Self Help; with Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance

CHAPTER IV.
Application and Perseverance

“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 labour, gather all.” —D’Avenant

“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 experience of the best kind; and its most beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort and room for self-improvement. The 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 usually be the most successful.

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.In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful—such as common sense, attention, application, and perseverance.Genius may not be necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain the use of these ordinary 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 distinguished 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 in every other, only by diligent application and perseverance that his great reputation was achieved.Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying down one subject 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 further thinking; until at last I brooded with the whole energy of my mind upon the subject.”

The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer industry and perseverance, have led many distinguished men to doubt whether the gift of genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is usually 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 might be 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 laws which regulate the operations of the intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits.But while admitting to the fullest extent the wonderful achievements of labour, and recognising 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 labour, however well applied, could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Beethoven, or a Michael Angelo.

Dalton, the chemist, repudiated the notion of his being “a genius,” attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry and accumulation.John Hunter said of himself, “My mind is like a beehive; 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 inventors, artists, thinkers, and workers of all kinds, owe their success, 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 success consisted in being master of your subject, such mastery being attainable only through continuous application and study.Hence it happens that the men who have most moved the world, have not been so much men of genius, strictly so called, as men of intense mediocre abilities, and untiring perseverance; not so often the gifted, of naturally bright and shining qualities, as those who have applied themselves diligently to their work, in whatsoever line that might lie.“Alas!”said a widow, speaking of her brilliant but careless son, “he has not the gift of continuance.”Wanting in perseverance, such volatile natures are outstripped in the race of life by the diligent and even the dull.“Che va piano, va longano, e va lontano,” says the Italian proverb: Who goes slowly, goes long, and goes far.

Hence, a great point to be aimed 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 labour.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 mediocre powers, which rendered him so illustrious an ornament of the British Senate.When a boy at Drayton Manor, his father was accustomed to set him up at table to practise speaking extempore; and he early accustomed him to repeat as much of the Sunday’s sermon as he could remember.Little progress was made at first, but by steady perseverance the habit of attention became powerful, and the sermon was at length repeated almost verbatim.When afterwards replying in succession to the arguments of his parliamentary opponents—an art in which he was perhaps unrivalled—it was little surmised that the extraordinary power of accurate remembrance which he displayed on such occasions had been originally 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 laborious 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 l’ours danserThe poor figurante must devote years of incessant toil to 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, sponged, and resuscitated totally unconscious.The agility and bounds of the evening were insured only at a price like this.

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 mulberry 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 cheerfulness and diligence nine-tenths of practical wisdom.They are the life and soul of success, as well as of happiness; 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 labouring as a parish priest at Foston-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 labour said, “Wherever 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.”

Labourers 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 life-time.Adam Smith sowed the seeds of a great social amelioration in that dingy old University of Glasgow where he so long laboured, and laid the foundations of his ‘Wealth of Nations;’ but 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?”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 officiated as his clerks, in one day, he himself taking rest only in change of employment.Carey, the son of a shoe-maker, was supported in his labours by Ward, the son of a carpenter, and Marsham, the son of a weaver.By their labours, a magnificent college was erected at Serampore; sixteen flourishing stations were established; the Bible was translated into sixteen languages, 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 over-heard 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 perseverance 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 he recovered and 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 he did 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.Without saying a word, he remounted, made a second effort, 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.Not less interesting is the anecdote of Audubon, the American ornithologist, as related by himself: “An accident,” he says, “which happened to two hundred of my original drawings, 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 disheartening 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 injury 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 beat which instantly rushed through my brain was too great to be endured without affecting my whole nervous system.I slept for several nights, and the days passed like days of oblivion—until the animal powers being recalled into action through the strength of my constitution, I took up my gun, my notebook, and my pencils, and went forth to the woods as gaily 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 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 neighbour to peruse.By some mischance, it had been left lying on the parlour floor, and become forgotten.Weeks ran on, and the historian sent for his work, the printers being loud for “copy.”Inquiries were made, and 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 parlour fires with!Such was the answer returned to Mr. Carlyle; and his feelings may be imagined.There was, however, no help for him but to set resolutely to work to re-write the 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 been long since dismissed.The composition of the book in the first instance had been a work of pleasure; the re-writing of it a second time was one of pain and anguish almost beyond belief.That he persevered and finished the volume under such circumstances, affords an instance of determination of purpose which has seldom been surpassed.

The lives of eminent inventors are eminently illustrative of the same quality of perseverance.George Stephenson, when addressing young men, was accustomed 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 industry.Perhaps one of the most interesting is that connected 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, stationed at Kermanshah, in Persia, had observed the curious cuneiform inscriptions on the old monuments in the neighbourhood—so old that all historical traces of them had been lost,—and amongst the inscriptions which he copied was that on the celebrated rock of Behistun—a perpendicular rock rising abruptly some 1700 feet from the plain, the lower part bearing inscriptions for the space of about 300 feet in three languages—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, and even to form an alphabet.Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Rawlinson sent his tracings home for examination.No professors in colleges as yet knew anything of 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 the cadet had not copied the puzzling inscription with proper exactness.Rawlinson, who was still in the neighbourhood 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 labourer was necessary in order to supply them with material for the exercise of their skill.Such a labourer presented himself in the person of Austen Layard, 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; yet it was so.Layard was a youth of only twenty-two, travelling in the East, when he was possessed with a desire to penetrate 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 application and perseverance, resolute will and purpose, and almost sublime patience,—borne up throughout by his passionate enthusiasm for discovery and research,—he 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 selection of these valuable antiquities, now placed in the British Museum, was 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 disentombment 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, industry, and energy.

The career of the Comte de Buffon presents another remarkable illustration of the power of patient industry as well as of his own saying, that “Genius is patience.”Notwithstanding the great results achieved by him in natural history, Buffon, when a youth, was regarded as of mediocre talents.His mind was slow in forming itself, and slow in reproducing what it had acquired.He was also constitutionally indolent; and being born to good estate, it might be supposed that he would indulge his liking for ease and luxury.Instead of which, he early formed the resolution of denying himself pleasure, and devoting himself to study and self-culture.Regarding time as a treasure that was limited, and finding that he was losing many hours by lying a-bed in the mornings, he determined to break himself of the habit.He struggled hard against it for some time, but failed in being able to rise at the hour he had fixed.He then called his servant, Joseph, to his help, and promised him the reward of a crown every time that he succeeded in getting him up before six.At first, when called, Buffon declined to rise—pleaded that he was ill, or pretended anger at being disturbed; and on the Count at length getting up, Joseph found that he had earned nothing but reproaches for having permitted his master to lie a-bed contrary to his express orders.At length the valet determined to earn his crown; and again and again he forced Buffon to rise, notwithstanding his entreaties, expostulations, and threats of immediate discharge from his service.One morning Buffon was unusually obstinate, and Joseph found it necessary to resort to the extreme measure of dashing a basin of ice-cold water under the bed-clothes, the effect of which was instantaneous.By the persistent use of such means, Buffon at length conquered his habit; and he was accustomed to say that he owed to Joseph three or four volumes of his Natural History.

For forty years of his life, Buffon worked every morning at his desk from nine till two, and again in the evening from five till nine.His diligence was so continuous and so regular that it became habitual.His biographer has said of him, “Work was his necessity; his studies were the charm of his life; and towards the last term of his glorious career he frequently said that he still hoped to be able to consecrate to them a few more years.”He was a most conscientious worker, always studying to give the reader his best thoughts, expressed in the very best manner.He was never wearied with touching and retouching his compositions, so that his style may be pronounced almost perfect.He wrote the ‘Epoques de la Nature’ not fewer than eleven times before he was satisfied with it; although he had thought over the work about fifty years.He was a thorough man of business, most orderly in everything; and he was accustomed to say that genius without order lost three-fourths of its power.His great success as a writer was the result mainly of his painstaking labour and diligent application.“Buffon,” observed Madame Necker, “strongly persuaded that genius is the result of a profound attention directed to a particular subject, said that he was thoroughly wearied out when composing his first writings, but compelled himself to return to them and go over them carefully again, even when he thought he had already brought them to a certain degree of perfection; and that at length he found pleasure instead of weariness in this long and elaborate correction.”It ought also to be added that Buffon wrote and published all his great works while afflicted by one of the most painful diseases to which the human frame is subject.

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 sort of drudgery scarcely above that of a copying clerk.His daily dull routine made his evenings, which were his own, all the more sweet; and he generally 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 allowed 3d. for every page containing a certain number of words; and he sometimes, by extra work, was able to copy as many as 120 pages in twenty-four hours, thus earning some 30s.; out of which he would occasionally 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 between genius and an aversion or contempt for the common duties of life.On the contrary, he was of opinion that to spend some fair portion of every day in any matter-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 authenticated registered deeds and writings of various kinds.On the whole, says Lockhart, “it forms one of the most remarkable features in his history, 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 conscientious discharge of professional duties.”It was a principle of action which he laid down for himself, that he must earn his living by business, and not by literature.On one occasion he said, “I determined that literature should be my staff, not my crutch, and that the profits of my literary labour, however convenient otherwise, should not, if I could help it, become necessary to my ordinary expenses.”

His punctuality was one of the most carefully cultivated of his habits, otherwise it had not been possible for him to get through so enormous an amount of literary labour.He made it a rule to answer every letter received by him on the same day, except where inquiry and deliberation were requisite.Nothing else could have enabled him to keep abreast with the flood of communications that poured in upon him and sometimes 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, with his papers arranged before him in the most accurate order, his works of reference marshalled round him on the floor, while at least one favourite 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 labour, Scott always spoke with the greatest diffidence 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 he will 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 lies 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 England and Wales,’ and of many valuable architectural works, 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 corrupt him.He was early in life set to labour 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 eighteenpence 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 cellarman, but shortly after we find him back in the metropolis again almost penniless, shoeless, and shirtless.He succeeded, however, in obtaining employment as a cellarman at the London Tavern, where 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 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 his death, during a period of about fifty-five years, Britton was occupied in laborious literary occupation.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.

London, the landscape gardener, was a man of somewhat 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 labourer.In the course of his night studies he learnt French, and before he was eighteen he translated a life of Abelard for an Encyclopædia.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 mastered that language.Having taken a large farm, for the purpose of introducing Scotch improvements in the art of agriculture, he shortly succeeded in realising a considerable income.The continent being thrown open at the end of the war, he travelled abroad for the purpose of inquiring into the system of gardening and agriculture in other countries.He twice repeated his journeys, and the results were published in his Encyclopædias, which are among the most remarkable works of their kind,—distinguished for the immense mass of useful matter which they contain, collected by an amount of industry and labour which has rarely been equalled.

The career of Samuel Drew is not less remarkable than any of those which we have cited.His father was a hard-working labourer of the parish of St.Austell, in Cornwall.Though poor, he contrived to send his two sons to a penny-a-week school in the neighbourhood.Jabez, the elder, took delight in learning, and made great progress in his lessons; but Samuel, the younger, was a dunce, notoriously given to mischief and playing truant.When about eight years old he was put to manual labour, earning three-halfpence a day as a buddle-boy at a tin mine.At ten he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and while in this employment he endured much hardship,—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 the sort, and he seems to have grown in recklessness as he grew in years.In robbing orchards he was usually a leader; and, as he grew older, he delighted to take part in any poaching or smuggling adventure.When about seventeen, before his apprenticeship was out, he ran away, intending to enter on board a man-of-war; but, sleeping in a hay-field at night cooled him a little, and he returned to his trade.

Drew next removed to the neighbourhood of Plymouth to work at his shoemaking business, and while at Cawsand he won a prize for cudgel-playing, in which he seems to have been an adept.While living there, he had nearly lost his life in a smuggling exploit which he had joined, 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, ready to land her cargo; on which the male population 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 another manned the boats, Drew being of the latter party.The night was intensely dark, and very little of the cargo had been landed, when the wind rose, with a heavy sea.The men in the boats, however, determined to persevere, and several trips were 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 attempting to recover it, the boat was upset.Three of the men were immediately drowned; the others clung to the boat for a time, but finding it drifting out to sea, they took to swimming.They were two miles from land, and the night was intensely dark.After being about three hours in the water, Drew reached a rock near the shore, with one or two others, where he remained benumbed with cold till morning, 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 bowlfull of the liquid presented to the survivors; and, shortly after, Drew was able to walk two miles through deep snow, to his lodgings.

This was a very unpromising beginning of a life; and yet this same Drew, scapegrace, orchard-robber, shoemaker, cudgel-player, and smuggler, outlived the recklessness 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 characterised him was turned into a more healthy direction, 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 journeyman shoemaker.Perhaps his recent escape from death had tended to make the young man serious, as we shortly find him attracted by the forcible preaching of Dr. Adam Clarke, a minister of the Wesleyan Methodists.His brother having died about the same time, the impression of seriousness was deepened; and thenceforward he was an altered man.He began anew 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 set to crawl upon paper.Speaking of himself, about that 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 moment was now employed in reading one thing or another.Having to support myself by manual labour, 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 began business on his own account, with a capital of a few shillings; but his character for steadiness was such that a neighbouring miller offered him a loan, which was accepted, and, success attending his industry, the debt was repaid at the end of a year.He started with a determination to “owe no man anything,” and he held to it in the midst of many privations.Often he went to bed supperless, to avoid rising in debt.His ambition was to achieve independence by industry and economy, and in this he gradually succeeded.In the midst of incessant labour, he sedulously strove to improve his mind, studying astronomy, history, and metaphysics.He was induced to pursue the latter study chiefly because 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 accordingly began to tread it.”

Added to his labours in shoemaking and metaphysics, Drew became a local preacher and a class leader.He took an eager interest in politics, and his shop became a favourite resort with the village politicians.And when they did not come to him, he went to them to talk over public affairs.This so encroached upon his time that he found it necessary sometimes to work until midnight to make up for the hours lost during the day.His political fervour become 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!shoe-maker!work by night and run about by day!”A friend, to whom Drew afterwards told the story, asked, “And did not you 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 confounded.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 work, reading and studying in his spare hours: but he never allowed the latter pursuit to interfere with his business, though it frequently broke in upon his rest.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 appeared about this time and excited much interest, 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 shortly appeared in rapid succession, and a few years later, while still working at shoemaking, he wrote and published his admirable ‘Essay on the Immateriality 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.

Drew was in no wise puffed up by his success, as many young authors are, but, long after he had become celebrated as a writer, used to be seen sweeping the street before his door, or helping his apprentices to carry in the winter’s coals.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 livelihood by his business, and to put into the “lottery of literary success,” as he termed it, only the surplus of his time.At length, however, he devoted himself wholly to literature, more particularly in connection with the Wesleyan body; editing one of their magazines, and superintending the publication of several of their denominational works.He also wrote in the ‘Eclectic Review,’ and compiled and published a valuable history of his native county, Cornwall, with numerous other works.Towards the close of his career, he said of himself,—“Raised from one of the lowest stations in society, I have endeavoured 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 has smiled on my exertions, and crowned my wishes with success.”

The late Joseph Hume pursued a very different career, but worked in an equally persevering 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, [115] and afterwards obtained a cadetship in the Company’s service. None worked harder, or lived more temperately, than he 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 offices. 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 in his stead. He was next 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 post-master, and filled them satisfactorily. He also contracted to supply the commissariat, which he did with advantage to the army and profit to himself. After about ten years’ unremitting labour, 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 to enjoy the fruits of his industry in idleness.Work and occupation had become necessary for his comfort and happiness.To make himself fully acquainted with the actual state of his own country, and the condition of the people, he visited every town in the kingdom which then enjoyed any degree of manufacturing celebrity.He afterwards travelled abroad for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of foreign 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 honourable 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 representation, and such like measures, all of which he indefatigably promoted.Whatever subject he undertook, he worked at with all his might.He was not a good speaker, 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 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 something extraordinary.He rose at six, wrote letters and arranged his papers for parliament; then, after breakfast, he received persons on business, sometimes as many as twenty in a morning.The House rarely assembled without him, and though the debate might be prolonged to two or three o’clock in the morning, his name was seldom found absent from the division.In short, to perform the work which he did, extending over so long a period, in the face of so many Administrations, 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 discouragement, 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 remarkable illustrations of the power of human perseverance that biography can exhibit.

CHAPTER V.
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 common highway of steady industry and application is the only safe road to travel. It is said of the landscape painter Wilson, that when he had nearly finished a picture in a tame, correct manner, he would step back from it, his pencil fixed at the end of a long stick, and after gazing earnestly on the work, he would suddenly walk up and by a few bold touches give a brilliant finish to the 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 labour 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 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 feature—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,” replied the sculptor, “but recollect that trifles make perfection, 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 emphatically 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 improved by genius.The fall of the apple at Newton’s feet has often been quoted in proof of the accidental character 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 opening to his sight.In like manner, the brilliantly-coloured soap-bubbles blown from a common tobacco pipe—though “trifles light as air” in most eyes—suggested 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 measure, in the intelligence of their observation.The Russian 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 occasion, 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 nothing, men of intelligent vision penetrate into the very fibre of the phenomena presented to them, attentively noting differences, making comparisons, and recognizing their underlying idea.Many before Galileo had seen a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured 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 labour, however, elapsed, before he completed the invention of his Pendulum,—the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overrated.In like manner, Galileo, having casually heard that one Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle-maker, had presented to Count Maurice of Nassau an instrument by means of which distant objects appeared nearer to the beholder, addressed himself to the cause of such a phenomenon, which led to the invention of the telescope, and proved the beginning of the modern science of astronomy.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 invented an iron tube, which, when laid down, was found effectually to answer the purpose.Sir Isambert Brunel took his first lessons in forming the Thames Tunnel from the tiny shipworm: he saw how the little creature perforated the wood with its well-armed head, first in one direction and then in another, till the archway was complete, and then daubed over the roof and sides with a kind of varnish; and by copying this work exactly on a large scale, Brunel was at length enabled to construct his shield and accomplish his great engineering work.

It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which gives these apparently trivial phenomena their value.So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed 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 accumulation of small facts, made by successive generations of men, the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid.Though many of these facts and observations 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 speculations seemingly remote, turn out to be the basis of results the most obviously practical.In the case of the conic sections discovered by Apollonius Pergæus, twenty centuries elapsed before they were made the basis of astronomy—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 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 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 insignificant 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 have elapsed, 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 manufactures, 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 that common tea-kettle spout, but which, when put 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 set even the hurricane at defiance.The same power at work within the bowels of the earth has been the cause of those volcanoes and earthquakes which have played 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 confined 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 a time, until Savary, Newcomen, and others, applying it to practical purposes, brought the steam-engine to the state in which Watt found it when called upon to repair a model of Newcomen’s engine, which belonged to the University of Glasgow.This accidental circumstance was an opportunity for Watt, which he was not slow to improve; and it was the labour of his life to bring the steam-engine to perfection.

This art of seizing opportunities and turning even accidents 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 workman, but the trained skill and perseverance of the man himself. Indeed it is proverbial that the bad workman never yet had a good tool. Some one asked Opie by what wonderful process he mixed his colours. “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 thermometers 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 colours. 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 learnt the art of combining colours 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 thundercloud of its lightning by means of a kite made with two cross sticks and a silk handkerchief.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 problems in mathematics, when a cobbler’s apprentice, upon small scraps of leather, which he beat smooth for the purpose; whilst Rittenhouse, the astronomer, 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 was attracted to the study of Hebrew by finding a Bible in that tongue in a synagogue, while working as a common carpenter at the repairs of the benches.He became possessed with a desire to read the book in the original, and, buying a cheap second-hand copy of a Hebrew grammar, he set to work and learnt the language for himself.As Edmund Stone said to the Duke of Argyle, in answer to his grace’s inquiry how he, a poor gardener’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 perseverance, and the diligent improvement of opportunities, will do the rest.

Sir Walter Scott found opportunities for self-improvement in every pursuit, and turned even accidents to account.Thus it was in the discharge of his functions as a writer’s apprentice that he first visited the Highlands, and formed those friendships among the surviving heroes of 1745 which served to lay the foundation of a large class of his works.Later in life, when employed as quartermaster of the Edinburgh Light Cavalry, 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.In three days he had composed the first canto of ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel,’ which he shortly after finished,—his first great original work.

The attention of Dr. Priestley, the discoverer of so many gases, was accidentally drawn to the subject of chemistry through his living in the neighbourhood of a brewery.When visiting the place one day, he noted the peculiar appearances attending the extinction of lighted chips in the gas floating over the fermented liquor.He was forty years old at the time, and knew nothing of chemistry.He consulted books to ascertain the cause, but they told him little, for as yet nothing was known on the subject.Then he began to experiment, with some rude apparatus of his own contrivance.The curious results of his first experiments 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 extemporised 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.It happened that a French ship was wrecked off the Land’s End, and the surgeon escaped, bearing with him his case of instruments, amongst which was an old-fashioned glyster apparatus; this article he presented to Davy, with whom he had become acquainted.The apothecary’s apprentice received it with great exultation, and forthwith employed it as a part of a pneumatic apparatus which he contrived, afterwards 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 Faraday was first attracted to the study of chemistry by hearing one of Sir Humphry Davy’s lectures on the subject at the Royal Institution.A gentleman, who was a member, calling one day at the shop where Faraday was employed in binding books, found him poring over the article “Electricity” in an Encyclopædia placed in his hands to bind.The gentleman, having made inquiries, found that the young bookbinder 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 them, 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 devote himself to the prosecution of chemical studies, from which Sir Humphry at first endeavoured 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.

The words which Davy entered in his note-book, when about twenty years of age, working in Dr. Beddoes’ 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 the whole power 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 vitality.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.”

The great Cuvier was a singularly accurate, careful, and industrious observer.When a boy, he was attracted to the subject of natural history by the sight of a volume of Buffon which accidentally fell in his way.He at once proceeded to copy the drawings, and to colour them after the descriptions given in the text.While still at school, one of his teachers made him a present of ‘Linnæus’s System of Nature;’ and for more than ten years this constituted his library of natural history.At eighteen he was offered the situation of tutor in a family residing near Fécamp, in Normandy.Living close to the sea-shore, he was brought face to face with the wonders of marine life.Strolling along the sands one day, he observed a stranded cuttlefish.He was attracted by the curious object, took it home to dissect, and thus began the study of the molluscæ, in the pursuit of which he achieved so distinguished a reputation.He had no books to refer to, excepting only the great book of Nature which lay open before him.The study of the novel and interesting objects which it daily presented to his eyes made a much deeper impression on his mind than any written or engraved descriptions could possibly have done.Three years thus passed, during which he compared the living species of marine animals with the fossil remains found in the neighbourhood, dissected the specimens of marine life that came under his notice, and, by careful observation, prepared the way for a complete reform in the classification of the animal kingdom.About this time Cuvier became known to the learned Abbé Teissier, who wrote to Jussieu and other friends in Paris on the subject of the young naturalist’s inquiries, in terms of such high commendation, that Cuvier was requested to send some of his papers to the Society of Natural History; and he was shortly after appointed assistant-superintendent at the Jardin des Plantes.In the letter written by Teissier to Jussieu, introducing the young naturalist to his notice, he said, “You remember that it was I who gave Delambre to the Academy in another branch of science: this also will be a Delambre.”We need scarcely add that the prediction of Teissier was more than fulfilled.

It is not accident, then, that helps a man in the world so much as purpose and persistent industry.To the feeble, the sluggish and purposeless, the happiest accidents avail nothing,—they pass them by, seeing no meaning in them.But it is astonishing how much can be accomplished if we are prompt to seize and improve the opportunities for action and effort which are constantly presenting themselves.Watt taught himself chemistry and mechanics while working at his trade of a mathematical-instrument maker, at the same time that he was learning German from a Swiss dyer.Stephenson taught himself arithmetic and mensuration while working as an engineman during the night shifts; and when he could snatch a few moments in the intervals allowed for meals during the day, he worked his sums with a bit of chalk upon the sides of the colliery waggons.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 won as much as enabled him to buy a winter’s store of candles.He continued 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 pursuits would, if profitably employed, enable a person of ordinary capacity to go far towards mastering a science.It would make an ignorant man a well-informed one in less than ten years.Time should not be allowed to pass without yielding fruits, in the form of something learnt worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated, or some good habit strengthened.Dr. Mason Good translated Lucretius while riding in his carriage in the streets of London, going the round of his patients.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 for the purpose.Hale wrote his ‘Contemplations’ while travelling on circuit.Dr. Burney learnt French and Italian while travelling on horseback from one musical pupil to another in the course of his profession.Kirke White learnt Greek while walking to and from a lawyer’s office; and we personally know a man of eminent position who learnt Latin and French while going messages as an errand-boy in the streets of Manchester.

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.Elihu Burritt attributed his first success in self-improvement, not to genius, which he disclaimed, but simply to the careful employment of those invaluable fragments of time, called “odd moments.”While working and earning his living as a blacksmith, he mastered some eighteen ancient and modern languages, and twenty-two European dialects.

What a solemn and striking admonition to youth is that inscribed on the dial at All Souls, Oxford—“Pereunt et imputantur”—the hours perish, and are laid to our charge.Time is the only little fragment of Eternity that belongs to man; and, like life, it can never be recalled.“In the dissipation of worldly treasure,” says Jackson of Exeter, “the frugality of the future may balance the extravagance of the past; but who can say, ‘I will take from minutes to-morrow to compensate for those I have lost to-day’?”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 inscription intimating that whosoever remained there should join in his labours.“We are afraid,” 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, formed that rich treasury of thoughts and deeds which they have left to their successors.

The mere drudgery undergone by some men in carrying on their undertakings has been something extraordinary, 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 before 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 has cost me so much labour 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 “Sudden thoughts set down for use.”Erskine made great extracts from Burke; and Eldon copied Coke upon Littleton 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 bookbinder, 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.

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 illustrate 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 education 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 carpenter at Glasgow, after which he joined his brother William, who had 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 assiduously 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 until eight o’clock in his museum; and throughout the day he carried on his extensive private practice, performed his laborious duties as surgeon to St.George’s Hospital and deputy surgeon-general to the army; delivered lectures to students, and superintended a school of practical 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 importance.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 insure 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.”

Hunter occupied a great deal of his time in collecting 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 referred to, he learnt how arteries accommodate themselves 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, digging 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 contemporaries perceived the ultimate object of his pursuits.But like all true workers, he did not fail in securing his best reward—that which depends less upon others than upon one’s self—the approval of conscience, which in a right-minded man invariably follows the honest and energetic performance of duty.

Ambrose Paré, the great French surgeon, was another illustrious instance of close observation, patient application, and indefatigable perseverance.He was the son of a barber at Laval, in Maine, where he was born in 1509.His parents were too poor to send him to school, but they placed him as foot-boy with the curé of the village, hoping that under that learned man he might pick up an education for himself.But the curé kept him so busily employed in grooming his mule and in other menial offices that the boy found no time for learning.While in his service, it happened that the celebrated lithotomist, Cotot, came to Laval to operate on one of the curé’s ecclesiastical brethren.Paré was present at the operation, and was so much interested by it that he is said to have from that time formed the determination of devoting himself to the art of surgery.

Leaving the curé’s household service, Paré apprenticed himself to a barber-surgeon named Vialot, under whom he learnt to let blood, draw teeth, and perform the minor operations. After four years’ experience of this kind, he went to Paris to study at the school of anatomy and surgery, meanwhile maintaining himself by his trade of a barber. He afterwards succeeded in obtaining an appointment as assistant at the Hôtel Dieu, where his conduct was so exemplary, and his progress so marked, that the chief surgeon, Goupil, entrusted him with the charge of the patients whom he could not himself attend to. After the usual course of instruction, Paré was admitted a master barber-surgeon, and shortly after was appointed to a charge with the French army under Montmorenci in Piedmont. Paré was not a man to follow in the ordinary ruts of his profession, but brought the resources of an ardent and original mind to bear upon his daily work, diligently thinking out for himself the rationale of diseases and their befitting remedies. Before his time the wounded suffered much more at the hands of their surgeons than they did at those of their enemies. To stop bleeding from gunshot wounds, the barbarous expedient was resorted to of dressing them with boiling oil. Hæmorrhage was also stopped by searing the wounds with a red-hot iron; and when amputation was necessary, it was performed with a red-hot knife. At first Paré treated wounds according to the approved methods; but, fortunately, on one occasion, running short of boiling oil, he substituted a mild and emollient application. He was in great fear all night lest he should have done wrong in adopting this treatment; but was greatly relieved next morning on finding his patients comparatively comfortable, while those whose wounds had been treated in the usual way were writhing in torment. Such was the casual origin of one of Paré’s greatest improvements in the treatment of gun-shot wounds; and he proceeded to adopt the emollient treatment in all future cases. Another still more important improvement was his employment of the ligature in tying arteries to stop hæmorrhage, instead of the actual cautery. Paré, however, met with the usual fate of innovators and reformers. His practice was denounced by his surgical brethren as dangerous, unprofessional, and empirical; and the older surgeons banded themselves together to resist its adoption. They reproached him for his want of education, more especially for his ignorance of Latin and Greek; and they assailed him with quotations from ancient writers, which he was unable either to verify or refute. But the best answer to his assailants was the success of his practice. The wounded soldiers called out everywhere for Paré, and he was always at their service: he tended them carefully and affectionately; and he usually took leave of them with the words, “I have dressed you; may God cure you.”

After three years’ active service as army-surgeon, Paré returned to Paris with such a reputation that he was at once appointed surgeon in ordinary to the King.When Metz was besieged by the Spanish army, under Charles V., the garrison suffered heavy loss, and the number of wounded was very great.The surgeons were few and incompetent, and probably slew more by their bad treatment than the Spaniards did by the sword.The Duke of Guise, who commanded the garrison, wrote to the King imploring him to send Paré to his help.The courageous surgeon at once set out, and, after braving many dangers (to use his own words, “d’estre pendu, estranglé ou mis en pièces”), he succeeded in passing the enemy’s lines, and entered Metz in safety.The Duke, the generals, and the captains gave him an affectionate welcome; while the soldiers, when they heard of his arrival, cried, “We no longer fear dying of our wounds; our friend is among us.”In the following year Paré was in like manner with the besieged in the town of Hesdin, which shortly fell before the Duke of Savoy, and he was taken prisoner.But having succeeded in curing one of the enemy’s chief officers of a serious wound, he was discharged without ransom, and returned in safety to Paris.

The rest of his life was occupied in study, in self-improvement, in piety, and in good deeds.Urged by some of the most learned among his contemporaries, he placed on record the results of his surgical experience, in twenty-eight books, which were published by him at different times.His writings are valuable and remarkable chiefly on account of the great number of facts and cases contained in them, and the care with which he avoids giving any directions resting merely upon theory unsupported by observation.Paré continued, though a Protestant, to hold the office of surgeon in ordinary to the King; and during the Massacre of St.Bartholomew he owed his life to the personal friendship of Charles IX., whom he had on one occasion saved from the dangerous effects of a wound inflicted by a clumsy surgeon in performing the operation of venesection.Brantôme, in his ‘Mémoires,’ thus speaks of the King’s rescue of Paré on the night of Saint Bartholomew—“He sent to fetch him, and to remain during the night in his chamber and wardrobe-room, commanding him not to stir, and saying that it was not reasonable that a man who had preserved the lives of so many people should himself be massacred.”Thus Paré escaped the horrors of that fearful night, which he survived for many years, and was permitted to die in peace, full of age and honours.

Harvey was as indefatigable a labourer as any we have named.He spent not less than eight long years of investigation and research before he published 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 encounter from the profession on making known his discovery.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 ridicule, 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 subvert 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 ripened by further observation, and after a period of about twenty-five years, it became generally recognised as an established scientific truth.

The difficulties encountered by Dr. Jenner in promulgating and establishing his discovery of vaccination as a preventive of small-pox, were even greater than those of Harvey. Many, before him, had witnessed the cow-pox, and had heard of the report current among the milkmaids in Gloucestershire, that whoever had taken that disease was secure against small-pox. It was a trifling, vulgar rumour, supposed to have no significance whatever; and no one had thought it worthy of investigation, until it was accidentally brought under the notice of Jenner. He was a youth, pursuing his studies at Sodbury, when his attention was arrested by the casual observation made by a country girl who came to his master’s shop for advice. The small-pox was mentioned, when the girl said, “I can’t take that disease, for I have had cow-pox.” The observation immediately riveted Jenner’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 prophylactic 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 anatomist was thoroughly characteristic: “Don’t think, but try; be patient, be accurate.”Jenner’s courage was 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 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 that this treatise was published; though he had been working out his ideas since the year 1775, when they had begun to assume a definite form.

How was the discovery received?First with indifference, then with active hostility.Jenner proceeded to London to exhibit to the profession the process of vaccination and its results; but not a single medical man could be induced to make trial of it, and after fruitlessly waiting for nearly three months, he 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.Vaccination was denounced from the pulpit as “diabolical.”It was averred that vaccinated children became “ox-faced,” that abscesses broke out to “indicate sprouting 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 permitted themselves to be vaccinated were absolutely pelted and driven into their houses if they appeared out of doors.Two ladies of title—Lady Ducie and the Countess of Berkeley—to their honour be it remembered—had the courage to vaccinate their children; 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. Jenner of the merit of the discovery, when its importance came to be recognised.Jenner’s cause at last triumphed, and he was publicly honoured and rewarded.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 10,000l. 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.” During Jenner’s own life-time the practice of vaccination became adopted all over the civilized world; and when he died, his title as a Benefactor of his kind was recognised far and wide. Cuvier has said, “If vaccine were the only discovery of the epoch, it would serve to render it illustrious for ever; yet it knocked twenty times in vain at the doors of the Academies.”

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 Anaxagoras 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 the subject, based upon a long series of careful, accurate, and oft-repeated experiments.Elaborately tracing the development of the nervous system up from the lowest order of animated being, to man—the lord of the animal kingdom,—he displayed it, to use his own words, “as plainly as if it were written in our mother-tongue.”His 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 sensation by the other.The subject occupied the mind 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 recognised, numerous claims for priority in making the discovery were set up at home and abroad.Like them, too, he lost practice by the publication of his 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 practitioner.The great merits of Sir Charles Bell were, however, at length fully recognised; and Cuvier himself, when on his death-bed, finding his face distorted and drawn to one side, pointed out the symptom to his attendants as a proof of the correctness of Sir Charles Bell’s theory.

An equally devoted pursuer of the same branch of science was the late 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 exceedingly simple circumstance.When investigating the pneumonic circulation in the Triton, the decapitated object lay upon the table; and on separating the tail and accidentally pricking the external integument, he observed that it moved with energy, and became contorted into various forms. He had not touched a muscle or a muscular nerve; what then was the nature of these movements?The same phenomena had probably been often observed before, 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 investigation.He was at the same time carrying on an extensive private practice, and officiating as lecturer at St.Thomas’s Hospital and other Medical Schools.It will scarcely be credited that the paper in which he embodied 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.

The life of Sir William Herschel affords another remarkable illustration of the force of perseverance in another branch of science.His father was a poor German musician, who brought up his four sons to the same calling.William came over to England to seek his fortune, 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 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 advantages of Dr. Miller’s library to study at 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.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 telescope is, and the skill which is required to prepare the concave metallic speculum which forms the most important part of the apparatus, will be able to form some idea of the difficulty of this undertaking.Nevertheless, Herschel succeeded, after long and painful labour, in completing a five-foot reflector, with which he had the gratification of observing the ring and satellites of Saturn.Not satisfied with his 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 applied to it,—a striking instance of the persevering laboriousness of the man.While gauging the heavens with his instruments, he continued patiently to earn his bread by piping to the fashionable frequenters of the Pump-room.So eager was he in his astronomical observations, that he would steal away from the room during an interval of the performance, give a little turn at 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 calculated, and sent the result to the Royal Society; when the humble oboe player found himself at once elevated from obscurity to fame.He was shortly after appointed Astronomer Royal, and by the kindness of George III.was placed in a position of honourable competency for life.He bore his honours 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 cannot be found in the entire history of biography.

The career of William Smith, the father of English geology, though perhaps less known, is not 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 farmer at Churchill, in Oxfordshire.His father dying when he was but a child, he received a very sparing education at the village 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 “poundstones,” “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 destined 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, attempted to colour, and practised the arts of mensuration and surveying, all without regular instruction; and by his efforts in self-culture, he shortly became so proficient, that he was taken on as assistant to a local surveyor of ability in the neighbourhood.In carrying on his business he was constantly under the necessity of traversing Oxfordshire and the adjoining counties.One of the first things he seriously pondered over, was the position of the various soils and strata that came under his notice on the lands which he surveyed or travelled over; more especially the position of the red earth in regard to the lias and superincumbent rocks.The surveys of numerous collieries which he was called upon to make, gave him further experience; and already, when only twenty-three years of age, he contemplated making a model of the strata of the earth.

While engaged in levelling for a proposed canal in Gloucestershire, the idea of a general law occurred to him relating to the strata of that district.He conceived that the strata lying above the coal were not laid horizontally, 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 observations of the strata in two parallel valleys, the “red ground,” “lias,” and “freestone” or “oolite,” being found to come down in an eastern direction, and to sink below the level, yielding place to the next in succession.He was shortly enabled to verify the truth of his views on a larger scale, having been appointed to examine personally into the management of canals in England and Wales.During his journeys, which extended from Bath to Newcastle-on-Tyne, returning 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 post chaise 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 south-east; that the red sandstones and marls above the coal measures passed beneath the lias, clay, and limestone, that these again passed beneath the sands, yellow limestones and clays, forming the table-land of the Cotswold Hills, while these in turn passed beneath the great chalk deposits occupying the eastern parts of England.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 deposit of marine animals, in these several strata, indicated 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 proceeded to project a map of the stratification of England; but was for some time deterred from proceeding with it, being fully occupied in carrying out the works of the Somersetshire coal canal, which engaged him for a period of about six years.He continued, nevertheless, to be unremitting in his observation of facts; and he became so expert in apprehending 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 extensive tracts of land, in which, guided by his geological knowledge, he proved remarkably successful, and acquired 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 re-arranging the fossils in their stratigraphical order, saying—“These came from the blue lias, these from the over-lying 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.The geologists of the day were not, however, so easily convinced; and it was scarcely to be tolerated that an unknown 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 neighbourhood 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 descending 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 remarkable fossils which had been gathered in the several layers of rock.This was printed and extensively circulated 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, sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, riding on 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 ordinary business engagements.When he was professionally called away to any distance from home—as, for instance, when travelling from Bath to Holkham, in Norfolk, to direct the irrigation and drainage of Mr. Coke’s land in that county—he rode on horseback, making frequent detours from the road to note the geological features 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 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 observation, howsoever trivial it might appear, was neglected, and no opportunity of collecting fresh facts was overlooked. 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 coloured them up. Of his keenness of observation take the following illustration. When making one of his geological excursions about the country near Woburn, 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 shark’s 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 thought of a journey; so that I generally 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 industry, 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 labour.To prosecute his inquiries, and collect the extensive series of facts and observations requisite for his purpose, he had to expend the whole of the profits of his professional labours during that period; and he even sold off his small property to provide the means of visiting remoter parts of the island.Meanwhile he had entered on a quarrying speculation near Bath, which proved unsuccessful, and he was under the necessity of selling his geological 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 exemplary fortitude; and amidst all, he went on working with cheerful courage and untiring patience.He died at Northampton, in August, 1839, while on his way to attend the meeting of the British Association 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 accomplished 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 historical 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 rocks of Wales and the north of England by Murchison and Sedgwick being the chief additions made to his great generalizations.” [149] The genius of the Oxfordshire surveyor did not fail to be duly recognised and honoured by men of science during his lifetime. In 1831 the Geological Society of London awarded to him the Wollaston medal, “in consideration of his being a great original 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 succession by means of their imbedded 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 like observant faculties, who studied literature as well as science with zeal and success.The book in which he has 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 character in the humblest condition of life; and inculcates most powerfully the lessons of self-help, self-respect, and self-dependence.While Hugh was but a child, his father, who was a sailor, was drowned at sea, and he was 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, the friends and relatives with whom he lived.He read much and miscellaneously, and picked up odd sorts of knowledge from many quarters,—from workmen, carpenters, fishermen and sailors, and above all, from the old boulders strewed along the shores of the Cromarty Frith.With a big hammer which had belonged to his great-grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went about chipping the stones, and accumulating 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 came in his way.While searching among the rocks on the beach, he was sometimes asked, in 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 in the affirmative.When of a suitable age he was apprenticed to the trade of his choice—that of a working stonemason; and he began his labouring career in a quarry looking out upon the Cromarty Frith.This quarry proved one of his best schools.The remarkable geological formations which it displayed awakened his curiosity.The bar of deep-red stone beneath, and the bar of pale-red clay above, were noted by the young quarryman, who even in such unpromising subjects found matter for observation and reflection.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 were revealed along the coast by the washings of the waves, or were exposed by the stroke of his mason’s hammer.He never lost sight of the subject; but went on accumulating observations and comparing formations, until at length, many years afterwards, when no longer a working mason, 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 modestly 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 developed, may lead to more extraordinary developments of idea than even genius itself.”

The late John Brown, the eminent English geologist, was, like Miller, a stonemason in his early life, serving an apprenticeship to the trade at Colchester, and afterwards working as a journeyman mason at Norwich.He began business as a builder on his own account at Colchester, where by frugality and industry he secured a competency.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 Sussex 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 useful, happy, and honoured; and he died at Stanway, in Essex, in November 1859, at the ripe age of eighty years.

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 delineated to him, by means of flour upon the board, the geographical features and geological phenomena of his native county, pointing out the imperfections in the existing maps, which he had ascertained by travelling over the country in his leisure hours.On further inquiry, Sir Roderick ascertained that the humble individual before him was not only a capital baker and geologist, but a first-rate botanist.“I found,” said the President of the Geographical Society, “to my great humiliation that the 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 arranged in the most beautiful order, with their scientific names affixed.”

Sir Roderick Murchison himself is an illustrious follower of these and kindred branches of science.A writer in the ‘Quarterly 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, instead of remaining a fox-hunting country gentleman, has succeeded by his own native vigour and sagacity, untiring industry and zeal, in making for himself a scientific reputation 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 labour 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 applied the knowledge thus acquired to the dissection of large districts, both at home and abroad, so as to become the geological discoverer of great countries which had formerly been ‘terræ incognitæ.’” But Sir Roderick Murchison is not merely a geologist.His indefatigable labours in many branches of knowledge have contributed to render him among the most accomplished and complete of scientific men.

CHAPTER VI.
Workers in Art

“If what shone afar so grand,
Turn to nothing in thy hand,
On again; the virtue lies
In struggle, not the prize.” —R.M.Milnes

“Excelle, et tu vivras.”—Joubert

Excellence in art, as in everything else, can only be achieved by dint of painstaking labour.

There is nothing less accidental than the painting of a fine picture or the chiselling of a noble statue.Every skilled touch of the artist’s brush or chisel, though guided by genius, is the product of unremitting study.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was such a believer in the force of industry, that he held that artistic excellence, “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 resolved to excel must go to their work, willing or unwilling, morning, noon, and night: they will find it no play, but very hard labour.”But although diligent application is no doubt absolutely necessary for the achievement of the highest distinction in art, it is equally true that without the inborn genius, no amount of mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist.The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more avail than all the imparted education of the schools.

Some of the greatest artists have had to force their way upward in the face of poverty and manifold obstructions.Illustrious instances will at once flash upon the reader’s mind.Claude Lorraine, the pastrycook; Tintoretto, the dyer; the two Caravaggios, the one a colour-grinder, the other a mortar-carrier at the Vatican; Salvator Rosa, the associate of bandits; Giotto, the peasant boy; Zingaro, the gipsy; Cavedone, turned out of doors to beg by his father; Canova, the stone-cutter; these, and many other well-known artists, succeeded in achieving distinction by severe study and labour, under circumstances the most adverse.

Nor have the most distinguished artists of our own country been born in a position of life more than ordinarily favourable to the culture of artistic genius.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 carpenters; 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 painters, 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.

It was not by luck or accident that these men achieved distinction, but by sheer industry and hard work.Though some achieved wealth, yet this was rarely, if ever, the ruling motive.Indeed, no mere love of money could sustain the efforts of the artist in his early career of self-denial and application.The pleasure of the pursuit has always been its best reward; the wealth which followed but an accident.Many noble-minded artists have preferred following 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 labour.When Michael Angelo was asked his opinion respecting 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 labour; 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 labours. On these occasions, it was his practice to fix the candle, by the light of which he chiselled, on the summit of a paste-board 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 favourite device of an old man in a go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it bearing the inscription, Ancora imparo!Still I am learning.

Titian, also, was an indefatigable worker.His celebrated “Pietro Martire” 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—dopo sette anni lavorandovi quasi continuamente.”Few think of the patient labour and long training involved in the greatest works of the artist.They seem easy and quickly accomplished, yet with how great difficulty has this ease been acquired.“You charge me fifty sequins,” said the Venetian nobleman to the sculptor, “for a bust that cost you only ten days’ labour.”“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.

No matter how generous nature has been in bestowing the gift of genius, the pursuit of art is nevertheless a long and continuous labour.Many artists have been precocious, but without diligence their precocity would have come to nothing.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 by study, trials, and difficulties, and it has not been enduring.

Richard 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 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 success.”Wilson adopted the advice, studied and worked hard, and became our first great English landscape painter.

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.Gainsborough went sketching, when a schoolboy, in the woods of Sudbury; and at twelve he was a confirmed artist: he was a keen observer and a hard worker,—no picturesque 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 shop-bills, and making sketches on the counter.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 colours 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 labour, 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 alphabet, 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, but in his adornments he stood alone. His father put him apprentice to a silversmith, where he learnt to draw, and also to engrave spoons and forks with crests and ciphers. From silver-chasing, he went on to teach himself engraving 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 them on paper; but if any singularly fantastic form or outré 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. Everything 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 careful storing of his mind, he was afterwards enabled to crowd an immense amount of thought and treasured observation into his works. Hence it is that Hogarth’s pictures are so truthful a memorial of the character, the manners, and even the very thoughts of the times in which he lived. True painting, he himself observed, can only be learnt 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 slenderest kind, scarcely even perfecting him in the art of spelling; 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 paymaster.” When he had conquered all his difficulties and become a famous and thriving man, he loved to dwell upon his early labours and privations, and to fight over again the battle which ended so honourably 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 induced 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 overhearing 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 Academy, 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 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.

The fame of Claude Lorraine is partly explained by his indefatigable industry.Born at Champagne, in Lorraine, of poor parents, he was first apprenticed to a pastrycook.His brother, who was a wood-carver, afterwards took him into his shop to learn that trade.Having there shown indications of artistic skill, a travelling dealer persuaded the brother to allow Claude to accompany him to Italy.He assented, and the young man reached Rome, where he was shortly after engaged by Agostino Tassi, the landscape painter, as his house-servant.In that capacity Claude first learnt landscape painting, and in course of time he began to produce pictures.We next find him making the tour of Italy, France, and Germany, occasionally resting by the way to paint landscapes, and thereby replenish his purse.On returning to Rome he found an increasing demand for his works, and his reputation at length became European.He was unwearied in the study of nature in her various aspects.It was his practice to spend a great part of his time in closely copying buildings, bits of ground, trees, leaves, and such like, which he finished in detail, keeping the drawings by him in store for the purpose of introducing them in his studied landscapes.He also gave close attention to the sky, watching it for whole days from morning till night, and noting the various changes occasioned by the passing clouds and the increasing and waning light.By this constant practice he acquired, although it is said very slowly, such a mastery of hand and eye as eventually secured for him the first rank among landscape painters.

Turner, who has been styled “the English Claude,” pursued a career of like laborious industry.He was destined by his father for his own trade of a barber, which he carried on in London, 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, the latter was urged to allow his son to follow his bias, and he was eventually permitted to follow art as a profession.Like all young artists, Turner had many difficulties to encounter, and they were all the greater that his circumstances were so straitened.But he was always willing to work, and to take pains with his work, no matter how humble 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 expertness.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 laboured was sure to do much; and his growth in power and grasp of thought was, to use Ruskin’s words, “as steady as the increasing light of sunrise.”But Turner’s genius needs no panegyric; his best monument is the noble gallery of pictures bequeathed by him to the nation, which will ever be the most lasting memorial of his fame.

To reach Rome, the capital of the fine arts, is usually the highest ambition of the art student.But the journey to Rome is costly, and the student is often poor.With a will resolute to overcome difficulties, Rome may however at last be reached.Thus François Perrier, an early French painter, in his eager desire to visit the Eternal City, consented to act as guide to a blind vagrant.After long wanderings he reached the Vatican, studied and became famous.Not less enthusiasm was displayed by Jacques Callot in his determination to visit Rome.Though opposed by his father in his wish to be an artist, the boy would not be baulked, but fled from home to make his way to Italy.Having set out without means, he was soon reduced to great straits; but falling in with a band of gipsies, he joined their company, and wandered about with them from one fair to another, sharing in their numerous adventures.During this remarkable journey Callot picked up much of that extraordinary knowledge of figure, feature, and character which he afterwards reproduced, sometimes in such exaggerated forms, in his wonderful engravings.

When Callot at length reached Florence, a gentleman, pleased with his ingenious ardour, placed him with an artist to study; but he was not satisfied to stop short of Rome, and we find him shortly on his way thither.At Rome he made the acquaintance of Porigi and Thomassin, who, on seeing his crayon sketches, predicted for him a brilliant career as an artist.But a friend of Callot’s family having accidentally encountered him, took steps to compel the fugitive to return home.By this time he had acquired such a love of wandering that he could not rest; so he ran away a second time, and a second time he was brought back by his elder brother, who caught him at Turin.At last the father, seeing resistance was in vain, gave his reluctant consent to Callot’s prosecuting his studies at Rome.Thither he went accordingly; and this time he remained, diligently studying design and engraving for several years, under competent masters.On his way back to France, he was encouraged by Cosmo II.to remain at Florence, where he studied and worked for several years more.On the death of his patron he returned to his family at Nancy, where, by the use of his burin and needle, he shortly acquired both wealth and fame.When Nancy was taken by siege during the civil wars, Callot was requested by Richelieu to make a design and engraving of the event, but the artist would not commemorate the disaster which had befallen his native place, and he refused point-blank.Richelieu could not shake his resolution, and threw him into prison.There Callot met with some of his old friends the gipsies, who had relieved his wants on his first journey to Rome.When Louis XIII.heard of his imprisonment, he not only released him, but offered to grant him any favour he might ask.Callot immediately requested that his old companions, the gipsies, might be set free and permitted to beg in Paris without molestation.This odd request was granted on condition that Callot should engrave their portraits, and hence his curious book of engravings entitled “The Beggars.”Louis is said to have offered Callot a pension of 3000 livres provided he would not leave Paris; but the artist was now too much of a Bohemian, and prized his liberty too highly to permit him to accept it; and he returned to Nancy, where he worked till his death.His industry may be inferred from the number of his engravings and etchings, of which he left not fewer than 1600.He was especially fond of grotesque subjects, which he treated with great skill; his free etchings, touched with the graver, being executed with especial delicacy and wonderful minuteness.

Still more romantic and adventurous was the career of Benvenuto Cellini, the marvellous gold worker, painter, sculptor, engraver, engineer, and author.His life, as told by himself, is one of the most extraordinary autobiographies ever written.Giovanni Cellini, his father, was one of the Court musicians to Lorenzo de Medici at Florence; and his highest ambition concerning his son Benvenuto was that he should become an expert player on the flute.But Giovanni having lost his appointment, found it necessary to send his son to learn some trade, and he was apprenticed to a goldsmith.The boy had already displayed a love of drawing and of art; and, applying himself to his business, he soon became a dexterous workman.Having got mixed up in a quarrel with some of the townspeople, he was banished for six months, during which period he worked with a goldsmith at Sienna, gaining further experience in jewellery and gold-working.

His father still insisting on his becoming a flute-player, Benvenuto continued to practise on the instrument, though he detested it.His chief pleasure was in art, which he pursued with enthusiasm.Returning to Florence, he carefully studied the designs of Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo; and, still further to improve himself in gold-working, he went on foot to Rome, where he met with a variety of adventures.He returned to Florence with the reputation of being a most expert worker in the precious metals, and his skill was soon in great request.But being of an irascible temper, he was constantly getting into scrapes, and was frequently under the necessity of flying for his life.Thus he fled from Florence in the disguise of a friar, again taking refuge at Sienna, and afterwards at Rome.

During his second residence in Rome, Cellini met with extensive patronage, and he was taken into the Pope’s service in the double capacity of goldsmith and musician.He was constantly studying and improving himself by acquaintance with the works of the best masters.He mounted jewels, finished enamels, engraved seals, and designed and executed works in gold, silver, and bronze, in such a style as to excel all other artists.Whenever he heard of a goldsmith who was famous in any particular branch, he immediately determined to surpass him.Thus it was that he rivalled the medals of one, the enamels of another, and the jewellery of a third; in fact, there was not a branch of his business that he did not feel impelled to excel in.

Working in this spirit, it is not so wonderful that Cellini should have been able to accomplish so much.He was a man of indefatigable activity, and was constantly on the move.At one time we find him at Florence, at another at Rome; then he is at Mantua, at Rome, at Naples, and back to Florence again; then at Venice, and in Paris, making all his long journeys on horseback.He could not carry much luggage with him; so, wherever he went, he usually began by making his own tools.He not only designed his works, but executed them himself,—hammered and carved, and cast and shaped them with his own hands.Indeed, his works have the impress of genius so clearly stamped upon them, that they could never have been designed by one person, and executed by another.The humblest article—a buckle for a lady’s girdle, a seal, a locket, a brooch, a ring, or a button—became in his hands a beautiful work of art.

Cellini was remarkable for his readiness and dexterity in handicraft.One day a surgeon entered the shop of Raffaello del Moro, the goldsmith, to perform an operation on his daughter’s hand.On looking at the surgeon’s instruments, Cellini, who was present, found them rude and clumsy, as they usually were in those days, and he asked the surgeon to proceed no further with the operation for a quarter of an hour.He then ran to his shop, and taking a piece of the finest steel, wrought out of it a beautifully finished knife, with which the operation was successfully performed.

Among the statues executed by Cellini, the most important are the silver figure of Jupiter, executed at Paris for Francis I., and the Perseus, executed in bronze for the Grand Duke Cosmo of Florence.He also executed statues in marble of Apollo, Hyacinthus, Narcissus, and Neptune.The extraordinary incidents connected with the casting of the Perseus were peculiarly illustrative of the remarkable character of the man.

The Grand Duke having expressed a decided opinion that the model, when shown to him in wax, could not possibly be cast in bronze, Cellini was immediately stimulated by the predicted impossibility, not only to attempt, but to do it.He first made the clay model, baked it, and covered it with wax, which he shaped into the perfect form of a statue.Then coating the wax with a sort of earth, he baked the second covering, during which the wax dissolved and escaped, leaving the space between the two layers for the reception of the metal.To avoid disturbance, the latter process was conducted in a pit dug immediately under the furnace, from which the liquid metal was to be introduced by pipes and apertures into the mould prepared for it.

Cellini had purchased and laid in several loads of pine-wood, in anticipation of the process of casting, which now began.The furnace was filled with pieces of brass and bronze, and the fire was lit.The resinous pine-wood was soon in such a furious blaze, that the shop took fire, and part of the roof was burnt; while at the same time the wind blowing and the rain filling on the furnace, kept down the heat, and prevented the metals from melting.For hours Cellini struggled to keep up the heat, continually throwing in more wood, until at length he became so exhausted and ill, that he feared he should die before the statue could be cast.He was forced to leave to his assistants the pouring in of the metal when melted, and betook himself to his bed.While those about him were condoling with him in his distress, a workman suddenly entered the room, lamenting that “Poor Benvenuto’s work was irretrievably spoiled!”On hearing this, Cellini immediately sprang from his bed and rushed to the workshop, where he found the fire so much gone down that the metal had again become hard.

Sending across to a neighbour for a load of young oak which had been more than a year in drying, he soon had the fire blazing again and the metal melting and glittering.The wind was, however, still blowing with fury, and the rain falling heavily; so, to protect himself, Cellini had some tables with pieces of tapestry and old clothes brought to him, behind which he went on hurling the wood into the furnace.A mass of pewter was thrown in upon the other metal, and by stirring, sometimes with iron and sometimes with long poles, the whole soon became completely melted.At this juncture, when the trying moment was close at hand, a terrible noise as of a thunderbolt was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before Cellini’s eyes.The cover of the furnace had burst, and the metal began to flow!Finding that it did not run with the proper velocity, Cellini rushed into the kitchen, bore away every piece of copper and pewter that it contained—some two hundred porringers, dishes, and kettles of different kinds—and threw them into the furnace.Then at length the metal flowed freely, and thus the splendid statue of Perseus was cast.

The divine fury of genius in which Cellini rushed to his kitchen and stripped it of its utensils for the purposes of his furnace, will remind the reader of the like act of Pallissy in breaking up his furniture for the purpose of baking his earthenware.Excepting, however, in their enthusiasm, no two men could be less alike in character.Cellini was an Ishmael against whom, according to his own account, every man’s hand was turned.But about his extraordinary skill as a workman, and his genius as an artist, there cannot be two opinions.

Much less turbulent was the career of Nicolas Poussin, a man as pure and elevated in his ideas of art as he was in his daily life, and distinguished alike for his vigour of intellect, his rectitude of character, and his noble simplicity.He was born in a very humble station, at Andeleys, near Rouen, where his father kept a small school.The boy had the benefit of his parent’s instruction, such as it was, but of that he is said to have been somewhat negligent, preferring to spend his time in covering his lesson-books and his slate with drawings.A country painter, much pleased with his sketches, besought his parents not to thwart him in his tastes.The painter agreed to give Poussin lessons, and he soon made such progress that his master had nothing more to teach him.Becoming restless, and desirous of further improving himself, Poussin, at the age of 18, set out for Paris, painting signboards on his way for a maintenance.

At Paris a new world of art opened before him, exciting his wonder and stimulating his emulation.He worked diligently in many studios, drawing, copying, and painting pictures.After a time, he resolved, if possible, to visit Rome, and set out on his journey; but he only succeeded in getting as far as Florence, and again returned to Paris.A second attempt which he made to reach Rome was even less successful; for this time he only got as far as Lyons.He was, nevertheless, careful to take advantage of all opportunities for improvement which came in his way, and continued as sedulous as before in studying and working.

Thus twelve years passed, years of obscurity and toil, of failures and disappointments, and probably of privations.At length Poussin succeeded in reaching Rome.There he diligently studied the old masters, and especially the ancient statues, with whose perfection he was greatly impressed.For some time he lived with the sculptor Duquesnoi, as poor as himself, and assisted him in modelling figures after the antique.With him he carefully measured some of the most celebrated statues in Rome, more particularly the ‘Antinous:’ and it is supposed that this practice exercised considerable influence on the formation of his future style.At the same time he studied anatomy, practised drawing from the life, and made a great store of sketches of postures and attitudes of people whom he met, carefully reading at his leisure such standard books on art as he could borrow from his friends.

During all this time he remained very poor, satisfied to be continually improving himself.He was glad to sell his pictures for whatever they would bring.One, of a prophet, he sold for eight livres; and another, the ‘Plague of the Philistines,’ he sold for 60 crowns—a picture afterwards bought by Cardinal de Richelieu for a thousand.To add to his troubles, he was stricken by a cruel malady, during the helplessness occasioned by which the Chevalier del Posso assisted him with money.For this gentleman Poussin afterwards painted the ‘Rest in the Desert,’ a fine picture, which far more than repaid the advances made during his illness.

The brave man went on toiling and learning through suffering.Still aiming at higher things, he went to Florence and Venice, enlarging the range of his studies.The fruits of his conscientious labour at length appeared in the series of great pictures which he now began to produce,—his ‘Death of Germanicus,’ followed by ‘Extreme Unction,’ the ‘Testament of Eudamidas,’ the ‘Manna,’ and the ‘Abduction of the Sabines.’

The reputation of Poussin, however, grew but slowly.He was of a retiring disposition and shunned society.People gave him credit for being a thinker much more than a painter.When not actually employed in painting, he took long solitary walks in the country, meditating the designs of future pictures.One of his few friends while at Rome was Claude Lorraine, with whom he spent many hours at a time on the terrace of La Trinité-du-Mont, conversing about art and antiquarianism.The monotony and the quiet of Rome were suited to his taste, and, provided he could earn a moderate living by his brush, he had no wish to leave it.

But his fame now extended beyond Rome, and repeated invitations were sent him to return to Paris. He was offered the appointment of principal painter to the King. At first he hesitated; quoted the Italian proverb, Chi sta bene non si muove; said he had lived fifteen years in Rome, married a wife there, and looked forward to dying and being buried there.Urged again, he consented, and returned to Paris.But his appearance there awakened much professional jealousy, and he soon wished himself back in Rome again.While in Paris he painted some of his greatest works—his ‘Saint Xavier,’ the ‘Baptism,’ and the ‘Last Supper.’He was kept constantly at work.At first he did whatever he was asked to do, such as designing frontispieces for the royal books, more particularly a Bible and a Virgil, cartoons for the Louvre, and designs for tapestry; but at length he expostulated:—“It is impossible for me,” he said to M.de Chanteloup, “to work at the same time at frontispieces for books, at a Virgin, at a picture of the Congregation of St.Louis, at the various designs for the gallery, and, finally, at designs for the royal tapestry.I have only one pair of hands and a feeble head, and can neither be helped nor can my labours be lightened by another.”

Annoyed by the enemies his success had provoked and whom he was unable to conciliate, he determined, at the end of less than two years’ labour in Paris, to return to Rome.Again settled there in his humble dwelling on Mont Pincio, he employed himself diligently in the practice of his art during the remaining years of his life, living in great simplicity and privacy.Though suffering much from the disease which afflicted him, he solaced himself by study, always striving after excellence.“In growing old,” he said, “I feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection.”Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later years.He had no children; his wife died before him; all his friends were gone: so that in his old age he was left absolutely alone in Rome, so full of tombs, and died there in 1665, bequeathing to his relatives at Andeleys the savings of his life, amounting to about 1000 crowns; and leaving behind him, as a legacy to his race, the great works of his genius.

The career of Ary Scheffer furnishes one of the best examples in modern times of a like high-minded devotion to art.Born at Dordrecht, the son of a German artist, he early manifested an aptitude for drawing and painting, which his parents encouraged.His father dying while he was still young, his mother resolved, though her means were but small, to remove the family to Paris, in order that her son might obtain the best opportunities for instruction.There young Scheffer was placed with Guérin the painter.But his mother’s means were too limited to permit him to devote himself exclusively to study.She had sold the few jewels she possessed, and refused herself every indulgence, in order to forward the instruction of her other children.Under such circumstances, it was natural that Ary should wish to help her; and by the time he was eighteen years of age he began to paint small pictures of simple subjects, which met with a ready sale at moderate prices.He also practised portrait painting, at the same time gathering experience and earning honest money.He gradually improved in drawing, colouring, and composition.The ‘Baptism’ marked a new epoch in his career, and from that point he went on advancing, until his fame culminated in his pictures illustrative of ‘Faust,’ his ‘Francisca de Rimini,’ ‘Christ the Consoler,’ the ‘Holy Women,’ ‘St.Monica and St.Augustin,’ and many other noble works.

“The amount of labour, thought, and attention,” says Mrs. Grote, “which Scheffer brought to the production of the ‘Francisca,’ must have been enormous. In truth, his technical education having been so imperfect, he was forced to climb the steep of art by drawing upon his own resources, and thus, whilst his hand was at work, his mind was engaged in meditation. He had to try various processes of handling, and experiments in colouring; to paint and repaint, with tedious and unremitting assiduity. But Nature had endowed him with that which proved in some sort an equivalent for shortcomings of a professional kind. His own elevation of character, and his profound sensibility, aided him in acting upon the feelings of others through the medium of the pencil.” [173]

One of the artists whom Scheffer most admired was Flaxman; and he once said to a friend, “If I have unconsciously borrowed from any one in the design of the ‘Francisca,’ it must have been from something I had seen among Flaxman’s drawings.”John Flaxman was the son of a humble seller of plaster casts in New Street, Covent Garden.When a child, he was such an invalid that it was his custom to sit behind his father’s shop counter propped by pillows, amusing himself with drawing and reading.A benevolent clergyman, the Rev.Mr. Matthews, calling at the shop one day, saw the boy trying to read a book, and on inquiring what it was, found it to be 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 one.The next day he called with translations of Homer and ‘Don Quixote,’ which the boy proceeded to read with great avidity.His mind was soon filled with the heroism which breathed through the pages of the former, and, with the stucco Ajaxes and Achilleses about him, ranged along the shop shelves, the ambition took possession of him, that he too would design and embody in poetic forms those majestic heroes.

Like all youthful efforts, his first designs were crude.The proud father one day showed some of 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 labour incessantly 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 preserved, not because of their merit, but because they are curious as the first healthy efforts of patient genius.It was long before the boy could walk, and he only learnt to do so by hobbling along upon crutches.At length he became strong enough to walk without them.

The kind Mr. Matthews invited 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.By dint of patience and perseverance, his drawing improved so much that he obtained a commission from a lady, to execute six original drawings in black chalk of subjects in Homer.His first commission!What an event in the artist’s life!A surgeon’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 aspirant for fame than the artist’s first commission.The boy at once proceeded to execute the order, and he was both well praised and well paid for his work.

At fifteen Flaxman entered a pupil at the Royal Academy.Notwithstanding his retiring disposition, he soon became known among the students, and great things were expected of him.Nor were their expectations disappointed: in 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.Yet he lost it, and the gold medal was adjudged to a pupil 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 recognise.”He redoubled his efforts, spared no pains, designed and modelled incessantly, and 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 himself 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 department 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 familiarised him with steady work, and cultivated in him the spirit of patience.The discipline may have been hard, but it was wholesome.

Happily, young Flaxman’s skill in design had reached the knowledge of Josiah Wedgwood, who sought him out for the purpose of employing him to design improved patterns of china and earthenware.It may seem a humble department of art for such a genius as Flaxman to work in; but it really was not so.An artist may be labouring truly in his vocation while designing a common teapot or water-jug.Articles in daily use amongst the people, which are before their eyes at every meal, may be made the vehicles of education to all, and minister to their highest culture.The most ambitious artist way thus confer a greater practical benefit on his countrymen than by executing an elaborate work which he may sell for thousands of pounds to be placed in some wealthy man’s gallery where it is hidden away from public sight.Before 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.Flaxman did his best to carry out the manufacturer’s views.He supplied him from time to time with models and designs of various pieces of earthenware, the subjects of which were principally from ancient verse and history.Many of them are still in existence, and some are equal in beauty and simplicity to his after designs for marble.The celebrated Etruscan vases, specimens 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 devices.Stuart’s ‘Athens,’ then recently published, furnished him with specimens of the purest-shaped Greek utensils; of these he adopted the best, and worked them into new shapes of elegance and beauty.Flaxman then saw that he was labouring in a great work—no less than the promotion of popular education; and he was proud, in after life, to allude to his early labours in this walk, 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.

At length, in the year 1782, when twenty-seven years of age, he quitted his father’s roof and rented a small house and studio in Wardour Street, Soho; and what was more, he married—Ann Denman was the name of his wife—and a cheerful, bright-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 enthusiastic admirer of her husband’s genius. Yet when Sir Joshua Reynolds—himself a bachelor—met Flaxman 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 bring the whole powers of their mind to bear upon their art, from the moment they rose until they went to bed; and also, that no man could be a great artist unless 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, “I 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 economise,” rejoined the brave wife; “I will never have it said that Ann Denman ruined John Flaxman for an artist.”And so it was determined 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 the affectionate couple plodded on during five years in their humble little home in Wardour Street, always with the long journey to Rome before them.It was never lost sight of for a moment, and not a 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 labour and love to pursue and achieve their object.During this time Flaxman exhibited 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 Wedgwood, who was a prompt paymaster; and, on the whole, he was thriving, happy, and hopeful.His local respectability was even such as to bring local honours and local work upon him; for he was elected by the ratepayers 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 button-hole, collecting the money.

At length Flaxman and his wife having accumulated a sufficient store of savings, set out for Rome.Arrived there, he applied himself diligently to study, maintaining 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, Æschylus, and Dante.The price paid for them was moderate—only fifteen shillings a-piece; but Flaxman worked for art as well as money; and the beauty of the designs brought him other friends and patrons.He executed Cupid and Aurora for the munificent Thomas Hope, and the Fury of Athamas for the Earl of Bristol.He then prepared to return to England, his taste improved and cultivated by careful study; but before he left Italy, the Academies of Florence and Carrara recognised his merit by electing him a member.

His fame had preceded him to London, where he soon found abundant employment.While at Rome he had been commissioned to execute his famous monument 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 monument 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 members of the Royal Academy heard of Flaxman’s return, and especially when they had an opportunity of seeing and admiring his portrait-statue of Mansfield, they were eager to have him enrolled among their number.He allowed his name to be proposed in the candidates’ list of associates, and was immediately elected.Shortly after, he appeared in an entirely new character.The little boy who had begun his studies behind the plaster-cast-seller’s shop-counter in New Street, Covent Garden, was now a man of high intellect and recognised supremacy in art, to instruct students, in the character of Professor of Sculpture to the Royal Academy!And no man better deserved to fill that distinguished office; for none is so able to instruct others as he who, for himself and by his own efforts, has learnt to grapple with and overcome difficulties.

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.

Chantrey was a more robust man;—somewhat rough, but hearty in his demeanour; 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 neighbouring 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 position, 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 that object.His friends consented, and he was bound apprentice to the 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-improvement, and he often carried his labours far into the night.Before his apprenticeship was out—at the ace of twenty-one—he paid over to his master the whole wealth which he was able to muster—a sum of 50l.—to cancel his indentures, determined to devote himself to the career of an artist.He then made the best of his way to London, and with characteristic good sense, sought employment as an assistant carver, studying painting and modelling at his bye-hours.Among the jobs on which he was first 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 years a welcome visitor; and he usually took pleasure in pointing out his early handywork to the guests whom he met at his friend’s table.

Returning to Sheffield on a professional visit, he advertised himself in the local papers as a painter of portraits in crayons and miniatures, and also in oil.For his first crayon portrait he was paid a guinea by a cutler; and for a portrait in oil, a confectioner paid him as much as 5l. 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 paint portraits of them. He was even selected to design a monument to a deceased vicar of the town, and executed it to the 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 Greenwich. This commission led to others, and painting was given up. But for eight years before, he had not earned 5l. by his modelling. His famous head of Horne Tooke was such a success that, according to his own account, it brought him commissions amounting to 12,000l.

Chantrey had now succeeded, but he had worked hard, and fairly earned his good 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 Sleeping Children, now in Lichfield Cathedral,—a work of great tenderness and beauty; and thenceforward his career was one of increasing honour, fame, and prosperity.His patience, industry, and steady perseverance were the means by which he achieved his greatness.Nature endowed him with genius, and his sound sense enabled him to employ the precious 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 containing 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 perfectly artless and simple.His generosity to brother artists in need was splendid, but quiet and unostentatious.He left the principal part of his fortune to the Royal Academy for the promotion of British art.

The same honest and persistent industry was throughout distinctive of the career of David Wilkie.The son of a 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, were 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 ragged 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 housewives.In short, notwithstanding the aversion of his father, the minister, to the “sinful” profession of painting, 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 application 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 determination to succeed, as if with a resolute confidence in the result.He displayed none of the eccentric humour 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 afterwards accustomed to attribute his success to his dogged 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 turning 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 labour, 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, retouching, and improving them until they finally passed out of his hands. As with Reynolds, his motto was “Work! work! work!” and, like him, he expressed great dislike for talking artists. Talkers may sow, but the silent reap. “Let us be doing something,” was his oblique mode of rebuking the loquacious and admonishing the idle. He once related to his friend Constable that when he studied at the Scottish Academy, Graham, the master of it, was accustomed to say to the students, in the words of Reynolds, “If you have genius, industry will improve it; if you have none, industry will supply its place.” “So,” said Wilkie, “I was determined to be very industrious, for I knew I had no genius.” He also told Constable that when Linnell and Burnett, his fellow-students in London, were talking about art, he always contrived to get as close to them as he could to hear all they said, “for,” said he, “they know a great deal, and I know very little.” This was said with perfect sincerity, for Wilkie was habitually modest. One of the first things that he did with the sum of thirty pounds which he obtained from Lord Mansfield for his Village Politicians, was to buy a present—of bonnets, shawls, and dresses—for his mother and sister at home, though but little able to afford it at the time. Wilkie’s early poverty had trained him in habits of strict economy, which were, however, consistent with a noble liberality, as appears from sundry passages in the Autobiography of Abraham Raimbach the engraver.

William Etty was another notable instance of unflagging industry and indomitable perseverance in art.His father was a ginger-bread and spicemaker at York, and his mother—a woman of considerable force and originality of character—was the daughter of a ropemaker.The boy early displayed a love of drawing, covering walls, floors, and tables with specimens of his skill; his first crayon being a farthing’s worth of chalk, and this giving place to a piece of coal or a bit of charred stick.His mother, knowing nothing of art, put the boy apprentice to a trade—that of a printer.But in his leisure hours he went on with the practice of drawing; and when his time was out he determined to follow his bent—he would be a painter and nothing else.Fortunately his uncle and elder brother were able and willing to help him on in his new career, and they provided him with the means of entering as pupil at the Royal Academy.We observe, from Leslie’s Autobiography, that Etty was looked upon by his fellow students as a worthy but dull, plodding person, who would never distinguish himself.But he had in him the divine faculty of work, and diligently plodded his way upward to eminence in the highest walks of art.

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 while 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 brightness, 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 him, 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 rummaged his trunk for some remaining crust to satisfy his hunger. Upheld throughout by the victorious power of enthusiasm, he pursued his design with unsubdued energy. He had the courage to work on and to wait; and when, a few days after, he found an opportunity to exhibit 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 favours to real merit.

The most careful discipline and training after academic 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 learnt all that he could learn of architecture according to the usual formulas, he still found that he had learned but little; and that he must begin at the beginning, and pass through the discipline of labour.Young Pugin accordingly hired himself out as a common carpenter at Covent Garden Theatre—first working under the stage, then behind the flys, 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 favourable.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 home laden with drawings.Thus he plodded and laboured on, making sure of the excellence and distinction 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 calling on the southern slope of the Pentland Hills.Amidst that pastoral solitude the boy had no opportunity of enjoying the contemplation of 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 indulge his love of architectural construction, the boy besought his father to let him be a joiner; and he was accordingly put apprentice to a neighbouring village carpenter.Having served his time, he went to Galashiels to seek work.As he was plodding 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 was seated inside, having asked the youth how far he had to walk, and learning that he was on his way to Galashiels, 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 Galashiels, Kemp had frequent opportunities of visiting Melrose, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh Abbeys, which he studied carefully.Inspired by his love of architecture, he worked his way as a carpenter over the greater part of the north of England, never omitting an opportunity of inspecting and making sketches of any fine Gothic building.On one occasion, when working 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, studying 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.Reaching Boulogne, he proceeded by Abbeville and Beauvais to Paris, spending a few weeks making drawings and studies at each place.His skill as a mechanic, and especially his knowledge of mill-work, readily secured him employment wherever he went; and he usually chose the site of his employment in the neighbourhood of some fine old Gothic structure, in studying which he occupied his leisure.After a year’s working, travel, and study abroad, he returned to Scotland.He continued his studies, and became a proficient in drawing and perspective: Melrose was his favourite 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 employment as a modeller of architectural designs; and made drawings for a work begun by an Edinburgh engraver, after the plan of Britton’s ‘Cathedral Antiquities.’This was a task congenial to his tastes, and he laboured at it with an enthusiasm which ensured its rapid advance; walking on foot for the purpose over half Scotland, and living as an ordinary mechanic, whilst executing drawings which would have done credit to the best masters in the art.The projector of the work having died suddenly, the publication was however stopped, 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 competitors were numerous—including some of the greatest names in classical architecture; but the design unanimously selected was that of George Kemp, who was working at Kilwinning Abbey in Ayrshire, many miles off, when the letter reached him intimating the decision of the committee.Poor Kemp!Shortly after this event he met an untimely death, and did not live to see the first result of his indefatigable industry and self-culture embodied in stone,—one of the most beautiful and appropriate memorials ever erected to literary genius.

John Gibson was another artist full of a genuine enthusiasm and love for his art, which placed 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 by means of a common pocket knife; and his father, noting the direction of his talent, sent him to Liverpool and bound him apprentice to a cabinet-maker and wood-carver.He rapidly improved at his trade, and some of his carvings were much admired.He was thus naturally led to sculpture, and when eighteen years old he modelled a small figure of Time in wax, which attracted considerable notice.The Messrs.Franceys, sculptors, of Liverpool, having purchased the boy’s indentures, took him as their apprentice for six years, during which his genius displayed itself in many original works.From thence he proceeded to London, and afterwards to Rome; and his fame became European.

Robert Thorburn, the Royal Academician, like John Gibson, was born of poor parents.His father was a shoe-maker at Dumfries.Besides Robert there were two other sons; one of whom is 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 observing his abilities, interested herself in obtaining for him some employment in drawing, and enlisted in his behalf the services of others who could assist him in prosecuting the study of art.The boy was diligent, pains-taking, staid, and silent, mixing little with his companions, and forming but few intimacies.About the year 1830, some gentlemen of the town provided him with the means of proceeding to Edinburgh, where he was admitted a student at the Scottish Academy.There he had the advantage of studying under competent masters, and the progress which he made was rapid.From Edinburgh he removed to London, where, we understand, he had the advantage of being introduced to notice under the patronage of the Duke of Buccleuch.We need scarcely say, however, that of whatever use patronage may have been to Thorburn in giving him an introduction to the best circles, patronage of no kind could have made him the great artist that he unquestionably is, without native genius and diligent application.

Noel Paton, the well-known painter, began his artistic career at Dunfermline and Paisley, as a drawer of patterns for table-cloths and muslin embroidered by hand; meanwhile working diligently at higher subjects, including the drawing of 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 labours, 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 obtained 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 culture.

Another striking exemplification of perseverance and industry in the cultivation of art in humble life is presented in the career of James Sharples, a working blacksmith at 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 follow his business.The boys received no school education, but were all sent to work as soon as they were able; and at about ten James was placed in a foundry, where he was employed for about two years as smithy-boy.After that he was sent into the engine-shop where his father worked as engine-smith.The boy’s employment was to heat and carry rivets for the boiler-makers.Though his hours of labour were very long—often from six in the morning until eight at night—his father contrived to give him some little teaching after working 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 occasions 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 service 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 a female relative 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, began his usual operations upon the floor.He had proceeded 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.The relative, however, professed to be pleased with the boy’s industry, praised his design, and recommended his mother to provide “the little sweep,” as she called him, with paper and pencils.

Encouraged by his elder brother, he began to practise figure and landscape drawing, making copies of lithographs, but as yet without any knowledge of the rules of perspective and the principles of light and shade.He worked on, however, and gradually acquired expertness in copying.At sixteen, he entered the Bury Mechanic’s Institution in order to attend the drawing class, taught by an amateur who followed the trade of a barber.There he had a 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 hampered by his ignorance of the art of reading, and eager to master the contents of Burnet’s book, he ceased attending the drawing class at the Institute after the first quarter, and devoted himself to learning reading and writing at home.In this he soon succeeded; and when he again entered the Institute and took out ‘Burnet’ a second time, he was not only able to read it, but to make written extracts for further use.So ardently did he study the volume, that he used to rise at four o’clock in the morning to read it and copy out passages; after which he went to the foundry at six, worked until six and sometimes eight in the evening; and returned home to enter with fresh zest upon the study of Burnet, which he continued often until a late hour.Parts of his nights were also occupied in drawing and 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 his pencil.

He next proceeded to try his hand at painting in oil, for which purpose he procured some canvas from a draper, stretched it on a frame, coated it over with white lead, and began painting on it with colours 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 his 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 colours 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 acquired a better knowledge of his materials.He made his own easel and palette, palette-knife, and paint-chest; 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 almost at midnight, after his eighteen miles’ walk, sometimes 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, as communicated by him in a letter to the author:—

“The next pictures I painted,” he says, “were a Landscape by Moonlight, a Fruitpiece, 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 particular shop.It is, therefore, to this extent, an original conception.Having made an outline of the subject, I found that, before I could proceed with it successfully, a knowledge of anatomy was indispensable to enable me accurately to delineate the muscles of the figures.My brother Peter came to my assistance at this juncture, and kindly purchased for me Flaxman’s ‘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 myself by this practice, it was some time before I felt sufficient confidence to go on with my picture.I also felt hampered by my want of knowledge of perspective, which I endeavoured to remedy by carefully studying Brook Taylor’s ‘Principles;’ and shortly after I resumed my painting.While engaged in the study of perspective at home, I used to apply for and obtain leave to work at the heavier kinds of smith work at the foundry, and for 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 carefully 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 Sharples 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 considerable notice in the town; as also did the picture of “The Forge,” which he finished soon after.His success in portrait-painting obtained for him a commission from the foreman of the shop to paint a family group, and Sharples executed it so well that the foreman not only paid him the agreed price of eighteen pounds, but thirty shillings to boot.While engaged on 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 obtaining 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 Manchester picture-dealer, to whom he showed the painting, let drop the observation, that in the hands of a skilful engraver it would make a very good print.Sharples immediately conceived the idea of engraving it himself, though altogether ignorant of the art.The difficulties which he encountered and successfully overcame in carrying 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.While working at the plate, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers offered a premium for the best design for an emblematical 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 continued 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 experienced from not possessing proper tools.I then determined 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 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.I 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 perfectly.My greatest difficulties now over, patience and perseverance were all that were needed to bring my labours to a successful issue.I had neither advice nor assistance from any one in finishing the plate.If, therefore, the work possess 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 determination, it is all the honour I wish to lay claim to.”

It would be beside our purpose to enter upon any criticism of “The Forge” as an engraving; its merits having been already fully recognised by the art journals.The execution of the work occupied 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.“I have been married seven years,” says he, “and during that time my greatest pleasure, after I have finished my daily labour at the foundry, has been to resume my pencil or graver, frequently until a late hour of the evening, my wife meanwhile sitting by my side and reading to me from some interesting book,”—a simple but beautiful testimony to the thorough common sense as well as the genuine right-heartedness 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 colour, 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,’ ‘Israel,’ 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, accomplished 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 favourite 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 pianoforte to Beethoven, the latter found written at the bottom of the last page, “Finis, with God’s help.”Beethoven immediately wrote underneath, “O man!help 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 mainspring of his industry, and was the true secret of his success.When a mere youth, his elder brother, wishing to turn his abilities in 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 ‘Roberto,’ ‘Huguenots,’ ‘Prophète,’ and other works, confessedly amongst the greatest operas which have been produced in modern times.

Although musical composition is not an art in which Englishmen have as yet greatly distinguished themselves, their energies having for the most part taken other and more practical directions, we are not without native illustrations of the power of perseverance in this special pursuit.Arne was an upholsterer’s son, intended by his father for the legal profession; but his love of music was so 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 neighbouring gentleman, 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 thereby 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 the late William Jackson, author of ‘The Deliverance of Israel,’ an oratorio which has been successfully performed in the principal towns of his native county of York, furnishes an interesting illustration of the triumph of perseverance over difficulties in the pursuit of musical science.He was the son of a miller at Masham, a little town situated in the valley of the Yore, in the north-west 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 Volunteers, and was a singer in the parish choir.His grandfather 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, keyboard, and jacks, were fully exposed, to the wonderment 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 neighbourhood presented him with a flute with four silver keys.As the boy made 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 Pateley Bridge.While there he found congenial society in a club of village choral singers at Brighouse Gate, and with them he learnt 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 learnt to play upon his father’s old piano, but with little melodious result; and he became eager to possess a finger-organ, but had no means of procuring one.About this time, a neighbouring 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 instrument, 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 could 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 labour and after many failures, they at last succeeded; and an organ was constructed which played ten tunes very decently, and the instrument was generally regarded as a marvel in the neighbourhood.Young Jackson was now frequently sent for to repair old church organs, and to put new music upon the barrels which he added to them.All this he accomplished to the satisfaction of his employers, after which he proceeded with the construction of a four-stop finger-organ, adapting to it the keys of an old harpsichord.This he learnt to play upon,—studying ‘Callcott’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 twelve 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 objectionable passages, and returned them with the encouraging 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 appointed the organist. He now gave up his employment as a journeyman miller, and commenced tallow-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 following year he gained the first prize from the Huddersfield Glee Club, for his ‘Sisters of the Lea.’ His other anthem ‘God be merciful to us,’ and the 103rd Psalm, written for a double chorus and orchestra, are well 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 themselves 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, and has been frequently performed with much success in the northern towns. Mr. Jackson eventually settled as a professor of music at Bradford, where he contributed in no small degree to the cultivation of the musical taste of that town and its neighbourhood. Some years since he had the honour 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 choral pieces of his composition, were performed with great effect. [201]

Such is a brief outline of the career of a self-taught musician, whose life affords but another illustration of the power of self-help, and the force of courage and industry in enabling a man to surmount and overcome early difficulties and obstructions of no ordinary kind.