal Institution, where he attended 
 a course of four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry. 
 He took notes of the lectures, which he showed to the 
 lecturer, who acknowledged their scientific accuracy, and 
 was surprised when informed of the humble position of 
 the reporter. Faraday then expressed his desire to de- 
 vote himself to the prosecution of chemical studies, from 
 which Sir Humphry at first endeavored to dissuade him ; 
 but the young man persisting, he was at length taken into 
 the Royal Institution as an assistant ; and eventually the 
 mantle of the brilliant apothecary's boy fell upon the 
 worthy shoulders of the equally brilliant bookbinder's 
 apprentice. 
 
CHAP. IV. CUVIER. 107 
 
 The words which Davy entered in his note-book, when 
 about twenty years of age, working away in Dr. Bed- 
 does's laboratory at Bristol, were eminently characteristic 
 of him : " I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth, to 
 recommend me ; yet, if I live, I trust I shall not be of 
 less service to mankind and my friends, than if I had 
 been born with all these advantages." Davy possessed 
 the capability, as Faraday does, of devoting all the powers 
 of his mind to the practical and experimental investigation 
 of a subject in all its bearings ; and such a mind will 
 rarely fail, by dint of mere industry and patient thinking, 
 in producing results of the highest order. Coleridge 
 said of Davy, " There is an energy and elasticity in his 
 mind, which enables him to seize on and analyze all 
 questions, pushing them to their legitimate consequences. 
 Every subject in Davy's mind has the principle of vital- 
 ity. Living thoughts spring up like turf under his feet." 
 Davy, on his part, said of Coleridge, whose abilities he 
 greatly admired, " With the most exalted genius, enlarged 
 views, sensitive heart, and enlightened mind, he will be 
 the victim of a want of order, precision, and regularity." 
 
 Cuvier, when a youth, was one day strolling along the 
 sands near Fiquainville, in Normandy, when he observed 
 a cuttle-fish lying stranded on the beach. He was at- 
 tracted by the curious object, took it home to dissect, and 
 began the study of the mollusca, which ended in his be- 
 coming one of the greatest among natural historians. In 
 like manner, Hugh Miller's curiosity was excited by the 
 remarkable traces of extinct sea-animals in the Old Red 
 Sandstone, on which he worked as a quarryman. He 
 inquired, observed, studied, and became a geologist. " It 
 was the necessity," said he, " which made me a quarrier, 
 that taught me to be a geologist." 
 
108 SIR JOSEPH PAXTON. CHAP. IV. 
 
 Sir Joseph Paxton was acting as gardener to the Duke 
 of Devonshire when the Committee of the Exhibition of 
 1851 advertised for plans of a building. The architects 
 and engineers seem to have been very much at fault when 
 Paxton submitted his design, and its novelty and remark- 
 able suitability for the purposes intended at once secured 
 its adoption. The first sketch was made upon a sheet of 
 blotting-paper in the rooms of the Midland Railway Com- 
 pany at Derby ; and this first rough sketch indicated 
 the principal features of the building as accurately as the 
 most finished drawings which were afterwards prepared. 
 The great idea of the Crystal Palace was as palpable on 
 the blotting-paper as if it had been set forth in all the 
 glory of water-color and gold framing. Was it a sudden 
 idea, an inspiration of genius, flashing upon the 
 mind of one who, though no architect, must at least have 
 been something of a poet ? Not at all. The architect 
 of the Crystal Palace was simply a man who cultivated 
 opportunities, a laborious, painstaking man, whose life 
 had been a life of labor, of diligent self-improvement, of 
 assiduous cultivation of knowledge. The idea, as Sir 
 Joseph Paxton himself has shown, in a lecture before the 
 Society of Arts, was slowly and patiently elaborated by 
 experiments extending over many years ; and the Ex- 
 hibition of 1851 merely afforded him the opportunity of 
 putting forward his idea, the right thing at the right 
 time, and the result was what we have seen. 
 
 It is not accident, then, that helps a man in the world, 
 but purpose and persistent industry. These make a man 
 sharp to discern opportunities, and turn them to account. 
 To the feeble, the sluggish, and purposeless, the happiest 
 opportunities avail nothing, they pass them by, seeing 
 no meaning in them. But if we are prompt to seize and 
 
CHAP. IV. VALUE OF PERSEVERANCE, 109 
 
 improve even the shortest intervals of possible action and 
 effort, it is astonishing how much can be accomplished. 
 Watt taught himself chemistry and mechanics while work- 
 ing at his trade of a mathematical instrument-maker ; and 
 he availed himself of every opportunity to extend his 
 knowledge of languages, literature, and the principles of 
 science. Stephenson taught himself arithmetic and men- 
 suration while working as an engineman during the night 
 shifts, and he studied mechanics during his spare hours at 
 home, thus preparing himself for his great work 
 the invention of the passenger locomotive. Dalton's 
 industry was the habit of his life. He began from his 
 boyhood, for he taught a little village school when he 
 was only about twelve years old ; keeping the school in 
 winter, and working upon his father's farm in summer. 
 He would sometimes urge himself and companions to 
 study by the stimulus of a bet, though bred a Quaker ; 
 and on one occasion, by his satisfactory solution of a 
 problem, he in this way won as much as enabled him to 
 buy a winter's store of candles. He went on indefatigably, 
 making his meteorological observations until a day or two 
 before he died, having made and recorded upwards of 
 200,000 in the course of his life. 
 
 With perseverance, the very odds and ends of time 
 may be worked up into results of the greatest value. 
 An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pur- 
 suits, would, if profitably employed, enable a person of 
 ordinary capacity to go far towards mastering a complete 
 science. It would make an ignorant man a well-informed 
 man in ten years. We must not allow the time to 
 pass without yielding fruits, in the form of something 
 learnt worthy of being known, some good principle cul- 
 tivated, or some good habit strengthened. Dr. Mason 
 
110 VALUE OF ODD MOMENTS. CHAP. IV. 
 
 Good translated Lucretius while riding in his carriage 
 in the streets of London, going his rounds among his pa- 
 tients. Dr. Darwin composed nearly all his works in the 
 same way, while driving about in his " sulky," from house 
 to house in the country, writing down his thoughts on 
 little scraps of paper, which he carried about with him 
 lor the purpose. Hale wrote his " Contemplations " 
 while travelling on circuit. Dr. Burney learned French 
 and Italian while travelling on horseback from one musi- 
 cal pupil to another in the course of his profession. Kirke 
 White learned Greek while walking to and from a law- 
 yer's office ; and we personally know a man of eminent 
 position in a northern manufacturing town, who learned 
 Latin and French while going messages as an errand-boy 
 in the streets of Manchester. 
 
 Elihu Burritt attributed his first success in self-im- 
 provement, not to genius, which he disclaimed, but 
 simply to the careful employment of those invaluable 
 fragments of time, called " odd moments." While work- 
 ing and earning his living as a blacksmith, he mastered 
 some eighteen ancient and modern languages, and twen 
 ty-two European dialects. Withal, he was exceedingly 
 modest, and thought his achievements nothing extraor- 
 dinary. Like another learned and wise man, of whom 
 it was said that he could be silent in ten languages, 
 Elihu Burritt could do the same in forty. " Those who 
 have been acquainted with my character from my youth 
 up," said he, writing to a friend, " will give me credit for 
 sincerity when I say, that it never entered into my head 
 to blazon forth any acquisition of my own . . . All that I 
 have accomplished, or expect, or hope to accomplish, has 
 been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering 
 process of accretion which builds the ant-heap, particle 
 
CHAP. IV. VALUE OF ODD MOMENTS. Ill 
 
 by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact. And if 
 fiver I was actuated by ambition, its highest and warm- 
 3st aspiration reached no further than the hope to set 
 before the young men of my country an example in 
 unploy^g those invaluable fragments of time called 
 1 "dd. moments.' " 
 
 Daguesseau, one of the great Chancellors of France, by 
 carefully working up his odd bits of time, wrote a bulky 
 and able volume in the successive intervals of waiting for 
 dinner ; and Madame de Genlis composed several of her 
 charming volumes while waiting for the princess to whom 
 she gave her daily lessons. Jeremy Bentham in like 
 manner disposed of his hours of labor and repose, so that 
 not a moment should be lost, the arrangement being de- 
 termined on the principle that it is a calamity to lose the 
 smallest portion of time. He lived and worked habitu- 
 ally under the practical consciousness that man's days 
 are numbered, and that the night cometh when no man 
 can work. 
 
 What a solemn and striking admonition to youth is 
 that inscribed on the dial at All Souls, Oxford, " Peri- 
 unt et imputantur," the hours perish and are laid to 
 our charge. For time, like life, can never be recalled. 
 Melancthon noted down the time lost by him, that he 
 might thereby reanimate his industry, and not lose an 
 hour. An Italian scholar put over his door an inscrip- 
 tion intimating that whosoever remained there should 
 join in his labors. " We are afraid,* 1 said some visitors 
 to Baxter, " that we break in upon your time." " To be 
 sure you do," replied the disturbed and blunt divine. 
 Time was the estate out of which these great workers, 
 and all other workers, carved a rich inheritance of 
 thoughts and deeds for their successors. 
 
l!2 THOUGHTS AND FACTS WRITTEN DOWN. CHAP. IV, 
 
 The mere drudgery undergone by some men in cairy- 
 ing on their undertakings has been something extraor- 
 dinary ; but the drudgery they regarded as the price of 
 success. Addison amassed as much as three folios of 
 manuscript materials before he began his " Spectator." 
 Newton wrote his " Chronology," fifteen times over be- 
 fore he was satisfied with it ; and Gibbon wrote out his 
 " Memoir " nine times. Hale studied for many years at 
 the rate of sixteen hours a day, and when wearied with 
 the study of the law, he would recreate himself with 
 philosophy and the study of the mathematics. Hume 
 wrote thirteen hours a day while preparing his " History 
 of England." Montesquieu, speaking of one part of his 
 writings, said to a friend, " You will read it in a few 
 hours ; but I assure you it cost me so much labor that it 
 has whitened my hair." 
 
 The practice of writing down thoughts and facts for 
 the purpose of holding them fast, and preventing their 
 escape into the dim region of forgetfulness, has been 
 much resorted to by thoughtful and studious men. Lord 
 Bacon left behind him many manuscripts, entitled " Sud- 
 den thoughts set down for use." Erskine made great 
 extracts from Burke ; and Eldon copied Coke upon Lit- 
 tleton twice over with his own hand, so that the book 
 became, as it were, part of his own mind. The late Dr. 
 Pye Smith, when apprenticed to his father as a book- 
 binder, was accustomed to make copious memoranda of 
 all the books he read, with extracts and criticisms. This 
 indomitable industry in collecting materials distinguished 
 him through life, his biographer describing him as " always 
 at work, always in advance, always accumulating." These 
 note-books afterwards proved, like Richter's " quarries," 
 the great storehouse from which he drew his illustrations. 
 
CHAP. IV. INDUSTRY OF JOHN HUNTER. llg 
 
 The same practice characterized the eminent John 
 Hunter, who adopted it for the purpose of supplying the 
 defects of memory ; and he was accustomed thus to illus- 
 trate the advantages which one derives from putting 
 one's thoughts in writing : " It resembles," he said, " a 
 tradesman taking stock, without which he never knows 
 either what he possesses or in what he is deficient." 
 John Hunter, whose observation was so keen that 
 Abernethy was accustomed to speak of him as " the 
 Argus-eyed," furnished an illustrious example of the 
 power of patient industry. He received little or no edu- 
 cation till he was about twenty years of age, and it was 
 with difficulty that he acquired the arts of reading and 
 writing. He worked for some years as a common car- 
 penter at Glasgow, after which he joined his brother 
 William, settled in London as a lecturer and anatomical 
 demonstrator. John entered his dissecting room as an 
 assistant, but soon shot ahead of his brother, partly by 
 virtue of his great natural ability, but mainly by reason 
 of his patient application and indefatigable industry. He 
 was one of the first in this country to devote himself as- 
 siduously to the study of comparative anatomy, and the 
 objects he dissected and collected took the eminent 
 Professor Owen no less than ten years to arrange. The 
 collection contains some twenty thousand specimens, and 
 is the most precious treasure of the kind that has ever 
 been accumulated by the industry of one man. Hunter 
 used to spend every morning from sunrise till eight 
 o'clock in his museum ; and throughout the day he car- 
 ried on his extensive private practice, performed his 
 laborious duties as surgeon to St. George's Hospital, 
 and deputy surgeon-general to the army ; delivered lec- 
 tures to students, and superintended a school of practical 
 
114 JOHN HUNTER. CHAP. IV 
 
 anatomy at his own house ; finding leisure, amidst all,, for 
 elaborate experiments on the animal economy, and the 
 composition of various works of great scientific impor- 
 tance. To find time for this gigantic amount of work, he 
 allowed himself only four hours of sleep at night, and an 
 hour after dinner. When once asked what method he 
 had adopted to in* ire success in his undertakings, he 
 replied, "^My rule is, deliberately to consider, before I 
 commence, whether the thing be practicable. If it be 
 not practicable, I do not attempt it. If it be practicable, 
 I can accomplish it if I give sufficient pains to it ; and 
 having begun, I never stop till the thing is done. To 
 this rule I owe all my success." 
 
 John Hunter occupied a great deal of his time in col- 
 lecting definite facts respecting' matters which, before his 
 day, were regarded as exceedingly trivial. Thus it was 
 supposed by many of his contemporaries that he was only 
 wasting his time and thought in studying so carefully as 
 he did the growth of a deer's horn. But Hunter was 
 impressed with the conviction that no accurate knowledge 
 of scientific facts is without its value. By the study re- 
 ferred to, he learned how arteries accommodate them- 
 selves to circumstances and enlarge as occasion requires ; 
 and the knowledge thus acquired emboldened him, in a 
 case of aneurism in a branch artery, to tie the main trunk 
 where no surgeon before him had dared to tie it, and the 
 life of his patient was saved. Like many original men, 
 he worked for a long time as it were underground, dig- 
 ging and laying foundations. He was a solitary and self- 
 reliant genius, holding on his course without the solace of 
 sympathy or approbation, for but few of his contempo- 
 raries perceived the ultimate object of his pursuits. But 
 like all true workers, he did not fail in securing his best 
 
CHAP. IV. WILLIAM HARVEY. 115 
 
 reward, that which depends less upon others than upon 
 one's self, that approval of conscience, which in a right- 
 minded man invariably follows the honest and vigorous 
 performance of duty. 
 
 Harvey was another laborer of great perseverance in 
 the same field of science. He spent not less than eight 
 long years of investigation and research before he pub- 
 lished his views of the circulation of the blood. He 
 repeated and verified his experiments again and again, 
 probably anticipating the opposition he would have to en- 
 counter from the profession on making known his discov- 
 ery. The tract in which he at length announced his 
 views, was a most modest one, but simple, perspicuous, 
 and conclusive. It was nevertheless received with ridi- 
 cule, as the utterance of a* crack-brained impostor. For 
 some time, he did not make a single convert, and gained 
 nothing but contumely and abuse. He had called in 
 question the revered authority of the ancients ; and it 
 was even averred that his views were calculated to sub- 
 vert the authority of the Scriptures and undermine the 
 very foundations of morality and religion. His little 
 practice fell away, and he was left almost without a 
 friend. This lasted for some years, until the great truth 
 held fast by Harvey amidst all his adversity, and which 
 had dropped into many thoughtful minds, gradually ri- 
 pened by further observation, and after a period of about 
 twenty-five years, it became generally recognized as an 
 established scientific truth. 
 
 The difficulties encountered by Dr. Jenner in promul- 
 gating and establishing his discovery of vaccination as a 
 preventive of smallpox, were even greater than those 
 of Harvey. Many, before him, had witnessed the cow- 
 pox, and had heard of the report current among the 
 
116 JENNER AND VACCINATION. CHAP. IV. 
 
 milkmaids in Gloucestershire, that whoever had taken 
 that disease was secure against smallpox. It was a tri- 
 fling, vulgar rumor, supposed to have no significance 
 whatever ; and no one had thought it worthy of investi- 
 gation, until it was accidentally brought under the notice 
 of Jenner. He was a youth, pursuing his studies at Sod- 
 bury, when his attention was arrested by the casual ob- 
 servation made by a country girl who came to his master's 
 chop for advice. The smallpox was mentioned, when 
 the girl said, " I can't take that disease, for I have had 
 cow-pox." The observation immediately riveted Jen- 
 ner's attention, and he forthwith set about inquiring and 
 making observations on the subject His professional 
 friends, to whom he mentioned his views as to the pro- 
 phylactic virtues of cow-pox, laughed at him, and even 
 threatened to expel him from their society, if he persisted 
 in harassing them with the subject. In London he was 
 so fortunate as to study under John Hunter, to whom he 
 communicated his views. The advice of the great anat- 
 omist was thoroughly characteristic : " Don't think, but 
 try; be patient, be accurate." Jenner's courage was 
 greatly supported by the advice, which conveyed to him 
 the true art of philosophical investigation. He went 
 back to the country to practise his profession, and care- 
 fully to make observations and experiments, which he 
 continued to pursue for a period of twenty years. His 
 faith in his discovery was so implicit that he vaccinated 
 his own son on three several occasions. At length he 
 published his views in a quarto of about seventy pages, 
 in which he gave the details of twenty-three cases of 
 successful vaccination of individuals, to whom it was 
 found afterwards impossible to communicate the small- 
 pox either by contagion or inoculation. It was in 1798 
 
CHAP. IV. JENNER AND VACCINATION. 117 
 
 that this treatise was published; though he had been 
 working out his ideas as long before as 1775, when they 
 began to assume a definite form. 
 
 How was the discovery received ? First with indiffer- 
 ence, then with active hostility. He proceeded to Lon- 
 don to exhibit to the profession the process of vaccination 
 and its successful results ; but not a single doctor could 
 be got to make a trial of it, arid after fruitlessly waiting 
 for nearly three months, Jenner returned to his native 
 village. He was even caricatured and abused for his 
 attempt to "bestialize" his species by the introduction 
 into their systems of diseased matter from the cow's 
 udder. Cobbett was one of his most furious assailants. 
 Vaccination was denounced from the pulpit as " diaboli- 
 cal." It was averred that vaccinated children became 
 " ox-faced," that abscesses broke out to " indicate sprout- 
 ing horns," and that the countenance was gradually 
 " transmuted into the visage of a cow, the voice into the 
 bellowing of bulls." Vaccination, however, was a truth, 
 and notwithstanding the violence of the opposition, belief 
 in it spread slowly. In one village, where a gentleman 
 tried to introduce the practice, the first persons who per- 
 mitted themselves to be vaccinated were absolutely pelt- 
 ed, and were driven into their houses if they appeared 
 out of doors. Two ladies of title, Lady Ducie and 
 the Countess of Berkeley, to their honor be it remem- 
 bered, had the courage to vaccinate their" own chil- 
 dren ; and the prejudices of the day were at once broken 
 through. The medical profession gradually came round, 
 and there were several who even sought to rob Dr. Jen- 
 ner of the merit of the discovery, when its vast impor- 
 tance came to be recognized. Jenner's cause at last 
 triumphed, and he was publicly honored and rewarded. 
 
118 SIB CHARLES BELL. CHAP. IV. 
 
 In his prosperity he was as modest as he had been in his 
 obscurity. He was invited to settle in London, and told 
 that he might command a practice of 10,000/. a year. 
 But his answer was, " No ! In the morning of my days 
 I have sought the sequestered and lowly paths of life, 
 the valley, and not the mountain, and now, in the 
 evening of my days, it is not meet for me to hold myself 
 up as an object for fortune and for fame." In Jenner's 
 own lifetime the practice of vaccination had been adopted 
 all over the civilized world ; and when he died, his title 
 as a Benefactor of his kind was recognized far and wide. 
 Cuvier has said, " If vaccine were the only discovery of 
 the epoch, it would serve to render it illustrious forever." 
 Not less patient, resolute, and persevering, was Sir 
 Charles Bell in the prosecution of his discoveries relating 
 to the nervous system. Previous to his time, the most 
 confused notions prevailed as to the functions of the 
 nerves, and this branch of study was little more advanced 
 than it had been in the times of Democritus and Anax- 
 agoras three thousand years before. Sir Charles Bell, in 
 the valuable series of papers the publication of which was 
 commenced in 1821, took an entirely original view of thu 
 subject, based upon a long series of careful, accurate, and 
 oft-repeated experiments. Elaborately tracing the de- 
 velopment of the nervous system up from the lowest order 
 of animated being, to man, the lord of the animal king- 
 dom, he displayed it, to use his own words, " as plainly 
 as if it were written m our mother-tongue." His great 
 discovery consisted in the fact, that the spinal nerves are 
 double in their function, and arise by double roots from 
 the spinal marrow, volition being conveyed by that 
 part of the nerves springing from the one root, and sensa- 
 tion by the other. The whole subject occupied the mind 
 
CHAP. IV. DR. MARSHALL HALL. 119 
 
 of Sir Charles Bell for a period of forty years, when, in 
 1840, he laid his last paper before the Royal Society. 
 As in the cases of Harvey and Jenner, when he had 
 lived down the ridicule and opposition with which his 
 views were first received, and their truth came to be 
 recognized, numerous claimants for priority in making 
 the discovery were set up both at home and abroad. 
 Like them, too, he lost practice by the publication of his 
 valuable papers ; and he left it on record that, after 
 every step in his discovery, he was obliged to work 
 harder than ever to preserve his reputation as a practi- 
 tioner. The great merits of Sir Charles Bell were, how- 
 ever, at length fully recognized ; and Cuvier himself, 
 when on his death-bed, finding his face distorted and 
 drawn to one side, pointed it out to his attendants as a 
 proof of the correctness of Sir Charles Bell's theory. 
 
 The late Dr. Marshall Hall was an equally devoted 
 pursuer of the same branch of science. He was the son 
 of Mr. Robert Hall, of Basford, near Nottingham, to 
 whom the manufacturing industry of this country owes 
 so much, as the inventor of bleaching by chlorine on a 
 large scale, by which a process was accomplished in a 
 few hours that had formerly required as many weeks. It 
 is remarkable that Mr. Hall's neighbors designated the 
 place where he first made his attempt by the name of 
 " Bedlam," which it still retains.* To Mr. Hall's second 
 
 * Baron Liebig, in his "Letters on Chemistry" (3rd ed., p. 28), says, 
 u But for this new bleaching process, it would scarcely have been pos- 
 sible for the cotton manufacture of Great Britain to have attained its 
 present enormous extent; it could not have competed in prices with 
 France and Germany. In the old process of bleaching, every piece 
 must be exposed to the air during several weeks in the summer, and 
 kept continually moist by manual labor. For this purpose meadow- 
 land, eligibly situated, was essential. Now, a single establishment 
 near Glasgow bleaches 1400 pieces daily throughout the year. What 
 
120 DR. MARSHALL HALL. CHAP. IV. 
 
 son, Samuel, Nottingham owes in a great measure its 
 present commercial prosperity and importance, arising 
 from his inventions of the process of gassing lace, and 
 the bleaching of starch, by which the Nottingham cotton 
 fabrics are scarcely distinguishable from the linen-thread 
 lace of the Continent. Mr. Hall's fourth son was the 
 celebrated physician and physiologist, Dr. Marshall Hall, 
 whose name posterity will rank with those of Harvey, 
 Hunter, Jenner, and Bell. During the whole course of 
 his long and useful life he was a most careful and minute 
 observer; and no fact, however apparently insignificant, 
 escaped his attention. His important discovery of the 
 diastaltic nervous system, by which his name will long be 
 known amongst scientific men, originated in an exceed- 
 ingly simple circumstance. When investigating the pneu- 
 monic circulation in the Triton, the decapitated object lay 
 upon the table ; and on separating the tail and acciden- 
 tally pricking the external integument, he observed that it 
 moved with energy, and became contorted into various 
 forms. He had not touched a muscle nor a muscular 
 nerve ; what then was the nature of these movements ? 
 The same phenomena had probably often before been 
 observed, but Dr. Hall was the first to apply himself 
 perseveringly to the investigation of their causes ; and 
 he exclaimed on the occasion, " I will never rest satisfied 
 until I have found all this out, and made it clear." His 
 attention to the subject was almost incessant ; and it is 
 estimated that in the course of his life he devoted not less 
 than 25,000 hours to its experimental and chemical inves- 
 tigation ; at the same time he was carrying on an ex- 
 tensive private practice, and officiating as a lecturer at 
 
 an enormous capital would be required to purchase land for this pur- 
 pose in England! " 
 
CHAP. IV. SIR WILLIAM HERSCHEL, MUSICIAN. 121 
 
 St. Thomas's Hospital and other Medical Schools. It 
 will scarcely be credited that the paper in which he em- 
 bodied his discovery was rejected by the Royal Society, 
 and was only accepted after the lapse of seventeen years, 
 when the truth of his views had become acknowledged 
 by scientific men both at home and abroad. A character 
 so manly and beautiful as that of Dr. Marshall Hall, so 
 hopeful and persevering under difficulties, so truth-loving 
 and sincere in all things, is so profitable a subject for 
 contemplation and study, that we rejoice to learn there is 
 a probability of his memory being shortly embalmed in a 
 biography, which we doubt not will be worthy of him. 
 
 The life of Sir William Herschel affords another re- 
 markable illustration of the force of perseverance in 
 another branch of science. His father was a poor Ger- 
 man musician, who brought up his four sons to the same 
 calling. William came over to England to seek his for- 
 tune, and he joined the band of the Durham Militia, in 
 which he played the oboe. The regiment was lying at 
 Doncaster, where Dr. Miller first became acquainted 
 with Herschel, having heard him perform a solo on the 
 violin in a surprising manner. The Doctor entered into 
 conversation with the youth, and was so pleased with 
 him, that he urged him to leave the militia band and 
 take up his residence at his house for a time. Herschel 
 did so, and while at Doncaster was principally occupied 
 in violin-playing at concerts, availing himself of the ad- 
 vantages of Dr. Miller's library to study in his leisure 
 hours. A new organ having been built for the parish 
 church of Halifax, an organist was advertised for, on 
 which Herschel applied for the office, and was selected. 
 While officiating as organist and music-teacher at Hali- 
 fax, he began to study mathematics, unassisted by any 
 
122 SIR WILLIAM HERSCIIEL ASTRONOMER. CHAP. IV 
 
 master. Leading the wandering life of an artist, he was 
 next attracted to Bath, where he played in the Pump- 
 room band, and also officiated as organist in the Octagon 
 chapel. Some recent discoveries in astronomy having 
 arrested his mind, and awakened in him a powerful spirit 
 of curiosity, he sought and obtained from a friend the 
 loan of a two-foot Gregorian telescope. So fascinated 
 was the poor musician by the science, that he even 
 thought of purchasing a telescope, but the price asked by 
 the London optician was so alarming, that he determined 
 to make one. Those who know what a reflecting tele- 
 scope is, and the skill which is required to prepare the 
 concave metallic speculum which forms the most impor- 
 tant part of the apparatus, will be able to form some 
 idea of the difficulty of this undertaking. Nevertheless, 
 Herschel succeeded, after long and painful labor, in com- 
 pleting a five-foot reflector, with which he had the grati- 
 fication of observing the ring and satellites of Saturn. 
 Not satisfied with this triumph, he proceeded to make 
 other instruments in succession, of seven, ten, and even 
 twenty feet. In constructing the seven-foot reflector, he 
 finished no fewer than two hundred specula before he 
 produced one that would bear any power that was ap- 
 plied to it, a striking instance of the persevering la- 
 boriousness of the man. While sublimely gauging the 
 heavens with his instruments, he continued patiently to 
 earn his bread by piping to the fashionable frequenters 
 of the Bath Pump-room. So eager was he in his astro- 
 nomical observations, that he wculd steal away from the 
 room during an interval of the performance, give a little 
 turn to his telescope, and contentedly return to his oboe. 
 Thus working away, Herschel discovered the Georgium 
 Sidus, the orbit and rate of motion of which he carefully 
 
CHAP. IV. WILLIAM SMITH, THE GEOLOGIST. 123 
 
 calculated, and sent the result to the Royal Society; 
 when the humble oboe-player found himself at once ele- 
 vated from obscurity to fame. He was shortly after 
 appointed Astronomer Royal, and by the kindness of 
 George III. was placed in a position of honorable com- 
 petency for life. He bore his honors with the same 
 meekness and humility which had distinguished him in 
 the days of his obscurity. So gentle and patient, and 
 withal so distinguished and successful a follower of 
 science under difficulties, perhaps does not occur in the 
 whole range of biography. 
 
 The career of William Smith, the father of English 
 geology, though perhaps less known, is no less interesting 
 and instructive as an example of patient and laborious 
 effort, and the diligent cultivation of opportunities. He 
 was born in 1769, the son of a yeoman fanner at Church- 
 ill, in Oxfordshire. His father dying when he was but a 
 child, he received a very sparing education at the vil- 
 lage school, and even that was to a considerable extent 
 interfered with by his wandering and somewhat idle 
 habits as a boy. His mother having married a second 
 time, 'he was taken in charge by an uncle, also a farmer, 
 by whom he was brought up. Though the uncle was by 
 no means pleased with the boy's love of wandering about, 
 collecting "pound-stones," "pundips," and other stony 
 curiosities which lay scattered about the adjoining land, 
 he yet enabled him to purchase a few of the necessary 
 books wherewith to instruct himself in the rudiments of 
 geometry and surveying ; for the boy was already des- 
 tined for the business of a land-surveyor. One of his 
 marked characteristics even as a youth, was the accuracy 
 and keenness of his observation ; and what he once 
 clearly saw he never forgot. He began to draw, at- 
 
124 WILLIAM SMITH. THE GEOLOGIST. CHAP. IV, 
 
 tempted to color, and practised himself in the arts of 
 mensuration and surveying, all without regular instruc- 
 tion ; and by his own efforts in self-culture, he shortly 
 became so proficient, that he was taken on as assistant to 
 a local surveyor of some ability, himself self-taught, who 
 was engaged in extensive surveys of the neighborhood. 
 This position introduced William Smith to considerable 
 experience as a surveyor, and in the course of his busi- 
 ness he was constantly under the necessity of traversing 
 Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties. One of the first 
 things that he seriously pondered, was the position of the 
 various soils and strata that came under his notice on the 
 lands which he surveyed or travelled over ; more espec- 
 ially the position of the red earth in regard to the lias and 
 superincumbent rocks. The surveys of various collieries 
 which he was called upon to conduct in the course of his 
 business in 1792 and 1793, gave him further experience; 
 and even at this early period, when he was only twenty- 
 three years of age, he seems to have contemplated making 
 a model of the strata of the earth. 
 
 About this time many plans for new canals were 
 on foot, and Mr. Smith, with a keen eye for business, 
 took steps to qualify himself for canal surveying. It 
 was while engaged in levelling for a proposed canal in 
 Gloucestershire, that the idea of a general law occurred 
 to him, relating to the strata of the district. He conceived 
 that the strata lying above the coal were not laid horizon- 
 tally, but inclined, and in one direction, towards the east ; 
 resembling on a large scale, " the ordinary appearance of 
 superposed slices of bread and butter." The correctness 
 of this theory he shortly after confirmed by the levelling 
 processes executed by him in two parallel valleys, the 
 strata of "red ground," " lias," and " freestone " or "oolite," 
 
CHAP. IV. WILLIAM SMITH, THE GEOLOGIST. 125 
 
 being found to come down in an eastern direction, and to 
 sink below the level, yielding place to the next in succes- 
 sion. He was shortly after enabled to verify the truth of 
 his views on a larger scale, having been appointed to ex- 
 amine personally into the management of canals in Eng- 
 land and Wales, immediately on the passing of the Canal 
 Bill on which he had been engaged. During his journey, 
 which extended from Bath to Newcastle-on-Tyne, return- 
 ing by Shropshire and Wales, his keen eyes were never 
 idle for a moment. He rapidly noted the aspect and 
 structure of the country through which he passed with 
 his companions, treasuring up his observations for future 
 use. His geologic vision was so acute, that though the 
 road along which he passed from York to Newcastle in 
 the postchaise was from five to fifteen miles distant from 
 the hills of chalk and oolite on the east, he was satisfied 
 as to their nature, by their contours and relative position, 
 and their ranges on the surface in relation to the lias and 
 " red ground " occasionally seen on the road. 
 
 The general results of his observation seem to have 
 been these. He noted that the rocky masses of country 
 in the western parts of England generally inclined to the 
 east and southeast; that the red sandstones and marls 
 above the coal-measures passed beneath the lias, clay, and 
 limestone, that these again passed beneath the sands, yel- 
 low limestones, and clays, forming the table-land of the 
 Cotteswold Hills, while these in turn passed beneath the 
 great chalk deposits, occupying the eastern parts of Eng- 
 land. He further observed that each layer of clay, sand, 
 and limestone, held its own peculiar classes of fossils ; 
 and pondering much on these things, he at length came 
 to the then unheard-of conclusion, that each distinct de- 
 posit of marine animals, in these several strata, indicated 
 
126 WILLIAM SMITH, THE GEOLOGIST. CHAP. IV. 
 
 a distinct sea-bottom, and that each layer of clay, sand 
 chalk, and stone, marked a distinct epoch of time in the 
 history of the earth. 
 
 This idea took firm possession of his mind, and he 
 could talk and think of nothing else. At canal boards, at 
 sheep-shearings, at county meetings, and at agricultural 
 associations, " Strata Smith," as he came to be called, was 
 always running over with the subject that possessed him. 
 He had indeed made a great discovery, though he was as 
 yet a man utterly unknown in the scientific world. He 
 now projected the preparation of a map of the stratifica- 
 tion of England; but he was for the present deterred 
 from proceeding with it, his time being wholly occupied 
 in carrying out the works of the Somersetshire coal ca- 
 nal, which engaged him for a period of about six years. 
 He continued, nevertheless, to be unremitting in his ob- 
 servation of facts, and he became so expert in appre- 
 hending the internal structure of a district, and detecting 
 the lie of the strata, from its external configuration, that 
 he was often consulted respecting the drainage of exten- 
 sive tracts of land, in which, guided by his geological 
 knowledge, he proved remarkably successful, and ac- 
 quired an extensive reputation. 
 
 One day, when looking over the cabinet collection of 
 fossils belonging to the Rev. Samuel Richardson, at Bath, 
 Smith astonished his friend by suddenly disarranging his 
 classification, and rapidly rearranging the fossils in their 
 etratigraphical order, " These came from the blue lias, 
 these from the overlying sand and freestone, these from 
 the fuller's-earth, and these from the Bath building stone." 
 A new light flashed upon Mr. Richardson's mind, and he 
 shortly became a convert to, and believer in, William 
 Smith's doctrine. But the geologists of that day were not 
 
CHAP. IV WILLIAM SMITH, THE GEOLOGIST. 127 
 
 so easily convinced ; and it was scarcely to be tolerated that 
 an unknown country land-surveyor should pretend to teach 
 them the science of geology. But William Smith had an 
 eye and mind to penetrate deep beneath the skin of the 
 earth ; he saw its very fibre and skeleton, and as it were 
 divined its organization. His knowledge of the strata 
 in the neighborhood of Bath was so accurate, that one 
 evening, when dining at the house of the Rev. Joseph 
 Townsend, he dictated to Mr. Richardson the different 
 strata according to their order of succession in descend- 
 ing order, twenty-three in number, commencing with the 
 chalk and descending in continuous series down to the 
 coal, below which the strata were not then sufficiently 
 determined. To this was added a list of the more re- 
 markable fossils which had been gathered in the several 
 layers of rock. This was printed and extensively circu- 
 lated in 1801. 
 
 He next determined to trace out the strata through 
 districts as remote from Bath as his means would enable 
 him to reach. For years he journeyed to and fro, some- 
 times on foot, sometimes on horseback, riding upon the tops 
 of stage-coaches, often making up by night travelling the 
 time he had lost by day, so as not to fail in his ordi- 
 nary business engagements. When he was profession- 
 ally called away to any distance from home, as for 
 instance, when travelling from Bath to Holkham, in Nor- 
 folk, to direct the irrigation and drainage of Mr. Coke s 
 land in that county, he rode on horseback, making fre- 
 quent detours from the road to note the geological fea- 
 'ures of the country which he traversed. 
 
 For several years he was thus engaged in his journeys 
 to distant quarters in England and Ireland, to the extent of 
 upwards of ten thousand miles yearly ; and it was amidst 
 
128 WILLIAM SMITH, THE GEOLOGIST. CHAP. IV. 
 
 this incessant and laborious travelling, that he contrived 
 to commit to paper his fast-growing generalizations on 
 what he rightly regarded as a new science. No obser- 
 vation, howsoever trivial it might appear, was neglected, 
 and no opportunity of collecting fresh facts was over- 
 looked. Whenever he could, he possessed himself of 
 records of borings, natural and artificial sections, drew 
 them to a constant scale of eight yards to the inch, and 
 colored them up. Of his keenness of observation take 
 the following illustration. When making one of his geo- 
 logical excursions about the country near Wobura as 
 he was drawing near to the foot of the Dunstable chalk 
 hills, he observed to his companion, "If there be any 
 broken ground about the foot of these hills, we may find 
 sharks' teeth;" and they had not proceeded far, before 
 they picked up six from the white bank of a new fence- 
 ditch. As he afterwards said of himself, " The habit of 
 observation crept on me, gained a settlement in my mind, 
 became a constant associate of my life, and started up in 
 activity at the first thoughts of a journey ; so that I gen- 
 erally went off well prepared with maps, and sometimes 
 with contemplations on its objects, or on those on the 
 road, reduced to writing before it commenced. My mind 
 was, therefore, like the canvas of a painter, well prepared 
 for the first and best impressions." 
 
 Notwithstanding his courageous and indefatigable in- 
 dustry, many circumstances contributed to prevent the 
 promised publication of William Smith's " Map of the 
 Strata of England and Wales," and it was not until 1814 
 that he was enabled, by the assistance of some friends, to 
 give to the world the fruits of his twenty years' incessant 
 labor. To prosecute his inquiries and collect the exten- 
 sive series of facts and observations requisite for his pur- 
 
CHAP. IV. WILLIAM SMITH, THE GEOLOGIST. 129 
 
 pose, he had to devote the profits of all his professional 
 labors during that period; he even sold off his small 
 property to obtain the means of visiting remote parts of 
 the island. He had also entered on a quarrying specula- 
 tion near Bath, which proved unsuccessful, and he was 
 under the necessity of even selling off his valuable geo- 
 logical collection (which was purchased by the British 
 Museum), his furniture, and library, reserving only his 
 papers, maps, and sections, which were useless save to 
 himself. He bore his losses and misfortunes with exem- 
 plary fortitude ; and amidst all, he went on working with 
 cheerful courage and untiring patience. The later years 
 of his life were spent in engineering and surveying pur- 
 suits in the north of England, acting also as land-steward 
 to Sir J. V. B. Johnstone, of Hackness, near Scarbor- 
 ough. He died at Northampton, in August, 1839, while 
 on his way to attend the meeting of the British Associa- 
 tion at Birmingham. 
 
 It is difficult to speak in terms of too high praise of 
 the first geological map of England, which we owe to 
 the industry of this courageous man of science. An ac- 
 complished writer says of it, " It was a work so masterly 
 in conception and so correct in general outline, that in 
 principle it served as a basis not only for the production 
 of later maps of the British Islands, but for geological 
 maps of all other parts of the world, wherever they have 
 been undertaken. In the apartments of the Geological 
 Society, Smith's map may yet be seen, a great histori- 
 cal document, old and worn, calling for renewal of its 
 faded tints. Let any one conversant with the subject 
 compare it with later works on a similar scale, and he 
 will find that in all essential features it will not suffer by 
 the comparison, the intricate anatomy of the Silurian 
 6* 
 
130 HUGH MILLER, THE GEOLOGIST. CHAP. IV. 
 
 rocks of Wales and the north of England by Murchison 
 and Sedgwick being the chief additions made to his great 
 generalizations." * But the genius of the Oxfordshire 
 surveyor did not fail to be duly recognized and honored 
 by men of science during his lifetime. In 1831 the 
 Geological Society of London awarded to him the Wol- 
 laston medal, " in consideration of his being a great orig- 
 inal discoverer in English geology, and especially for 
 his being the first in this country to discover and to teach 
 the identification of strata, and to determine their succes- 
 sion by means of their embedded fossils." William Smith, 
 in his simple earnest way, gained for himself a name as 
 lasting as the science he loved so well. To use the words 
 of the writer above quoted, " Till the manner as well as 
 the fact of the first appearance of successive forms of 
 life shall be solved, it is not easy to surmise how any 
 discovery can be made in geology equal in value to that 
 which we owe to the genius of William Smith." 
 
 Hugh Miller was a man of similar calibre, of equally 
 simple tastes and observant faculties, who also success- 
 fully devoted himself to geological pursuits. The book 
 in which he has himself told the story of his life, (" My 
 Schools and Schoolmasters,") is extremely interesting, 
 and calculated to be eminently useful. It is the history 
 of the formation of a truly noble and independent char- 
 acter in the humblest condition of life, the condition in 
 which a large mass of the people of this country are 
 born and brought up ; and it teaches all, but especially 
 poor men, what it is in the power of each to accomplish 
 for himself. The life of Hugh Miller is full of lessons 
 of self-help and self-respect, and shows the efficacy of 
 these in working out for a man an honorable competence 
 * Saturday Review, July 3d, 1898. 
 
CHAP. IV. HUGH MILLER, THE GEOLOGIST. 131 
 
 and a solid reputation. His father was drowned at sea 
 when he was but a child, and he was left to be brought 
 up by his widowed mother. He had a school training 
 after a sort, but his best teachers were the boys with 
 whom he played, the men amongst whom he worked, 
 and the friends and relatives with whom he lived. He 
 read much and miscellaneously, and gleaned pickings of 
 odd knowledge from many odd quarters, from work- 
 men, carpenters, fishermen, and sailors, old women, and 
 above all, from the old boulders strewed along the shores 
 of the Cromarty Frith. With a big hammer which had be- 
 longed to his great-grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy 
 went about chipping the stones, and thus early accumu- 
 lating specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and such like. 
 Sometimes he had a day in the woods, and there, too, 
 the boy's attention was excited by the peculiar geological 
 curiosities which lay in his way. While searching among 
 the stones and rocks on the beach, he was sometimes 
 asked in humble irony, by the farm-servants who came 
 to load their carts with sea-weed, whether he " was gettin' 
 siller in the stanes," but was so unlucky as never to be 
 able to answer their question in the affirmative. His 
 uncles were anxious that he should become a minister ; 
 for it is the ambition of many of the aspiring Scotch poor, 
 to see one of their family " wag his pow in a poopit." 
 These kind uncles were even willing to pay his college 
 expenses, though the labor of their hands formed their 
 only wealth. The youth, however, had conscientious 
 objections : he did not feel called to the ministry ; and 
 the uncles, confessing that he was right, gave up their 
 point. Hugh was accordingly apprenticed to the trade 
 of his choice, that of a working stonemason ; and he 
 began his laboring career in a quarry looking out upon 
 
132 HUGH MILLER, THE GEOLOGIST. CHAP. IV- 
 
 the Cromarty Frith. This quarry proved one of Hs best 
 schools. The remarkable geological formations which it 
 displayed awakened his curiosity. The bar 04 deep-red 
 stone beneath, and the bar of pale-red clay aoove, were 
 noted by the young quarryman, who even in such un- 
 promising subjects found matter for observation and re- 
 flection. Where other men saw nothing, he detected 
 analogies, differences, and peculiarities, which set him 
 a-thinking. He simply kept his eyes and his mind open ; 
 was sober, diligent, and persevering ; and this was the 
 secret of his intellectual growth. 
 
 His curiosity was excited and kept alive by the curious 
 organic remains, principally of old and extinct species of 
 fishes, ferns, and ammonites, which lay revealed along 
 the coasts by the washings of the waves, or were ex- 
 posed by the stroke of his mason's hammer. He never 
 lost sight of this subject ; went on accumulating observa- 
 tions, comparing formations, until at length, when no 
 longer a working mason, many years afterwards, he gave 
 to the world his highly interesting work on the Old Red 
 Sandstone, which at once established his reputation as a 
 scientific geologist. But this work was the fruit of long 
 years of patient observation and research. As he mod- 
 estly states in his autobiography, " the only merit to which 
 I lay claim in the case is that of patient research, a 
 merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass me ; 
 and this humble faculty of patience, when rightly devel- 
 oped, may lead to more extraordinary developments of 
 idea than even genius itself." 
 
 The late John Brown, the eminent English geologist, 
 was, like Miller, a stone-mason in his early life, serving an 
 apprenticeship to the trade at Colchester, and afterwards 
 working as a journeyman mason at Norwich. He after- 
 
CHAP. IV. JOHN BROWN, THE GEOLOGIST 133 
 
 wards commenced business as a builder on his own account 
 at Colchester, where by frugality and industry he secured 
 an independency. It was while working at his trade that 
 his attention was first drawn to the study of fossils and 
 shells ; and he proceeded to make a collection of them, 
 which afterwards grew into one of the finest in England. 
 His researches along the coasts of Essex, Kent, and Sus- 
 sex brought to light some magnificent remains of the 
 elephant and rhinoceros, the most valuable of which were 
 presented by him to the British Museum. During the 
 last few years of his life he devoted considerable attention 
 to the study of the Foraminifera in chalk, respecting which 
 he made several interesting discoveries. His life was use- 
 ful, happy, and honored ; and he died at Stanway, in 
 Essex, in November 1859, at the ripe age of eighty years. 
 Sir Roderick Murchison is another illustrious pursuer 
 of ths same branch of science. A writer in the " Quar- 
 terly Review " cites him as " a singular instance of a 
 man who, having passed the early part of his life as a 
 soldier, never having had the advantage, or disadvantage 
 as the case might have been, of a scientific training, in- 
 stead of remaining a fox-hunting country gentleman, has 
 succeeded by his own native vigor and sagacity, untiring 
 industry and zeal, in making for himself a scientific repu- 
 tation that is as wide as it is likely to be lasting. He 
 took first of all an unexplored and difficult district at 
 home, and, by the labor of many years, examined its 
 rock-formations, classed them in natural groups, assigned 
 to each its characteristic assemblage of fossils, and was 
 the first to decipher two great chapters in the world's 
 geological history, which must always henceforth carry 
 his name on their title-page. Not only so, but he ap- 
 plied the knowledge thus acquired to the dissection of 
 
134 SIR RODERICK MURCHISON. CHAP. IV. 
 
 large districts, both at home and abroad, so as to become 
 the geological discoverer of great countries which had 
 formerly been ' terrae incognitae.' " But Sir Roderick 
 Murchison is not merely a geologist. His indefatigable 
 labors in many branches of knowledge, have contributed 
 to render him among the most accomplished and complete 
 of scientific men. 
 
CHAP. V. FORCE OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 WORKERS IN ART. 
 
 " If what shone afar so grand, 
 Turn to nothing in thy hand, 
 On again, the virtue lies 
 In the struggle, not the prize." R. M. Mines. 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS was such a believer in the 
 force of industry, that he held that excellence in art, 
 "however expressed by genius, taste, or the gift of 
 heaven, may be acquired." Writing to Barry he said, 
 " Whoever is resolved to excel in painting, or indeed any 
 other art, must bring all his mind to bear upon that one 
 object from the moment that he rises till he goes to bed." 
 And on another occasion he said, " Those who are re- 
 solved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwill- 
 ing, morning, noon, and night ; they will find it no play, 
 but very hard labor." But although diligent application 
 is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of 
 the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that with- 
 out the inherent faculty, no mere amount of industry, 
 however well applied, will make an artist. The gift 
 comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which 
 is of much more avail than the imparted education of 
 the schools. 
 
 It is indeed remarkable that the most distinguished 
 artists of our own country have not been born in an ar- 
 tistic sphere, or in a position of life more than ordinarily 
 
136 EMINENT ARTISTS HARD WORKERS. CHAP. V. 
 
 favorable to the culture of artistic genius. They have 
 nearly all had to force their way upward in the face of 
 poverty and manifold obstructions. Thus Gainsborough 
 and Bacon were the sons of cloth-workers; Barry was 
 an Irish sailor-boy, and Maclise a banker's apprentice at 
 Cork ; Opie and Romney, like Inigo Jones, were carpen- 
 ters; West was the son of a small Quaker farmer in 
 Pennsylvania ; Northcote was a watchmaker ; Jackson a 
 tailor, and Etty a printer ; Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, 
 were the sons of clergymen ; Lawrence was the son of a 
 publican, and Turner of a barber. Several of our paint- 
 ers, it is true, originally had some connection with art, 
 though in a very humble way, such as Flaxman, 
 whose father sold plaster casts ; Bird, who ornamented 
 tea-trays ; Martin, who was a coach-painter ; Wright 
 and Gilpin, who were ship-painters ; Chantrey, who was 
 a carver and gilder ; and David Cox, Stanfield, and 
 Roberts, who were scene-painters. 
 
 All these men achieved distinction in their several 
 walks under circumstances often of the most adverse 
 kind. It was not by luck nor accident that they rose, 
 but by sheer industry and hard work. Though some 
 achieved wealth, yet this was never their ruling motive. 
 Indeed, no mere love of money could sustain the efforts 
 of the artist in his early career of self-denial and ap- 
 plication. The pleasure of the pursuit has always been 
 its best reward ; the wealth which followed but an acci- 
 dent. Many noble-minded artists have preferred fol- 
 lowing the bent of their genius, to chaffering with the 
 public for terms. Spagnoletto verified in his life the 
 beautiful fiction of Xenophon, and after he had acquired 
 the means of luxury, preferred withdrawing himself from 
 their influence, and voluntarily returned to poverty and 
 
CHAP. V. INDUSTRY OF MICHAEL ANGELO. 137 
 
 labor. When Michael Angelo was asked his opinion re- 
 specting a work which a painter had taken great pains to 
 exhibit for profit, he said, " I think that he will be a poor 
 fellow so long as he shows such an extreme eagerness to 
 become rich." 
 
 Like Sir Joshua Reynolds, Michael Angelo was a 
 great believer in the force of labor ; and he held that 
 there was nothing which the imagination conceived, that 
 could not be embodied in marble, if the hand were made 
 vigorously to obey the mind. He was himself one of the 
 most indefatigable of workers ; and he attributed his 
 power of studying for a greater number of hours than 
 most of his contemporaries, to his spare habits of living. 
 A little bread and wine was all he required for the chief 
 part of the day when employed at his work ; and very 
 frequently he rose in the middle of the night to resume 
 his labors. On these occasions, it was his practice to fix 
 the candle, by the light of which he worked, on the sum- 
 mit of a pasteboard cap which he wore. Sometimes he 
 was too wearied to undress, and he slept in his clothes, 
 ready to spring to his work so soon as refreshed by sleep 
 He had a favorite device of an old man in a go-cart, witb 
 an hour-glass upon it bearing the inscription, Ancora im 
 paro ! still I am learning. 
 
 Titian, also, was an indefatigable worker. His cele- 
 brated " Pietro Martyre " was eight years in hand, and 
 his " Last Supper " seven. In his letter to Charles V. 
 he said, " I send your Majesty the ' Last Supper ' after 
 working at it almost daily for seven years doppo, setU 
 anni lavorandovi quasi continuamente" Few think of 
 the patient labor and long training involved in the great- 
 est works of the artist. They seem easy and quickly 
 accomplished, yet with how great difficulty has this ease 
 
138 WEST. - RICHARD WILSON. CHAP. V. 
 
 been acquired. " You charge me fifty sequins," said the 
 Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, " for a bust that cost 
 you only ten days' labor." " You forget," said the artist, 
 " that I have been thirty years learning to make that bust 
 in ten days." Once when Domenichino was blamed for 
 his slowness in finishing a picture which was bespoken, 
 he made answer, " I am continually painting it within 
 myself." It was eminently characteristic of the industry 
 of the late Sir Augustus Callcott, that he made not fewer 
 than forty separate sketches in the composition of his 
 famous picture of " Rochester." This constant repetition 
 is one of the main conditions of success in art, as in life 
 itself. 
 
 Art is indeed a long labor, no matter how amply na- 
 ture has bestowed the gift of the artistic faculty. In 
 most cases this has shown itself early ; and illustrations 
 of apparent precocity have been noted in the lives of 
 most great artists. The anecdote related of West is well 
 known. When only seven years old, struck with the 
 beauty of the sleeping infant of his eldest sister whilst 
 watching by its cradle, he ran to seek some paper and 
 forthwith drew its portrait in red and black ink. The 
 little incident revealed the artist in him, and it was found 
 impossible to draw him from his bent. West might have 
 been a greater painter, had he not been injured by too 
 early success ; his fame, though great, was not purchased 
 oy study, trials, and difficulties, and it has not been en- 
 during. Eichard Wilson, when a mere child, indulged 
 himself with tracing figures of men and animals on the 
 walls of his father's house, with a burnt stick. He first 
 directed his attention to portrait-painting ; but when in 
 Italy, calling one day at the house of Zucarelli, and 
 growing weary with waiting, he began painting the scene 
 
CHAP. V. REYNOLDS.- GAINSBOROUGH. BIRD. 139 
 
 on which his friend's chamber-window looked. When 
 Zucarelli arrived, he was so charmed with the picture, 
 that he asked if Wilson had not studied landscape, to 
 which he replied that he had not. " Then, I advise you," 
 said the other, " to try ; for you are sure of great suc- 
 cess." Wilson adopted the advice, studied and worked 
 hard, and became our first great English landscape-paint- 
 er. Sir Joshua Reynolds, when a boy, forgot his lessons, 
 and took pleasure only in drawing, for which his father 
 was accustomed to rebuke him. The boy was destined 
 for the profession of physic, but his strong instinct for art 
 could not be repressed, and he became a painter. Gains- 
 borough went sketching, when a school-boy, in the woods 
 of Sudbury ; and at twelve he was a confirmed artist ; 
 he was a keen observer and a hard worker, no pictu- 
 resque feature of any scene he had once looked upon, 
 escaping his diligent pencil. William Blake, a hosier's 
 son, employed himself in drawing designs on the backs of 
 his father's shopbills and making sketches on the count- 
 er. Edward Bird, when a child only three or four years 
 old, would mount a chair and draw figures on the walls, 
 which he called French and English soldiers. A box of 
 colors was purchased for him, and his father, desirous of 
 turning his love of art to account, put him apprentice to 
 a maker of tea-trays ! Out of this trade he gradually 
 raised himself by study and labor, to the rank of a Royal 
 Academician. 
 
 Hogarth, though a very dull boy at his lessons, took 
 pleasure in making drawings of the letters of the alpha- 
 bet, and his school exercises were more remarkable for 
 the ornaments with which he embellished them, than for 
 the matter of the exercises themselves. In the latter 
 respect he was beaten by all the blockheads of the school. 
 
140 HOGAETH'S CLOSE OBSERVATION. CHAP. V. 
 
 but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him 
 apprentice to a silversmith, where he learned to draw, 
 and also to engrave spoons and forks with crests and 
 ciphers ; from silver-chasing, he went on to teach himself 
 to engrave on copper, principally griffins and monsters of 
 heraldry; in the course of which practice he became 
 ambitious to delineate the varieties of human character. 
 The singular excellence which he reached in this art, was 
 mainly the result of careful observation and study. He 
 had the gift, which he sedulously cultivated, of committing 
 to memory the precise features of any remarkable face, 
 and afterwards reproducing it on paper ; but if any sh> 
 gularly fantastic form or outre face came in his way, he 
 would make a sketch of it on the spot, upon his thumb- 
 nail, and carry it home to expand at his leisure. Every- 
 thing fantastical and original had a powerful attraction 
 for him, and he wandered into many out-of-the-way places 
 for the purpose of meeting with character. By this care- 
 ful storing of his mind, he was afterwards enabled to 
 crowd an immense amount of thought and treasured ob- 
 servation into his works. Hence it is that Hogarth's pic- 
 tures are so truthful a memorial of the characters, the 
 manners, and even the very thoughts of the times in 
 which he lived. True painting, he himself observed, can 
 only be learned in one school, and that is kept by Nature. 
 But he was not a highly cultivated man, except in his 
 own walk. His school education had been of the slender- 
 est kind, scarcely even perfecting him in the art of spell- 
 ing; his self-culture did the rest. For a long time he 
 was in very straitened circumstances, but, nevertheless, 
 worked on with a cheerful heart. Poor though he was, 
 he contrived to live within his small means, and he 
 boasted, with becoming pride, that he was "a punctual 
 
CHAI-. V. BANKS AND MULREADY, 141 
 
 paymaster." When he had conquered all his difficulties 
 and become a famous and thriving man, he loved to dwell 
 upon his early labors and privations, and to fight over 
 again the battle which ended so honorably to him as a 
 man and so gloriously as an artist. "I remember the 
 time," said he on one occasion, " when I have gone 
 moping into the city with scarce a shilling, but as soon 
 as I have received ten guineas there for a plate, I have 
 returned home, put on my sword, and sallied out with 
 all the confidence of a man who had thousands in his 
 pockets." 
 
 " Industry and Perseverance " was the motto of the 
 sculptor Banks, which he acted on himself, and strongly 
 recommended to others. His well-known kindness in- 
 duced many aspiring youths to call upon him and ask for 
 his advice and assistance ; and it is related that one day 
 a boy called at his door to see him with this object, but 
 the servant, angry at the loud knock he had given, scolded 
 him, and was about sending him away, when Banks over- 
 hearing her, himself went out. The little boy stood at 
 the door with some drawings in his hand. " What do 
 you want with me ? " asked the sculptor. " I want, sir, 
 if you please, to be admitted to draw at the Academy." 
 Banks explained that he himself could not procure his 
 admission, but he asked to look at the boy's drawings. 
 Examining them, he said, " Time enough for the Acad- 
 emy, my little man ! go home, mind your schooling, 
 try to make a better drawing of the Apollo, and in a 
 month come again and let me see it." The boy went 
 home, sketched and worked with redoubled diligence, 
 and, at the end of the month, called again on the sculptor. 
 The drawing was better, but again Banks sent him back, 
 with good advice, to work and study. In a week the boy 
 
1*2 EARLY STRUGGLES OF NOLLEKENS. CHAP. V. 
 
 was again at his door ; his drawing much improved ; and 
 Banks bid him be of good cheer, for if spared he would 
 distinguish himself. The boy was Mulready ; and the 
 sculptor's augury was amply fulfilled. 
 
 Though Nollekens came of a family of artists, his 
 father died so young, and he was left so destitute, that it 
 was necessary for him to fight his own way in the world 
 inch by inch. He had not much school education, could 
 read indifferently, and had little knowledge of spelling or 
 grammar ; yet he became a successful, if not a great, 
 artist. He was taken into the shop of an obscure sculp- 
 tor, Scheemakers, and while laboring late and early at 
 his favorite art, he ran errands during the day, being 
 often employed, because of his carefulness, to carry pots 
 of porter for his master's maids on washing-days, 
 " creeping slowly along," as he afterwards described, " to 
 save the head of foam, that the lasses might taste it in 
 all its strength." As he grew in knowledge of his art, 
 he competed for the Society of Arts' prizes, and won them 
 in two successive years. Determined to visit Rome, he 
 journeyed thither in the humblest style possible, and 
 reached the Eternal City with only twenty guineas in his 
 pocket, without a friend. But he set to work with a will ; 
 he first earned ten guineas for a bas-relief carved in stone, 
 and the year following he was voted fifty guineas by the 
 Society of Arts for a marble group. Garrick and Sterne 
 both sat to him for their busts at Rome, which brought 
 him more guineas, and, what was better for him, reputa- 
 tion ; and when he returned to London to commence 
 business, he had already accumulated a little store of 
 capital, for his privations as a youth had early forced 
 him to cultivate the habit of economy. He improved as 
 an artist, and Dr. Johnson, of whom he executed a capital 
 
CHAP V. JOHN FLAXMAN, THE BOY. 143 
 
 bust, once said of him, "My friend Joe Nollekens can 
 chop out a head with any of them." Yet Nollekens was 
 no genius, for his biographers confess that all which he 
 accomplished canie by painful labor and incessant dili- 
 gence. 
 
 John Flaxman was a true genius, one of the great- 
 est artists England has yet produced. He was besides a 
 person of beautiful character, his life furnishing many 
 salutary lessons for men of all ranks. Flaxman was the 
 son of a humble seller of plaster casts in New Street, 
 Covent Garden ; and when a child, he was so constant an 
 invalid that it was his custom to sit behind the shop 
 counter propped by pillows, amusing himself with draw- 
 ing and reading. A benevolent clergyman, named Mat- 
 thews, one day calling at the shop, found the boy trying 
 to read a book, and on inquiring what it was, found it 
 was a Cornelius Nepos, which his father had picked up 
 for a few pence at a bookstall. The gentleman, after 
 some conversation with the boy, said that was not the 
 proper book for him to read, but that he would bring him 
 a right one on the morrow ; and the kind man was as 
 good as his word. The Rev. Mr. Matthews used after- 
 wards to say, that from that casual interview with the 
 cripple little invalid behind the plaster-cast seller's shop 
 counter, began an acquaintance which ripened into one 
 of the best friendships of his life. He brought several 
 books to the boy, amongst which were Homer and " Don 
 Quixote," in both of which Flaxman then and ever after 
 took immense delight. His mind was soon full of the 
 heroism which breathed through the pages of the former 
 work, and, with the stucco Ajaxes and Achilleses about 
 him, looming along the shop shelves, the ambition thus 
 early took possession of him, that he too would design 
 
144 JOHN FLAXMAN, THE STUDENT. CHAP. V. 
 
 and embody in poetic forms those majestic heroes. His 
 black chalk was at once in his hand, and the enthusiastic 
 boy labored in a divine despair to body forth in visible 
 shapes the actions of the Greeks and Trojans. 
 
 Like all youthful efforts, his first designs were crude. 
 The proud father one day showed them to Roubilliac, 
 the sculptor, who turned from them with a contemptuous 
 " pshaw ! " But the boy had the right stuff in him ; he 
 had industry and patience ; and he continued to labor in- 
 cessantly at his books and drawings. He then tried his 
 young powers in modelling figures in plaster of Paris, 
 wax, and clay ; some of these early works are still pre- 
 served, not because of their merit, but because they are 
 curious as the first healthy efforts of patient genius. 
 The boy was long before he could walk, and he only 
 learned to do so by hobbling along upon crutches. Hence 
 he could not accompany his father to see the procession 
 at the coronation of George III., but he entreated his 
 father to bring him back one of the coronation medals 
 which were to be distributed amongst the crowd. The 
 pressure was too great to enable the father to obtain 
 one in the scramble, but, not to disappoint the little in- 
 valid, he obtained a plated button bearing the stamp of a 
 horse and jockey, which he presented to his son as the 
 coronation medal. His practice at this time was to make 
 impressions of all seals and medals that pleased him ; 
 and it was for this that he so much coveted the medal. 
 
 His physical health improving, the little Flaxman then 
 threw away his crutches. The kind Mr. Matthews in- 
 vited him to his house, where his wife explained Homer 
 and Milton to him. They helped him also in his self- 
 culture, giving him lessons in Greek and Latin, the 
 study of which he prosecuted at home. When under 
 
CHAP. V. FLAXMAN'S FIRST COMMISSION. 145 
 
 Mrs. Matthews, he also attempted with his bit of charcoal 
 to embody in outline on paper such passages as struck 
 his fancy. His drawings could not, however, have been 
 very extraordinary, for when he showed a drawing of an 
 eye which he had made to Mortimer, the artist, that 
 gentleman with affected surprise exclaimed, "Is it an 
 oyster ? " The sensitive boy was much hurt, and for a 
 time took care to avoid showing his drawings to artists, 
 who, though a thin-skinned race, are sometimes disposed 
 to be very savage in their criticisms on others. At 
 length, by dint of perseverance and study, his drawing 
 improved so much that Mrs. Matthews obtained a com- 
 mission for him from a lady, to draw six original draw- 
 ings in black chalk of subjects in Homer. His first com- 
 mission ! A great event that in the boy's life. A sur- 
 geon's first fee, a lawyer's first retainer, a legislator's first 
 speech, a singer's first appearance behind the foot-lights, 
 an author's first book, are not any of them more full of 
 interest to the individual than the artist's first commis- 
 sion. The boy duly executed the order, and was both 
 well praised and well paid for his work. 
 
 At fifteen Flaxman entered a student at the Royal 
 Academy. He might then be seen principally in the 
 company of Blake and Stothard, young men of kindred 
 tastes and genius, gentle and amiable, yet ardent in their 
 love of art. Notwithstanding his retiring disposition, 
 Flaxman soon became known among the students, and 
 great things were expected of him. Nor were their ex- 
 pectations disappointed : iff his fifteenth year he gained 
 the silver prize, and next year he became a candidate for 
 the gold one. Everybody prophesied that he would 
 carry off the medal, for there was none who surpassed 
 him in ability and industry. The youth did his best, and 
 7 
 
146 WEDGWOOD AND FLAXMAN. CHAP. V 
 
 in his after-life honestly affirmed that he deserved the 
 prize, but he lost it, and the gold medal was adjudged to 
 Engleheart, who was not afterwards heard of. This 
 failure on the part of the youth was really of service to 
 him ; for defeats do not long cast down the resolute- 
 hearted, but only serve to call forth their real powers. 
 " Give me time," said he to his father, " and I will yet 
 produce works that the Academy will be proud to recog- 
 nize." He redoubled his efforts, spared no pains, designed 
 and modelled incessantly, and consequently made steady 
 if not rapid progress. But meanwhile poverty threatened 
 his father's household ; the plaster-cast trade yielded a 
 very bare living ; and young Flaxman, with resolute 
 self-denial, curtailed his hours of study, and devoted him- 
 self to helping his father in the humble details of his 
 business. He laid aside his Homer to take up the plaster- 
 trowel. He was willing to work in the humblest depart- 
 ment of the trade so that his father's family might be 
 supported, and the wolf kept from the door. To this 
 drudgery of his art he served a long apprenticeship ; but 
 it did him good. It familiarized him with steady work, 
 and cultivated in him the spirit of patience. The disci- 
 pline may have been rough, but it was wholesome. 
 
 Happily, young Flaxman's skill in design had reached 
 the knowledge of Mr. Wedgwood, who sought him out 
 for the purpose of employing him in designing improved 
 patterns of china and earthenware to be produced at his 
 manufactory. It may seem a humble department of art 
 for Flaxman to have labored in ; but it really was not so. 
 An artist may be laboring truly in his vocation while de- 
 signing even so common an article as a teapot or a water- 
 jug ; articles which are in daily use amongst the people, 
 and are before their eyes at every meal, may be made 
 
CHAP. V. FLAXMAN AND WEDGWOOD. 147 
 
 the vehicles of art-education to all and minister to their 
 highest culture. The most ambitious artist may thus 
 confer a greater practical benefit on his countrymen than 
 by executing an elaborate work which he may sell foi 
 thousands of pounds, to be placed in some wealthy man's 
 gallery, where it is hidden away from public sight. Be- 
 fore Wedgwood's time the designs which figured upon 
 our china and stoneware were hideous both in drawing and 
 execution, and he determined to improve both. Finding 
 out Flaxman, he said to him : " Well, my lad, I have 
 heard that you are a good draughtsman and clever de- 
 signer. I'm a manufacturer of pots, name Wedgwood. 
 Now, I want you to design some models for me, noth- 
 ing fantastic, but simple, tasteful, and correct in drawing. 
 I'll pay you well. You don't think the work beneath 
 you ? " " By no means, sir," replied Flaxman, u indeed, 
 the work is quite to my taste. Give me a few days, 
 call again, and you will see what I can do." "That's 
 right, work away. Mind, I am in want of them now. 
 They are for pots of all kinds, teapots, jugs, teacups 
 and saucers. But especially I want designs for a table- 
 service. Begin with that. I mean to supply one for the 
 royal table. Now, think of that, young man. What you 
 design is meant for the eyes of royalty ! " "I will do my 
 best, sir, I assure you." And the kind gentleman bustled 
 out of the shop as he had come in. 
 
 Flaxman did his best. By the time that Mr. Wedg- 
 wood next called upon him, he had a numerous series 
 of models prepared for various pieces of earthenware. 
 They consisted chiefly of small groups in very low re- 
 lief, the subjects taken from ancient verse and his- 
 tory. Many of them are still in existence, and some are 
 equal in beauty and simplicity to his after-designs for 
 
148 FLAXMAN AND WEDGWOOD. CHAP. V 
 
 marble. The celebrated Etruscan vases, many of which 
 were to be found in public museums and in the cabinets 
 of the curious, furnished him with the best examples of 
 form, and these he embellished with his own elegant de- 
 vices. " Stuart's Athens," then recently published, also 
 furnished him with specimens of the purest-shaped Greek 
 utensils, and he was not slow to adopt the best of them, 
 and work them up into new and wondrous shapes of ele- 
 gance and beauty. Flaxman then saw that he was 
 laboring in a great work, no less than the promotion 
 of popular education ; and he was proud in after-life, to 
 allude to these his early labors, by which he was enabled 
 at the same time to cultivate his love of the beautiful, to 
 diffuse a taste for art among the people, and to replenish 
 his own purse, while he promoted the prosperity of his 
 friend and benefactor. 
 
 Engaged in such labors as these, for several years 
 Flaxman executed but few works of art, and then at rare 
 intervals. He lived a quiet, secluded, and simple life, 
 working during the day, and sketching and reading in 
 the evenings. He was so poor that he had as yet been 
 only able to find plaster of Paris for his works, marble 
 was too dear a material for him. He had hitherto ex- 
 ecuted only one statue in the latter material, and that 
 was a commission. 
 
 At length, in the year 1782, when twenty-seven years 
 cf age, he quitted his father's roof and rented a small 
 bxise and studio in Wardour Street, Soho ; and what 
 was more, he married, Ann Denman was the name of 
 his wife, and a cheery, brigbt-souled, noble woman she 
 was. He believed that in marrying her, he should be 
 able to work with an intenser spirit ; for, like him, she 
 had a taste for poetry and art ; and besides was an en- 
 
CHAP. V. FLAXMAN AND HIS WIFE. 149 
 
 thusiastic admirer of her husband's genius. Yet when 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, himself a bachelor, met Flax- 
 man shortly after his marriage, he said to him, " So, 
 Flaxman, I am told you are married; if so, sir, I tell 
 you you are ruined for an artist." Flaxman went 
 straight home, sat down beside his wife, took her hand in 
 his, and said, " Ann, I am ruined for an artist." " How 
 so, John ? How has it happened ? and who has done 
 it?" "It happened," he replied, "in the church, and 
 Ann Denman has done it." He then told her of Sir 
 Joshua's remark, whose opinion was well known, and 
 had often been expressed, that if students would excel 
 they must Dring the whole powers of their mind to bear 
 upon their art, from the moment they rise until they go 
 to bed ; and also, that no man could be a great artist un- 
 less he studied the grand works of RafFaelle, Michael 
 Angelo, and others, at Rome and Florence. " And I," 
 said Flaxman, drawing up his little figure to its full 
 height, " / would be a great artist." " And a great artist 
 you shall be," said his wife, " and visit Rome too, if that 
 be really necessary to make you great." " But how ? " 
 asked Flaxman. " Work and economize" rejoined the 
 brave wife ; " I will never have it said that Ann Denman 
 ruined John Flaxman for an artist." And so it was de- 
 termined by the pair that the journey to Rome was to be 
 made when their means would admit. " I will go to 
 Rome," said Flaxman, "and show the President that 
 wedlock is for a man's good rather than his harm ; and 
 you, Ann, shall accompany me." 
 
 Patiently and happily this affectionate couple plodded 
 on during five years in that humble little home in War- 
 dour Street ; always with the long journey to Rome before 
 them. It was never lost sight of for a moment, and not a 
 
1 50 FLAXMAN AT ROME. CHAP. V. 
 
 penny was uselessly spent that could be saved towards the. 
 necessary expenses. They said no word to any one about 
 their project; solicited no aid from the Academy; but 
 trusted only to their own patient labor and love, to pursue 
 and achieve their object. During this time Flaxman ex- 
 hibited very few works. He could not afford marble to 
 experiment in original designs ; but he obtained frequent 
 commissions for monuments, by the profits of which he 
 maintained himself. He still worked for the Messrs. 
 Wedgwood, who proved good paymasters ; and, on the 
 whole, he was thriving, happy, and hopeful. He was not 
 a little respected by his neighbors, and those who knew 
 him greatly estimated his sincerity, his honesty, and his 
 unostentatious piety. His local respectability was even 
 such as to bring local honors' and local work upon him ; 
 so much so that he was on one occasion selected by the 
 rate-payers to collect the watch-rate for the parish of St. 
 Anne, when he might be seen going about with an 
 ink-bottle suspended from his buttonhole, collecting the 
 money. 
 
 At length Flaxman and his wife, having thriftily accu- 
 mulated a sufficient store of savings, set out for Rome. 
 Arrived there, he applied himself diligently to study, main- 
 taining himself, like other poor artists, by making copies 
 from the antique. English visitors sought his studio 
 and gave him commissions ; and it was then that he 
 composed his beautiful designs, illustrative of Homer, 
 JEschylus, and Dante. The price paid for them was 
 moderate, only fifteen shillings apiece; but Flaxman 
 worked for art as well as money ; and the beauty of the 
 designs brought him new friends and patrons. He exe- 
 cuted Cupid and Aurora for the munificent Thomas 
 Hope, and the Fury of Athamas for the Earl of Bristol. 
 
CHAP. V. THE ROFAL ACADEMY. 151 
 
 He then prepared to return to England, his taste im 
 proved and cultivated by careful study; but before he 
 left Italy, the Academies of Florence and Carrara recog* 
 nized his merit by electing him a member. 
 
 His fame had preceded him to England, and he soon 
 found abundant lucrative employment. While at Rome, 
 he had been commissioned to execute his famous monu- 
 ment in memory of Lord Mansfield, and it was erected 
 in the north transept of Westminster Abbey shortly after 
 his return. It stands there in majestic grandeur, a monu- 
 ment to the genius of Flaxman himself, calm, simple, 
 and severe. No wonder that Banks, the sculptor, then 
 in the heyday of his fame, exclaimed when he saw it, 
 "This little man cuts us all out!" 
 
 When the bigwigs of the Royal Academy heard of 
 Flaxman's return, and especially when they had an op- 
 portunity of seeing and admiring his noble portrait-statue 
 of Mansfield, they were eager to have him enrolled 
 among their number. The Royal Academy has always 
 had the art of running to the help of the strong ; and 
 when an artist has proved that he can achieve a repu- 
 tation without the Academy, then is the Academy most 
 willing to " patronize " him. He allowed his name to 
 be proposed in the candidates' list of associates, and 
 was immediately elected. His progress was now rapid, 
 and he was constantly employed. Perseverance and 
 study, which had matured his genius, had made him 
 great, and he went on from triumph to triumph. But 
 he appeared in yet a new character. The little boy 
 who had begun his studies behind the poor plaster- 
 cast seller's shop-counter in New Street, Covent Gar- 
 den, was now a man of high intellect and recognized 
 supremacy in art, to instruct aspiring students, in the 
 
152 FLAXMAN'S MONUMENTS. CHAP. V. 
 
 character of Professor of Sculpture to the Royal Acade- 
 my ! And no man better deserved to fill that distin- 
 guished office ; for none is so able to instruct others as he 
 who, for himself and by his own almost unaided efforts, has 
 learned to grapple with, and overcome difficulties. The 
 caustic Fuseli used to talk of the lectures as " sermons 
 by the Reverend John Flaxman ; " for the sculptor was a 
 religious man, which Fuseli was not. But Flaxman ac- 
 quitted himself well in the professorial chair, as any one 
 who reads his instructive " Lectures on Sculpture," now 
 published, may ascertain for himself. 
 
 Flaxman's monuments are known nearly all over Eng- 
 land. Their mute poetry beautifies most of our cathe- 
 drals, and many of our rural churches. Whatever work 
 of this kind he executed, he threw a soul and meaning 
 into it, embodying some high Christian idea of charity, 
 of love, of resignation, of affection, or of kindness. In 
 monuments such as these his peculiar genius preemi- 
 nently shone. There is a tenderness and grace about 
 them which no other artist has been able to surpass, 
 or even to equal. His rapid sketches illustrative of thb 
 Lord's Prayer, published in lithograph some years ago, ex 
 hibit this peculiar quality of his genius in a striking light. 
 In historical monuments, again, he was less successful, 
 though his monuments to Reynolds and Nelson, in St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, are noble works, which will always be 
 admired. 
 
 After a long, peaceful, and happy life, Flaxman found 
 himself growing old. The loss which he sustained by 
 the death of his affectionate wife Ann, was a severe 
 shock to him ; but he survived her several years, during 
 which he executed his celebrated " Shield of Achilles " 
 and his noble " Archangel Michael vanquishing Satan/ 
 perhaps his two greatest works. 
 
CHAP. V. FRANCIS CHANTREY, CARVER. 153 
 
 Chantrey was a more robust man, every inch of him 
 English. He was somewhat rough, but hearty in his 
 demeanor ; proud of his successful struggle with the 
 difficulties which beset him in early life ; and, above all, 
 proud of his independence. He was born a poor man's 
 child, at Norton, near Sheffield. His father dying when 
 he was a mere boy, his mother married again. Young 
 Chantrey used to drive an ass laden with milk-cans 
 across its back into the neighboring town of Sheffield, 
 and there serve his mother's customers with milk. Such 
 was the humble beginning of his industrial career ; and 
 it was by his own strength that he rose from that posi- 
 tion, and achieved the highest eminence as an artist. 
 Not taking kindly to his step-father, the boy was sent to 
 trade, and was first placed with a grocer in Sheffield. 
 The business was very distasteful to him ; but, passing a 
 carver's shop-window one day, his eye was attracted by 
 the glittering articles it contained, and, charmed with the 
 idea of being a carver, he begged to be released from 
 the grocery business with this object. His friends con- 
 sented, and he was bound apprentice to a carver and 
 gilder for seven years. His new master, besides being 
 a carver in wood, was also a dealer in prints and plaster 
 models ; and Chantrey at once set about imitating both, 
 studying with great industry and energy. All his spare 
 hours were devoted to drawing, modelling, and self-im- 
 provement, often working far into the night. Before his 
 apprenticeship was out, at the age of twenty-one, 
 he paid over to his master the whole wealth which he 
 was able to muster, a sum of 50, to cancel his in- 
 dentures, determined to devote himself to the career of 
 an artist. He then made the best of his way to Lon- 
 don, and, with characteristic good sense, sought employ 
 
154 FRANCIS CHANTREY, SCULPTOR. CHAP. V 
 
 ment as an assistant carver, studying painting and model- 
 ling at his by-hours. Amongst the jobs on which he 
 was at that time employed as a journeyman carver, was 
 the decoration of the dining-room of Mr. Rogers, the 
 poet, a room in which he was in after-life a welcome 
 visitor ; and he usually took pleasure in pointing out his 
 early handiwork to the guests whom he met at his friend's 
 table. 
 
 Returning to Sheffield on a professional visit he adver- 
 tised himself in the local papers as a painter of portraits 
 in crayons and miniatures, and also in oil. For his first 
 portrait he was paid a well-earned guinea by a cutler ; 
 and for a portrait in oil, a confectioner paid him as much 
 as 51, and a pair of top boots ! Chantrey was soon in 
 London again, to study at the Royal Academy ; and next 
 time he returned to Sheffield, he advertised himself as 
 ready to model plaster busts of his townsmen, as well as 
 to paint portraits of them. He was even selected to de- 
 sign a monument to a deceased vicar of the town, and 
 executed it to general satisfaction. When in London 
 he used a room over a stable as a studio, and there he 
 modelled his first original work for exhibition. It was a 
 gigantic head of Satan. Towards the close of Chantrey's 
 life, a friend passing through his studio was struck by this 
 model lying in a corner. " That head," said the sculptor, 
 " was the first thing that I did after I came to London. 
 I worked at it in a garret, with a paper cap on my head ; 
 and as I could then afford only one candle, I stuck that 
 one in my cap that it might move along with me, and 
 give me light whichever way I turned." Flaxman saw 
 and admired this head at the Academy Exhibition, and 
 recommended Chantrey for the execution of the busts of 
 four admirals, required for the Naval Asylum at Green- 
 
CHAP. V. FEANCIS CHANTKEY, SCULPTOR. 155 
 
 wich. This commission led to others, and painting was 
 given up. But for eight years before, he had not earned 
 51. by his modelling. His famous head of Home Tooke 
 was such a success that, according to his own account, it 
 brought him commissions amounting to 12,000/. 
 
 Chantrey had now succeeded, but he had worked hard, 
 and thoroughly earned his fortune. He was selected 
 from amongst sixteen competitors to execute the statue 
 of George III. for the city of London. A few years 
 ' later, he produced the exquisite monument of the Sleep- 
 ing Children, now in Lichfield Cathedral, a work not 
 to be surpassed for tenderness of sentiment and poetic 
 beauty ; and thenceforward his career was one of increas- 
 ing honor, fame, and prosperity. His patience, industry, 
 and steady perseverance were the means by which he 
 achieved his greatness. Nature endowed him with gen- 
 ius, and his sound sense enabled him to employ the pre- 
 cious gift as a blessing. He was prudent and shrewd, 
 like the men amongst whom he was born ; the pocket- 
 book which accompanied him on his Italian tour contain- 
 ing mingled notes on art, records of daily expenses, and 
 the current prices of marble. His tastes were simple, 
 and he made his finest subjects great by the mere force 
 of simplicity. His statue of Watt, in Handsworth Church, 
 seems to us the very consummation of art ; yet it is per- 
 fectly artless and simple. His generosity to brother ar- 
 tists in need was splendid, but quiet and unostentatious. 
 In a word, Chantrey was a national sculptor ; and the 
 character and career of the man were such as to make 
 Englishmen justly proud of him. The fortune which 
 he amassed during his life of hard work he bequeathed 
 to the Royal Academy for the promotion of British 
 art. 
 
156 DAVID WILKIE. CHAP. V, 
 
 The same honest and persistent industry was through 
 out distinctive of the career of David Wilkie. The son 
 of a poor Scotch minister, he gave early indications of 
 an artistic turn ; and though he was a negligent and inapt 
 scholar, he was a sedulous drawer of faces and figures. 
 A silent boy, he already displayed that quiet, concentrated 
 energy of character which distinguished him through life. 
 He was always on the look-out for an opportunity to 
 draw, and the walls of the manse, or the smooth sand 
 by the river side, came alike convenient for his purpose. 
 Any sort of tool would serve him ; like Giotto, he found 
 a pencil in a burnt stick, a prepared canvas in any 
 smooth stone, and the subject for a picture in every rag- 
 ged mendicant he met. When he visited a house, he 
 generally left his mark on the walls as an indication of 
 his presence, sometimes to the disgust of cleanly house- 
 wives. In short, notwithstanding the aversion of his 
 father, the minister, to the " sinful " profession of paint- 
 ing, Wilkie's strong propensity was not to be thwarted, 
 and he became an artist ; working his way manfully up 
 the steep of difficulty. Though rejected on his first ap- 
 plication as a candidate for admission to the Scottish 
 Academy, at Edinburgh, on account of the rudeness and 
 inaccuracy of his introductory specimens, he persevered 
 in producing better, until he was admitted. But his 
 progress was slow. He applied himself diligently to the 
 drawing of the human figure, and held on with the de- 
 termination to succeed, as if with a resolute confidence 
 in the result. He displayed none of the eccentric hu- 
 mor and fitful application of many youths who conceive 
 themselves geniuses, but kept up the routine of steady 
 application to such an extent that he himself was after- 
 wards accustomed to attribute his success to his dogged 
 
CHAP. V. DAVID WILKIE. 157 
 
 perseverance rather than to any higher innate power. 
 "The single element," he said, "in all the progressive 
 movements of my pencil, was persevering industry." At 
 Edinburgh he gained a few premiums, thought of turn- 
 ing his attention to portrait-painting, with a view to its 
 higher and more certain remuneration, but eventually 
 went boldly into the line in which he earned his fame, 
 
 and painted his Pitlessie Fair. What was bolder still, 
 he determined to proceed to London, on account of its 
 presenting so much wider a field for study and work ; 
 and the poor Scotch lad arrived in town, and painted 
 his Village Politicians while living in a humble lodging 
 on eighteen shillings a week. 
 
 Notwithstanding the success of this picture, and the 
 commissions which followed it, Wilkie long continued 
 poor. The prices which his works realized were not 
 great, for he bestowed upon them so much time and 
 labor, that his earnings continued comparatively small 
 for many years. Every picture was carefully studied 
 and elaborated beforehand ; nothing was struck off at a 
 heat ; many occupied him for years, touching, retouch- 
 ing, and improving them, until they finally passed out 
 of his hands. As with Reynolds, his motto was " Work L 
 work! work ! " and, like him, he expressed great dislike 
 for talking artists. Talkers may sow r but the silent 
 reap. "Let us be doing something," was his oblique 
 mode of rebuking the loquacious and admonishing the 
 idle. Among such was his friend Haydon, who was 
 always talking so big about high art, but doing so little 
 to advance it. Haydon, perhaps, had more of what is 
 called " genius " than Wilkie, but he had no persistency, 
 
 no work in him. He who does not end speechifying 
 iocs not begin doing. While the silent Wilkie was 
 
158 CAREER OF HAYDON. CHAP. V 
 
 working and advancing, poor noisy Haydon's enthusi 
 asm for high art mostly ended in declamation. What 
 Haydon did attempt with his dropsical muscle figures, 
 usually proved beyond his grasp, and he failed; while 
 Wilkie did his best within his powers, and succeeded. 
 The one, fitful and irregular in his habits, aimed at an 
 unattainable ideal ; the other, sedulously cultivating his 
 peculiar and original talent, aimed steadily at the sue- 
 eess which was within his reach, and secured it. Hay- 
 don's career was a warning and example to the gifted. 
 He was one of a numerous class who are ready to cry 
 out without sufficient reason against the blindness and 
 ingratitude of the world. But, as in most of such cases, 
 Haydon's worst enemy was himself. Half the time spent 
 in working that he spent hi complaining, would have 
 gone far towards making him the great man that he 
 aimed to be. While he went on holding himself forth 
 as a persecuted genius, Wilkie, with the simplicity that 
 belongs to true genius, made no claim whatever, but 
 worked hard and did his best, and the world did not fail 
 to recognize his merits. Nor did Flaxman, Reynolds, or 
 Chantrey, expend their eloquence in bemoaning their lot, 
 but vigorously exerted themselves to deserve the support 
 and encouragement which they received. Haydon was 
 fonder of seeing himself in print than of steady work ; 
 and hence he never reached the ambition of his life. 
 Unlike honest Barry, who, like Haydon, was constantly 
 running his head against stone walls, he sponged upon 
 his friends for the money that he would not earn. For 
 many years of his life he lived upon borrowed money. 
 He drew supplies from his poor, worn-out father as long 
 as he could ; and when that source failed, he sent beg- 
 ging-letters about among the patrons of " high art." His 
 
CHAP.V. TURNEK'S INDUSTRY. 159 
 
 life, indeed, illustrated the truth of the saying, that "an 
 empty bag cannot stand upright." Though his views of 
 art were lofty, his ideas of life were low. He talked 
 eloquently, but acted meanly ; and though he boasted 
 of his independence, he yet lived in daily and hourly 
 humiliation. 
 
 Turner, the greatest of our landscape-painters, was a 
 man of an entirely different character. He was intended 
 by his father for his own trade of a barber, which he car- 
 ried on in Maiden Lane, until one day the sketch which 
 the boy had made of a coat of arms on a silver salver 
 having attracted the notice of a customer, whom his 
 father was shaving, he was urged to allow his son to fol- 
 low his bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow 
 art as a profession. He learned his first rudiments with 
 Malton, who had at the same time under him another 
 pupil, Thomas Girtin, whose genius was akin to Tur- 
 ner's, and kept alive in him that ardent spirit of emulation 
 and industry which never ceased to be his distinguishing 
 characteristic, even after he had attained the summit 
 of his fame. Girtin and Turner, though essentially un- 
 like in character and disposition, were warmly attached 
 friends, and when poor Girtin died, full of promise, un- 
 der thirty, he had no more affectionate mourner than his 
 fellow-pupil and competitor. Like all young artists, 
 Turner had many difficulties to encounter, and they 
 were all the greater that Turner's circumstances were 
 so straitened. But he was always willing to work, and 
 to take pains with his work, no matter howsoever hum- 
 ble it might be. He was glad to hire himself out at 
 half a crown a night to wash in skies in Indian ink 
 upon other people's drawings, getting his supper into 
 the bargain. Thus he earned money and acquired ex 
 
160 PRIVATIONS ENDURED BY ARTISTS. CHAP. V. 
 
 pertness. Then he took to illustrating guide-books, 
 almanacs, and any sort of books that wanted cheap 
 frontispieces. " What could I have done better ? " said 
 he afterwards ; " it was first-rate practice." He did 
 everything carefully and conscientiously, never slurring 
 over his work because he was ill-remunerated for it. 
 He aimed at learning as well as living; always doing 
 his best, and never leaving a drawing without having 
 made a step in advance upon his previous work. A 
 man who thus labored was sure to do much ; and his 
 advance in power and grasp of thought was, to use Rus- 
 kin's words, " as steady as the increasing light of sun- 
 rise." But Turner's genius needs no panegyric ; his 
 best monument is the great works bequeathed by him to 
 the nation, which will ever be the most lasting memorial 
 of his fame. 
 
 Many artists have had to encounter privations which 
 have tried their courage and endurance to the utmost 
 before they succeeded. What number may have sunk 
 under them we can never know. Martin encountered 
 difficulties in the course of his career, such as perhaps 
 fall to the lot of few. More than once he found himself 
 on the verge of starvation whilst engaged on his first 
 great picture. It is related of him that on one occasion 
 he found himself reduced to his last shilling, a bright 
 shilling, which he had kept because of its very bright- 
 ness, but at length he found it necessary to exchange it 
 for bread. He went to a baker's shop, bought a loaf, 
 and was taking it away, when the baker snatched it from 
 liirn, and tossed back the shilling to the starving painter. 
 The bright shilling had failed him in his hour of need, - 
 it was a bad one ! Returning to his lodgings, he rum- 
 maged his trunk for some remaining crust to satisfy his 
 
CHAP. V. MARTIN. PUGIN. ] C 1 
 
 hunger. Upheld throughout by the victorious power of 
 enthusiasm, he pursued his design with unsubdued en- 
 ergy. He had the courage to work on and to wait ; and 
 when, a few days after, he found an opportunity to ex- 
 hibit his picture, he was from that time famous. Like 
 many other great artists, his life proves that, in despite 
 of outward circumstances, genius, aided by industry, will 
 be its own protector, and that fame, though she comes 
 late, will never ultimately refuse her favors to real 
 merit. 
 
 The most careful discipline and training after aca- 
 demic methods will fail in making an artist, unless he 
 himself take an active part in the work. Like every 
 highly cultivated man, he must be mainly self-educated. 
 When Pugin, who was brought up in his father's office, 
 had learned all that he could learn of architecture ac- 
 cording to the usual formulas, he still found that he had 
 learned but little ; and that he must begin at the begin- 
 ning, and pass through the discipline of labor. Young 
 Pugin accordingly hired himself out as a common car- 
 penter at Covent Garden Theatre, first working un- 
 der the stage, then behind the flies, then upon the stage 
 itself. He thus acquired a familiarity with work, and 
 cultivated an architectural taste, to which the diversity 
 of the mechanical employment about a large operatic 
 establishment is peculiarly favorable. When the theatre 
 closed for the season, he worked a sailing-ship between 
 London and some of the French ports, carrying on at 
 the same time a profitable trade. At every opportunity 
 he would land and make drawings of any old building, 
 and especially of any ecclesiastical structure which fell 
 in his way. Afterwards he would make special journeys 
 to the Continent for the same purpose, and returned 
 
162 GEORGE KEMP. CHAP. V 
 
 home laden with drawings. Thus he plodded and la- 
 bored on, making sure of the distinction and excellence 
 which he eventually achieved. 
 
 A similar illustration of plodding industry in the same 
 walk is presented in the career of George Kemp, the 
 architect of the beautiful Scott Monument at Edinburgh. 
 He was the son of a poor shepherd, who pursued his call- 
 ing on the southern slope of the Pentland Hills. Amidst 
 that pastoral solitude the boy had no opportunity of en- 
 joying the contemplation of beautiful works of art. It 
 happened, however, that in his tenth year he was sent on 
 a message to Roslin, by the farmer for whom his father 
 herded sheep, and the sight of the beautiful castle and 
 chapel there seems to have made a vivid and enduring 
 impression on his mind. Probably to enable him to in- 
 dulge his love of architectural construction, the boy be- 
 sought his father to let him be a joiner ; and he was 
 accordingly put apprentice to a neighboring village car- 
 penter. Having served his time, he went to Galashiels 
 to seek work, doing the journey on foot. As he was plod- 
 ding along the valley of the Tweed with his tools upon his 
 back, a carriage overtook him near Elibank Tower ; and 
 the coachman, doubtless at the suggestion of his master, 
 who rode alone inside, having asked the youth how far he 
 had to walk, and learning that he was on his way to Gala- 
 shiels, invited him to mount the box beside him, and thus 
 to ride thither. It turned out that the kindly gentleman 
 inside was no other than Sir Walter Scott, then travelling 
 on his official duty as Sheriff of Selkirkshire. Whilst 
 working at his trade at Galashiels, Kemp had frequent 
 opportunities of visiting Melrose, Dryburgh, and Jed- 
 burgh Abbeys, and studying them carefully. Inspired 
 by his love of architecture, he next worked his way, as a 
 
CHAP. V. GEORGE KEMP. 163 
 
 carpenter, over the greater part ot the north of England, 
 never omitting an opportunity of inspecting and making 
 sketches of any fine Gothic building. On one occasion, 
 when working at his trade in Lancashire, he walked fifty 
 miles to York, spent a week in carefully examining the 
 Minster, and returned in like manner on foot. We next 
 find him in Glasgow, where he remained four years, study- 
 ing the fine cathedral there during his spare time. He 
 returned to England again, this time working his way 
 further south ; studying Canterbury, Winchester, Tintern, 
 and other well-known structures. In 1824 he formed the 
 design of travelling over Europe with the same object 
 supporting himself by his trade. He commenced at 
 Boulogne, and from thence proceeded by Abbeville and 
 Beauvais to Paris, spending a few weeks, making draw- 
 ings and studies, in each place. His skill as a mechanic 
 and especially his knowledge of mill-work, readily secured 
 him employment wherever he went; and he was thus 
 enabled to choose his site of employment, which was in- 
 variably in the neighborhood of some fine old Gothic 
 structure, in studying which he occupied his leisure hours 
 After a year's working, travel, and study abroad, he wae 
 abruptly summoned home by family affairs, and returned 
 to Scotland. He continued his studies, and became a pro 
 ficient in drawing and perspective : Melrose was his favor 
 ite ruin ; and he produced several elaborate drawings of 
 the building, one of which, exhibiting it in a " restored " 
 state, was afterwards engraved. He also obtained some 
 employment as a modeller of architectural designs ; and 
 afterwards made drawings for a work commenced by an 
 Edinburgh engraver, after the plan of Britton's " Cathedral 
 Antiquities." This was a task most congenial to his tastes, 
 and lie labored at it with an enthusiasm which ensured its 
 
164 JOHN GIBSON. CIIAI-. V. 
 
 rapid advance ; walking on foot for this purpose over half 
 Scotland, and living as an ordinary mechanic, whilst exe- 
 cuting drawings which would have done credit to the 
 greatest masters in the art. The projector of the work 
 having died suddenly, its publication was interfered with, 
 and Kemp sought other employment. Few knew of the 
 genius of this man, for he was exceedingly taciturn and 
 habitually modest, when the Committee of the Scott 
 Monument offered a prize for the best design. The com- 
 petitors were numerous, ~- including some of the greatest 
 names in classical architecture; but the design unani- 
 mously selected was that of George Kemp, then working 
 at Kilwiuning Abbey, in Ayrshire, many miles off, when 
 the letter reached him intimating the decision of the com- 
 mittee. Poor Kemp ! Shortly after this event he met 
 an untimely death, and did not live to see the first re- 
 sult of his indefatigable industry and self-culture em 
 bodied in stone, one of the most beautiful and appro- 
 priate memorials ever erected to literary genius. 
 
 Among living artists, who have honorably fought their 
 way upwards from poverty to fame, we may mention 
 John Gibson, a man full of a genuine enthusiasm and 
 love of his art, which place him high above those sordid 
 temptations which urge meaner natures to make time the 
 measure of profit. He was born at Gyffn, near Conway, 
 in North Wales, the son of a gardener. He early 
 showed indications of his talent by the carvings in wood 
 which he made b^ means of a common pocket knife ; and 
 his father, noting the direction of his talent and wisely 
 improving the circumstance, sent him to Liverpool, and 
 bound the boy apprentice to a cabinet-maker and wood- 
 carver. He rapidly improved at his trade, and some 
 of his carvings were much admired. He was naturally 
 
CHAP. V. ROBERT THORBURN. 1G5 
 
 led onwards to sculpture, and when eighteen years of 
 age, he modelled a small figure of Time in wax, which 
 attracted considerable notice. The Messrs. Franceys, 
 sculptors, of Liverpool, purchased the boy's indentures, 
 and took him as their apprentice for six years, during 
 which his remarkable genius displayed itself in many 
 pure and original works. From thence he proceeded 
 to London, and afterwards to Rome ; and his fame is 
 now European. 
 
 Robert Thorburn, another Royal Academician, like 
 John Gibson, was born of poor parents. His father was 
 a shoemaker in a very humble way of business, in the 
 town of Dumfries, in Scotland. Besides Robert there 
 were two other sons ; one of whom is still noted in his 
 native town as a skilful carver in wood. One day a lady 
 called at the shoemaker's, and found Robert, then a mere 
 boy, engaged in drawing upon a stool which served him 
 for a table. She examined his work, and finding that he 
 had abilities in this direction, interested herself in ob- 
 taining for him some occupation in drawing, and enlisted 
 in his behalf the services of others who could assist him 
 in prosecuting the study of art. The boy was very dili- 
 gent, painstaking, staid, and silent, mixing little with his 
 companions, and forming but few intimacies. About the 
 year 1830, some gentlemen of the town provided Thor- 
 burn with the means of proceeding to Edinburgh, where 
 he was admitted student of the Scottish Academy. There 
 he had the advantage of studying under competent mas- 
 ters, and the progress which he made was rapid and de- 
 cided. After residing in Edinburgh for some years, he 
 removed to London, where, we understand, he had the 
 advantage of being introduced to notice under the patron- 
 age of the Duke of Buccleuch. We need scarcely say, 
 
166 NOEL PATON. SHARPLES. CHAP. V. 
 
 however, that whatever use patronage may have been to 
 Thorburn in giving him an introduction to the best cir- 
 cles, patronage of no kind could have made him the 
 great artist that he unquestionably is, without native 
 genius and diligent application. 
 
 Noel Paton, another well-known painter, began his 
 artistic career at Dunfermline and Paisley, as a drawer of 
 patterns for tablecloths and muslin embroidered by hand ; 
 meanwhile working diligently at higher artistic studies, 
 including the human figure. He was, like Turner, ready 
 to turn his hand to any kind of work, and in 1840, when 
 a mere youth, we find him engaged, among his other 
 labors, in illustrating the " Renfrewshire Annual." He 
 worked his way step by step, slowly, yet surely ; but he 
 remained unknown until the exhibition of the prize 
 cartoons painted for the Houses of Parliament, when 
 his picture of the Spirit of Religion (for which he ob- 
 tained one of the first prizes) revealed him to the 
 world as a genuine artist ; and the works which he has 
 since exhibited, such as the " Reconciliation of Oberon 
 and Titania," " Home," and " The bluidy Tryste," 
 have shown a steady advance in artistic power and cul- 
 ture. 
 
 But perhaps the most striking exemplification of per- 
 severance and industry in the cultivation of art is found 
 in the career of James Sharpies, the working blacksmith 
 of Blackburn. He was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, 
 in 1825, one of a family of thirteen children. His father 
 was a working ironfounder, and removed to Bury to fol- 
 low his business, while his family were still young. The 
 boys received no school education, but were all sent tc 
 work as soon as they were able ; and at about ten James 
 
CHAP V. JAMES SHARPLES, SMITHY BOY. 167 
 
 was placed in the foundry of the Messrs. Lees, Cousins 
 and Diggles, where he was employed for about two years 
 as a smithy-boy. After that he was sent into the engine- 
 shop of the Messrs. Clarkson and Kay, where his father 
 worked as an engine-smith. The boy's employment was to 
 heat and carry rivets for the boiler-makers. Though his 
 hours of labor were very long often from six in the morn- 
 ing until eight at night his father contrived to give him 
 some little teaching after work hours ; and it was thus that 
 he partially learned his letters. An incident occurred in 
 the course of his employment among the boiler-makers, 
 which first awakened in him the desire to learn drawing. 
 He had occasionally been employed by the foreman to 
 hold the chalked line with which he made the designs of 
 boilers upon the floor of the workshop ; and on such occa- 
 sions the foreman was accustomed to hold the line, and 
 direct the boy to make the necessary dimensions. James 
 soon became so expert at this as to be of considerable ser- 
 vice to the foreman ; and at his leisure hours at home his 
 great delight was to practise drawing designs of boilers 
 upon his mother's floor. On one occasion, when his 
 mother's aunt was expected from Manchester to pay the 
 family a visit, and the house had been made as decent as 
 possible for her reception, the boy, on coming in from the 
 foundry in the evening, immediately gan his usual oper- 
 ations upon the floor. He had preceded some way with 
 his design of a large boiler in chalk, when his mother 
 arrived with the visitor, and to her dismay found the boy 
 unwashed and the floor chalked all over. Thfi aunt, how- 
 ever, professed to be pleased with the boy's industry, 
 praised his design, and recommended his mother to pro- 
 vide " the little sweep," as she called him, with paper and 
 pencils. 
 
168 JAMES SHARPIES, -LEARNS DRAWING. CHAP. V, 
 
 His elder brother, being like himself disposed to be 
 industrious in the evenings after the day's work was over, 
 occupied himself in mechanical drawing ; and he recom- 
 mended James to practise figure and landscape drawing. 
 He accordingly began to make copies of lithographs, but 
 remained altogether ignorant of the rules of perspective 
 and the principles of light and shade. He worked away, 
 however, and gradually acquired expertness in copying. 
 At sixteen he entered the Bury Mechanics' Institution for 
 the purpose of attending the drawing class, which was 
 taught by an amateur artist who followed the trade of a 
 barber. There he had one lesson a week during three 
 months. The teacher recommended him to obtain from the 
 library Burnet's "Practical Treatise on Painting;" but 
 as he could not yet read with ease, he was under the 
 necessity of getting his mother, and sometimes his elder 
 brother, to read passages from the book for him, while he 
 sat by and listened. Feeling himself hampered by his 
 ignorance of the art of reading, and eager to master the 
 contents of Burnet's book, he ceased attending the draw- 
 ing class at the Mechanics' Institute after the first quarter, 
 and diligently devoted himself to learn reading and writ- 
 ing at home. In this he soon succeeded ; and when he 
 again joined the Institution for another quarter, and took 
 out " Burnet " a second time, he was not only able to read 
 it, but to make written extracts for future use. So ar- 
 dently did he study the volume, that he used to rise ai 
 four o'clock in the morning to read it and copy out pas- 
 sages ; after which he went to the foundry at six, worked 
 until six and sometimes eight in the evening ; and re- 
 turned home to enter with fresh zest upon the study of 
 Burnet, which he continued very often until a late hour. 
 Part of his nights were also occupied in drawing and 
 
CHAP. V. JAMES SHARPLES, LEARNS PAINTING. 169 
 
 making copies of drawings. On one of these a copy 
 of Leonardo da Vinci's " Last Supper " he spent an 
 entire night. He went to bed indeed, but his mind was 
 so engrossed with the subject that he could not sleep, and 
 rose again to resume hip pencil. 
 
 He next proceeded to try his hand at painting in oil, for 
 which purpose he procured some canvas from a draper's 
 shop, stretched it on a frame, coated it over with white 
 lead, and began painting upon it with colors bought from 
 a house-painter. But his work proved a total failure ; for 
 the canvas was rough and knotty, and the paint would not 
 dry. In this extremity he applied to his old teacher, the 
 barber, from whom he first learnt that prepared canvas 
 was to be had, and that there were colors and varnishes 
 made for the special purpose of oil-painting. As soon, 
 therefore, as his means would allow, he bought a small 
 stock of the necessary articles and began afresh, his 
 amateur master showing him how to paint ; and the pupil 
 succeeded so well that he excelled the master's copy. His 
 first picture was a copy from an engraving called " Sheep- 
 shearing," and was afterwards sold by him for half-a- 
 crown. Aided by a shilling Guide to Oil-painting, he 
 went on working at his leisure hours, and gradually ac- 
 quired a better knowledge of his materials. He made his 
 own easel and palette, palette-knife, and paint-chest ; and 
 he bought his paint, brushes, and canvas, as he could raise 
 the money by working over-time. This was the slender 
 fund which his parents consented to allow him for the 
 purpose ; the burden of supporting a very large family 
 precluding them from doing more. Often he would walk 
 to Manchester and back in the evenings to buy two or 
 three shillings' worth of paint and canvas, returning al- 
 most at midnight, after his eighteen miles' walk, some- 
 
17C JAMES SHARPLKS, AUTOBIOGRAPHY. CHAP. V. 
 
 times wet through and completely exhausted, but borne 
 up throughout by his inexhaustible hope and invincible 
 determination. The further progress of the self-taught 
 artist is best narrated in his own words : 
 
 rt The next pictures I painted," he writes, " were a 
 Landscape by Moonlight, a Fruit-piece, and one or two 
 others ; after which I conceived the idea of painting ' The 
 Forge/ I had for some time thought about it, but had not 
 attempted to embody the conception in a drawing. I now, 
 however, made a sketch of the subject upon paper, and 
 then proceeded to paint it on canvas. The picture simply 
 represents the interior of a large workshop such as I have 
 been accustomed to work in, although not of any particu- 
 lar shop. It is, therefore, to this extent, an original con- 
 ception. Having made an outline of the subject, I found 
 that, before I could proceed with it successfully, a knowl- 
 edge of anatomy was indispensable to enable me accu- 
 rately to delineate the muscles of the figures. My brother 
 Peter came to my assistance at this juncture, and kindly 
 purchased for me Flaxman's l Anatomical Studies ' a 
 work altogether beyond my means at the time, for it cost 
 twenty-four shillings. This book I looked upon as a great 
 treasure, and I studied it laboriously, rising at three 
 o'clock in the morning to draw after it, and occasionally 
 getting my brother Peter to stand for me as a model at 
 that untimely hour. Although I gradually improved my- 
 self by this practice, it was some time before I felt suffi 
 cient confidence to go on with my picture. I also felt 
 hampered by my want of knowledge of perspective, which 
 I endeavored to remedy by carefully studying Brook Tay- 
 lor's * Principles ; ' and shortly after I resumed my paint- 
 ing. While engaged in the study of perspective at home, 
 I used to apply for and obtain leave to work at the heav- 
 
CHAP. V. JAMES SHARPLES, " THE FORGE." 17 J 
 
 ier kinds of smith work at the foundry, and i ? or this 
 reason the time required for heating the heaviest iron 
 work is so much longer than that required for heating 
 the lighter, that it enabled me to secure a number of 
 spare minutes in the course of the day, which I care- 
 fully employed in making diagrams in perspective upon 
 the sheet iron casing in front of the hearth at which I 
 worked." 
 
 Thus assiduously working and studying, James Sharpies 
 steadily advanced in his knowledge of the principles of 
 art, and acquired greater facility in its practice. Some 
 eighteen months after the expiry of his apprenticeship 
 he painted a portrait of his father, which attracted con- 
 siderable notice in the town ; as also did the picture of 
 " The Forge," which was finished soon after. His suc- 
 cess in portrait-painting even obtained for him a commis- 
 sion from the foreman of the shop to paint a family group, 
 and Sharpies executed it so well that the foreman not 
 only paid him the agreed price of eighteen pounds, but 
 thirty shillings to boot. While engaged upon this group 
 he ceased to work at the foundry, and he had thoughts 
 of giving up his trade altogether and devoting himself 
 exclusively to painting. He proceeded to paint several 
 pictures, amongst others a head of Christ, an original 
 conception, life-size, and a view of Bury ; but not ob- 
 taining sufficient employment at portraits to occupy his 
 time, or give him the prospect of a steady income, he had 
 the good sense to resume his leather apron, and go on 
 working at his honest trade of a blacksmith ; employing 
 his leisure hours in engraving his picture of "The 
 Forge," since published. He was induced to commence 
 the engraving by the following circumstance. A Man- 
 chester picture-dealer, to whom he showed the painting, 
 
172 JAMES SHARPLES.-LEAKNS ENGRAVING. CHAP. V 
 
 let drop the observation, that in the hands of a skilfiij 
 engraver it would make a very good print. Sharpies 
 immediately conceived the idea of engraving it himself, 
 though altogether ignorant of the art. The difficulties 
 which he encountered and successfully overcame in car- 
 rying out his project are thus described by himself: 
 
 " I had seen an advertisement of a Sheffield steel-plate 
 maker, giving a list of the prices at which he supplied 
 plates of various sizes, and, fixing upon one of suitable 
 dimensions, I remitted the amount, together with a small 
 additional sum for which I requested him to send me a 
 few engraving tools. I could not specify the articles 
 wanted, for I did not then know anything about the 
 process of engraving. However, there duly arrived with 
 the plate three or four gravers and an etching needle ; 
 the latter I spoiled before I knew its use. Whilst work- 
 ing at the plate, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers 
 offered a premium for the best design for an emblemati- 
 cal picture, for which I determined to compete, and I was 
 so fortunate as to win the prize. Shortly after this I 
 removed to Blackburn, where I obtained employment at 
 Messrs. Yates', engineers, as an engine-smith ; and con- 
 tinued to employ my leisure time in drawing, painting, 
 and engraving, as before. With the engraving I made 
 but very slow progress, owing to the difficulties I expe- 
 rienced from not possessing proper tools. I then deter- 
 mined to try to make some that would suit my purpose, 
 and after several failures I succeeded in making many 
 that I have used in the course of my engraving. I was 
 also greatly at a loss for want of a proper magnifying 
 glass, and part of the plate was executed with no other 
 assistance of this sort than what my father's spectacles 
 Afforded, though I afterwards succeeded in obtaining a 
 
CHAP. V. JAMES SHARPLES, DOMESTIC LIFE. 170 
 
 proper magnifier, which was of the utmost use to me 
 An incident occurred while I was engraving the plate, 
 which had almost caused me to abandon it altogether 
 It sometimes happened that I was obliged to lay it aside 
 for a considerable time, when other work pressed ; and in 
 order to guard it against rust, I was accustomed to rub 
 over the graven parts with oil. But on examining the 
 plate after one of such intervals, I found that the oil had 
 become a dark sticky substance extremely difficult to get 
 out. I tried to pick it out with a needle, but found that 
 it would almost take as much time as to engrave the parts 
 afresh. 1 was in great despair at this, but at length hit 
 upon the expedient of boiling it in water containing soda ; 
 and afterwards rubbing the engraved parts with a tooth- 
 brush ; and to my delight found the plan succeeded per- 
 fectly. My greatest difficulties now over, patience and 
 perseverance were all that were needed to bring my 
 labors to a successful issue. I had neither advice nor 
 assistance from any one in finishing the plate. If, there- 
 fore, the work possesses any merit, I can claim it as my 
 own ; and if in its accomplishment I have contributed to 
 show what can be done by persevering industry and de- 
 termination, it is all the honor I wish to lay claim to." 
 
 It would be beside our purpose to enter upon any criti- 
 cism of " The Forge " as an engraving ; its merits having 
 already been genially recognized by the " Art Journal," 
 the u Athenaeum," the " Critic," and other journals. 
 The execution of the work occupied James Sharples's 
 leisure evening hours during a period of five years ; and 
 it was only when he took the plate to the printer that he 
 for the first time saw an engraved plate produced by any 
 other man. To this unvarnished picture of industry and 
 genius, we add one other trait, and it is a domestic one. 
 
174 INDUSTRY OF MUSICIANS. CHAP. V 
 
 " I have been married seven years," says he, " and dur- 
 ing that time my greatest pleasure, after I have finished 
 my daily labor at the foundry, has been to resume my 
 pencil or graver, 'frequently until a late hour of the even- 
 ing, my wife meanwhile sitting by my side and reading 
 to me from some interesting book," a simple but beau- 
 tiful testimony to the thorough common sense as well as 
 the genuine right-heartediiess of this most interesting and 
 deserving workman. 
 
 The same industry and application which we have 
 found to be necessary in order to acquire excellence in 
 painting and sculpture, are equally required in the sister 
 art of music, the one being the poetry of form and 
 color, the other of the sounds of nature. Handel was an 
 indefatigable and constant worker; he was never cast 
 down by defeat, but his energy seemed to increase the 
 more that adversity struck him. When a prey to his 
 mortifications as an insolvent debtor, he did not give way 
 for a moment, but in one year produced his " Saul," " Is- 
 rael," the music for Dryden's " Ode," his " Twelve Grand 
 Concertos," and the opera of " Jupiter in Argos," among 
 the finest of his works. As his biographer says of him, 
 " He braved everything, and, by his unaided self, accom- 
 plished the work of twelve men." 
 
 Haydn, speaking of his art, said, " It consists in taking 
 up a subject and pursuing it." " Work," said Mozart, 
 ** is my chief pleasure." Beethoven's favorite maxim 
 was, "The barriers are not erected which can say to 
 aspiring talents and industry, ' Thus far and no farther.' " 
 When Moscheles submitted his score of " Fidelio " for the 
 piano-forte to Beethoven, the latter found written at the 
 bottom of the last page, " Finis, with God's help." Beet- 
 hoven immediately wrote underneath, " O man I help 
 
CHAP. V. BACH. ARNE. 175 
 
 thyself ! " This was the motto of his artistic life. John 
 Sebastian Bach said of himself, " I was industrious ; 
 whoever is equally sedulous, will be equally successful." 
 But there is no doubt that Bach was born with a passion 
 for music, which formed the main-spring of his industry, 
 and was the true secret of his success. When a mere 
 youth, his elder brother, wishing to turn his abilities into 
 another direction, destroyed a collection of studies which 
 the young Sebastian, being denied candles, had copied 
 by moonlight; proving the strong natural bent of the 
 boy's genius. Of Meyerbeer, Bayle thus wrote from 
 Milan in 1820 : "He is a man of some talent, but no 
 genius ; he lives solitary, working fifteen hours a day 
 at music." Years passed, and Meyerbeer's hard work 
 fully brought out his genius, as displayed in his " Ro- 
 berto," " Huguenots," " Prophete," and other works, con- 
 fessedly amongst the greatest operas which have been 
 produced in modern times. 
 
 Although musical composition is not an art in which 
 Knglishmen have as yet greatly distinguished themselves, 
 their energies having for the most part taken other and 
 more practical directions, we are not without native illus- 
 trations of the power of perseverance in this special pur- 
 suit. Arne was an upholsterer's son, intended by his 
 father for the legal profession ; but his love of music was 
 eo great, that he could not be withheld from pursuing it. 
 While engaged in an attorney's office, his means were 
 very limited, but, to gratify his tastes, he was accustomed 
 to borrow a livery and go into the gallery of the Opera, 
 then appropriated to domestics. Unknown to his father 
 he made great progress with the violin, and the first 
 knowledge his father had of the circumstance was when 
 accidentally calling at the house of a neighboring gentle- 
 
176 WILLIAM JACKSON. CHAP. V. 
 
 man, to his surprise and consternation he found his son 
 playing the leading instrument with a party of musicians. 
 This incident decided the fate of Arne. His father offered 
 no further opposition to his wishes ; and the world there- 
 by lost a lawyer, but gained a musician of much taste and 
 delicacy of feeling, who added many valuable works to 
 our stores of English music. 
 
 The career of William Jackson, the author of " The 
 Deliverance of Israel," an oratorio which has been suc- 
 cessfully performed in the principal musical towns of his 
 native county of York, furnishes an interesting illustra- 
 tion of the triumph of perseverance over difficulties in 
 the pursuit of musical science. He is the son of a miller 
 at Masham, a little town situated in the valley of the 
 Yore, in the northwest corner of Yorkshire. Musical 
 taste seems to have been hereditary in the family, for his 
 father played the fife in the band of the Masham Volun- 
 teers, and was a singer in the parish choir. His grand- 
 father also was leading singer and ringer at Masham 
 Church ; and one of the boy's earliest musical treats was 
 to be present at the bell-pealing on Sunday mornings. 
 During the service, his wonder was still more excited by 
 the organist's performance on the barrel-organ, the doors 
 of which were thrown open behind to let the sound fully 
 into the church, by which the stops, pipes, barrels, staples, 
 key-board, and jacks, were fully exposed, to the wonder- 
 ment of the little boys sitting in the gallery behind, and 
 to none more than our young musician. At eight years 
 of age he began to play upon his father's old fife, which, 
 however, would not sound D ; but his mother remedied 
 the difficulty by buying for him a one-keyed flute ; and 
 shortly after, a gentleman of the neighborhood presented 
 \\m with a flute with four silver keys. As the boy made 
 
CHAP. V. WILLIAM JACKSON. 177 
 
 no progress with his "book learning/' being fonder of 
 cricket, fives, and boxing, than of his school lessons, 
 the village schoolmaster giving him up as " a bad job," 
 his parents sent him off to a school at Pately Bridge. 
 While there he found congenial society in a club of vil- 
 lage choral singers at Brighouse Gate, and with them he 
 learned the sol-fa-ing gamut on the old English plan. 
 He was thus well drilled in the reading of music, in which 
 he soon became a proficient. His progress astonished 
 the club, and he returned home full of musical ambition. 
 He now learned to play upon his father's old piano, but 
 with little melodious result ; and he became eager to pos- 
 sess a imger-organ, but had no means of procuring one. 
 About this time, a neighboring parish clerk had purchased, 
 for an insignificant sum, a small disabled barrel-organ, 
 which had gone the circuit of the northern counties with 
 a show. The clerk tried to revive the tones of the in- 
 strument, but failed ; at last he bethought him that he 
 would try the skill of young Jackson, who had succeeded 
 in making some alterations and improvements in the 
 hand-organ of the parish church. He accordingly brought 
 it to the lad's house in a donkey cart, and in a short time 
 the instrument was repaired, and played over its old tunes 
 again, greatly to the owner's satisfaction. 
 
 The thought now haunted the youth that he cculd 
 make a barrel-organ, and he determined to do so. His 
 father and he set to work, and though without practice in 
 carpentering, yet, by dint of hard labor and after many 
 failures, they at last succeeded ; and an organ was con- 
 structed which played ten tunes very decently, and the 
 instrument was generally regarded as the marvel of the 
 neighborhood. Young Jackson was now frequently sent 
 for to repair old church organs, and to put new music 
 8* 
 
178 WILLIAM JACKSON. CHAP. V. 
 
 upon the barrels which he added to them. All this he 
 accomplished to the satisfaction of his customers, aftei 
 which he proceeded with the construction of a four-stop 
 finger-organ, adapting to it the keys of an old harpsi- 
 chord. This he learned to play upon, studying " Call 
 cott's Thorough Bass " in the evening, and working at 
 his trade of a miller during the day ; occasionally also 
 tramping about the country as a " cadger," with an ass 
 and a cart. During summer he worked in the fields, at 
 turnip-time, hay-time, and harvest, but was never without 
 the solace of music in his leisure evening hours. He 
 next tried his hand at musical composition, and a dozen 
 of his anthems were shown to the late Mr. Camidge, of 
 York, as " the production of a miller's lad of fourteen." 
 Mr. Camidge was pleased with them, marked the objec- 
 tionable passages, and returned them with the encourag- 
 ing remark, that they did the youth great credit, and that 
 he must " go on writing." 
 
 A village band having been set on foot at Masham, 
 young Jackson joined it, and was ultimately appointed 
 leader. He played all the instruments by turns, and thus 
 acquired a considerable practical knowledge of his art ; 
 he also composed numerous tunes for the band. A new 
 finger-organ having been presented to the parish church, 
 he was further appointed organist. He now gave up his 
 employment as a journeyman miller, and commenced tal- 
 low-chandling, still employing his spare hours in the 
 study of music In 1839 he published his first anthem, 
 " For joy let fertile valleys sing " ; and in the follow- 
 ing year he gained the first prize from the Huddersfield 
 Glee Club, for his " Sisters of the Lea." His other an- 
 them, " God be merciful to us," and the 103d Psalm, 
 written for a double chorus and orchestra, are well 
 
CHAP V. A SELF-TAUGHT MUSICIAN. 179 
 
 known. In the midst of these minor works, Jackson 
 proceeded with the composition of his oratorio, " The 
 Deliverance of Israel from Babylon." His practice was, 
 to jot down a sketch of the ideas as they presented them- 
 selves to his mind, and to write them out in score in the 
 evenings, after he had left his work in the candle-shop. 
 His oratorio was published in parts, in the course of 
 1844-5, and he published the last chorus on his twenty- 
 ninth birthday. The work was exceedingly well received 
 by musical critics, and has been frequently performed 
 with great success in the northern towns. Mr. Jackson 
 is now settled at Bradford, and not long since had the 
 honor of leading his fine company of Bradford choral 
 singers before Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace ; on 
 which occasion, as well as at the Crystal Palace, some 
 fine choral pieces of his composition, from his MS. work 
 (since published), entitled " The Year," were performed 
 with great effect. 
 
 Such is a very brief outline of the career of a self- 
 taught English musician, who promises, in the maturity 
 of his powers, to take high rank among native composers. 
 His life affords but another illustration of the power of 
 self-help, and the force of courage and industry, in ena- 
 bling a man to surmount and overcome early difficulties 
 and obstructions of no ordinary kind. 
 
180 THE ENGLISH PEERAGE. CHAP. VI 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INDUSTRY AND THE ENGLISH PEERAGE. 
 
 " Active doer, noble liver, 
 Strong to labor, sure to conquer." Browning. 
 
 PRACTICAL industry, wisely and vigorously applied, 
 never fails of success. It carries a man onward and up- 
 ward, brings out his individual character, and powerfully 
 stimulates the action of others. All may not rise equal- 
 ly, yet each, on the whole, very much according to his 
 deserts. " Though all cannot live on tne piazza," as the 
 Tuscan proverb has it, " every one may feel the sun." 
 
 We have already referred to some illustrious Common- 
 ers raised from humble to elevated positions by the power 
 of application and industry ; and we might point to even 
 the Peerage itself as affording equally instructive exam- 
 ples. One reason why the peerage of England has suc- 
 ceeded so well in retaining its vigor and elasticity, arises 
 from the fact that, unlike the peerages of other countries, 
 it has been fed from time to time by the best industrial 
 blood of the country the very " liver, heart, and brain 
 of Britain." Like the fabled Antaeus, it has been invig- 
 orated and refreshed by frequently touching its mother 
 earth, and mingling freely with that most ancient order 
 of nobility, the working order ; as Lord Chesterfield 
 inferentially admitted it to be when he placed as the first 
 of his pedigree, " ADAM de Stanhope, EVE de Stan- 
 hope" 
 
CHAP. VI. INTERMINGLING OF CLASSES. 131 
 
 The blood of all men doubtless flows from equally re- 
 mote sources ; and the proximate roots of most families 
 in this country, nc t many centuries ago, closely intermin- 
 gled in the common Teutonic stock from which we derive 
 our origin. The grand pervading features of the race, 
 industry, energy, and the spirit of independence, have 
 ever remained the same. To this day the adventurous 
 daring of the Vikings crops out from time to time in our 
 common soldiers and sailors, as in the aristocratic officers 
 who lead them ; and the same noble spirit looks out from 
 under the peasant's garb as well as the peer's ermine. 
 
 Besides, there has been a constant rising and falling in 
 society going on, new families taking the place of the 
 old, which have subsided in many cases into the ranks 
 of the common people. The civil wars and rebellions 
 ruined the old nobility, and dispersed their families, but 
 did not destroy them. They became farmers, mechanics, 
 and laborers, mingling again with the great industrial 
 race from which they had originally sprung. Thus, not 
 many years since, the representative of the earldom of 
 Mar was discovered in the person of a laborer in a North- 
 umberland coal-pit ; and at this day, it is understood that 
 the lineal representative of Simon de Montfort, England's 
 premier baron, is a saddler in Tooley Street. Hugh Mil- 
 ler, when working as a stonemason near Edinburgh, was 
 served by a hodman, who was one of the numerous claim- 
 ants for the earldom of Crauford, all that was wanted 
 to establish his claim being a missing marriage certificate ; 
 and while the work was going on, the cry resounded from 
 the walls many times in the day, of " John, Yearl 
 Crauford, bring us anither hod o' lime." 
 
 The great bulk of our peerage is comparatively modern, 
 so far as the titles go ; but it is not the less noble that it 
 
182 CITIZEN PEERAGES. CHAP. VI. 
 
 has been recruited to so large an extent from the ranks 
 of honorable industry. In olden times, the wealth and 
 commerce of London, conducted as it was by energetic 
 and enterprising men, was a prolific source of peerages. 
 Thus, the earldom of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas 
 Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant; that of Essex by 
 William Capel, the draper ; and that of Craven by William 
 Craven, the merchant tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick 
 is not descended from " the Kingmaker," but from Wil- 
 liam Greville, the wool-stapler ; whilst the modern dukes 
 of Northumberland find their head, not in the Percies, 
 but in Hugh Smithson, a respectable London apothecary. 
 The founders of the families of Dartmouth, Radnor, 
 Ducie, and Pomfret, were respectively a skinner, a silk 
 manufacturer, a merchant tailor, and a Calais merchant ; 
 whilst the founders of the peerages of Tankerville, Dor- 
 mer, and Coventry, were mercers. The ancestors of 
 Earl Romney, and Lord Dudley and Ward, were gold- 
 smiths and jewellers ; and Lord Dacres was a banker in 
 the reign of Charles I., as Lord Overs tone is in that of 
 Queen Victoria. Edward Osborne, the founder of the 
 dukedom of Leeds, was apprentice to William Hewet, a 
 rich clothworker on London Bridge, whose only daughter 
 he courageously rescued from drowning, by leaping into 
 the Thames after her, and eventually married. Among 
 other peerages founded by trade, are those of Fitzwilliam, 
 Leigh, Petre, Cowper, Darnley, Hill, and Carrington. 
 The founders of the houses of Foley and Normanby 
 were remarkable men in many respects, and, as furnish- 
 ing striking examples of energy of character, the story 
 of their lives is especially worthy of preservation. 
 
 The father of Richard Foley, the founder of the family, 
 was a small yeoman living in the neighborhood of Stour- 
 
CHAP. VI. RICHARD FOLEY, NAIL-MAKER. 183 
 
 bridge in the time of Charles I. That place was then 
 the centre of the iron manufacture of the midland dis- 
 tricts, and Richard was brought up to work at one of the 
 branches of the trade, that of nail-making. He was 
 thus a daily observer of the great labor and loss of time 
 caused by the clumsy process then adopted for dividing 
 the rods of iron in the manufacture of nails. It appeared 
 that the Stourbridge nailers were gradually losing their 
 trade, in consequence of the importation of nails from 
 Sweden, by which they were very much undersold in the 
 market. It became known that the Swedes were enabled 
 to make their nails so much cheaper, by the use of split- 
 ting mills and machinery, which had completely super- 
 seded the laborious process of preparing the rods for 
 nail-making still in use in England. 
 
 Richard Foley, having ascertained this much, deter- 
 mined to make himself master of the new process. Ha 
 suddenly disappeared from the neighborhood of Stour- 
 bridge, and was not heard of for several years. No one 
 knew where he had gone ; not even his own family ; for 
 he had not informed them of his intention, lest he should 
 fail. He had little or no money in his pocket, but con- 
 trived to get to Hull, where he engaged himself on board 
 a ship bound for a Swedish port, and worked his passage 
 there. The only article of property which he possessed 
 was his fiddle, and on landing in Sweden he begged and 
 fiddled his way to the Dannemora mines, near Upsala. 
 He was a capital musician, as well as a pleasant fellow, 
 and soon ingratiated himself with the iron-workers. He 
 was received into the works, to every part of which he 
 had access ; and he seized the opportunity thus afforded 
 him of storing his mind with observations, and mastering, 
 as he thought, the mechanism of iron-splitting. After 9 
 
184 RICHARD FOLEY, NAIL-MAKER. CHAP. VI. 
 
 continued stay for this purpose, he suddenly disappeared 
 from amongst his kind friends the miners, no one knew 
 whither. 
 
 Arrived in England, he communicated the results of 
 his voyage to Mr. Knight and another person at Stour- 
 bridge, who had sufficient confidence in him to advance 
 the requisite funds for the purpose of erecting buildings 
 and machinery for splitting iron by the new process. 
 But when set to work, to the great vexation and disap- 
 pointment of all, and especially of Richard Foley, it was 
 found that the machinery would not act, at all events 
 it would not split the bars of iron. Again Foley disap- 
 peared. It was thought that shame and mortification at 
 his failure had driven him away forever. Not so ! Foley 
 had determined to master this secret of iron-splitting, and 
 he would yet do it. He had again to set out for Sweden, 
 accompanied by his fiddle as before, and found his way to 
 the iron-works, where he was joyfully welcomed by the 
 miners ; and, to make sure of their fiddler, they this time 
 lodged him in the very splitting-mill itself. There was 
 such an apparent absence of intelligence about the man, 
 except in fiddle-playing, that the miners entertained no 
 suspicions as to the object of their minstrel, whom they 
 thus enabled to attain the very end and aim of his life. 
 He now carefully examined the works, and soon dis- 
 covered the cause of his failure. He made drawings or 
 tracings of the machinery as well as he could, for this 
 was a branch of art quite new to him ; and after remain- 
 ing at the place long enough to enable him to verify his 
 observations, and to impress the mechanical arrangements 
 clearly and vividly on his mind, he again left the miners, 
 reached a Swedish port, and took ship for England. A 
 man of such purpose could not but succeed. Arrived 
 
CHAP. VI. THE FOLEY PEERAGE. 185 
 
 amongst his surprised friends, he now completed his ar- 
 rangements, and the results were entirely successful. By 
 his skill and his industry he soon laid the foundations of 
 an immense fortune, at the same time that he restored the 
 business of an extensive district. He himself continued, 
 during his life, to superintend his trade, aiding and en- 
 couraging all works of benevolence in his neighborhood. 
 He founded and endowed a school at Stourbridge ; and 
 his son Thomas (a great benefactor of Kidderminster), 
 who was High Sheriff of Worcestershire in the time of 
 *' The Rump," founded and endowed an hospital, still in 
 existence, for the free education of children at Old Swin- 
 ford. All the early Foleys were Puritans. Richard 
 Baxter seems to have been on familiar and intimate 
 terms with various members of the family, and makes 
 frequent mention of them in his " Life and Times." 
 Thomas Foley, when appointed high sheriff of the county, 
 requested Baxter to preach the customary sermon before 
 him ; and Baxter in his " Life " speaks of him as " of so 
 just and blameless dealing, that all men he ever had to 
 do with magnified his great integrity and honesty, which 
 were questioned by none." The family was worthily 
 ennobled in the reign of Charles the Second. 
 
 William Phipps, the founder of the Mulgrave or Nor- 
 manby family, was a man quite as remarkable in his way 
 as Richard Foley. His father was a gunsmith, a 
 robust Englishman, settled at Woolwich, in Maine, 
 then forming part of our English colonies in America. 
 He was born in 1651, one of a family of not fewer than 
 twenty-six children (of whom twenty-one were sons), whose 
 only fortune lay in their stout hearts and strong arms. 
 William seems to have had a strong dash of the Danish 
 sea-blood in his veins, and did not take kindly to the 
 
186 WILLIAM PHIPPS, SAILOR. CHAP. VI. 
 
 quiet life of a shepherd in which he spent his early years. 
 By nature bold and adventurous, he longed to become a 
 sailor and roam through the world. He sought to join 
 some ship ; but not being able to find one, he apprenticed 
 himself to a ship-builder, with whom he thoroughly learned 
 his trade, acquiring the arts of reading and writing during 
 his leisure hours. Having completed his apprenticeship 
 and removed to Boston, he wooed and married a widow 
 of some means, after which he set up a little ship-building 
 yard of his own, built a ship, and, putting to sea in her, 
 he engaged in the lumber trade, which he carried on in 
 a plodding and laborious way for the space of about ten 
 years. 
 
 It happened that one day, whilst passing through the 
 crooked streets of old Boston, he overheard some sailors 
 talking to each other of a wreck which had just taken 
 place off the Bahamas ; that of a Spanish ship, supposed 
 to have much money on board. His adventurous spirit 
 was at once kindled, and getting together a likely crew 
 without loss of time, he set sail for the Bahamas. The 
 wreck being well in-shore, he easily found it, and succeed- 
 ed in recovering a great deal of its cargo, but very little 
 money ; and the result was, that he barely defrayed his 
 expenses. His success had been such, however, as to 
 stimulate his enterprising spirit ; and when he was told 
 of another and far more richly laden vessel, which had 
 been wrecked near Port le la Plata more than half a 
 century before, he forthwith formed the resolution of rais- 
 ing the wreck, or at all events fishing up the treasure. 
 
 Being too poor, however, to undertake such an enter 
 prise without powerful help, he set sail for England, in 
 the hope that he might there obtain it. The fame of his 
 success in raising the wreck off the Bahamas had already 
 
CHAP. VI. PHIPPS'S TEEASUEE-SEEKING 187 
 
 preceded him. He applied direct to the government ; 
 and by his urgent enthusiasm, he succeeded in overcom 
 ing the usual inertia of official minds ; and Charles II. 
 eventually placed at his disposal the " Rose Algier," a 
 ship of eighteen guns and ninety-five men, appointing 
 him to the chief command. 
 
 Phipps then set sail to find the Spanish ship and fish 
 up the treasure. He reached the coast of Hispaniola in 
 safety ; but how to find the sunken ship was the great 
 difficulty. The fact of the wreck was more than fifty 
 years old ; and Phipps had only the traditionary rumors 
 of the event to work upon. There was a wide coast to 
 explore, and an outspread ocean, without any trace what- 
 2ver of the wrecked argosy beneath it. But the man 
 was stout in heart, and full of hope. He set his seamen 
 to work to drag the coast, and for weeks they went on 
 fishing up sea-weed, shingle, and bits of rock. No occu- 
 pation could be more trying to seamen, and they began 
 to grumble together, and to whisper that the man in com- 
 mand had brought them on a fool's errand. 
 
 At length the murmurs spoke aloud, and the men 
 broke into open mutiny. A body of them rushed one 
 day on to the quarter-deck, and demanded that the voy- 
 age should be relinquished. Phipps, however, was not a 
 man to be intimidated ; he seized the ringleaders, and 
 sent the others back to their duty. It became necessary 
 to bring the ship to anchor close to a small island for the 
 purpose of repairs ; and, to lighten her, the chief part of the 
 stores were landed. Discontent still increasing amongst 
 the crew, a new plot was laid amongst the men on shore 
 to seize the ship, throw Phipps overboard, and start on a 
 piratical cruise against the Spaniards in the South Seas. 
 But it was necessary to secure the services of the chief 
 
188 PHIPPS QUELLS A MUTINY. CHAP. VL 
 
 ship-carpenter, who was consequently made privy to the 
 plot. The man proved faithful, and seized an opportunity 
 of telling Phipps of his danger. Summoning about him 
 the men he knew to be loyal, he had the ship's guns load 
 3d which commanded the shore, and the bridge communi- 
 cating with the vessel drawn up. When the mutineers 
 made their appearance, Phipps hailed them, and told 
 them he would fire upon them if they approached the 
 stores (still on land), and they drew back; on which, 
 Phipps had the stores reshipped under cover of his guns. 
 The mutineers, fearful of being left on a barren island, 
 threw down their arms and implored to be permitted to 
 return to their duty. The request was granted, and 
 suitable precautions were taken against future mischief. 
 Phipps took the first opportunity of landing the mutinous 
 part of his crew, and engaging other men in their place ; 
 but, by the time he could again proceed actively with his 
 explorations, he found it absolutely necessary to proceed 
 to England for the purpose of repairing his ship. He 
 had now, however, gained more precise information as to 
 the spot where the Spanish treasure-ship had sunk ; and, 
 though as yet baffled, he was more confident than ever in 
 the eventual success of his enterprise. 
 
 Returned to London, Phipps reported the result of his 
 voyage to the Admiralty, who professed to be pleased 
 with his exertions ; but he had been unsuccessful, and 
 they would not intrust him with another king's ship. 
 James II. was now on the throne, and the government 
 was in trouble ; so Phipps and his golden project ap- 
 pealed to them in vain. He next tried to raise the 
 requisite means by a public subscription. At first he 
 was laughed at ; but his ceaseless importunity at length 
 prevailed, and after four years' dinning of his project into 
 
. VI. SUCCESS OF PHIPPS. 189 
 
 the ears of the great, during which time he lived in 
 great poverty, he at length succeeded. A company 
 was formed, in twenty shares, the Duke of Albemarle, 
 eon of General Monk, taking the chief interest in it, and 
 subscribing the principal part of the necessary funds for 
 the enterprise. 
 
 Like Foley, Phipps proved more fortunate in his sec- 
 ond voyage than in his first. The ship arrived without 
 accident at Port de la Plata, in the neighborhood of the 
 reef of rocks supposed to have been the scene of the 
 wreck. His first object was to build a stout boat capable 
 of carrying eight or ten oars, in constructing which 
 Phipps used the adze himself. It is also said that he 
 constructed a machine, for the purpose of exploring the 
 bottom of the sea, similar to what is now known as the 
 Diving-Bell. Such a machine was found referred to in 
 books, but Phipps knew little of books, and may be said to 
 have reinvented the apparatus for his own use. He also 
 engaged Indian divers, whose feats of diving for pearls, 
 and in submarine operations, were very remarkable. The 
 tender and boat having been taken to the reef, the men 
 were set to work, the diving-bell was sunk, and the vari- 
 ous modes of dragging the bottom of the sea were em- 
 ployed continuously for many weeks, but without any 
 prospect of success. Phipps, however, held on valiantly, 
 hoping almost against hope. At length, one day, a sailor, 
 looking over the boat's side down into the clear water, 
 observed a curious sea-plant growing in what appeared to 
 be a crevice of the rock ; and he called upon an Indian 
 diver to go down and fetch it for him. On the red man 
 coming up with the weed, he reported that a number 
 of ship's guns were lying in the same place. The intelli- 
 gence was at first received with incredulity, but on fur- 
 
190 HIS HIGH CHARACTER. CHAP. VI. 
 
 ther investigation it proved to be correct. Search was 
 made, and presently a diver came up with a solid bar of 
 silver in his arms. When Phipps was shown it, he ex- 
 claimed, " Thanks be to God ! we are all made men." 
 Diving-bell and divers now went to work with a will, and 
 in a few days, treasure was brought up to the value of 
 about 300,000, with which Phipps set sail for England. 
 On his arrival, it was urged upon the king that he should 
 seize the ship and its cargo, under the pretence that 
 Phipps, when soliciting his Majesty's permission, had not 
 given accurate information respecting the business. But 
 the king replied, that he knew Phipps to be an honest 
 man, and that he and his friends should divide the whole 
 treasure amongst them, even though he had returned with 
 double the value. Phipps's share was about 20,000, 
 and the king, to show his approval of his energy and 
 honesty in conducting the enterprise, conferred upon him 
 the honor of knighthood. He was also made High Sheriff 
 of New England ; and during the time he held the office, 
 he did valiant service for the mother-country and the 
 colonists against the French, by expeditions against Port 
 Royal and Quebec. He also held the post of Governor 
 of Massachusetts ; from which he returned to England, 
 and died in London in 1695. 
 
 Phipps throughout the later part of his career was not 
 ashamed to allude to the lowness of his origin, and it was 
 matter of honest pride to him that he had risen from the 
 condition of a common ship-carpenter to the honors of 
 knighthood and the government of a province. When 
 perplexed with public business, he would often declare 
 that it would be easier for him to go back to his broad 
 axe again. He left behind him a character for prob- 
 ity, honesty, patriotism, and courage, which is certainly 
 
CHAP. VI. SIR WILLIAM PETTY. 191 
 
 not the least noble inheritance of the house of Nor- 
 manby. 
 
 William Petty, the founder of the house of Lansdowne, 
 was a man of like energy and public usefulness in hia 
 day. He was the son of a clothier in humble circum- 
 stances, at Rorasey, in Hampshire, and was born in 
 1623. In his boyhood he obtained a tolerable education 
 at the grammar-school of his native town ; after which 
 he determined to improve himself by study at the 
 University of Caen, in Normandy. Whilst there he 
 contrived to support himself, unassisted by his father, 
 carrying on a sort of small peddler's trade with " a little 
 stock of merchandise." Returning to England, he had 
 himself bound apprentice to a sea-captain, who " drubbed 
 him with a rope's end " for the badness of his sight. He 
 left the navy in disgust, taking to the study of medicine. 
 When at Paris he engaged in dissection, during which 
 time he also drew diagrams for Hobbes, who was then 
 writing his treatise on Optics. He was reduced to such 
 poverty that he subsisted for two or three weeks entirely 
 on walnuts. But again he began to trade in a small way, 
 turning an honest penny, and he was enabled shortly to 
 return to England with money in his pocket. Being of 
 an ingenious mechanical turn, we find him taking out H 
 patent for a letter-copying machine. He began to write 
 upon the arts and sciences, and practised chemistry and 
 physic with such success that his reputation shortly be- 
 came considerable. Associating with men of science, the 
 project of forming a Society for its prosecution was dis- 
 cussed, and the first meetings of the infant Royal Society 
 were held at his lodgings. At Oxford he acted for a 
 time as deputy to the anatomical professor there, who 
 had a great repugnance to dissection. In 1652 his in 
 
192 SIR WILLIAM PETTY. CHAP. VI 
 
 dustry was rewarded by the appointment of physician to 
 the army in Ireland, whither he went ; and whilst there 
 he was the medical attendant of three successive lords- 
 lieutenant, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell. 
 Large grants of forfeited land having been awarded to 
 the Puritan soldiery, Petty observed that the lands were 
 very inaccurately measured; and in the midst of his 
 many avocations he undertook to do the work himself. 
 His appointments became so numerous and lucrative that 
 he was charged by the envious with corruption, and re- 
 moved from them all ; but was again taken into favor 
 at the Restoration. 
 
 Petty was a most indefatigable contriver, inventor, and 
 organizer of industry. One of his inventions was a 
 double-bottomed ship, to sail against wind and tide. He 
 published treatises on dyeing, on naval philosophy, on 
 woollen cloth manufacture, on political arithmetic, and 
 many other subjects. He founded iron-works, opened 
 lead-mines, and commenced a pilchard fishery and a tim- 
 ber-trade ; in the midst of which he found time to take 
 part in the discussions of the Royal Society, to which he 
 largely contributed. He left an ample fortune to his 
 eons, the eldest of whom was created Baron Shelburne. 
 His will was a curious document, singularly illustrative 
 of his character ; containing a detail of the principal 
 events of his life, and the gradual advancement of his 
 fortune. His sentiments on pauperism are characteristic : 
 "As for legacies for the poor," said he, " I am at a stand ; 
 as for beggars by trade and election, I give them nothing ; 
 as for impotents by the hand of God, the public ought to 
 maintain them ; as for those who have been bred to no 
 calling nor estate, they should be put upon their kin- 
 dred ;"..." wherefore I am contented that I have 
 
CHAP. VI. JEDEDIAH STRUTT. 193 
 
 assisted all my poor relations, and put many into a way 
 of getting their own bread ; have labored in public works ; 
 and by inventions have sought out real objects of charity ; 
 and I do hereby conjure all who partake of my estate, 
 from time to time, to do the same at their peril. Never- 
 theless, to answer custom, and to take the surer side, 
 I give 20/. to the most wanting of the parish wherein 
 I die." He was interred in the fine old Norman church 
 of Romsey, the town where he was born a poor man's 
 son, and on the south side of the choir is still to be 
 seen a plain slab, with the inscription, cut by an illiterate 
 workman, " Here Layes Sir William Petty." 
 
 Another family, ennobled by invention and trade, in 
 our own day, is that of Strutt, of Belper. Their patent 
 of nobility was virtually secured by Jedediah Strutt in 
 1758, when he invented his machine for making ribbed 
 stockings, and thereby laid the foundations of a fortune 
 which the subsequent bearers of the name have largely 
 increased and nobly employed. The father of Jedediah 
 was a farmer and maltster, who did very little for the 
 education of his children ; yet they all prospered. Jede- 
 diah was the second son, and while occupied as a farmer 
 at Blackwell, near Normanton, he learned from his wife's 
 brother, who was a hosier, and well acquainted with the 
 stocking-frame, that some unsuccessful attempts had been 
 made to manufacture ribbed stockings upon it. Being 
 naturally ingenious, and self-trained in mechanics, he was 
 induced to investigate the operations of the stocking- 
 frame ; and after the sacrifice of considerable time, labor, 
 and means, he at length succeeded in perfecting his in- 
 vention. A manufactory of ribbed stockings was then 
 started by him at Derby, in conjunction with his brother, 
 and proved eminently successful. He afterwards joined 
 9 
 
19-1 PEERAGES FOUNDED BY LAWYERS. CHAP. VI. 
 
 Arkwright, being quick to detect the value of his in- 
 vention for cotton-spinning, found the means for secur- 
 ing his patent, and established extensive cotton-mills at 
 Cromford, in Derbyshire. Mr. Edward Strutt was of 
 like inventive genius to his father, and he is said to have 
 invented a self-acting mule, the success of which was only 
 prevented by the mechanical skill of that day not being 
 equal to its manufacture. After the lapse of the partner- 
 ship with Arkwright, the Strutts erected their cotton- 
 mills at Milford, near Belper, which worthily gives its 
 title to the present head of the family. 
 
 No less industry and energy have been displayed by 
 the many brave men both in present and past times, who 
 have earned the peerage by their valor on land and at sea. 
 Not to mention the older feudal lords, whose tenure de- 
 pended upon military service, and who so often led the 
 van of the English armies in great national encounters ; 
 we may point to Nelson, St. Vincent, and Lyons, to 
 Wel&ngton, Hill, Hardinge, Clyde, and many more in 
 recent times, who have nobly earned their rank by their 
 distinguished services. But plodding industry has far 
 oftener worked its way to the peerage by the honorable 
 pursuit of the legal profession, than by any other. No 
 fewer than seventy British peerages, including two duke- 
 doms, have been founded by successful lawyers. Mans- 
 field and P>skine were, it is true, of noble families ; but 
 the latter used to thank God, that out of his own family 
 he did not know a lord.* The others were, for the most 
 
 * Mansfield owed nothing to his noble relations, who were poor 
 and uninflueutial. His success was the legitimate and logical result 
 of ths means which he sedulously employed to secure it. When a 
 boy he rode up from Scotland to London on a pony, taking two 
 months to make the journey. After a course of school and college, he 
 entered npon the profession of the law, and he closed a career of 
 
CHAP. VI. LORD TENTERDEN. 11)5 
 
 part, the sons of attorneys, grocers, clergymen, merchants 
 and hard-working members of the middle class. Out of 
 this profession have sprung the peerages of Howard and 
 Cavendish, the first peers of both families having been 
 judges ; those of Aylesford, Ellenborough, Guildford, 
 Shaftesbury, Hardwicke, Cardigan, Clarendon, Camden, 
 Ellesmere, Rosslyn ; and others nearer our own day, such 
 as Tenterden, Eldon, Brougham, Denman, Truro, Lynd- 
 hurst, St. Leonards, Cranworth, Campbell, and Chelms- 
 ford. 
 
 The eminent Lord Lyndhurst's father was a portrait- 
 painter, and that of St. Leonards a hairdresser in Bur- 
 lington Street. Young Edward Sugden was originally 
 an errand-boy in the office of the late Mr. Groom, of 
 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, a certificated con- 
 veyancer ; and it was there that the future Lord Chan- 
 cellor of Ireland obtained his first notions of law. 
 The origin of the late Lord Tenterden was perhaps 
 the humblest of all, nor was he ashamed of it ; for 
 he felt that the industry, study, and application, by 
 means of which he achieved his eminent position, were 
 entirely due to himself. It is related of him, that on 
 one occasion he took his son Charles to a little shed 
 then standing opposite the western front of Canterbury 
 Cathedral, and pointing it out to him, said, " Charles, 
 you see this little shop; I have brought you here on 
 purpose to show it to you. In that shop your grand- 
 father used to shave for a penny ! that is the proudest 
 reflection of my life." When a boy, Lord Tenterden 
 was a singer in the cathedral, and it is a curious cir- 
 
 oatient and ceaseless labor as Lord Chief Justice of England, the 
 functions of which he is universally admitted to have performed 
 vith unsurpassed ability, justice, and honor. 
 
19 G CAREER OF LORD ELDON. CHAP. VI. 
 
 cumstance that his destination in life was changed by a 
 disappointment. When he and Mr. Justice Richards 
 were going the Home Circuit together, they went to ser- 
 vice in the cathedral ; and on Richards commending the 
 voice of a singing-man in the choir, Lord Tenterden said, 
 "Ah ! that is the only man I ever envied ! When at 
 school in this town, we were candidates for a chorister's 
 place, and he obtained it." 
 
 Not less remarkable was the rise to the same distin- 
 guished office of Lord Chief Justice, of the rugged Ken- 
 yon and the robust Ellenborough ; nor is he a less nota- 
 ble man who recently held the same office, the astute 
 Lord Campbell, now Lord Chancellor of England, son 
 of a parish minister in Fifeshire. For many years he 
 worked hard as a reporter for the press, while diligently 
 preparing himself for the practice of his profession. It 
 is said of him, that at the beginning of his career, he 
 was accustomed to walk from county-town to county- 
 town when on circuit, being as yet too poor to afford 
 the luxury of posting. But step by step he rose slowly 
 but surely to that eminence and distinction which ever 
 follow a career of industry, honorably and energetically 
 pursued, in the legal, as in every other profession. 
 
 There have been equally illustrious instances of Lords 
 Chancellors who have plodded up the steep of fame and 
 honor with equal energy and success. The career of 
 the late Lord Eldon, is perhaps one of the most remark- 
 able examples. He was the son of a Newcastle coal- 
 fitter ; a mischievous rather than a studious boy ; a great 
 Bcape-grace at school, and the subject of many terrible 
 thrashings, for orchard-robbing was one of the favor- 
 ite exploits of the future Lord Chancellor. His father 
 first thought of putting him apprentice to a grocer, and 
 
CHAP. VI. CAREER OF LORD ELDON. 197 
 
 afterwards had almost made up his mind to bring him 
 up to his own trade of a coal-fitter. But by this time his 
 eldest son William (afterwards Lord Stowell) who had 
 gained a scholarship at Oxford, wrote to his father, 
 " Send Jack up to me, I can do better for him." John 
 was sent up to Oxford accordingly, where, by his broth- 
 er's influence and his own application, he succeeded in 
 obtaining a fellowship. But when at home during the 
 vacation, he was so unfortunate, or rather so fortunate, 
 as the issue proved, as to fall in love ; and running 
 across the Border with his eloped bride, he married, 
 and, as his friends thought, ruined himself for life. He 
 had neither house nor home when he married, and had 
 not yet earned a penny. He lost his fellowship, and at 
 the same time shut himself out from preferment in the 
 Church, for which he had been destined. He accord- 
 ingly turned his attention to the study of the law. To a 
 friend he wrote, " I have married rashly ; but it is my de- 
 termination to work hard to provide for the woman I love." 
 John Scott came up to London, and took a small house 
 in Cursitor Lane, where he settled down to the study of 
 the law. He worked with great diligence and resolu- 
 tion; rising at four every morning, and studying till 
 late at night, binding a wet towel round his head to 
 keep himself awake. Too poor to study under a spe- 
 cial pleader, he copied out three folio volumes from a 
 manuscript collection of precedents. Long after, when 
 Lord Chancellor, passing down Cursitor Lane one day, 
 he said to his secretary, "Here was my first perch; 
 many a time do I recollect coming down this street with 
 sixpence in my hand to buy sprats for supper." When 
 at length called to the bar, he waited long for employ- 
 ment. His first year's earnings amounted to only nine 
 
198 CAREER OF LORD ELDON. CHAP. VI. 
 
 shillings. For four years he assiduously attended the 
 London courts and the Northern Circuit, with little bet- 
 ter success. Even in his native town, he seldom had 
 other than pauper cases to defend. The results were 
 indeed so discouraging, that he had almost determined 
 to relinquish his chance of London business, and settle 
 down in some provincial town as a country barrister. 
 His brother William wrote home, " Business is dull 
 with poor Jack, very dull indeed ! " But as he had es- 
 caped being a grocer, a coal-fitter, and a country parson, 
 so did he also escape being a country lawyer. 
 
 An opportunity at length occurred, which enabled 
 John Scott to exhibit the large legal knowledge which 
 he had so laboriously acquired. In a case in which he 
 was employed, he urged a legal point against the wishes 
 both of the attorney and client who employed him. The 
 Master of the Rolls decided against him, but on an ap- 
 peal to the House of Lords, Lord Thurlow reversed the 
 decision on the very point that Scott had urged. On 
 leaving the House that day, a solicitor tapped him on 
 the shoulder and said, " Young man, your bread-and- 
 butter's cut for life." And the prophecy proved a faith- 
 ful one. Lord Mansfield used to say that he knew no 
 interval between no business and 3,0001. a year, and 
 Scott might have told the same story ; for so rapid was 
 his progress, that in 1783, when only thirty-two, he was 
 appointed King's Counsel, was at the head of the North- 
 ern Circuit, and sat in Parliament for the borough of 
 Weobley. It was in the dull but unflinching drudgery 
 of the early part of his career that he laid the foundation 
 of his future success. He won his spurs by perseverance, 
 knowledge, and ability, diligently cultivated ; he was suc- 
 cessively appointed to the offices of solicitor and attor- 
 
CHAP. VI. LORD LANGDALE. 109 
 
 ney-general, and rose steadily upwards to the highest 
 office that the Crown had to bestow, that of Lord 
 Chancellor of England, which he held for a quarter of a 
 century. 
 
 Henry Bickersteth was the son of a surgeon at Kirkby 
 Lonsdale, in Westmoreland, and was himself educated to 
 that profession. As a student at Edinburgh, he distin- 
 guished himself by the steadiness with which he worked, 
 and the application which he devoted to the science of 
 medicine. Returned to Kirkby Lonsdale, he took an 
 active part in his father's practice ; but he had no liking 
 for the profession, and grew discontented with the ob- 
 scurity of a country town. He went on, nevertheless, 
 diligently improving himself, and engaged in specula- 
 tions in the higher branches of physiology. In con- 
 formity with his own wish, his father consented to send 
 him to Cambridge, where it was his ambition to take 
 a medical degree, with the view of practising in the me- 
 tropolis. Close application to his studies threw him out 
 of health, however, and with a view to reestablishing 
 his strength he accepted the appointment of travelling 
 physician to Lord Oxford. While abroad he mastered 
 Italian, and acquired a great admiration for Italian lit- 
 erature, but no greater liking for medicine than before. 
 On the contrary he determined to abandon it; but re- 
 turning to Cambridge, he took his degree, and that he 
 worked hard may be inferred from the fact that he was 
 senior wrangler of his year. Disappointed in his desire 
 to enter the army, he turned to the bar, and entered a 
 student of the Inner Temple. He worked as hard at 
 law as he had done at medicine. Writing to his father, 
 he said, " Everybody says to me, ' You are certain of 
 success in the end, only persevere ; ' and though I 
 
200 LOKD LANGDALE. CHAP. VI. 
 
 don't well understand how this is to happen, I try to 
 believe it as much as I can, and I shall not fail to 
 do everything in my power." At twenty-eight he was 
 called to the bar, and had every step in life yet to make. 
 His means were straitened, and he lived upon the con- 
 tributions of his friends. For years he studied and 
 waited. Still no business came. He stinted himself 
 in recreation, in clothes, and even in the necessaries of 
 life ; struggling on indefatigably through all. "Writing 
 home he " confesses that he hardly knows how he shall 
 be able to struggle on till he has had fair time and op- 
 portunity to establish himself." After three years' wait- 
 ing thus without success, he wrote to his friends that, 
 rather than be a burden upon them longer, he is willing 
 to give the matter up and return to Cambridge, " where 
 he is sure of support and some profit." The friends at 
 home sent him another small remittance, and he went on. 
 Business gradually came in. Acquitting himself credit- 
 ably in small matters, he was intrusted with cases of 
 greater importance. He was a man who never missed 
 an opportunity, nor allowed a legitimate chance of im- 
 provement to escape him. His unflinching industry 
 soon began to tell upon his fortunes ; a few more years 
 and he was not only enabled to do without assistance 
 from home, but he was in a position to pay back with 
 interest the debts which he had incurred. The clouds 
 had dispersed, and the after-career of Henry Bicker- 
 steth was one of honor, of emolument, and of distin- 
 guished fame. He ended his career as Master of the 
 Rolls, sitting in the House of Peers as Baron Langdale. 
 His life affords only another illustration of the power of 
 patience, perseverance, and conscientious working, in 
 elevating the character of the individual, and crowning 
 his labors with the most complete success. 
 
CHAP. VI. LORD LANGDALE. 201 
 
 Such are a few of the distinguished men who have 
 honorably worked their way to the highest position, and 
 won the richest rewards of their profession, by the exer- 
 cise of honest industry and patient perseverance. 
 
202 TEUTONIC ENERGY. CHAP. VI* 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ENERGY AND COURAGE. 
 
 " Den muthigen gehort die Welt." German Proverb. 
 " In every work that he began . . . he did it with all his heart, and 
 prospered." 2 Chron. xxxi. 21. 
 
 THERE is a famous speech recorded of an old Norse- 
 man, thoroughly characteristic of the Teuton. " I believe 
 neither in idols nor demons," said he, " I put my sole trust 
 in my own strength of body and soul." The ancient crest 
 of a pickaxe, with the motto of " Either I will find a way 
 or make one," was an expression of the same sturdy inde- 
 pendence and practical materialism, which to this day dis- 
 tinguishes the descendants of the Northmen. Indeed, 
 nothing could be more characteristic of the Scandinavian 
 mythology, than that it had a god with a hammer. A 
 man's character is seen in small matters ; and from even 
 so slight a test as the mode in which a man wields a 
 hammer, his energy may in some measure be inferred. 
 Thus an eminent Frenchman hit off in a single phrase 
 the characteristic quality of the inhabitants of a partic- 
 ular district, in which a friend of his proposed to settle 
 and buy land. " Beware," said he, " of making a pur- 
 chase there ; I know the men of that department ; the 
 pupils who come from it to our veterinary school at Paris, 
 do not strike hard upon the anvil ; they want energy ; and 
 
CHAP. VII. FORCE OF PURPOSE. 203 
 
 you will not get a satisfactory return on any capital you 
 may invest there." A fine and just appreciation of char- 
 acter, indicating the accurate and thoughtful observer ; 
 and strikingly illustrative of the fact that it is the energy 
 of the individual men that gives strength to a state, and 
 confers a value even upon the very soil which they cul- 
 tivate. As the French proverb has it : " Tant vaut 
 1'homme, tant vaut sa terre." 
 
 The cultivation of this quality is of the greatest impor- 
 tance ; resolute determination in the pursuit of worthy 
 objects being the foundation of all true greatness of char- 
 acter. Energy enables a man to force his way through 
 irksome drudgery and dry details, and carries him onward 
 and upward in every station in life. It accomplishes 
 more than genius, with not one half the disappointment 
 and peril. It is not eminent talent that is required 
 to insure success in any pursuit so much as purpose, 
 not merely the power to achieve, but the will to labor 
 energetically and perseveringly. Hence energy of will 
 may be defined to be the very central power of character 
 in a man, in a word, it is the Man himself. It gives 
 impulse to his every action, and soul to every effort. 
 True hope is based on it, and it is hope that gives the 
 real perfume to life. There is a fine heraldic motto on a 
 broken helmet in Battle Abbey, " L'espoir est ma force," 
 which might be the motto of every man's life. " Woe 
 unto him that is faint-hearted," says the son of Sirach. 
 There is, indeed, no blessing equal to the possession of a 
 stout heart. Even if a man fail in his efforts, it will be 
 a great satisfaction to him to enjoy the consciousness of 
 having done his best. In humble life nothing can be 
 more cheering and beautiful than to see a man combat- 
 ing suffering by patience, triumphing in his integrity, and 
 
204 COURAGEOUS WORKING. CHAP. VII 
 
 who, when his feet are bleeding and his limbs failing him, 
 still walks upon his courage. 
 
 Mere wishes and desires but engender a sort of green* 
 sickness in young minds, unless they are promptly em-' 
 bodied in act and deed. It will not avail merely to 
 wait, as so many do, " until Blucher comes up," but 
 they must struggle on and persevere in the mean time, 
 as Wellington did. The good purpose once formed 
 must be carried out with alacrity, and without swerving. 
 In many walks of life drudgery and toil must be cheer- 
 fully endured as the necessary discipline of life. Hugh 
 Miller says, the only school in which he was properly 
 taught was "that world- wide school in which toil and 
 hardship are the severe but noble teachers." He who 
 allows his application to falter, or shirks his work on friv- 
 olous pretexts, is on the sure road to ultimate failure. 
 Let any task be undertaken as a thing not possible to be 
 evaded, and it will soon come to be performed with alac- 
 rity and cheerfulness. Charles IX. of Sweden was a 
 firm believer in the power of will, even in a youth. Lay- 
 ing his hand on the head of his youngest son when en- 
 gaged upon a difficult task, he exclaimed, " He shall do 
 it ! he shall do it ! " The habit of strenuous continued 
 labor becomes comparatively easy in time, like every 
 other habit. Thus even persons with the commonest 
 brains and the most slender powers will accomplish much, 
 if they apply themselves wholly and indefatigably to one 
 thing at a time. Fowell Buxton placed his confidence in 
 ordinary means and extraordinary application ; realizing 
 the scriptural injunction, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth 
 to do, do it with all thy might ; " and he himself attrib- 
 uted his own remarkable success in life to his practice of 
 constantly " being a whole man to one thing at a time," 
 
CHAP. VII. POWER OF WILL. 205 
 
 Nothing that is of real worth can be achieved without 
 courageous working. Man owes his growth chiefly to 
 that active striving of the will, that encounter with diffi- 
 culty, which we call effort ; and it is astonishing to find 
 how often results apparently impracticable are thus made 
 possible. An intense anticipation itself transforms pos- 
 sibility into reality ; our desires being often but the pre- 
 cursors of the things which we are capable of performing. 
 On the contrary, the timid and hesitating find everything 
 impossible, chiefly because it seems so. It is related of 
 a young French officer, that he used to walk about his 
 apartment exclaiming, " I will be Marshal of France and 
 a great general." This ardent desire was the presenti- 
 ment of his success; for he did become a distinguished 
 commander, and he died a Marshal of France. 
 
 Mr. Walker, author of the "Original," had so great 
 a faith in the power of will, that he says on one occasion 
 he determined to be well, and he was so. This may 
 answer once ; but, though safer to follow than many 
 prescriptions, it will not always succeed. The power 
 of mind over body is no doubt great, but it may be 
 strained until the physical power breaks down altogether. 
 It is related of Muley Moluc, the Moorish leader, that, 
 when lying ill, almost worn out by an incurable disease, 
 a battle took place between his troops and the Portu- 
 guese ; when, starting from his litter at the great crisis 
 of the fight, he rallied his army, led them to victory, 
 and instantly afterwards sank exhausted and expired. 
 
 It is willy force of purpose, that enables a man to 
 do or be whatever he sets his mind on being or doing. 
 A holy man was accustomed to say, "Whatever you 
 wish, that you are: for such is the force of our will, 
 joined to the Divine, that whatever we wish to be, seri- 
 
206 FREEDOM OF THE WILL. CHAP. VII. 
 
 ously, and with a true intention, that we become. No 
 one ardently wishes to be submissive, patient, modest, or 
 liberal, who does not become what he wishes." The 
 story is told of a working carpenter, who was observed 
 one day planing a magistrate's bench, which he was re- 
 pairing, with more than usual carefulness, and when 
 asked the reason, he replied, " Because I wish to make 
 it easy against the time when I come to sit upon it 
 myself." And singularly enough, the man actually lived 
 to sit upon that very bench as a magistrate. 
 
 Whatever theoretical conclusions logicians may have 
 formed as to the freedom of the will, each individual 
 feels that practically he is free to choose between good 
 and evil, that he is not like a mere straw thrown upon 
 the water to mark the direction of the current, but that 
 he has within him the power of a strong swimmer, and 
 is capable of striking out for himself, of buffeting with 
 the waves, and directing to a great extent his own in- 
 dependent course. There is no absolute constraint upon 
 our volitions, and we feel and know that we are not 
 bound, as by a spell, with reference to our actions. It 
 would paralyze all desire of excellence were we to think 
 otherwise. The entire business and conduct of life, with 
 its domestic rules, its social arrangements, and its public 
 institutions, proceed upon the practical conviction that the 
 will is free. Without this where would be responsibil- 
 ity ? and what the advantage of teaching, advising, 
 preaching, reproof, and correction ? What were the use 
 of laws, were it not the universal belief, as it is the 
 universal fact, that men obey them or not, very much 
 as they individually determine ? In every moment of 
 our life, conscience is proclaiming that our will is free. 
 It is the only thing that is wholly ours, and it rests 
 
CHAP. VII. LAMMENAIS. BUXTON. 207 
 
 solely with ourselves individually, whether we give it the 
 right or the wrong direction. Our habits or our tempta- 
 tions are not our masters, but we of them. Even in 
 yielding, conscience tells us we might resist ; and that 
 were we determined to master them, there would not be 
 required for that purpose a stronger resolution than we 
 know ourselves to be capable of exercising. 
 
 "You are now at the age," said Lammenais once, 
 addressing a gay youth, "at which a decision must be 
 formed by you ; a little later, and you may have to groan 
 within the tomb which yourself have dug, without the 
 power of rolling away the stone. That which the easiest 
 becomes a habit in us is the will. Learn then to will 
 strongly, and decisively ; thus fix your floating life, and 
 leave it no longer to be carried hither and thither, like 
 a withered leaf, by every wind that blows." 
 
 Buxton held the conviction that a young man might 
 be very much what he pleased, provided he formed a 
 strong resolution and held to it. Writing to one of his 
 own sons, he once said, " You are now at that period of 
 life, in which you must make a turn to the right or the 
 left. You must now give proofs of principle, determina- 
 tion, and strength of mind ; or you must sink into idle, 
 ness, and acquire the habits and character of a desultory, 
 ineffective young man ; and if once you fall to that point, 
 you will find it no easy matter to rise again. I am sure 
 that a young man may be very much what he pleases. 
 In my own case it was so. ... Much of my hap- 
 piness, and all my prosperity in life, have resulted 
 from the change I made at your age. If you seriously 
 resolve to be energetic and industrious, depend upon it 
 that you will for your whole life have reason to rejoice 
 that you were wise enough to form and to act upon 
 
208 SUWAKROW NAPOLEON. CHAP. VII. 
 
 that determination." As will, considered without re- 
 gard to direction, is simply constancy, firmness, per- 
 severance, it will be obvious that everything depends 
 upon right direction and motives. Directed towards 
 the enjoyment of the senses, the strong will may be a 
 demon, and the intellect merely its debased slave; but 
 directed towards good, the strong will is a king, and 
 the intellect is then the minister of man's highest well- 
 being. 
 
 " Where there is a will there is a way," is an old 
 and true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, 
 by that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, 
 and secures its achievement. To think we are able, 
 is almost to be so, to determine upon attainment, is 
 frequently attainment itself. Thus, earnest resolution 
 has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of 
 omnipotence. The strength of Suwarrow's character 
 lay in his power of willing, and, like most resolute per- 
 sons, he preached it up as a system. " You can only 
 half will," he would say to people who failed. Like 
 Richelieu and Napoleon, he would have the word " im- 
 possible " banished from the dictionary. " I don't know," 
 " I can't," and " impossible," were words which he de- 
 tested above all others. " Learn ! Do ! Try ! " he 
 would exclaim. His biographer has said of him, that 
 he furnished a remarkable illustration of what may be 
 effected by the energetic development and exercise of 
 faculties, the germs of which at least are in every human 
 heart. 
 
 One of Napoleon's favorite maxims was, " The truest 
 wisdom is a resolute determination." His life, beyond 
 most others, vividly showed what a powerful and un- 
 scrupulous will could accomplish. He threw his whole 
 
CHAP. VII. NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON. 209 
 
 force of body and mind direct upon his work. Imbecile 
 rulers and the nations they governed went down before 
 him in succession. He was told that the Alps stood in 
 the way of his armies, " There shall be no Alps," he 
 said, and the road across the Simplon was constructed, 
 through a district formerly almost inaccessible. " Impos- 
 sible," said he, " is a word only to be found in the diction- 
 ary of fools." He was a man who toiled terribly ; some- 
 times employing and exhausting four secretaries at a 
 time. He spared no one, not even himself. His influ- 
 ence inspired other men, and put a new life into them. 
 " I made my generals out of mud," he said. But all 
 was of no avail ; for Napoleon's intense selfishness was 
 his ruin, and the ruin of France, which he left a prey 
 to anarchy. His life taught the lesson that power, how- 
 ever energetically wielded, without beneficence, is fatal 
 to its possessor and its subjects; and that knowledge, 
 or knowingness, without goodness, is but the incarnate 
 principle of evil. 
 
 Our own Wellington was a far greater man. Not less 
 resolute, firm, and persistent, but much more self-denying, 
 conscientious, and truly patriotic. Napoleon's aim was 
 " Glory ; " Wellington's watchword, like Nelson's, was 
 " Duty." The former word, it is said, does not once oc- 
 cur in his despatches ; the latter often, but never accom- 
 panied by any high-sounding professions. The greatest 
 difficulties could neither embarrass nor intimidate Wel- 
 lington ; his energy invariably rising in proportion to the 
 obstacles to be surmounted. The patience, the firmness, 
 the resolution, with which he bore through the maddening 
 rexations and gigantic difficulties of the Peninsular cam- 
 paigns, is, perhaps, one of the sublimest things to be 
 found in history. In Spain, Wellington not only ex- 
 
210 PROMPTITUDE AND DECISION. CHAP. VII, 
 
 hibited the genius of the general, but the comprehensive 
 wisdom of the statesman. Though his natural temper 
 was irritable in the extreme, his high sense of duty 
 enabled him to restrain it, and to those about him his 
 patience seemed absolutely inexhaustible. His great 
 character stands untarnished by ambition, by avarice, or 
 any low passion. Though a man of powerful individual- 
 ity, he yet displayed a great variety of endowment. The 
 equal of Napoleon in generalship, he was as prompt, 
 vigorous, and daring as Clive ; as -wise a statesman as 
 Cromwell ; and as pure and high-minded as Washington. 
 The great Wellington left behind him an enduring repu- 
 tation, founded on toilsome campaigns won by skilful 
 combination, by fortitude which nothing could exhaust, 
 by sublime daring, and perhaps still sublimer patience. 
 Energy usually displays itself in promptitude and 
 decision. When Ledyard, the traveller, was asked by 
 the African Association when he would be ready to set 
 out for Africa, he promptly answered, " To-morrow morn- 
 ing." Blucher's promptitude obtained for him the cog- 
 nomen of " Marshal Forwards " throughout the Prussian 
 army. When John Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent, 
 was asked when he would be ready to join his ship, he 
 replied, " Directly." And when Sir Colin Campbell, 
 appointed to the command of the Indian army, was asked 
 when he could set out, his answer was, " To-morrow," 
 an earnest of his subsequent success. For it is rapid de- 
 cision, and a similar promptitude in action, such as taking 
 instant advantage of an enemy's mistakes, that so often 
 wins battles. " Every moment lost," said Napoleon, 
 " gives an opportunity for misfortune ; " and he used to 
 gay that he beat the Austrians because they never knew 
 the value of time ; while they dawdled, he overthrew 
 them. 
 
CHAP. VII. BRITISH ENERGY IN INDIA. 211 
 
 India has, during the last century, been a great field 
 for the display of British energy. From Clive to Have- 
 lock and Clyde there is a long and honorable roll of dis- 
 tinguished names in Indian legislation and warfare, 
 such as Wcllesley, Munro, Elphinstone, Bentinck, Met- 
 calfe, Outram, Edwardes, and the Lawrences. Another 
 great, but sullied name, is that of Warren Hastings, a 
 man of dauntless will and indefatigable industry. His 
 family was ancient and illustrious ; but their vicissitudes 
 of fortune and ill-requited loyalty in the cause of the 
 Stuarts, brought them to ruin, and the family estate at 
 Daylesford, of which they had been lords of the manor 
 for hundreds of years, at length passed from their hands. 
 The last Hastings of Daylesford had, however, previously 
 presented the parish living to his second son ; and it was 
 in his house, many years later, that Warren Hastings, 
 his grandson, was born. The boy learned his letters at 
 the village-school of Daylesford, on the same bench with 
 the children of the peasantry. He played in the fields 
 which his fathers had owned ; and what the loyal and 
 brave Hastings of Daylesford had been, was ever in the 
 boy's thoughts. His young ambition was fired, and it is 
 said that, one summer's day, when only seven years old, 
 as he laid him down on the bank of the stream which 
 flows through the old domain, he formed in his mind the 
 resolution that he would yet recover possession of the 
 family lands. It was the romantic vision of a mere boy ; 
 yet he lived to realize it. The dream became a passion, 
 rooted in his very life ; and he pursued his determination 
 through youth up to manhood, with that calm but in- 
 domitable force of will which was the most striking pe- 
 culiarity of his character. The poor orphan boy became 
 5>ne of the most powerful men of his time ; he retrieved 
 
212 NAPIER'S HEROIC SPIRIT. CHAP. VIL 
 
 the fortunes of his line ; bought back the old estate, and 
 rebuilt the family mansion. " When, under a tropical 
 sun," says Macaulay, " he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, 
 his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legis- 
 lation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long 
 public life, so singularly checkered with good and evil, 
 with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it 
 was to Daylesford that he retired to die." 
 
 Sir Charles Napier was another Indian leader of ex- 
 traordinary courage and determination. As he once said 
 when surrounded with difficulties in one of his cam- 
 paigns, " They only make my feet go deeper into the 
 ground." His battle of Meeanee was one of the most 
 extraordinary feats in history. With 2,000 men, of whom 
 only 400 were Europeans, he encountered an army of 
 35,000 hardy and well-armed Beloochees. It was an act, 
 apparently, of the most daring temerity, but the general 
 had faith in himself and in his men. He charged the 
 Belooch centre up a high bank which formed their ram- 
 part 'in front, and for three mortal hours the battle raged. 
 Each man of that small force, inspired by the chief, 
 became for the time a hero. The Beloochees, though 
 twenty to one, were driven back, but with their faces to 
 the foe. It is this sort of pluck, tenacity, and determined 
 perseverance which wins soldiers' battles, and, indeed, 
 every battle. It is the one neck nearer that wins the race 
 and shows the blood ; it is the one march more that wins 
 the campaign ; the five minutes' more persistent courage 
 that wins the fight. Though your force be less than 
 another's, you equal and out-master your opponent if 
 you continue it longer and concentrate it more. The 
 reply of the Spartan father, who said to his son, when 
 complaining that his sword was too short, " Add a step to 
 it," is applicable to everything in life. 
 
CHAP. VII. THE INDIAN SWORDSMAN. 213 
 
 Napier took the right method of inspiring his men 
 with his own heroic spirit. He worked as hard as any 
 private in the ranks. " The great art of commanding," 
 he said, " is to take a fair share of the work. The man 
 who leads an army cannot succeed unless his whole mind 
 is thrown into his work. The more trouble, the more 
 labor must be given ; the more danger, the more pluck 
 must be shown, till all is overpowered." A young officer, 
 who accompanied him in his campaign in the Cutchee 
 Hills, once said, " When I see that old man incessantly 
 on his horse, how can I be idle who am young and 
 strong ? I would go into a loaded cannon's mouth if he 
 ordered me." This remark, when repeated to Napier, 
 he said was ample reward for his toils. The anecdote of 
 his interview with the Indian juggler strikingly illustrates 
 his cool courage as well as his remarkable simplicity and 
 honesty of character. After the Indian battles, on one 
 occasion a famous juggler visited the camp, and per- 
 formed his feats before the general, his family, and staff. 
 Among other performances, this man cut in two with a 
 stroke of his sword a lime or lemon placed in the hand 
 of his assistant. Napier thought there w r as some collusion 
 between the juggler and his retainer. To divide by a 
 sweep of the sword on a man's hand so small an object, 
 without touching the flesh, he believed to be impossible, 
 though a similar incident is related by Scott in his 
 romance of " The Talisman." To determine the point, the 
 general offered his own hand for the experiment, and he 
 stretched out his right arm. The juggler looked atten- 
 tively at the hand, and said he would not make the trial. 
 f ' I thought I would find you out ! " exclaimed Napier. 
 " But stop," added the other, " let me see your left hand." 
 The left hand was submitted, and the man then said 
 
214 THE RECENT REBELLION IN INDLA. CHAP. VII. 
 
 firmly, " If you will hold your arm steady, I will perform 
 the feat." " But why the left hand and not the right ? " 
 '' Because the right hand is hollow in the centre, and 
 there is a risk of cutting off the thumb ; the left is high, 
 and the danger will be less." Napier was startled. " I 
 got frightened," he said ; " I saw it was an actual feat of 
 delicate swordsmanship, and if I had not abused the man 
 as I did before my staff, and challenged him to the trial, 
 I honestly acknowledge I would have retired from the 
 encounter. However, I put the lime on my hand, and 
 held out my arm steadily. The juggler balanced himself, 
 and, with a swift stroke, cut the lime in two pieces. I 
 felt the edge of the sword on my hand as if a cold thread 
 had been drawn across it ; and so much (he added) for 
 the brave swordsmen of India, whom our fine fellows de- 
 feated at Meeanee." 
 
 The recent terrible struggle in India has served to 
 bring out, perhaps more prominently than any previous 
 event in our history, the determined energy and self- 
 reliance of the national character. Although English 
 officialism may often drift stupidly into gigantic blunders, 
 the men of the nation generally contrive to work their 
 way out of them with a heroism almost approach- 
 ing the sublime. In May, 1857, when the revolt burst 
 upon India like a thunderclap, the British forces had 
 been allowed to dwindle to their extreme minimum, and 
 were scattered over a wide extent of country, many of 
 them in remote cantonments. The Bengal regiments, 
 one after another, rose against their officers, broke away, 
 and rushed to Delhi. Province after province was lapped 
 in mutiny and rebellion ; and the cry for help rose from 
 east to west. Everywhere the English stood at bay in 
 email detachments, beleaguered and surrounded, appar- 
 
CHAP. VII. THE RECENT REBELLION IN INDIA. 215 
 
 eritly incapable of resistance. Their discomfiture seemed 
 so complete, and the utter ruin of the British cause in 
 India so certain, that it might be said of them then, as it 
 had been said before, " These English never know when 
 they are beaten." According to rule, they ought then 
 and there to have succumbed to inevitable fate. 
 
 While the issue of the mutiny still appeared uncertain, 
 Holkar, one of the native princes, consulted his astrologer 
 for information. The reply was, " If all the Europeans 
 save one are slain, that one will remain to fight and re- 
 conquer." In their very darkest moment, even where, 
 as at Lucknow, a mere handful of British soldiers, civil- 
 ians, and women, held out amidst a city and province in 
 arms against them, there was no word of despair, no 
 thought of surrender. Though cut off from all communi- 
 cation with their friends for months, and they knew not 
 whether India was lost or held, they never ceased to have 
 perfect faith in the courage and devotedness of their 
 countrymen, though they might be afar off; they knew 
 that while a body of men of English race held together 
 in India, they would not be left unheeded to perish. 
 They never dreamed of any other issue but retrieval of 
 their misfortune and ultimate triumph ; and if the worst 
 came to the worst, they could but fall at their post and 
 die in the performance of their duty. Need we remind 
 the reader of the names of Havelock, Neill, and Outram, 
 men of each of whom it might with equal appropriateness 
 be said that he had the heart of a chevalier, the soul of a 
 believer, and the temperament of a martyr. Of each it 
 might be said that their lives had been spent in the 
 patient performance of obscure services; but the out- 
 break of the rebellion provided them with the opportunity 
 of proving that each had in him the qualities of a hero. 
 
216 THE RECENT REBELLION IN INDIA. CHAP. VII. 
 
 Indeed the same might be saicT of every private soldier 
 who distinguished himself in that great struggle. Des- 
 perate though the work was of retrieving this terrible 
 and wide-spread calamity, there were men found to do it, 
 men whose lives until then had for the most part been 
 spent in the performance of mere routine duties, whose 
 names had never before been heard of, and who might 
 have died unknown but for the occasion which put their 
 highest qualities to the proof, as well-bred, brave-hearted, 
 high-souled Englishmen. In the course of the struggle 
 which ensued, an amount of individual energy was dis- 
 played of an extraordinary and perhaps even an unex- 
 pected character; and men and women, soldiers and 
 civilians, of all ranks, in the revolted districts, swelled 
 for the time to the dimensions of heroes. 
 
 It has been said that Delhi was taken, and India saved, 
 by the personal character of Sir John Lawrence. The 
 very name of " Lawrence " represented power in the 
 Northwest Provinces. His standard of duty, zeal, and 
 personal effort, was of the highest ; and every man who 
 served under him seemed to be inspired by his own 
 spirit. It was declared of him that his character alone 
 was worth an army. The same might be said of his 
 brother Sir Henry, who organized the Punjaub force that 
 took so prominent a part in the capture of Delhi. Both 
 brothers inspired those who were about them with per- 
 fect love and confidence. Both lived amongst the people, 
 and powerfully influenced them for good. Above all, as 
 Colonel Edwardes says, " they drew models on young fel- 
 lows' minds, which they went forth and copied in their 
 several administrations : they sketched a faith, and begot 
 a school, which are both living things at this day." Sir 
 John Lawrence had by his side such men as Montgomery, 
 
CHAP. VII. THE SIEGE OF DELHI. 217 
 
 Nicholson, Cotton, and Edwardes, as prompt, decisive, and 
 high-souled as himself. John Nicholson was one of the 
 finest, manliest, and noblest of men, " every inch a 
 hakem," the natives said of him, "a tower of strength," 
 as he was characterized by Lord Dalhousie. In whatever 
 capacity he acted he was great, because he acted with his 
 whole strength and soul. A brotherhood of fakirs 
 borne away by their enthusiastic admiration of the man, 
 oven commenced the worship of Nikkil Seyn ; he had 
 some of them punished for their folly, but they continued 
 the worship nevertheless. Of his sustained energy and 
 persistency an illustration may be cited in his pursuit of 
 the 55th Sepoy mutineers, when he was in the saddle 
 for twenty consecutive hours, and travelled more than 
 seventy miles. When the enemy set up their standard 
 at Delhi, Lawrence and Montgomery, relying on the sup- 
 port of the people of the Punjaub, and compelling their 
 admiration and confidence, strained every nerve to keep 
 their own province in perfect order, whilst they hurled 
 every available soldier, European and Sikh, against that 
 city. Sir John Vrote to the Commander-in-chief to 
 " hang on to the rebels' noses before Delhi," whilst the 
 troops pressed on by forced marches under Nicholson, 
 "the tramp of whose war-horse might be heard miles 
 off," as was afterwards said of him by a rough Sikh who 
 wept over his grave. 
 
 The siege and storming of Delhi was the most illustri- 
 ous event which occurred in the course of that gigantic 
 struggle. The leaguer of Lucknow, during which the 
 merest skeleton of a British regiment, the 32d, 
 held out for six months against two hundred thousand 
 armed enemies, has perhaps excited more intense inter- 
 est ; but Delhi was the feat of arms of which Britain has 
 10 
 
218 THE SIEGE OF DELHI. CHAP. VIL 
 
 A-iost cause to be proud. There, too, the British were 
 i eally the besieged, though ostensibly the besiegers ; they 
 were a mere handful of men " in the open," not more 
 than 3,700 bayonets, European and native, without 
 any defences or support, other than their indomitable 
 courage and tenacity of purpose, assailed from day to day 
 by an army of rebels numbering at one time as many as 
 75,000 men, trained to European discipline by English 
 officers, and supplied with all but exhaustless munitions 
 of war. The heroic little band sat down before the city 
 under the burning rays of a tropical sun. Death, wounds, 
 And fever, failed to turn them from their purpose. Thirty 
 times they were attacked by overwhelming numbers, and 
 thirty times did they drive back the enemy behind their 
 defences. As Captain Hodson, himself one of the 
 bravest there, has said, " I venture to aver that no 
 Dther nation in the world would have remained here, or 
 avoided defeat if they had attempted to do so." Never 
 for an instant did these heroes falter at their work ; with 
 sublime endurance they held on, fought on, and never re- 
 laxed until, dashing through the " imminent deadly breach," 
 the place was won, and the British flag was again un- 
 furled on the walls of Delhi. All were great, privates, 
 officers, and generals ; men taken from behind English 
 ploughs and from English workshops, and those trained 
 in the best schools and colleges, displayed equal heroism 
 when the emergency arose. Common soldiers who hai 
 been inured to a life of hardship, and young officers who 
 had been nursed in luxurious homes, alike proved theii 
 manhood, and emerged from that terrible trial with 
 equal honor ; the native strength and soundness of the 
 English race, and of manly English training and discipline, 
 were never more powerfully illustrated ; and it was there 
 
CHAP. VII. MISSIONARY LABORERS. 219 
 
 emphatically proved that the men of England an?, after 
 all, its greatest products. A terrible price was paid for 
 this great chapter in our history, but if those who survive, 
 and those who come after, profit by the lesson and exam- 
 ple, it may not have been purchased at too great a cost. 
 
 But not less energy and courage have been displayed 
 by Englishmen in various other lines of action, of a 
 more peaceful and beneficent character than that of war. 
 Henry Martyn, William Carey, John Williams, David 
 Livingstone, and many other equally distinguished labor- 
 ers in missionary enterprise, have quite as nobly illus- 
 trated the power of energetic action in their lonely labors 
 amidst heathen populations in India, Africa, and the isl- 
 ands of the Pacific. 
 
 These great missionaries all sprang from a humble 
 position in life. Henry Martyn's father was originally a 
 laborer in a mine at Gwennap in Cornwall, though by 
 industry and ability he subsequently raised himself to the 
 position of a clerk. The boy was sent to school at Truro, 
 and afterwards to Oxford, where he failed in obtaining 
 the fellowship for which he tried. At St. John's, Cam- 
 bridge, he was more successful ; he applied himself reso- 
 lutely, and came out senior wrangler in 1801. He felt 
 that he had within him the power to achieve distinction 
 in any line of study he might choose to embrace ; but 
 having been powerfully impressed by the preaching of 
 the Rev. Mr. Simeon, and being brought in connection 
 with some of the leading members of the " Clapham 
 Sect," he determined to embrace the career of a mis- 
 sionary, and to carry the tidings of the Gospel into the 
 far east. In 1805 he sailed for India under the counte- 
 nance of the Missionary Society, and may be regarded as 
 the pioneer of missionary labors in that wide field. For 
 
220 MARTYN. WILLIAMS. CHAP. VII. 
 
 five years lie labored long and hard in Hindostan, trans- 
 lating the Bible into the Persian, Hindostanee, and 
 Arabic, receiving but slender encouragement, and often 
 encountering much opposition. He then proceeded into 
 Persia, where he was stricken by fever, and, his health 
 completely broken, he was compelled to abandon his 
 work- and return home. But he was overtaken by death 
 before he passed the frontier of Asia Minor, expiring at 
 Fokat, in 1812, when only in his thirty-second year. 
 
 Not less energy and self-devotion in the same career 
 were displayed by John Williams, the martyr of Erro- 
 manga. Though considered a dull boy, he was yet handy 
 at his trade, and possessed of good physical stamina. He 
 was apprenticed to a furnishing ironmonger in the City 
 Road, and for some time was rather disposed to join in the 
 dissipation of his companions than to occupy himself with 
 serious thoughts. He cultivated, however, his manual skill, 
 and was often, in his leisure hours, found at work in the 
 blacksmith's forge of his master, who at length was accus- 
 tomed to employ him upon any job requiring peculiar deli- 
 cacy or skill. He also was fond of bell-hanging and other 
 employments which took him away from the shop. A 
 casual sermon which he heard gave his mind a serious 
 bias, and he became a Sunday-school teacher. The cause 
 of missions having been brought under his notice at some 
 of his society's meetings, he determined to devote himself 
 to this work. His services were accepted by the London 
 Missionary Society ; and his master allowed him to leave 
 the ironmongery shop before the expiry of his indentures. 
 The islands of the Pacific Ocean were the scene of his 
 labors more particularly Huahine in Tahiti, Raiatea, 
 and Rarotonga. Like the Apostles he worked with his 
 hands, at blacksmith work, gardening, ship-building ; 
 
CHAP. VII. LIVINGSTONE. 221 
 
 and he endeavored to teach the islanders the arts of civil- 
 ized life, at the same time that he instructed them in the 
 truths of religion. It was in the course of his indefati- 
 gable labors that he was massacred by savages on the 
 shore of Erromanga, none worthier than he to wear the 
 martyr's crown. 
 
 The career of Dr. Livingstone is the most interesting 
 of all. He has told the story of his own life in that mod- 
 est and unassuming manner which is so characteristic of 
 the man himself. His ancestors were poor but honest 
 Highlanders, and it is related of one of them, renowned 
 in his district for wisdom and prudence, that when on his 
 death -bed he called his children round him and left them 
 these words, the only legacy he had to bequeathe "In 
 my lifetime," said he, " I have searched most carefully 
 through all the traditions I could find of our family, and 
 I never could discover that there was a dishonest man 
 among our forefathers : if, therefore, any of you or any 
 of your children should take to dishonest ways, it will not 
 be because it runs in our blood ; it does not belong to 
 you : I leave this precept with you Be honest." At 
 the age of ten Livingstone was sent to work in a cotton 
 factory near Glasgow as a " piecer." With part of his 
 first week's wages he bought a Latin grammar, and began 
 to learn that language, pursuing the study for years at a 
 night school. He would sit up conning his lessons till 
 twelve or later, when not sent to bed by his mother, for 
 he had to be up and at work in the factory every morn- 
 ing by six. In this way he plodded through Virgil and 
 Horace, also reading extensively all books, excepting 
 novels, that came in his way, but more especially scien- 
 tific works and books of travels. In his pursuit of botany 
 he occupied his spare hours, which were but few, in scour- 
 
222 LIVINGSTONE. CHAP. VII. 
 
 ing the neighborhood collecting plants. He even carried 
 on his reading amidst the roar of the machinery in the 
 mill, so placing the book upon the spinning jenny which 
 he worked that he could catch sentence after sentence as 
 he passed. In this way the persevering factory boy ac- 
 quired much useful knowledge ; and as he grew older, the 
 desire possessed him of becoming a missionary to the 
 heathen. With this object he set himself to obtain a 
 medical education, in order the better to be qualified for 
 the enterprise. He accordingly economized his earnings, 
 and saved as much money as enabled him to support 
 himself while attending the Medical and Greek classes, 
 as well as the Divinity Lectures, at Glasgow, for several 
 winters, working as a cotton spinner during the remainder 
 of each year. He thus supported himself, during his 
 college career, entirely by his own earnings as a factory 
 workman, never having received a farthing of help from 
 any other source. " Looking back now," he honestly 
 says, " at that life of toil, I cannot but feel thankful that 
 it formed such a material part of my early education ; 
 and, were it possible, I should like to begin life over again 
 in the same lowly style, and to pass through the same 
 hardy training." At length he finished his medical cur- 
 riculum, wrote his Latin thesis, passed his examinations, 
 and was admitted a licentiate of the Faculty of Physi- 
 cians and Surgeons. At first he thought of going to 
 China, but the war then raging with that country pre- 
 vented his following out that idea ; and having offered 
 his services to the London Missionary Society, he was by 
 them sent out to Africa, which he reached in 1840. He 
 had intended to proceed to China by his own efforts ; and 
 he says the only pang he had in going to Africa at the 
 charge of the London Missionary Society was, because 
 
CHAP. VH. LIVINGSTONE. 223 
 
 " it was not quite agreeable to one accustomed to work 
 his own way to become, in a manner, dependent upon 
 others." Arrived in Africa he set to work with great 
 vigor. He could not brook the idea of merely entering 
 upon the labors of others, but cut out a large sphere of 
 independent work, preparing himself for it by undertak 
 ing manual labor in building and other handicraft em 
 ployment, in addition to teaching, which, he says, " made 
 me generally as much exhausted and unfit for study ifc 
 the evenings as ever I had been when a cotton-spinner. 
 Whilst laboring amongst the Bechuanas, he dug canal^ 
 built houses, cultivated fields, reared cattle, and taught 
 the natives while he worked with them. At first, when 
 starting with a party of them on foot upon a long jour- 
 ney, he overheard their observations upon his appearance 
 and powers " He is not strong," said they ; " he is quite 
 slim, and only appears stout because he puts himself into 
 those bags (trousers) ; he will soon knock up." This 
 caused the missionary's Highland blood to rise, and made 
 him despise the fatigue of keeping them all at the top of 
 their speed for days together, until he heard them express- 
 ing proper opinions of his pedestrian powers. What he 
 did in Africa, and how he worked, may be learnt from 
 his own " Missionary Travels," one of the most fasci- 
 nating books of its kind that has ever been given to the 
 public. One of his last known acts is thoroughly charac- 
 teristic of the man. The " Birkenhead " steam launch, 
 which he took out with him to Africa, having proved 
 a failure, he sent home orders for the construction of 
 another at an estimated cost of 2,0001. This sum he 
 proposed to defray out of the means which he had set 
 aside for his children arising from the profits of his trav- 
 els. "The children must make it up themselves," was 
 
224 JOHN HOWARD. JONAS HANWAY : CHAP. VIL 
 
 in effect his expression in sending home the order for 
 the appropriation of the money. 
 
 The life of John Howard was throughout a striking 
 illustration of the power of patient purpose and action. 
 His sublime life proved that even physical weakness 
 could remove mountains in the pursuit of an end rec- 
 ommended by duty. The idea of ameliorating the 
 condition of prisoners engrossed his whole thoughts 
 and possessed him like a passion ; and no toil, nor dan- 
 ger, nor bodily suffering could turn him from that great 
 purpose of his life. Though a man of no genius and 
 but moderate talent, his heart was pure and his will was 
 strong; even in his own time he achieved a remark- 
 able degree of success ; but his influence did not die with 
 him, for it has continued powerfully to affect not only the 
 legislation of England, but of all civilized nations, even 
 to the present hour. The life of Howard is, however, so 
 well known through the labors of Mr. Hepworth Dixon, 
 that we prefer citing a few less known illustrations of this 
 characteristic feature in the English character. 
 
 Jonas Hanway was a man eminent in his own day for 
 his integrity as a merchant, and his public spirit as a 
 patriot and philanthropist ; though his name is now all 
 but unknown. He was one of the many patient and per- 
 severing men who have made England what it is, 
 content simply to do with energy the work they have 
 been appointed to do, and to go to their rest thankfully 
 when it is done, 
 
 u Leaving no memorial but a world 
 Made better by their lives." 
 
 He was born in 1712, at Portsmouth, where, his father, a 
 etorekeepei in the dockyard, being killed by an accident, 
 
CHAP. VII. HIS PERILOUS JOURNEYS. 225 
 
 he was left an orphan at an early age. His mothei 
 removed with her family to London, where she had them 
 put to school, and struggled hard to bring them up re- 
 spectably. At seventeen Jonas was sent to Lisbon to be 
 apprenticed to a merchant, where his close attention to 
 business, his punctuality, and his strict honor and integ- 
 rity, gained for him the respect and esteem of all who 
 knew him. He returned to London, and in 1743, ac- 
 cepted the offer of a partnership in an important mercan- 
 tile house at St. Petersburg, extensively engaged in the 
 Caspian trade, then in its infancy. Mr. Hanway went 
 out to Russia for the purpose of extending the business ; 
 and shortly after his arrival, he found it necessary to visit 
 the principal seats of the trade in person. He accord- 
 ingly set out for Persia, with a caravan of English bales 
 of cloth making twenty carriage loads. In ten days from 
 St. Petersburg he reached Moscow, seven days after he 
 entered the Steppe, and in other eight days he reached 
 Zuritzen on the Volga. There he embarked for Astra- 
 can, and with difficulty escaped the perils of the passage 
 down the river, which was then infested by gangs of 
 robber-boatmen, who lived by plundering the traders. 
 From Astracan he sailed for Astrabad, on the southeast- 
 ern shore of the Caspian, where he had scarcely landed 
 his bales, when an insurrection broke out, his goods were 
 seized, and though he afterwards recovered the principal 
 part of them, the fruits of his enterprise were in a great 
 measure lost. A plot was even set on foot to seize him- 
 self and his party ; so he timely took to sea, and after 
 encountering great perils and exposure in an open boat, 
 which he bore with exemplary patience and courage, he 
 reached Ghilan in safety. His escape on this occasion 
 gave him the first idea of the words which he afterwards 
 ao* 
 
226 JONAS HANWAY. CHAP. VII 
 
 adopted as the motto of his life, " Never Despair? 
 After travelling many hundred miles amidst hostile 
 bands, he prepared to leave the country, but invested the 
 money which he had realized by the sale of his partly 
 recovered goods in the purchase of raw silk, which event- 
 ually proved a successful venture. He afterwards re- 
 sided in St. Petersburg for five years, carrying on a 
 lucrative and prosperous business. 
 
 A relative having left him some property, and his 
 means being sufficient to enable him to return to Eng- 
 land, Hanway left Russia, and arrived in his native 
 country in 1750, after an absence of about eight years. 
 His object in returning to England was, as he himself 
 expressed it, " to consult his own health (which was ex- 
 tremely delicate), and do as much good to himself and 
 others as he was able." The rest of his life was spent in 
 deeds of active benevolence and usefulness to his fellow- 
 men. He lived in a quiet style, in order that he might 
 employ a larger share of his income in purposes of 
 benevolence. One of the first public improvements to 
 which he devoted himself, was that of the highways of 
 the metropolis. The streets of London were then in a 
 wretched state, ill paved, full of ruts and holes, and 
 filthy in the extreme. Sign-boards swung creakingly 
 over the footways beneath, which were inclosed from the 
 carriage-way by rows of posts ; but the space was so nar- 
 row that there was barely room for one person to pass 
 another on foot, and in wet weather torrents of dirty 
 water fell upon the passengers from the projecting spouts 
 on either side the street. Mr. Hanway took up the sub- 
 ject with great vigor, and urged the necessity for im- 
 provement so pertinaciously, that at length he secured 
 the interference of the legislature. An accident, which 
 
CHAP. VH. JONAS HANWAY. 227 
 
 happened to the carriage of the Speaker of the House 
 of Commons (Mr. Onslow), in passing through the nar 
 row entrance near Craig's Court, at Charing Cross, con- 
 tributed to force the subject on public attention, and the 
 Act appointing commissioners was passed ; since which 
 the streets of London have become as creditable to the 
 wealth of the metropolis as they were formerly a dis- 
 grace. 
 
 The old and often recurring rumor of a French inva- 
 sion having come up in 1755, and a formidable squadron 
 and large body of forces having been assembled at Brest, 
 for the ostensible purpose of making a descent upon this 
 country, Mr. Han way turned his attention to the best 
 mode of keeping up our breed of seamen. The Act 
 passed in Queen Anne's reign, directing every master of 
 a vessel of thirty tons and upwards to take one or more 
 apprentices from the parish, being found inoperative, Mr. 
 Hanway endeavored by sundry printed letters to urge 
 the masters in the merchant service to comply with the 
 directions of the Act ; but the single voice of an individ- 
 ual was too feeble to be heard where self-interest was 
 concerned. Determined, however, to do what he could 
 to remedy the defect, Hanway summoned a meeting of 
 merchants and shipowners at the Royal Exchange, and 
 there proposed to them to form themselves into a society 
 for fitting out landsmen volunteers and boys, to serve on 
 board the king's ships. The proposal was received with 
 enthusiasm ; a society was formed, and officers were ap- 
 pointed, Mr. Hanway directing its entire operations. The 
 result was the establishment in 1756 of The Marine So- 
 ciety, an institution which has proved of real national 
 advantage, and to this day is of great and substantial 
 utility. Six years after the society was formed, 5,451 
 
228 MARINE SOCIETY; FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. CHAP. VII 
 
 boys and 4,787 landsmen volunteers had been fitted oul 
 by the society and added to the navy, and to this day it 
 is in active operation, about 600 poor boys, after a care- 
 ful education, being annually apprenticed as sailors, prin 
 cipally in the merchant service. 
 
 Mr. Hanway devoted the other portions of his sparfe , 
 time to improving or establishing important public insti- 
 tutions in the metropolis. From an early period he took 
 an active interest in the Foundling Hospital, which had 
 been started by one Thomas Coram many years before. 
 A charter had been obtained in 1739, and an hospital 
 was erected for the reception of foundlings in 1742-9. 
 The institution was supported with munificent zeal ; not 
 less than 10,0001. was collected at the musical perform- 
 ances under Handel, who also presented an organ to the 
 chapel, and the score of his "Messiah" to the guardians. 
 Parliament granted 10,000, and the funds at the dis- 
 posal of the institution were so abundant that the guar- 
 dians opened their doors to receive " all children net 
 exceeding two months old which should be offered. 5 ' 
 The consequence was, that an immense number of chil- 
 dren were sent in, whose parents were themselves suffi- 
 ciently able to maintain and educate them. Though 
 the foundling sentiment was the fashion, like many 
 other sentiments without sense, it threatened soon to do 
 far more harm than good ; and it began to be feared 
 that the humanity might even prove inhuman. Mr. 
 Hanway was one of the first to point out this ; he saw 
 that by holding out to selfish parents the prospect of 
 getting their children provided for and taken care of by 
 the hospital, the tendency was to promote licentiousness^ 
 as well as to sever the natural tie which binds togethev 
 the family ; and he accordingly paid 501. to qualify him 
 
CHAP. VII. JONAS HANWAY. 229 
 
 self as a governor, in order that he might be in a better 
 position to take steps to stem the evil. He enteied upon 
 this work in the face of the fashionable philanthropy O A 
 the time ; holding to his purpose until he had brought 
 the charity back to its proper objects ; and time and ex- 
 perience have amply proved that he was in the right. 
 In 1771 Parliament withdrew its grants, and the hospi- 
 tal has since been left to the support of private charity, 
 which has proved amply sufficient, whilst every security 
 is taken that the objects of the institution are not abused. 
 The Magdalen Hospital was also established, in a great 
 measure through Mr. Hanway's exertions, in 1758 ; and 
 there is reason to believe that this institution has been 
 the means of restoring many poor women to virtuous 
 courses, who would otherwise have been lost. Mr. Han- 
 way was accustomed to invite to his house those who 
 had been recovered through its instrumentality, on which 
 occasions he endeavored to strengthen and uphold them 
 in their good resolutions, while he kindly watched over 
 their well-doing in life. 
 
 But Jonas Hanway's most laborious and persevering 
 efforts were in behalf of the infant parish poor. The 
 subsequent labors of Howard in behalf of prisoners were 
 not more honorable to him, than were those of Hanway 
 in behalf of the helpless and innocent offspring of the 
 unfortunate. The misery and neglect amidst which the 
 children of the parish poor then grew up, and the mor- 
 tality which prevailed amongst them, were positively 
 frightful ; but there was no fashionable movement on 
 foot to remedy the evil, as in the case of the foundlings. 
 So Jonas Hanway summoned his individual energies to 
 the task. Alone and unassisted, he first endeavored to 
 ascertain by personal inquiry the extent of the evil, 
 
230 THE INFANT PARISH POOR. CHAP. VIL 
 
 He explored the miserable and unhealthy dwellings of 
 the poorest classes in London, and visited the poor- 
 house sick wards, by which he carefully ascertained 
 the management in detail of every workhouse in and 
 near the metropolis. In order then to ascertain in what 
 manner the legislators of foreign countries had dealt 
 with a similar evil, he made a journey into France, 
 through Holland, visiting all the public houses for the 
 reception of the poor on his way, and noting whatever 
 he thought might be adopted at home with advantage. 
 He was thus employed for five years ; and on his re- 
 turn to England, at intervals, he published the result 
 of his observations ; but his accounts were so melan- 
 choly that they were generally disbelieved, and he 
 made many enemies in consequence of having ventured 
 to publish the names of every parish officer, of what- 
 ever rank in life, under whose hands any infants had 
 died of neglect. It appeared that in one workhouse, in 
 St. Clement Danes, one nurse had twenty-three poor 
 children committed to her care in the year 1765, 
 of whom eighteen had died, two were discharged, and 
 only three remained alive. Of seventy-four children 
 received into the workhouse of St. Andrew and St. 
 George, Holborn, sixty-four had died during the same 
 jrear. In some populous parishes, /lot a single child 
 was found alive at the end of twelve months; all had 
 died. Wherever his statements were disputed, he pub- 
 lished the names of the children, the date of each birth 
 and admission, the time the child had lived, and the 
 name of its nurse. He next made a journey through- 
 out England, to compare the mortality in country work- 
 houses with that of the metropolis ; and everywhere he 
 found the same excessive mortality, arising from over- 
 
CHAP. VII. JONAS HANWAY. 231 
 
 crowding, ill ventilation, and neglect. The publication 
 of such striking facts, and the known integrity of the 
 man, could not fail to produce an effect even upon the 
 most indifferent ; and many workhouses speedily be- 
 came reformed and improved. In 1761 he had ob- 
 tained an Act obliging every London parish to keep an 
 annual register of all the infants received, discharged, 
 and dead ; and he took care that the Act should work, 
 for he himself superintended its working with indefati- 
 gable watchfulness. He went about from workhouse to 
 workhouse in the morning, and from one member of 
 Parliament to another in the afternoon, for day after 
 day, and for year after year, enduring every rebuff, an- 
 swering every objection, and accommodating himself to 
 every humor. At length, after a perseverance hardly 
 to be equalled, and after nearly ten years' labor, he ob- 
 tained an Act, at his own sole expense, (7 Geo. III. 
 c. 39,) directing that all parish infants belonging to the 
 parishes within the bills of mortality shall not be nursed 
 in the workhouses, but be sent to nurse a certain number 
 of miles out of town, until they are six years old, under 
 the care of guardians, to be elected triennially. The 
 poor people called this " the Act for keeping children 
 alive ; " and the registers for the years which followed 
 its passing, as compared with those which preceded it, 
 showed that thousands of lives had been preserved 
 through the judicious interference of this good and sen- 
 Bible man. 
 
 Wherever a philanthropic work was to be done in 
 London, be sure that Jonas Hanway's hand was in it 
 One of the first Acts for the protection of chimney- 
 sweepers' boys was obtained through his influence.* A 
 
 * While exerting himself cm behalf of the little sweeps, one day 
 
232 HANWAY'S KEWAED. CHAP. VII. 
 
 destructive fire at Montreal, and another at Bridgetown, 
 Barbadoes, afforded him the opportunity for raising a 
 timely subscription for the relief of the sufferers. His 
 name appeared in every list, and his disinterestedness and 
 sincerity were universally recognized. Bat he was not 
 suffered to waste his little fortune entirely in the ser- 
 vice of others. Five leading citizens of London, head- 
 ed by Mr. Hoare, the banker, without Mr. Hanway's 
 knowledge, waited on Lord Bute, then minister, in a 
 body ; and in the names of their fellow-citizens, request- 
 ed that some notice might be taken of this good man's 
 disinterested services to his country. The result was, 
 his appointment shortly after, as one of the commis- 
 sioners for victualling the navy. 
 
 One of the minor social evils against which Mr. Han- 
 way lifted up his voice, was the custom of what was 
 called vails-giving, or the gratuities then paid by visit- 
 ors at the houses which they frequented, and which the 
 servants had come to regard as a right. Mr. Han way was 
 on one occasion thus paying the servants of a respectable 
 friend with whom he had dined, one by one as they ap- 
 peared : " Sir, your great coat," a shilling : " Your hat," 
 
 he said to a little fellow who had been sweeping a chimney in his 
 own house, " Suppose now I give you a shilling? " " God Almighty 
 bless your honor, and thank you." " And what if I give you a fine 
 tie-wig to wear on May-day, which is just at hand?" " Ah, bless 
 your honor! my master won't let me go out on May- day." "No! 
 why not?" "He says iVs low life." Mr. Hanway was a religious 
 man, and on one occasion, when hiring a coachman, and telling him 
 the duty he required, he concluded, " You will attend with the rest 
 of the family every evening at prayers." " Prayers, sir! " " Why, 
 did you never say your prayers?" asked Mr. Hanway. "I have 
 never been in a praying family," answered the man. " But have 
 you any objection to say your prayers? " " No, sir, I've no objec- 
 tion; I hope you'll consider it in my wages." 
 
CHAP. VII. JONAS HAN WAY. 233 
 
 shitting : " Stick," shilling : " Umbrella," shilling . 
 w Sir, your gloves." " Why, friend," said he ? " you may 
 keep the gloves, they are not worth a shilling." This 
 absurd practice was eventually put down by satire, and 
 the death-blow was given to it by Dodsley's " High Life 
 below Stairs." 
 
 Towards the close of his life Mr. Hanway's health be- 
 came very feeble, and although he found it necessary to 
 resign his office at the Victualling Board, he could not be 
 idle ; but worked away at the establishment of Sunday 
 Schools, a movement then in its infancy, or in re- 
 lieving poor blacks, many of whom then wandered desti- 
 tute about the streets of the metropolis, or in alleviat- 
 ing the sufferings of some neglected and destitute class 
 of society. Notwithstanding his familiarity with misery 
 in all its shapes, he was one of the most cheerful of be- 
 ings ; and, but for his cheerfulness he could never, with 
 so delicate a frame, have got through so vast an amount 
 of self-imposed work. He dreaded nothing so much as 
 inactivity. Though fragile, he was bold and indefatigable ; 
 and his moral courage was of the first order. It may 
 be regarded as a trivial matter to mention, that he was 
 the first who ventured to walk the streets of London with 
 an umbrella over his head. But let any modern London 
 merchant venture to walk along Cornhill in a peaked 
 Chinese hat, and he will find it takes some degree of 
 moral courage to persevere in it. After carrying an um 
 brella for thirty years, Mr. Hanway saw the article at 
 length come into general use. 
 
 Hanway was a man of strict honor, truthfulness, and 
 integrity ; and everything he said might be relied upon. 
 He had so great a respect, amounting almost to a rever 
 ence, for the character of the honest merchant, that it 
 
234 HANWAY'S CHARACTER. CHAP. VII, 
 
 was the zmly subject upon" which he was ever seduced 
 into a enlogiiim. He strictly practised what he pro- 
 fessed, and both as a merchant and afterwards as a com- 
 missioner for victualling the navy, his conduct was with- 
 out stain. He would not accept the slightest favor of 
 any sort from a contractor ; and when any present was 
 sent to him whilst at the Victualling Office, he would 
 politely return it, with the intimation that " he had made 
 it a rule not to accept anything from any person engaged 
 with the office." When, at the age of seventy-four, he 
 found his vital powers failing, he prepared for death with 
 as much cheerfulness as he would have prepared himself 
 for a journey into the country. He sent round and paid 
 all his tradesmen, took leave of his friends, arranged his 
 affairs, had his person neatly disposed of, and his last 
 breath escaped him in the midst of a sentence which 
 began with the word " Christ." The property which he 
 left did not amount to two thousand pounds, and, as he 
 had no relatives who wanted it, he divided it amongst 
 sundry orphans and poor persons whom he had befriended 
 during his lifetime. Such, in brief, was the beautiful 
 life of Jonas Hanway, as honest, energetic, hard-work- 
 ing, and true-hearted a man as ever lived. 
 
 The life of Granville Sharp is another striking example 
 of the same power of individual energy, a power which 
 was afterwards transfused into the noble band of workers 
 in the cause of Slavery Abolition, prominent among whom 
 were Clarkson, Wilberforce, Buxton, and Brougham. But, 
 giants though these men were in this cause, Granville 
 Sharp was the first, and perhaps the greatest of them all, 
 in point of perseverance, energy, and intrepidity. He 
 began life as apprentice to a linen-draper on Tower Hill ; 
 but, leaving that business after his apprenticeship was 
 
CHAP. VII. GRANVILLE SHARP. 235 
 
 out, he next entered as a clerk in the Ordnance Office 
 and it was while engaged in that humble position that he 
 carried on in his spare hours the work of Negro Emanci- 
 pation. He was always, even when an apprentice, ready 
 to undertake any amount of volunteer labor where any 
 useful purpose was to be served. Thus, while learn- 
 ing the linen-drapery business, a fellow-apprentice, who 
 lodged in the same house, and was a Unitarian, led him 
 into frequent discussions on religious subjects ; in the 
 course of which the Unitarian youth insisted that Gran- 
 ville's Trinitarian misconception of certain passages of 
 Scripture arose from his want of acquaintance with the 
 Greek tongue ; on which he immediately set to work in 
 his evening hours, and shortly acquired an intimate knowl- 
 edge of Greek. A similar controversy with another fel- 
 low-apprentice, a Jew, as to the interpretation of the 
 prophecies, led him in like manner to undertake and 
 overcome the difficulties of Hebrew. 
 
 But the circumstance which gave the bias and direc- 
 tion to the main labors of his life, originated in his gener- 
 osity and benevolence. It was in this wise. His brother 
 William, a surgeon in Mincing Lane, gave gratuitous 
 advice to the poor, and amongst the numerous applicants 
 for relief at his surgery was a poor African named Jon- 
 athan Strong. It appeared that the negro had been so 
 brutally treated by his master, a Barbadoes lawyer then 
 in London, that he had been thereby rendered lame and 
 almost blind, and was altogether unable to work ; and his 
 owner, regarding him as no longer of the slightest value 
 as a chattel, but likely only to involve him in expense, 
 cruelly turned him adrift into the streets of London. This 
 poor man, a mass of disease, supported himself by beg- 
 ging for a time, until he found his way to William Step, 
 
236 THE SLAVE. CHAP. VII, 
 
 who gave him some medicine, and shortly after got him 
 admitted to St. Bartholomew's hospital, where he was 
 cured. On coming out of the hospital, the two brothers 
 supported the negro in order to keep him off the streets, 
 but they had not the least suspicion at the time that any 
 one had a claim upon his person. They even succeeded 
 in obtaining a situation for Strong with an apothecary, in 
 whose service he remained for two years; and it was 
 while he was attending his mistress behind a hackney- 
 coach, that his former owner, the Barbadoes lawyer, 
 recognized him, and determined to recover possession of 
 the slave, again rendered valuable by the restoration of 
 his health. The lawyer employed two of the Lord 
 Mayor's officers to apprehend Strong, and he was lodged 
 in the Compter, until he could be shipped off to the West 
 Indies. The negro, bethinking him in his captivity of 
 the kind services which Granville Sharp had rendered 
 him in his great distress some years before, dispatched a 
 letter to him requesting his help. Sharp had forgotten 
 the name of Strong, but he sent a messenger to make 
 inquiries, who returned saying that the keepers denied 
 having any such person in their charge. His suspicions 
 were roused, and he went forthwith to the prison, and 
 insisted upon seeing Jonathan Strong. He was admitted, 
 and recognized the poor negro, now in custody as a recap- 
 tured slave. Mr. Sharp charged the master of the 
 prison at his own peril not to deliver up Strong to any 
 person whatever, until he had been carried before the 
 Lord Mayor, to whom Sharp immediately went, and ob- 
 tained a summons against those persons who had seized 
 and imprisoned Strong without a warrant. The parties 
 appeared before the Lord Mayor accordingly, and it ap- 
 peared from the proceedings that Strong's former master 
 
CHAP. VII. SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. 237 
 
 had already sold him to a new one, who produced the 
 bill of sale and claimed the negro as his property. As 
 no charge of offence was made against Strong, and as 
 the Lord Mayor was incompetent to deal with the legal 
 question as to Strong's liberty or otherwise, he discharged 
 him, and the slave followed his benefactor out of court, 
 no one daring to touch him. The man's owner imme- 
 diately gave Sharp notice of an action to recover posses- 
 sion of his negro slave, of whom he had been robbed ; 
 and now commenced that protracted and energetic move- 
 ment in favor of the enslaved negro, which forms one of 
 the brightest pages in English history. 
 
 About this time (1767), the personal liberty of the 
 Englishman, though cherished as a theory, was subject 
 to grievous infringements, and was almost daily violated. 
 The impressment of men for the sea-service was con- 
 stantly practised, and, besides the pressgangs, there were 
 regular bands of kidnappers employed in London and all 
 the large towns of the kingdom, to seize men for the 
 East India Company's service. And when the men 
 were not wanted for India, they were shipped off to the 
 planters in the American colonies. Negro slaves were 
 openly advertised for sale in the London and Liverpool 
 newspapers. For instance, the Gazetteer, of April 18th, 
 1769, classed together for sale, "at the Bull and Gate 
 Inn, Holborn, a chestnut gelding, a tim-whiskey, and 
 a well-made, good-tempered black boy." Rewards were 
 then offered, as now in the Slave States of America, for 
 recovering and securing fugitive slaves, and for convey- 
 ing them down to certain specified ships in the river. 
 That no shame was felt at the open recognition of slav- 
 ery, is apparent from an advertisement in the Daily Ad- 
 vertiser, of the 16th May, 1768, offering a reward to 
 
238 SLAVERY IN ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 
 
 whoe\ er would apprehend a negro boy and bring him, 
 or send tidings of him to Mr. Alderman Beckford, in 
 Pall Mall. The Public Advertiser, of the 28th No- 
 vember, 1769, contains this advertisement: "To BE 
 
 SOLD, a black girl, the property of J. B , eleven 
 
 years of age, who is tolerably handy, works at her nee- 
 dle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of 
 an excellent temper, and willing disposition. Inquire 
 of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's 
 Church, in the Strand." Such was the state of matters 
 when Granville Sharp threw himself, body and soul, into 
 his great work. Though only a clerk in a public office, 
 without any personal influence whatever, and armed only 
 with integrity and boldness in a good cause, he was en- 
 abled in the issue effectually to vindicate the personal 
 liberty of the subject, and to establish as a fact what up 
 to that time had been but a theory, that the slave who 
 sets his foot on British ground becomes at that instant 
 free! 
 
 As yet the position of the reputed slave in England 
 was undefined and doubtful. The judgments which had 
 been given in the courts of law were fluctuating and vari- 
 ous, resting on no settled principle. Although it was a 
 popular belief that no slave could breathe in England, 
 there were legal men of great eminence who had ex- 
 pressed a directly contrary opinion. Thus, Mr. Yorke, 
 Attorney- General, and Mr. Talbot, Solicitor- General of 
 England in 1729, concurred in the decided opinion that 
 the slave by coming into England did not become free ; 
 that his owner's property in him was in no respect de- 
 termined or varied; and that his master might legally 
 compel the slave to return again to the plantations. The 
 lawyers to whom Mr. Sharp resorted for advice, in de- 
 
CHAP. VII. GBANVILLE SHARP. 239 
 
 fending himself in the action raised against him in the 
 case of Jonathan Strong, generally concurred in this 
 view, and he was further told by Jonathan Strong's 
 owner, that the eminent Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, 
 and all the leading counsel, were decidedly of the saim 
 opinion. Such information would have caused despaii 
 in a mind less courageous and earnest than that of Gran- 
 ville Sharp; but it only served to stimulate his reso- 
 lution to depend mainly upon his own efforts in the 
 arduous battle which now lay before him. " Thus for- 
 saken," he said, "by my professional defenders, I was 
 compelled, through the want of regular legal assistance, 
 to make a hopeless attempt at self-defence, though I was 
 totally unacquainted either with the practice of the law 
 or the foundations of it, having never opened a law-book 
 (except the Bible) in my life, until that time, when I 
 most reluctantly undertook to search the indexes of a law 
 library, which my bookseller had lately purchased." 
 
 The whole of his time during the day was occupied 
 with the business of the ordnance department, where he 
 held the most laborious post in the office ; he was there- 
 fore under the necessity of conducting his new studies 
 late at night or early in the morning. He confessed 
 that he was himself becoming a sort of slave. Writing 
 to a clerical friend, to excuse himself for delay in re- 
 plying to a letter, he said, "I profess myself entirely 
 incapable of holding a literary correspondence. What 
 little time I have been able to save from sleep at night, 
 and early in the morning, has been necessarily employed 
 in the examination of some points of law, which admitted 
 of no delay, and yet required the most diligent researches 
 and examination in my study. And I have not scrupled 
 to employ now and then, even the leisure of a Sunday 
 
240 SHARP'S STUDY OF THE LAW. CHAP. VII, 
 
 in this manner, because my labor has not been for profit, 
 but merely with a view to do good, and prevent injustice, 
 by pointing out some notorious corruptions in the beaten 
 paths of the law, which has enabled me to serve a few 
 individuals, I hope with good effect." 
 
 In pursuance of his resolution, now fully formed, he 
 gave up every leisure moment that he could command 
 during the next two years, to the close study of the laws 
 of England affecting personal liberty, wading through 
 an immense mass of dry and repulsive literature, worse 
 than Dryasdust, and making extracts of all the most 
 important Acts of Parliament, decisions of the courts, 
 and opinions of eminent lawyers, as he went along. In 
 this tedious and protracted inquiry he had no instructor, 
 nor assistant, nor adviser. He could not find a single 
 lawyer whose opinion was favorable to his undertaking. 
 The results of his inquiries were, however, as gratifying 
 to himself as they were surprising to the gentlemen of 
 the law. " God be thanked/' he wrote, " there is nothing 
 in any English law or statute at least that I am able 
 to find out that can justify the enslaving of others." 
 He thought he now saw a clear solution of the diffi- 
 culties which had embarrassed the former trials of ne- 
 gro cases. He had bottomed the whole inquiry, and 
 found that a slave really could not breathe in England. 
 He had planted his foot firm, and now he doubted noth- 
 ing. He drew up the result of his studies in a summary 
 form : it was a plain, clear, and manly statement, entitled, 
 " On the Injustice of tolerating Slavery in England ; " 
 and numerous copies, made by himself, were circulated 
 by him amongst the most eminent lawyers of the time. 
 Strong's owner, finding the sort of man he had to deal 
 with, invented various pretexts for deferring the suit 
 
CHAP. VII. GRANVILLE SHARP. 241 
 
 against Sharp, and at length offered a compromise, which 
 was rejected. Granville went on circulating his manu- 
 script tracts among the lawyers, until at length those 
 employed against Jonathan Strong were deterred from 
 proceeding further, and the result was, that the plaintiff 
 was compelled to pay treble costs for not bringing for- 
 ward his action. The tract was then printed in 1769. 
 
 The vindication of the emancipated Jonathan Strong 
 naturally led Mr. Sharp on to the study of the general 
 subject of the Slave-Trade, and he addressed a letter to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury imploring his Grace's pow- 
 erful assistance, which does not seem, however, to have 
 been then responded to. In the mean time other cases oc- 
 curred of the kidnapping of negroes in London, and their 
 shipment to the West Indies for sale. Wherever Sharp 
 could lay hold of any such case, he at once took proceed- 
 ings to rescue the negro. Thus the wife of one Hylas, 
 an African, was seized, and dispatched to Barbadoes ; on 
 which Sharp, in the name of Hylas, instituted legal pro- 
 ceedings against the aggressor, obtained a verdict with 
 damages, and Hylas's wife was brought back to England 
 free. Sharp's mind became fully awakened to the mag- 
 nitude of the abuse against which he was contending as 
 yet single-handed, and he watched anxiously on every 
 side to prevent an accumulation of the evil. 
 
 Another forcible capture of a negro, attended with 
 great cruelty, having occurred in 1770, he immediately 
 set himself on the track of the aggressors. An African, 
 named Lewis, was seized one dark night by two water- 
 men employed by the person who claimed the negro as 
 his property, dragged into the water, hoisted into a boat, 
 where he was gagged, and his limbs were tied ; and then 
 rowing down river, they put him on board a ship bound 
 11 
 
242 THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. CHAP. VII. 
 
 for Jamaica, where he was to be sold for a slave upon 
 his arrival in the island. The cries of the poor negro 
 had, however, attracted the attention of some neighbors, 
 the house adjoining that from which the man had been 
 torn being then occupied by Mrs. Banks, the mother of 
 the afterwards celebrated Sir Joseph Banks, and ox 
 the next morning, the good lady proceeded direct to Mr. 
 Granville Sharp, now known as the negroes' friend, and 
 informed him of the outrage. Sharp immediately got a 
 warrant to bring back Thomas Lewis, and proceeded to 
 Gravesend, but on arrival there the ship had sailed for 
 the Downs. A writ of habeas corpus was obtained, 
 sent down to Spithead, and before the ship could leave 
 the shores of England, the writ was served. The slave 
 was found chained to the mainmast bathed in tears, 
 casting mournful looks on the land from which he was 
 about to be torn ; he was immediately liberated, brought 
 back to London, and a warrant was issued against the 
 author of the outrage. The promptitude of head, heart, 
 and hand, displayed by Mr. Sharp in this transaction, 
 could scarcely have been surpassed, and yet he accused 
 himself of slowness. The case was tried before Lord 
 Mansfield, whose opinion, it will be remembered, had 
 already been expressed as decidedly opposed to that 
 entertained by Granville Sharp. On this occasion, Mr. 
 Dunning, one of the counsel employed on behalf of the 
 negro, holding up Mr. Sharp's tract in his hand, declared 
 before the court, that he was prepared to maintain " that 
 DO man can be legally detained as a slave in this coun- 
 try." Lord Mansfield, however, avoided bringing tho 
 question to an issue, or offering any opinion on the legal 
 question as to the slave's personal liberty or otherwise, 
 but discharged the negro because the defendant could 
 
CHAP. VII. GRANVILLE SHARP. 243 
 
 bring no evidence that Lewis was even nominally his 
 property. 
 
 The question of the personal liberty of the negro in 
 England was therefore still undecided ; but in the mean 
 time Mr. Sharp continued steady in his benevolent course, 
 and by his indefatigable exertions and promptitude of 
 action, many more were added to the list of the rescued. 
 At length the important case of James Somerset occurred ; 
 a case which is said to have been selected, at the mutual 
 desire of Lord Mansfield and Mr. Sharp, in order to 
 bring the great question involved to a clear legal issue. 
 Somerset had been brought to England by his master, 
 and left there. Afterwards his master sought to appre- 
 hend him and send him off to Jamaica, for sale. Mr. 
 Sharp, as usual, at once took the negro's case in hand, 
 and employed counsel to defend him. Lord Mansfield 
 intimated that the case was of such general concern, that 
 he should take the opinion of all the judges upon it. 
 Mr. Sharp now felt that he would have to contend with 
 all the force that could be brought against him, but his 
 resolution was in no wise shaken. Fortunately for him, 
 in this severe struggle, his exertions had already begun 
 to tell ; increasing interest was taken in the question, and 
 many eminent legal gentlemen openly declared them- 
 selves to be upon his side. 
 
 The cause of personal liberty, now at stake, was fairly 
 tried before Lord Mansfield, assisted by the three jus- 
 tices, and tried on the broad principle of the essential 
 and constitutional right of every man in England to the 
 liberty of his person, unless forfeited by the law. It is 
 unnecessary here to enter into any account of this great 
 trial; the arguments extended to a great length, the 
 cause being carried over to another term, when it was 
 
244 THE CASE OF JAMES SOMERSET. CHAP. VII. 
 
 adjourned and readjourned, but at length judgment 
 was given by Lord Mansfield, in whose powerful mind 
 so gradual a change had been worked by the arguments 
 of counsel, based mainly on Granville Sharp's tract, that 
 he now declared the court to be so clearly of one opinion, 
 that there was no necessity for referring the case to the 
 twelve judges. He then declared that the claim of sla- 
 very never can be supported ; that the power claimed 
 never was in use in England, nor acknowledged by the 
 law ; therefore the man James Somerset must be dis- 
 charged. By securing this judgment Granville Sharp 
 effectually abolished the Slave-Trade, until then carried 
 on openly in the streets of Liverpool and London. But 
 he also firmly established the glorious axiom, that as soon 
 as any slave sets his foot on English ground, that moment 
 he becomes free ; and there can be no doubt that this 
 great decision of Lord Mansfield was mainly owing to 
 Mr. Sharp's firm, resolute, and intrepid prosecution of 
 the cause from the beginning to the end. 
 
 It is unnecessary further to follow the career of Gran- 
 ville Sharp. He continued to labor indefatigably in all 
 good works ; he was instrumental in founding the colony 
 of Sierra Leone as an asylum for rescued negroes ; he 
 labored to ameliorate the condition of the native Indians 
 in the American colonies. Inspired by his love of the 
 English character and constitution, he agitated the en- 
 largement and extension of the political rights of the 
 English people ; and he endeavored to effect the abolition 
 of the impressment of seamen. In this latter enterprise 
 he encountered the vehement opposition of the great 
 literary elephant of the day, Dr. Johnson, who trampled 
 under foot the arguments of the humble clerk of the 
 Ordnance, whilst strongly upholding the right and the 
 
CHAP. VII. GRANVILLE SHARP. 245 
 
 propriety of impressment. Though Sharp could not 
 readily answer to the doctor's big bow-wow, he felt that 
 justice and truth were on his side. "Important self- 
 sufficiency, and the sound of big words," said Sharp, 
 " cannot alter the nature of things. I am far from being 
 ready at giving an immediate answer to subtle argu- 
 ments, so that I may seem easily baffled ; indeed, even 
 when I am by no means convinced that they have the 
 least weight." But Granville held that the British sea- 
 man, as well as the African negro, was entitled to the 
 protection of the law ; and that the fact of his choosing 
 a seafaring life did not in any way cancel his rights and 
 privileges as an Englishman, first amongst which he 
 ranked personal freedom. Mr. Sharp also labored, but 
 ineffectually, to restore amity between England and her 
 colonists in America ; and when the fratricidal war of 
 the American Revolution was entered on, his sense of 
 integrity was so scrupulous that, resolving not in any 
 way to be concerned in so unnatural a business, he re- 
 signed his situation at the Ordnance Office. Writing to 
 Mr. Boddington, the secretary of the department, he said, 
 " I cannot return to my ordnance duty whilst a bloody 
 war is carried on, unjustly, as I conceive, against my fel- 
 low-subjects ; and yet, to resign my place would be to 
 give up a calling which, by my close attendance to it for 
 near eighteen years, and by my neglect of every other 
 means of subsistence during so long a period, is now 
 become my only profession and livelihood." Neverthe- 
 less, he did so. Many characterized this conduct as 
 Quixotic ; but in him it was the result of strong virtuous 
 principle. 
 
 Among Sharp's subsequent labors were the establish- 
 ment of the Episcopal Church in America, the founding 
 
246 SUBSEQUENT LABORS. CHAP. VIL 
 
 of the Bible Society,* the Protestant Union, and others, 
 with a similar object ; but to the last he held to the great 
 object of his life, the abolition of slavery. To carry 
 on this work, and organize the efforts of the growing 
 friends of this cause, the Society for the Abolition of 
 Slavery was founded, and new men, inspired by Sharp's 
 example and zeal, sprang forward to help him. His 
 energy became theirs, and the self-sacrificing zeal in 
 which he had so long labored single-handed, became 
 at length transfused into the nation itself. His man- 
 tle fell upon Clarkson, upon Wilberforce, upon Brough- 
 am, and upon Buxton, who labored as he had done, 
 with like energy and steadfastness of purpose, until at 
 length slavery was abolished throughout the British 
 dominions. But though the names last mentioned may 
 be more frequently identified with the triumph of this 
 great cause, the chief merit unquestionably belongs to 
 Granville Sharp. He was encouraged by none of the 
 world's huzzas when he entered upon his work. He 
 stood alone, opposed to the opinion of the ablest lawyers, 
 and the most rooted prejudices of the times ; and alone 
 he fought out, by his single exertions, and at his in- 
 dividual expense, the most memorable battle for the con- 
 stitution of this country and the liberties of British sub- 
 jects, of which modern times afford a record. What 
 
 * A clergyman once wrote to him, at the early part of his life, 
 while clerk in the Ordnance Office, urging him to enter the Church, 
 and offering to resign in his favor a living worth 300/. a year. The 
 generous offer was declined with thanks, Mr. Sharp explaining that 
 he had not the least inclination for the employment of a minister; 
 and even if he could flatter himself that he was at all capable of 
 serving the cause of religion, he was of opinion that he could do so 
 much more effectually as a layman thaij as a clergyman, as his 
 motives then would be beyond question. 
 
CHAP. VII. THOMAS CLARKSON. 247 
 
 followed was mainly the consequence of his indefatigable 
 constancy. He lighted the torch which kindled other 
 minds, and it was handed on until the illumination be- 
 came complete. 
 
 Before the death of Granville Sharp, Clarkson had 
 already turned his attention to the question of Negro 
 Slavery. He had even selected it for the subject of 9 
 college Essay ; and his mind became so possessed by 
 it that he could not shake it off. The spot is pointed 
 out near Wade's Mill, in Hertfordshire, where, alighting 
 from his horse one day, he sat down disconsolate on the 
 turf by the roadside, and after long thinking, determined 
 to devote himself wholly to the work. He translated his 
 Essay from Latin into English, added fresh illustrations 
 and published it. Then fellow-laborers gathered round 
 him. The Society for Abolishing the Slave-Trade, un- 
 known to him, had already been formed, and when he 
 heard of it he joined it. He sacrificed all his fair pros- 
 pects in life to prosecute this cause. Wilberforce was 
 selected to lead in Parliament ; but upon Clarkson chiefly 
 devolved the labor of collecting and arranging the im- 
 mense mass of evidence offered in support of the aboli- 
 tion. A curious instance of Clarkson's sluth-hound sort 
 of perseverance may be mentioned. The abettors of 
 slavery, in the course of their defence of the system, 
 maintained that only such negroes as were captured in 
 battle were sold as slaves, and if not so sold, then they 
 were reserved for a still more frightful doom in their own 
 country. Clarkson knew of the slave-hunts conducted 
 by the slave-traders, but had no witnesses to prove it. 
 Where was one to be found ? Accidentally, a gentleman, 
 whom he met on one of his journeys, informed him of a 
 young sailor, in whose company he had been about a year 
 
248 CLARKSON'S IMMENSE LABOKS. CHAP. VII. 
 
 before, who had been actually engaged in one of such 
 slave-hunting expeditions. The gentleman did not know 
 his name, and could but indefinitely describe his person. 
 He did not know where he was, further than that he 
 belonged to a ship-of-war in ordinary, but at what port 
 he could not tell. With this mere glimmering of infor- 
 mation, Clarkson determined to produce this man as a 
 witness. He visited personally all the seaport towns 
 where ships in ordinary lay ; boarded and examined 
 every ship without success, until he came to the very 
 last port, and found the young man, his prize, in the very 
 last ship that remained to be visited. The young man 
 proved to be one of his most valuable and effective wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 For some years he conducted a correspondence with 
 upwards of four hundred persons, travelling more than 
 thirty-five thousand miles during the same time in search 
 of evidence. He was at length disabled and exhausted 
 by illness, brought on by his continuous exertions ; but 
 he was not borne from the field until his zeal had fully 
 awakened the public mind, and excited the ardent sympa- 
 thies of all good men on behalf of the slave. 
 
 After years of protracted struggle, the slave-trade was 
 abolished. But still another great achievement remained 
 to be accomplished, the abolition of slavery itself 
 throughout the British dominions. And here again de- 
 termined energy won the day. Of the leaders in the 
 cause, none was more distinguished than Fowell Buxton, 
 who took the position formerly occupied by Wilberforce 
 in the House of Commons. Buxton was a dull, heavy 
 boy, distinguished for his strong self-will, which first ex- 
 hibited itself in violent, domineering, and headstrong 
 obstinacy. His father died when he was a child; bu* 
 
CHAP. VII. FOWELL BUXTON, - FORCE OF WILL. 249 
 
 fortunately he had a wise mother who trained his will 
 with great care, constraining him to obey, but encour- 
 aging the habit of deciding and acting for himself in 
 matters which might safely be left to him. This mother 
 believed that a strong will, directed upon worthy objects, 
 was a valuable manly quality if properly guided, and she 
 acted accordingly. When others about her commented 
 on the boy's self-will, she would merely say, " Never 
 mind, he is self-willed now, you will see it will turn 
 out well in the end." Fowell learned very little at school, 
 and was somewhat of a dunce and an idler. He got 
 other boys to do his exercises for him, while he romped 
 and scrambled about. He returned home at fifteen, a 
 great, growing, awkward lad, fond only of boating, shoot- 
 ing, riding, and field-sports, spending his time princi- 
 pally with the gamekeeper, a man possessed of a good 
 heart, and an intelligent observer of life and nature, 
 though he could neither read nor write. Buxton had 
 capital raw material in him, but he wanted culture, train- 
 ing, and development. At this juncture of his life, when 
 his habits were being formed for good or evil, he was 
 happily thrown into the society of the Gurney family, 
 distinguished for their fine social qualities, not less than, 
 for their intellectual culture and public-spirited philan- 
 thropy. This intercourse with the Gurneys, he used 
 afterwards to say, gave the coloring to his life. They en- 
 couraged his efforts at self-culture ; and when he went to 
 the University of Dublin, and gained high honors there, 
 the animating passion in his mind, he said, "was to carry 
 back to them the prizes which they prompted and ena- 
 bled me to win." He married one of the daughters 
 of the family, and started in life, commencing as a clerk 
 o his uncles Hanbury, the London brewers. His power 
 
250 FOWELL BUXTON AND THE GURNETS. CHAP. VII. 
 
 of will, which made him so difficult to deal with as a boy, 
 now formed the backbone of his character, and made him 
 most indefatigable and energetic in whatever he under- 
 took. He threw his whole strength and bulk right down 
 upon his work ; and the great giant, " Elephant Buxton," 
 they called him, for he stood some six feet four in height, 
 became one of the most vigorous and practical of men. 
 " I could brew," he said, " one hour, do mathematics 
 the next, and shoot the next, and each with my 
 whole soul." There was invincible energy and deter- 
 mination in whatever he did. Admitted a partner, he 
 became the active manager of the concern ; and the vast 
 business which he conducted felt his influence through 
 every fibre, and prospered far beyond its previous suc- 
 cess. Nor did he allow his mind to lie fallow, for he 
 gave his evenings diligently to self-culture, studying and 
 digesting Blackstone, Montesquieu, and solid commen- 
 taries on English law. His maxims in reading were, 
 " never to begin a book without finishing it ; " " never 
 to consider a book finished until it is mastered ; " and " to 
 study everything with the whole mind." 
 
 When only thirty-two, Buxton entered Parliament, and 
 at once assumed that position of influence there, of which 
 every honest, earnest, well-informed man is secure, who 
 enters that assembly of the first gentlemen in the world. 
 The principal question to which he devoted himself was 
 the complete emancipation of the slaves in British colo- 
 nies. He himself used to attribute the strong interest 
 which he early felt in this question to the influence of 
 Priscilla Gurney, one of the Earlham family, a woman 
 of a fine intellect and warm heart, abounding in illustrious 
 virtues. When on her death-bed, in 1821, she repeatedly 
 sent for Buxton, and urged him " to make the cause 
 
CHAP. VIL INVINCIBLE DETERMINATION. 251 
 
 of the slaves the great object of his life." Her last 
 act was to attempt to reiterate the solemn charge, and 
 she expired in the ineffectual effort. Buxton never for- 
 got her counsel ; he named one of his daughters after 
 her ; and on the day on which she was married frcm 
 his house, on the 1st of August, 1834, the day of 
 negro emancipation, after his Priscilla had been man* 
 umitted from her filial service, and left her father's home 
 in the company of her husband, Buxton sat down and 
 thus wrote to a friend : " The bride is just gone ; every- 
 thing has passed off to admiration ; and there is not a 
 slave in the British colonies ! " 
 
 Buxton was no genius, not a great intellectual leader 
 nor discoverer, but mainly an earnest, straightforward, 
 resolute, energetic man. Indeed, his whole character is 
 most forcibly expressed in his own words, which every 
 young man might well stamp upon his soul : " The longer 
 I live," said he, "the more I am certain that the great 
 difference between men, between the feeble and the 
 powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, in- 
 vincible determination, a purpose once fixed, and then 
 death or victory ! That quality will do anything that 
 can be done in this world; and no talents, no circum- 
 stances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creatiie 
 a man without it." 
 
252 A NARROW-MINDED DEFINITION. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BUSINESS QUALITIES. 
 
 " Seest thou a man diligent in his business ? he shall stand before 
 - Proverbs of Solomon. 
 
 " That man is but of the lower part of the world that is not brought up to 
 business and affairs." Owen Feltham. 
 
 HAZLITT, in one of his clever essays,* represents the 
 man of business as a mean sort of person put in a go-cart, 
 yoked to a trade or profession ; alleging that all he has 
 to do is, not to go out of the beaten track, but merely to 
 let his affairs take their own course. " The great requi- 
 site," he says, " for the prosperous management of ordi- 
 nary business is the want of imagination, or of any ideas 
 but those of custom and interest on the narrowest scale." 
 But nothing could be more one-sided, and in effect un- 
 true, than such a definition. Of course, there are narrow- 
 minded men of business, as there are narrow-minded 
 scientific men, literary men, and legislators ; but there are 
 also business men of large and comprehensive minds, 
 capable of action on the very largest scale. As Burke 
 said in his speech on the India Bill, he knew statesmen 
 who were peddlers, and merchants who acted in the spirit 
 of statesmen. 
 
 If we take into account the qualities necessary for the 
 successful conduct of any important undertaking, that 
 it requires special aptitude, promptitude of action on 
 * " On Thoufiht and Action." 
 
CHAP. VIII. MEN OF GENIUS MEN OF BUSINESS. 253 
 
 emergencies, capacity for organizing the labors often of 
 large numbers of men, great tact and knowledge of 
 human nature, constant self-culture, and growing experi- 
 ence in the practical affairs of life, it must, we think, 
 be obvious that the school of business is by no means so 
 narrow as some writers would have us believe. Mr. 
 Helps has gone much nearer the truth when he said that 
 consummate men of business are as rare almost as great 
 poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs. 
 Indeed, of no other pursuit can it so emphatically be said, 
 as of this, that " Business makes Men." 
 
 But it has also been a favorite fallacy with dunces in 
 all times, that men of genius are unfitted for business 
 pursuits. Yet Shakspeare was a successful manager of 
 a theatre, perhaps priding himself more upon his prac- 
 tical qualities in that capacity than on his writing of 
 plays and poetry. Pope was of opinion that Shakspeare's 
 principal object in cultivating literature was to secure an 
 honest independence. Indeed he seems to have been 
 altogether indifferent to literary reputation. It is not 
 known that he superintended the publication of a single 
 play, or even sanctioned the printing of one ; and the 
 chronology of his writings is still a mystery. It is cer- 
 tain, however, that he prospered in his business, and 
 realized sufficient to enable him to retire upon a com- 
 petency to his native town of Stratford-upon-Avon. 
 
 Chaucer was in early life a soldier, and afterwards an 
 effective Commissioner of Customs, and Inspector of 
 Woods and Crown Lands. Spenser was Secretary to 
 the Lord Deputy of Ireland, and is said to have been 
 very shrewd and attentive in matters of business. Milton, 
 originally a schoolmaster, was afterwards elevated to tho 
 post of Secretary to the Council of State during the Com- 
 
254 MEN OF GENIUS MEN OF BUSINESS. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 monwealth ; and the extant Order-book of the Council, 
 as well as many of Milton's letters which are preserved, 
 give abundant evidence of his activity and usefulness in 
 that office. Sir Isaac Newton proved himself a most 
 efficient Master of the Mint ; the new coinage of 1694 
 having been carried on under his immediate personal su- 
 perintendence. Cowper prided himself upon his business 
 punctuality, though he confessed that he " never knew a 
 poet except himself, who was punctual in anything." But 
 against this we may set the lives of Wordsworth and 
 Scott, the former a distributor of stamps, the latter a 
 clerk to the Court of Session, both of whom, though 
 great poets, were eminently punctual and practical men 
 of business. David Ricardo, amidst the occupations of 
 his daily business as a London stock-jobber, in conduct- 
 ing which he acquired an ample fortune, was able to 
 concentrate his mind upon his favorite subject, on 
 which he was enabled to throw great light, the prin- 
 ciples of political economy ; for he united in himself the 
 sagacious commercial man and the profound philosopher. 
 We have abundant illustrations, even in our own day, 
 of the fact that the highest intellectual power is not 
 incompatible with the active and efficient performance 
 of routine duties. Grote, the great historian of Greece, 
 is a London banker. And it is not long since John 
 Stuart Mill, one of our greatest living thinkers, retired 
 from the Examiner's department of the East India 
 Company, carrying with him the admiration and esteem 
 of his fellow-officers, not on account of his high views of 
 philosophy, but because of the high standard of effi- 
 ciency which he had established in his office, and thjs 
 thoroughly satisfactory manner in which he had con- 
 ducted the business of his department. 
 
CHAP. VIII. INDUSTRY THE PKICE OF SUCCESS. 255 
 
 The path of success in business is invariably the path 
 of common sense. Notwithstanding all that is said about 
 " lucky hits," the best kind of success in every man's life 
 is not that which comes by accident. The only " good 
 time coming " we are justified in hoping for, is that which 
 we are capable of making for ourselves. The fable of 
 the labors of Hercules is indeed the type of all human 
 doing and success. Every youth should early be made 
 to feel that if he would get through the world usefully 
 and happily, he must rely mainly upon himself and his 
 own independent energies. The late Lord Melbourne 
 embodied a piece of useful advice in a letter which he 
 wrote to Lord John Russell, in reply to an application 
 for a provision for one of Moore the poet's sons : " My 
 dear John," he said. " I return you Moore's letter. I 
 shall be ready to do what you like about it when we have 
 the means. I think whatever is done should be done for 
 Moore himself. This is more distinct, direct, and intel- 
 ligible. Making a small provision for young men is 
 hardly justifiable ; and it is of all things the most preju- 
 dicial to themselves. They think what they have much 
 larger than it really is ; and they make no exertion. 
 The young should never hear any language but this: 
 ' You have your own way to make, and it depends upon 
 your own exertions whether you starve or not.' Believe 
 me, &c., MELBOURNE." 
 
 It is not good for human nature to have the road of 
 life made too easy. Better to be under the necessity of 
 working hard and faring meanly, than to have everything 
 done ready to our hand, and a pillow of down to repose 
 fcipon. Indeed, to start in life with comparatively small 
 means seems so necessary as a stimulus to work, that it 
 may almost be set down as one of the conditions essential 
 
256 NECESSITY FOE LABOR A BLESSING. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 to success in life. Hence, an eminent judge, when asked 
 what contributed most to success at the bar, replied, 
 " Some succeed by great talent, some by high connections, 
 some by miracle, but the majority by commencing with- 
 out a shilling." So is it a common saying at Manchester, 
 that the men who are the most successful in business 
 there are those who begin the world in their shirt-sleeves ; 
 whereas those who begin with fortunes generally lose 
 them. 
 
 We have heard of an architect of considerable accom- 
 plishments, a man who had improved himself by long 
 study, and travel in the classical lands of the East, 
 who came home to commence the practice of his profes- 
 sion. He determined to begin anywhere, provided he 
 could be employed ; and he accordingly undertook a 
 business connected with dilapidations, one of the low- 
 est and least remunerative departments of the architect's 
 calling. But he had the good sense not to be above his 
 trade, and he had the resolution to work his way upward, 
 so that he only got a fair start. One hot day in July a 
 friend found him sitting astride of a house roof occupied 
 with his dilapidation business. Drawing his hand across 
 his perspiring countenance, he exclaimed, " Here's a 
 pretty business for a man who has been all over 
 Greece ! " However, he did his work, such as it was, 
 thoroughly and well ; he persevered until he advanced 
 by degrees to more remunerative branches of employ- 
 ment, and eventually he rose to the highest walks of his 
 profession. 
 
 Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry ; 
 and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance, 
 and energy, will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the 
 necessity of labor is not a chastisement, but a blessing, 
 
CHAP. VIII. DEFINITION Oi MISFORTUNE. 257 
 
 the very root and spring of all that we call progress in 
 individuals, and civilization in nations. It may, indeed, 
 be questioned whether a heavier curse could be imposed 
 on man than the complete gratification of all his wishes 
 without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes, 
 desires, or struggles. The feeling that life is destitute of 
 any motive or necessity for action, must be of all others 
 the most distressing and the most insupportable to a ra- 
 tional being. The Marquis de Spinola asking Sir Hor- 
 ace Vere what his brother died of, Sir Horace replied, 
 " He died, sir, of having nothing to do." " Alas ! " said 
 Spinola, " that is enough to kill any general of us all." 
 
 Those who fail in life are very apt to assume the tone 
 of injured innocence, and conclude too hastily that every- 
 body excepting themselves has had a hand in their per- 
 sonal misfortunes. A literary man lately published a 
 book, in which he described his numerous failures in 
 business, naively admitting, at the same time, that he was 
 ignorant of the multiplication table, probably because he 
 would not take the trouble to learn it. But, instead of 
 attributing his failures to himself, this eminent man sat 
 down deliberately to cast all the blame upon the money- 
 worshipping spirit of the age. Lamartine also did not 
 hesitate to profess his profound contempt for arithmetic 
 but, had it been less, probably we should not have wit- 
 nessed the unseemly spectacle of the admirers of that 
 distinguished personage engaged in collecting subscrip- 
 tions for his support in his old age, 
 
 There is a Russian proverb which says that Misfortune 
 is next door to Stupidity ; and it will generally be found 
 that men who are constantly lamenting their ill-luck, are 
 only reaping the consequences of their own neglect, mis- 
 management, improvidence, or want of application. Dr 
 
258 DEFINITION OF BUSINESS. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 Johnson, who came up to London with a single guinea in 
 his pocket, and who once accurately described himself in 
 his signature to a letter addressed to a noble lord, as Im- 
 pransus, or Dinnerless, has honestly said, " All the com- 
 plaints which are made of the world are unjust ; I never 
 knew a man of merit neglected ; it was generally by his 
 own fault that he failed of success." 
 
 The dictionary definition of Business shows how large 
 a part of practical life arranges itself under this head. It 
 is " Employment ; an affair ; serious engagement ; some- 
 thing to be transacted ; something required to be done." 
 Every human being has duties to be performed, and, 
 therefore, has need of cultivating the capacity for doing 
 them ; whether the sphere of action be the management 
 of a household, the conduct of a trade or profession, or 
 the government of a nation. 
 
 Attention, application, accuracy, method, punctuality, 
 and dispatch, are the principal qualities required for the 
 efficient conduct of business of any sort. These, at first 
 sight, may appear to be small matters ; and yet they are 
 of essential importance to human happiness, well-being, 
 and usefulness. They are little things, it is true; but 
 human life is made up of comparative trifles. It is the 
 repetition of little acts which constitute not only the sum 
 of human character, but which determine the character 
 of nations. And where men or nations have broken 
 down, it will almost invariably be found that neglect of 
 little things was the rock on which they split. 
 
 It is related of a well-known Manchester manufacturer, 
 that, on retiring from business, he purchased a large estate 
 from a noble lord ; and it was part of the arrangement, 
 that he was to take the house, with all its furniture, pre- 
 cisely as it stood. On taking possession, however, he 
 
CHAP. VIII. ATTENTION TO SMALL MATTERS. 250 
 
 found that a cabinet, which was in the inventory, had 
 been removed ; and on applying to the former owner 
 about it, the latter said, " Well, I certainly did order it to 
 be removed ; but I hardly thought you would have cared 
 for so trifling a matter in so large a purchase." "My 
 lord," was the characteristic reply, " if I had not all my 
 life attended to trifles, I should not have been able to pur- 
 chase this estate ; and, excuse me for saying so, perhaps 
 if your lordship had cared more about trifles, you might 
 not have had occasion to sell it." 
 
 The examples we have already given of great workers 
 in various branches of industry, art, and science, render 
 it unnecessary further to enforce the importance of per- 
 severing application in any department of life. It is the 
 result of e very-day experience, that steady attention to 
 matters of detail lies at the root of human progress ; and 
 that diligence, above all, is the mother of good-luck. 
 Accuracy is also of much importance, and an invariable 
 mark of good training in a man. Accuracy in observa- 
 tion, accuracy in speech, accuracy in the transaction of 
 affairs. What is done in business must be well done ; 
 for it is better to accomplish perfectly a small amount of 
 work, than to half-do ten times as much. A wise man 
 used to say, " Stay a little, that we may make an end the 
 sooner." 
 
 Too little attention, however, is paid to this highly im- 
 portant quality of accuracy. As a man eminent in prac- 
 tical science lately observed to us, " It is astonishing how 
 few people I have met with in the course of my experi- 
 ence, who can define a fact accurately." Yet, in business 
 affairs, it is the manner in which even small matters are 
 transacted, that often decides men for or against you. 
 With virtue, capacity, and good conduct in other respects, 
 
260 ACCURACY. CHAP. VHL 
 
 the person who is habitually inaccurate cannot be trusted , 
 his work has to be gone over again ; and he thus causes 
 an infinity of annoyance, vexation, and trouble. Truer 
 words were never uttered than those spoken by Mr. Dar- 
 gan, the Irish railway contractor, at a public meeting in 
 Dublin. " I have heard a great deal," he said, " about 
 the independence that we were to get from this, that, and 
 the other source; yet I have always been deeply im- 
 pressed with the conviction, that our industrial independ- 
 ence depends upon ourselves. Simple industry and 
 careful exactness would be the making of Ireland. We 
 have, it is true, made a step ; but perseverance is indis- 
 pensably necessary for eventual success." 
 
 It was one of the characteristic qualities of Charles 
 James Fox, that he was thoroughly painstaking in all 
 that he did. When appointed Secretary of State, being 
 piqued at some observation as to his bad writing, he ac- 
 tually took a writing-master, and wrote copies like a 
 school-boy until he had sufficiently improved himself. 
 Though a corpulent man, he was wonderfully active at 
 picking up cut tennis-balls, and when asked how he con- 
 trived to do so, he playfully replied, " Because I am a 
 very pains-taking man." The same accuracy in trifling 
 matters was displayed by him in things of greater impor- 
 tance ; and he acquired his reputation, like the painter, 
 by " neglecting nothing." 
 
 Method is essential, and enables a larger amount of 
 work to be got through with satisfaction. " Method," 
 said Cecil (afterwards Lord Burleigh), "is like packing 
 things in a box ; a good packer will get in half as much 
 again as a bad one." Cecil's dispatch of business was 
 extraordinary, his maxim being, " The shortest way to 
 do many things is to do only one thing at once ; " and 
 
CHAP. \III. DISPATCH OF BUSINESS. 261 
 
 he never left a thing undone with a view of recurring 
 to it at a period of more leisure. When business pressed, 
 he rather chose to encroach on his hours of meals and 
 rest than omit any part of his work. De Witt's maxim 
 was like Cecil's : " One thing at a time." " If," said he, 
 "I have any necessary dispatches to make, I think of 
 nothing else till they are finished; if any domestic af- 
 fairs require my attention, I give myself wholly up to 
 them till they are set in order." Dispatch comes with 
 practice. A French minister, who was alike remarka- 
 ble for his dispatch of business and his constant attend- 
 ance at places of amusement, being asked how he con- 
 trived to combine both objects, replied, " Simply by 
 never postponing till to-morrow what should be done 
 to-day." Lord Brougham has said that' a certain Eng- 
 lish statesman reversed the process, and that his maxim 
 was, never to transact to-day what could be postponed 
 till to-morrow. Unhappily, such is the practice of many 
 besides that minister, already almost forgotten ; the prac- 
 tice is that of the indolent and the unsuccessful. Such 
 men, too, are apt to rely upon agents, who are not 
 always to be relied upon. Important affairs must be 
 attended to in person. " If you want your business 
 done," says the proverb, " go and do it ; if you don't 
 want it done, send some one else." An indolent coun- 
 try gentleman had a freehold estate producing about 
 Ive hundred a year. Becoming involved in debt, he 
 .x>ld half of the estate, and let the remainder to an in- 
 dustrious farmer for twenty years. About the end of 
 the term the farmer called to pay his rent, and asked 
 the owner whether he would sell the farm. " Will you 
 buy it ? " asked the owner, surprised. " Yes, if we can 
 agree about the price." " That is exceedingly strange,* 
 
262 PROMPTITUDE. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 observed the gentleman ; " pray, tell me how it happens 
 that, while I could not live upon twice as much land, for 
 which I paid no rent, you are regularly paying me two 
 hundred a year for your farm, and are able, in a few 
 years, to purchase it." "The reason is plain," was the 
 reply ; " you sat still, and said Go ; I got up, and said 
 Come ; you laid in bed and enjoyed your estate, I rose 
 in the morning, and minded my business." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, writing to a youth who had obtained 
 a situation and asked him for his advice, gave him in re- 
 ply this sound counsel : " Beware of stumbling over a 
 propensity which easily besets you from not having your 
 time fully employed, I mean what the women call 
 dawdling. Your motto must be, Hoc age. Do instantly 
 whatever is to be done, and take the hours of recreation 
 after business, never before it. When a regiment is 
 under march, the rear is often thrown into confusion 
 because the front do not move steadily, and without in- 
 terruption. It is the same with business. If that which 
 is first in hand is not instantly, steadily, and regularly 
 dispatched, other things accumulate behind, till affairs 
 begin to press all at once, and no human brain can 
 stand the confusion." 
 
 Promptitude in action may be stimulated by a due con- 
 sideration of the value of time. An Italian philosopher 
 was accustomed to call time his estate ; an estate which 
 produces nothing of value without cultivation, but, duly 
 improved, never fails to recompense the labors of the 
 diligent worker. Allowed to lie waste, the product will 
 be only noxious weeds and vicious growths of all kinds. 
 One of the minor uses of steady employment is, that it 
 keeps one out of mischief, for truly an idle brain is the 
 devil's workshop, and a lazy man the devil's bolster. To 
 
CHAP. VIII. ECONOMY OF TIME. 263 
 
 be occupied is to be possessed as by a tenant, whereas 
 to be idle is to be empty ; and when the doors of the 
 imagination are opened, temptation finds a ready access, 
 and evil thoughts come trooping in. It is observed at 
 sea, that men are never so much disposed to grumble 
 and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old 
 captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue 
 the order to "scour the anchor." 
 
 Men of business are accustomed to quote the maxim 
 that Time is money, but it is much more ; the proper 
 improvement of it is self-culture, self-improvement, and 
 growth of character. An hour wasted daily on trifles 
 or in indolence, would, if devoted to self-improvement, 
 make an ignorant man wise in a few years, and, em- 
 ployed in good works, would make his life fruitful, and 
 death a harvest of worthy deeds. Fifteen minutes a 
 day devoted to self-improvement, will be felt at the end 
 of the year. Good thoughts and carefully gathered ex- 
 perience take up no room, and are carried about with 
 us as companions everywhere, without cost or incum- 
 brance. An economical use of time is the true mode 
 of securing leisure ; it enables us to get through busi- 
 ness and carry it forward, instead of being driven by it. 
 On the other hand, the miscalculation of time involves 
 us in perpetual hurry, confusion, and difficulties ; and 
 life becomes a mere shuffle of expedients, usually fol- 
 lowed by disaster. Nelson once said, " I owe all my 
 success in life to having been always a quarter of an 
 hour before my time." 
 
 Some take no thought of the value of money until they 
 have come to an end of it, and many do the same with 
 their time. The hours are allowed to flow by unem 
 ployed, and then, when life is fast waning, they bethink 
 
264 PUNCTUALITY. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 themselves of the duty of making a wiser use of it. 
 But the habit of listlessness and idleness may already 
 have become confirmed, and they are unable to break 
 the bonds with which they have permitted themselves 
 to become bound. Lost wealth may be replaced by in- 
 dustry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temper- 
 ance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever. 
 
 A proper consideration of the value of time, will also 
 inspire habits of punctuality. " Punctuality," said Louis 
 XIV., " is the politeness of kings." It is also the duty 
 of gentlemen, and the necessity of men of business. 
 Nothing begets confidence in a man sooner than the 
 practice of this virtue, and nothing shakes confidence 
 sooner than the want of it. He who holds to his ap- 
 pointment and does not keep you waiting for him, shows 
 that he has regard for your time as well as for his own. 
 Thus punctuality is one of the modes by which we tes- 
 tify our personal respect for those whom we are called 
 upon to meet in the business of life. It is also conscien- 
 tiousness in a measure ; for an appointment is a contract, 
 express or implied, and he who does not keep it breaks 
 faith, as well as dishonestly uses other people's time, 
 and thus inevitably loses character. We naturally come 
 to the conclusion that the person who is careless about 
 time, will be careless about business, and that he is not 
 the one to be trusted with the transaction of matters of 
 importance. When Washington's secretary excused him- 
 eelf for the lateness of his attendance, and laid the blame 
 upon his watch, his master quietly said, " Then you must 
 get another watch, or I another secretary." 
 
 The unpunctual man is a general disturber of others' 
 peace and serenity. Everybody with whom he has to 
 do is thrown from time to time into a state of fever ; he 
 
CHAP. VIII. PUNCTUALITY. 265 
 
 is systematically late ; regular only in his irregularity. 
 He conducts his dawdling as if upon a system ; always 
 arrives at his appointment after time ; gets to the railway 
 station after the train has started ; and posts his letter 
 when the box has closed. Business is thus thrown into 
 confusion, and everybody concerned is put out of tem- 
 per. It will generally be found that the men who are 
 thus habitually behind time, are as habitually behind 
 success ; and the world generally casts them aside to 
 swell the ranks of the grumblers and the railers against 
 fortune. The late Mr. Tegg, the publisher, who rose from 
 a very humble position in life, once said of himself, that 
 he " had lodged with beggars, and had the honor of pre- 
 sentation to royalty," and that he attributed his success 
 in life mainly to three things, punctuality as to time, 
 self-reliance, and integrity in word and deed. 
 
 It is astonishing how much an energetic man of busi- 
 ness can accomplish by methodical working, and by the 
 careful economy of his time. It would even appear as 
 if, the more business he had, the more leisure he had for 
 other affairs. It is said of Lord Brougham, that when 
 he was in the full career of his profession, presiding in 
 the House of Lords and the Court of Chancery, he 
 found time to be at the head of some eight or ten 
 public associations, one of which was the Society for 
 the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and that he was 
 most punctual in his attendances, always contriving to be 
 in the chair when the hour of meeting had arrived. 
 
 In addition to these ordinary working qualities, the 
 business man of the highest class requires sound dis- 
 cretion, quick perception, and firmness in the execution 
 of his plans. Business tact is also important; and 
 though this is partly the gift of nature, it is yet capa- 
 
266 KOUTINE AND KED-TAPEISM. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 ble of being cultivated and developed by observation 
 and experience. Men of this quality are quick to see 
 the right mode of action, and if they have decision of 
 purpose, are prompt to carry out their undertakings to 
 a successful issue. Such men give a new life to in- 
 dustry; they put their character into every work that 
 they enter upon, and are among the most powerful 
 agents in the progress of society in all times. 
 
 It will be observed from what we have said that the 
 successful conduct of business consists in a great meas- 
 ure in assiduous attention to matters of detail, in short, 
 to what is ordinarily called Routine, and sometimes Red- 
 Tapeism. Accuracy, discipline, punctuality, method, 
 payment of debts, organization, all are routine. No 
 doubt a blind, stupid routine causes hindrance to busi- 
 ness, but a wise routine greatly facilitates it, whilst it 
 is the* only check to rashness and incapacity on the part 
 of individuals, where the business of large departments 
 has to be conducted. In the case of a business in the 
 hands of a single person, such as that of a merchant 
 or manufacturer, there will be greater promptitude in 
 action, and less need for the interposition of checks, 
 because no one has to be consulted but the master 
 himself; and he is stimulated by self-interest to watch 
 closely all the outgoings and incomings of his concern. 
 But where "self-interest is less active, and where a large 
 business, as of a corporation or a government, is man- 
 aged by employes, routine necessarily becomes compli- 
 cated by checks ; for, though the large majority of men 
 are honest, it is absolutely necessary that provision should 
 be made against the possible rogue or the jobber. 
 
 The late Duke of Wellington was a great routinist, 
 because he was a first-rate man of business. He pos- 
 
CHAP. VIII. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 2G7 
 
 sessed in perfection all the qualities which constitute one. 
 He was a most punctual man ; he never received a letter 
 without acknowledging or replying to it ; and he habit- 
 ually attended to the minutest details of all matters in- 
 trusted to him, whether civil or military. His business 
 faculty was his genius, the genius of common sense ; and 
 it is not perhaps saying too much to aver, that it was 
 because he was a first-rate man of business that he 
 never lost a battle. 
 
 While a subaltern officer, he became dissatisfied with 
 the slowness of his promotion, and having passed from 
 the infantry to the cavalry twice, and back again, 
 without advancement, he applied to Lord Camden, then 
 Viceroy of Ireland, for employment in the Revenue or 
 Treasury Board. Had he succeeded, no doubt he would 
 have made a first-rate head of a department, as he would 
 have made a first-rate merchant or manufacturer. But 
 his application failed, and he remained with the army to 
 become one of the very greatest of British generals. 
 
 The Duke began his active military career under the 
 Duke of York and General Walmoden, in Flanders and 
 Holland, where he learned amidst misfortunes and de- 
 feats, how bad business arrangements and bad general- 
 ship serve to ruin the morale of an army. Ten years 
 after entering the army we find him a colonel in India, 
 reported by his superiors as an officer of indefatigable 
 energy and application. He entered into the minutest 
 details of the service, and sought to raise the discipline 
 of his men to the highest standard. " The regiment of 
 Colonel Welles] ey," wrote General Harris in 1799, "is 
 a model regiment; on the score of soldierly bearing, 
 discipline, instruction, and orderly behavior it is above 
 all praise." Thus qualifying himself for posts of greater 
 
268 WELLINGTON IN INDIA. CHAP. VIII 
 
 confidence, he was shortly after nominated governor of 
 the capital of Mysore. In the war with the Mahrattas, 
 he was first called upon to try his hand at generalship ; 
 and at thirty-four he won the memorable battle of As- 
 saye, with an army composed of 1,500 British and 5,000 
 sepoys, over 20,000 Mahratta infantry and 30,000 cav- 
 alry. But so brilliant a victory did not in the least 
 disturb his equanimity, or affect the perfect honesty of 
 his character. 
 
 Shortly after this event, the opportunity occurred for 
 exhibiting his admirable practical qualities as an admin- 
 istrator. Placed in command of an important district 
 immediately after the capture of Seringapatam, his first 
 object was to establish rigid order and discipline among 
 his own men. Flushed with victory, the troops were 
 found riotous and disorderly. " Send me the provost- 
 marshal," said he, " and put him under my orders ; till 
 some of the marauders are hung, it is impossible to 
 expect order or safety." This rigid severity of Wel- 
 lington in the field, though it was the dread, proved the 
 salvation of his troops in many campaigns. His next 
 step was to reestablish the markets and reopen the 
 sources of supply. General Harris wrote to the Gov 
 ernor-General, strongly commending Colonel Wellesley 
 for the perfect discipline he had established, and for 
 his "judicious and masterly arrangements in respect to 
 supplies, which opened an abundant free market, and 
 inspired confidence into dealers of every description." 
 The same close attention to, and mastery of details, 
 characterized him throughout his Indian career; and it 
 is remarkable that one of his very ablest despatches to 
 Lord Clive, full of practical information as to the con- 
 duct of the campaign, was written whilst the column he 
 
CHAP. VIII. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 2G9 
 
 commanded was crossing the Toombuddra, in the faco 
 of the vastly superior army of Doondiah, posted on the 
 opposite bank, and when a thousand matters of the deep- 
 est interest were pressing upon the commander's mind, 
 But it was one of his most remarkable characteristics, 
 thus to be able to withdraw himself temporarily from 
 the business immediately in hand, and to bend his full 
 powers upon the consideration of matters totally distinct ; 
 even the most difficult circumstances on such occasions 
 failing to embarrass or intimidate him. 
 
 Returned to England with a reputation for generalship, 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley met with immediate employment. 
 In 1808 a corps of 10,000 men destined to liberate Por- 
 tugal was placed under his charge. He landed, fought 
 arid won two battles, and signed the Convention of Cintra. 
 After the death of Sir John Moore, he was intrusted 
 with the command of a new expedition to Portugal. 
 Wellington was fearfully overmatched throughout these 
 Peninsular campaigns. From 1809 to 1813 he never 
 had more than 30,000 British troops under his command, 
 at a time when there stood opposed to him in the Penin- 
 sula, some 350,000 French, mostly veterans, led by some 
 of Napoleon's ablest generals. How was he to contend 
 against such immense forces with any fair prospect of 
 success ? His clear discernment and strong common 
 sense soon taught him that he must adopt a different 
 policy from that of the Spanish generals, who were in- 
 variably beaten and dispersed whenever they ventured 
 to offer battle in the open plains. He perceived he had 
 yet to create the army that was to contend against the 
 French, with any reasonable chance of success. 
 
 Accordingly, after the battle of Talavera in 1809, 
 when he found himself encompassed on all sides by 
 
270 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 superior forces of French, he retired into Portugal, there 
 to carry out the settled policy on which he had by this 
 time determined. It was, to organize a Portuguese army 
 under British officers, and teach them to act in combina- 
 tion with his own troops, in the mean time avoiding the 
 peril of a defeat by declining all engagements. He 
 would thus, he conceived, destroy the morale of the 
 French, who could not exist without victories ; and when 
 his army was ripe for action, and the enemy demoralized, 
 he would then fall upon them with all his might. 
 
 The extraordinary qualities displayed by Lord Wel- 
 lington throughout these immortal campaigns, can only be 
 appreciated after a perusal of his despatches, which con- 
 tain the unvarnished tale of the manifold ways and means 
 by which he laid the foundations of his success. Never 
 was man more tried by difficulty and opposition, arising 
 not less from the imbecility, falsehood, and intrigues of 
 the British government of the day, than from the self- 
 ishness, cowardice, and vanity of the people he went to 
 save. It may, indeed, be said of him, that he sustained 
 the war in Spain by his individual firmness and self- 
 reliance, which never failed him even in the midst of his 
 greatest discouragements. He had not only to fight 
 Napoleon's veterans, but also to hold in check the Span- 
 ish juntas and the Portuguese regency. He had the 
 utmost difficulty in obtaining provisions and clothing for 
 his troops ; and it will scarcely be credited that, while 
 engaged with the enemy in the battle of Talavera, the 
 Spaniards, who ran away, fell upon the baggage of the 
 British army, and the ruffians actually plundered it! 
 These and other vexations the Duke bore with a sublime 
 patience and self-control, and held on his course, in the 
 face of ingratitude, treachery, and opposition, with in- 
 
CHAP. VIII. THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 271 
 
 domitable firmness. He neglected nothing, and attended 
 to every important detail of business himself. When he 
 found that food for his troops was not to be obtained 
 from England, and that he must rely upon his own re- 
 sources for feeding them, he forthwith commenced busi- 
 ness as a corn-merchant on a large scale, in copartnery 
 with the British Minister at Lisbon. Commissariat bills 
 were created, with which grain was bought in the ports 
 of the Mediterranean and in South America. When he 
 had thus filled his magazines, the overplus was sold to 
 the Portuguese, who were greatly in want of provisions. 
 He left nothing whatever to chance, but provided for 
 every contingency. He gave his attention to the minut- 
 est details of the service ; and was accustomed to con- 
 centrate his whole energies, from time to time, on such 
 apparently ignominious matters as soldiers' shoes, camp- 
 kettles, biscuits, and horse-fodder. His magnificent busi- 
 ness qualities were everywhere felt ; and there can be 
 no doubt that, by the care with which he provided for 
 ev3ry contingency, and the personal attention which he 
 gave to every detail, he laid the foundations of his great 
 success.* By such means he transformed an army of 
 raw levies into the best soldiers in Europe, with whom 
 he declared it to be possible to go anywhere and do any- 
 thing. 
 
 We have already referred to his remarkable power 
 of abstracting himself from the work, no matter how 
 engrossing, immediately in hand, and concentrating his 
 energies upon the details of some entirely different busi- 
 
 * The recently published correspondence of Napoleon with his 
 orother Joseph, and the Memoirs of the Duke of Ragusa, abundantly 
 Confirm this view. The Duke overthrew Napoleon by the superiority 
 of his routine. He used to say that, if he knew anything at all, he 
 tnew how to feed an arnv. 
 
272 THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. CiiAP.VIIL 
 
 ness. Thus Napier relates that it was while he was 
 preparing to fight the battle of Salamanca that he had 
 to expose to the Ministers at home the futility of relying 
 upon a loan ; it was on the heights of San Christoval, 
 on the field of battle itself, that he demonstrated the 
 absurdity of attempting to establish a Portuguese tank ; 
 it was in the trenches of Burgos that he dissected 
 Funchal's scheme of finance, and exposed the folly of 
 attempting the sale of church property ; and on each 
 occasion, he showed himself as well acquainted with 
 these subjects as with the minutest detail in the mech- 
 anism of armies. 
 
 Another feature in his character, showing the upright 
 man of business, was his thorough honesty. Whilst 
 Soult ransacked and carried away with him from Spain 
 numerous pictures of great value, Wellington did not 
 appropriate to himself a single farthing's worth of prop- 
 erty. Everywhere he paid his way, even when in the 
 enemy's country. When he had crossed the French 
 frontier, followed by 40,000 Spaniards, who sought to 
 " make fortunes " by pillage and plunder, he first re- 
 buked their officers, and then, finding his efforts to 
 restrain them unavailing, he sent them back into their 
 own country. It is a remarkable fact, that even in 
 France, the peasantry fled from their own countrymen, 
 and carried their valuables within the protection of the 
 British lines ! At the very same time, Wellington was 
 writing home to the British Ministry, " We are over- 
 whelmed with debts, and I can scarcely stir out of my 
 house on account of public creditors waiting to demand 
 payment of what is due to them." Jules Maurel, in his 
 estimate of the Duke's character, says, " Nothing can 
 be grander or more nobly original than this admission. 
 
CHAP. VIII. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY. 273 
 
 This old soldier, after thirty years' service, this iron man 
 and victorious general, established in an enemy's country 
 at the head of an immense army, is afraid of his credi 
 tors ! This is a kind of fear that has seldom troubled 
 the mind of conquerors and invaders ; and I doubt if the 
 annals of war could present anything comparable to this 
 sublime simplicity." But the Duke himself, had the 
 matter been put to him, would most probably have dis- 
 claimed any intention of acting either grandly or nobly 
 in the matter; merely regarding the punctual payment 
 of his debts as the best and most honorable mode of con- 
 ducting his business. 
 
 The truth of the good old maxim, that " Honesty is the 
 best policy," is upheld by the daily experience of life ; 
 uprightness and integrity being found as successful in 
 business as in everything else. As Hugh Miller's worthy 
 uncle used to advise him, " In all your dealings give your 
 neighbor the cast of the bauk, 'good measure, heaped 
 up, and running over,' and you will not lose by it in 
 the end." A well-known brewer of beer attributed his 
 success to the liberality with which he used his malt. 
 Going up to the vat and tasting it, he would say, " Still 
 rather poor, my lads ; give it another cast of the malt." 
 The brewer put his character into his beer, and it proved 
 generous accordingly, obtaining a reputation in England, 
 India, and the colonies, which laid the foundation of a 
 large fortune. Integrity of word and deed ought to be 
 the very corner-stone of all business transactions. To the 
 tradesman, the merchant, and manufacturer, it should be 
 what honor is to the soldier, and charity to the Christian. 
 In the humblest calling there will always be found scope 
 tor the exercise of this uprightness of character. Hugh 
 Miller speaks of the mason with whom he served his ap- 
 12* 
 
274 INTEGEITY IN BUSINESS. CHAP. VIIL 
 
 prenticeship, as one who "put his conscience into every 
 stone that he laid" So the true mechanic will pride 
 himself upon the thoroughness and solidity of his work, 
 and the high-minded contractor upon the honesty of per- 
 formance of his contract in every particular. The up- 
 right manufacturer will find not only honor and reputa- 
 tion, but substantial success, in the genuineness of the 
 article which he produces, and the merchant in the 
 honesty of what he sells, and that it really is what it 
 seems to be. Baron Dupin, speaking of the general 
 probity of Englishmen, which he held to be a principal 
 cause of their success, observed, " "We may succeed for a 
 time by fraud, by surprise, by violence ; but we can suc- 
 ceed permanently only by means directly opposite. It is 
 not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity, of the 
 merchant and manufacturer which maintain the superior- 
 ity of their productions and the character of their coun- 
 try ; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, and, 
 above all, their probity. If ever in the British Islands 
 the useful citizen should lose these virtues, we may be 
 sure that, for England, as for every other country, the 
 vessels of a degenerate commerce, repulsed from every 
 shore, would speedily disappear from those seas whose 
 surface they now cover with the treasures of the universe, 
 bartered for the treasures of the industry of the three 
 kingdoms." 
 
 It must be admitted, that Trade tries character perhaps 
 more severely than any other pursuit in life. It puts to 
 the severest tests honesty, self-denial, justice, and truth- 
 fulness; and men of business who pass through such 
 trials unstained, are perhaps worthy of as great honor as 
 soldiers who prove their courage amidst the fire and 
 perils of battle. And, to the credit of the multitudes of 
 
CHAP. VIII. INTEGRITY IN BUSINESS. 275 
 
 men engaged in the various departments of trade, we 
 think it must be admitted that on the whole they pass 
 through their trials nobly. If we reflect but for a mo- 
 ment on the vast amount of wealth daily intrusted even 
 to subordinate persons, who themselves probably earn 
 but a bare competency, the loose cash which is con- 
 stantly passing through the hands of shopmen, agents, 
 brokers, and clerks in banking houses, and note how 
 comparatively few are the breaches of trust which occur 
 amidst all this temptation, it will probably be admitted 
 that this steady daily honesty of conduct is most honor- 
 able to human nature, if it do not even tempt us to be 
 proud of it. The same trust and confidence reposed by 
 men of business in each other, as implied by the system 
 of Credit, which is mainly based upon the principle of 
 honor, would be surprising if it were not so much a mat- 
 ter of ordinary practice in business transactions. Dr. 
 Chalmers has well said, that the implicit trust with which 
 merchants are accustomed to confide in distant agents, 
 separated from them perhaps by half the globe, often 
 consigning vast wealth to persons, recommended only 
 by their character, whom perhaps they never saw, is 
 probably the finest act of homage which men can render 
 to one another. 
 
 Although common honesty is still happily in the 
 ascendant amongst common people, and the general busi- 
 ness community of England is still sound at heart, put- 
 ting their honest character into their respective callings, 
 there are unhappily, as* there have been in all times, 
 but too many instances of flagrant dishonesty and fraud, 
 exhibited by the unscrupulous, the over-speculative, and 
 the intensely selfish, in their haste to be rich. There 
 ftre tradesmen who adulterate, contractors who " scamp," 
 
276 DISHONEST TRADERS. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 manufacturers who give us shoddy instead of wool, 
 "dressing" instead of cotton, cast-iron tools instead of 
 steel, needles without eyes, razors made only "to sell," 
 and swindled fabrics in many shapes. But these we 
 must hold to be the exceptional cases, of low-minded and 
 grasping men, who, though they may gain wealth which 
 they probably cannot enjoy, will never gain an honest 
 character, nor secure that without which wealth is nothing, 
 a satisfied conscience. "The rogue cozened not me, 
 but his own conscience," said Bishop Latimer of a cutler 
 who made him pay twopence for a knife not worth a 
 penny. Money, earned by screwing, cheating, and over- 
 reaching, may for a time dazzle the eyes of the unthink- 
 ing; but the bubbles blown by unscrupulous rogues, 
 when full-blown, usually glitter only to burst. The Sad- 
 leirs, Dean Pauls, and Redpaths, for the most part, come 
 to a sad end even in this world ; and though the success- 
 ful swindles of others may not be " found out," and the 
 gains of their roguery may remain with them, it will be 
 as a curse and not as a blessing. 
 
 It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not 
 grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one ; 
 but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without 
 fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a 
 time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest ; better lose 
 all and save character. For character is itself a fortune ; 
 and if the high-principled man will but hold on his way 
 courageously, success will surely come, nor will the 
 highest reward of all be withheld from him. Words- 
 worth well describes the " Happy Warrior," as he 
 
 " Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim; 
 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
 
CHAP. VIII. DAVID BARCLAY. 277 
 
 For wealth, or honor, or for worldly state ; 
 Whom they must follow, on whose head must fall, 
 Like showers of manna, if they come at all." 
 
 As an example of the high-minded mercantile man, 
 trained in upright habits of business, and distinguished for 
 justice, truthfulness, and honesty of dealing in all things, 
 the career of the well-known David Barclay, grandson of 
 Robert Barclay, of Ury, the author of the celebrated 
 " Apology for the Quakers," may be briefly referred to. 
 For many years he was the head of an extensive house 
 in Cheapside, chiefly engaged in the American trade; 
 but like Granville Sharp, he entertained so strong an 
 opinion against the war with our American colonies, that 
 he determined to retire altogether from the trade. Whilst 
 a merchant, he was as much distinguished by his talents, 
 knowledge, integrity, and power, as he afterwards was 
 for his patriotism and munificent philanthropy. He was 
 a mirror of truthfulness and honesty; and, as became 
 the good Christian and true gentleman, his word was 
 always held to be as good as his bond. His position, and 
 his high character, induced the Ministers of the day on 
 many occasions to seek his advice ; and, when examined 
 before the House of Commons on the subject of the 
 American dispute, his views were so clearly expressed, 
 and his advice was so strongly justified by the reasons 
 stated by him, that Lord North publicly acknowledged 
 that he had derived more information from David Bar- 
 clay than from all others east of Temple Bar. On retir- 
 ing from business, it was not to rest in luxurious ease, but 
 to enter upon new labors of usefulness for others. With 
 ample means, he felt that he still owed to society the 
 duty of a great example. He founded a house of in- 
 dustry near his residence at Walthamstow, which he sup- 
 
278 DAVID BARCLAY. CHAP. VIII. 
 
 porte 1 at a large cost for several years, until at length he 
 succeeded in rendering it a source of comfort as well as 
 independence to the well-disposed families of the poor in 
 that neighborhood. When an estate in Jamaica fell to 
 him, he determined, though at a cost of some 10,000/., at 
 once to give liberty to the whole of the slaves on the 
 property. He sent out an agent, who hired a ship, and 
 he had the little slave community transported to one of 
 the free American States, where they settled down and 
 prospered. Mr. Barclay had been assured that the 
 negroes were too ignorant and too barbarous for freedom, 
 and it was thus that he determined practically to demon- 
 strate the fallacy of the assertion. In dealing with his 
 accumulated savings, he made himself the executor of his 
 own will, and instead of leaving a large fortune to be 
 divided among his relatives at his death, he extended to 
 them his munificent aid during his life, watched and 
 aided them in their respective careers, and thus not only 
 laid the foundation, but lived to see the maturity, of some 
 of the largest and most prosperous business concerns in 
 the metropolis. We believe that to this day some of our 
 most eminent merchants, such as the Gurneys, Han 
 burys, and Buxtons, are proud to acknowledge with 
 gratitude the obligations they owe to David Barclay for 
 the means of their first introduction to life, and for the 
 benefits of his counsel and countenance in the early stages 
 of their career. Such a man stands as a mark of the 
 mercantile honesty and integrity of his country, and is a 
 model and example for men of business in all time to 
 come. 
 
CHAP. IX. BIGHT USE OF MONEY. 279 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MONET, USE AND ABUSE. 
 
 " Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
 
 Nor for a train attendant, 
 
 But for the glorious privilege 
 
 Of being independent." Burns, 
 " Neither a borrower nor a lender be ; 
 For loan oft loses both itself and friend ; 
 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." Shaiapean. 
 
 How a man uses money makes it, saves it, and 
 spends it is perhaps one of the best tests of his practi- 
 cal wisdom. Although money ought by no means to be 
 regarded as the chief end of man's life, neither is it a 
 trifling matter, to be held in philosophic contempt, rep- 
 resenting as it does to so large an extent, the means of 
 physical comfort and social well-being. Indeed, some 
 of the finest qualities of human nature are intimately 
 related to the right use of money, such as generosity, 
 honesty, justice, and self-sacrifice ; as well as the prac- 
 tical virtues of economy and providence. On the other 
 hand, there are their counterparts of avarice, fraud, in- 
 justice, and selfishness, as displayed by inordinate lovers 
 of gain ; and the vices of thriftlessness, extravagance, 
 and improvidence, on the part of those who misuse and 
 abuse the means intrusted to them. "So that," as is 
 wisely observed by Henry Taylor in his thoughtful 
 "Notes from Life," "a right measure and manner in 
 getting, saving, spending, giving, taking, lending, bor- 
 
280 SELF-DENIAL. CHAP. IX. 
 
 rowing, and bequeathing, would almost argue a perfect 
 man." 
 
 Comfort in worldly circumstances is a condition which 
 every man is justified in striving to attain by all worthy 
 means. It secures that physical satisfaction which is 
 necessary for the culture of the better part of his na- 
 ture ; and enables him to provide for those of his own 
 household, without which, says the Apostle, a man is 
 " worse than an infidel." Nor ought the duty to be any 
 the less indifferent to us, that the respect which our fel 
 low-men entertain for us in no slight degree depends 
 upon the manner in which we exercise the opportuni- 
 ties which present themselves for our honorable ad- 
 vancement in life. The very effort required to be made 
 to succeed in life with this object, is of itself an educa- 
 tion ; stimulating a man's sense of self-respect, bringing 
 out his practical qualities, and disciplining him in the 
 exercise of patience, perseverance, and such like vir- 
 tues. The provident and careful man must necessarily 
 be a thoughtful man, for he lives not merely for the pres- 
 ent, but with provident forecast makes arrangements for 
 the future. He must also be a temperate man, and ex- 
 ercise the virtue of self-denial, than which nothing is so 
 much calculated to give strength to the character. John 
 Sterling says truly, that " the worst education which 
 teaches self-denial, is better than the best which teaches 
 everything else, and not that." The Romans rightly 
 employed the same word (virtus) to designate courage, 
 which is in a physical sense what the other is in a 
 moral; the highest virtue of all being victory over 
 ourselves. 
 
 What is the quality in which the improvident classes 
 of this country are so deficient as self-denial, the 
 
CHAP. IX. SELF-IMPOSED TAXATION. 281 
 
 ability to sacrifice a small present gratification for a 
 future good ? Tho^e classes who work the hardest 
 might naturally be expected to value the most the 
 money which they earn. Yet the readiness with which 
 so many are accustomed to eat up and drink up their 
 earnings as they go, renders them to a great extent ab- 
 solutely helpless and dependent upon the frugal. There 
 are large numbers of men among us, who, though enjoy- 
 ing sufficient means of comfort and independence, are 
 often found to be barely a day's march ahead of actual 
 want when a time of pressure occurs ; and hence a great 
 cause of social helplessness and suffering. On one oc- 
 casion a deputation waited on Lord John Russell, re- 
 specting the taxation levied on the working classes of 
 the country, when the noble lord took the opportunity 
 of remarking, " You may rely upon it that the govern- 
 ment of this country durst not tax the working classes to 
 anything like the extent to which they tax themselves 
 in their expenditure upon intoxicating drinks alone ! " * 
 
 Of all great public questions, there is none more 
 important than this, no great work of reform call- 
 ing more loudly for laborers. But it must be admitted 
 that " self-denial and self-help " would make a poor 
 rallying cry for the hustings ; and it is to be feared that 
 the patriotism of this day has but little regard for such 
 common things as individual economy and providence, 
 
 * The whole expenses of conducting the government of Great 
 Britain, at home and abroad, for the year ending the 31st March, 
 1859, including the excessive cost of the army and navy in that year, 
 the courts of justice, and all the public departments of state (exclu- 
 sive only of the interest on the national debt), amounted to 34,136,399*. ; 
 whereas it is computed by Mr. Porter, that we expend annually up- 
 wards ;f forty-eight millions sterling on intoxicating drinks and 
 tobacco, the principal part of which is borne by the working classes 
 
282 THE IMPROVIDENT CLASSES HELPLESS. CHAP. IX. 
 
 although it is by the practice of such virtues only that 
 the genuine independence of the industrial classes is to 
 be secured. " Prudence, frugality, and good manage- 
 ment," said Samuel Drew, the philosophical shoemaker, 
 " are excellent artists for mending bad times ; they oc- 
 cupy but little room in any dwelling, but would furnish 
 a more effectual remedy for the evils of life than any 
 Reform Bill that ever passed the Houses of Parliament." 
 Socrates said, " Let him that would move the world move 
 first himself." Or, as the old rhyme runs, 
 
 " If every one would see 
 
 To his own reformation, 
 How very easily 
 You might reform a nation." 
 
 It is, however, generally felt to be a far easier thing to 
 reform the constitution in Church and State than to re- 
 form the least of our own bad habits ; and in such mat- 
 ters it is usually found more agreeable to our tastes, as it 
 certainly is the common practice, to begin with our neigh- 
 bors, rather than with ourselves. 
 
 Any class of men that lives from hand to mouth will 
 ever be an inferior class. They will necessarily remain 
 impotent and helpless, hanging on to the skirts of so- 
 ciety, the sport of times and seasons. Having no re- 
 spect for themselves, they will fail in securing the respect 
 of others. In commercial crises, such men must inevita- 
 bly go to the wall. Wanting that husbanded power which 
 a store of savings, no matter how small, invariably gives 
 them, they will be at every man's mercy, and, if pos- 
 sessed of right feelings, they cannot but regard with fear 
 and trembling the future possible fate of their wives and 
 children. "The world," once said Mr. Cobden to the 
 working men of Huddersfield, " has always been divided 
 
CHAP. IX. ADVICE OF MR. BRIGHT. 283 
 
 into two classes, those who have saved, and those who 
 have spent, the thrifty and the extravagant. The 
 building of all the houses, the mills, the bridges, and 
 the ships, and the accomplishment of all other great 
 works which have rendered man civilized and happy, 
 has been done by the savers, the thrifty ; and those who 
 have wasted their resources have always been their 
 slaves. It has been the law of nature and of Provi- 
 dence, that this should be so; and I were an impostor 
 if I promised any class that they would advance them- 
 selves if they were improvident, thoughtless, and idle." 
 
 Equally sound was the advice given by Mr. Bright 
 to an assembly of working men at Rochdale, in 1847, 
 when, after expressing his belief that " so far as hon- 
 esty was concerned, it was to be found in pretty equal 
 amount among all classes," he used the following words : 
 " There is only one way that is safe for any man, or 
 any number of men, by which they can maintain their 
 present position if it be a good one, or raise themselves 
 above it if it be a bad one, that is, by the practice of 
 the virtues of industry, frugality, temperance, and hon- 
 esty. There is no royal road by which men can raise 
 themselves from a position which they feel to be uncom- 
 fortable and unsatisfactory, as regards their mental or 
 physical condition, except by the practice of those vir- 
 tues by which they find numbers amongst them are con- 
 tinually advancing and bettering themselves. What is 
 it that has made, that has in fact created, the middle 
 class in this country, but the virtues to which I have 
 alluded? There was a time when there was hardly 
 any class in England, except the highest, that was equal 
 in condition to the poorest class at this moment. How 
 is it that the hundreds of thousands of men, now exist 
 
284 WHAT WORKING MEN MIGHT SE. CHAP. IX. 
 
 ing in this our country, of the middle class, are educated, 
 comfortable, and enjoying an amount of happiness and 
 independence, to which our forefathers were wholly 
 unaccustomed? Why, by the practice of those very 
 virtues ; for I maintain that there has never been in 
 any former age as much of these virtues as is now to 
 be found amongst the great middle class of our commu- 
 nity. When I speak of the middle class, I mean that 
 class which is between the privileged class, the richest, 
 and the very poorest in the community ; and I would 
 recommend every man to pay no attention whatever to 
 public writers or speakers, whoever they may be, who 
 tell them that this class or that class, that this law or 
 that law, that this government or that government, can 
 do all these things for them. I assure you, after long 
 reflection and much observation, that there is no way for 
 the working classes of this country to improve their con- 
 dition but that which so many of them have already 
 availed themselves of, that is, by the practice of those 
 virtues, and by reliance upon themselves." 
 
 There is no reason why the condition of the average 
 workman in this country should not be a useful, honor- 
 able, respectable, and happy one. The whole body of 
 the working classes might (with few exceptions) be as 
 frugal, virtuous, well-informed, and well-conditioned as 
 many individuals of the same class have already made 
 themselves. What some men are, all without difficulty 
 might be. Employ the same means, and the same re- 
 sults will follow. That there should be a class of men 
 who live by their daily labor in every state is the ordi- 
 nance of God, and doubtless is a wise and righteous one ; 
 but that this class should be otherwise than frugal, con- 
 tented, intelligent, and happy, is not the design of Provi- 
 
CHAP. IX. HIGH PURPOSES OF ECONOMY. 285 
 
 dence, but springs solely from the weakness, self-indul- 
 gence, and perverseness of man himself. The healthy- 
 spirit of self-help created amongst working people would 
 more than any other measure serve to raise them as a 
 class, and this, not by pulling down others, but by level- 
 ling them up to a higher and still advancing standard 
 of religion, intelligence, and virtue. " All moral philoso- 
 phy," says Montaigne, " is as applicable to a common and 
 private life as to the most splendid. Every man carries 
 the entire form of the human condition within him/' 
 
 Economizing one's means with the mere object of 
 hoarding is a very mean thing ; but economizing for the 
 purpose of being independent is one of the soundest indi- 
 cations of manly character ; and when practised with the 
 object of providing for those who are dependent upon us, 
 it assumes quite a noble aspect. It is the exhibition of 
 self-help in one of its best forms. Francis Homer's 
 father gave him this good advice on first entering life: 
 " Whilst I wish you to be comfortable in every respect, I 
 cannot too strongly inculcate economy. It is a necessary 
 virtue to all ; and however the shallow part of mankind 
 may despise it, it certainly leads to independence, which 
 is a grand object to every man of a high spirit." Burns's 
 lines, above quoted, contain the right idea ; but unhappily 
 his strain of song was higher than his practice ; his ideal 
 better than his habit. When laid upon his death-bed he 
 wrote to a friend, " Alas ! Clarke, I begin to feel the 
 worst. Burns's poor widow, and half a dozen of his dear 
 little ones helpless orphans; there I am weak as a 
 woman's tear. Enough of this ; 'tis half my disease." 
 
 Every man ought so to contrive as to live within his 
 means. This practice is of the very essence of honesty. 
 For if a man do not manage honestly to live within his 
 
286 LIVING WITHIN THE MEANS. CHAP. IX. 
 
 own means, he must necessarily be living dishonestly upon 
 the means of somebody else. Those who are careless 
 about personal expenditure, and consider merely their 
 own gratification, without regard for the comfort of others, 
 generally find out the real uses of money when it is too 
 late. Though by nature generous, these thriftless per- 
 sons are often driven in the end to do very shabby things. 
 They dawdle with their money as with their time ; draw 
 bills upon the future ; anticipate their earnings ; and are 
 thus under the necessity of dragging after them a load of 
 debts and obligations which seriously affect their action as 
 free and independent men. The loose cash which many 
 persons throw away uselessly, and worse, would often 
 form a basis of fortune and independence for life. These 
 wasters are their own worst enemies, though generally 
 found amongst the ranks of those who rail at the injustice 
 of " the world." But if a man will not be his own friend, 
 how can he expect that others will? Orderly men of 
 moderate means have always something left in their pock- 
 ets to help others ; whereas your prodigal and careless 
 fellows who spend all never find an opportunity for help- 
 ing anybody. It is poor economy, however, to be a scrub. 
 Narrow-mindedness in living and in dealing is generally 
 short-sighted, and leads to failure. The penny soul, it is 
 said, never came to twopence. Generosity and liberality, 
 like honesty, prove the best policy after all. Though 
 Jenkinson, in the " Vicar of Wakefield," cheated his kind- 
 hearted neighbor Flamborough in one way or another 
 every year, " Flamborough," he says, " has been regu- 
 larly growing in riches, while I have come to poverty and 
 a jail." And practical life abounds in cases of brilliant 
 results from a course of generous and honest policy. 
 The proverb says that "an empty bag cannot stand 
 
CHAP. IX. THE DEBTOR A SLAVE. 287 
 
 upright ; " neither can a man who is in debt. Debt 
 makes everything a temptation. It lowers a man in self- 
 respect, places him at the mercy of his tradesman and 
 his servant, and renders him a slave in many respects, 
 for he can no longer call himself his own master, nor 
 boldly look the world in the face. It is also difficult for 
 a man who is in debt to be truthful ; hence it is said that 
 lying rides on debt's back. The debtor has to frame 
 excuses to his creditor for postponing payment of the 
 money he owes him ; and probably also to contrive false- 
 hoods. It is easy enough for a man who will exercise 
 a healthy resolution, to avoid incurring the first obliga 
 tion ; but the facility with which that has been incurred 
 often becomes a temptation to a second ; and very soon 
 the unfortunate borrower becomes so entangled that no 
 late exertion of industry can set him free. The first 
 step in debt is like the first step in falsehood ; almost 
 involving the necessity of proceeding in the same course, 
 debt following debt, as lie follows lie. Haydon, the 
 painter, dated his decline from the day on which he first 
 borrowed money. He realized the truth of the proverb, 
 " Who goes a-borrowing, goes a-sorrowing." The signifi- 
 cant entry in his diary is : " Here began debt and obliga- 
 tion, out of which I have never been and never shall be 
 extricated as long as I live." Haydon had long been 
 accustomed to borrow money from his poor father, which, 
 however, he did not include in his obligations. Far dif- 
 ferent was the noble spirit displayed by Fichte, who said, 
 when struggling with poverty, " For years I have never 
 accepted a farthing from my parents, because I have 
 seven sisters who are all young and in part uneducated : 
 and because I have a father who, were I to allow it, 
 would in his kindness bestow upon me that which be- 
 
288 DR. JOHNSON ON DEBT. CHAP. IX. 
 
 longs by right to his other children." For the same 
 high-minded reason, Fichte even refused to accept pres- 
 ents from his poor parents. 
 
 Dr. Johnson held that early debt is ruin. His words 
 on the subject are weighty, and worthy of being held 
 in remembrance. " Do not," said he, " accustom your- 
 self to consider debt only as an inconvenience ; you will 
 find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means 
 of doing good, and produces so much inability to resist 
 evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous 
 means to be avoided. . . . Let it be your first care, then, 
 not to be in any man's debt. Resolve not to be poor ; 
 whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great en- 
 emy to human happiness ; it certainly destroys liberty, 
 and it makes some virtues impracticable and others ex- 
 tremely difficult. Frugality is not only the basis of quiet, 
 but of beneficence. No man can help others that wants 
 help himself; we must have enough before we have to 
 spare." 
 
 It is the bounden duty of every man to look his affairs 
 in the face, and to keep an account of his incomings and 
 outgoings in money-matters. The exercise of a little 
 simple arithmetic in this way will be found of great value. 
 Prudence requires that we shall pitch our scale of living 
 a degree below our means, rather than up to them ; but 
 this can only be done by carrying out faithfully a plan of 
 living by which both ends may be made to meet. John 
 Locke strongly advised this course : " Nothing," said he, 
 "is livelier to keep a man within compass than having 
 constantly before his eyes the state of his affairs in a 
 regular course of account." The Duke of Wellington 
 kept an accurate detailed account of all the moneys re- 
 ceived and expended by him. " I make a point," said he 
 
CHAP. IX. EAELY STRUGGLES OF JOHN JERVIS. 280 
 
 to Mr. Gleig, "of paying my own bills, and I advise 
 every one to do the same ; formerly I used to trust a 
 confidential servant to pay them, but I was cured of that 
 folly by receiving one morning, to my great surprise, 
 duns of a year or two's standing. The fellow had specu- 
 lated with my money, and left my bills unpaid." Talking 
 of debt, his remark was, " It makes a slave of a man. I 
 have often known what it was to be in want of money, 
 but I never got into debt." Washington was as particu- 
 lar as Wellington was, in matters of business detail ; and 
 it is a remarkable fact, that he did not disdain to scruti- 
 nize the smallest outgoings of his household determined 
 as he was to live honestly within his means even 
 while holding the high office of President of the Amer- 
 ican Union. 
 
 Admiral Jervis, Earl St. Vincent, has told the story of 
 his early struggles, and, amongst other things, of his de- 
 termination to keep out of debt. " My father had a very 
 large family," said he, " with limited means. He gave 
 me twenty pounds at starting, and that was all he ever 
 gave me. After I had been a considerable time at the 
 station [at sea], I drew for twenty more, but the bill 
 came back protested. I was mortified at this rebuke, 
 and made a promise, which I have ever kept, that I 
 would never draw another bill without a certainty of its 
 being paid. I immediately changed my mode of living, 
 quitted my mess, lived alone, and took up the ship's 
 allowance, which I found quite sufficient ; washed and 
 mended my own clothes ; made a pair of trousers out of 
 the ticking of my bed; and having by these means 
 saved as much money as would redeem my honor, I took 
 up my bill ; and from that time to this I have taken care 
 to keep within my means." Jervis for six years endured 
 13 
 
290 BEGINNING WELL. CHAP. IX, 
 
 pinching privation, but preserved his integrity, studied 
 his profession with success, and gradually and steadily 
 rose by merit and bravery to the highest rank. Samuel 
 Drew's first lesson in economy is thus described by him- 
 self: " When I was a boy, I somehow got a few pence, 
 and coming into St. Austell on a fair day, laid out all on 
 a purse. My empty purse often reminded me of my 
 folly ; and the recollection has since been as useful to me 
 as Franklin's whistle was to him." 
 
 It is a great point for young men to begin well ; for it 
 is in the beginning of life that that system of conduct is 
 adopted, which soon assumes the force of Habit. Begin 
 well, and the habit of doing well will become quite as 
 easy as the habit of doing badly. Well begun is half 
 ended, says the proverb ; and a good beginning is half the 
 battle. Many promising young men have irretrievably 
 injured themselves by a first false step at the commence- 
 ment of life ; while others, of much less promising talents, 
 have succeeded simply by beginning well, and going on- 
 ward. The good practical beginning is, to a certain ex- 
 tent, a pledge, a promise, and an assurance, of the ulti- 
 mate prosperous issue. There is many a poor creature, 
 now crawling through life, miserable himself and the 
 cause of sorrow to others, who might have lifted up his 
 head and prospered, if, instead of merely satisfying him- 
 self with resolutions of well-doing, he had actually gone 
 to work and made a good practical beginning. 
 
 Too many are, however, impatient of results. They 
 are not satisfied to begin where their fathers did, but 
 where they left off. They think to enjoy the fruits of 
 industry without working for them. They cannot wait 
 for the results of labor and application, but forestall them 
 by too early indulgence. A worthy Scotch couple, when 
 
CHAP. IX. LIVING TOO HIGH. 291 
 
 asked how their son had broken down so early in life, 
 gave the following explanation : " When we began life 
 together, we worked hard, and lived upon porridge and 
 such like, gradually adding to our comforts as our means 
 improved, until we were able at length to dine off a bit 
 of roast meat and sometimes a boilt chuckie (or fowl) ; 
 but as for Jock, our son, he began where we had left off, 
 he began wi ' the chuckie first." The same illustration 
 will apply to higher conditions of life than that of this 
 humble pair. 
 
 Mr. Hume hit the mark when he once stated in the 
 House of Commons though his words were followed 
 by " laughter " that the tone of living in England is 
 altogether too high. Middle-class people are too apt to 
 live up to their incomes, if not beyond them ; affecting a 
 degree of " style " which is most unhealthy in its effect 
 upon society at large. There is an ambition to bring up 
 boys as gentlemen, or rather " genteel " men ; though the 
 result frequently is, only to make them gents. They 
 acquire a taste for dress, style, luxuries, and amusements, 
 which can never form any solid foundation for manly or 
 gentlemanly character ; and the result is, that we have a 
 vast number of gingerbread young gentry thrown upon 
 the world, who remind one of the abandoned hulls some- 
 times picked up at sea, with only a monkey on board. 
 
 There is a dreadful ambition abroad for being " gen- 
 teel." We keep up appearances, too often at the expense 
 of honesty; and, though we may not be rich, yet we 
 must seem to be so. We must be " respectable," though 
 only in the meanest sense, in mere vulgar outward 
 show. We have not the courage to go patiently onward 
 in the condition of life in which it has pleased God to 
 call us ; but must needs live in some fashionable state to 
 
292 SIR CHARLES NAPIER ON DEBT. CHAP. IX. 
 
 which we ridiculously please to call ourselves, and all to 
 gratify the vanity of that unsubstantial genteel world of 
 which we form a part. There is a constant struggle and 
 pressure for front seats in the social amphitheatre ; in the 
 midst of which all noble self-denying resolve is trodden 
 down, and many fine natures are inevitably crushed to 
 death. What waste, what misery, what bankruptcy, 
 come from all this ambition to dazzle others with the 
 glare of apparent worldly success, we need not describe. 
 The mischievous results show themselves in a thousand 
 ways, in the rank frauds committed by men who dare 
 to be dishonest, but do not dare to seem poor ; and in the 
 desperate dashes at fortune, in which the pity is not so 
 much for those who fail, as for the hundreds of innocent 
 families who are so often involved in their ruin. 
 
 The late Sir Charles Napier, in taking leave of his 
 command in India, did a bold and honest thing in pub- 
 lishing his strong protest, embodied in his last General 
 Order to the officers of the Indian army, against the 
 " fast " life led by so many young officers in that service, 
 involving them in ignominious obligations. Sir Charles 
 strongly urged, in that famous document, what had 
 almost been lost sight of, that " honesty is inseparable 
 from the character of a thorough-bred gentleman ; " and 
 that " to drink unpaid-for champagne and unpaid-for beer, 
 and to ride unpaid-for horses, is to be a cheat, and not a 
 gentleman." Men who lived beyond their means, and 
 were summoned, often by their own servants, before 
 Courts of Requests for debts contracted in extravagant 
 living, might be officers by virtue of their commissions, 
 but they were not gentlemen. The habit of being con- 
 stantly in debt, the Commander-in-Chief held, made men 
 grow callous to the proper feelings of a gentleman. It 
 
CHAP. IX. RESISTANCE TO TEMPTATION. 293 
 
 was not enough that an officer should be able to fight ; 
 that any bull-dog could do. But did he hold his word 
 inviolate, did he pay his debts? These were among 
 the points of honor which, he insisted, illuminated the 
 true gentleman's and soldier's career. As Bayard was 
 of old, so would Sir Charles Napier have all British offi- 
 cers to be. He knew them to be " without fear," but he 
 would also have them " without reproach." There are, 
 however, many gallant young fellows, both in India and 
 at home, capable of mounting a breach on an emergency 
 amidst belching fire, and of performing the most desperate 
 deeds of valor, who nevertheless cannot or will not exer- 
 cise the moral courage necessary to enable them to resist 
 a petty temptation presented to their senses. They can- 
 not utter their valiant " No," or " I can't afford it," to the 
 invitations of pleasure and self-enjoyment ; and they are 
 found ready to brave death rather than the ridicule of 
 their companions. 
 
 The young man, as he passes through life, advances 
 through a long line of tempters ranged on either side 
 of him ; and the inevitable effect of yielding, is degra- 
 dation in a greater or less degree. Contact with them 
 tends insensibly to draw away from him some portion 
 of the divine electric element with which his nature is 
 charged ; and his only mode of resisting them is to utter 
 and to act out his " No " manfully and resolutely. He 
 must decide at once, not waiting to deliberate and bal- 
 ance reasons ; for the youth, like " the woman who de- 
 liberates, is lost." Many deliberate, without deciding; 
 but " not to resolve, is to resolve." A perfect knowl- 
 edge of man is in the prayer, " Lead us not into temp- 
 tation." But temptation will come to try the young 
 man's strength ; and once yielded to, the power to resist 
 
294 RESISTANCE TO TEMPTATION. CHAP. IX. 
 
 grows weaker and weaker. Yield once, and a portion 
 of virtue has gone. Resist manfully, and the first de- 
 cision will give strength for life; repeated, it will be- 
 come a habit. It is in the outworks of the habits formed 
 in early life that the real strength of the defence must 
 lie ; for it has been wisely ordained, that the machinery 
 of moral existence should be carried on principally 
 through the medium of the habits, so as to save the wear 
 and tear of the great principles within. It is good habits, 
 which insinuate themselves into the thousand inconsider- 
 able acts of life, that really constitute by far the greater 
 part of man's moral conduct. 
 
 Hugh Miller has told how, by an act of youthful de- 
 cision, he saved himself from one of the strong tempta- 
 tions so peculiar to a life of toil. When employed as a 
 mason, it was usual for his fellow-workmen to have an 
 occasional treat of drink, and one day two glasses of 
 whiskey fell to his share, which he swallowed. When 
 he reached home, he found, on opening his favorite book, 
 " Bacon's Essays," that the letters danced before 
 his eyes, and that he could no longer master the sense. 
 "The condition," he says, "into which I had brought 
 myself was, I felt, one of degradation. I had sunk, by 
 rny own act, for the time, to a lower level of intelligence 
 than that on which it was my privilege to be placed; 
 and though the state could have been no very favorable 
 one for forming a resolution, I in that hour determined 
 that I should never again sacrifice my capacity of intel- 
 lectual enjoyment to a drinking usage ; and with God's 
 help, I was enabled to hold by the determination." It 
 is such decisions as this that often form the turning- 
 points in a man's life, and furnish the foundation of hia 
 future character. And this rock, on which Hugh Mil- 
 
CHAP. IX. A HIGH STAND AED NECESSARY. 295 
 
 ler might have been wrecked, if he had not at the right 
 moment put forth his moral strength to strike away from 
 it, is one that youth and manhood alike need to be con- 
 stantly on their guard against. It is about one of the 
 worst and most deadly, as well as extravagant, tempta- 
 tions which lie in the way of youth. Sir Walter Scot! 
 used to say " that of all vices drinking is the most in- 
 compatible with greatness." Not only so, but it is in- 
 compatible with economy, decency, health, and honest 
 living. When a youth cannot restrain, he must abstain. 
 Dr. Johnson's case is the case of many. He said, re- 
 ferring to his own habits, " Sir, I can abstain ; but I 
 can't be moderate." 
 
 But to wrestle vigorously and successfully with any 
 vicious habit, we must not merely be satisfied with con- 
 tending on the low ground of worldly prudence, though 
 that is of use, but take stand upon a higher moral ele- 
 vation. Mechanical aids, such as pledges, may be of 
 service to some, but the great thing is to set up a high 
 standard of thinking and acting, and endeavor to strength- 
 en and purify the principles, as well as to reform the 
 habits. For this purpose a youth must study himself, 
 watch his steps, and compare his thoughts and acts with 
 his rule. The more knowledge of himself he gains, the 
 more humble will he be, and perhaps the less confident in 
 his own strength. But the discipline will be found most 
 valuable which is acquired by resisting small present 
 gratifications to secure a prospective greater and higher 
 Dne. It is the noblest work in self-education, for 
 
 " Real glory 
 
 Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves, 
 And without that the conqueror is nought 
 But the first slave." 
 
296 - PROVERBS ON MONEY-MAKING. CHAP. IX. 
 
 Many popular books have been written for the pur 
 pose of communicating to the public the grand secret 
 of making money. But there is no secret whatever 
 about it, as the proverbs of every nation abundantly 
 testify. " Many a little makes a meikle." " Take care 
 of the pennies and the pounds will take care of them- 
 selves." "A penny saved is a penny gained." " Dil- 
 igence is the mother of good-luck." "No pains no 
 gains." " No sweat no sweet." " Sloth, the key of 
 poverty." " Work, and thou shalt have." " He who 
 will not work, neither shall he eat." " The world is 
 his, who has patience and industry." "It is too late to 
 spare when all is spent." " Better go to bed supper- 
 less than rise in debt." " The morning hour has gold 
 in its mouth." " Credit keeps the crown of the cause- 
 way." Such are specimens of the proverbial philosophy, 
 embodying the hoarded experience of many generations, 
 as to the best means of thriving in the world. They 
 were current in people's mouths long before books were 
 invented ; and like other popular proverbs, they were the 
 first codes of popular morals. Moreover they have stood 
 the test of time, and the experience of every day still 
 bears witness to their accuracy, force, and soundness. 
 The proverbs of Solomon are full of wisdom, as to the 
 force of industry, and the use and abuse of money: 
 " He that is slothful in work is brother to him that is 
 a great waster." " Go to the ant, thou sluggard ; con 
 sider her ways and be wise." Poverty, he says, shall 
 come upon the idler, " as one that travelleth, and want 
 as an armed man ; " but of the industrious and upright, 
 "The hand of the diligent maketh rich." "He who 
 will not plough by reason of the cold, shall beg in 
 harvest, and have nothing." " The drunkai* 3 and the 
 
CHAP. IX. INDUSTRY AND THRIFT. 297 
 
 glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall 
 clothe a man with rags." " The slothful man says 
 there is a lion in the streets." " Seest thou a man 
 diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings." 
 
 But above all " It is better to get wisdom than gold ; 
 for wisdom is better than rubies, and all the things that 
 may be desired are not to be compared to it." 
 
 Simple industry and thrift will go far towards making 
 any person of ordinary working faculty comparatively 
 independent in his means. Even a working man may 
 be so, provided he will carefully husband his resources 
 and watch the little outlets of useless expenditure. A 
 penny is a very small matter, yet the comfort of thou- 
 sands of families depends upon the proper spending and 
 saving of pennies. If a man allows the little pennies, 
 the results of his hard work, to slip out of his fingers, 
 
 some to the beershop, some this way and some that, 
 
 he will find that his life is little raised above one of 
 mere animal drudgery. On the other hand, if he take 
 care of the pennies, putting some weekly into a benefit 
 society or an insurance fund, others into a savings-bank, 
 and confiding the rest to his wife to be carefully laid 
 out, with a view to the comfortable maintenance and 
 education of his family, he will soon find that his at- 
 tention to small matters will abundantly repay him, in 
 increasing means, growing comfort at home, and a mind 
 comparatively free from fears as to the future. If a 
 working man have high ambition and possess richness 
 in spirit, a kind of wealth which far transcends al) 
 mere worldly possessions, he may not only help him- 
 self, but be a profitable helper of others in his path 
 through life. That this is no impossible thing, even for 
 a common laborer in a workshop, may be illustrated by 
 
 13* 
 
298 CAREER OF THOMAS WRIGHT. CITAP. IX, 
 
 the remarkable career of Thomas Wright, of Manches- 
 ter, whose life affords only another proof of the power 
 of patient perseverance in well-doing, and of the influ- 
 ence which even the humblest person, who is diligent 
 in improving his opportunities, may exercise for the ad 
 vantage of his fellow-creatures. 
 
 It was scarcely to have been expected, that one of the 
 most difficult and apparently impossible of things, the 
 reclamation of criminals, should have been not only at- 
 tempted, but accomplished, by a man working for weekly 
 wages in a foundry ! Yet this work was done by Thom- 
 as Wright when employed with the Messrs. Ormerod, 
 at Manchester. Accident first directed his attention to 
 the difficulty encountered by liberated convicts in return- 
 ing to habits of honest industry. His mind was possessed 
 by the subject ; and to remedy the evil became the pur- 
 pose of his life. He did not neglect his work, for he 
 honorably performed his duties as a foundry-man, and his 
 working and business qualities were so highly prized by 
 his employers, that he was gradually raised to the post of 
 foreman of his shop. Nor did he neglect his family, for, 
 upon comparatively small means, he respectably brought 
 up a large family. Though he worked from six in 
 the morning till six at night, still there were leisure min- 
 utes that he could call his own, more especially his 
 Sundays, and these he employed in the service of con- 
 victed criminals ; a class then far more neglected than 
 they are now. But a few minutes a day, well employed, 
 can effect a great deal ; and it will scarcely be credited, 
 that in ten years this working man, by steadfastly holding 
 to his purpose, succeeded in rescuing not fewer than three 
 hundred felons from continuance in a life of villany ! 
 He came to be regarded as the moral physician of the 
 
CHAP. IX. CAREER OF THOMAS WRIGHT. 299 
 
 Manchester Old Bailey ; and when the Chaplain and all 
 others failed, Thomas Wright often succeeded. Children 
 he thus restored healed to their parents ; sons and daugh- 
 ters otherwise lost, to their homes ; and many a returned 
 convict did he contrive to settle down to honest and indus- 
 trious pursuits. The task was by no means easy. It 
 required money, time, energy, prudence, and above all, 
 character, and the confidence which character invariably 
 inspires. The most remarkable circumstance of all is, 
 that Wright relieved many of these poor outcasts out of 
 the comparatively small wages earned by him at foundry 
 work. He did all this on an income which did not aver- 
 age, during his working career, WOL per annum ; and 
 yet, while he was able to bestow substantial aid on crim- 
 inals, to whom he owed no more than the service of kind- 
 ness which every human being owes to another, he also 
 maintained his own family in comfort, and was, by fru- 
 gality and carefulness, enabled to lay by a store of savings 
 against his approaching old age. Every week he appor- 
 tioned his income with deliberate care ; so much for the 
 indispensable necessaries of food and clothing, so much 
 for the landlord, so much for the schoolmaster, so much 
 for the poor and needy; and the lines of distribution 
 were resolutely observed. By such means did this hum- 
 ble workman pursue his great work, with the results we 
 have so briefly described. . His career affords one of the 
 most remarkable and striking illustrations of the force of 
 purpose in a man, of the might of small means carefully 
 and sedulously applied, and, above all, of the power 
 which an energetic and upright character invariably ex- 
 ercises upon the lives and conduct of others. 
 
 There is no discredit, but honor, in every right walk 
 of industry, whether it be in tilling the ground, making 
 
300 ALL HONEST INDUSTRY HONOEABLE. CHAP. IX. 
 
 tools, weaving fabrics, or selling the products behind a 
 counter. A youth may handle a yard-stick, or measure 
 a piece of ribbon ; and there will be no discredit in doing 
 so, unless he allows his mind to have no higher range 
 than the stick and ribbon ; to be as short as the one, and 
 as narrow as the other. " Let not those blush who have? 
 said Fuller, " but those who have not a lawful calling," 
 And Bishop Hall said, " Sweet is the destiny of all 
 trades, whether of the brow or of the mind." Men who 
 have raised themselves from a humble calling, need not 
 be ashamed, but rather ought to be proud of the difficul- 
 ties they have surmounted. The laborer on his feet 
 stands higher than the nobleman on his knees. An 
 American President, when asked what was his coat-of- 
 arms, remembering that he had been a hewer of wood 
 in his youth, replied, " A pair of shirt-sleeves." Lord 
 Tenterden was proud to point out to his son the shop 
 in which his father had shaved for a penny. A French 
 doctor once taunted Flechier, Bishop of Nismes, who had 
 been a tallow-chandler in his youth, with the meanness of 
 his origin, to which Flechier replied, " If you had been 
 born in the same condition that I was, you would still 
 have been but a maker of candles." Some small spirits, 
 ashamed of their origin, are always striving to conceal it, 
 and by the very efforts they make to do so, betray them- 
 selves ; like that worthy but stupid Yorkshire dyer, who, 
 having gained his money by honest chimney-sweeping, 
 and feeling ashamed of chimneys, built his house without 
 one, sending all his smoke into the shaft of his dye-works. 
 The benevolent Sir Thomas Bernard, one of the best 
 practical philanthropists of his day, in his " Tracts for 
 bettering the Condition of the Poor," makes honorable 
 mention of " a very intelligent and valuable man, Mr. 
 
CHAP. IX. AN ILLUSTKIOUS SWEEP. 301 
 
 David Porter, a master chimney-sweeper in Welbeck 
 Street," who is another good illustration of the force of 
 diligence and well-doing. In early boyhood Porter was 
 kidnapped for a sweep ; the condition of climbing-boys at 
 the time being one almost of slavery. The boy, however, 
 had energy of body and mind, and survived the privations 
 of his unfortunate class. At eighteen years of age he 
 commenced business as a sweep on his own account. 
 When employment was slack in his trade, he sought and 
 found it in others ; in summer and harvest time he went 
 into Lincolnshire and worked at farm labor, always bring- 
 ing home a little store of savings. But he did not neglect 
 his mind ; above all, he did not forget the hardships en- 
 dured by the poor little climbing-boys ; all of which he 
 had himself passed through. He therefore devoted his 
 leisure, snatched from a busy life, to write a treatise 
 on the subject, which he printed and distributed amongst 
 influential persons ; thereby initiating, as Granville Sharp 
 had done, the movement which issued in the amelioration 
 of the sufferings of this class. Mr. Porter, by his frugal- 
 ity, industry, and application to business, eventually real- 
 ized a large fortune, at the same time promoting the 
 comforts of his boys and workmen in a manner altogether 
 unknown and unusual at the time. On Sir Thomas Ber- 
 nard asking Mr. Porter how he had succeeded in his 
 business, and accumulated so large a fortune, he an- 
 swered, " By never having an idle hour or an idle 
 guinea." This was his whole secret. 
 
 Nothing, however, is more common than energy in 
 money-making, quite independent of any higher object 
 than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to 
 this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become 
 rich. Very little brains will do ; spend less than you 
 
302 MERE MONEY-MAKING. CHAP. IX. 
 
 earn ; add guinea to guinea ; scrape and save ; and the 
 pile of gold will gradually rise. John Foster quoted a 
 striking illustration of what this kind of determination will 
 do in money -making. A young man who ran through his 
 patrimony, spending it in profligacy, was at length re- 
 duced to utter want and despair. He rushed out of his 
 house intending to put an end to his life, and stopped on 
 arriving at an eminence overlooking what were once his 
 estates. He sat down, ruminated for a time, and rose 
 with the determination that he would recover them. He 
 returned to the streets, saw a load of coals which had 
 been shot out of a cart on to the pavement before a house, 
 offered to carry them in, and was employed. He thus 
 earned a few pence, requested some meat and drink as a 
 gratuity, which was given him, and the pennies were laid 
 by. Pursuing this menial labor, he earned and saved 
 more pennies; accumulated sufficient to enable him to 
 purchase some cattle, the value of which he understood, 
 and these he sold to advantage. He now pursued money 
 with a step as steady as time, and an appetite as keen as 
 death ; advancing by degrees into larger and larger trans- 
 actions, until at length he became rich. The result was, 
 that he more than recovered his possessions, and died an 
 inveterate miser. When he was buried, mere earth went 
 to earth. With a nobler spirit, the same determination 
 might have enabled such a man to be a benefactor to 
 others as well as to himself. But the life and its end in 
 this case were alike sordid. 
 
 The saving of money for the mere sake of it, is but a 
 mean thing, even though earned by honest work ; but 
 where earned by dice-throwing, or speculation, and with- 
 out labor, it is still worse. To provide for others, and 
 for our own comfort and independence in old age, is hon- 
 
CHAP. IX. THE LOVE OF MONEY. 303 
 
 orable, and greatly to be commended ; but to hoard for 
 mere wealth's sake is the characteristic of the narrow- 
 souled and the miserly. It is against the growth of this 
 habit of inordinate saving, that the wise man needs most 
 carefully to guard himself; else, what in youth was sim- 
 ple economy, may in old age grow into avarice, and 
 what was a duty in the one, may become a vice in the 
 other. It is the love of money not money itself 
 which is " the root of evil," a love which narrows and 
 contracts the soul, and closes it against generous life and 
 action. Hence, Sir Walter Scott makes one of his char- 
 acters declare that " the penny siller slew mair souls than 
 the naked sword slew bodies." It is one of the defects 
 of business too exclusively followed, that it insensibly 
 tends to a mechanism of character. The business man 
 gets into a rut, and often does not look beyond it. If 
 he lives for himself only, he becomes apt to regard other 
 human beings only in so far as they minister to his ends. 
 Take a leaf from such men's ledger, and you have their 
 life. It is said of one of our most eminent modern men of 
 business withal a scrupulously honorable man whc 
 spent his life mainly in money-making, and succeeded, 
 that when upon his death-bed, he turned to his favorite 
 daughter, and said solemnly to her, " Hasn't it been a 
 
 mistake, ? " He had been thinking of the good 
 
 which other men of his race had done, and which he 
 might have done, had he not unhappily found exclusive 
 money-making to be a mistake when it was too late to 
 remedy it; and, when he must leave behind him his 
 huge pile of gold, the accumulation of which had been 
 almost the sole object of his life. 
 
 Worldly success, measured by the accumulation of 
 \noney, is no doubt a very dazzling thing ; and all men 
 
304 RICHES NO PROOF OF WORTH. CHAP. IX. 
 
 are naturally more or less the admirers of worldly sue-* 
 cess. But though men of persevering, sharp, dexterous, 
 and unscrupulous habits, ever on the watch to push op- 
 portunities, may and do " get on " in the world ; yet it 
 is quite possible that they may not possess the slight- 
 est elevation of character, nor a particle of real great- 
 ness. He who recognizes no higher logic than that 
 of the shilling, may become a very rich man, and yet 
 remain all the while an exceedingly poor creature. 
 For riches are no proof whatever of moral worth ; 
 and their glitter often serves only to draw attention to 
 the worthlessness of their possessor, as the glowworm's 
 light reveals the grub. " In morals," says Mr. Lynch,* 
 " a penny may outweigh a pound, may represent 
 more industry and character. The money that wit- 
 nesses of patient, inventive years of fair dealing and 
 brave dealing, proves i worth ' indeed. But neither a 
 man's means nor his worth are measurable by his 
 money. If he has a fat purse and a lean heart, a broad 
 estate and a narrow understanding, what will his 'means' 
 do for him, what will his ' worth ' gain him ? " Let a 
 man be what he will, it is the mind and heart that make 
 a man poor or rich, miserable or happy ; for these are 
 always stronger than fortune. 
 
 The manner in which so many allow themselves to be 
 sacrificed to their love of wealth, reminds one of the 
 cupidity of the monkey, that caricature of our species. 
 In Algiers, the Kabyle peasant attaches a gourd, well 
 fixed, to a tree, and places within it some rice. The 
 gourd has an opening merely sufficient to admit the 
 monkey's paw. The creature comes to the tree by 
 
 * "Lectures in aid of Self-Improvement;" a book somewhat 
 didactic in its manner, but full of manly vigor and golden thought. 
 
CHAP. H. POWER OF MONEY OVER-ESTIMATED. 305 
 
 night, inserts his paw, and grasps his booty. He tries 
 to draw it back, but it is clenched, and he has not the 
 wisdom to unclench it. So there he stands till morn- 
 ing, when he is caught, looking as foolish as may be, 
 though with the prize in his grasp. The moral of this 
 little story is capable of a very extensive application in 
 life. 
 
 The power of money is on the whole over-estimated. 
 The greatest things which have been done for the world 
 have not been accomplished by rich men, or by subscrip- 
 tion lists, but by men generally of small pecuniary means. 
 Christianity was propagated over half the world by men 
 of the poorest class ; and the greatest thinkers, discov- 
 erers, inventors, and artists, have been men of moderate 
 wealth, many of them little raised above the condition 
 of manual laborers in point of worldly circumstances. 
 And it will always be so. Riches are oftener an im- 
 pediment than a stimulus to action ; and in many cases 
 they are quite as much a misfortune as a blessing. The 
 youth who inherits wealth, is apt to have life made too 
 easy for him, and he soon grows sated with it, because 
 he has nothing left to desire. Having no special object 
 to struggle for, he finds time hang heavy on his hands ; 
 he remains morally and spiritually asleep ; and his posi- 
 tion in society is often no higher than that of a polypus 
 over which the tide floats. 
 
 " His only labor is to kill the time, 
 And labor dire it is, and weary woe." 
 
 Yet the rich man, inspired by a right spirit, will spurn 
 idleness as unmanly ; and if he bethink him of the re- 
 sponsibilities which attach to the possession of wealth 
 and property, he will feel even a higher call to work 
 than men of poorer lot. This, however, must be ad- 
 
306 TRUE RESPECTABILITY. CHAP. IX. 
 
 milled to be by no means the practice of life. The gold- 
 en mean of Agur's perfect prayer, is, perhaps, the best 
 lot of all, if we did but know it : " Give me neither pov- 
 erty nor riches ; feed me with food convenient for me." 
 The late Joseph Brotherton left a fine motto to be re- 
 corded upon his monument in the Peel Park at Man- 
 chester, the declaration in his case being strictly true: 
 " My richness consisted not in the greatness of my posses- 
 sions, but in the smallness of my wants." He rose, as 
 we have seen, from the humblest station, that of a fac- 
 tory boy, to an eminent position of usefulness, by the 
 simple exercise of homely honesty, industry, punctuah'ty, 
 and self-denial. Down to the close of his life, when not 
 attending Parliament, he did duty as minister in a small 
 chapel in Manchester to which he was attached ; and in 
 all things he made it appear, to those who knew him in 
 private life, that the glory he sought was not " to be seen 
 of men," or to excite their praise, but to earn the con 
 sciousness of discharging the every-day duties of life 
 down to the smallest and humblest of them, in an honest 
 upright, truthful, and loving spirit. 
 
 " Respectability," in its best sense, is good. The re- 
 spectable man is one worthy of regard, literally worth turn 
 ing back to look at. But the respectability that consists ic 
 merely keeping up appearances is not worth looking at ic 
 any sense. Far better and more respectable is the good 
 poor man than the bad rich one, better the humble silent 
 man than the agreeable well-appointed rogue, who keeps 
 his gig. A well-balanced and well-stored mind, a life full 
 of useful purpose, whatever the position occupied in i. 
 may be, is of far greater importance than average 
 worldly respectability. The highest object of life we take 
 to be, to form a manly character, and to work out the best 
 
CHAP. IX. TRUE RESPECTABILITY. 307 
 
 development possible, of body and spirit, of mind, con- 
 science, heart, and soul. This is the end ; all else ought 
 to be regarded but as the means. Accordingly, that is 
 not the most successful life in which a man gets the most 
 pleasure, the most money, the most power or place, 
 honor or fame ; but that in which a man gets the most 
 manhood, and performs the greatest amount of useful 
 work and of human duty. Money is power after its 
 sort, it is true ; but intelligence, public spirit, and moral 
 virtue, are powers too, and far nobler ones. " Let others 
 plead for pensions," wrote Lord Collingwood to a friend ; 
 " I can be rich without money, by endeavoring to be su- 
 perior to everything poor. I would have my services to 
 my country unstained by any interested motive ; and old 
 Scott * and I can go on in our cabbage-garden without 
 much greater expense than formerly." On another occa- 
 sion he said, " I have motives for my conduct which I 
 would not give in exchange for a hundred pensions." 
 
 The making of a fortune may no doubt enable some 
 people to " enter society," as it is called ; but to be es- 
 teemed there, they must possess qualities of mind, manners, 
 or heart, else they are merely rich people, nothing more. 
 There are men " in society " now, as rich as Croesus, 
 who have* no consideration extended towards them, and 
 elicit no respect. For why ? They are but as money- 
 bags . their only power is in their till. The men of 
 mark in society, the guides and rulers of opinion, 
 the really successful and useful men, are not necessa- 
 
 # His old gardener. Collingwood's favorite amusement was gar- 
 dening. Shortly after the battle of Trafalgar a brother admiral called 
 upon him, and, after searching for his lordship all over the garden, he 
 at last discovered him, with old Scott, in the bottom of a deep trench 
 Which they were busily employed in digging. 
 
308 TRUE RESPECTABILITY. CHAP. IX. 
 
 rily rich men ; but men of sterling character, of disciplined 
 experience, and of moral excellence. Even the poor 
 man like Thomas Wright, though he possess but little 
 of this world's goods, may, in the self-consciousness of 
 a well-cultivated nature, of opportunities used and not 
 abused, of a life spent to the best of his means and abil- 
 ity, look down, without the slightest feeling of envy, upon 
 the person of mere worldly success, the man of money- 
 bags and acres. 
 
CHAP. X. PHYSICAL CULTURE. 309 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SELF-CULTURE. 
 
 "Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and 
 ane, more important, which he gives to himself." Gibbon. 
 
 " These two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together, 
 manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self- 
 reliance." Wordsworth. 
 
 SELF-CULTURE includes the education or training of 
 all parts of a man's nature ; the physical and moral, as 
 well as the intellectual. Each must be developed, and 
 yet each must yield something to satisfy the claims of 
 the others. Cultivate the physical powers exclusively, 
 and you have an athlete or a savage; the moral only, 
 and you have an enthusiast or a maniac ; the intellectual 
 only, and you have a diseased oddity, it may be a mon- 
 ster. It is only by wisely training all three together that 
 the complete man can be formed. 
 
 The ancients laid great stress on physical training, and 
 a sound mind in a sound body was the end which they 
 professed to aim at in their highest schools of culture. 
 The Greek teachers were peripatetic, holding that young 
 men should only learn what they could learn standing. 
 The old English entertained a similar idea, embodied in 
 the maxim, " The field in summer, the study in winter." 
 Milton described himself as up and stirring early in the 
 morning, " in winter, often ere the sound of any bell 
 wakes man to labor or devotion ; in summer, as oft with 
 
310 NEGLECT OF BODILY EXERCISE. CHAP. X. 
 
 the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read 
 good authors, or to cause them to be read till the atten- 
 tion be ready, or memory have its full fraught ; then, 
 with clear and generous labor, preserving the body's 
 health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not 
 lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, 
 and our country's liberty." In his " Tractate on Educa- 
 tion " he recommends the physical exercise of fencing to 
 young men, as calculated to " keep them healthy, nimble, 
 strong, and well in breath, and also as the likeliest means 
 to make them grow large and tall, and inspire them with 
 a gallant and fearless courage," and he further urges that 
 they should " be practised in all the locks and grips of 
 wrestling, wherein Englishmen were wont to excel." 
 
 In our day, such exercises have somewhat fallen into 
 disrepute, and education has become more exclusively 
 mental ; very much to the detriment of the bodily health. 
 The brain is cultivated at the expense of the members, 
 and the physical is usually found in an inverse ratio to 
 the intellectual appetite. Hence, in this age of progress, 
 we find so many stomachs weak as blotting-paper, 
 hearts indicating " fatty degeneration," unused, pithless 
 hands, calveless legs and limp bodies, without any elastic 
 spring in them. But it is not merely health that suffers 
 by neglect and disuse of the bodily organs. The mind 
 itself grows sickly and distempered, the pursuit of knowl- 
 edge itself is impeded, and manhood becomes withered, 
 twisted, and stunted. It is, perhaps, to this neglect of 
 physical exercise that we find amongst students so frequent 
 a tendency towards discontent, unhappiness, inaction, and 
 reverie, displaying itself in a premature contempt for 
 real life, and disgust at the beaten tracks of men, a 
 tendency which in England has been called Byronism, 
 
CHAP. X. MANLY SPORTS. 311 
 
 and in Germany Wertherism. Dr. Channing noted the 
 same growth in America, which led him to make the 
 remark, that " too many of our young men grow up in 
 a school of despair." The only remedy for this green- 
 sickness in youth is abundant physical exercise, action, 
 work, and bodily occupation of any sort. 
 
 Daniel Malthus urged his son when at college to be 
 most diligent in the cultivation of knowledge, but he also 
 enjoined him to pursue manly sports as the best means 
 of keeping up the full working-power of his mind, as 
 well as of enjoying the pleasures of intellect. " Every 
 kind of knowledge," said he, " every acquaintance with 
 nature and art, will amuse and strengthen your mind, and 
 I am perfectly pleased that cricket should do the same 
 by your arms and legs ; I love to see you excel in exer- 
 cises of the body, and I think myself that the better half, 
 and much the most agreeable part, of the pleasures of 
 the mind, is best enjoyed while one is upon one's legs." 
 But a still more important use of active employment is 
 that enforced by the great divine, Jeremy Taylor. " Avoid 
 idleness," he says, " and fill up all the spaces of thy time 
 with severe and useful employment ; for lust easily creeps 
 in at those emptinesses where the soul is unemployed, and 
 the body is at ease ; for no easy, healthful, idle person 
 was ever chaste if he could be tempted ; but of all em- 
 ployments, bodily labor is the most useful, and of the 
 greatest benefit for driving away the devil." 
 
 Practical success in life depends much more upon 
 physical health than is generally imagined. Hodson, of 
 Elodson's Horse, writing home to a friend in England, 
 said, " I believe, if I get on well in India, it will be owing, 
 physically speaking, to a sound digestion." The capacity 
 for continuous working in any calling must necessarily 
 
312 BOATING AND CRICKETING. CHAP. X 
 
 mainly depend upon this ; and hence the necessity for 
 attending to health, even as a means of intellectual labor 
 itself. It is in no slight degree to the boating and cricket- 
 ing sports, still cultivated at our best public schools and 
 universities, that they produce so many specimens of 
 healthy, manly, and vigorous men, of the true Hodson 
 stamp. It is said that the Duke of Wellington, when 
 once looking on at the boys engaged in their sports in the 
 play-ground at Eton, where he had" spent his own juvenile 
 days, made the pregnant remark, " It was there that the 
 battle of Waterloo was won ! " 
 
 The cultivation of muscularity may doubtless be over- 
 estimated ; yet it is unquestionably important that every 
 young man should be early trained to the free use of his 
 body and limbs. This, however, is one of the " common 
 things " in modern education which is apt to be neglected. 
 There are many youths who leave school and college full 
 of the learning of the ancient Greeks and Romans, who, 
 as regards the use of their own hands, are almost help- 
 less. In gerunds and participles the mere student may 
 be profound, but in the use of his eyes, in the faculty 
 of common observation, he may be inferior to a 
 ploughman. Though he may have taken the highest 
 honors, he will sometimes, in common matters, be found 
 beneath the level of the smith, the carpenter, or the navvy. 
 " At sea he is a landlubber, in the country a cockney, in 
 town a greenhorn, in science an ignoramus, in business a 
 simpleton, in pleasure a milksop, everywhere out of 
 his element, everywhere at sea, in the clouds, adrift, or 
 by whatever words utter ignorance and incapacity are to 
 be described." * 
 
 Perhaps, as educators grow wiser, they may become 
 
 * Article in the " Times." 
 
CHAP. X. USES OF MECHANICAL WORK. 313 
 
 more practical, and recognize as among the chief objects 
 of education, to fit men for actual life, and enable them to 
 understand and take part in the daily business of com- 
 mon men. Nor would the education of youths in common 
 things be found incompatible with the very highest intel- 
 lectual culture, but the reverse. Even some training in 
 the use of tools in a workshop, for instance, would be 
 found a good adjunct to education, for it would teach 
 young men the use of their hands and arms, familiarize 
 them with healthy work, exercise their faculties upon 
 things tangible and actual, give them some practical 
 acquaintance with mechanics, impart to them the ability 
 of being useful, and implant in them the habit of perse- 
 vering physical effort. This is an advantage which the 
 working classes, strictly so called, certainly possess over 
 the leisure classes, that they are in early life under 
 the necessity of applying themselves laboriously to some 
 mechanical pursuit or other, thus acquiring manual 
 dexterity and the use of their physical powers. The 
 chief disadvantage attached to the calling of the laborious 
 classes is, not that they are employed in physical work, 
 but that they are too exclusively so employed, often to 
 the neglect of their moral and intellectual faculties. 
 While the youths of the leisure classes, having been 
 taught to associate labor with servility, have shunned it, 
 and been allowed to grow up practically ignorant, the 
 poorer classes, confining themselves within the circle of 
 their laborious callings, have been allowed to grow up in 
 a large proportion of cases absolutely illiterate. It seems 
 possible, however, to avoid both these evils by combining 
 physical training or physical work with intellectual cul- 
 ture ; and there are various signs abroad which seem to 
 mark the gradual adoption of this healthier system of 
 
 education. 
 
 14 
 
314 BOYHOOD OF ISAAC NEWTON. CHAP. X 
 
 The use of early labor in self-imposed mechanical em 
 ployments is curiously illustrated by the boyhood of Sii 
 Isaac Newton. Though a comparatively dull scholar, he 
 was most assiduous in the use of his saw, hammer, and 
 hatchet, " knocking and hammering in his lodging- 
 room," making models of windmills, carriages, and 
 machines of all sorts ; and as he grew older, he took de- 
 light in making little tables and cupboards for his friends. 
 Smeaton, Watt, and Stephenson, were equally handy 
 with tools when mere boys ; and but for such kind of 
 self-culture in their youth, it is doubtful whether they 
 would have accomplished so much in their manhood. 
 Such was also the early training of the great inventors 
 and mechanics described in the preceding pages, whose 
 contrivance and intelligence were practically trained by 
 the constant use of their hands in early life. Even whero 
 men belonging to the manual labor class have risen above 
 it, and become more purely intellectual laborers, they 
 have found the advantages of their early training in 
 their later pursuits. Elihu Burritt even found hard 
 labor necessary to enable him to study with effect ; and 
 more than once he gave up school-keeping and study, 
 and taking to his leather apron again, went back to his 
 blacksmith's forge and anvil, for his health of body and 
 mind's sake. 
 
 The same view was well urged by Mr. R. M. Milnes, 
 M. P., at a recent meeting of a mechanics' institute. " He 
 believed," he said, " that the habit of mechanical work, 
 precise, earnest, industrious, good, mechanical work, 
 would best lead men on to good mental and intellectual 
 work. A good workman in the materials of life would, if 
 he had the talent, be a good workman in the materials of 
 the mind ; and thus it was that they found that the most 
 
CHAP. X. CULTIVATED PHYSICAL STRENGTH. 315 
 
 remarkable men who had risen from the lower ranks of 
 society, had not risen from those who had abstained from 
 work, but from those who had been the most industrious, 
 the most active, and the most intelligent in their own me- 
 chanical occupations. There were two things which 
 operated against young men advancing in intellectual 
 progress, over- work and under- work. He thought it 
 no disadvantage whatever to a man's intellectual progress 
 to have something else to do ; and if they looked at the 
 upper classes of society they would find it was equally 
 true in their case as it was in their own, namely, that 
 the man who had the most active occupation was the 
 man who in public life the most distinguished himself, 
 and became the most useful to his country." 
 
 The success even of professional men depends in no 
 slight degree on their organic stamina and cultivated 
 physical strength. Thus a well-developed thorax is con- 
 sidered almost as indispensable to the successful lawyer 
 or politician as a well-cultured intellect. The thorough 
 aeration of the blood, by free exposure to a large breath- 
 ing surface in the lungs, is necessary to maintain that full 
 vital power on which the vigorous working of the brain 
 in so large a measure depends. The lawyer has to climb 
 the heights of his profession through close and heated 
 courts, and the political leader has to bear the fatigue and 
 excitement of long and anxious debates in a crowded 
 House. Hence the lawyer in full practice, and the par- 
 liamentary leader in full work, are called upon to display 
 powers of physical endurance and activity even more 
 extraordinary than those of the intellect, such powers 
 as have been exhibited in so remarkable a degree b;y 
 Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Campbell ; by Peel, Graham, 
 and Palmerston, all full-chebted men, 
 
316 CULTIVATED PHYSICAL STRENGTH. CHAP. X 
 
 The marvellous and still juvenile vitality of Lord Pal- 
 merston has long been matter of surprise. But it was 
 his pride and pleasure as a youth, to be the best rower, 
 jumper, and runner; to be first in the sports of the field 
 as he has since been first in the senate ; and to this day 
 his horse and gun are invariably resorted to in his hours 
 of relaxation. As for Lord Brougham, legends of his 
 enormous powers of labor and triumphs over the frail 
 physique of humanity, have gathered round him like a 
 Hercules; and with reference to him and others of his 
 class, the observation of a public writer * is doubtless in 
 a great measure true, that " the greatness of our great 
 men is quite as much a bodily affair as a mental one." 
 It is in the physical man that the moral as well as the 
 intellectual man lies hid; and it is through the bodily 
 organs that the soul itself works. The body, as old Bur- 
 ton says, " is domicilium animce, her home, abode, and 
 stay; and, as a torch gives a better light, a sweeter 
 smell, according to the matter it is made of, so doth our 
 soul perform all her actions better or worse, as her or- 
 gans are disposed ; or, as wine savors of the cask wherein 
 it is kept, the soul receives a tincture from the body, 
 through which it works." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, when attending the University at 
 Edinburgh, though he went by the name of " The Great 
 Blockhead," was, notwithstanding his lameness, a remark- 
 ably healthy youth, and could spear a salmon with the 
 best fisher on the Tweed, or ride a wild horse with any 
 hunter in Yarrow. When devoting himself in after-life 
 to literary pursuits, Sir Walter never lost his taste for 
 field-sports ; but while writing " Waverley " in the morn- 
 ing, he would in the afternoon course hares. Professor 
 * The " Times.'* 
 
CHAP. X. SUSTAINED APPLICATION. 3l 7 
 
 Wilson was a very athlete, as great at throwing the ham- 
 mer as in his flights of eloquence and poetry ; and Burns, 
 when a youth, was remarkable chiefly for his leaping, 
 putting, and wrestling. Some of our greatest divines 
 were distinguished in their youth for their physical 
 energies. Isaac Barrow, when at the Charterhouse 
 School, was notorious for his pugilistic encounters, in 
 which he got many a bloody nose ; Andrew Fuller, when 
 working as a farmer's lad at Soham, was chiefly famous 
 for his skill in boxing ; and Adam Clarke, when a boy, 
 was only remarkable for the strength displayed by him 
 in " rolling large stones about ; " the secret, possibly, of 
 some of the power which he subsequently displayed in 
 rolling forth large thoughts in his manhood. 
 
 While it is necessary, then, in the first place to secure 
 this solid foundation of physical health, it must also be 
 observed that sustained application is the inevitable price 
 which must be paid for mental acquisitions of all sorts ; 
 and it is as futile to expect them without it, as to look for 
 a harvest where the seed has not been sown. The road 
 into knowledge is free to all who will give the labor and 
 the study requisite to gather it ; nor are there any diffi- 
 culties so great that the student of resolute purpose may 
 not effectually surmount and overcome them. It was one 
 of the characteristic expressions of Chatterton, that God 
 had sent his creatures into the world with arms long 
 enough to reach anything, if they chose to be at the 
 trouble. In study, as in business, energy is the great 
 thing. There must be the " fervet opus," we must not 
 only strike the iron while it is hot, but strike it till it is 
 made hot. The proverb says, " He who has heart has 
 everything ; " and Che non arde non incende, Who doth 
 not burn doth not inflame. It is astonishing how much 
 
318 WELL-DIRECTED LAB OK. CHAP. X. 
 
 may be accomplished in self-culture by the energetic and 
 the persevering, who are careful to avail themselves of 
 opportunities, and use up the fragments of spare time 
 which the idle permit to run to waste. Thus Ferguson 
 learned astronomy from the heavens, while wrapped in a 
 sheepskin on the highland hills. Thus Stone learned 
 mathematics while working as a journeyman gardener ; 
 thus Drew studied the highest philosophy in the intervals 
 of cobbling shoes ; thus Miller taught himself geology 
 while working as a day-laborer in a quarry. By bring- 
 ing their mind to bear upon knowledge in its various 
 aspects, and carefully using up the very odds and ends of 
 their time, men such as these, in the very humblest 
 circumstances, reached the highest culture, and acquired 
 honorable distinction amongst their fellow-men. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, as we have already observed, 
 was so earnest a believer in the power of industry, that 
 he held that all men might achieve excellence if they 
 would but exercise the power of assiduous and patient 
 working. He held that drudgery was on the road of 
 genius, and that there were no limits to the proficiency 
 of an artist except the limits of his own painstaking. 
 He would not believe in what is called inspiration, but 
 only in study and labor. " Excellence," he said, " is 
 never granted to man but as the reward of labor." If 
 you have great talents, industry will improve them ; if 
 you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their 
 deficiency. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor ; 
 nothing is to be obtained without it." Sir Fowell Bux- 
 ton, who labored in a very different field, was an equal 
 believer in the power of study ; and he entertained the 
 modest idea that he could do as well as other men if he 
 devoted to the pursuit double the time and labor that they 
 
CHAP. X. THOROUGHNESS AND ACCURACY. 319 
 
 did. He placed his great confidence only in ordinary 
 means, and extraordinary application. Genius, without 
 work, is certainly a dumb oracle; and it is unquestion- 
 ably true, that the men of the highest genius have 
 invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, 
 hard-working, and intent men, their chief character- 
 istic apparently consisting simply in their power of labor- 
 ing more intensely and effectively than others. 
 
 Thoroughness and accuracy are two principal points to 
 be aimed at in study. Francis Horner, in laying down 
 rules for the cultivation of his mind and character, placed 
 great stress upon the habit of continuous application to 
 one subject for the sake of mastering it thoroughly ; con- 
 fining himself, with this object, to but a few books, and 
 resisting with the greatest firmness " every approach to a 
 habit of desultory reading." The value of knowledge to 
 any man certainly consists not in its quantity^ but mainly 
 in the good uses to which he may apply it. Hence a 
 little knowledge, of an exact and perfect character, is 
 always found more valuable for practical purposes than 
 any extent of superficial learning. The phrase in com- 
 mon use, as to " the spread of knowledge " at this day, is 
 no doubt correct, but it is spread so widely, and in such 
 thin layers, that it only serves to reveal the mass of igno- 
 rance lying beneath. Never perhaps were books more 
 extensively read, or less studied ; and the number is rap- 
 idly increasing of those who know a little of everything, 
 but nothing well. Such readers have not inaptly been 
 likened to a certain sort of pocket-knife which some peo- 
 ple carry about with them, which, in addition to a common 
 knife, contains a file, a chisel, a saw, a gimlet, a screw- 
 Iriver, and a pair of scissors, but all so diminutive, that 
 the moment they are needed for use, they are found 
 useless. 
 
320 DEFINITE OBJECTS OF STUDY. CHAP. X. 
 
 One of Ignatius Loyola's maxims was, " He who does 
 well one work at a time, does more than all." By spread- 
 ing our efforts over too large a surface we inevitably 
 weaken our force, hinder our progress, and acquire a 
 habit of fitfulness and ineffective working. Whatever 
 a youth undertakes to learn, he should not be suffered 
 to leave it until he can reach his arms round it and 
 clench his hands on the other side. Thus he will learn 
 the habit of thoroughness. Lord St. Leonards once com- 
 municated to Sir Fowell Buxton the mode in which he 
 had conducted his studies, and thus explained the secret 
 of his success. " I resolved," said he, " when beginning 
 to read law, to make everything I acquired perfectly my 
 own, and never to go to a second thing till I had entirely 
 accomplished the first. Many of my competitors read as 
 much in a day as I read in a week ; but, at the end of 
 twelve months, my knowledge was as fresh as the day it 
 was acquired, while theirs had glided away from recollec- 
 tion." Sir E. B. Lytton, once explaining how it was that, 
 whilst so fully engaged in active life, he had written so 
 many books, observed, "I contrive to do so much by 
 never doing too much at a time. As a general rule, I 
 have devoted to study not more than three hours a day ; 
 and, when Parliament is sitting, not always that. But 
 then, during those hours, I have given my whole atten- 
 tion to what I was about." 
 
 It is not the quantity of study that one gets through, 
 or the amount of reading, that makes a wise man ; but 
 the appositeness of the study to the purpose for which it 
 is pursued; the concentration of the mind for the time 
 being, upon the subject under consideration ; and the 
 habitual discipline by which the whole system of mental 
 application is regulated. Abernethy was even of opinion 
 
V,HAP. X- EVILS OF WANT OF CONFIDENCE. 321 
 
 that there was a point of saturation in his own mind,, and 
 that if he took into it something more than it could hold, 
 it only had the effect of pushing something else out. 
 Speaking of the study of medicine, he said, " If a man 
 has a clear idea of what he desires to do, he will seldom 
 fail in selecting the proper means of accomplishing it." 
 The most profitable study is that which is conducted with 
 a definite and specific object, all observation, reflection, 
 and reading, being directed upon it for the time being. 
 By thoroughly mastering any given branch of knowledge, 
 we render it much more available for use at any moment. 
 Hence it is not enough merely to have books, or to know 
 where to read up for information as we want it. Prac- 
 tical wisdom, for the purposes of life, must be carried 
 about with us, and be ready for use at call. It is not 
 sufficient that we have a fund laid up at home, but not a 
 farthing in the pocket ; we must carry about with us a 
 store of the current coin of knowledge ready for exchange 
 on all occasions, else we are comparatively helpless when 
 the opportunity for action occurs. 
 
 Decision and promptitude are as requisite in self-cul- 
 ture as in business. The growth of these qualities may 
 be encouraged by accustoming young people to rely upon 
 their own resources, leaving them to enjoy as much free- 
 dom of action in early life as is practicable. Too much 
 guidance and restraint hinder the formation of habits of 
 self-help. They are like bladders tied under the arms 
 of one who has not taught himself to swim. Want of 
 confidence is perhaps a greater obstacle to improvement 
 than is generally imagined. True modesty is quite com- 
 patible with a due estimate of one's own merits, and does 
 not demand the abnegation of all merit. Though there 
 are no doubt many conceited persons who deceive them- 
 
322 IMPATIENCE OF STUDY. CHAP. X 
 
 selves by putting a false figure before their ciphers, the 
 want of confidence, the want of faith in one's self, and 
 consequently the want of promptitude in action, is a de- 
 fect of character which is found to stand very much in 
 the way of individual advancement. It has been said 
 that half the failures in life arise from pulling in one's 
 horse while he is leaping. Dr. Johnson was accustomed 
 to attribute all his success to confidence in his own powers. 
 It is indeed very often the case that the reason why so 
 little is done, is because so little is attempted, that we 
 do not succeed, simply because we persist in standing in 
 our own light. One step out of the way might help us, 
 but that one step we do not take. 
 
 There is no want of desire on the part of most persons 
 at this day to arrive at the results of self-culture, but 
 there is a great aversion to pay the inevitable price for 
 it, of hard work. Dr. Johnson held that " impatience of 
 study was the mental disease of the present generation ; " 
 and the remark is still applicable. We may not believe 
 that there is a royal road to learning, but we seem to be- 
 lieve very firmly in a " popular " one. In education, we 
 invent labor-saving processes, seek short cuts to science, 
 learn French and Latin " in twelve lessons," or " without 
 a master." We resemble the lady of fashion, who en- 
 gaged a master to teach her on condition that he did not 
 plague her with verbs and participles. We get our 
 smattering of science in the same way : we learn chemis- 
 try by listening to a short course of lectures enlivened by 
 experiments, and when we have inhaled laughing gas, 
 seen green water turned to red, and phosphorus burnt 
 in oxygen, we have got our smattering, of which the most 
 that can be said is, that though it may be better than 
 nothing, it is yet good for nothing. Thus we often 
 
CHAP. X. LABOK-SAVING PROCESSES FALLACIOUS. 323 
 
 imagine we are being educated while we are only being 
 amused. 
 
 But it will not do : all such labor-saving processes, 
 indeed, all pretended method j of insinuating knowledge 
 into the mind without study and labor, are calculated 
 to prove delusive, and end only in mortification and dis- 
 appointment. To be wise we must diligently apply our- 
 selves, and confront the same continuous application 
 which our forefathers did ; for labor is still, and ever will 
 be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is 
 valuable. We must be satisfied to work energetically 
 with a purpose, and wait the results with patience. Buf- 
 fon has even said of Patience, that it is Genius, the 
 power of great men, in his opinion, consisting mainly in 
 their power of continuous working and waiting. All 
 progress, of the best kind, is slow ; but to him who works 
 faithfully and in a right spirit, be sure that the reward 
 will be vouchsafed in its own good time. " Courage and 
 industry," says Sharpe, " must have sunk in despair, and 
 the world must have remained unimproved and unorna- 
 mented, if men had merely compared the effect of a 
 single stroke of the chisel with the pyramid to be raised, 
 or of a single impression of the spade with the mountain 
 to be levelled." We must continuously apply ourselves 
 to right pursuits, and we cannot fail to advance steadily, 
 though it may be unconsciously. By degrees, the spirit 
 of industry, exercised in the common forms of education, 
 will be transferred to objects of greater dignity and more 
 extensive usefulness. And still we must work on ; for 
 ths work of self-culture is never finished. "To be em- 
 ployed," sail the poet Gray, "is to be happy." "It is 
 better to wear out than rust out," said Bishop Cumber- 
 land. " Have we not all eternity to rest in ? " exclaimed 
 Arnauld. 
 
824 IMPATIENCE TO BE AVOIDED. CHAP. X. 
 
 It is a mark of the short-sighted laborer to be impa- 
 tient of growth. It must show itself in a sensible form, 
 and almost at once, to satisfy him. Like little children, 
 eager to see their seeds growing, he will pull his plants 
 up to see what progress they are making, and so kill 
 them. But man who plants and sows, must wait in 
 patience and in faith, faith in the bountiful spring, and 
 summer, and autumn, which will follow. He must some- 
 times even content himself with the thought that his 
 children shall enjoy the fruits. Some young men, in one 
 of Lafontaine!s fables, ridicule an old patriarch of four- 
 score, engaged in planting an avenue of young trees. 
 The youths told him he would not live to see them as 
 high as his head. "Well," replied the aged worker, 
 " what of that ? If their shade afford me no pleasure, it 
 may afford pleasure to my children, and even to you ; 
 and therefore, the planting of them affords me pleasure." 
 Not long ago, a poor workman, who had been working for 
 the future, lay dying, his wife and children sobbing around 
 his bed ; the sufferer was agonized by the thought of 
 their struggle with the world without him ; and the cer- 
 tainty of that struggle embittered his last moments. " My 
 poor Willy ! my poor Mary I " he cried in despair, " what 
 will become of them ! " Consolation was tried, but for 
 some time in vain. At last one thoughtful friend said 
 to him, hopefully, " Fear not ! you leave to them a rich 
 legacy ; rest assured your teachings will not be forgotten ; 
 the seed you have sown will not be lost ; and your books, 
 which to you have been such household gods, will be the 
 same to them, and open their minds, and through them 
 minister lovingly to the great God of all ! " " Oh ! peace, 
 consolation," said the dying man, and spake no more. 
 
 The highest and most effective culture of all, resolves 
 
CHAP. X. SELF-CULTURE THE BEST CULTURE. 325 
 
 itself into Self-Culture. The education received at school 
 and college is but a beginning, and is mainly valuable in 
 so far as it trains us in the habit of continuous applica- 
 tion, and facilitates self-education, after a definite plan 
 and system. To enable the mind freely to exercise its 
 powers, it is necessary, even under the most thorough 
 system of culture, that there should be occasional gaps 
 for its free operation. Thus left in some measure to 
 find out what it can do and what it cannot do, it will 
 gain in strength and activity, and the evils arising from 
 a too entire dependence on the teaching of others will 
 be in a great degree avoided. Often the best educa- 
 tion of a man is that which he gives himself, while 
 engaged in the active pursuits of practical life. Put- 
 ting ideas into one's head will do the head no good, 
 no more than putting things into a bag, unless it re- 
 act upon them, make them its own, and turn them to 
 account. " It is not enough," said John Locke, " to cram 
 ourselves with a great load of collections ; unless we 
 chew them over again, they will not give us strength and 
 nourishment." That which is put into us by others is 
 always far less ours than that which we acquire by our 
 own diligent and persevering effort. Knowledge con- 
 quered by labor, becomes a possession, a property en- 
 tirely our own. A greater vividness and permanency of 
 impression is secured ; and facts thus acquired become 
 registered in the mind in a way that mere imparted in- 
 formation can never produce. This kind of self-culture 
 also calls forth power and cultivates strength. The self- 
 solution of one problem helps the mastery of another ; 
 and thus knowledge is carried into faculty. Our own 
 active effort is the essential thing ; and no facilities, no 
 books, no teachers, no amount of lessons learned by rote, 
 
326 DR. ARNOLD'S TEACHING. CHAP. X. 
 
 will enable us to dispense with it. Such a spirit infused 
 into self-culture gives birth to a living teaching, which 
 inspires with purpose the whole man, impressing a 
 distinct stamp upon the mind, and actively promoting the 
 formation of principles and habitudes of conduct. 
 
 The best teachers have been prompt to recognize the 
 importance of self-culture, and of stimulating the student 
 early to accustom himself to acquire knowledge by the 
 active exertion of his own faculties. They have relied 
 more upon training than upon telling ; and sought to 
 make their pupils themselves active parties to the work 
 in which they were engaged ; thus making teaching some- 
 thing far higher than the mere passive reception of the 
 scraps and details of knowledge. This was the spirit 
 in which the great Dr. Arnold worked ; he strove to 
 teach his pupils to rely upon themselves, and to develop 
 their own powers, himself merely guiding, directing, stim- 
 ulating, and encouraging them. "I would far rather," 
 he said, " send a boy to Van Diemen's Land, where 
 he must work for his bread, than send him to Oxford 
 to live in luxury, without any desire in his mind to avail 
 himself of his advantages." " If there be one thing on 
 earth," he observed on another occasion, " which is truly 
 admirable, it is to see God's wisdom blessing an inferi- 
 ority of natural powers, when they have been honestly, 
 truly, and zealously cultivated." Speaking of a pupil of 
 this character, he said, " I would stand to that man hat 
 in hand." Once at Laleham, when teaching a rather dull 
 boy, he spoke somewhat sharply to him, on which the 
 pupil looked up in his face and said, " Why do you speak 
 angrily, sir ? indeed, I am doing the best I can." Years 
 afterwards, Arnold used to tell the story to his children, 
 and added, " I never felt so much in my life, that look 
 and that speech I have never forgotten." 
 
CHAP. X. KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM. 327 
 
 There is no more personal merit attaching to the pos- 
 session of naturally superior intellectual powers than in 
 the succession to a large estate. It is the use which is 
 made of the one as of the other, which constitutes the 
 only just claim to respect. A great fund of knowledge 
 may be accumulated without any purpose ; and though a 
 source of pleasure to the possessor, it may be of little use 
 to any one else. It is not mere literary culture that makes 
 a man. For it is possible to have read many books and 
 waded through many sciences, and yet to possess no sound 
 intellectual discipline ; whilst others, without any regular 
 scholastic culture, may, by the diligent exercise of their 
 judgment and observation, have acquired eminent mental 
 vigor. 
 
 An often quoted expression at this day is that " Knowl- 
 edge is power;" but so also are fanaticism, despotism, 
 and ambition. Knowledge of itself, unless wisely di- 
 rected, might merely make bad men more dangerous, and 
 the society in which it was regarded as the highest good, 
 little better than a pandemonium. Knowledge must be 
 allied to goodness and wisdom, and embodied in upright 
 character, else it is naught. Pestalozzi even held intel- 
 lectual training by itself to be pernicious ; insisting that 
 the roots of all knowledge must strike and feed in the 
 soil of the religious rightly-governed will. The acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge may, it is true, protect a man against 
 the meaner felonies of life ; but not in any degree against 
 its selfish vices, unless fortified by sound principles and 
 habits. Hence do we find in daily life, so many instances 
 of men who are well-informed in intellect, but utterly 
 deformed in character; filled with the learning of the 
 schools, yet possessing little practical wisdom, and offer 
 ing examples rather for warning than imitation. 
 
528 LITERARY CULTURE OVERRATED. CHAP. X. 
 
 It is possible that at this day we may even exagger- 
 ate the importance of literary culture. We are apt to 
 imagine that because we possess many libraries, insti- 
 tutes, and museums, we are making great progress. But 
 it is not improbable that such facilities may as often be 
 a hindrance as a help to individual self-culture of the 
 highest kind. The possession of a library, or the free 
 use of it, no more constitutes learning, than the posses- 
 sion of wealth constitutes generosity. Though we un- 
 doubtedly possess great facilities, it is nevertheless true, 
 as of old, that wisdom and understanding can only be- 
 come the possession of individual men by travelling 
 the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and 
 industry. The possession of the mere materials of 
 knowledge is something very different from wisdom and 
 understanding, which are reached through a higher kind 
 of discipline than that of reading. 
 
 "Knowledge dwells 
 
 In heads replete with thoughts of other men; 
 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. 
 Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, 
 The mere materials with which wisdom builds, 
 Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place, 
 Does but encumber, whom it seems t' enrich." 
 
 The multitude of books which modern readers wade 
 through, may produce distraction as much as culture ; 
 the process leaving no more definite impression upon the 
 mind than gazing through the shifting forms in a kaleido- 
 scope does upon the eye. Reading is often but a mere 
 passive reception of other men's thoughts; there being 
 little or no active effort of the mind in the transaction. 
 Then how much of our reading is but the indulgence of 
 a sort of literary epicurism, or intellectual dram-drinking, 
 
CHAP. X. CARLYLE'S ADVICE. 329 
 
 imparting a grateful excitement for the moment, without 
 the slightest effect in improving and enriching the mind 
 or building up the character. Thus many indulge them- 
 selves in the conceit that they are cultivating their minds, 
 when they are only employed in the humbler occupation 
 of killing time ; of which perhaps the best that can be 
 said is, that it merely keeps them from doing worse 
 things. 
 
 Mr. Carlyle, when applied to by a young friend for 
 advice as to the books he was to read, wrote him as 
 follows : " It is not by books alone, nor by books chiefly, 
 that a man becomes in all parts a man. Study to do 
 faithfully whatsoever thing in your actual situation, there 
 and now, you find either expressly or tacitly laid to your 
 charge ; that is your post ; stand to it like a true soldier. 
 A man perfects himself by work much more than by 
 reading. They are a growing kind of men that can 
 wisely combine the two things, wisely, valiantly can 
 do what is laid to their hand in their present sphere, 
 and prepare themselves withal for doing other wider 
 things, if such lie before them." 
 
 It is also to be borne in mind that the experience 
 gathered from books, though often valuable, is but of 
 the nature of learning ; whereas the experience gained 
 from actual life is of the nature of wisdom ; and a small 
 store of the latter is worth vastly more than any stock 
 of the former. Lord Bolingbroke truly said that " What- 
 ever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make 
 us better men and citizens, is at best but a specious 
 and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we 
 acquire by it, only a creditable kind of ignorance, 
 nothing more." 
 
 Useful and instructive though good reading may be, 
 
330 BOOKS XOT THE BEST TEACHERS. CHAP. X. 
 
 it is yet only one mode of cultivating the mind ; and is 
 much less influential than practical experience and good 
 example in the formation of character. There were 
 wise, valiant, and true-hearted men bred in England, 
 long before the existence of a reading public. Magna 
 Charta was secured by men who signed the deed with 
 their marks. Though altogether unskilled in the art of 
 deciphering the literary signs by which principles were 
 denominated upon paper, they yet understood and ap- 
 preciated, and boldly contended for, the things them- 
 selves. Thus the foundations of English liberty were 
 laid by men, who, though illiterate, were nevertheless 
 of the very highest stamp of character. And it must be 
 admitted that the chief object of culture is, not merely 
 to fill the mind with other men's thoughts, and to be 
 the passive recipients of their impressions of things, 
 but to enlarge our individual intelligence, and render us 
 more useful and efficient workers in the sphere of life 
 to which we may be called. Many of our most ener- 
 getic and useful workers have been but sparing readers. 
 Brindley and Stephenson did not learn to read and write 
 until they reached manhood, and yet they did great works 
 and lived manly lives ; John Hunter could barely read 
 or write when he was twenty years old, though he could 
 make tables and chairs with any carpenter in the trade. 
 " I never read," said the great physiologist when lec- 
 turing before his class ; " this," (pointing to some part 
 of the subject before him,) " this is the work that you 
 must study if you wish to become eminent in your pro- 
 fession." When told that one of his contemporaries had 
 charged him with being ignorant of the dead languages, 
 he said, "I would undertake to teach him that on the 
 dead body which he never knew in any language, dead 
 or living." 
 
CHAP. X. THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE AND ACTION. 331 
 
 It is not how much a man may know, that is of so 
 much importance, as the end and purpose for which he 
 knows it. The object of knowledge should be, to mature 
 wisdom and improve character, to render us better, hap- 
 pier, and more useful ; more benevolent, more energetic, 
 and more efficient in the pursuit of every high purpose 
 in life. We must ourselves be and do, and not rest satis- 
 fied merely with reading and meditating over what other 
 men have written and done. Our best light must be 
 made life, and our best thought action. The humblest 
 and least literate must train his sense of duty, and accus- 
 tom himself to an orderly and diligent life. Though 
 talents are the gift of nature, the highest virtue may be 
 acquired by men of the humblest abilities, through care- 
 ful self-discipline. At least we ought to be able to say, 
 as Eichter did, " I have made as much out of myself as 
 could be made of the stuff, and no man should require 
 more." It is every man's duty to discipline and guide 
 himself, with God's help, according to his responsibilities 
 and the faculties he is endowed with. Guided by the 
 good example and good works of others, we must yet 
 rely mainly upon our own inward efforts, and build upon 
 our own foundations. 
 
 Self-discipline and self-control are the beginnings of 
 practical wisdom ; and these must have their root in self- 
 respect. Hope springs from it, hope, which is the 
 companion of power, and the mother of success ; for 
 whoso hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles. 
 The humblest may say, " To respect myself, to develop 
 myself, this is my true duty in life. An integral and 
 responsible part of the great system of society, I owe it 
 to society and to its Author not to degrade, nor destroy, 
 \ny body, mind, nor instincts. On the contrary, I am 
 
332 SELF-EESPECT. CHAP.X. 
 
 bound to the best of my power to give to those parts of 
 my nature the highest degree of perfection possible. I 
 am not only to suppress the evil, but to evoke the good 
 elements in my nature. And as I respect my own 
 nature, so am I equally bound to respect others, as they 
 on their part are bound to respect me." Hence mutual 
 respect, justice, and order, of which law becomes the 
 written record and guarantee. 
 
 Self-respect is the noblest garment with which a man 
 may clothe himself, the most elevating feeling with 
 which the mind can be inspired. One of Pythagoras's 
 wisest maxims, in his Golden Verses, is that in which he 
 enjoins the pupil to " reverence himself." Borne up by 
 this high idea, he will not defile his body by sensuality, 
 nor his mind by servile thoughts. This sentiment, carried 
 into daily life, will be found at the root of all the virtues, 
 cleanliness, sobriety, chastity, morality, and religion. 
 " The pious and just honoring of ourselves," said Milton, 
 " may be thought the radical moisture and fountain-head 
 from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues 
 forth." To think meanly of one's self, is to sink in one's 
 own estimation as well as in the estimation of others. 
 And as the thoughts are, so will the acts be. A man 
 cannot live a high life who grovels in a moral sewer of 
 his own thoughts. He cannot aspire if he look down ; 
 if he will rise, he must look up. The very humblest 
 may be sustained by the proper indulgence of this feel- 
 ing ; and poverty itself may be lifted and lighted up by 
 self-respect. It is truly a noble sight to see a poor man 
 hold himself upright amidst all his temptations, and re- 
 fuse to demean himself by low actions. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should insist on the uses of 
 knowledge as a means of " getting on " in life. This is 
 
CHAP. X. KNOWLEDGE A MEANS OF RISING IN LIFE. 333 
 
 already sufficiently taught by obvious self-interest; and 
 it is beginning to be pretty generally understood, that 
 self-culture is one of the best possible investments of 
 time and labor. In any line of life, intelligence will 
 enable a man to adapt himself more readily to circum 
 stances, suggest to him improved methods of work, and 
 render him more apt, skilled, and effective in all respects. 
 He who works with his head as well as his hands, will 
 come to look at his business with a clearer eye ; and he 
 will become conscious of increasing power, perhaps 
 the most cheering consciousness the human mind can 
 cherish. The power of self-help will gradually grow ; 
 and in proportion to a man's self-respect, will he be 
 armed against the temptation of low indulgences. So- 
 ciety and its action will be regarded with quite a new 
 interest, his sympathies will widen and enlarge, and he 
 will be attracted to work for others as well as for him- 
 self. 
 
 Self-culture may not, however, end in eminence, such 
 as we have briefly described in the numerous illustrious 
 instances of self-raised individuals above cited. The 
 great majority of men, in all times, however enlightened, 
 must necessarily be engaged in the ordinary avocations 
 of industry ; and no degree of culture which can be con- 
 ferred upon the community will ever enable them even 
 were it desirable, which it is not to get rid of the daily 
 work of society, which must be done. But this, we think, 
 may also be accomplished. We can elevate the condition 
 of labor by allying it to noble thoughts, which confer a 
 grace upon the lowliest as well as the highest rank. For 
 no matter how poor or humble a man may be, the great 
 thinker of this and other days may come in and sit down 
 with him, and be his companion for the time, though his 
 
334 LOW VIEW OF KNOWLEDGE. CHAP. X. 
 
 dwelling be the meanest hut. It is thus that the habit 
 of well-directed reading may become a source of the 
 greatest pleasure and self-improvement, and exercise a 
 gentle coercion, with the most beneficent results, over the 
 whole tenor of a man's character and conduct. And even 
 though self-culture may not bring wealth, it will at all 
 events give us the good company of elevated thoughts. 
 A nobleman once contemptuously asked of a sage, " What 
 have you got by all your philosophy ? " " At least I 
 have got society in myself," was the wise man's reply. 
 
 But many are apt to feel despondency, and to become 
 discouraged in the work of self-culture, because they do 
 not " get on " in the world so fast as they think they 
 deserve to do. Having planted their acorn, they expect 
 to see it grow into an oak at once. They have perhaps 
 looked upon knowledge in the light of a marketable com- 
 modity, and are consequently mortified because it does 
 not sell as they expected it would do. Mr. Tremenheere, 
 in one of his "Education Keports " (for 1840-1), states 
 that a schoolmaster in Norfolk, finding his school rapidly 
 falling off, made inquiry into the cause, and ascertained 
 that the reason given by the majority of the parents for 
 withdrawing their children was, that they had expected 
 " education was to make them better off than they were 
 before," but that having found it had "done them no 
 good," they had therefore taken their children from school, 
 and would give themselves no further trouble about edu- 
 eation. The same low idea of self-culture is but too prev- 
 alent in other classes, and is encouraged by the false 
 views of life which are always more or less current in 
 society. But to regard self-culture either as a means of 
 getting past others in the world, or of intellectual dissipa- 
 tion and amusement, rather than as a power to elevate 
 
CHAP. X. EVIL OF COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. 335 
 
 the character and expand the spiritual nature, is to place 
 it on a very low level. It is doubtless most honorable 
 for a man to labor to elevate himself, and to better his 
 condition in society, but this is not to be done at the sacri- 
 fice of himself. To make the mind the mere drudge of 
 the body, is putting it to a very servile use ; and to go 
 about whining and bemoaning our pitiful lot because we 
 fail in achieving that success in life, which after all de- 
 pends rather upon habits of industry and attention to 
 business details than upon knowledge, is the mark of a 
 small, and often of a sour mind. Such a temper cannot 
 better be dealt with than in the words of Robert Southey, 
 who thus wrote to a friend who sought his counsel : " I 
 would give you advice if it could be of use ; but there 
 is no curing those who choose to be diseased. A good 
 man and a wise man may at times be angry with the 
 world, at times grieved for it ; but be sure no man was 
 ever discontented with the world if he did his duty in it* 
 If a man of education, who has health, eyes, hands, and 
 leisure, wants an object, it is only because God Almighty 
 has bestowed all those blessings upon a man who does not 
 deserve them." 
 
 It is not improbable that the prominence, recently given 
 to literary examinations for small government offices, of 
 which we have heard so much, may tend to swell the 
 ranks of the discontented, without any corresponding gain 
 to the public service. The plan recently established may 
 be described as a kind of government lottery, in which 
 the prizes are drawn by those who are the best crammed. 
 Not long since, when eight youths were wanted to do 
 copying work in a public office, not fewer than seven 
 hundred offered themselves for examination ; eight prizes 
 to 692 blanks ! A most pitiable sight truly, to see so 
 
336 EVIL OF COMPETITIVE EXAMINATION. CHAP. X. 
 
 many educated young men eager for the poorly-paid, and 
 routine, though "genteel" occupation of a government 
 office, when there are so many other paths, though requir- 
 ing labor and self-denial, open for the energies of young 
 men of activity and spirit. Sir James Clarke has not 
 inaptly described the preliminary system of cramming 
 for examination, of the kind to which these youths are 
 required to submit, as thoroughly demoralizing, and calcu- 
 lated to develop prigs rather than men. The mind is so 
 overlaid with a heap of undigested knowledge, that there 
 is little room left for its free action ; and though a func- 
 tionarism as complete as that already established in China 
 may thereby be secured, it will probably be at the ex- 
 pense of that constitutional energy and vigor, which are 
 so indispensable for attaining a robust manhood. More- 
 over, the tendency of this new movement seems to be, to 
 draw the educated youth of the country aside from the 
 paths of ordinary industry, and direct their eyes toward 
 the public treasure as the highest object of their exer- 
 tions ; whilst beyond all, there is that danger to be ap- 
 prehended, against which Montalembert has so eloquently 
 warned us, of stimulating and propagating the passion for 
 salaries and government employment, which saps all 
 national spirit of independence, and in some countries 
 makes a whole people a mere crowd of servile solicitors 
 for place. 
 
CHAP. XI. FACILITIES OF MODERN TIMES. 3C7 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FACILITIES AND DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 " Is .here (me whom difficulties dishearten, who bends to the storm ? He 
 will do little. Is there one who will conquer ? That kind of man nerer 
 fails." John Hunter. 
 
 " C'est des difficultes qui naissent lea miracles." Bruytre. 
 
 THIS is an age preeminently distinguished for the facil- 
 ities which it affords for human intercourse and the spread 
 of knowledge. In travelling, telegraphing, printing, and 
 postal communications, it surpasses every other. Tons 
 upon tons of machine-made paper are constantly being 
 converted into machine-printed books and machine-print- 
 ed newspapers, which are spread abroad at a marvellously 
 low price ; and as we look on, we are accustomed to con- 
 gratulate ourselves upon the marvellous " progress of the 
 age." If machinery and horse-power of steam could 
 accomplish this, our progress were indeed rapid. But it 
 still remains to be seen whether the vast amount of 
 printed matter in circulation is calculated to produce 
 wiser and better men, actuated by higher and more 
 beneficent principles of action, than existed in England 
 in times comparatively remote, in which books were far 
 rarer but much more highly prized, such times, for 
 instance, as those for which Shakspeare, Milton, Bacon, 
 and Jeremy Taylor wrote. It will, perhaps, be acknowl- 
 edged that, though the multiplication of books and news- 
 papers by means of steam-engines and printing machines 
 15 
 
338 THE DIVISION OF LABOR CHAP. XL 
 
 is accompanied by unquestionable advantages, the facili- 
 ties thereby afforded for the spread of knowledge are not 
 altogether an unmixed good. It doubtless furnishes un- 
 precedented facilities for learning many things easily and 
 without effort ; but at the same time it probably tends 
 rather towards superficialism than depth or vigor of 
 thinking; for while readers are tempted by the multi- 
 tude of books to skim many subjects, they may thereby 
 bo so distracted by the variety, as to be induced to bottom 
 none of them thoroughly. 
 
 With all the facilities which exist for independent self- 
 culture, it is even suspected that our life, like our litera- 
 ture, is becoming more mechanical. Large and increas- 
 ing numbers of persons in our manufacturing districts 
 occupy the chief part of their waking hours from day to 
 day in watching machines spinning or winding threads, 
 the tendency being to produce a sort of mechanical hu- 
 man beings almost as devoid of individuality of character 
 as the machines they watch. This is one of the defects 
 of modern civilization, daily operating upon large classes 
 of the people, which, in these days, is perhaps too little 
 regarded. While we have been perfecting our mechan- 
 isms, we have sometimes forgotten that the finest of all 
 raw material is to be found in Men ; and we have not yet 
 done our utmost indeed we have done comparatively 
 little to work up and improve that. Speaking of our 
 division of labor processes, Mr. Ruskin has said, " It is 
 not, truly speaking, the labor that is divided, but the 
 men, divided into mere segments of men, broken 
 into small fragments and crumbs of life, so that all the 
 little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not 
 enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in 
 making the point of a pin, or the head of a nail. Now 
 
CHAP. XL MECHANICAL EXPEDIENTS OF PROGRESS. 339 
 
 it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins 
 }n a day ; but if we could only see with what crystal 
 sand their points were polished, sand of human soul, 
 mucli to be magnified before it can be discerned for what 
 it is, we should think there would be some loss in it also. 
 And the great cry that rises from all our manufacturing 
 cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed 
 for this, that we manufacture everything there except 
 men ; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine 
 sugar, and shape pottery ; but to brighten, to strengthen, 
 to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters 
 into our estimate of advantages." 
 
 The popular remedies proposed for existing social and 
 political evils have also a strong mechanical tendency. 
 There is a moral philosophy which proposes to measure 
 our heads with callipers, and then cast up our propensi- 
 ties, moral sentiments, and intellectual faculties, like a 
 sum in addition ; thus determining the line of life we are 
 to lead, or the moral hospital we are to be sent to. 
 There are social reformers, who will have us estab- 
 lished in parallelograms, and ripened into men by abne- 
 gation of all the hopes, struggles, and difficulties, by 
 which men are made. We have logarithms ground out 
 of a box, and calculations manufactured by merely turn- 
 ing a handle, over which men formerly educated their 
 faculties by studying for months. And there are plans 
 afloat for rescuing us from political infamy by the adop- 
 tion of sundry arithmetical and mechanical expedients, 
 the discussion of which need not here be entered on. 
 
 The improved mechanism in our schools also promises 
 to become so perfect that we may, before long, be almost 
 as highly educated as the Chinese, and with quite as 
 impotent a result. The process of 'illing the memory 
 
340 MECHANISM OF SCHOOLS. CHAP. XL 
 
 with facts and formulas got by rote is rapidly extending ; 
 but the practice of independent thinking in any but the 
 beaten tracks is not only not taught, but is often care- 
 fully prevented. But the facility with which young 
 people are thus made to acquire knowledge, though it 
 may be cramming, is not education. It fills, but does 
 not fructify the mind. It imparts a stimulus for the 
 lime, and produces a sort of intellectual keenness and 
 cleverness ; but, without an implanted purpose and a 
 higher object than mere knowledge, it will bring with it 
 no solid advantage. The rapidity with which young 
 people now get at a knowledge of many things tends to 
 make them easily satisfied, and they often become blase 
 at an early age. They may have read many books, and 
 gone through many branches of knowledge, but a lamen- 
 table indifference possesses them: their souls, without 
 compass, without anchorage, are blown about by all 
 winds; they may understand, but there is little active 
 belief; their minds merely receive ideas with the pas- 
 siveness of a mirror, and the impressions made are 
 scarcely more permanent. Such persons are deter- 
 mined to no acts, have no desire to. form convictions, 
 arrive at no conclusions, and their will seems to be sus- 
 pended, asleep, diseased, or dead. Knowledge, in cases 
 of this sort, gives but a passing pleasure ; a sensation, 
 but no more ; it is, in fact, the merest epicurism of in- 
 telligence sensuous, but certainly not intellectual. The 
 best part of such natures, that which is developed by 
 vigorous effort and independent action, sleeps a deep 
 sleep, and is often never called to life, except by the 
 rough awakening of sudden calamity or suffering, which, 
 in such cases, comes as a blessing, if it serves to rouse up 
 a courageous spirit which, but for it, would have slum- 
 bered on. 
 
CHAP. XI. KNOWLEDGE MADE PLEASANT. 341 
 
 Growing out of the facilities for reading which exist 
 now-a-days, there is also to be observed a sort of mania 
 for " making things pleasant " on the road to knowledge ; 
 and hence amusement and excitement are among the 
 most popular methods employed to inculcate knowledge 
 and inspire a taste for reading. Our books and period!* 
 cals must be highly spiced, amusing, and interesting. 
 We have already had comic grammars and histories, 
 and we may yet possibly reach the heights of a Comic 
 Euclid and a Comic Prayer-book. Solid subjects are 
 eschewed ; and books demanding application and study 
 lie upon bookshelves unread. Douglas Jerrold, in one 
 of his graver moods, once observed of this tendency : " I 
 am convinced the world will get tired (at least I hope 
 so) of this eternal guffaw about all things. After all, life 
 has something serious in it. It cannot be all a comic 
 history of humanity. Some men would, I believe, write 
 a Comic Sermon on the Mount. Think of a Comic 
 History of England, the drollery of Alfred, the fun of 
 Sir Thomas More, the farce of his daughter begging the 
 dead head and clasping it in her coffin on her bosom. 
 Surely the world will be sick of this blasphemy." Dr. 
 Arnold, speaking of the same evil, once observed: 
 " Childishness, in boys even of good abilities, seems to 
 me to be a growing fault, and I do not know to what to 
 ascribe it, except to the greater number of exciting books 
 of amusement. These completely satisfy all the intellec- 
 tual appetites of a boy, which is rarely very voracious, 
 and leave him totally palled, not only for his regular 
 work, which I could well excuse in comparison, but for 
 good literature of all sorts, even for history and poetry." 
 John Sterling also, in a like spirit, said : " Periodicals 
 and novels are to all in this generation, but more espe- 
 
342 AMUSEMENT NOVEL-READING. CHAP. XL 
 
 cially to those whose minds are still unformed and in the 
 process of formation, a new and more effectual substitute 
 for the plagues of Egypt, vermin that corrupt the whole- 
 some waters, and infest our chambers." 
 
 Accustomed to acquire information under the guise of 
 amusement, young people will soon reject that which is 
 presented to them under the aspect of study and labor 
 Learning their knowledge and science in sport, they will 
 become apt to make sport of both ; whilst the habit Df 
 intellectual dissipation, thus engendered, cannot fail, in 
 course of time, to produce a thoroughly emasculating 
 effect both upon their mind and character. The Novel 
 is the most favorite refuge of the frivolous and the idle. 
 As a rest from toil, and a relaxation from graver pur- 
 suits, the perusal of a well-written story, by a writer of 
 genius, is a high intellectual pleasure ; and it is a de- 
 scription of literature to which all classes of readers, old 
 and young, are attracted as by a powerful instinct ; nor 
 would we have any of them debarred from its enjoy- 
 ment in a reasonable degree. But to make it the ex- 
 clusive literary diet, as some do, to devour the garbage 
 with which the shelves of circulating libraries are crowd- 
 ed, and to occupy the greater portion of the leisure 
 hours in studying the preposterous pictures of human life 
 which so many of them present, is worse than waste of 
 time, it is positively pernicious. The habitual novel- 
 reader indulges in fictitious feelings so much, that there 
 is great risk of sound and healthy feeling becoming per- 
 verted or destroyed. For, the literary pity evoked by 
 fiction leads to no corresponding action ; the susceptibili- 
 ties which it excites involve no inconvenience nor self- 
 sacrifice ; so that the heart that is touched too often by 
 the fiction may at length become insensible to the reality 
 
CHAP. XI. PURSUIT OF PLEASURE. 343 
 
 The steel is gradually rubbed out of the character, and 
 it insensibly loses its vital spring. As Nero was partial 
 only to the mildest strains of music, so Robespierre's de- 
 light was to read stories only of love and endearment, 
 displaying in his life what Montaigne calls " opinions 
 super-celestes et mo3urs souterreines." " Drawing fine 
 pictures of virtue in one's mind," said Bishop Butler, u is 
 so far from necessarily or certainly conducive to form a 
 habit of it in him who thus employs himself, that it may 
 even harden the mind in a contrary course, and render 
 it gradually more insensible." 
 
 Amusement in moderation is wholesome, and to be 
 commended ; but amusement in excess vitiates the whole 
 nature, and is a thing to be carefully guarded against. 
 The maxim is often quoted of " All work and no play 
 makes Jack a dull boy ; " but all play and no work 
 'makes him something greatly worse. Nothing can be 
 more hurtful to a youth than to have his soul sodden 
 with pleasure. The best qualities of his mind are thus 
 frittered away ; common enjoyments become tasteless ; his 
 appetite for the highest kind of pleasures is satiated and 
 exhausted ; and when he comes to face the work and the 
 duties of life, the result is often only aversion and dis 
 gust. As the child turns from its heap of broken toys, 
 so the blase youth turns from his withered pleasures; 
 and if frivolity have become his habit, he will find that 
 the very capacity for enjoyment has been destroyed 
 within him. " Fast men " soon waste and exhaust the 
 powers of life, and dry up the very sources of true hap- 
 piness. They have forestalled their spring, and can 
 produce no healthy growth of either character or intel- 
 lect. A child without simplicity, a maiden without in- 
 oocence, a boy without truthfulness, are not more piteous 
 
344 PUESUIT OF PLEASURE. CHAP. XI, 
 
 sights than the man who has wasted and thrown away 
 his youth in pleasure. It is amongst such persons 
 especially, whose youth has been sullied by premature 
 enjoyments, that we find that prevalence of skepticism, 
 sneering, and egotism, which prove a soured nature, 
 Having abused the sources of life, and thrown away 
 their youth, they are tempted in their despair to throw 
 their manhood after it. Injury of this kind, inflicted on 
 the character, is most difficult to be repaired ; for the 
 habits formed in youth bind the man as in chains of 
 adamant. " On ne jette point Tancre dans le fleuve de 
 la vie," is the happy phrase of an old French writer, in 
 describing that continuity of life in all its parts which 
 inseparably links youth and manhood, and makes the 
 habits of the one more or less the interpreter of the 
 other. So when Lord Bacon says, " Strength of nature 
 in youth passeth over many excesses which are owing a 
 man until he is old," he expresses a physical as well as 
 a moral fact, which cannot be too well weighed in the 
 conduct of early life. What are called wild oats, when 
 sown, very often prove tares in the reaping. Youthful 
 indiscretions ?oon " find a man out." But the worst of 
 them is, not that they destroy health, so much as that 
 they sully manhood. The dissipated youth becomes a 
 tainted man ; and often he cannot be pure, even if he 
 would. If cure there be, it is only to be found in inocu- 
 lating the mind with a fervent spirit of duty, and in 
 energetic application to useful work. 
 
 One of the most gifted of Frenchmen, in point of great 
 intellectual endowments, was Benjamin Constant; but, 
 blase at twenty, his life was only a prolonged wail, in- 
 stead of a harvest of the great deeds which he was capa- 
 ble of accomplishing with ordinary diligence and self- 
 
CHAP. XI. CONSTANT AND THIERRY. 345 
 
 control. He resolved upon doing so many things, which 
 he never did, that people came to speak of him as Con- 
 stant the Inconstant. He was a fluent and brilliant 
 writer, and he cherished the ambition of writing many 
 works " which the world would not willingly let die." 
 But whilst Constant affected the highest thinking, unhap- 
 pily he practised the lowest living; nor did the lofty 
 transcendentalism of his books by any means palliate the 
 acted meannesses of his life. He daily frequented the 
 gaming-tables while engaged in preparing his work 
 upon religion, and carried on a disreputable intrigue 
 while writing his " Adolphe." With all his vast power/ 
 of intellect, he was powerless, because he had no faith i 
 virtue. " Bah ! " said he, " what are honor and dignity / 
 The longer I live, the more clearly I see there is nottatA 
 in them." It was the howl of a miserable man. He de- 
 scribed himself as but " ashes and dust," " I pass/ saifc 
 he, " like a shadow over the earth, accompanied by misery 
 and ennui." He wished for Voltaire's energy, which h*j 
 would rather have possessed than his genius. But ho 
 had no strength of purpose, nothing but wishes ; his 
 life, prematurely exhausted, had become but a heap of 
 broken links. He spoke of himself as a person with one 
 foot in the air. He admitted that he had no principles, 
 and no moral consistency. Hence, with his splendid 
 talents, he contrived to do nothing ; and, after living for 
 many years miserable, he died worn out and wretched. 
 
 The career of Augustin Thierry, the author of the 
 14 History of the Norman Conquest," affords an admirable 
 contrast to that of Constant. His entire life presented a 
 striking example of perseverance, diligence, self-culture, 
 and untiring devotion to knowledge. In the pursuit he 
 lost liis eyesight, lo-t his health, but never tcwt his love 
 15* 
 
346 COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY. CHAP. XL 
 
 of truth. When so feeble that he was carried from room 
 to room, like a helpless infant, in the arms of a nurse, his 
 brave spirit never failed him ; and blind and helpless 
 though he was, he concluded his literary career in the 
 following noble words : " If, as I think, the interest of 
 science is counted in the number of great national inter- 
 ests, I have given my country all that the soldier, muti- 
 lated on the field of battle, gives her. Whatever may bo 
 the fate of my labors, this example, I hope, will not be 
 lost. I would wish it to serve to combat the species of 
 moral weakness which is the disease of our present gen- 
 eration ; to bring back into the straight road of life some 
 of those enervated souls that complain of wanting faith, 
 that know not what to do, and seek everywhere, without 
 finding it, an object of worship and admiration. Why 
 say, with so much bitterness, that in the world, consti- 
 tuted as it is, there is no air for all lungs, no employ- 
 ment for all minds ? Is not calm and serious study there ? 
 and is not that a refuge, a hope, a field within the reach 
 of all of us ? With it, evil days are passed over without 
 their weight being felt ; every one can make his own 
 destiny, every one employ his life nobly. This is 
 what I have done, and would do again if I had to re- 
 commence my career ; I would choose that which has 
 brought me where I am. Blind, and suffering without 
 hope, and almost without intermission, I may give this 
 testimony, which from me will not appear suspicious. 
 There is something in the world better than sensual en- 
 joyments, better than fortune, better than health itself, 
 it is devotion to knowledge." 
 
 Coleridge, in many respects, resembled Constant. He 
 possessed equally brilliant powers, but was similarly in- 
 firm of purpose. With all his great intellectual gifts, he 
 
CHAP. XI. ROBERT NICOLL. 347 
 
 wanted the gift of industry, and had no liking for steady 
 work. He wanted also the sense of manly independence, 
 and thought it no degradation to leave his wife and chil- 
 dren to be maintained by the brain-work of the noble 
 Southey, while he himself retired to Highgate Grove to 
 discourse transcendentalism to his disciples, looking down 
 contemptuously upon the honest work going forward be- 
 neath him amidst the din and smoke of London. With 
 remunerative and honorable employment at his command, 
 lie preferred stooping to accept the charity of friends; 
 and with the loftiest ideas of philosophy, he yet conde- 
 scended to humiliations in his life from which many a 
 day -laborer would have shrunk. How different in spirit 
 was -Southey ! always an indefatigable worker ; laboring 
 not merely at works of his own choice, and at taskwork 
 often tedious and distasteful, but also unremittingly and 
 with the utmost eagerness seeking and storing knowledge 
 purely for the love of it. Every day, every hour had its 
 allotted employment : engagements to publishers requir- 
 ing punctual fulfilment ; the current expenses of a large 
 household (at one time including Coleridge's wife and 
 children) duly to provide for; Southey had no crop 
 growing while his pen was idle. " My ways," he used 
 to say, "are as broad as the king's high-road, and my 
 means lie in an inkstand." 
 
 Robert Nicoll wrote to a friend, after reading the 
 " Recollections of Coleridge," " What a mighty intellect 
 was lost in that man for want of a little energy, a 
 little determination." Nicoll himself was a true and 
 brave spirit, cut off in his youth, but not before he had 
 encountered and overcome great difficulties in life. At 
 his outset, while carrying on a small business as a book- 
 seller, he found himself weighed down with a debt of 
 
348 USES OF DIFFICULTY. CHAP. XL 
 
 only twenty pounds, which he said he felt " weighing like 
 a mill-stone round his neck," and that " if he had it paid 
 he never would borrow again from mortal man." Writ- 
 ing to his mother at the time he said, u Fear not for me, 
 dear mother ; for I feel myself daily growing firmer and 
 more hopeful in spirit. The more I think and reflect, 
 and thinking, not reading, is now my occupation, I feel 
 that, whether I be growing richer or not, I am growing a 
 wiser man, which is far better. Pain, poverty, and all 
 the other wild beasts of life whick so affrighten others, I 
 am so bold as to think I could look in the face without 
 shrinking, without losing respect for myself, faith in man's 
 high destinies, or trust in God. There is a point which 
 it costs much mental toil and struggling to gain, but 
 which, when once gained, a man can look down from, as 
 a traveller from a lofty mountain, on storms raging be- 
 low, while he is walking in sunshine. That I have yet 
 gained this point in life I will not say, but I feel myself 
 daily nearer to it." 
 
 It is not case, but effort, not facility, but difficulty, 
 that makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life, in 
 which difficulties have not to be encountered and over- 
 come before any decided measure of success can be 
 achieved. Those difficulties are, however, our best in- 
 structors, as our mistakes often form our best experience. 
 Charles James Fox was accustomed to say that he hoped 
 more from a man who failed, and yet went on in spite of 
 his failure, than from the buoyant career of the successful. 
 " It is all very well," said he, " to tell me that a young 
 man has distinguished himself by a brilliant first speech. 
 He may go on, or he may be satisfied with his first tri- 
 umph ; but show me a young man who has not succeeded 
 at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and I will back that 
 
CHAP. XL USES OF DIFFICULTY. 34$ 
 
 young man to do better than most of those who have suc- 
 ceeded at the first trial." 
 
 We learn wisdom from failure much more than from 
 success ; we often discover what will do, by finding out 
 what will not do ; and probably he who never made a 
 mistake, never made a discovery. Home Tooke used to 
 say of his studies in intellectual philosophy j that he had 
 become all the better acquainted with the country, through 
 having had the good-luck sometimes to lose his way. And 
 a distinguished investigator in physical science has left it 
 on record that, whenever in the course of his researches he 
 encountered an apparently insuperable obstacle, he gener- 
 ally found himself on the brink of some novel discovery. 
 The very greatest things, great thoughts, discoveries, 
 inventions, have generally been nurtured in hardship, 
 often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established 
 with difficulty. 
 
 Beethoven said of Rossini, that he had in him the 
 stuff to have made a good musician, if he had only, when 
 a boy, been well flogged ; but that he had been spoilt by 
 the facility with which he produced. Men who feel their 
 strength within them need not fear to encounter adverse 
 opinions ; they have far greater reason to fear undue 
 praise and too friendly criticism. When Mendelssohn 
 was about to enter the orchestra at Birmingham, on the 
 first performance of his " Elijah," he said laughingly to 
 one of his friends and critics, " Stick your claws into 
 me ! Don't tell me what you like, but what you don't 
 like ! " * 
 
 It has been said, and truly, that it is the defeat that 
 tries the general more than the victory. Washington 
 lost far more battles than he gained ; but he succeeded 
 * A 'iienaeuin. 
 
350 USES OF ADVERSITY. CHAP. XL 
 
 in the end. The Romans, in their most victorious cam- 
 paigns, almost invariably began with defeats. Moreau 
 used to be compared by his companions to a drum, which 
 nobody hears of except it be beaten. Wellington's mili- 
 tary genius was perfected by encounter with difficulties 
 of apparently the most overwhelming character, but which 
 only served to nerve his resolution, and bring out more 
 prominently his great qualities as a man and a general. 
 So the skilful mariner obtains his best experience amidst 
 storms and tempests, which train him to self-reliance, 
 courage, and the highest discipline ; and we probably 
 owe to rough seas and wintry nights, the best training 
 of our race of British seamen, who are certainly not 
 surpassed by any in the world. 
 
 Necessity may be a hard schoolmistress ; but she is 
 generally found the best. Though the ordeal of ad- 
 versity is one from which we naturally shrink, yet, when 
 it comes, we must bravely and manfully encounter it. 
 Burns truly says, 
 
 " Though losses and crosses 
 Be lessons right severe, 
 There's wit there, you'll get there, 
 You'll find no other where." 
 
 " Sweet indeed are the uses of adversity." They re- 
 veal to us our powers, and call forth our energies. If 
 there be real worth in the character, like sweet herbs, it 
 will give forth its finest fragrance when pressed. " Cross- 
 es," says the old proverb, " are the ladders that lead to 
 heaven." " What is even poverty itself," asks Richter, 
 " that a man should murmur under it ? It is but as the 
 pain of piercing a maiden's ear, and you hang precious 
 jewels in the wound." In the experience of life it is 
 found that tt e wholesome discipline of adversity in strong 
 
CHAP. XI. ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. 351 
 
 natures usually carries with it a self-preserving influence. 
 Many are found capable of bravely bearing up under pri- 
 vations, and cheerfully encountering obstructions, who are 
 afterwards found unable to withstand the more dangerous 
 influences of prosperity. It is only a weak man whom 
 the wind deprives of his cloak : a man of average strength 
 is more in danger of losing it when assailed by the beams 
 of a too genial sun. Thus it often needs a higher disci- 
 pline and a stronger character to bear up under good 
 fortune than under adverse. Some generous natures 
 kindle and warm with prosperity, but there are many 
 on whom wealth has no such influence. Base hearts it 
 only hardens, making those who were mean and servile, 
 mean and proud. But while prosperity is apt to harden 
 the heart to pride, adversity in a man of resolution will 
 only serve to ripen it to fortitude. Too much facility, 
 ease, and prosperity is not good for a man ; removing 
 that wholesome stimulus to exertion, which is so essential 
 to sound discipline. On the contrary, to use the words 
 of Burke, " Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us 
 by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and 
 instructor, who knows us better than we know ourselves, 
 as He loves us better too. He that wrestles with us 
 strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill ; our antag- 
 onist is thus our helper." Without the necessity of en- 
 countering difficulty, life might be easier, but men would 
 be worth less. For trials, wisely improved, train the 
 character, and teach self-help ; thus hardship itself may 
 often prove the wholesomest discipline for us, though we 
 recognize it not. When the gallant young Hodson, 
 unjustly removed from his Indian command, felt him- 
 self sore pressed down by unmerited calumny and re- 
 proach, he yet preserved the courage to say to a friend, 
 
352 THE BATTLE OF LIFE. CHAP. XI 
 
 " I strive to look the worst boldly in the face, as I would 
 an- enemy in the field, and to do my appointed work res- 
 olutely and to the best of my ability, satisfied that there 
 is a reason for all ; and that even irksome duties well 
 done bring their own reward, and that, if not, still they 
 are duties." 
 
 The battle of life, in by far the greater number of 
 cases, must necessarily be fought up-hill ; and to win it 
 without a struggle were perhaps to win it without honor. 
 If there were no difficulties, there would be no success ; 
 if there were nothing to struggle for, there would be 
 nothing to be achieved. Difficulties may intimidate the 
 weak, but they act only as a wholesome stimulus to men 
 of pluck and resolution. All experience of life indeed 
 serves to prove that the impediments thrown in the way of 
 human advancement may for the most part be overcome 
 by steady good conduct, honest zeal, activity, persever- 
 ance, and above all by a determined resolution to surmount 
 difficulties, and stand up manfully against misfortune. 
 
 The school of Difficulty is the best school of moral 
 discipline, for nations as for individuals. Indeed, the 
 history of difficulty would be but a history of all the 
 great and good things that have yet been accomplished 
 by men. It is hard to say how much northern nations 
 owe to their encounter with a comparatively rude and 
 changeable climate and an originally sterile soil, which 
 is one of the necessities of their condition, involving 
 a perennial struggle with difficulties such as the natives 
 of sunnier climes know nothing of. And thus it may be, 
 that though our finest products are exotic, the skill and 
 industry which have been necessary to rear them, have 
 issued in the production of a native growth of men not 
 surpassed on the globe. 
 
CHAP. XL THE SCHOOL OF DIFFICULTY. 8/3 
 
 Wherever there is difficulty, the individual man must 
 come out for better for worse. Encounter with it will 
 train his strength, and discipline his skill ; heartening 
 him for future effort, as the racer, by being trained to 
 run against the hill, at length courses with facility. The 
 road to success may be steep to climb, but it puts to 
 the proof the energies of him who would reach the 
 summit. By experience a man soon learns how ob- 
 stacles are to be overcome by grappling with them, 
 how soft as silk the nettle becomes when it is boldly 
 grasped, and how powerful a principle of realizing 
 the object proposed, is the moral conviction that we can 
 and will accomplish it. Thus difficulties often fall away 
 of themselves, before the determination to overcome them. 
 In nine cases out of ten, if marched boldly up to they 
 will flee away. Like thieves, they often disappear at a 
 glance. What looked like insuperable obstacles, like 
 some great mountain chain in our way, frowning danger 
 and trial, are found to become practicable when ap- 
 proached, and paths formerly unseen, though they may 
 be narrow and difficult, open a way for us through the 
 hills. 
 
 Much will be done if we do but try. Nobody knows 
 what he can do till he has tried ; and few try their best 
 till they have been forced to do it. " If I could do such 
 and such a thing," sighs the desponding youth. But he 
 will never do, if he only wishes. The desire must ripen 
 into purpose and effort; and one energetic attempt is 
 worth a thousand aspirations. Purposes, like eggs, un 
 less they be hatched into action, will run into rottenness. 
 It is these thorny " ifs," the mutterings of impotence 
 and despair, which so often hedge round the field of 
 oossibility, and prevent anything being done or even 
 
354 MASTERY OF DIFFICULTIES. CHAP. XL 
 
 attempted. " A difficulty," said Lord Lyndhurst, " is a 
 thing to be overcome ; " grapple with it at once ; facility 
 will come with practice, and strength and fortitude with 
 repeated effort. Thus the mind and character may be 
 trained to an almost perfect discipline, enabling it to 
 move with a grace, spirit, and liberty, almost incompre- 
 hensible to those who have not passed through a sim- 
 ilar experience. 
 
 Everything that we learn is the mastery of a diffi- 
 culty ; and the mastery of one helps us to the mastery 
 of others. Things which may at first sight appear com- 
 paratively valueless in education, such as the study of 
 the dead languages, and the relations of lines and sur- 
 faces which we call mathematics, are really of the 
 greatest practical value, not so much because of the in- 
 formation which they yield, as because of the develop- 
 ment which they compel. The mastery of these studies 
 evokes effort, and cultivates powers of application, which 
 otherwise might have lain dormant. Thus one thing 
 leads to another, and so the work goes on through life, 
 encounter with difficulty ending only where life or 
 progress ends. But indulging in the feeling of discour- 
 agement never helped any one over a difficulty, and 
 never will. D'Alembert's advice to the student who com- 
 plained to him about his want of success in mastering 
 the first elements of mathematics was the right one 
 u Go on, sir, and faith and strength will come to you." 
 
 Nothing is easy, but was difficult at first, not even 
 BO simple an act as walking. The danseuse, who turns 
 a pirouette, the violinist who plays a sonata, have ac- 
 quired their dexterity by patient repetition and after 
 many failures. Carissimi, *when praised for the ease 
 and grao3 of his melodies, exclaimed, " Ah ! you little 
 
CHAP. XL DISRAELI AND CLAY. 355 
 
 know with what difficulty this ease has been acquired." 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, when once asked how long it 
 had taken him to paint a certain picture, replied, " All 
 my life." The orator, who pours his flashing thoughts 
 with such apparent ease upon the minds of his hearers, 
 achieves his wonderful power only by means of patient 
 and persevering labor, after much repetition, and, like 
 Disraeli, often after bitter disappointments. Henry Clay, 
 the American orator, when giving advice to young men, 
 thus described to them the secret of his success in 
 the cultivation of his art : " I owe my success in life," 
 said he, " chiefly to one circumstance, that at the age 
 of twenty-seven I commenced, and continued for years, 
 the process of daily reading and speaking upon the 
 contents of some historical or scientific book. These 
 off-hand efforts were made, sometimes in a cornfield, 
 at others in the forest, and not uiifrequently in some 
 distant barn, with the horse and the ox for my audi- 
 tors. It is to this early practice of the art of all arts 
 that I am indebted for the primary and leading im- 
 pulses that stimulated me onward, and have shaped 
 and moulded my whole subsequent destiny." 
 
 Curran, the Irish orator, when a youth, had a strong 
 defect in his articulation, and at school he was known 
 as " stuttering Jack Curran." While he was engaged 
 in the study of the law, and still struggling to overcome 
 his defect, he was stung into eloquence by the sar- 
 casms of a member of a debating club, who character- 
 ized him as " Orator Mum ; " for, like Cowper, when 
 he stood up to speak, Curran had not on a previous 
 occasion been able to utter a word. But the taunt 
 raised his pluck ; and he replied with a triumphant 
 speech. This accidental discovery in himself of the 
 
356 CURRAN. CHAP. XL 
 
 gift of eloquence, encouraged him to proceed in his 
 studies with additional energy and vigor. He cor- 
 rected his enunciation by reading aloud, emphatically 
 and distinctly, the best passages in our literature, for 
 several hours every day, studying his features before a 
 mirror, and adopting a method of gesticulation suited 
 to his rather awkward and ungraceful figure. He also 
 proposed cases to himself, which he detailed with as 
 much care as if he had been addressing a jury. Cur- 
 ran commenced business with the qualification which 
 Lord Eldon stated to be the first requisite for distinc- 
 tion as a barrister, that is, "to be not worth a shil- 
 ling." We need not say how Curran's perseverance, 
 energy, and genius, eventually succeeded. When work- 
 ing his way laboriously and painfully at the bar, still 
 oppressed by the diffidence which had overcome him 
 in his debating club, he was on one occasion stung by 
 the Judge (Robinson) into the following masterly re- 
 tort. In a case under discussion, Mr. Curran observed 
 "that he had never met the law as laid down by his 
 lordship in any book in his library." "That may be, 
 sir," said the judge, in a contemptuous tone, "but I 
 suspect that your library is very small." His lordship 
 was notoriously a furious political partisan, the author 
 of several anonymous pamphlets characterized by unu- 
 sual violence and dogmatism. Curran, roused by this 
 allusion to his straitened circumstances, replied thus : 
 "It is very true, my lord, that I am poor, and the 
 circumstance has certainly curtailed my library ; my 
 books are not numerous, but they are select, and I 
 hope they have been perused with proper dispositions. 
 I have prepared myself for this high profession by the 
 study of a few good works, rather than by the compo- 
 
CHAP. XI. WILLIAM CHAMBERS. 357 
 
 sition of a great many bad ones. I am not ashamed 
 of my poverty; but I should be ashamed of my wealth, 
 could I have stooped to acquire it by servility and 
 corruption. If I rise not to rank, I shall at least be 
 honest; and should I ever cease to be so, many an 
 example shows me that an ill-gained elevation, by 
 making me the more conspicuous, would only make 
 me the more universally and the more notoriously 
 contemptible." 
 
 The most highly educated men are those who have 
 been the most resolute in their encounter with difficul- 
 ties. The extremest poverty has been no obstacle in 
 the way of men devoted to the duty of self-culture. 
 Professor Alexander Murray, the linguist, learned to 
 write by scribbling his letters on an old wool-card 
 with the end of a burnt heather stem. The only 
 book which his father, who was a poor shepherd, pos- 
 sessed, was a penny Shorter Catechism; but that, be- 
 ing thought too valuable for common use, was carefully 
 preserved in a cupboard for the Sunday catechi sings. 
 Professor Moor, when a young man, being too poor to 
 purchase Newton's " Principia," borrowed the book, and 
 copied the whole of it with his own hand. Many poor 
 students, while laboring daily for their living, have only 
 been able to snatch an atom of knowledge here and 
 there at intervals, as birds do their food in winter 
 time when the fields are covered with snow. They 
 have struggled on, and faith and hope have come to 
 them. A well-known author and publisher, William 
 Chambers, of Edinburgh, speaking before an assem- 
 blage of young men in that city, thus briefly described 
 to them his humble beginnings, for their encourage- 
 ment: "I stand before you," he said, "a self-educated 
 
358 WILLIAM COBBETT. CHAP. XL 
 
 man. My education was that which is supplied at the 
 humble parish schools of Scotland; and it was only 
 when I went to Edinburgh, a poor boy, that I de- 
 voted my evenings, after the labors of the day, to the 
 cultivation of that intellect which the Almighty has 
 given me. From seven or eight in the morning till 
 nine or ten at night, was I at my business as a book- 
 seller's apprentice, and it was only during hours after 
 these, stolen from sleep, that I could devote myself to 
 study. I assure you that I did not read novels; my 
 attention was devoted to physical science, and other 
 useful matters. During that period, I taught myself 
 French. I look back to those times with great pleas- 
 ure, and am almost sorry I have not to go through the 
 same troubles again. I reaped more pleasure when I 
 had not a sixpence in my pocket, studying in a garret 
 in Edinburgh, than I now find when sitting amidst all 
 the elegances and comforts of a parlor." 
 
 William Cobbett has himself told the interesting story 
 of how he learned English Grammar, and, as a curious 
 illustration of that brave man's pluck in grappling with a 
 difficulty, we cannot do better than quote it here. " I 
 learned grammar," he said, " when I was a private soldier 
 on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or 
 that of my guard-bed, was my seat to study in ; my knap- 
 sack was my bookcase ; a bit of board lying on my lap 
 was my writing-table ; and the task did not demand any- 
 thing like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase 
 candle or oil ; in winter time it was rarely that I could 
 get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my 
 turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, 
 and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, 
 accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there 
 
CHAP. XI SIR SAMUEL KOMILLY. 359 
 
 be for any youth, however poor, however pressed with 
 business, or however circumstanced as to room or other 
 conveniences ? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was 
 compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a 
 state of half-starvation ; I had no moment of time that J 
 could call my own ; and I had to read and to write amidst 
 the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of 
 at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and 
 that, too, in the hours of their freedom from all control. 
 Think not lightly of the farthing that I had to give, now 
 and then, for ink, pen, or paper ! That farthing was, 
 alas ! a great sum to me ! I was as tall as I am now ; I 
 had great health and great exercise. The whole of the 
 money, not expended for us at market, was twopence a 
 week for each man. I remember, and well I may ! that 
 on one occasion I, after all necessary expenses, had. on 
 a Friday, made shifts to have a half-penny in reserve, 
 which I had destined for the purchase of a red-herring in 
 the morning ; but, when I pulled off my clothes at night, 
 so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found 
 that I had lost my half-penny ! I buried my head under 
 the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child ! 
 And again I say, if I, under circumstances like these, 
 could encounter and overcome this task, is there, can 
 there be, in the whole world, a youth to find an excuse 
 for the non-performance ? " 
 
 A very different man was Sir Samuel Romilly, but 
 not less indefatigable as a diligent self-cultivator. He 
 was the son of a jeweller, descended from a French refu- 
 gee ; he received little education in his early years, but 
 overcame all his disadvantages by unwearied application, 
 and by efforts constantly directed towards the same end. 
 w I determined" he says, in his autobiography, " when I 
 
t60 JOHN LEYDEN. CHAP. XI. 
 
 was between fifteen and sixteen years of age, to apply 
 myself seriously to learning Latin, of which I, at that 
 time, knew little more than some of the most familiar 
 rules of grammar. In the course of three or four years, 
 during which I thus applied myself, I had read almost 
 every prose writer of the age of pure Latinity. except 
 those who have treated merely of technical subjects, such 
 as Varro, Columella, and Celsus. I had gone three times 
 through the whole of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus. I had 
 studied the most celebrated orations of Cicero, and trans- 
 lated a great deal of Homer. Terence, Virgil, Horace, 
 Ovid, and Juvenal, I had read over and over again." 
 He also studied geography, natural history, and natural 
 philosophy, and obtained a considerable acquaintance 
 with general knowledge. At sixteen, he was articled to 
 a clerk in Chancery ; worked hard ; was admitted to the 
 bar ; and his industry and perseverance insured success. 
 He became Solicitor- General under the Fox administra- 
 tion, in 1806, and steadily worked his way to the highest 
 celebrity in his profession. Yet he was always haunted 
 by a painful and almost oppressive sense of his own 
 disqualifications, and never ceased laboring to remedy 
 them. His autobiography is a lesson of instructive facts, 
 worth volumes of sentiment, and is well deserving of a 
 careful perusal. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott was accustomed to cite the case of his 
 young friend John Leyden as one of the most remarkable 
 illustrations of the power of perseverance which he had 
 ever known. The son of a shepherd in one of the wildest 
 valleys of Roxburghshire, he was almost entirely self-edu- 
 cated. Like many Scotch shepherds' sons like Hogg, 
 who taught himself to write by copying the letters of a 
 printed book is he lay watching his flock on the hill-side 
 
CHAP. XI. JOHN LEYDEN. 361 
 
 like Cairns, who from tending sheep on the Lammermoors, 
 raised himself by dint of application and industry to the 
 professor's chair which he now so worthily holds like 
 Murray, Ferguson, and many more, Leyden was early in- 
 spired by a thirst for knowledge. When a poor barefooted 
 boy, he walked six or eight miles across the moors daily 
 to learn reading at the little village school-house of Kirk- 
 ton ; and this was all the education he received ; the rest 
 he acquired for himself. He found his way to Edinburgh 
 to attend the college there, setting the extremest penury 
 at utter defiance. He was first discovered as a frequenter 
 of a small bookseller's shop kept by Archibald Constable, 
 afterwards so well known as a publisher. He would pass 
 hour after hour perched on a ladder in mid-air, with some 
 great folio in his hand, forgetful of the scanty meal of 
 bread and water which awaited him at his miserable 
 lodging. Access to books and lectures comprised all 
 within the bounds of his wishes. Thus he toiled and 
 battled at the gates of science until his unconquerable 
 perseverance carried everything before it. Before he 
 had attained his nineteenth year he had astonished all 
 the professors in Edinburgh by his profound knowledge 
 of Greek and Latin, and the general mass of information 
 he had acquired. Having turned his views to India, he 
 sought employment in the civil service, but failed. He 
 was however informed that a surgeon ? s assistant's commis- 
 sion was open to him. But he was no surgeon, and knew 
 no more of the profession than a child. He could how- 
 ever learn. Then he was told that he must be ready (o 
 pass in six months ! Nothing daunted, he set to work, to 
 acquire in six months what usually requires three years. 
 At the end of six months he took his degree with honor. 
 Scott and a few friends helped to fit him out; and he 
 16 
 
3G2 PROFESSOR LEE. CHAP. XI 
 
 sailed for India, after publishing his beautiful poem "The 
 Scenes of Infan3y." In India he promised to become one 
 of the greatest of oriental scholars, but unhappily he was 
 cut off by fever caught by exposure, and died at an early 
 ago. 
 
 But perhaps the life of the late Dr. Lee, Professor cf 
 Hebrew, at Cambridge, furnishes one of the most re- 
 markable instances in modern times of the power of 
 perseverance and resolute purpose in working out an 
 honorable career in literature. He received his educa- 
 tion at a charity-school at Lognor, near Shrewsbury, but 
 so little distinguished himself there, that his master pro- 
 nounced him to be one of the dullest boys that ever 
 passed through his hands. He was put apprentice to a 
 carpenter, and worked at that trade until he arrived at 
 manhood. To occupy his leisure hours he took to 
 reading ; and, some of the books containing Latin quo- 
 tations, he became desirous of ascertaining what they 
 meant. He bought a Latin Grammar, and proceeded to 
 learn Latin. As Stone, the Duke of Argyle's gardener, 
 said, long before, " Does one need to know anything more 
 than the twenty-four letters, in order to learn everything 
 else that one wishes ? " Lee rose early and sat up late, 
 and he succeeded in mastering the Latin before his ap- 
 prenticeship was out. Whilst working one day in some 
 place of worship, a copy of a Greek Testament fell in 
 his way, and he was immediately filled with the desire t 
 learn this language too. He accordingly sold some of 
 his Latin books, and purchased a Greek Grammar and 
 Lexicon. He took pleasure in learning, and he soon 
 learned the language. Then he sold his Greek books, 
 and bought Hebrew ones, and learned that language, 
 unassisted by any instructor, without any hope of fame 
 
CHAP. XI. PROFESSOR LEE. 3C3 
 
 or reward, but simply following the bent of his genius. 
 He next proceeded to master the Chaldee, Syriac, and 
 Samaritan dialects. But his studies began to tell upon 
 his health, and brought on disease in his eyes through 
 his long night watchings with his books. Having laid 
 them aside for a time and recovered his health, he went 
 on with his daily work. His character as a tradesman 
 being excellent, his business improved, and his means 
 enabled him to marry, which he did when twenty-eight 
 years old. He determined now to devote himself to the 
 maintenance of his family, and to renounce his luxury of 
 book-learning ; accordingly he sold all his books. He 
 might have continued a working carpenter all his life, 
 had not the chest of tools upon which he depended for 
 subsistence been consumed by fire, and destitution stared 
 him in the face. He was too poor to buy new tools, so 
 he bethought him of teaching children their letters ; a 
 profession requiring the least possible capital. But 
 though he had mastered many languages, he was so 
 defective in the common branches of knowledge, that at 
 first he could not teach them. Resolute of purpose, how- 
 ever, he assiduously set to work, and taught himself arith- 
 metic and writing to such an extent as to be able to 
 impart the knowledge of these branches to little children. 
 His unaffected, simple, and beautiful character gradually 
 attracted friends, and the acquirements of the " learned 
 carpenter " became bruited abroad. Dr. Scott, a neigh- 
 boring clergyman, obtained for him the appointment of 
 master of a charity-school in Shrewsbury, and introduced 
 him to a distinguished Oriental scholar. These friends 
 supplied him with books, and Lee successively mastered 
 the Arabic, Persic, and Hindostanee languages. He 
 continued to pursue his studies while on permanent duty 
 
364 LATE LEARNERS. CHAI XI 
 
 in the local militia of the county ; gradually acquiring 
 greater proficiency in languages. At length his kind 
 patron, Dr. Scott, enabled him to enter Queen's College 
 Cambridge ; and after a course of study, in which he 
 distinguished himself by his mathematical acquirements, 
 a vacancy occurring in the professorship of Arabic and 
 Hebrew, he was worthily elected to fill the honorable 
 office. Besides ably performing his duties as a professor 
 he voluntarily gave much of his time to the instruction 
 of missionaries going forth to preach the Gospel to east- 
 ern tribes in their own tongue. He also made transla- 
 tions of the Bible in several Asiatic dialects ; and having 
 mastered the New Zealand tongue, he arranged a Gram- 
 mar and Vocabulary for two New Zealand Chiefs who 
 were then in England, which books are now in daily use 
 in the New Zealand schools. Such, in brief, is the re- 
 markable history of Dr. Samuel Lee ; and it is but the 
 counterpart of many similarly instructive examples of 
 the power of perseverance in self-culture, as displayed in 
 the lives of many of the most distinguished of our liter- 
 ary and scientific men.* 
 
 There are many more illustrious names which might 
 be cited to prove the truth of the common saying that 
 " it is never too late to learn." Even at advanced years 
 men can do much, if they will determine on making a 
 beginning. Sir Henry Spelman did not begin the study 
 of science until he was between fifty and sixty years of 
 age. Franklin was fifty before he fully entered upon 
 the study of Natural Philosophy. Dryden and Scott 
 were not known as authors until each was in his fortieth 
 year. Boccaccio was thirty-five when he entered upon 
 
 * See the admirable and well-known book, " The Pursuit of Knowl- 
 edge under Difficulties." 
 
CHAP. XL EARLY CLEVERNESS. 305 
 
 bis literary career, and Alfieri was forty-six when he 
 commenced the study of Greek. Dr. Arnold learnt 
 German at an advanced age, for the purpose of reading 
 Niebuhr in the original ; and in like manner James Watt, 
 when about forty, while working at his trade of an instru- 
 ment-maker in Glasgow, learnt French, German, and 
 Italian, to enable himself to peruse the valuable works 
 on mechanical philosophy in these languages. Robert 
 Hall was once found lying upon the floor, racked by pain, 
 learning Italian in his old age, to enable him to judge 
 of the parallel drawn by Macaulay between Milton and 
 Dante. Handel was forty-eight before he published any 
 of his great works. Indeed hundreds of instances might 
 be given of men who struck out an entirely new path, 
 and successfully entered on new studies, at a compara- 
 tively advanced time of life. None but the frivolous or 
 the indolent will say, " I am too old to learn." 
 
 And here we would repeat what we have said before, 
 that it is not men of genius who move the world, and 
 take the lead in it, but men of steadfastness, purpose, and 
 indefatigable industry. Notwithstanding the many curi- 
 ous stories which have been told about the infancy of 
 men of genius, it is nevertheless true that early clever- 
 ness is no test whatever of the height to which the grown 
 man will reach. Precocity is quite as often a symptom 
 of disease as an indication of intellectual vigor in youth. 
 What becomes of all the " remarkably clever children ? " 
 Where are all the duxes and prize boys ? Trace them 
 through life, and it will often be found that the dull boys, 
 who were invariably beaten at school, have shot ahead 
 of them. The clever boys are rewarded, but the prizes 
 which they gain by their greater quickness and facility, 
 rarely prove of service to them. What ought rather to 
 
366 ILLUSTRIOUS DUNCES. CHAP. XI. 
 
 be rewarded is, the endeavor, the struggle, and the obedi- 
 ence ; for it is the youth who does his best though en- 
 dowed with an inferiority of natural powers, that ought 
 above all others to be encouraged. 
 
 An interesting chapter might be written on the sub- 
 ject of illustrious dunces, dull boys, but brilliant men. 
 We have room, however, for only a few instances. Pie- 
 tro di Cortona, the painter, was thought so stupid that 
 he was nicknamed " Ass's Head " when a boy ; and 
 Tomaso Guidi was generally known as " heavy Tom " 
 (Massaccio Tomasaccio), though by diligence he after- 
 wards raised himself to the highest eminence. Newton, 
 when at school, stood at the bottom of the lowermost 
 form but one. The boy above Newton having kicked 
 him, the dunce showed his pluck by challenging him to a 
 fight, and beat him. Then he set to work with a will, 
 and determined also to vanquish his antagonist as a 
 scholar, which he did, rising to the top of his class. 
 Many of our greatest divines have been anything but 
 precocious. Isaac Barrow, when a boy at the Charter- 
 house School, was notorious chiefly for his strong temper, 
 pugnacious habits, and proverbial idleness as a scholar ; 
 and he caused such grief to his parents, that his father 
 used to say that if it pleased God to take from him any 
 of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, the least 
 promising of them all. Adam Clarke, when a boy, was 
 proclaimed by his father to be " a grievous dunce ; " 
 though he could roll large stones about. Dean Swift, 
 one of the greatest writers of pure English, was 
 " plucked " at Dublin University, and only obtained his 
 recommendation to Oxford " special! gratia." The well- 
 known Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Cook * were boys together 
 
 # Late Professor of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrew's. 
 
CHAP. XI. SHEfilDAN. CHATTERTON. - CLIVE. 3G7 
 
 at the parish school of St. Andrew's ; and they were 
 found so stupid and mischievous, that the master, irri- 
 tated beyond measure, dismissed them both as incor- 
 rigible dunces. 
 
 The brilliant Sheridan showed so little capacity as a 
 boy, that he was presented to a tutor by his mother with 
 the complimentary accompaniment, that he was an incor- 
 rigible dunce. Walter Scott was all but a dunce when 
 a boy, always much readier for a " bicker," than apt at 
 his lessons. At the Edinburgh University, Professor 
 Dalzell pronounced upon him the sentence that " Dunce 
 he was, and dunce he would remain." Chatterton was 
 returned on his mother's hands as "a fool, of whom 
 nothing could be made." Burns was a dull boy, good 
 only at athletic exercises. Goldsmith spoke of himself 
 as a plant that flowered late. Alfieri left college no 
 wiser than he entered it, and did not begin the studies by 
 which he distinguished himself, until he had run half 
 over Europe. Robert Clive was a dunce, if not a repro- 
 bate, when a youth ; but always full of energy, even in 
 badness. His family, glad to get rid of him, shipped him 
 off to Madras ; and he lived to lay the foundations of the 
 British power in India. Napoleon and Wellington were 
 both dull boys, not distinguishing themselves in any way 
 at school.* Of the former the Duchess d'Abrantes says, 
 " he had good health, but was in other respects like 
 
 * A writer in the "Edinburgh Review," (July, 1859,) observes 
 that " the Duke's talents seem never to have developed themselves, 
 until some active and practical field for their display was placed im- 
 mediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, 
 Who thought him a dunce, as only ' food for powder.' He gained no 
 eort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College 
 of Angers." It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at 
 Jus day, might have excluded him from the army. 
 
368 STOKY OF A DUNCE. CHAP. XI. 
 
 other boys." John Howard, the Philanthropist, was an- 
 other illustrious dunce, learning next to nothing during 
 the seven years that he was at school. Stephenson, as a 
 youth, was distinguished chiefly for his skill at putting 
 and wrestling, and attention to his work. The brilliant 
 Sir Humphry Davy was no cleverer than other boys ; 
 his teacher, Mr. Davies Gilbert, said of him, " while he 
 was with me, I could not discern the faculties by which 
 he was so much distinguished." Indeed, he himself in 
 after-life considered it fortunate that he had been left to 
 " enjoy so much idleness " at school. Watt was a dull 
 scholar, notwithstanding the pretty stories told about his 
 precocity ; but he was, what was better, patient and per- 
 severant, and it was by that means, and by his carefully 
 cultivated inventiveness, that he was enabled to perfect 
 his steam-engine. 
 
 What Dr. Arnold said of boys is equally true of men, 
 that the difference between one boy and another con- 
 sists not so much in talent as in energy. Given perse- 
 verance, and energy soon becomes habitual. Provided 
 the dunce has persistency and application, he will inev- 
 itably head the cleverer fellow without these qualities. 
 Slow but sure, wins the race. It is perseverance that 
 explains how the position of boys at school is so often 
 reversed in real life ; and it is curious to note how some 
 who were then so clever have since become so common- 
 place ; whilst others, dull boys, of whom nothing was 
 expected, slow in their faculties but sure in their pace, 
 have assumed the position of leaders of men. The au-> 
 thor of this book, when a boy, stood in the same class 
 with one of the greatest of dunces. One teacher after 
 another had tried his skill upon him and failed. Cor- 
 poral punishment, the fool's cap, coaxing, and earnesl 
 
CHAP. XI. SUCCESS DEPENDS ON PEKSEVERANCE. 369 
 
 entreaty, proved alike fruitless. Sometimes the experi- 
 ment was tried of putting him at the top of his class, 
 and it was curious to note the rapidity with which he 
 gravitated to the inevitable bottom, like a lump of lead 
 passing through quicksilver. The youth was given up 
 by many teachers as an incorrigible dunce, one of 
 them pronouncing him to be " a stupendous booby." 
 Yet, slow though he was, this dunce had a sort of dull 
 energy of purpose in him, which grew with his muscles 
 and his manhood ; and, strange to say, when he at length 
 came to take part in the practical business of life, he was 
 found heading most of his school companions, and event- 
 ually left the greater number of them far behind. The 
 last time the author heard of him, he was chief magistrate 
 of his native town. The tortoise in the right road, will 
 beat a racer in the wrong. It matters not though a youth 
 be slow, if he be but diligent. Quickness of parts may 
 even prove a defect, inasmuch as the boy who learns 
 readily will often forget quite as readily ; and also because 
 he finds no need of cultivating that quality of application 
 and perseverance which the slower youth is compelled to 
 exercise, and which proves so valuable an element in the 
 formation of every character. Davy said, " What I am I 
 have made myself;" and the same holds true univer- 
 sally. The highest culture is not obtained from teachers 
 wh sn at school or college, so much as by our own dili- 
 gent self-education when we have become men. Hence 
 parents need not be in too great haste to see their chil- 
 dren's talents forced into bloom. Let them watch and 
 wait patiently, letting good example and quiet training 
 do their work, and leave the rest to Providence. Let 
 them see to it that the youth is provided, by free exer- 
 cise of his bodily powers, with a full stock of physical 
 
370 SUCCESS DEPENDS ON PERSEVERANCE. CHAP. XI. 
 
 health ; set him fairly on the road of self-culture ; care- 
 fully train his habits of application and perseverance ; 
 and as he grows older, if the right stuff be in him, he 
 will be enabled vigorously and effectively to cultivate 
 himself. 
 
CHAP. XII. FORCE OF EXAMPLE. 371 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EXAMPLE, MODELS. 
 
 " Ever their phantoms rise before us, 
 
 Our loftier brothers, but one in blood ; 
 By bed and table they lord it o'er us, 
 
 With looks of beauty and words of good." John Stealing. 
 
 " There is no action of man in this life, which is not the beginning of so long 
 * chain of consequences, as that no human providence is high enough to give 
 us a prospect to the end." Thomas of Malmesbury. 
 
 EXAMPLE is one of the most potent of instructors, 
 though it teaches without a tongue. It is the practical 
 school of mankind, working by action, which is always 
 more forcible than words. Precept may point to us the 
 way, but it is silent continuous example, conveyed to us 
 by habits, and living with us in fact, that carries us along. 
 Good advice has its weight ; but without the accompani- 
 ment of a good example, it is of comparatively small 
 influence ; and it will be found that the common saying 
 of " Do as I say, not as I do," is usually reversed in the 
 actual experience of life. 
 
 All persons are more or less apt to learn through the 
 eye, rather than the ear ; and, whatever is seen in fact, 
 makes a far deeper impression than anything that is read 
 or heard. This is especially the case in early youth, 
 when the eye is the chief inlet of knowledgej Whatever 
 children see, they unconsciously imitate ; and they insen- 
 sibly become like to those who are about them, like 
 insects which take the color of the leaves they feed on. 
 
372 PARENTAL EXAMPLE. CHAP. XII. 
 
 Hence the vast importance of domestic training. For 
 whatever may be the efficiency of our schools, the ex 
 amples set in our Homes must always be of vastly 
 greater influence in forming the characters of our future 
 men and women. The Home is the crystal of society, 
 the very nucleus of national character ; and from 
 that source, be it pure or tainted, issue the habits, prin- 
 ciples, and maxims, which govern public as well as 
 private life. The nation comes from the nursery ; pub- 
 lic opinion itself is for the most part the outgrowth of 
 the home ; and the best philanthropy comes from the 
 fireside. " To love the little platoon we belong to in 
 society," says Burke, " is the germ of all public affec- 
 tions." From this little central spot, the human sym- 
 pathies may extend in an ever widening circle, until 
 the world is embraced ; for, though true philanthropy, 
 like charity, begins at home, assuredly it does not end 
 there. 
 
 Example in conduct, therefore, even in apparently 
 trivial matters, is of no light moment, inasmuch as it is 
 constantly becoming inwoven with the lives of others, 
 and contributing to form their characters for better or 
 for worse. The characters of parents are thus con- 
 stantly repeated in their children ; and the acts of af- 
 fection, discipline, industry, and self-control, which they 
 daily exemplify, live and act when all else which they 
 may have learned through the ear has long been forgot- 
 ten, Even the mute action and unconscious look of a 
 parent may give a stamp to the character, which is 
 never effaced ; and who can tell how much evil act has 
 been stayed by the thought of some good parent, whose 
 memory their children may not sully by the commission 
 of an unworthy deed, or the indulgence of an impure 
 
CHAP. XII. PARENTAL EXAMPLE. 373 
 
 thought ? The Vv riest trifles thus become of importance 
 in influencing the characters of men. " A kiss from my 
 mother," said West, " made me a painter." It is on the 
 direction of such seeming trifles when children, that the 
 future happiness and success of men mainly depend. 
 Fowell Buxton, when occupying an eminent and influen- 
 tial station in life, wrote to his mother, " I constantly 
 feel, especially in action and exertion for others, the ef- 
 fects of principles early implanted by you in my mind." 
 Buxton was also accustomed to remember with gratitude 
 the obligations which he owed to an illiterate man, a 
 game-keeper, named Abraham Plastow, with whom he 
 played, and rode, and sported a man who could neither 
 read nor write, but was full of natural good sense and 
 mother-wit. "What made him particularly valuable," 
 says Buxton, " were his principles of integrity and honor. 
 He never said or did a thing in the absence of my 
 mother of which she would have disapproved. He al- 
 ways held up the highest standard of integrity, and filled 
 our youthful minds with sentiments as pure and as gen- 
 erous as could be found in the writings of Seneca or 
 Cicero. Such was my first instructor, and, I must add, 
 my best." 
 
 Lord Langdale, looking back upon the admirable 
 example set him by his mother, declared, " If the 
 whole world were put into one scale, and my mother 
 into the other, the world would kick the beam." Mrs. 
 Schimmel Penninck, in her old age, was accustomed 
 to call to mind the personal influence exercised by 
 her mother upon the society amidst which she moved. 
 When she entered a room, it had the effect of imme- 
 diately raising the tone of the conversation, and as 
 if purifying the moral atmosphere, all seeming to 
 
374 ACTS AND CONSEQUENCES. CHAP. XII. 
 
 breathe more freely, and stand more erectly. " In her 
 presence," says the daughter, " I became for the time 
 transformed into another person." So much does the 
 moral health depend upon the moral atmosphere that is 
 breathed, and so great is the influence daily exercised 
 by parents over their children by living a life before 
 their eyes, that perhaps the best system of parental in- 
 struction might be summed up in these two words: 
 "Improve thyself." 
 
 There is something solemn and awful in the thought 
 that there is not an act nor thought in the life of a human 
 being but carries with it a train of consequences, the end 
 of which we may never trace. Not one but, to a certain 
 extent, gives a color to our own life, and insensibly in- 
 fluences the lives of those about us. The good deed or 
 thought will live, even though we may not see it fructify, 
 but so will the bad ; and no person is so insignificant as 
 to be sure that his example will not do good on the one 
 hand, nor evil on the other. There is, indeed, an es- 
 sence of immortality in the life of man, even in this 
 world. No individual in the universe stands alone ; he 
 is a component part of a system of mutual dependencies ; 
 and by his several acts, he either increases or diminishes 
 the sum of human good now and forever. As the pres- 
 ent is rooted in the past, and the lives and examples of 
 dur forefathers still to a great extent influence us, so are 
 we by our daily acts contributing to form the condition 
 and character of the future. The living man is a fruit 
 formed and ripened by the culture of all the foregoing 
 centuries. Generations six thousand years deep stand 
 behind us, each laying its hands upon its successor's 
 shoulders, and the living generation continues the mag- 
 netic current of acfion and example destined to bind the 
 
CHAP. XII ACTS AND CONSEQUENCES. 375 
 
 remotest past with the most distant future. No man's 
 acts die utterly ; and though his body may resolve into 
 dust and air, his good or his bad deeds will still be bring- 
 ing forth fruit after their kind, and influencing generations 
 of men for all time to come. It is in this momentous 
 and solemn fact, that the great peril and responsibility of 
 human existence lies. 
 
 Mr. Babbage has so powerfully expressed this idea in 
 a noble passage in one of has writings, that we here ven- 
 ture to quote his words : " Every atom," he says, " im- 
 pressed with good or ill, retains at once the motions which 
 philosophers and sages have imparted to it, mixed and 
 combined in ten thousand ways with all that is worthless 
 and base ; the air itself is one vast library, on whose 
 pages are written forever all that man has ever said or 
 whispered. There, in their immutable but unerring 
 characters, mixed with the earliest as well as the latest 
 sighs of mortality, stand forever recorded vows unre- 
 deemed, promises unfulfilled ; perpetuating, in the united 
 movements of each particle, the testimony of man's 
 changeful will. But, if the air we breathe is the never- 
 failing historian of the sentiments we have uttered, earth, 
 air, and ocean, are, in like manner, the eternal witnesses 
 of the acts we have done ; the same principle of the 
 equality of action and reaction applies to them. No mo- 
 tion impressed by natural causes, or by human agency, is 
 
 ever obliterated If the Almighty stamped on the 
 
 brow of the first murderer the indelible and visible mark 
 of his guilt, He has also established laws by which every 
 succeeding criminal is not less irrevocably chained to the 
 testimony of his crime ; for every atom of his mortal 
 frame, through whatever changes its severed particles 
 may migrate, will still retain adhering to it, through 
 
376 DUTY OF SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE. CHAP. XII 
 
 every combination, some movement derived from that 
 very muscular effort by which the crime itself was per 
 petrated." 
 
 Thus, every act we do or word we utter, as well as 
 every act we witness or word we hear, carries with it an 
 influence which extends over, and gives a color, not only 
 to the whole of our future life, but makes itself felt upon 
 the whole frame of society. We may not, and indeed 
 cannot possibly trace the influence working itself into 
 action in its various ramifications amongst our children, 
 our friends, or associates ; yet there it is assuredly, work- 
 ing on forever. And herein lies the great significance 
 if setting forth a good example, a silent teaching 
 which even the poorest and least significant person can 
 enforce by his daily life. There is no one so humble, 
 but that he owes to others this simple but priceless in- 
 struction. Even the meanest condition may thus be 
 made useful ; for the light set in a low place shines as 
 faithfully as that set upon a hill. Everywhere, and un- 
 der almost all circumstances, however externally adverse, 
 in moorland shielings, in cottage hamlets, in the close 
 alleys of great towns, the true man may grow. He 
 who tills a space of earth scarce bigger than is needed 
 for his grave, may work as faithfully, and to as good 
 purpose, as the heir to thousands. The commonest 
 workshop may thus be a school of industry, science, and 
 good morals, on the one hand ; or of idleness, folly, and 
 depravity, on the other. It all depends on the individual 
 men, and the use they make of the opportunities for good 
 which offer themselves. 
 
 A life well spent, a character uprightly sustained, is no 
 slight legacy to leave to one's children, and to the world ; 
 for it is the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the se- 
 
CHAP. XII DOING, NOT TELLING. 377 
 
 verest reproof of vice, while it continues an enduring 
 source of the best kind of riches. Well for those who 
 can say, as Pope did, in rejoinder to the sarcasms of 
 Lord Hervey, " I think it enough that my parents, such 
 as they were, never cost me a blush, and that their son, 
 such as he is, never cost them a tear." 
 
 It is not enough to tell others what they are to do, but 
 to exhibit the actual example of doing. What Mrs. 
 Chisholm described to Mrs. Stowe as the secret of her 
 success, applies to all life. " I found," she said, " that if 
 we want anything done, we must go to work and do; it 
 is of no use merely to talk, none whatever." It is 
 poor eloquence that only shows how a person can talk. 
 Had Mrs. Chisholm gone about lecturing, her project, 
 she was persuaded, would never have got beyond the 
 region of talk ; but when people saw what she was doing 
 and had actually accomplished, they fell in with her 
 views and came forward to help her. Hence the most 
 beneficent worker is not he who says the most eloquent 
 things, or even who thinks the most loftily, but he who 
 does the most eloquent acts. 
 
 True-hearted persons, even in the humblest station in 
 life, who are energetic doers, may thus give an impulse 
 to good works out of all proportion, apparently, to their 
 actual station in society. Thomas Wright might have 
 talked about the reclamation of criminals, and John 
 Pounds about the necessity for Ragged Schools, and yet 
 have done nothing ; instead of which they simply set to 
 work without any other idea in their minds than that 
 of doing, not talking. And how the example of even 
 the poorest man may tell upon society, hear what Dr. 
 Guthrie, the apostle of the Ragged School movement, 
 says of the influence which the example of John Pounds, 
 
378 JOHN POUNDS. CHAP. XII 
 
 the humble Portsmouth cobbler, exercised upon his own 
 working career : 
 
 " The interest I have been led to take in this cause is 
 an example of how, in Providence, a man's destiny, 
 his course of life, like that of a river, may be deter- 
 mined and affected by very trivial circumstances. It is 
 rather curious, at least it is interesting to me to re- 
 member, that it was by a picture I was first led to 
 take an interest in ragged schools, by a picture in an 
 old, obscure, decaying burgh that stands on the shores of 
 the Frith of Forth, the birthplace of Thomas Chalmers. 
 I went to see this place many years ago, and, going into 
 an inn for refreshment, I found the room covered with 
 pictures of shepherdesses with their crooks, and sailors in 
 holiday attire, not particularly interesting. But above 
 the chimney-piece there was a large print, more re- 
 spectable than its neighbors, which represented a cob- 
 bler's room. The cobbler was there himself, spectacles 
 on nose, an old shoe between his knees, the massive 
 forehead and firm mouth indicating great determination 
 of character, and, beneath his bushy eyebrows, benevo- 
 lence gleamed out on a number of poor ragged boys and 
 girls who stood at their lessons round the busy cobbler. 
 My curiosity was awakened; and in the inscription I 
 read how this man, John Pounds, a cobbler in Ports- 
 mouth, taking pity on the multitude of poor ragged chil- 
 dren left by ministers and magistrates, and ladies and 
 gentlemen, to go to ruin on the streets, how, like a 
 good shepherd, he gathered in these wretched outcasts, 
 how he had trained them to God and to the world, and 
 how, while earning his daily bread by the sweat of his 
 brow, he had rescued from misery and saved to society not 
 less than five hundred of these children. I felt ashamed 
 
CHAP. XH. JOHN POUNDS. 379 
 
 of myself. I felt reproved for the little I had done. My 
 feelings were touched. I was astonished at this man's 
 achievements ; and I well remember, in the enthusiasm 
 of the moment, saying to my companion (and I have seen 
 in my cooler and calmer moments no reason for unsaying 
 the saying), 'That man is an honor to humanity, and 
 deserves the tallest monument ever raised within the 
 shores of Britain.' I took up that man's history, and I 
 found it animated by the spirit of Him who had ' com- 
 passion on the multitude.' John Pounds was a clever 
 man besides ; and, like Paul, if he could not win a poor 
 boy any other way, he won him by art. He would be 
 seen chasing a ragged boy along the quays, and com- 
 pelling him to come to school, not by the power of 
 a policeman, but by the power of a hot potato. He 
 knew the love an Irishman had for a potato ; and John 
 Pounds might be seen running holding under the boy's 
 nose a potato, like an Irishman, very hot, and with a 
 coat as ragged as himself. When the day comes when 
 honor will be done to whom honor is due, I can fancy 
 the crowd of those whose fame poets have sung, and to 
 whose memory monuments have been raised, dividing 
 like the wave, and, passing the great, and the noble, and 
 the mighty of the land, this poor, obscure old man step- 
 ping forward and receiving the especial notice of Him 
 who said, * Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of 
 these, ye did it also to Me.'" 
 
 We never can tell where a good example may fall, 
 or in what direction it may operate. Even the sight 
 of patient, uncomplaining industry on the part of weak 
 and humble persons, working on and trying to do 
 their best in the position of life in which Providence 
 has placed them, may be of service to many a work- 
 
380 GOOD MODELS OF CHAKACTER. CHAP. XII. 
 
 er with higher ends. We have heard of a young sur- 
 geon in a country place engaged in the up-hill work 
 of establishing a practice, who began to feel as if he 
 must sink under it in despair. But once, when visiting 
 a patient, he took occasion to remark how often he ha<* 
 seen certain lights in an opposite window, very late at 
 night. He was told that the room with the lights was 
 occupied by two girls, dressmakers, who had been re- 
 duced to great distress by their father's misconduct ; 
 " and now," said the informant, " they are working day 
 and night to make their way against misfortune as 
 well as they can." The young surgeon took the words 
 home with him, and when he felt disposed to complain 
 of the world, the thought of these hard-working girls 
 invigorated and cheered him; and by giving him new 
 courage, just as he was sinking, their example, he used 
 afterwards to say, proved invaluable to him. 
 
 The education of character is very much a question 
 of models ; we mould ourselves so unconsciously after 
 the characters, manners, habits, and opinions of those 
 who are about us. Good rules may do much, but 
 good models far more; for in the latter we have in- 
 struction in action, wisdom at work. Good admo- 
 nition and bad example only build with one hand 
 to pull down with the other. Hence the vast im- 
 portance of exercising great care in the selection of 
 companions, especially in youth. There is a magnetic 
 affinity in young persons which insensibly tends to 
 assimilate them to each other's likeness. Mr. Ed-e- 
 
 O 
 
 worth was so strongly convinced that from sympathy 
 they involuntarily imitated or caught the tone of the 
 company they frequented, that he held it to be of the 
 jnost essential importance that they should be taught 
 
CHAP. XII. GOOD MODELS OF CHARACTER. 381 
 
 to select the very best models. " No company, or good 
 company," was his motto. Lord Collingwood, writing to 
 a young friend, said, " Hold it as a maxim that you had 
 better be alone than in mean company. Let your com- 
 panions be such as yourself, or superior ; for the worth 
 of a man will always be ruled by that of his company." 
 As Sir Peter Lely made it a rule never to look at a bad 
 picture if he could help it, believing that whenever he 
 did so his pencil caught a taint from it, so, whoever 
 chooses to gaze often upon a debased specimen of hu- 
 manity and to frequent his society, cannot help gradually 
 assimilating himself to that sort of model. 
 
 It is therefore advisable for young men to seek the 
 fellowship of the good, and always to aim at a higher 
 standard than themselves. Francis Horner, speaking 
 of the advantages to himself of direct personal inter- 
 course with high-minded, intelligent men, said : " I can- 
 not hesitate to decide that I have derived more intel- 
 lectual improvement from them than from all the books 
 I have turned over." Lord Shelburne (afterwards Mar- 
 quis of Lansdowne), when a young man, paid a visit 
 to the venerable Malesherbes, and was so much im- 
 pressed by it, that he said : " I have travelled much, 
 but I have never been so influenced by personal con- 
 tact with any man ; and if I ever accomplish any good 
 in the course of my life, I am certain that the recol- 
 lection of M. de Malesherbes will animate my soul." 
 So Fowell Buxton was always ready to acknowledge 
 the powerful influence exercised upon the formation of 
 his character in early life, by the example of the Gur- 
 ney family : " It has given a color to my life," he 
 used to say. Speaking of his success at the Dublin 
 University, he confessed, "I can ascribe it to nothing 
 
382 PERSONAL INFLUENCE OF STERLING. CHAP. XII. 
 
 but my Earlham visits." It was from the Gurneys lie 
 "caught the infection" of self-improvement. 
 
 Contact with the good never fails to impart good, 
 and we carry away with us some of the blessing, as 
 travellers' garments retain the odor of the flowers and 
 shrubs through which they have passed. Those who 
 knew the late John Sterling intimately, have spoken 
 of the beneficial influence which he exercised on all 
 with whom he came into personal contact. Many owed 
 to him their first awakening to a higher being ; from 
 him they learned what they were, and what they ought 
 to be. Mr. Trench says of him : " It was impossible 
 to come in contact with his noble nature without feel- 
 ing one's self in some measure ennobled and lifted up, 
 as I ever felt when I left him, into a higher region 
 of objects and aims than that in which one is tempted 
 habitually to dwell." It is thus that the noble charac- 
 ter always acts; we become lifted and lighted up in 
 him, we cannot help being borne along by him and 
 acquiring the habit of looking at things in the same 
 light; such is the magical action and reaction of minds 
 upon each other. 
 
 Artists, also, feel themselves elevated by contact with 
 artists greater than themselves. Thus Haydn's genius 
 was first fired by Handel. Hearing him play, his ar- 
 dor for musical composition was at once excited, and 
 but for the circumstance, Haydn himself believed that 
 he would never have written the " Creation." Speak- 
 ing of Handel, he said, " When he chooses, he strikes 
 like the thunderbolt;" and at another time, "There is 
 .lot a note of him but draws blood." Scarlatti was 
 another of Handel's ardent admirers, following him all 
 over Italy; afterwards, when speaking of the great 
 
CHAP. XII. EXAMPLE OF THE BRAVE. 383 
 
 master, he would cross himself in token of admiration. 
 True artists never fail generously to recognize each 
 other's greatness. Thus Beethoven's admiration for 
 Cherubini was regal ; and he ardently hailed the gen- 
 ius of Schubert : " Truly," said he, " in Schubert dwells 
 a divine fire." When Northcote was a mere youth he 
 had such an admiration for Reynolds that, when the 
 great painter was once attending a public meeting 
 down in Devonshire, the boy pushed through the crowd, 
 and got so near Reynolds as to touch the skirt of his 
 coat, " which I did," says Northcote, " with great satis- 
 faction to my mind," a true touch of youthful enthu- 
 siasm in its admiration of genius. 
 
 The example of the brave is an inspiration to the 
 timid, their presence thrilling through every fibre. Hence 
 the miracles of valor so often performed by ordinary men 
 under the leadership of the heroic. The very recollection 
 of the deeds of the valiant stirs men's blood like the 
 sound of a trumpet. Ziska bequeathed his skin to be 
 used as a drum to inspire the valor of the Bohemians. 
 When Scanderbeg, prince of Epirus, was dead, the Turks 
 wished to possess his bones, that each might wear a piece 
 next his heart, hoping thus to secure some portion of the 
 courage he had displayed while living, and which they 
 had so often experienced in battle. When the gallant 
 Douglas, bearing the heart of Bruce to the Holy Land, 
 saw one of his knights surrounded and sorely pressed by 
 the Saracens in battle, he took from his neck the silver 
 case containing the hero's bequest, and throwing it amidst 
 the thickest press of his foes, cried : " Pass first in fight, 
 as thou wert wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee, or 
 die ; " and so saying, he rushed forward to the place 
 where it fell, and was there slain. 
 
384 CHIEF USE OF BIOGRAPHY. CHAP. XII. 
 
 The chief use of biography consists in the noble mod- 
 els of character in which it abounds. Our great fore- 
 fathers still live among us in the records of their lives, 
 as well as in the acts they have done, and which live also ; 
 still sit by us at table, and hold us by the hand ; furnish- 
 ing examples for our benefit, which we may still study, 
 admire, and imitate. Indeed, whoever has left behind 
 him the record of a noble life, has bequeathed to posterity 
 an enduring source of good, for it lives as a model for 
 others to form themselves by in all time to come ; still 
 breathing fresh life into us, helping us to reproduce his 
 life anew, and to illustrate his character in other forms. 
 Hence a book containing the life of a true man is full of 
 precious seed ; to use Milton's words, " it is the precious 
 lifeblood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up 
 on purpose to a life beyond life." Such a book never 
 ceases to exercise an elevating influence, and a power for 
 good. But, above all, there is the very highest Model 
 and Example set before us to shape our lives by in this 
 world the most suitable for all the necessities of our 
 mind and heart an example which we can only follow 
 afar off and feel after, 
 
 Like plants or vines which never saw the sun, 
 But dream of him and guess where he may be, 
 And do their best to climb and get to him. 
 
 Again, no young man can rise from the perusal of 
 Buch lives as those of Buxton and Arnold, without feel- 
 ing his mind and heart made better, and his best resolves 
 invigorated. Such biographies increase a man's self- 
 reliance by demonstrating what men can be, and what 
 they can do ; fortifying our hopes and elevating our aims 
 in life. Sometimes a young man discovers himself in a 
 
CHAP. XII. LIVES INFLUENCED BY BIOGRAPHY. 385 
 
 biography, as Guido felt within him the risings of genius 
 on contemplating the works of Michael Angelo : " And 
 I, too, am a painter," he exclaimed. Sir Samuel llomilly, 
 in his autobiography, confessed himself to have been 
 powerfully influenced by the life of the great and noble- 
 minded French Chancellor Daguesseau : " The works 
 of Thomas," says he, " had fallen into my hands, and I 
 had read with admiration his ' Eloge of Daguesseau ; ' 
 and the career of honor which he represented that illus- 
 trious magistrate to have run, excited to a great degree 
 my ardor and ambition, and opened to my imagination 
 new paths of glory." 
 
 Franklin was accustomed to attribute his usefulness 
 and eminence to his having early read Cotton Mather's 
 "Essays to do Good," a book which grew out of 
 Mather's own life. And see how good example draws 
 other men after it, and propagates itself through future 
 generations in all lands. For Samuel Drew avers that 
 he framed his own life, and especially his business habits, 
 after the model left on record by Benjamin Franklin. 
 Thus it is impossible to say where a good example may 
 not reach, or where it will end, if indeed it have an end. 
 Hence the advantage, in literature as in life, of keeping 
 the best society, reading the best books, and wisely ad- 
 miring and imitating the best things we find in them. 
 " In literature," said Lord Dudley, " I am fond of con- 
 fining myself to the best company, which consists chiefly 
 of my old acquaintance, with whom I am desirous of 
 becoming more intimate ; and I suspect that nine times 
 out of ten it is more profitable, if not more agreeable, to 
 read an old book over again, than to read a new one for 
 the first time." 
 
 Sometimes a book containing a noble exemplar of life, 
 17 
 
386 LOYOLA. LUTHER. CAREY. CHAP. XII. 
 
 taken up at random, merely with the object of reading 
 it as a pastime, has been known to call forth energies 
 whose existence had not before been suspected. Alfieri 
 was first drawn with passion to literature by reading 
 " Plutarch's Lives." Loyola, when a soldier serving at 
 the siege of Pampeluna, and laid up by a dangerous 
 wound in his leg, asked for a book to divert his thoughts ; 
 the " Lives of the Saints " was brought to him, and its 
 perusal so inflamed his mind, that he determined thence- 
 forth to devote himself to the founding of a religious 
 order. Luther, in like manner, was inspired to under- 
 take the great labors of his life by a perusal of the " Life 
 and Writings of John Huss." Dr. Wolff was stimulated 
 to enter upon his missionary career by reading the " Life 
 of Francis Xavier ; " and the book fired his youth- 
 ful bosom with a passion the most sincere and ardent to 
 devote himself to the enterprise of his life. William 
 Carey, also, got the first idea of entering upon his sub- 
 lime labors as a missionary, from a perusal of the Voy- 
 ages of Captain Cook. 
 
 Francis Horner was accustomed to note in his Diary 
 and letters the books by which he was most improved and 
 influenced. Amongst these were Condorcet's " Eloge of 
 Haller," Sir Joshua Reynolds's " Discourses," the writ- 
 ings of Bacon, and Burnet's account of Sir Matthew 
 Hale. The perusal of the last-mentioned book, the 
 portrait of a prodigy of labor, Horner says, filled him 
 with enthusiasm. Of Condorcet's " Eloge of Haller," 
 he said : " I never rise from the account of such men 
 without a sort of thrilling palpitation about me, which I 
 know not whether I should call admiration, ambition, of 
 despair." And, speaking of the " Discourses " of Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, he said : " Next to the writings of 
 
CHAP. XII. CHEERFULNESS. 38T 
 
 Bacon, there is no book which has more powerfully im- 
 pelled me to self-culture. He is one of the first men of 
 genius who has condescended to inform the world of the 
 steps by which greatness is attained ; the confidence with 
 which he asserts the omnipotence of human labor, has 
 the effect of familiarizing his reader with the idea that 
 genius is an acquisition rather than a gift ; whilst with 
 all there is blended so naturally and eloquently the most 
 elevated and passionate admiration of excellence, that 
 upon the whole there is no book of a more inflammatory 
 effect." It is remarkable that Reynolds himself attrib- 
 uted his first passionate impulse towards the study of 
 art, to reading Richardson's account of a great painter ; 
 and Haydon was in like manner afterwards inflamed 
 to follow the same pursuit by reading of the career 
 of Reynolds. But Haydon failed to imitate Reynolds's 
 laboriousness and practical prudence ; and though he 
 dreamt of favor, fortune, and honors, he did not take 
 the pains, by diligent cultivation of his unquestionably 
 great powers, effectually to secure them. Hence his life, 
 notwithstanding all the examples which artists had set 
 him, proved an egregious failure. 
 
 One of the most valuable, and one of the most in- 
 fectious examples which can be set before the young, is 
 that of cheerful working. Cheerfulness gives elasticity 
 to the spirit. Spectres fly before it ; difficulties cause no 
 despair, for they are encountered with hope, and the 
 mind acquires that happy disposition to improve oppor- 
 tunities which rarely fails of success. The fervent spirit 
 is always a healthy and happy spirit ; working cheerfully 
 itself, and stimulating others to work. It confers a dig- 
 nity on even the most ordinary occupations. The most 
 effective work, also, is always the full-hearted work, 
 
388 DE. ARNOLD'S INFLUENCE. CHAP. XII. 
 
 that which passes through the hands or the head of him 
 whose heart is glad. Hume was accustomed to say that 
 he would rather possess a cheerful disposition, inclined 
 always to look at the bright side of things, than witli a 
 gloomy mind to be the master of an estate of ten thou- 
 sand a year. Granville Sharp, amidst his indefatigable 
 labors on behalf of the slave, solaced himself in the 
 evenings by taking part in glees and instrumental con- 
 certs at his brother's house, singing, or playing on the 
 flute, the clarionet, or the oboe ; and, at the Sunday 
 evening oratorios when Handel was played, he beat the 
 kettle-drums. He also indulged, though sparingly, in 
 caricature drawing, and would occasionally sign his own 
 
 name in musical characters, thus: 
 
 Fowell Buxton also was an eminently cheerful man ; tak- 
 ing special pleasure in field-sports, in riding about the 
 country with his children, and in mixing in all their 
 domestic amusements. 
 
 In another sphere of action, Dr. Arnold was a noble 
 and a cheerful worker, throwing himself into the great 
 business of his life, the training and teaching of young 
 men, with his whole heart and soul. It is stated in his 
 admirable biography, that " the most remarkable thing 
 m the Laleham circle was the wonderful healthiness of 
 tone which prevailed there. It was a place where a 
 new-comer at once felt that a great and earnest work 
 was going forward. Every pupil was made to feel that 
 there was a work for him to do ; that his happiness, as 
 well as his duty, lay in doing that work well. Hence 
 an indescribable zest was communicated to a young 
 man's feeling about life ; a strange joy came over him 
 on discerning that he had the means of being useful, 
 
CHAP. XIJ. SIK JOHN SINCLAIR. 380 
 
 and thus of being happy ; and a deep respect and ardent 
 attachment sprang up towards him who had taught him 
 thus to value life and his own self, and his work and 
 mission in the world. All this was founded on the 
 breadth and comprehensiveness of Arnold's character, 
 as well as its striking truth and reality ; on the un- 
 feigned regard he had for work of all kinds, and the 
 sense he had of its value, both for the complex aggre- 
 gate of society and the growth and protection of the in- 
 dividual. In all this, there was no excitement ; no 
 predilection for one class of work above another ; no 
 enthusiasm for any one-sided object ; but a humble, 
 profound, and most religious consciousness that work 
 is the appointed calling of man on earth ; the end for 
 which his various faculties were given ; the element in 
 which his nature is ordained to develop itself, and in 
 which his progressive advance towards heaven is to lie." 
 Among the many valuable men trained for public life 
 and usefulness by Arnold, was the gallant Hodson, of 
 Hodson's Horse, who, writing home from India, many 
 years after, thus spoke of his revered master : " The 
 influence he produced has been most lasting and strik- 
 ing in its effects. It is felt even in India ; I cannot 
 say more than that." 
 
 The useful influence which a right-hearted man of 
 energy and industry may exercise amongst his neigh- 
 bors and dependants, and accomplish for his country, 
 cannot, perhaps, be better illustrated than by the career 
 of Sir John Sinclair ; characterized by the Abbe* Gre- 
 goire as " the most indefatigable man in Europe." He 
 was originally a country laird, born to a considerable 
 estate situate near John o' Groat's house, almost be- 
 yond the beat of civilization, in a bare wild country 
 
39C SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. CHAP. XII. 
 
 fronting the stormy North Sea. His father dying while 
 he was a youth of sixteen, the management of the fam- 
 ily property thus early devolved upon him; and at 
 eighteen he began a course of vigorous improvement in 
 the county of Caithness, which eventually spread all 
 over Scotland. Agriculture then was in a most back- 
 ward state ; the fields were uninclosed, the lands un- 
 drained; the small farmers of Caithness were so poor 
 that they could scarcely afford to keep a horse or sheltie ; 
 the hard work was chiefly done, and the burdens borne 
 by the women ; and if a cottier lost a horse, it was not 
 unusual for him to marry a wife as the cheapest substi- 
 tute. The country was without roads or bridges; and 
 drovers driving their cattle south, had to swim the 
 rivers along with their beasts. The chief track leading 
 into Caithness lay along a high shelf on a mountain side, 
 the road being some hundred feet of clear perpendicular 
 height above the sea which dashed below. Sir John, 
 though a mere youth, determined to make a new road 
 over the hill of Ben Cheilt ; the old let-alone proprietors, 
 however, regarding his scheme with incredulity and de- 
 rision. But he himself laid out the new road, assembled 
 some twelve hundred laborers early one summer's morn- 
 ing, set them simultaneously to work, watching over 
 their labors, and stimulating them by his presence and 
 example ; and before night, what had been a dangerous 
 sheep-track, six miles in length, hardly passable for led 
 horses, was made practicable for wheel-carriages, as if 
 by the powers of magic. It was an admirable example 
 of energy and well-directed labor, which could not fail 
 to have a most salutary influence upon the surrounding 
 population. He then proceeded to make more roads, to 
 erect mills, to build bridges, and to inclose and cultivate 
 his waste lands. He introduced improved methods of 
 
CHAI.XII. SIR JOHN SINCLAIR, 391 
 
 culture, and regular rotation of crops ; distributing small 
 premiums to encourage industry; and he thus soon 
 quickened the whole frame of society within reach of 
 his influence, and infused an entirely new life into the 
 cultivators of the soil. From being one of the most in- 
 accessible districts of the north, the very ultima Thule 
 of civilization, Caithness became a pattern county for 
 its roads, its agriculture, and its fisheries. In Sinclair's 
 youth, the post was carried by a runner only once a 
 week, and the young baronet then declared that he would 
 never rest till a coach drove daily to Thurso. The peo- 
 ple of the neighborhood could not believe in any such 
 thing, and it became a proverb in the county to say of 
 any utterly impossible scheme, " Ou ay, that will come 
 to pass when Sir John sees the daily mail at Thurso ! " 
 But Sir John lived to see his dream realized, and the 
 daily mail established to Thurso. 
 
 The circle of his benevolent operations gradually 
 widened. Observing the serious deterioration which 
 had taken place in the quality of British wool, one 
 of the staple commodities of the country, he forthwith, 
 though but a private and little-known country gentleman, 
 devoted himself to its improvement. By his personal 
 exertions he established the British Wool Society for 
 the purpose, and himself led the way to practical im- 
 provement by importing 800 sheep from all countries, 
 at his own expense. The result was, the introduction 
 into Scotland of the celebrated Cheviot breed. Sheep 
 farmers scouted the idea of south country flocks being 
 able to thrive in the far north. But Sir John perse- 
 vered ; and in a few years there were not fewer than 
 near 300,000 Cheviots diffused over the four northern 
 counties alone. The value of all grazing land was thus 
 enormously increased j and Scotch estates,, which before 
 
332 SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. CHAP. XIL 
 
 were comparatively worthless, began to yield large 
 rentals. 
 
 Returned by Caithness to Parliament, in which he 
 remained for thirty years, rarely missing a division, his 
 position gave him further opportunities of usefulness, 
 which he did not neglect to employ. Mr. Pitt, ob- 
 serving his persevering energy in all useful public pro- 
 jects, sent for him to Downing Street, and voluntarily 
 proposed his assistance in any object he might have in 
 view. Another man might have thought of himself and 
 his own promotion ; but Sir John characteristically re- 
 plied, that he desired no favor for himself, but intimated 
 that the reward most gratifying to his feelings would be 
 Mr. Pitt's assistance in the establishment of a National 
 Board of Agriculture. Arthur Young laid a bet with 
 the baronet that his scheme would never be established, 
 adding, " Your Board of Agriculture will be in the 
 moon ! " But vigorously setting to work, he roused 
 public attention to the subject, enlisted a majority of 
 Parliament on his side, and eventually established the 
 Board, of which he was appointed President. The re- 
 sult of its action need not be described, but the stimulus 
 which it gave to agriculture and stock-raising was short- 
 ly felt throughout the whole United Kingdom, and tens 
 of thousands of acres were redeemed from barrenness 
 by its operation. He was equally indefatigable in en- 
 couraging the establishment of fisheries ; and the suc- 
 cessful founding of these great branches of British in- 
 dustry at Thurso and Wick was mainly due to his 
 exertions. He urged for long years, and at length suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining, the inclosure of a harbor for the 
 latter place, which is perhaps the greatest and most 
 prosperous fishing town in the world. 
 
 Sir John threw his personal energy into every work in 
 
CHAP. XII. HIS MULTIFARIOUS OCCUPATIONS. 303 
 
 which he engaged, rousing the inert, stimulating the idle, 
 encouraging the hopeful, and working with all. When 
 a French invasion was threatened, he offered to Mr, Pitt 
 to raise a regiment on his own estate, and he was as good 
 as his word. He went down to the north, and raised a 
 battalion of 600 men, afterwards increased to 1,000 ; and 
 it was admitted to be one of the finest volunteer regi- 
 ments ever raised, inspired throughout by his own noble 
 and patriotic spirit. While commanding officer of the 
 camp at Aberdeen, he held the offices of a Director of 
 the Bank of Scotland, Chairman of the British Wool 
 Society, Provost of Wick, Director of the British Fishery 
 Society, Commissioner for issuing Exchequer Bills, Mem- 
 ber of Parliament for Caithness, and President of the 
 Board of Agriculture. Amidst all this multifarious and 
 self-imposed work, he even found time to write books, 
 enough of themselves to establish a reputation. When 
 Mr. Rush, the American ambassador, arrived in Eng- 
 land, he relates that he inquired of Mr. Coke of Hoik- 
 ham, what was the best work on agriculture, and was 
 referred to Sir John Sinclair's ; and when he further 
 asked of Mr. Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 what was the best work on British finance, he was again 
 referred to a work by Sir John Sinclair, his " History of 
 the Public Revenue." But the great monument of his 
 indefatigable industry, a work that would have appalled 
 other men, but only served to nerve and rouse his energy, 
 was his " Statistical Account of Scotland," in twenty-one 
 volumes, one of the most valuable practical works ever 
 published in any age or country. Amidst a host of other 
 pursuits, it occupied him nearly eight years of hard labor, 
 during which he received, and attended to, upwards of 
 20,000 letters on the subject. It was a thoroughly patri- 
 otic undertaking, from which he derived no personal ad- 
 17* 
 
394 SIR JOHN SINCLAIR. CHAP. XII. 
 
 vantage whatever, beyond the honor of having completed 
 it. The whole of the profits were assigned by him to 
 the Society for the Sons of the Clergy in Scotland. The 
 publication of the book led to great public improvements ; 
 it was followed by the immediate abolition of several 
 oppressive feudal rights, to which it called attention ; the 
 salaries of schoolmasters and clergymen in many parishes 
 were increased ; and an increased stimulus was given to 
 agriculture throughout Scotland. Sir John then publicly 
 offered to undertake the much greater labor of collecting 
 and publishing a similar Statistical Account of England ; 
 but unhappily the then Archbishop of Canterbury refused 
 to sanction it, lest it should interfere with the tithes of the 
 clergy. 
 
 A remarkable illustration of his energetic promptitude 
 was the manner in which he once provided, on a great 
 emergency, for the relief of the manufacturing districts. 
 In 1793 the stagnation produced by the war led to an 
 unusual number of bankruptcies, and many of the first 
 houses in Manchester and Glasgow were tottering, not 
 so much from want of property, but because the usual 
 sources of trade and credit were for the time closed up. 
 A period of intense distress amongst the laboring classes 
 seemed imminent, when Sir John urged, in Parliament, 
 that Exchequer Notes to the amount of five millions 
 should be issued immediately as a loan to such mer- 
 chants as could give security. This suggestion was 
 adopted, and his offer to carry out his plan, in conjunc- 
 tion with certain members named by him, was also ac- 
 cepted. The vote was passed late at night, and early 
 next morning Sir John, anticipating the delays of official- 
 ism and red tape, proceeded to bankers in the city, and 
 borrowed of them, on his own personal security, the sum 
 of 70,000/., which he dispatched the same evening to 
 
CHAP. XII. HIS ENERGETIC PROMPTITUDE. 395 
 
 those merchants who were in the most urgent need of 
 assistance. Pitt meeting Sir John in the House, ex- 
 pressed his great regret that the pressing wants of Man- 
 chester and Glasgow could not be supplied so soon aa 
 was desirable, adding, " The money cannot be raised for 
 some days." " It is already gone ! it left London by 
 to-night's mail ! " was Sir John's triumphant reply ; and 
 in afterwards relating the anecdote he added, with a 
 smile of pleasure, " Pitt was as much startled as if I had 
 stabbed him." To the last this great, good man worked 
 on usefully and cheerfully ; setting a great example for 
 bis family and for his country. In so laboriously seeking 
 others' good, it might be said that he found his own, 
 not wealth, for his generosity seriously impaired his pri- 
 vate fortune, but happiness, and self-satisfaction, and the 
 peace that passes knowledge. A great patriot, with 
 magnificent powers of work, he nobly did his duty to his 
 country ; yet he was not neglectful of his own household 
 and home. His sons and daughters grew up to honor 
 and usefulness ; and it was one of the proudest things 
 Sir John could say, when verging on his eightieth year, 
 *hat he had lived to see seven sons grow up, not one of 
 whom had incurred a debt he could not pay, or caused 
 him a sorrow that could have been avoided. 
 
396 CHAEACTER THE NOBLEST POSSESSION. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CHARACTER. THE TRUE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 i 
 
 " For who can always act ? but he, 
 To whom a thousand memories call, 
 Not being less but more than all 
 The gentleness he seemed to be, 
 But seemed the thing he was, and join'd 
 Each office of the social hour 
 To noble manners, as the flower 
 And native growth of noble mind ; 
 And thus he bore without abuse 
 
 The grand old name of Gentleman." Tennyson. 
 
 " Everything in Asia, public safety, national honor, personal reputation, 
 rests upon the force of individual character. . . The officer who forgets 
 that he is a gentleman, does more harm to the moral influence of this country 
 than ten men of blameless life can do good." Lord Stanley to the Studintt 
 at Addiscombe. 
 
 THE crown and glory of life is Character) It is the 
 noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, 
 and an estate in the general good-will ; dignifying every 
 station, and exalting every position in society. It exer- 
 cises a greater power than wealth, and secures all the 
 honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it 
 an influence which always tells ; for it is the result of 
 proved honor, rectitude, and consistency, qualities 
 which, perhaps more than any other, command the gen- 
 eral confidence and respect of mankind. 
 
 Character is human nature in its best form. It is moral 
 order embodied In the individual. Men of character 
 are not only the conscience of society, but in every well- 
 
CI/AP. Xin. FRANCIS HORNEB. 397 
 
 governed state they are its best motive power ; for it is 
 moral qualities in the main, which rule the world. Even 
 in war, Napoleon said the moral is to the physical as 
 ten to one. The strength, the industry, and the civiliza- 
 tion of nations, all depend upon individual character ; 
 and the very foundations of civil security rest upon it. 
 Laws and institutions are but its outgrowth. In the just 
 balance of nature, individuals, and nations, and races, 
 will obtain just so much as they deserve, and no more. 
 And as effect finds its cause, so surely does quality of 
 character amongst a people produce its befitting results. 
 
 Though a man have comparatively little culture, slen- 
 der abilities, and but small wealth, yet, if his character 
 be of sterling worth, he will always command an influ- 
 ence, whether it be in the workshop, the counting-house, 
 the mart, or the senate. Canning wisely wrote in 1801, 
 " My road must be through Character to power ; I will 
 try no other course ; and I am sanguine enough to 
 believe that this course, though not perhaps the quick- 
 est, is the surest." You may admire men of intel- 
 lect; but something more is necessary before you will 
 trust them. Hence Lord John Russell once observed, 
 in a sentence full of truth, " It is the nature of party in 
 England to ask the assistance of men of genius, but to 
 follow the guidance of men of character." This was 
 strikingly illustrated in the career of the late Francis 
 Homer, a man of wnom Sydney Smith said that the 
 Ten Commandments were stamped upon his counte- 
 nance. " The valuable and peculiar light," says Lord 
 Cockburn, " in which his history is calculated to inspire 
 every right-minded youth, is this. He died at the ago 
 of thirty-eight; possessed of greater public influence 
 than any other private man ; and admired, belove I 
 
398 FRANKLIN. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 trusted, and deplored by all, except the heartless or the 
 base. No greater homage was ever paid in Parlia- 
 ment to any deceased member. Now let every young 
 man ask, how was this attained ? By rank ? He was 
 the son of an Edinburgh merchant. By wealth ? Nei- 
 ther he, nor any of his relations, ever had a superflu- 
 ous sixpence. By office ? He held but one, and only 
 for a few years, of no influence, and with very little 
 pay. By talents ? His were not splendid, and he had 
 no genius. Cautious and slow, his only ambition was 
 to be right. By eloquence ? He spoke in calm, good 
 taste, without any of the oratory that either terrifies or 
 seduces. By any fascination of manner ? His was only 
 correct and agreeable. By what then was it? Merely 
 by sense, industry, good principles, and a good heart, 
 qualities, which no well-constituted mind need ever de- 
 spair of attaining. It was the force of his character 
 that raised him; and this character not impressed upon 
 him by nature, but formed out of no peculiarly fine ele- 
 ments, by himself. There were many in the House of 
 Commons of far greater ability and eloquence. But no 
 one surpassed him in the combination of an adequate 
 portion of these with moral worth. Horner was born 
 to show what moderate powers, unaided by anything 
 whatever except culture and goodness, may achieve, 
 even when these powers are displayed amidst the com- 
 petition and jealousy of public life." 
 
 Franklin, also, attributed his success as a public 
 man, not to his talents or his powers of speaking, 
 for these were but moderate, but to his known in- 
 tegrity of character. " Hence it was," he says, " that 
 I had so much weight with my fellow-citizens. I was 
 but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much 
 
CHAP. XIII. CHARACTER IS POWER. 399 
 
 hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in lan- 
 guage, and yet I generally carried my point." Char- 
 acter creates confidence in men in high station as well 
 as in humble life. It was said of the first Emperor 
 Alexander of Russia, that his personal character was 
 equivalent to a constitution. During the wars of the 
 Fronde, Montaigne was the only man amongst the 
 French gentry who kept his castle gates unbarred ; and 
 it was said of him, that his personal character was 
 worth more to him than a regiment of horse. 
 
 That character is power, is true in a much higher 
 sense than that knowledge is power. Mind without 
 heart, intelligence without conduct, cleverness without 
 goodness, are powers in their way, but they may be 
 powers only for mischief. We may be instructed or 
 amused by them ; but it is sometimes as difficult to 
 admire them as it would be to admire the dexterity 
 of a pickpocket or the horsemanship of a highwayman. 
 
 Truthfulness, integrity, and goodness, qualities that 
 hang not on any man's breath, form the essence of 
 manly character, or, as one of our old writers has it, 
 "that inbred loyalty unto Virtue which can serve her 
 without a livery." He who possesses these qualities, 
 united with strength of purpose, carries with him a 
 power which is irresistible. He is strong to do good, 
 strong to resist evil, and strong to bear up under dif 
 ficulty and misfortune. When Stephen of Colonna fel 
 into the hands of his base assailants, and they asked him 
 in derision, "Where is now your fortress?" "Here," 
 was his bold reply, placing his hand upon his heart. 
 It is in misfortune that the character of the upright 
 man shines forth with the greatest lustre; and when 
 all else fails, he takes stand upon his integrity and his 
 courage. 
 
400 A HIGH STAND AED OF LIFE. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The rules of conduct followed by Lord Erskine a 
 man of sterling independence of principle and scrupulous 
 adherence to truth ~ are worthy of being engraven on 
 every young man's heart. " It was a first command 
 and counsel of my earliest youth," he said, " always to 
 do what my conscience told me to be a duty, and to 
 leave the consequence to God. I shall carry with me 
 the memory, and I trust the practice, of this parental 
 lesson to the grave. I have hitherto followed it, and 
 I have no reason, to complain that my obedience to 
 it has been a temporal sacrifice. I have found it, on 
 the contrary, the road to prosperity and wealth, and I 
 shall point out the same path to my children for their 
 pursuit." 
 
 Every man is bound to aim at the possession of a 
 good character, as one of the highest objects of life. 
 The very effort to secure it by worthy means will fur- 
 nish him with a motive for exertion ; and his idea of 
 manhood, in proportion as it is elevated, will steady 
 and animate his motive. It is well to have a high 
 standard of life, even though we may not be able alto- 
 gether to realize it. "The youth," says Mr. Disra- 
 eli, " who does not look up will look down ; and the 
 spirit that does not soar is destined perhaps to grovel." 
 George Herbert wisely writes, 
 
 " 1'itch thy behavior low, thy projects high, 
 
 So shall thou humble and magnanimous be. 
 Sink not in spirit; who aimeth at the sky 
 
 Shoots higher much than he that means a tree." 
 
 He who has a high standard of living and thinking 
 will certainly do better than he who 'has none at all. 
 "Pluck at a gown of gold," says the Scotch proverb, 
 " and you may get a sleeve o't." Whoever tries for 
 
CHAP. XIII. WELLINGTON'S CHARACTER OF PEEL. 401 
 
 the highest results cannot fail to reach a point far in 
 advance of that from which he started ; and though the 
 end accomplished may fall short of that proposed, still, 
 the very effort to rise, of itself cannot fail to prove 
 permanently beneficial. 
 
 There are many counterfeits of character, but the 
 genuine article is difficult to be mistaken. Some, know- 
 ing its money value, would assume its disguise for the 
 purpose of imposing upon the unwary. Colonel Char- 
 teris said to a man distinguished for his honesty, " I 
 would give a thousand pounds for your good name." 
 " Why ? " " Because I could make ten thousand by 
 it," was the knave's reply. 
 
 Integrity in word and deed is the backbone of char- 
 acter; and loyal adherence to veracity its most promi- 
 nent characteristic. One of the finest testimonies to 
 the character of the late Sir Robert Peel, was that 
 borne by the Duke of Wellington in the House of 
 Lords, a few days after the great statesman's death. 
 " Your lordships," he said, " must all feel the high 
 and honorable character of the late Sir Robert Peel. 
 I was long connected with him in public life. We 
 were both in the councils of our Sovereign together, 
 and I had long the honor to enjoy his private friend- 
 ship. In all the course of my acquaintance with him, 
 I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I 
 had greater confidence, or in whom I saw a more in- 
 variable desire to promote the public service. In the 
 whole course of my communication with him, I never 
 knew an instance in which he did not show the strong- 
 est attachment to truth ; and I never saw in the whole 
 course of my life the smallest reason for suspecting 
 that he stated anything which he did not firmly bo 
 
402 BE WHAT YOU SEEM. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 lieve to be the fact." And this high-minded truthful- 
 ness of the statesman was no doubt the secret of no 
 small part jf his influence and power. 
 
 There is a truthfulness in action as well as in words, 
 which is essential to uprightness of character. A man 
 must really be what he seems or purposes to be. When 
 an American gentleman wrote to Granville Sharp, that 
 from respect for his great virtues he had named one of 
 his sons after him, Sharp wrote : " I must request you to 
 teach him a favorite maxim of the family whose name 
 you have given him, Always endeavor to be really what 
 $ou would wish to appear. This maxim, as my father 
 informed me, was carefully and humbly practised by 
 his father, whose sincerity, as a plain and honest man, 
 thereby became the principal feature of his character, 
 both in public and private life." Every man who re- 
 spects himself, and values the respect of others, will 
 carry out the maxim in act, doing honestly what he 
 proposes to do, putting the highest character into his 
 work, scamping nothing, but priding himself upon his 
 integrity and conscientiousness. Once Cromwell said to 
 Bernard, a clever but somewhat unscrupulous lawyer, 
 " I understand that you have lately been vastly wary in 
 your conduct ; do not be too confident of this ; subtlety 
 may deceive you, integrity never will." Men whose acts 
 are at direct variance with their words, command no 
 respect, and what they say has but little weight ; even 
 truths, when uttered by them, seem to come blasted from 
 their lips. 
 
 The true character acts rightly, whether in secret or in 
 the sight of men. That boy was well trained who, when 
 asked why he did not pocket some pears, for nobody was 
 there to see, replied, " Yes, there was : I was there to see 
 
CHAP. XIII. IMPORTANCE OF GOOD HABITS. 403 
 
 myself; and I don't intend ever to see myself do a dis- 
 honest thing." This is a simple but not inappropriate 
 illustration of principle, or conscience, dominating in the 
 character, and exercising a noble protectorate over it ; not 
 merely a passive influence, but an active power regulat- 
 ing the life. Such a principle goes on moulding the 
 character hourly and daily, growing with a force that 
 operates every moment. Without this dominating in- 
 fluence, character has no protection, but is constantly 
 liable to fall away before temptation; and every such 
 temptation succumbed to, every act of meanness or dis- 
 honesty, however slight, causes self-degradation. It mat- 
 ters not whether the act be successful or not, discovered 
 or concealed ; the man is no longer the same, but another 
 person ; and he is pursued by a secret uneasiness, by 
 self-reproach, or the workings of what we call conscience, 
 which is the inevitable doom of the guilty. 
 
 And here it may be observed how greatly the char- 
 acter may be strengthened and supported by the cultiva- 
 tion of good habits. Man, it has been said, is a bundle 
 of habits : and habit is second nature. Metastasio enter- 
 tained so strong an opinion as to the power of repetition 
 in act and thought, that he said, " All is habit in man- 
 kind, even virtue itself." Butler, in his " Analogy," 
 impresses the importance of careful self-discipline, and 
 firm resistance to temptation, as tending to make virtue 
 habitual, so that at length it may become more easy to 
 be good than to give way to sin. " As habits belonging 
 to the body," he says, " are produced by external acts, so 
 habits of the mind are produced by the execution of 
 inward practical purposes, *. e., carrying them into act, 
 or acting upon them, the principles of obedience, ve- 
 racity, justice, and charity." And again, Lord Brougham 
 
404 HABITS CONSTITUTE CHAKACTER. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 says, when enforcing the immense importance of training 
 and example in youth, " I trust everything under God 
 to habit, on which, in all ages, the lawgiver, as well as 
 the schoolmaster, has mainly placed his reliance ; habit, 
 which makes everything easy, and casts the difficulties 
 upon the deviation from a wonted course." Thus make 
 sobriety a habit, and intemperance will be hateful ; make 
 prudence a habit, and reckless profligacy will become re- 
 volting to every principle of conduct which regulates the 
 life of the individual. Hence the necessity for the great- 
 est care and watchfulness against the inroad of any evil 
 habit ; for the character is always weakest at that point 
 at which it has once given way ; and it is long before a 
 principle restored can become so firm as one that has 
 never been moved. It is a fine remark of a Russian 
 writer, that " Habits are a necklace of pearls : untie the 
 knot, and the whole unthreads." 
 
 Wherever formed, habit acts involuntarily, and without 
 effort ; and, it is only when you oppose it, that you find 
 how powerful it has become. What is done once and 
 again, soon gives facility and proneness. The habit at 
 first may seem to have no more strength than a spider's 
 web ; but once formed, it binds as with a chain of iron. 
 The small events of life, taken singly, may seem exceed- 
 ingly unimportant, like snow that falls silently, flake by 
 flake ; yet accumulated, these snow-flakes form the ava- 
 lanche. 
 
 Self-respect, self-help, application, industry, integrity, 
 all are of the nature of habits, not beliefs. Principles, 
 in fact, are but the names which we assign to habits ; for 
 the principles are words, but the habits are the things 
 themselves : benefactors or tyrants, according as they are 
 good or evil. It thus happens that as we grow older, a 
 portion of our free activity and individuality becomes 
 
CHAP. XIII. GROWTH OF HABIT. 405 
 
 suspended in habit ; our actions become of the nature of 
 fate ; and we are bound by the chains which we have 
 woven around ourselves. 
 
 It is indeed scarcely possible to over-estimate the im- 
 portance of training the young to virtuous habits. In 
 them they are the easiest formed, and when formed they 
 last for life ; like letters cut on the bark of a tree, they 
 grow and widen with age. " Train up a child in the 
 way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
 from it." The beginning holds within it the end ; the 
 first start on the road of life determines the direction 
 and the destination of the journey ; ce riest que le pre- 
 mier pas qui coute. " Remember," said Lord Collingwood 
 to a young man whom he loved, " before you are five 
 and-twenty you must establish a character that will serve 
 you all your life." As habit strengthens with age, and 
 character becomes formed, any turning into a new path 
 becomes more and more difficult. Hence, it is often 
 harder to unlearn than to learn ; and for this reason the 
 Grecian flute-player was justified who charged double 
 fees to those pupils who had been taught by an inferior 
 master. To uproot an old habit is sometimes a more 
 painful thing, and vastly more difficult, than to wrench 
 out a tooth. Try and reform a habitually indolent, or 
 improvident, or drunken person, and in a large majority 
 of cases you will fail. For the habit in each case has 
 wound itself in and through the life until it has become 
 an integral part of it, and cannot be uprooted. Hence, 
 as Mr. Lynch observes, " the wisest habit of all is the 
 habit of care in the formation of good habits." 
 
 Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is 
 a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also 
 f looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that 
 
406 MANNERS AND MORALS. CHAP. XII L 
 
 the habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth 
 more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. And we 
 possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the 
 will as to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to 
 yield happiness and improvement rather than their oppo- 
 sites. In this way the habit of happy thought may be 
 made to spring up like any other habit. And to bring 
 up men or women with a genial nature of this sort, a 
 good temper, and a happy frame of mind, is perhaps of 
 even more importance, in many cases, than to perfect 
 them in much knowledge and many accomplishments. 
 
 As daylight can be seen through very small holes, so 
 little things will illustrate a person's character. Indeed 
 character consists in little acts, well and honorably per- 
 formed ; daily life being the quarry from which we build 
 it up, and rough-hew the habits which form it. One of 
 the most marked tests of character, is the manner in 
 which we conduct ourselves towards others. A graceful 
 behavior towards superiors, inferiors, and equals, is a 
 constant source of pleasure. It pleases others because it 
 indicates respect for their personality; but it gives ten- 
 fold more pleasure to ourselves. Every man may to a 
 large extent be a self-educator in good behavior, as in 
 everything else ; he can be civil and kind, if he will, 
 though he have not a penny in his purse. Gentleness in 
 society is like the silent influence of light, which gives 
 color to all nature ; it is far more powerful than loudness 
 or force, and far more fruitful. It pushes its way quietly 
 and persistently, like the tiniest daffodil in spring, which 
 raises the clod and thrusts it aside by the simple persist- 
 ency of growing. 
 
 Morals and manners, which give color to life, are of 
 greater importance than laws, which are but one of their 
 
CHAP. XIII. MANNERS. 407 
 
 manifestations. The law touches us here and there, but 
 manners are about us everywhere, pervading society like 
 the air we breathe. Good manners, as we call them, are 
 neither more nor less than good behavior ; consisting of 
 courtesy and kindness; for benevolence is the prepon- 
 derating element in all kinds of mutually beneficial and 
 pleasant intercourse amongst human beings. " Civility," 
 said Lady Montague, "costs nothing and buys every- 
 thing." The cheapest of all things is kindness, its exer- 
 cise requiring the least possible trouble and self-sacrifice. 
 " Win hearts," said Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, " and 
 you have all men's hearts and purses." If we would 
 only let nature act kindly, free from affectation and ar- 
 tifice, the results on social good-humor and happiness 
 would be incalculable. Those little courtesies which 
 form the small change of life, may separately appear of 
 little intrinsic value, but they acquire their importance 
 from repetition and accumulation. They are like the 
 spare minutes, or the groat a day, which proverbially 
 produce such momentous results in the course of a 
 twelvemonth, or in a lifetime. 
 
 Manners are the ornament of action ; and there is a 
 way of speaking a kind word, or of doing a kind thing, 
 which greatly enhances their value. What seems to be 
 done with a grudge, or as an act of condescension, is 
 scarcely accepted as a favor. Yet there are men who 
 pride themselves upon their gruffness ; and though they 
 may possess virtue and capacity, their manner is often 
 found to render them almost insupportable. It is diffi- 
 cult to like a man who^ though he may not pull your 
 nose, habitually wounds your self-respect, and takes a 
 pride in saying disagreeable things to you. There are 
 others who are dreadfully condescending, and cannot 
 
408 CULTIVATION OF MANNER. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 avoid seizing upon every small opportunity of making 
 their greatness felt. When Abernethy was canvassing 
 for the office of surgeon to St. Bartholomew Hospital, he 
 called upon such a person, a rich grocer, one of the 
 governors. The great man behind the counter seeing 
 the great surgeon enter, immediately assumed the grand 
 air towards the supposed suppliant for his vote. " I pre- 
 sume, sir, you want my vote and interest at this mo- 
 mentous epoch of your life." Abernethy, who hated 
 humbugs, and felt nettled at the tone, replied: "No, I 
 don't : I want a pennyworth of figs ; come, look sharp 
 and wrap them up: I want to be off!" 
 
 The cultivation of manner, though in excess it is 
 foppish and foolish, is highly necessary in a person 
 who has occasion to negotiate with others in matters of 
 business. Affability and good-breeding may even be 
 regarded as essential to the success of a man in any emi- 
 nent station and enlarged sphere of life ; for the want of 
 it has not unfrequently been found in a great measure to 
 neutralize the results of much industry, integrity, and 
 honesty of character. There are, no doubt, a few strong 
 tolerant minds which can bear with defects and angu- 
 larities of manner, and look only to the more genuine 
 qualities ; but the world at large is not so forbearant, and 
 cannot help forming its judgments and likings mainly 
 according to outward conduct. 
 
 Another mode of displaying true politeness is, consid- 
 eration for the opinions of others. It has been said of 
 dogmatism, that it is only puppyism come to its full 
 growth; and certainly the worst form this quality can 
 assume, is that of opinionativeness and arrogance. Let 
 men agree to differ, and, when they do differ, bear and 
 forbear. Principles and opinions may be maintained 
 
CHAP. XIII. MEN OF THE GREAT HEART. 409 
 
 with perfect suavity, without coming to blows or uttering 
 hard words ; and there are circumstances in which words 
 are blows, and inflict wounds far less easy to heal. As 
 bearing upon this point, we quote an instructive little 
 parable spoken some time since by an itinerant preacher 
 of the Evangelical Alliance on the borders of Wales: 
 " A.s I was going to the hills," he said, " early one misty 
 morning, I saw something moving on a mountain side, so 
 strange-looking that I took it for a monster. When I 
 came nearer to it, I found it was a man. When I came 
 up to him, I found he was my brother." 
 
 The inbred politeness which springs from right- 
 heartedness and kindly feelings, is of no exclusive rank 
 or station. The mechanic who works at the bench may 
 possess it, as well as the clergyman or the peer. It is 
 by no means a necessary condition of labor, that it should 
 in any respect be either rough or coarse. The politeness 
 and refinement which distinguish all classes of the people 
 in many continental countries amply prove that those 
 qualities might become ours too as doubtless they 
 will become with increased culture and more general 
 social intercourse without sacrificing any of our more 
 genuine qualities as men. From the highest to the 
 lowest, the richest to the poorest, to no rank or condition 
 in life has nature denied her highest boon, the great 
 heart. There never yet existed a gentleman but was 
 lord of a great heart. And this may exhibit itself under 
 the hodden gray of the peasant as well as under the laced 
 coat of the noble. Robert Burns was once taken to task 
 by a young Edinburgh blood, with whom he was walk- 
 ing, for recognizing an honest farmer in the open street. 
 " Why, you fantastic gomeral," exclaimed Burns, " it was 
 not the great coat, the scone bonnet, and the saunders- 
 18 
 
410 WILLIAM AND CHARLES GRANT. CHAP. XIIL 
 
 boot Lose that I spoke to, but the man that was in them ; 
 and the man, sir, for true worth, would weigh down you 
 and me, and ten more such, any day." There may be a 
 homeliness in externals, which may seem vulgar to those 
 who cannot discern the heart beneath ; but, to the right- 
 minded, character will always have its clear insignia. 
 
 William and Charles Grant were the sons of a farmer 
 in Inverness-shire, whom a sudden flood stripped of every- 
 thing, even to the very soil which he tilled. The farmer 
 and his sons, with the world before them where to choose, 
 made their way southward in search of employment until 
 they arrived in the neighborhood of Bury in Lancashire. 
 From the crown of the hill near Walmesley they sur- 
 veyed the wide extent of country which lay before them, 
 the river Irwell making its circuitous course through the 
 valley. They were utter strangers in the neighborhood, 
 and knew not which way to turn. To decide their course 
 they put up a stick, and agreed to pursue the direction in 
 which it fell. Thus their decision was made, and they 
 journeyed on accordingly until they reached the village of 
 Ramsbotham, not far distant. They found employment in 
 a print-work, in which William served his apprentice- 
 ship ; and they commended themselves to their employers 
 by their diligence, sobriety, and strict integrity. They 
 plodded on, rising from one station to another, until at 
 length the two sons themselves became employers, and 
 after many long years of industry, enterprise, and benev- 
 olence, they became rich, honored, and respected by all 
 who knew them. Their cotton-mills and print-works 
 gave employment to a large population. Their well-di- 
 rected diligence made the valley teem with activity, joy, 
 health, and opulence. Out of their abundant wealth they 
 gave liberally to all worthy objects, erecting churches, 
 
CHAP. XIII. WILLIAM AND CHARLES GRANT. 411 
 
 founding schools, and in all ways promoting the well- 
 being of the class of working-men from which they had 
 sprung. They afterwards erected, on the top of the hill 
 above Walmesley, a lofty tower in commemoration of the 
 early event in their history which had determined the 
 place of their settlement. The brothers Grant became 
 widely celebrated for their benevolence and their various 
 goodness, and it is said that Mr. Dickens had them in his 
 mind's eye when delineating the character of the brothers 
 Cheeryble. One amongst many anecdotes of a similar 
 kind may be cited to show that the character was by no 
 means exaggerated. A Manchester warehouseman pub- 
 lished an exceedingly scurrilous pamphlet against the firm 
 of Grant Brothers, holding up the elder partner to ridi- 
 cule as " Billy Button." William was informed by some 
 one of the nature of the pamphlet, and his observation 
 was that the man would live to repent of it. " Oh ! " 
 said the libeller, when informed of the remark, " he thinks 
 that some time or other I shall be in his debt ; but I will 
 take good care of that." It happens, however, that men 
 in business do not always foresee who shall be their cred- 
 itor, and it so turned out that the Grants' libeller became 
 a bankrupt, and could not obtain his certificate and begin 
 business again without obtaining their signature. It 
 seemed to him a hopeless case to call upon that firm for 
 any favor, but the pressing claims of his family forced 
 him to make the application. He appeared before the 
 man whom he had ridiculed as " Billy Button " accord- 
 ingly. He told his tale and produced his certificate. 
 " You wrote a pamphlet against us once ? " said Mr. 
 Grant. The supplicant expected to see his document 
 thrown into the fire ; instead of which Grant signed the 
 name of the firm, and thus completed the necessary cer- 
 
412 WILLIAM AND CHARLES GRANT. CHAP. XIIL 
 
 tificate. " We make it a rule," said he, handing it back, 
 "never to refuse signing the certificate of an honest 
 tradesman, and we have never heard that you were any- 
 thing else." The tears started into the man's eyes. 
 "Ah," continued Mr. Grant, "you see my saying was 
 true, that you would live to repent writing that pamphlet. 
 I did not mean it as a threat I only meant that some 
 day you would know us better, and repent having tried to 
 injure us." " I do, I do, indeed, repent it." " Well, well, 
 you know us now. But how do you get on what are 
 you going to do?" The poor man stated that he had 
 friends who would assist him when his certificate was ob- 
 tained. " But how are you off in the mean tune ? " The 
 answer was, that, having given up every farthing to his 
 creditors, he had been compelled to stint his family in 
 even the common necessaries of life, that he might be 
 enabled to pay for his certificate. " My good fellow, this 
 will never do ; your wife and family must not suffer in 
 this way ; be kind enough to take this ten-pound note to 
 your wife from me : there, there, now don't cry, it will 
 be all well with you yet ; keep up your spirits, set to 
 work like a man, and you will raise your head among the 
 best of us yet." The overpowered man endeavored with 
 choking utterance to express his gratitude, but in vain ; 
 and putting his hand to his face, he went out of the room 
 sobbing like a child. 
 
 The True Gentleman is one whose nature has been 
 fashioned after the highest models. It is a grand old 
 name, that of Gentleman, and has been recognized as a 
 rank and power in all stages of society. " The Gentle- 
 man is always the Gentleman," said the old French gen- 
 eral to his regiment of Scottish gentry at Rousillon, " and 
 invariably proves himself such in need and in danger." 
 
CHAP. XIII. THE GENTLEMAN. 413 
 
 To possess this character is a dignity of itself, command- 
 ing the instinctive homage of every generous mind, and 
 those who will not bow to titular rank, will yet do hom- 
 age to the Gentleman. His qualities depend not upon 
 fashion or manners, but upon moral worth, not on 
 personal possessions, but on personal qualities. The 
 Psalmist briefly describes him as one "that walketh 
 uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the 
 truth in his heart." 
 
 The Gentleman is eminently distinguished for his self- 
 respect. He values his character, not so much of it 
 only as can be seen of others, but as he sees it himself; 
 having regard for the approval of his inward monitor. 
 And, as he respects himself, so, by the same law, does he 
 respect others. Humanity is sacred in his eyes : and 
 thence proceed politeness and forbearance, kindness and 
 charity. It is related of Lord Edward Fitzgerald that, 
 while travelling in Canada, in company with the Indians, 
 he was shocked by the sight of a poor squaw trudging 
 along laden with her husband's trappings, while the chief 
 himself walked on unencumbered. Lord Edward at once 
 relieved the squaw of her pack by placing it upon his 
 own shoulders. Here was a beautiful instance of what 
 the French call politesse de cceur, the genuine polite- 
 ness of the heart. 
 
 The true gentleman has a keen sense of honor, 
 scrupulously avoiding mean actions. His standard of 
 probity in word and action is high. He does not shuflle 
 nor prevaricate, dodge nor skulk ; but is honest, upright, 
 and straightforward. His law is rectitude, action in 
 right lines. When he says yes, it is a law ; and he dares 
 to say the valiant no at the fitting season. The gentle- 
 man will not be bribed; only the low-minded and un 
 
414 WELLINGTON. WELLESLEY. CHAP. XIIJ. 
 
 principled will sell themselves to those who are interested 
 in buying them. When the upright Jonas Hanway 
 officiated as commissioner in the victualling department, 
 he declined to receive a present of any kind from a con- 
 tractor ; refusing thus to be biassed in the performance 
 of his public duty. A noble trait of the same kind is to 
 be noted in the life of the Duke of Wellington. Shortly 
 after the battle of Assaye, one morning the prime min- 
 ister of the Court of Hyderabad waited upon him for the 
 purpose of privately ascertaining what territory and what 
 advantages had been reserved for his master in the treaty 
 of peace between the Mahratta princes and the Nizam. 
 To obtain this information the minister offered the gen- 
 eral a very large sum, considerably above 100,000 
 Looking at him quietly for a few seconds, Sir Arthur 
 said, " It appears, then, that you are capable of keeping a 
 secret ? " " Yes, certainly," replied the minister. " Then 
 so am I" said the English general, smiling, and bowed 
 the minister out. It was to Wellington's great honor, 
 that though uniformly successful in India, and with the 
 power of earning in such modes as this enormous wealth, 
 he did not add a farthing to his fortune, and returned to 
 England a comparatively poor man. A similar sensitive- 
 ness and high-mindedness characterized his noble rela- 
 tive, the Marquis of Wellesley, who, on one occasion, 
 positively refused a present of 100,000/. proposed to be 
 given him by the Directors of the East India Company 
 on the conquest of Mysore. " It is not necessary," said 
 he, " for me to allude to the independence of my charac- 
 ter, and the proper dignity attaching to my office ; other 
 reasons besides these important considerations lead me 
 to decline this testimony, which is not suitable to me. 2 
 think of nothing but our army. I should be much dis- 
 
CHAP. XIII. A NOBLE PEASANT. 415 
 
 tressed to curtail* the share of those brave soldiers." 
 And the Marquis's resolution to refuse the present re- 
 mained unalterable. 
 
 Riches and rank have no necessary connection with 
 genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man may be 
 a true gentleman, in spirit and in daily life. He may 
 be honest, truthful, upright, polite, temperate, courage- 
 ous, self-respecting, and self-helping, that is, be a true 
 gentleman. The poor man with a rich spirit is in all 
 ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To 
 borrow St. Paul's words, the former is as " having noth- 
 ing, yet possessing all things," while the other, though 
 possessing all things, has nothing. The first hopes every- 
 thing, and fears nothing ; the last hopes nothing, and 
 fears everything. Only the poor in spirit are really 
 poor. He who has lost all, but retains his courage, 
 cheerfulness, hope, virtue, and self-respect, is still rich. 
 For such a man, the world is, as it were, held in trust ; 
 his spirit dominating over its grosser cares, he can still 
 walk erect, a true gentleman. 
 
 Occasionally, the brave and gentle character may be 
 found under the humblest garb. Here is an old illus- 
 tration, but a fine one. Once on a time, when the Adige 
 suddenly overflowed its banks, the bridge of Verona was 
 carried away, with the exception of the centre arch, on 
 which stood a house, whose inhabitants supplicated help 
 from the windows, while the foundations were visibly 
 giving way. " I will give a hundred French louis," 
 said the Count Spolverini, who stood by, " to any person 
 who will venture to deliver these unfortunate people." 
 A young peasant came forth from the crowd, seized a 
 boat, and pushed into the stream. He gained the pier, 
 -eceived the whole family into the boat, and made foi 
 
416 FRANCIS, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. XIII 
 
 the shore, where he landed them in safety. "Here ia 
 your money, my brave young fellow," said the count. 
 " No," was the answer of the young man, " I do not sell 
 my life ; give the money to this poor family, who have 
 need of it." Here spoke the true spirit of the Gentle- 
 man, though he was but in the garb of a peasant ! 
 
 Mr. Turnbull, in his excellent work on " Austria," re- 
 lates an anecdote of the late Emperor Francis, in illus- 
 tration of the manner in which the government of that 
 country has been indebted, for its hold upon the people, 
 to the personal qualities of its princes. "At the time 
 when the cholera was raging at Vienna, the emperor, 
 with an aide-de-camp, was strolling about in the streets 
 of the city and suburbs, when a corpse was dragged past 
 on a litter unaccompanied by a single mourner. The 
 unusual circumstance attracted his attention, and he 
 learned, on inquiry, that the deceased was a poor per- 
 son who had died of cholera, and that the relatives had 
 not ventured on what was then considered the very 
 dangerous office of attending the body to the grave. 
 1 Then,' said Francis, ' we will supply their place, for 
 none of my poor people should go to the grave without 
 that last mark of respect ; ' and he followed the body to 
 the distant place of interment, and, bareheaded, stood to 
 see every rite and observance respectfully performed." 
 
 Fine though this illustration may be of the qualities of 
 the gentleman, we can match it by another equally good, 
 of two English navvies in Paris, as related in a morning 
 paper only a few months ago. " One day a hearse was 
 observed ascending the steep Rue de Clichy on its way 
 to Montmartre, bearing a coffin of poplar wood with its 
 cold corpse. Not a soul followed, not even the living 
 dog of the dead man, if he had one. The day was rainy 
 
CHAP.XHI. TWO ENGLISH NAVVIES. 417 
 
 and dismal ; passers-by lifted the hat as is usual when 
 a funeral passes, and that was all. At length it passed 
 two English navvies, who found themselves in Paris on 
 their way from Spain. A right feeling spoke from be- 
 neath their serge jackets. < Poor wretch ! ' said the one 
 to the other, ' no one follows him ; let us two follow ! ' 
 And the two took off their hats, and walked bareheaded 
 after the corpse of a stranger to the cemetery of Mont- 
 martre." 
 
 Above all the Gentleman is truthful. He feels that 
 truth is the " summit of being," and the soul of rectitude 
 in human affairs. Lord Chesterfield, with all his French 
 leanings, when he came to define a gentleman, declared 
 that Truth made his success ; and nothing that he ever 
 said commanded the more hearty suffrage of his nation. 
 The Duke of Wellington, who had an inflexible horror 
 of falsehood, writing to Kellerman, when that general 
 was opposed to him in the Peninsula, told him that if 
 there was one thing on which an English officer prided 
 himself more than another, excepting his courage, it was 
 his truthfulness. " When English officers," said he, 
 " have given their parole of honor not to escape, be sure 
 they will not break it. Believe me, trust to their 
 word; the word of an English officer is a surer guar- 
 antee than the vigilance of sentinels." 
 
 True courage and gentleness go hand in hand. The 
 brave man is generous and forbearant, never unforgiv- 
 ing and cruel. It was finely said of Sir John Franklin 
 by his friend Parry, that " he was a man who never 
 .urned his back upon a danger, yet of that tenderness 
 that he would not brush away a mosquito." A fine trait 
 of character truly gentle, and worthy of the spirit 
 f Bayard was displayed by a French officer in the 
 
418 TRUE COURAGE AND GENTLENESS. CHAP. XIII. 
 
 cavalry combat of El Bodon in Spain. He had raised 
 his sword to strike Sir Felton Harvey, but perceiving 
 his antagonist had only one arm, he instantly stopped, 
 brought down his sword before Sir Felton in the usual 
 salute, and rode past. 
 
 Notwithstanding the wail which we occasionally hear 
 for the chivalry that is gone, our own age has witnessed 
 deeds of bravery and gentleness, of heroic self-denial 
 and manly tenderness, which are unsurpassed hi his- 
 tory. The events of the last few years have shown that 
 our countrymen are as yet an undegenerate race. On 
 the bleak plateau of Sebastopol, in the dripping perilous 
 trenches of that twelvemonths' leaguer, men of all classes 
 proved themselves worthy of the noble inheritance of 
 character which their forefathers have bequeathed to 
 them. But it was in the hour of the greatest trial in 
 India that the qualities of our countrymen shone forth 
 the brightest. The march of Neill on Cawnpore, of 
 Havelock on Lucknow, officers and men alike urged 
 on by the hope of rescuing the women and the children, 
 are events which the whole history of chivalry can- 
 not equal. Outram's conduct to Havelock, in resigning 
 to him, though his inferior officer, the honor of leading 
 the attack on Lucknow, was a trait worthy of Sydney, 
 and alone justifies the title which had been awarded to 
 him of " the Bayard of India." The death of Henry 
 Lawrence, that brave and gentle spirit, his last 
 tf ords before dying, " Let there be no fuss about me ; let 
 me be buried with the men" the anxious solicitude of 
 Sir Colin Campbell to rescue the beleaguered of Luck- 
 now, and to conduct his long train of women and chil- 
 dren by night from thence to Cawnpore, which he 
 reached amidst the all but overpowering assault of the 
 
CHAP. XIII. PKIVATE SOLDIERS AT AGRA. 419 
 
 enemy, the care with which he led them across the 
 perilous bridge, never ceasing his charge over then} 
 until he had seen the precious convoy safe on the road 
 to Allahabad, and then burst upon the Gwalior contin- 
 gent like a thunderclap ; such things make us feel 
 proud of our countrymen, and inspire the conviction 
 that the best and purest glow of chivalry is not dead, 
 but vigorously lives among us yet. 
 
 Even the common soldiers proved themselves gentle- 
 men under their trials. At Agra, where so many poor 
 fellows had been scorched and wounded in their encounter 
 with the enemy, they were brought into the fort and 
 tenderly nursed by the ladies ; and the rough, gallant fel- 
 lows proved gentle as any children. During the weeks 
 that the ladies watched over their charge, never a word 
 was said by any soldier that could shock the ear of the 
 gentlest. And when all was over, when the mortally 
 wounded had died, and the sick and maimed who sur- 
 vived were able to demonstrate their gratitude, they 
 invited their nurses and the chief people of Agra to an 
 entertainment in the beautiful gardens of the Taj, where, 
 amidst flowers and music, the rough veterans, all scarred 
 and mutilated as they were, stood up to thank their gentle 
 countrywomen who had clothed and fed them, and minis- 
 tered to their wants during their time of sore distress. 
 In the hospitals at Scutari, too, many wounded and sick 
 blessed the kind English ladies who nursed thtm ; and 
 nothing can be finer than the thought of the poor suf- 
 ferers, unable to rest through pain, blessing the shadow 
 of Florence Nightingale as it fell upon their pillow in 
 the night-watches. 
 
 The wreck of the Birkenhead off the coast of Africa 
 on the 27th of February, 1852, affords another memo- 
 
120 WRECK OF THE BIRKENHEAD. CHAP. XIII 
 
 rable illustration of the chivalrous spirit of common men 
 acting in this nineteenth century, of which any age might 
 be proud. The vessel was steaming along the African 
 coast with 472 men and 166 women and children on 
 board. The men belonged to several regiments then 
 serving at the Cape, and consisted principally of recruits, 
 who had been only a short time in the service. At two 
 o'clock in the morning, while all were asleep below, the 
 ship struck with violence upon a hidden rock which pene- 
 trated her bottom ; and it was at once felt that she must 
 go down. The roll of the drums called the soldiers to 
 arms on the upper deck, and the men mustered as if 
 on parade. The word was passed to save the women 
 and children ; and the helpless creatures were brought 
 from below, mostly undressed, and handed silently into 
 the boats. When they had all left the ship's side, the 
 commander of the vessel thoughtlessly called out, " All 
 those that can swim, jump overboard and make for the 
 boats." But Captain Wright, of the 91st Highlanders, 
 said, " No ! if you do that, the boats with the women must 
 be swamped ; " and the brave men stood motionless. 
 There was no boat remaining, and no hope of safety ; 
 but not a heart quailed ; no one flinched from his duty hi 
 that trying moment. " There was not a murmur nor a 
 cry amongst them," said Captain Wright, a survivor, 
 " until the vessel made her final plunge." Down went 
 the ship, and down went the heroic band, firing a feu de 
 joie as they sank beneath the waves. Glory and honor 
 to the gentle and the brave ! The examples of such 
 men never die, but like their memories, are immortal. 
 
 There are many tests by which a gentleman may be 
 known ; but there is one that never fails, How does he 
 exercise power over those subordinate to him ? How does 
 
CHAP. XIII. EXERCISE OF PERSONAL POWER. 421 
 
 he conduct himself towards women and children ? How 
 does the officer treat his men, the employer his servants, 
 the master his pupils, and man in every station those who 
 are weaker than himself ? The discretion, forbearance, 
 and kindliness, with which power in such cases is used, 
 may indeed be regarded as the crucial test of gentlemanly 
 character. He who bullies those who are not in a posi- 
 tion to resist, may be a snob, but cannot be a gentleman. 
 He who tyrannizes over the weak and helpless, may be 
 a coward, but no true man. The tyrant, it has been said, 
 is himself but a slave turned inside out. Strength, and 
 the consciousness of strength, in a right-hearted man, im- 
 parts a nobleness to his character ; but he will be most 
 careful how he uses it ; for 
 
 " It is excellent 
 
 To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous ^ 
 To use it like a giant." 
 
 Gentleness is indeed the best test of gentlemanliness. 
 A consideration for the feelings of others, for his inferiors 
 and dependants as well as his equals, and respect for their 
 self-respect, will pervade the true gentleman's whole con- 
 duct. He will rather himself suffer a small injury than, 
 by an uncharitable construction of another's behavior, 
 incur the risk of committing a great wrong. He will be 
 forbearant of the weaknesses, the failings, and the errors, 
 of those whose advantages in life have not been equal to 
 his own. He will be merciful even to his beast. He will 
 not boast of his wealth, or his strength, or his gifts. He 
 will not confer favors with a patronizing air. Sir Walter 
 Scott once said of Lord Lothian, "He is a man from 
 whom one may receive a favor, and that's saying a great 
 deal in these days." Lord Chatham has said that the 
 gentleman is characterized by his preference of others to 
 
422 SIR RALPH ABERCROMBY. CHAP. XIII 
 
 himself in the little daily occurrences of life. In illustra- 
 tion of this ruling spirit of considerateness in a noble 
 character, we may cite the anecdote of the gallant Sir 
 Ralph Abercromby, of whom it is related, that when 
 mortally wounded in the battle of Aboukir, he was car- 
 ried in a litter on board the " Foudroyant ; " and, to ease 
 his pain, a soldier's blanket was placed under his hea^r 
 from which he experienced considerable relief. He 
 asked what it was. " It's only a soldier's blanket," was 
 the reply. " Whose blanket is it ? " said he, half lifting 
 himself up. " Only one of the men's." " I wish to know 
 the name of the man whose blanket this is." "It is 
 Duncan Roy's, of the 42d, Sir Ralph." "Then see that 
 Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night." * Even 
 to ease his dying agony, the general would not deprive 
 the private soldier of his blanket for one night. The in- 
 cident is as good in its way as that of the dying Sydney 
 handing his cup of water to the private soldier on the 
 field of Zutphen. 
 
 The quaint old Fuller sums up in a few words the 
 character of the true gentleman and man of action in 
 describing that of the great admiral, Sir Francis Drake : 
 " Chaste in his life, just in his dealings, true of his word ; 
 merciful to those that were under him, and hating nothing 
 so much as idlenesse ; hi matters especially of moment, 
 he was never wont to rely on other men's care, how trusty 
 or skilful soever they might seem to be, but always con- 
 iemning danger, and refusing no toyl ; he was wont him- 
 self to be one (whoever was a second) at every turn, 
 where courage, skill, or industry, was to be employed." 
 
 * Brown's "Horae Subsecivw." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ABERCROMBT. 
 
 ABEECROMBT, anecdote of Sir Ralph, 
 422. 
 
 Abernethy, John, surgeon, 320, 408. 
 
 Accidental, discoveries not, 97. 
 
 Account, every man should keep, 288. 
 
 Accuracy, habits of, 259, 319. 
 
 Adams, Mr., astronomer, 30. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, 30, 112. 
 
 Adversity, uses of, 350. 
 
 Agra, English soldiers at, 419. 
 
 Agriculture, Sir John Sinclair's im- 
 provements, 389. 
 
 Aim high, 380, 400. 
 
 Akenside, poet, 26. 
 
 Alexander I. of Russia, 399. 
 
 Alfieri, poet, 365, 386. 
 
 All Souls, Oxford, motto at, 111. 
 
 Amusement rage for, 341. 
 
 Angelo, Michael, 97, 137. 
 
 Apollonius Pergaeus, discoveries of, 
 100. 
 
 Apparatus, simple scientific, 103. 
 
 Application, the price of success, 31, 
 67. 
 
 Arithmetic, uses of, in life, 257, 288. 
 
 Arkwright, Sir Richard, 23, 46. 
 
 Armstrong, Sir W., engineer, 30. 
 
 Arne, Dr., musician, 175. 
 
 Arnold, Dr., his teaching, 326; on 
 comic literature, 341 ; a late stu- 
 dent, 365; a cheerful worker, 388. 
 
 Artists, industry of, 136. 
 
 Astronomy, discoveries in, 98, 100, 122. 
 
 Attention, habits of, 43, 320. 
 
 Attorneys, distinguished sons of, 30. 
 
 Audubon, ornithologist, 77. 
 
 Austria, anecdote of Emperor of, 416. 
 
 BABBAGE, on human responsibility, 
 
 376. 
 
 Bach, Sebastian, musician, 176 
 Bacon, Lord, 20, 32, 112. 
 Bacon, sculptor, 25, 136. 
 Baffin, navigator, 26. 
 
 BROTIIERTOIf. 
 
 Banks, sculptor, 141. 
 
 Barbers, illustrious, 23, 47, 195. 
 
 Barclay, David, merchant, 277. 
 
 Barrow, Isaac, divine, 317, 366. 
 
 Barry, painter, 136, 158. 
 
 Battle of Life, 19. 352. 
 
 Baxter, divine, 111, 185. 
 
 Beethoven, musician, 175, 383. 
 
 Beginning well, 290. 
 
 Behavior, 406. 
 
 Bell, Sir C., physiologist, 30, 118. 
 
 Belper, peerage of, 193. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, on time, 111. 
 
 Bernard, Sir Thomas, 301. 
 
 Bewick, Thos., wood-engraver, 26, 103 
 
 Bickersteth, H. (Lord Langdale), 199. 
 
 Bidder, G. P., engineer, 69. 
 
 Biography, uses of, 19, 384. 
 
 Bird, painter, 136,139. 
 
 Birkenhead, wreck of the, 419. 
 
 Black, chemist, 103. 
 
 Blackburn, and the Peels, 53. 
 
 Blacksmith, an artistic, 166. 
 
 Blackstone, Sir Wm., lawyer, 30. 
 
 Blake, painter, 139. 145. 
 
 Bloomfield, poet, 25. 
 
 Blucher, Marshal, 210. 
 
 Boccaccio, a late learner, 364. 
 
 Bodily exercise, uses of, 309. 
 
 Bolingbroke, saying of, 329. 
 
 Book learning, 328; uses of book* 
 
 384. 
 
 Borrowing, evils of, 287. 
 Boulton, Matthew, manufiicturer, 46 
 
 51. 
 
 Boyle, the Hon. Mr., 33. 
 Boys, energy in, 368. 
 Brave, example of the, 383. 
 Bricklayers, illustrious, 24. 
 Bridge, invention of suspension, 99 
 Bright, Mr., on economy, 283. 
 Brindley, engineer, 24, 63, 330. 
 Britton, John, author, 83. 
 Brotherton, Joseph, M. P., 28, 306. 
 
424 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, his industry, 35; 
 his punctuality, 265; his working- 
 power, 316; on habit, 403. 
 
 Brown, geologist, 132. 
 
 Brown, Sir Samuel, 99. 
 
 Brunei. Sir I., engineer, 99. 
 
 Bulwer, Sir E. L., his' industry, 36; 
 his method of working, 320. 
 
 Bunyan, John, author, 26. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 30, 351. 
 
 Burleigh, Cecil, Lord, his despatch ol 
 husiness, 260 ; on kindness, 407. 
 
 Burney, Dr., musician, 110. 
 
 Burns, Robert, poet, his class, 24 ; on 
 independence and use of money, 
 279, 285; his physique, 317; on 
 character, 409. 
 
 Burritt, Elihu, blacksmith and lin- 
 guist, 110, 314. 
 
 Bury, the Peels of, 58. 
 
 Business qualities, 252. 
 
 Business genius of Wellington, 266. 
 
 Butchers, illustrious sons of, 26. 
 
 Buxton, Fowell, on resolution, 204, 
 207; his career, 248; on force of 
 study, 318 ; moulded by personal 
 influence, 373, 381; his cheerful- 
 ness, 388. 
 
 Byron, Lord, 36. 
 
 Byronism, 310. 
 
 CAITHNESS. Sir John Sinclair's im- 
 provements in, 390. 
 
 Calculation, mental, 69. 
 
 Callcott, painter, 138. 
 
 Campbell, Lord, 30, 196. 
 
 Campbell, poet, 30. 
 
 Campbell, Sir Colin (Lord Clyde), 210, 
 418. 
 
 Canning on character, 397. 
 
 Carey, missionary, 25, 75, 386. 
 
 Carissimi, on violin-playing, 354. 
 
 Carlyle, T., anecdote of his persever- 
 ance, 78; on books, 329. 
 
 Carpenters, illustrious, 24. 
 
 Cavendish, Mr., philosopher, 33. 
 
 Ceramic manufacture, 65. 
 
 Chambers, Wm., publisher and au- 
 thor, 357. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr., divine, 275, 366. 
 
 Chantrey, sculptor, 26, 136, 153. 
 
 Character is a rich legacy, 376 ; edu- 
 cation of, 382 ; its importance, 396 ; 
 character is power, 399. 
 
 Charles IX. of Sweden, 204. 
 
 Charteris, Colonel, 401. 
 
 Chatterton, 317, 367. 
 
 Chaucer, poet, as man of business, 
 253. 
 
 Cheerfulness, 74, 387, 405. 
 
 Chesterfield, Earl of, 180. 
 
 Chimney-sweepers, 231, 300. 
 
 Chisholm, Mrs., on saying and doing, 
 377. 
 
 Chivalry, modern, 418. 
 
 Circulation, discovery of the, 115. 
 
 Civility, cultivation of, 407. 
 
 Clarke, Adam, divine, 88, 317, 366. 
 
 Clarke, Sir J., on competitive exami- 
 nation, 396. 
 
 Clarkson, slavery abolitionist, 246. 
 
 Clay, Henry, his study of oratory, 355. 
 
 Clergymen, illustrious sons of, 30. 
 
 Clever children, what becomes of the. 
 365. 
 
 Clive, Lord, 30, 367. 
 
 Clyde, Lord, 210, 418. 
 
 Cobbett, Wm., his self-education, 858 
 
 Cobden, Mr., on thrift, 282. 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., poet, 30, 107, 846. 
 
 Collingwood, Lord, 307, 381, 405. 
 
 Columbus, navigator, 100. 
 
 Comic literature, 841. 
 
 Complaints of life, 257, 335. 
 
 Competitive examination, 335. 
 
 Confidence, want of, an evil, 321. 
 
 Conic sections, discovery of, 100. 
 
 Conscientiousness, 402. 
 
 Constant, Benjamin, author, 344. 
 
 Cook, Captain, navigator, 24. 
 
 Cook, Professor, a dunce, 366. 
 
 Coral islands, formation of, 100 
 
 Cortona, Pietro di, 366. 
 
 Cotton manufacture, its establish- 
 ment, 46. 
 
 Courage aud gentleness, 417. 
 
 Cowper, poet, 254. 
 
 Cox, David, painter, 136. 
 
 Cramming not education, 335, 339. 
 
 Crauford, earldom of, 181. 
 
 Criminals, reclamation of, 298. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, on integrity, 402 
 
 Crystal Palace, design of, 108. 
 
 Cuneiform character, 79. 
 
 Cunningham, Allan, author, 24. 
 
 Curran, Irish orator, 356. 
 
 Cuvier, naturalist, 107, 118. 
 
 DAGTTESSEAU, Chancellor of France, 
 
 111, 385. 
 
 D'Alembert's advice, 354. 
 Dalton, chemist, 72, 109. 
 Dargan, Mr., advice of, 260. 
 Darwin, Dr., author, 110. 
 Davy, Sir H., his origin, 30; his first 
 
 apparatus, 105 ; his character, 106 ; 
 
 his boyhood, 368. 
 Debt, slavery of, 287. 
 Decision, 210, 262, 321. 
 Defeat, generals great by, 349- 
 Defoe, author, 26. 
 Delhi, English at, 217. 
 De Maistre, on patient waiting, 74. 
 Dviimau, Ann, 148. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 425 
 
 Denman, Lord, 30. 
 
 Despair, school of, 311, 334. 
 
 Despatch of business, 260. 
 
 Determination, invincible, 251. 
 
 De Witt, statesman, 261. 
 
 Dick, Robert, geologist, 26. 
 
 Difficulty, uses of, 348.' 
 
 Digestion and success, 311. 
 
 Discontent of students, 310. 
 
 Dishonest gains, 275. 
 
 Disraeli, Mr., politician and author, 
 34, 37, 400. 
 
 Dodsley, author, 26. 
 
 Domenichino, painter, 138. 
 
 Douglas, anecdote of the, 383. 
 
 Drake, Admiral, 30, 422. 
 
 Drew, Samuel, origin. 25 ; his career, 
 86; on frugality, 385; on biogra- 
 phy, 385. 
 
 Drinking, vice of, 281, 294. 
 
 Dry den, poet, 364. 
 
 Dudley, Lord, on books, 385. 
 
 Dunces, illustrious. 366. 
 
 Dunning, Judge, 30. 
 
 Dupin, on English probity, 274. 
 
 ECKERMANN, conversation with Goethe, 
 
 Economy, habits of, 280. 
 
 Edgworth, Mr., on attention, 43 ; edu- 
 cation of character, 380. 
 
 Education through difficulty, 353. 
 
 Edwardes, Colonel, 30, 316. 
 
 Edwards, engineer, 24. 
 
 Edwards, Thomas, naturalist, 25. 
 
 Eldon, Lord, 112, 196. 
 
 Electricity, discoveries in, 101. 
 
 Employment, uses of, 40, 311. 
 
 Energy, 203, 210, 265, 317, 368. 
 
 Energy in money-making, 301. 
 
 English in India, 30, 38. 210, 418. 
 
 English liberty, characteristics of, 17. 
 
 Erskine, Lord," his industry, 112 ; ori- 
 gin, 194 ; rules of conduct, 400. 
 
 Etty. printer, 26, 136. 
 
 Example, influence of, 371. 
 
 Excellence, how achieved, 31, 318. 
 
 Exercise, bodily, 309. 
 
 FACILITIES and difficulties, 32, 255, 
 
 337. 
 
 Failures in life, 257. 
 Families, old and new English, 180. 
 Faraday, Professor, 26, 106. 
 Fast young men, 292, 343. 
 Ferguson, James, natural philosopher, 
 
 103, 318. 
 
 Fichte, J. G., professor, 287. 
 Fisheries founded by Sir J. Sinclair, 
 
 392. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 413. 
 Flaxman, sculptor^ 136, 143. 
 
 HARDINGE. 
 
 Flechier, bishop, 300. 
 
 Foley peerage, founder of, 182. 
 
 Force of purpose, 204; of industry 
 40, 136; of example, 371. 
 
 Foreigners' opinions of English char- 
 acter, 20. 
 
 Forgotten inventors, 42. 
 
 Foster, J., essayist, 25. 
 
 Foundling Hospital reformed by Han- 
 way. 228. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, 260, 348. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 101. 103, 364. 
 398. 
 
 Franklin, Sir John, 39, 417. 
 
 French and English education con 
 trasted, 22. 
 
 Frugality, habits of, 281. 
 
 Fuller, Andrew, divine, 317. 
 
 Fuller's character of Drake, 422. 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH, painter, 136, 139. 
 Galileo, discovery of the pendulum 
 
 by, 9'8. 
 
 Galvani, discovery of electricity, 101. 
 Generosity, in business, 273, 286. 
 Genius, definition of, 68, 102. 
 Genlis, Madame de, 111. 
 Gentility, rage for, 291. 
 Gentleman, the true, 409, 412. 
 Gentleness and courage, 406, 417. 
 Geology, discoveries in, 100, 123. 
 Getting on. 332. 
 Giardini, on violin-playing, 73. 
 Gibbon, E., his industry, 112. 
 Gibson, J., sculptor, 25. 
 Gifford, editor of ' Quarterly,' 25, 104 
 Gifford, Judge, 30. 
 Gilpin, painter, 136. 
 Girtin, artist, 159. 
 Goethe, on English character, 21. 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 30, 367. ' 
 Good, Dr. Mason. 109-10. 
 Government, function of, 17. 
 Government situations, 335. 
 Graham, Sir J., on self-raised men, 28 
 Grant, Brothers Cheeryble, 410. 
 Great men, 18. 
 
 Grosteste, anecdote of Bishop, 32. 
 Grote. Mr., historian, 254. 
 Guidi', Tomaso, painter. 366. 
 Guido Reni, painter, 385. 
 Gurney family, 249, 382. 
 Guturie, Dr., and John Pounds, 877 
 
 HABIT, force of, 290, 403. 
 Hale, Sir Matthew, 110, 112, 386. 
 Hall, Marshall, physician, 119. 
 Hall, Robert, divine, 365. 
 Haller, Condorcet's eloge of. 386. 
 Handel, musician, 174, 365, 382, 388 
 Han way, Jonas, 224. 
 Hardinge, Lord, 30. 
 
426 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hardwick, Lord, 30. 
 Hargreaves' spinning jenny, 48. 
 Harrison, chronometer maker, 24. 
 Harvey, Dr., and circulation of the 
 
 blood, 115. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, 30, 211. 
 Haydn, musician, 174, 382. 
 Haydon, painter, 157, 287, 387. 
 Hazlitt, on business, 252. 
 Health, physical, 310, 314. 
 Heroism in India, 38, 211, 418. 
 Herschel, astronomer, 26. 121. 
 High standard of living necessary, 
 
 Hobson, Admiral, 25. 
 
 Hodson, of Hodson's Horse, 30, 218, 
 311, 351, 389. 
 
 Hogarth, painter, 139. 
 
 Holcroft, author, 26. 
 
 Home training, its importance, 372. 
 
 Honesty the best policy, 273. 
 
 Honesty, prevalence of, in business, 
 275. 
 
 Hook, Rev. Dr., 75. 
 
 Hope, its importance, 75, 203. 
 
 Homer, Francis, his father's advice as 
 to economy, 285 ; on continuous ap- 
 plication, 319; on personal inter- 
 course, 381 ; on books, 386 ; charac- 
 ter, 397. 
 
 Howard, John, philanthropist, 224; a 
 dunce, 368. 
 
 Hume, David, historian, 112. 
 
 Hume, Joseph, M. P., 92. 
 
 Hunter, John, physiologist, his origin, 
 24 ; his museum, 31 ; his industry, 
 72 : his career, 113 ; study of facts, 
 Il4, 329. 
 
 Huntingdon, preacher, 26. 
 
 IDLENESS, evils of, 311. 
 Imitation in children, 371. 
 Immortality of human actions, 374. 
 Impatience, 290, 321, 324, 334. 
 Impressment of seamen, 244. 
 Improvident classes, 281. 
 Independence secured by frugality, 
 
 India,' English in, 30, 39, 211, 418. 
 
 Individualism and English freedom, 
 20,23. 
 
 Industry, a marked feature in English 
 character, 39; leaders of. 41, 53; 
 persistent, 107, 210 ; of artists, 135 ; 
 industry and the Peerage, 180; all 
 honest industry honorable, 299. 
 
 Inferior classes, 282. 
 
 Institutions and men, 15. 
 
 Integrity in business, 273. 
 
 Inventions and inventors, 26 ; steam- 
 engine, 26, 42 ; inventors principally 
 working men, 42. 
 
 JACKSON, painter, 25, 136. 
 Jackson, Wm., musician, 176. 
 Jenner, Dr., his discovery of vaccin* 
 
 tion, 115. 
 Jerrold, Douglas, on comic literature, 
 
 341. 
 Jervis, John (Lord St. Vincent), 210, 
 
 289. 
 Johnson, Dr., on observation, 98 ; ou 
 
 genius, 102 ; controversy with Gran- 
 
 ville Sharp, on impressment, 244 ; 
 
 on complaints of the world, 258 ; on 
 
 debt, 288. 
 
 Jones, Inigo, architect, 24, 136. 
 Jonson, Ben, 24. 
 
 KAY, assistant of Arkwright, 48. 
 Keats, poet, 31. 
 Kemp, architect, 162. 
 Kepler, astronomer, 68. 
 Kirke White, poet, 26, 110. 
 Knowledge is power, 327; contrasted 
 with wisdom, 328. 
 
 LABOR a blessing, 256. 
 
 Labor considered as an educator, 41, 
 
 312, 352. 
 
 Laborers, illustrious, 26. 
 Laborious application necessary in all 
 
 pursuits, 31. 255. 
 Labor-saving processes in education 
 
 fallacious, 322. 
 Lammenais on decision of character, 
 
 207. 
 
 Lancaster, Joseph, educator, 26. 
 Langdale, Lord, judge, 200, 373. 
 Lansdowne peerage, Sir W. Petty, 
 
 founder of, 191. 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, on personal inter- 
 course, 381. 
 Late learners, 364. 
 Lawrence, Sir Henry, 216, 418. 
 Lawrence, Sir John, 216. 
 Lawrence, Sir T., painter, 26, 136. 
 Lawyers raised to the peerage, 194. 
 Layard, Austen, traveller, 30, 39, 80. 
 Leaders of industry, 40. 
 Learning and wisdom contrasted, 328. 
 Ledyard, traveller, his promptitude, 
 
 210. 
 Lee, Professor, Orientalist, 25, 104, 
 
 362. 
 Legislation, its power over-estimated, 
 
 16. 
 
 Lely, Sir P., painter, 381. 
 Leonards, Lord St., judge, 196. 
 Lessing, saying of, 22. 
 Leyden, John, physician, 360. 
 Liberty rests on individual character 
 
 17. 
 
 Light, discoveries in, 35, 98- 
 Lindsay, Mr., M. P., 28. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 427 
 
 LEPPERSHEY. 
 
 Lippershey, spectacle-maker, 99. 
 Literary culture over-estimated. 327. 
 Little thingSj 100, 258, 372. 
 Living within the means, 285; too 
 
 high, 291. 
 Livingstone, Dr., missionary, 25, 39, 
 
 Locke, John, on personal expenditure, 
 288 ; on cramming, 325. 
 
 Locomotive, invention of the, 45. 
 
 London merchants raised to the peer- 
 age, 182. 
 
 London streets in 1750, 226. 
 
 Lothian, Lord, Sir W. Scott's observa- 
 tion on, 421. 
 
 London, landscape-gardener, 85. 
 
 Love of money, 303. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius, 320, 386. 
 
 Luther, Martin, reformer, 386. 
 
 Lynch's Lectures, 304. 
 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 195, 354. 
 
 Lytton, Sir E. B., 34, 36, 320. 
 
 MACAULAY, Lord, 31. 
 
 Maclise, painter, 136. 
 
 Maistre, De, on waiting, 74. 
 
 Malesherbes, Lord Lansdowne on, 381. 
 
 Malthns, D.,on physical training, 311. 
 
 Manners, cultivation of, 406. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, 194. 
 
 Mar, earldom of, 181. 
 
 Marine Society, founding of, 227. 
 
 Marshman, missionary, 76. 
 
 Martin, painter, 136, 160. 
 
 Martyn, missionary, 219. 
 
 Masons, illustrious, 24, 
 
 Mathematics, uses of, 100, 354. 
 
 Mather, Cotton, influence of his Es- 
 says, 385. 
 
 Meeanee, battle of, 212. 
 
 Mechanical work, uses of, 41, 313 ; 
 education, 339. 
 
 Mechanism of the age, 337. 
 
 Melancthon, reformer, on tune, 111. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, on self-help, 255. 
 
 Mendelssohn, musician, 349. 
 
 Method, uses of, 260. 
 
 Meyerbeer, musician, 175. 
 
 Middle class, eminent men of the, 29 ; 
 extravagances, 291. 
 
 Military peerages, 194. 
 
 Mill, J. S., author, 15, 254. 
 
 Miller, Hugh, geologist, origin, 24; on 
 work as the best of teachers, 41; 
 necessity his teacher, 107 ; his ca- 
 reer, 130 ; on integrity, 273 ; act of 
 self-denial, 294. 
 
 Milner, the brothers, divines, 25. 
 
 Milnes, R. M., on mechanical labor, 
 314. 
 
 Milton, John, origin, 30 ; as man of 
 business. 253 ; on physical culture, 
 
 OPPORTUNITIES. 
 
 309 ; on self-respect, 332 ; 
 
 Minton, H., manufacturer, 64. 
 
 Misfortune, causes of, 257. 
 
 Missionaries, illustrious 75, 219, 386 
 
 Models of character, 380. 
 
 Money, uses of, 279 ; love of, 302. 
 
 Monkey, cupidity of the, 304. 
 
 Montaigne, author, 399. 
 
 Montalembert, on Indian rebellion, 
 39 ; on passion for government em 
 ployment, 336. 
 
 Montesquieu, laborious authorship. 
 112. 
 
 Montfort, de, descendant of, 181. 
 
 Moor, Professor, his industry, 357. 
 
 Moreau, General, great in defeat, 350. 
 
 Morrison, missionary, 25. 
 
 Mortality among the poor in 1765, 230. 
 
 Mozart, musician, 174. 
 
 Muley Moluc, warrior, 205. 
 
 Mulready, painter, 141. 
 
 Murchison, Sir R., 26, 133. 
 
 Murray, Professor, humble begin- 
 nings, 357. 
 
 Mutiny, the Indian, 214. 
 
 NAILMAKINQ at Stourbridge and the 
 Foley family, 182. 
 
 Napier, Sir C., his energy in India, 
 212 ; on the conduct of gentlemen, 
 292. 
 
 Napoleon, his energy, 208 ; a dull boy. 
 367. 
 
 National progress and decay, 16. 
 
 Navvies, anecdote of two English, in 
 Paris, 416. 
 
 Necessity a good teacher, 102, 255, 350. 
 
 Nelson, Lord, 30 ; on time, 263. 
 
 Nervous system, discoveries in, 118. 
 
 Newcomen, inventor, 26, 43, 102. 
 
 Newton, Sir I., his origin, 30 ; his 
 method of study, 68 ; accidental de- 
 struction of his papers, 78 ; fall of 
 the apple, 97 ; his apparatus, 103 ; 
 industry, 112 ; Master of the Mint, 
 254 ; his mechanical labor in youth, 
 314 ; a dunce at school, 366. 
 
 Nicholson, Colonel, in India, 217. 
 
 Nicoll, Robert, author, 347. 
 
 Nineveh marbles, discovery of, 79. 
 
 Nollekens, sculptor, 142. 
 
 Normanby, founder of peerage of, 185 
 
 Norris, India-house clerk, 80. 
 
 Norsemen, character of, 202. 
 
 Northcote, painter, 136, 383. 
 
 Nottingham and the Halls, 119. 
 
 Novel-reading, 341. 
 
 OBSERVATION, intelligent, 98. 
 Opie, painter, 25, 103, 136. 
 Opportunities, art of seizing 104, 108 
 
428 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dratory, learnt through difficulty. 
 
 354. 
 
 Dutram, Sir J., 418. 
 Owen, Dr., naturalist, 31, 113. 
 
 PAUIERSTON, Lord, 34, 315. 
 
 Parish poor, Hanway's reforms among, 
 
 Patience, 74, 323. 
 
 Paton, Noel, painter, 166. 
 
 Paxton, Sir Joseph, 108. 
 
 Peel family, 53. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, manufacturer, 56. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, statesman, his indus- 
 try, 34; his memory, how culti- 
 vated, 73 ; his truthfulness, 401. 
 
 Peerage, industry and the, 180. 
 
 Pendulum, discovery of the, 98. 
 
 Penny, power of the, 280. 
 
 Perseverance, 67, 76, 108, 318. 
 
 Pestalozzi, on education, 327. 
 
 Petty, Sir Wm., founder of Lans- 
 downe peerage. 191. 
 
 Philanthropy, the highest, 17. 
 
 Phipps, Sir W., founder of the Nor- 
 manDy peerage, 185. 
 
 Physical culture, 309. 
 
 Plastow, Abraham, 373. 
 
 Playfair, Professor, 30. 
 
 Pleasure, pursuit of, 343. 
 
 Politeness, 406. 
 
 Politics, laborious workers in. 34. 
 
 Pollock, Lord Chief Baron, 30. 
 
 Pope, poet, 31, 377. 
 
 Popular roads to knowledge, 322. 
 
 Porter, David, a worthy sweep, 301. 
 
 Pottery manufacture, its founding by 
 Wedgwood, 59. 
 
 Pounds, John, and ragged schools, 
 377. 
 
 Poussin, Nicholas, painter, 97. 
 
 Poverty may be a blessing, 32. 
 
 Power of money over-estimated, 305. 
 
 Power, exercise of a test of the gen- 
 tleman, 420. 
 
 Practical education of Englishmen, 
 20. 
 
 Precept and example, 371. 
 
 Precocity, 365. 
 
 Prejudices, 406. 
 
 Preston, Arkwright at, 46. 
 
 Priestley, Dr.. 105. 
 
 Principles become habits, 404 
 
 Promptitude, 210, 262, 321. 
 
 Prosperity, dangers of, 351. 
 
 Proverbs on thrift, 296. 
 
 Providence and improvidence, 280. 
 
 Pugin, architect, 131. 
 
 Punctuality, 263. 
 
 Purpose, 203 ; in study, 320, 331. 
 
 RAGGED schools, the founders of, 377. 
 
 Rawlinson, Sir H., and cuneiform al- 
 phabet, 39, 80. 
 
 Red-Tapeism, 266. 
 
 Reform of habits, the greatest reform, 
 281. 
 
 Rendu, on English education, 22. 
 
 Respectability, 306. 
 
 Responsibility, human, 377. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir J., origin, 30 ; on force 
 of industry, 135, 318 ; his boyhood, 
 139 ; his painstaking, 355 ; influence 
 of his Discourses, 386. 
 
 Ricardo, David, stockjobber, 254. 
 
 Riches, 32, 304, 415. 
 
 Richter, J., on self-culture, 331 ; on 
 poverty, 350. 
 
 Ridicule, 94. 
 
 Rittenhouse, astronomer, 104 
 
 Roberts, painter, 136. 
 
 Romilly, Sir S., lawyer, 35, 359, 385. 
 
 Romney, painter, 24, 136. 
 
 Rosse, Lord, 33. 
 
 Rossini, Beethoven's saying of, 349. 
 
 Routine, 266. 
 
 Royal Society, foundation of, 191. 
 
 Ruskin, on mechanism, 338. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 34 ; on character, 
 
 ST. LEONARDS, Lord, 195, 320. 
 
 St. Vincent, Earl, 210, 289. 
 
 Saving of money, 280, 302. 
 
 Scanderbeg, his bravery, 383. 
 
 Scarlatti, on Handel, 382. 
 
 Scheele, chemist, 105. 
 
 Schiller, on life education, 20. 
 
 Schimmel Penninck, Mrs., on mater- 
 nal example, 373. 
 
 School, a training-ground for life, 312. 
 
 Scientific apparatus, humble, 103. 
 
 Scott, Lord Eldon, 112, 197. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, origin, 30; his in- 
 dustry, 81; cultivation of opportu- 
 nities, 104; man of business, 254; 
 on promptitude, 262; his physical 
 health, 816; a dunce in his boy- 
 hood, 367. 
 
 Scott monument, architect of, 162. 
 
 Self-culture, 309, 325. 
 
 Self-denial and control. 281 331. 
 
 Self-help, 15, 18, 280. 
 
 Self-raised men, 23. 
 
 Self-reform, 281. 
 
 Self-respect, 332. 
 
 Serampore mission, 76. 
 
 Shakspeare, author, 24, 253. 
 
 Sharp, Granville, slavery abolitionist 
 234, 388, 402. 
 
 Sharpies, James, self-taught artist 
 166. 
 
 Shepherds, Scotch, 360. 
 
 Sheridan, a dunce in boyhood, 367 
 
INDEX. 
 
 4?9 
 
 SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Shoemakers, illustrious, 25. 
 
 Shovel, SirCloudesley, sailor, 25, 30. 
 
 Simpson, mathematician, 25. 
 
 Sinclair, Sir John, his energetic ca- 
 reer, 389. 
 
 Slavery, laborers in abolition of, 236. 
 
 Smeaton, engineer, 30, 43. 
 
 Smith, Adam, political economist, 75. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Pye, divine, 112. 
 
 Smith, Sydney, divine, 35, 74. 
 
 Smith, Wm., geologist, 123. 
 
 Smuggling adventure of Samuel Drew, 
 87. 
 
 Somers, Lord, judge, 30. 
 
 Southey, author, 31, 335, 347. 
 
 Spagnoletto, painter, 136. 
 
 Spelman, Sir H., antiquary, 364. 
 
 Spenser, poet, as man of business, 253. 
 
 Spinola, Marquis de, general. 257. 
 
 Spread of knowledge, 319. 
 
 Staffordshire potteries, founder of, 59. 
 
 Stanfield, painter, 136. 
 
 Stanley, Lord, on character, 396. 
 
 Statistical Account of Scotland, 393. 
 
 Steam, power of, 101. 
 
 Steam-engine, invention of, 26, 42, 102. 
 
 Stephen of Colonna, saying of, 399. 
 
 Stephenson, Geo., 26, 45, 79, 89, 368. 
 
 Stephenson, Robert, on mechanical 
 invention, 45. 
 
 Sterling, John, on self-denial, 280; on 
 comic literature, 341 ; his character, 
 382. 
 
 Stone, Edmund, mathematician, 104, 
 318. 
 
 Stothard, painter, 108, 145. 
 
 Strong, case of the slave, 235. 
 
 Strutts, of Helper, 49, 193. 
 
 Studies, Bacon on, 20. 
 
 Study, 320. 
 
 Sturgeon, electrician, 25. 
 
 Success, the path of, 67, 255, 311. 
 
 Sugden, Lord St. Leonards, 195. 
 
 Superficial knowledge, 319. 
 
 Suwarrow, on power of will, 208. 
 
 Sweep, an illustrious, 301. 
 
 Swift, Dean, a dunce in his youth, 366. 
 
 TACT, in business, 52, 265. 
 Taglioni, 74. 
 Tailors, illustrious, 25. 
 Talbot, chemist, 33. 
 Talfourd, Judge, 30. 
 Tannahill, poet, 25. 
 Taxation, self-imposed, 281. 
 Taylor, Jeremy, on idleness, 311. 
 
 publisher, causes of his success, 
 
 Telford, engineer, 24. 
 Tempters, young men's, 293. 
 Tennyson, poet laureate, 30, 396. 
 Ven'erden, Lord Chief Justice, 23, 195 
 
 WIESE. 
 
 Teutonic energy, 181, 202. 
 
 Thames tunnel, Brunei's method 01 
 
 constructing, 99. 
 Thierry, Augustin, author, 345. 
 Thomson, poet, 30. 
 Thorburn, painter, 165. 
 Thoroughness, 319. 
 Thrift, necessity for, 280, 296. 
 Thurlow, Lord, 30. 
 Time, economy of, 110, 262, 318. 
 Titian, painter, his industry. 137. 
 Trade, honesty in, 274. 
 Treasure-hunting in South Seas, bj 
 
 Phipps, 186. 
 Trench, on character of Sterling, 382. 
 
 Bevithick, inventor, 45. 
 ifles, make perfection, 97 ; influence 
 character, 372. 
 
 Truth makes the gentleman, 401, 417. 
 Turner, painter, 24, 136, 159. 
 
 UMBRELLAS, introduction of, 233. 
 Uprightness of character, 402. 
 
 VACCINATION, discovery of, by Jenner, 
 
 115. 
 
 Vails-giving, practice of, 232. 
 Violin-playing, difficulty of, 73, 354. 
 Voltaire, sayings of, 20, 69. 
 
 WALKER, Adam, 25. 
 
 Walker, the " Original," 205. 
 
 Ward, missionary, 76. 
 
 Washington, General, on punctuality, 
 264; on business details, 289; his 
 -y^ess through defeat, 349. 
 
 wasters, 286. 
 
 Watt, James, inventor, his origin, 26; 
 hiB industry, 43, 79 ; defective busi- 
 ness qualities, 51; ingenuity of 
 adaptation, 99, 104; improvement 
 of opportunity, 102, 109; a late 
 learner, 365 ; a dull scholar, 306. 
 
 Wealth and art, 136. 
 
 Wealth makes life too easy, 32, 305. 
 
 Wealthy classes, workers among the 
 
 Weavers, illustrious, 25. 
 
 Wedgwood, Josiah, manufacturer, 59, 
 
 Wellesley, Marquis of, his honesty, 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, his devotion to 
 duty, 209 ; a first-rate man of busi- 
 ness, 266 ; his opinions on debt, 289 , 
 his encounter of difficulties, 350 ; a 
 dull boy, 367 ; his honesty, 414 ; on 
 truthfulness, 401, 417. 
 
 West, Benjamin, painter, 103, 136, 
 138, 373 
 
 White, Kirke, poet, 26, 110. 
 
 Wiese, on English character, 22. 
 
430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wilkie, David, painter, origin, 30 ; his 
 opportunities, 103; his persistent 
 industry, 166. 
 
 Will, force of, 204 ; freedom of, 206. 
 
 Williams, missionary, 220. 
 
 Wilson, ornithologist, 25. 
 
 Wilson, painter, 30. 96, 136, 138. 
 
 Wilson, Professor, 30, 317. 
 
 Wisdom, practical, 279, 320, 329. 
 
 Wolff, Dr., missionary, 386. 
 
 Wollaston, Dr., origin, 30; his appa- 
 ratus, 103. 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 26. 
 
 Wool society, British, 391. 
 
 Worcester, Marquis of, 83, 102. 
 
 Wordsworth, poet, 30, 254. 
 
 Working, courageous, 204. 
 Working quality, training of, 73. 
 Working classes, true independence 
 
 of, 282, 284. 
 
 Wreck of the Birkenhead, 419. 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, architect, 30. 
 Wright, Thomas, and reclamation of 
 
 criminals, 298. 
 Wright, painter, 136. 
 Writing down facts, practice of, 112. 
 
 YATES(ofPeel&Co.),66. 
 
 Young, Dr., philosopher, 30, 76, 98, 
 
 ZISKA, John, general, 383. 
 Zucarelli, painter, 138. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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