SELF-HELP j* 1 ^T DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [Frontispiece SELF-HELP WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF CONDUCT AND PERSEVERANCE BY SAMUEL [SMTLES, LL.D. AUTHOR OF ' LIVES OF THE ENGINEERS,' ETC. "This above all, To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.'' SHAKESPEARE. " Might I give counsel to any young man, I would say to him, Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and in life, that is the most wholesome society ; learn to admire rightly ; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits admire basely and worship meanly." W. M. THACKERAY. NEW IMPRESSION LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1905 PRINTED AND BOUND BY HA2ELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LP., LONDON AND AVLESBURV. PREFACE THIS is a revised edition of a book which has already been received with considerable favour at home and abroad. It has been reprinted in various forms in America ; translations have appeared in Dutch and French, and others are about to appear in German and Danish. The book has, doubtless, proved attractive to readers in different countries by reason of the variety of anecdotal illustrations of life and character which it contains, and the interest which all more or less feel in the labours, the trials, the struggles, and the achievements of others. No one can be better aware than the author of its fragmentary character, arising from the manner in which it was for the most part originally composed, having been put together principally from jottings made during many years, intended as readings for young men, and without any view to publication. The appear- ance of this edition has furnished an opportunity for pruning the volume of some superfluous matter, and introducing various new illustrations, which will probably be found of general interest. In one respect the title of the book, which it is now too late to alter, has proved unfortunate, as it has led some, who have judged it merely vi PREFACE by the title, to suppose that it consists of a eulogy of selfishness : the very opposite of what it really is, or at least of what the author intended it to be. Although its chief object unquestionably is to stimulate youths to apply themselves diligently to right pursuits, sparing neither labour, pains, nor self-denial in prosecuting them, and to rely upon their own efforts in life, rather than depend upon the help or patronage of others, it will also be found, from the examples given of literary and scientific men, artists, inventors, educators, philan- thropists, missionaries, and martyrs, that the duty of helping one's self in the highest sense involves the helping of one's neighbours. It has also been objected to the book that too much notice is taken in it of men who have succeeded in life by helping themselves, and too little of the multitude of men who have failed. " Why should not Failure," it has been asked, "have its Plutarch as well as Success ? " There is, indeed, no reason why Failure should not have its Plutarch, except that a record of mere failure would probably be found excessively depressing as well as unin- structive reading. It is, however, shown in the following pages that Failure is the best discipline of the true worker, by stimulating him to renewed efforts, evoking his best powers, and carrying him onward in self-culture, self-control, and growth in knowledge and wisdom. Viewed in this light, Failure, conquered by Perseverance, is always full of interest and instruction, and this we have endeavoured to illustrate by many examples. As for Failure per se, although it may be well to find consolations for it at the close of life, there PREFACE vii is reason to doubt whether it is an object that ought to be set before youth at the beginning of it. Indeed, "how not to do it" is of all things the easiest learnt : it needs neither teaching, effort, self-denial, industry, patience, perseverance, nor judgment. Besides, readers do not care to know about the general who lost his battles, the engineer whose engines blew up, the architect who designed only deformities, the painter who never got beyond daubs, the schemer who did not invent his machine, the merchant who could not keep out of the Gazette. It is true, the best of men may fail, in the best of causes. But even these best of men did not try to fail, or regard their failure as meritorious ; on the contrary, they tried to succeed, and looked upon failure as misfortune. Failure in any good cause is, however, honourable, whilst success in any bad cause is merely infamous. At the same time success in the good cause is un- questionably better than failure. But it is not the result in any case that is to be regarded so much as the aim and the effort, the patience, the courage, and the endeavour with which desirable and worthy objects are pursued ; " 'Tis not in mortals to command success ; We will do more deserve it." The object of the book briefly is, to re-inculcate these old-fashioned but wholesome lessons which perhaps cannot be too often urged, that youth must work in order to enjoy, that nothing credit- able can be accomplished without application and diligence, that the student must not be daunted by difficulties, but conquer them by patience and viii PREFACE perseverance, and that, above all, he must seek elevation of character, without which capacity is worthless and worldly success is naught. If the author has not succeeded in illustrating these lessons, he can only say that he has failed in his object. Among the new passages introduced in the present edition may be mentioned the following : Illustrious Foreigners of Humble Origin (pp. 12, 14), French Generals and Marshals risen from the Ranks (16), De Tocqueville and Mutual Help (29), William Lee, M.A., and the Stocking-loom (50), John Heathcoat, M.P., and the Bobbin-net Machine (56), Jacquard and his Loom (66), Vaucanson (69), Joshua Heilmann and the Combing-machine (74), Bernard Palissy and his Struggles (81), Bottgher, Discoverer of Hard Porcelain (95), Comte de Buffon as Student (123), Cuvier (151), Ambrose Pare (158), Claude Lorraine (189), Jacques Callot (192), Ben- venuto Cellini (194), Nicolas Poussin (199), Ary Scheffer (202), the Strutts of Belper (252), Francis Xavier (280), Napoleon as a Man of Business (325), Intrepidity of Deal Boatmen (471), besides numerous other passages which it is unnecessary to specify. LONDON, May, 1866. INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION THE origin of this book may be briefly told. Some fifteen years since, the author was requested to deliver an address before the members of some evening classes, which had been formed in a northern town for mutual improve- ment, under the following circumstances : Two or three young men of the humblest rank resolved to meet in the winter evenings, for the purpose of improving themselves by exchanging knowledge with each other. Their first meetings were held in the room of a cottage in which one of the members lived ; and, as others shortly joined them, the place soon became inconveniently filled. When summer set in, they adjourned to the cottage garden outside ; and the classes were then held in the open air, round a little boarded hut used as a garden-house, in which those who officiated as teachers set the sums, and gave forth the lessons of the evening. When -the weather was fine, the youths might be seen, until a late hour, hanging round the door of the hut like a cluster of bees; but sometimes a sudden shower of rain would dash the sums from their slates, and disperse them for the evening unsatisfied. Winter, with its cold nights, was drawing near, and what were they to do for shelter ? Their numbers had by this time so increased, that no room of an ordinary cottage could accommodate them. Though they were for the most part young men earning comparatively small weekly wages, they resolved to incur the risk of hiring a room ; and, on making x INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION inquiry, they found a large dingy apartment to let, which had been used as a temporary Cholera Hospital. No tenant could be found for the place, which was avoided as if the plague still clung to it. But the mutual improvement youths, nothing daunted, hired the cholera room at so much a week, lit it up, placed a few benches and a deal table in it, and began their winter classes. The place soon presented a busy and cheerful appearance in the evenings. The teaching may have been, as no doubt it was, of a very rude and imperfect sort ; but it was done with a will. Those who knew a little taught those who knew less improving themselves while they improved the others; and, at all events, setting before them a good working example. Thus these youths and there were also grown men amongst them proceeded to teach themselves and each other, reading and writing, arithmetic and geography ; and even mathematics, chemistry, and some of the modern languages. About a hundred young men had thus come together, when, growing ambitious, they desired to have lectures delivered to them ; and then it was that the author became acquainted with their proceedings. A party of them waited on him, for the purpose of inviting him to deliver an introductory address, or, as they expressed it, " to talk to them a bit " ; prefacing the request by a modest statement of what they had done and what they were doing. He could not fail to be touched by the admirable self-helping spirit which they had displayed; and, though entertaining but slight faith in popular lecturing, he felt that a few words of encouragement, honestly and sincerely uttered, might not be without some good effect. And in this spirit he addressed them on more than one occasion, citing examples of what other men had done, as illustrations of what each might, in a greater or less degree, do for himself; and pointing out that their happiness and well- being as individuals in after life must necessarily depend mainly upon themselves upon their own diligent self-culture, self-discipline, and self-control and, above all, on that honest INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION xi and upright performance of individual duty which is the glory of manly character. There was nothing in the slightest degree new or original in this counsel, which was as old as the Proverbs of Solomon, and possibly quite as familiar. But old-fashioned though the advice may have been, it was welcomed. The youths went forward in their course ; worked on with energy and resolution ; and, reaching manhood, they went forth in various directions into the world, where many of them now occupy positions of trust and usefulness. Several years after the incidents referred to, the subject was unexpectedly recalled to the author's recollection by an evening visit from a young man apparently fresh from the work of a foundry who explained that he was now an employer of labour and a thriving man ; and he was pleased to remember with gratitude the words spoken in all honesty to him and to his fellow-pupils years before, and even to attribute some measure of his success in life to the en- deavours which he had made to work up to their spirit The author's personal interest having in this way been attracted to the subject of Self-Help, he was accustomed to add to the memoranda from which he had addressed these young men ; and to note down occasionally in his leisure evening moments, after the hours of business, the results of such reading, observation, and experience of life, as he con- ceived to bear upon it. One of the most prominent illustrations cited in his earlier addresses was that of George Stephenson, the engineer ; and the original interest of the subject, as well as the special facilities and opportunities which the author possessed for illustrating Mr. Stephenson's life and career, induced him to prosecute it at his leisure, and eventually to publish his biography. The present volume is written in a similar spirit, as it has been similar in its origin. The illustra. tive sketches of character introduced are, however, necessarily less elaborately treated being busts rather than full-length portraits, and, in many of the cases, only some striking feature has been noted ; the lives of individuals, as indeed of nations, xii INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION often concentrating their lustre and interest in a few passages. Such as the book is, the author now leaves it in the hands of the reader ; in the hope that the lessons of industry, persever- ance, and self-culture, which it contains, will be found useful and instructive, as well as generally interesting. LONDON, September, 1859. CONTENTS CHAPTER I SELF-HELP NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL PAGE Spirit of Self-Help Institutions and men Government a reflex of the individualism of a nation Cassarism and Self-Help William Dargan on Independence Patient labourers in all ranks Self-Help a feature in the English Character Power of example and of work in practi- cal education Value of biographies Great men belong to no exclusive class or rank Illustrious men sprung from the ranks Shakespeare Various humble origin of many eminent men Distinguished astronomers Emi- nent sons of clergymen Of attorneys Illustrious foreign- ers of humble origin Vauquelin, the chemist Promo- tions from the ranks in the French army Instances of persevering application and energy Joseph Brotherton W. J. Fox W. S. Lindsay William Jackson Richard Cobden Diligence indispensable to usefulness and distinction The wealthier ranks not all idlers Ex- amplesMilitary men Philosophers Men of science Politicians Literary men Sir Robert Peel Lord Brougham Lytton Disraeli Wordsworth on self- reliance De Tocqueville : his industry and recognition of the help of others Men their own best helpers . . I CHAPTER II LEADERS OF INDUSTRY INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS Industry of the English people Work the best educator Hugh Miller Poverty and toil not insurmountable obstacles Working men as inventors Invention of the xiv CONTENTS PAGE steam-engine James Watt : his industry and habit of attention Matthew Boulton Applications of the steam- engine The cotton manufacture The early inventors Paul and Highs Arkwright : his early life Barber, inventor and manufacturer His influence and character The Peels of South Lancashire The founder of the family The first Sir Robert Peel, cotton-printer Lady Peel Rev. William Lee, inventor of the stocking-frame Dies abroad in misery James Lee The Nottingham lace manufacture John Heathcoat, inventor of the bobbin-net machine His early life, his ingenuity, and plodding perseverance Invention of his machine Anecdote of Lord Lyndhurst Progress of the lace-trade Heathcoat's machines destroyed by the Luddites His character Jacquard : his inventions and adventures Vaucanson : his mechanical genius, improvements in silk manufacture Jacquard improves Vaucanson's machine The Jacquard loom adopted Joshua Heilmann, in- ventor of the combing-machine History of the invention Its value ....... i-;V - *> 32 CHAPTER III THREE GREAT POTTERS PALISSY, BOTTGHER, WEDGWOOD Ancient pottery Etruscan ware Luca della Robbia, the Florentine sculptor : re-discovers the art of enamelling Bernard Palissy : sketch of his life and labours In- flamed by the sight of an Italian cup His search after the secret of the enamel His experiments during years of unproductive toil His personal and family privations Indomitable perseverance, burns his furniture to heat the furnace, and success at last Reduced to destitution Condemned to death, and release His writings Dies in the Bastille John Frederick Bottgher, the Berlin 'gold cook' His trick in alchemy and consequent troubles Flight into Saxony His detention at Dresden- Discovers how to make red and white porcelain The manufacture taken up by the Saxon Government Bottgher treated as a prisoner and a slave His unhappy CONTENTS xv end The Sevres porcelain manufactory Josiah Wedg- wood, the English potter Early state of English earthen- ware manufacture Wedgwood's indefatigable industry, skill, and perseverance His success The Barberini vase Wedgwood a national benefactor Industrial heroes . 79 CHAPTER IV APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE Great results attained by simple means Fortune favours the industrious " Genius is patience " Newton and Kepler Industry of eminent men Power acquired by repeated effort Anecdote of Sir Robert Peel's cultivation of memory Facility comes by practice Importance of patience Cheerfulness Sydney Smith Dr. Hook Hope an important element in character Carey the missionary Anecdote of Dr. Young Anecdote of Audubon the ornithologist Anecdote of Mr. Carlyle and his MS. of the 'French Revolution' Perseverance of Watt and Stephenson Perseverance displayed in the discovery of the Nineveh marbles by Rawlinson and Layard Comte de Buffon as student His continuous and unremitting labours Sir Walter Scott's perseverance John Britton London Samuel Drew Joseph Hume in CHAPTER V HELPS AND OPPORTUNITIES | SCIENTIFIC PURSUITS No great result achieved by accident Newton's discoveries Dr. Young Habit of observing with intelligence Galileo Inventions of Brown, Watt, and Brunei acci- dentally suggested Philosophy in little things Apol- lonius Pergaeus and conic sections Franklin and Galvani Discovery of steam power Opportunities seized or made Simple and rude tools of great workers Lee and Stone's opportunities for learning Sir Walter Scott's Dr. Priestley Sir Humphry Davy Faraday Davy and xvi CONTENTS PAGE Coleridge Cuvier Dalton's industry Examples of im- provement of time Daguesseau and Bentham Melanc- thon and Baxter Writing down observations Great note-makers Dr. Pye Smith John Hunter : his patient study of little things His great labours Ambrose Pare", the French surgeon Harvey Jenner Sir Charles Bell Dr. Marshall Hall Sir William Herschel William Smith, the geologist : his discoveries, his geological map Hugh Miller : his observant faculties John Brown and Robert Dick, geologists Sir Roderick Murchison : his industry and attainments . *".' . '/' . . 139 CHAPTER VI WORKERS IN ART Sir Joshua Reynolds on the power of industry in art Humble origin of eminent artists Acquisition of wealth not the ruling motive with artists Michael Angelo on riches Patient labours of Michael Angelo and Titian West's early success a disadvantage Richard Wilson and Zuccarelli Sir Joshua Reynolds, Blake, Bird, Gains- borough, and Hogarth, as boy artists Hogarth a keen observer Banks and Mulready Claude Lorraine and Turner : their indefatigable industry Perrier and Jacques C allot and their visits to Rome Callot and the gipsies Benvenuto Cellini, goldsmith and musician : his ambition to excel Casting of his statue of Perseus Nicolas Poussin, a sedulous student and worker Du- quesnoi Poussin's fame Ary Schefifer : his hindrances and success John Flaxman : his genius and persever- anceHis brave wife Their visit to Rome Francis Chantrey : his industry and energy David Wilkie and William Etty, unflagging workers Privations endured by artists Martin Pugin George Kemp, architect of the Scott monument John Gibson, Robert Thorburn, Noel Paton James Sharpies, the blacksmith artist : his auto- biography Industry of musicians Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Bach, Meyerbeer Dr. Arne William Jackson, the self-taught composer 182 CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER VII INDUSTRY AND THE PEERAGE PACK The peerage fed from the industrial ranks Fall of old families : Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets The peerage comparatively modern Peerages originating with traders and merchants Richard Foley, nailmaker, founder of the Foley peerage Adventurous career of William Phipps, founder of the Normanby peerage : his recovery of sunken treasure Sir William Petty, founder of the Lansdowne peerage Jedediah Strutt, founder of the Belper peerage William and Edward Strutt Naval and military peers Peerages founded by lawyers Lords Tenterden and Campbell Lord Eldon : his early struggles and eventual success Baron Langdale Rewards of perseverance . 238 CHAPTER VIII ENERGY AND COURAGE Energy characteristic of the Teutonic race The foundations of strength of character Force of purpose Concentra- tion Courageous working Words of Hugh Miller and Fowell Buxton Power and freedom of will Words of Lamennais Suwarrow Napoleon and "glory" Well- ington and " duty" Promptitude in action Energy dis- played by the British in India Warren Hastings Sir Charles Napier : his adventure with the Indian swords- man The rebellion in India The Lawrences Nicholson The siege of Delhi Captain Hodson Missionary labourers Francis Xavier's missions in the East John Williams Dr. Livingstone John Howard Jonas Han- way : his career The philanthropic labours of Granville Sharp Position of slaves in England Result of Sharp's efforts Clarkson's labours Fowell Buxton : his resolute purpose and energy Abolition of slavery . . . 262 b xviii CONTENTS CHAPTER IX MEN OF BUSINESS PAGE Hazlitt's definition of the man of business The chief requisite qualities Men of genius men of business Shakespeare, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Newton, Cowper, Wordsworth, Scott, Ricardo, Grote, J. S. Mill Labour and application necessary to success Lord Melbourne's advice The school of difficulty a good school Conditions of success in law The industrious architect The salutary in- fluence of work Consequences of contempt for arithmetic Dr. Johnson on the alleged injustice of "the world" Washington Irving's views Practical qualities necessary in business Importance of accuracy Charles James Fox Method Richard Cecil and De Witt : their des- patch of business Value of time Sir Walter Scott's advice Promptitude Economy of time Punctuality Firmness Tact Napoleon and Wellington as men of business Napoleou's attention to details The 'Napo- leon Correspondence' Wellington's business faculty Wellington in the Peninsula " Honesty the best policy ' Trade tries character Dishonest gains David Barclay a model man of business 310 CHAPTER X MONEY ITS USE AND ABUSE The right use of money a test of wisdom The virtue of self- denial Self-imposed taxes Economy necessary to inde- pendence Helplessness of the improvident Frugality an important public question Counsels of Richard Cobden and John Bright The bondage of the improvi- dent Independence attainable by working men Francis Horner's advice from his father Robert Burns Living within the means Bacon's maxim Wasters Running into debt Haydon's debts Fichte Dr. Johnson on debt John Locke The Duke of Wellington on debt Washington Earl St. Vincent : his protested bill Joseph CONTENTS xix Hume on living too high Ambition after gentility Napier's order to his officers in India Resistance to temptation Hugh Miller's case High standard of life necessary Proverbs on money-making and thrift Thomas Wright and the reclamation of criminals Mere money-making John Foster Riches no proof of worth All honest industry honourable The power of money over-estimated Joseph Brotherton True Respectability Lord Collingwood 341 CHAPTER XI SELF-CULTUREFACILITIES AND DIFFICULTIES Sir W. Scott and Sir B. Brodie on self-culture Dr. Arnold's spirit Active employment salutary Malthus's advice to his son Importance of physical health Hodson, of " Hodson's Horse " Dr. Channing Early labour Training in use of tools Healthiness of great men Sir Walter Scott's athletic sports Barrow, Fuller, Clarke Labour conquers all things Words of Chatterton, Fergu- son, Stone, Drew Well-directed labour Opinions of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Fowell Buxton, Dr. Ross, F. Horner, Loyola, and Lord St. Leonards Thoroughness, accuracy, decision, and promptitude The virtue of patient labour The mischievous effects of " cramming " in labour- saving processes and multifarious reading The right use of knowledge Books may impart learning, but well- applied knowledge and experience only exhibit wisdom The Magna Charta men Brindley, Stephenson, Hunter, and others, not book-learned, yet great Self- respect Jean Paul Richter Knowledge as a means of rising Base views of the value of knowledge Ideas of Bacon and Southey Douglas Jerrold on comic literature Danger of immoderate love of pleasure Benjamin Constant : his high thinking and low living Thierry : his noble character Coleridge and Southey Robert Nicoll on Coleridge Charles James Fox on perseverance The wisdom and strength acquired through failure Hunter, Rossini, Davy, Mendelssohn The uses of difficulty and adversity Lyndhurst, D'Alembert, Carissimi, Reynolds, xx CONTENTS PAGE and Henry Clay on persistency Curran on honest poverty Struggles with difficulties : Alexander Murray, William Chambers, Cobbett The French stonemason turned professor Sir Samuel Romilly as a self-cultivator John Leyden's perseverance Professor Lee : his perseverance and his attainments as a linguist Late learners : Spel- man, Franklin, Dryden, Scott, Boccaccio, Arnold, and others Illustrious dunces : Generals Grant, Stonewall Jackson, John Howard, Davy, and others Story of a dunce Success depends on perseverance . . . 369 CHAPTER XII EXAMPLE MODELS Example a potent instructor Influence of conduct Parental example All acts have their train of consequences Disraeli on Cobden Words of Babbage Human re- sponsibility Every person owes a good example to others Doing, not saying Mrs. Chisholm Dr. Guthrie and John Pounds Good models of conduct The company of our betters Francis Homer's views on personal inter- course The Marquis of Lansdowne and Malesherbes Fowell Buxton and the Gurney family Personal in- fluence of John Sterling Influence of artistic genius upon others Example of the brave an inspiration to the timid Biography valuable as forming high models of char- acter Lives influenced by biography Romilly, Franklin, Drew, Alfieri, Loyola, Wolff, Horner, Reynolds Examples of cheerfulness Dr. Arnold's influence over others Career of Sir John Sinclair .... 423 CHAPTER XIII CHARACTER THE TRUE GENTLEMAN Character a man's best possession Character of Francis Horner Franklin Character is power The higher qualities of character Lord Erskine's rules of conduct A high standard of life necessary Truthfulness Wellington's character of Peel Be what you seem CONTENTS xxi Integrity and honesty of action Importance of habits Habits constitute character Growth of habit in youth Words of Robertson of Brighton Manners and morals Civility and kindness Anecdote of Abernethy True politeness Great-hearted men of no exclusive rank or class William and Charles Grant, the "Brothers Cheeryble " The true gentleman Lord Edward Fitz- gerald Honour, probity, rectitude The gentleman will not be bribed Anecdotes of Hanway, Wellington, Wellesley, and Sir C. Napier The poor in purse may be rich in spirit A noble peasant Intrepidity of Deal boat- men Anecdotes of the Emperor of Austria and of two English navvies Truth makes the success of the gentle- man Courage and gentleness Gentlemen in India Outram, Henry Lawrence Lord Clyde The private soldiers at Agra The wreck of the Birkenhead Use of power, the test of the Gentleman Sir Ralph Abercromby Fuller's character of Sir Francis Drake . . . 449 INDEX , 481 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS DAVID LIVINGSTONE Frontispitct SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT Facing page 38 JOHN FLAXMAN . . ., ^ J i V '^V ". ,, I>8 SIR ISAMBARD BRUNEL ., 142 WILLIAM HARVEY l6a LORD NELSON ........ ,,324 jociii SELF-HELP, &c. CHAPTER I SELF-HELP NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL "The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it." -J, S. Mill. "We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men." B. Disraeli, " T T EAVEN helps those who help themselves " 1 1 is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual ; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves ; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless. Even the best institutions can give a man no I 2 GOVERNMENT AND INDIVIDUAL [CHAP. I active help. Perhaps the most they can do is to leave him free to develop himself and improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be secured by means of institu- tions rather than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human ad- vancement has usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little active influence upon any man's life and character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly understood, that the function of Government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally into protection protection of life, liberty, and property. Laws, wisely ad- ministered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice ; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle indus- trious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self- denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights. The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals com- posing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and CHAP. I] NATIONAL PROGRESS 3 government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed, all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed. National progress is the sum of individual in- dustry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the outgrowth of man's own perverted life ; and though we may endeavour to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless the conditions of personal life and character are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and stimulating men to elevate and improve them- selves by their own free and independent individual action. It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed from without, whilst every- thing depends upon how he governs himself from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. Nations who are thus en- slaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere 4 CjESARISM [CHAP. I changes of masters or of institutions ; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long will such changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected, have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of liberty must rest upon individual character ; which is also the only sure guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart Mill truly observes that "even despotism does not produce its worst effects so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality ts despotism, by whatever name it be called." Old fallacies as to human progress are con- stantly turning up. Some call for Caesars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of Parliament. We are to wait for Caesars, and when they are found, "happy the people who recognize and follow them." * This doctrine shortly means, everything for the people, nothing by them, a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by de- stroying thelfree conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for any form of despotism. Caesarism is human idolatry in its worst form a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as the worship of mere wealth would be. A far healthier doctrine to inculcate among the nations would be that of Self-Help ; and so soon as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Caesarism will be no more. The two prin- ciples are directly antagonistic; and what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to them, " Ceci tuera cela." [This will kill that.'] * Napoleon III., 'Life of Caesar.' CHAP, i] INDEPENDENCE 5 The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parlia- ment is also a prevalent superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland's truest patriots, said at the closing of the first Dublin Industrial Exhibition, may well be quoted now. " To tell the truth," he said, " I never heard the word inde- pendence mentioned that my own country and my own fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard a great deal about the independence that we were to get from this, that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were to have from persons from other countries coming amongst us. Whilst I value as much as any man the great advantages that must result to us from that intercourse, I have always been deeply impressed with the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent upon ourselves. I believe that with simple industry and careful exactness in the utilization of our energies, we never had a fairer chance nor a brighter prospect than the present. We have made a step, but perseverance is the great agent of success ; and if we but go on zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period we shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness, and of equal independence, with that of any other people." All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the working of many generations of men. Patient and persevering labourers in all ranks and conditions of life, cultivators of the soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and dis- coverers, manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and politicians, all have con- tributed towards the grand result, one generation building upon another's labours, and carrying them 6 LIFE "A SOLDIERS' BATTLE" [CHAP. I forward to still higher stages. This constant succession of noble workers the artisans of civilization has served to create order out of chaos in industry, science, and art ; and the living race has thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only unimpaired but improved, to our successors. The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the English character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as a nation. Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be found a series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded the public homage. But our progress has also been owing to multitudes of smaller and less known men. Though only the generals' names may be remembered in the history of any great campaign, it has been in a great measure through the individual valour and heroism of the privates that victories have been won. And life, too, is "a soldiers' battle," men in the ranks having in all times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many are the lives of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced civilization and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future influence upon the well-being of his country ; for his life and character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and propagate good example for all time to come. CHAP, i] THE BEST PRACTICAL EDUCATION 7 Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of others, and really constitutes the best practical education. Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the merest beginnings of culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is that finishing instruction as members of society, which Schiller designated " the education of the human race," consisting in action, conduct, self-culture, self-control, all that tends to discipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties and business of life, a kind of education not to be learnt from books, or acquired by any amount of mere literary training. With his usual weight of words Bacon observes, that " Studies teach not their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation"; a remark that holds true of actual life, as well as of the cultivation of the intellect itself. For all experience serves to illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself by work more than by reading, that it is life rather than literature, action rather than study, and character rather than biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind. Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are nevertheless most instructive and useful, as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to gospels teaching high living, high thinking, and energetic action for their own and the world's good. The 8 DIFFICULTIES THE BEST HELPERS [CHAP. I valuable examples which they furnish of the power of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working, and steadfast integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble and manly character, exhibit, in language not to be misunderstood, what it is in the power of each to accomplish for himself; and eloquently illustrate the efficacy of self-respect and self-reliance in enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for themselves an honourable competency and a solid reputation. Great men of science, literature, and art apos- tles of great thoughts and lords of the great heart have belonged to no exclusive class nor rank in life. They have come alike from colleges, work- shops, and farmhouses, from the huts of poor men and the mansions of the rich. Some of God's greatest apostles have come from " the ranks." The poorest have sometimes taken the highest places ; nor have difficulties apparently the most insuperable proved obstacles in their way. Those very difficulties, in many instances, would ever seem to have been their best helpers, by evoking their powers of labour and endurance, and stimulating into life faculties which might otherwise have lain dormant. The instances of obstacles thus surmounted, and of triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so numerous, as almost to justify the proverb that "with Will one can do anything." Take, for instance, the remarkable fact, that from the barber's shop came Jeremy Taylor, the most poetical of divines; Sir Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning- jenny and founder of the cotton manufacture; Lord Tenterden, one of the most distinguished of Lord Chief Justices; and Turner, the greatest among landscape painters. CHAP. I] SHAKESPEARE OF LOWLY BIRTH 9 No one knows to a certainty what Shakespeare was ; but it is unquestionable that he sprang from a humble rank. His father was a butcher and grazier ; and Shakespeare himself is supposed to have been in early life a woolcomber ; whilst others aver that he was an usher in a school and after- wards a scrivener's clerk. He truly seems to have been "not one, but all mankind's epitome." For such is the accuracy of his sea phrases that a naval writer alleges that he must have been a sailor; whilst a clergyman infers, from internal evidence in his writings, that he was probably a parson's clerk ; and a distinguished judge of horse-flesh in- sists that he must have been a horse-dealer. Shake- speare was certainly an actor, and in the course of his life "played many parts," gathering his wonderful stores of knowledge from a wide field of experience and observation. In any event, he must have been a close student and a hard worker ; and to this day his writings continue to exercise a powerful influence on the formation of English character. The common class of day [labourers has given us Brindley the engineer, Cook the navigator, and Burns the poet. Masons and bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson, who worked at the building of Lincoln's Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket, Edwards and Telford the engineers, Hugh Miller the geologist, and Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor; whilst among distinguished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones the architect, Harrison the chrono- meter-maker, John Hunter the physiologist, Romney and Opie the painters, Professor Lee the Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor. io SOME OF THE GREATEST MEN [CHAP. I From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician, Bacon the sculptor, the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster, Wilson the ornitho- logist, Dr. Livingstone the missionary traveller, and Tannahill the poet. Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel the great admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the essayist, Gifford the editor of the ' Quarterly Review,' Bloom- field the poet, and William Carey the missionary ; whilst Morrison, another laborious missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts. Within the last few years, a profound naturalist has been discovered in the person of a shoemaker at Banff, named Thomas Edwards, who, while maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his leisure to the study of natural science in all its branches, his researches in connexion with the smaller crustaceae having been rewarded by the discovery of a new species, to which the name of " Praniza Edwardsii " has been given by naturalists. Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John Stow, the historian, worked at the trade during some part of his life. Jackson, the painter, made clothes until he reached manhood. The brave Sir John Hawkswood, who so greatly distinguished him- self at Poictiers, and was knighted by Edward III. for his valour, was in early life apprenticed to a London tailor. Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom at Vigo in 1702, belonged to the same calling. He was working as a tailor's apprentice near Bon- church, in the Isle of Wight, when the news flew through the village that a squadron of men-of-war was sailing off the island. He sprang from the shopboard, and ran down with his comrades to the beach, to gaze upon the glorious sight. The boy CHAP, i] HAVE COME FROM "THE RANKS" n was suddenly inflamed with the ambition to be a sailor; and springing into a boat, he rowed off to the squadron, gained the admiral's ship, and was accepted as a volunteer. Years after, he returned to his native village full of honours, and dined off bacon and eggs in the cottage where he had worked as an apprentice. But the greatest tailor of all is unquestionably Andrew Johnson, the present President of the United States a man of extra- ordinary force of character and vigour of intellect. In his great speech at Washington, when describing himself as having begun his political career as an alderman, and run through all the branches of the legislature, a voice in the crowd cried, "From a tailor up." It was characteristic of Johnson to take the intended sarcasm in good part, and even to turn it to account. " Some gentleman says I have been a tailor. That does not disconcert me in the least ; for when I was a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and making close fits; I was always punctual with my customers, and always did good work." Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and Kirke White were the sons of butchers ; Bunyan was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster a basket-maker. Among the great names identified with the in- vention of the steam-engine are those of Newcomen, Watt, and Stephenson; the first a blacksmith, the second a maker of mathematical instruments, and the third an engine-fireman. Huntingdon the preacher was originally a coalheaver, and Bewick, the father of wood-engraving, a coalminer. Dodsley was a footman, and Holcroft a groom. Baffin the navigator began his seafaring career as a man before the mast, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel as a 12 MEN OF SCIENCE [CHAP. I cabin-boy. Herschel played the oboe in a military band. Chantrey was a journeyman carver, Etty a journeyman printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence the son of a tavern-keeper. Michael Faraday, the son of a blacksmith, was in early life apprenticed to a bookbinder, and worked at that trade until he reached his twenty-second year : he now occupies the very first rank as a philosopher, excelling even his master, Sir Humphry Davy, in the art of lucidly expounding the most difficult and abstruse points in natural science. Among those who have given the greatest im- pulse to the sublime science of astronomy, we find Copernicus, the son of a Polish baker ; Kepler, the son of a German public-house keeper, and himself the "gar^on de cabaret"; d'Alembert, a foundling picked up one winter's night on the steps of the church of St. Jean le Rond at Paris, and brought up by the wife of a glazier; and Newton and Laplace, the one the son of a small freeholder near Grantham, the other the son of a poor peasant of Beaumont-en-Auge, near Honfleur. Notwithstand- ing their comparatively adverse circumstances in early life, these distinguished men achieved a solid and enduring reputation by the exercise of their genius, which all the wealth in the world could not have purchased. The very possession of wealth might indeed have proved an obstacle greater even than the humble means to which they were born. The father of Lagrange, the astronomer and mathematician, held the office of Treasurer of War at Turin ; but having ruined himself by speculations, his family were reduced to comparative poverty. To this circumstance Lagrange was in after life accustomed partly to attribute his own fame and CHAP, i] EMINENT MIDDLE-CLASS MEN 13 happiness. " Had I been rich," said he, " I should probably not have become a mathematician." The sons of clergymen and ministers of religion generally have particularly distinguished them- selves in our country's history. Amongst them we find the names of Drake and Nelson, celebrated in naval heroism ; of Wollaston, Young, Playfair, and Bell, in science; of Wren, Reynolds, Wilson, and Wilkie, in art ; of Thurlow and Campbell, in law ; and of Addison, Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, and Tennyson, in literature. Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and Major Hodson, so honour- ably known in Indian warfare, were also the sons of clergymen. Indeed, the empire of England in India was won and held chiefly by men of the middle class such as Clive, Warren Hastings, and their successors men for the most part bred in factories and trained to habits of business. Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, Smeaton the engineer, Scott and Words- worth, and Lords Somers, Hardwick, and Dunning. Sir William Blackstone was the posthumous son of a silk-mercer. Lord Gifford's father was a grocer at Dover ; Lord Denman's a physician ; Judge Talfourd's a country brewer ; and Lord Chief Baron Pollock's a celebrated saddler at Charing Cross. Layard, the discoverer of the monuments of Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a London solicitor's office; and Sir William Armstrong, the inventor of hydraulic machinery and of the Arm- strong ordnance, was also trained to the law and practised for some time as an attorney. Milton was the son of a London scrivener, and Pope and Southey were the sons of linendrapers. Professor Wilson was the son of a Paisley manufacturer, 14 ILLUSTRIOUS FOREIGNERS [CHAP. I and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant. Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country apothecary's apprentice. Speaking of himself, Davy once said, "What I am I have made myself: I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of heart." Richard Owen, the Newton of Natural History, began life as a midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of scientific research, in which he has since become so distinguished, until com- paratively late in life. He laid the foundations of his great knowledge while occupied in cataloguing the magnificent museum accumulated by the in- dustry of John Hunter, a work which occupied him at the College of Surgeons during a period of about ten years. Foreign not less than English biography abounds in illustrations of men who have glorified the lot of poverty by their labours and their genius. In Art we find Claude, the son of a pastrycook ; Geefs, of a baker ; Leopold Robert, of a watchmaker ; and Haydn, of a wheelwright ; whilst Daguerre was a scene-painter at the Opera. The father of Gregory VII. was a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd ; and of Adrian VI., a poor bargeman. When a boy, Adrian, unable to pay for a light by which to study, was accustomed to prepare his lessons by the light of the lamps in the streets and the church porches, exhibiting a degree of patience and industry which were the certain forerunners of his future distinction. Of like humble origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a weaver of Saint-Just ; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker at Orleans ; Joseph Fourier, the mathe- matician, of a tailor at Auxerre ; Durand, the architect, of a Paris shoemaker; and Gesner, the CHAP, i] OF HUMBLE ORIGIN 15 naturalist, of a skinner or worker in hides, at Zurich. This last began his career under all the disadvantages attendant on poverty, sickness, and domestic calamity ; none of which, however, were sufficient to damp his courage or hinder his pro- gress. His life was indeed an eminent illustration of the truth of the saying, that those who have most to do and are willing to work, will find the most time. Pierre Ramus was another man of like character. He was the son of poor parents in Picardy, and when a boy was employed to tend sheep. But not liking the occupation he ran away to Paris. After encountering much misery, he succeeded in entering the College of Navarre as a servant. The situation, however, opened for him the road to learning, and he shortly became one of the most distinguished men of his time. The chemist Vauquelin was the son of a peasant of Saint-Andre-d'Herbetot, in the Calvados. When a boy at school, though poorly clad, he was full of bright intelligence ; and the master, who taught him to read and write, when praising him for his diligence, used to say, "Go on, my boy; work, study, Colin, and one day you will go as well dressed as the parish churchwarden ! " A country apothecary who visited the school admired the robust boy's arms, and offered to take him into his laboratory to pound his drugs, to which Vauquelin assented, in the hope of being able to continue his lessons. But the apothecary would not permit him to spend any part of his time in learning ; and on ascertaining this, the youth immediately determined to quit his service. He therefore left Saint-Andre and took the road for Paris with his havresac on his back. Arrived there, he searched for a place 16 PROMOTION FROM THE RANKS [CHAP. I as apothecary's boy, but could not find one. Worn out by fatigue and destitution, Vauquelin fell ill and in that state was taken to the hospital, where he thought he should die. But better things were in store for the poor boy. He recovered, and again proceeded in search of employment, which he at length found with an apothecary. Shortly after, he became known to Fourcroy the eminent chemist, who was so pleased with the youth that he made him his private secretary; and many years after, on the death of that great philosopher, Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of Chemistry. Finally, in 1829, the electors of the district of Calvados appointed him their representative in the Chamber of Deputies, and he re-entered in triumph the village which he had left so many years before, so poor and so obscure. England has no parallel instances to show, of promotions from the ranks of the army to the highest military offices, which have been so common in France since the first Revolution. " La carriere ouverte aux talents " has there re- ceived many striking illustrations, which would doubtless be matched among ourselves were the road to promotion as open. Hoche, Humbert, and Pichegru, began their respective careers as private soldiers. Hoche, while in the King's army, was accustomed to embroider waistcoats to enable him to earn money wherewith to purchase books on military science. Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth ; at sixteen he ran away from home, and was by turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy, a workman at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit skins. In 1792 he enlisted as a volunteer; and in a year he was general of brigade. Kleber, Lefevre, Suchet, CHAP, i] IN THE FRENCH ARMY 17 Victor, Lannes, Soult, Massena, St. Cyr, D'Erlon, Murat, Augereau, Bessieres, and Ney, all rose from the ranks. In some cases promotion was rapid, in others it was slow. St. Cyr, the son of a tanner of Toul, began life as an actor, after which he enlisted in the Chasseurs, and was promoted to a captaincy within a year. Victor, Due de Belluno, enlisted in the Artillery in 1781 : during the events preceding the Revolution he was dis- charged ; but immediately on the outbreak of war he re-enlisted, and in the course of a few months his intrepidity and ability secured his promotion as Adjutant-Major and chief of battalion. Murat, "le beau sabreur," was the son of a village inn- keeper in Perigord, where he looked after the horses. He first enlisted in a regiment of Chas- seurs, from which he was dismissed for insub- ordination : but again enlisting, he shortly rose to the rank of Colonel. Ney enlisted at eighteen in a Hussar regiment, and gradually advanced step by step ; Kleber soon discovered his merits, sur- naming him " The Indefatigable," and promoted him to be Adjutant-General when only twenty-five. On the other hand, Soult * was six years from the date of his enlistment before he reached the rank of sergeant. But Soult's advancement was rapid compared with that of Massena, who served for fourteen years before he was made sergeant ; and though he afterwards rose successively, step by step, to the grades of Colonel, General of Division, * Soult received but little education in his youth, and learnt next to no geography until he became foreign minister of France, when the study of this branch of knowledge is said to have given him the greatest pleasure. '(Euvres, &c., d'Alexis de Tocqueville. Par G. de Beaumont.' Paris, 1861. I. 52. 2 i8 MR. J. BROTHERTON [CHAP. I and Marshal, he declared that the post of sergeant was the step which of all others had cost him the most labour to win. Similar promotions from the ranks, in the French army, have continued down to our own day. Changarnier entered the King's bodyguard as a private in 1815. Marshal Bugeaud served four years in the ranks, after which he was made an officer. Marshal Randon, the present French Minister of War, began his military career as a drummer boy; and in the portrait of him in the gallery at Versailles, his hand rests upon a drum-head, the picture being thus painted at his own request. Instances such as these inspire French soldiers with enthusiasm for their service, as each private feels that he may possibly carry the baton of a marshal in his knapsack. The instances of men, in this and other countries, who, by dint of persevering application and energy, have raised themselves from the humblest ranks of industry to eminent positions of usefulness and influence in society, are indeed so numerous that they have long ceased to be regarded as exceptional. Looking at some of the more remarkable, it might almost be said that early encounter with difficulty and adverse circumstances was the necessary and indispensable condition of success. The British House of Commons has always contained a con- siderable number of such self-raised men fitting representatives of the industrial character of the people ; and it is to the credit of our Legislature that they have been welcomed and honoured there. When the late Joseph Brotherton, member for Salford, in the course of the discussion on the Ten Hours Bill, detailed with true pathos the hardships and fatigues to which he had been CHAP, i] MR. LINDSAY 19 subjected when working as a factory boy in a cotton mill, and described the resolution which he had then formed, that if ever it was in his power he would endeavour to ameliorate the con- dition of that class, Sir James Graham rose immedi- ately after him, and declared, amidst the cheers of the House, that he did not before know that Mr. Brotherton's origin had been so humble, but that it rendered him more proud than he had ever before been of the House of Commons, to think that a person risen from that condition should be able to sit side by side, on equal terms, with the hereditary gentry of the land. The late Mr. Fox, member for Oldham, was accustomed to introduce his recollections of past times with the words, "When I was working as a weaver boy at Norwich " ; and there are other members of Parliament, still living, whose origin has been equally humble. Mr. Lindsay, the well- know ship-owner, until recently member for Sunderland, once told the simple story of his life to the electors of Weymouth, in answer to an attack made upon him by his political opponents. He had been left an orphan at fourteen, and when he left Glasgow for Liverpool to push his way in the world, not being able to pay the usual fare, the captain of the steamer agreed to take his labour in exchange, and the boy worked his passage by trimming the coals in the coal hole. At Liver- pool he remained for seven weeks before he could obtain employment, during which time he lived in sheds and fared hardly ; until at last he found shelter on board a West Indiaman. He entered as a boy, and before he was nineteen, by steady good conduct he had risen to the command of a 20 MR. W. JACKSON [CHAP. I ship. At twenty-three he retired from the sea, and settled on shore, after which his progress was rapid. " He had prospered," he said, " by steady industry, by constant work, and by ever keeping in view the great principle of doing to others as you would be done by." The career of Mr. William Jackson, of Birken- head, the present member for North Derbyshire, bears considerable resemblance to that of Mr. Lindsay. His father, a surgeon at Lancaster, died, leaving a family of eleven children, of whom William Jackson was the seventh son. The elder boys had been well educated while the father lived, but at his death the younger members had to shift for themselves. William, when under twelve years old, was taken from school, and put to hard work at a ship's side from six in the morning till nine at night. His master falling ill, the boy was taken into the counting-house, where he had more leisure. This gave him an opportunity of reading, and having obtained access to a set of the ' Encyclo- paedia Britannica,' he read the volumes through from A to Z, partly by day, but chiefly at night. He afterwards put himself to a trade, was diligent, and succeeded in it. Now he has ships sailing on almost every sea, and holds commercial relations with nearly every country on the globe. Among like men of the same class may be ranked the late Richard Cobden, whose start in life was equally humble. The son of a small farmer at Midhurst in Sussex, he was sent at an early age to London and employed as a boy in a warehouse in the City. He was diligent, well conducted, and eager for information. His master, a man of the old school, warned him against too CHAP, i] RICHARD COBDEN 21 much reading; but the boy went on in his own course, storing his mind with the wealth found in books. He was promoted from one position of trust to another became a traveller for his house secured a large connection, and eventually started in business as a calico printer at Manchester. Taking an interest in public questions, more especially in popular education, his attention was gradually drawn to the subject of the Corn Laws, to the repeal of which he may be said to have devoted his fortune and his life. It may be mentioned as a curious fact that the first speech he delivered in public was a total failure. But he had great perseverance, application, and energy; and with persistency and practice, he became at length one of the most persuasive and effective of public speakers, extorting the disinterested eulogy of even Sir Robert Peel himself. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the French ambassador, has eloquently said of Mr. Cobden, that he was "a living proof of what merit, perseverance, and labour can accomplish ; one of the most complete examples of those men who, sprung from the humblest ranks of society, raise themselves to the highest rank in public estimation by the effect of their own worth and of their personal services ; finally, one of the rarest examples of the solid qualities inherent in the English character." In all these cases, strenuous individual appli- cation was the price paid for distinction ; excellence of any sort being invariably placed beyond the reach of indolence. It is the diligent hand and head alone that maketh rich in self-culture, growth in wisdom, and in business. Even when men are born to wealth and high social position, any solid 22 DILIGENCE INDISPENSABLE [CHAP. I reputation which they may individually achieve can only be attained by energetic application ; for though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture. Indeed, the doctrine that excellence in any pursuit is only to be achieved by laborious application, holds as true in the case of the man of wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose only school was a cobbler's stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only college was a Cromarty stone quarry. Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for man's highest culture, else had not the world been so largely indebted in all times to those who have sprung from the humbler ranks. An easy and luxurious existence does not train men to effort or encounter with difficulty ; nor does it awaken that consciousness of power which is so necessary for energetic and effective action in life. Indeed, so far from poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous self-help, be converted even into a blessing ; rousing a man to that struggle with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by degradation, the right-minded and true-hearted find strength, confidence, and triumph. Bacon says, " Men seem neither to understand their riches nor their strength : of the former they believe greater things than they should ; of the latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweet bread, and to learn and labour truly to get his living, and carefully to expend the good things committed to his trust." CHAP, i] WEALTHIER RANKS NOT IDLERS 23 Riches are so great a temptation to ease and self-indulgence, to which men are by nature prone, that the glory is all the greater of those who, born to ample fortunes, nevertheless take an active part in the work of their generation who " scorn de- lights and live laborious days." It is to the honour of the wealthier ranks in this country that they are not idlers ; for they do their fair share of the work of the state, and usually take more than their fair share of its dangers. It was a fine thing said of a subaltern officer in the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging along through mud and mire by the side of his regiment, "There goes i5,ooo/. a year!" and in our own day, the bleak slopes of Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne witness to the like noble self-denial and devotion on the part of our gentler classes ; many a gallant and noble fellow, of rank and estate, having risked his life, or lost it, in one or other of those fields of action, in the service of his country. Nor have the wealthier classes been undis- tinguished in the more peaceful pursuits of philo- sophy and science. Take, for instance, the great names of Bacon, the father of modern philosophy, and of Worcester, Boyle, Cavendish, Talbot, and Rosse, in science. The last named may be re- garded as the great mechanic of the peerage; a man who, if he had not been born a peer, would probably have taken the highest rank as an inventor. So thorough is his knowledge of smith-work that he is said to have been pressed on one occasion to accept the foremanship of a large workshop, by a manufacturer to whom his rank was unknown. The great Rosse telescope, of his own fabrication, is certainly the most 24 SIR ROBERT PEEL [CHAP. I extraordinary instrument of the kind that has yet been constructed. But it is principally in the departments of politics and literature that we find the most energetic labourers amongst our higher classes. Success in these lines of action, as in all others, can only be achieved through industry, practice, and study ; and the great Minister, or parliamentary leader, must necessarily be amongst the very hardest of workers. Such was Palmerston; and such are Derby and Russell, Disraeli and Gladstone. These men have had the benefit of no Ten Hours Bill, but have often, during the busy season of Parliament, worked " double shift," almost day and night. One of the most illustrious of such workers in modern times was unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel. He possessed in an extraordinary degree the power of continuous intellectual labour, nor did he spare himself. His career, indeed, presented a remarkable example of how much a man of comparatively moderate powers can accomplish by means of assiduous application and indefatigable industry. During the forty years that he held a seat in Parliament, his labours were prodigious. He was a most conscientious man, and whatever he under- took to do, he did thoroughly. All his speeches bear evidence of his careful study of everything that had been spoken or written on the subject under consideration. He was elaborate almost to excess ; and spared no pains to adapt himself to the various capacities of his audience. Withal, he possessed much practical sagacity, great strength of purpose, and power to direct the issues of action with steady hand and eye. In one respect he surpassed most men : his principles broadened CHAP. I] LORD BROUGHAM 25 and enlarged with time ; and age, instead of con- tracting, only served to mellow and ripen his nature. To the last he continued open to the reception of new views, and, though many thought him cautious to excess, he did not allow himself to fall into that indiscriminating admiration of the past, which is the palsy of many minds similarly educated, and renders the old age of many nothing but a pity. The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has become almost proverbial. His public labours have extended over a period of upwards of sixty years, during which he has ranged over many fields of law, literature, politics, and science, and achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has been to many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was requested to under- take some new work, he excused himself by saying that he had no time ; " but," he added, " go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to have time for everything." The secret of it was, that he never left a minute unemployed ; withal he possessed a constitution of iron. When arrived at an age at which most men would have retired from the world to enjoy their hard-earned leisure, perhaps to doze away their time in an easy chair, Lord Brougham commenced and prosecuted a series of elaborate investigations as to the laws of Light, and he submitted the results to the most scientific audiences that Paris and London could muster. About the same time, he was passing through the press his admirable sketches of the ' Men of Science and Literature of the Reign of George III.,' and taking his full share of the law business and the political discussions in the 26 SIR E. BULWER LYTTON [CHAP. I House of Lords. Sydney Smith once recom- mended him to confine himself to only the trans- action of so much business as three strong men could get through. But such was Brougham's love of work long become a habit that no amount of application seems to have been too great for him ; and such was his love of excellence, that it has been said of him that if his station in life had been only that of a shoe-black, he would never have rested satisfied until he had become the best shoe-black in England. Another hard-working man of the same class is Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. Few writers have done more, or achieved higher distinction in various walks as a novelist, poet, dramatist, historian, essayist, orator, and politician. He has worked his way step by step, disdainful of ease, and animated throughout by the ardent desire to excel. On the score of mere industry, there are few living English writers who have written so much, and none that have produced so much of high quality. The industry of Bulwer is entitled to all the greater praise that it has been entirely self-imposed. To hunt, and shoot, and live at ease, to frequent the clubs and enjoy the opera, with the variety of London visiting and sight-seeing during the " season," and then off to the country mansion, with its well-stocked preserves, and its thousand delightful out-door pleasures, to travel abroad, to Paris, Vienna, or Rome, all this is excessively attractive to a lover of pleasure and a man of fortune, and by no means calculated to make him voluntarily undertake continuous labour of any kind. Yet these pleasures, all within his reach, Bulwer must, as compared with men born CHAP, i] MR. DISRAELI 27 to similar estate, have denied himself in assuming the position and pursuing the career of a literary man. Like Byron, his first effort was poetical (' Weeds and Wild Flowers '), and a failure. His second was a novel (' Falkland '), and it proved a failure too. A man of weaker nerve would have dropped authorship ; but Bulwer had pluck and perseverance ; and he worked on, determined to succeed. He was incessantly industrious, read extensively, and from failure went courageously onwards to success. ' Pelham ' followed ' Falkland ' within a year, and the remainder of Bulwer's literary life, now extending over a period of thirty years, has been a succession of triumphs. Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of industry and application in working out an eminent public career. His first achievements were, like Bulwer's, in literature ; and he reached success only through a succession of failures. His ' Wondrous Tale of Alroy ' and ' Revolutionary Epic' were laughed at, and regarded as indications of literary lunacy. But he worked on in other direction's, and his 'Coningsby,' 'Sybil,' and 'Tancred,' proved the sterling stuff of which he was made. As an orator too, his first appearance in the House of Commons was a failure. It was spoken of as "more screaming than a Adelphi farce." Though composed in a grand and ambitious strain, every sentence was hailed with "loud laughter." 'Hamlet' played as a comedy were nothing to it. But he concluded with a sentence which embodied a prophecy. Writhing under the laughter with which his studied eloquence had been received, he exclaimed, "I have begun several times many things, and have 28 HELP DERIVED FROM OTHERS [CHAP. I succeeded in them at last. I shall sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me." The time did come ; and how Disraeli succeeded in at length commanding the attention of the first assembly of gentlemen in the world, affords a striking illustration of what energy and determina- tion will do ; for Disraeli earned his position by dint of patient industry. He did not, as many young men do, having once failed, retire dejected, to mope and whine in a corner, but diligently set himself to work. He carefully unlearnt his faults, studied the character of his audience, practised sedulously the art of speech, and in- dustriously filled his mind with the elements of parliamentary knowledge. He worked patiently for success ; and it came, but slowly : then the House laughed with him, instead of at him. The recollection of his early failure was effaced, and by general consent he was at length admitted to be one of the most finished and effective of parlia- mentary speakers. Although much may be accomplished by means of individual industry and energy, as these and other instances set forth in the following pages serve to illustrate, it must at the same time be acknowledged that the help which we derive from others in the journey of life is of very great importance. The poet Wordsworth has well said that " these two things, contradictory though they may seem, must go together manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance." From infancy to old age, all are more or less indebted to others for nurture and culture ; and the best and strongest are usually found the readiest to acknowledge such help. CHAP, i] ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 29 Take, for example, the career of the late Alexis de Tocqueville, a man doubly well-born, for his father was a distinguished peer of France, and his mother a grand-daughter of Malesherbes. Through powerful family influence, he was appointed Judge Auditor at Versailles when only twenty-one; but probably feeling that he had not fairly won the position by merit, he determined to give it up and owe his future advancement in life to himself alone. " A foolish resolution," some will say ; but De Tocqueville bravely acted it out. He resigned his appointment, and made arrangements to leave France for the purpose of travelling through the United States, the results of which were published in his great book on ! 'Democracy in America.' His friend and travelling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, has described his indefatigable industry during this journey. " His nature," he says, " was wholly averse to idleness, and whether he was travelling or resting, his mind was always at work. . . . With Alexis, the most agreeable con- versation was that which was the most useful. The worst day was the lost day, or the day ill spent; the least loss of time annoyed him." Tocqueville himself wrote to a friend " There is no time of life at which one can wholly cease from action ; for effort without one's self, and still more effort within, is equally necessary, if not more so, when we grow old, as it is in youth. I compare man in this world to a traveller journeying without ceasing towards a colder and colder region ; the higher he goes, the faster he ought to walk. The great malady of the soul is cold. And in resisting this formidable evil, one needs not only to be sustained by the action of a 30 TOCQUEVILLE'S OBLIGATIONS [CHAP. I mind employed, but also by contact with one's fellows in the business of life." * Notwithstanding De Tocqueville's decided views as to the necessity of exercising individual energy and self-dependence, no one could be more ready than he was to recognize the value of that help and support for which all men are indebted to others in a greater or less degree. Thus, he often acknow- ledged, with gratitude, his obligations to his friends De Kergorlay and Stofells, to the former for intellectual assistance, and to the latter for moral support and sympathy. To De Kergorlay he wrote "Thine is the only soul in which I have confidence, and whose influence exercises a genuine effect upon my own. Many others have influence upon the details of my actions, but no one has so much influence as thou on the origination of fundamental ideas, and of those principles which are the rule of conduct." De Tocqueville was not less ready to confess the great obligations which he owed to his wife, Marie, for the preservation of that temper and frame of mind which enabled him to prosecute his studies with success. He believed that a noble-minded woman insensibly elevated the character of her husband, while one of a grovelling nature as certainly tended to degrade it.f * ' CEuvres et Correspondance inedite d' Alexis de Tocqueville. Par Gustave de Beaumont.' I. 398. t " I have seen," said he, "a hundred times in the course of my life, a weak man exhibit genuine public virtue, because supported by a wife who sustained him in his course, not so much by advising him to such and such acts, as by exercising a strength- ening influence over the manner in which duty or even ambition was to be regarded. Much oftener, however, it must be con- fessed, have I seen private and domestic life gradually transform CHAP, i] MEN THEIR OWN BEST HELPERS 31 In fine, human character is moulded by a thousand subtle influences ; by example and pre- cept; by life and literature; by friends and neighbours ; by the world we live in as well as by the spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds we inherit. But great, unquestionably, though these influences are acknow- ledged to be, it is nevertheless equally clear that men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing ; and that, however much the wise and the good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers. a man to whom nature had given generosity, disinterestedness, and even some capacity for greatness, into an ambitious, mean- spirited, vulgar, and selfish creature who, in matters relating to his country, ended by considering them only in so far as they rendered his own particular condition more comfortable and easy." ' CEuvres de Tocqueville.' II. 349. CHAPTER II LEADERS OF INDUSTRY INVENTORS AND PRODUCERS " Le travail et la Science sont desormais les maltres du monde." De Salvandy. " Deduct all that men of the humbler classes have done for England in the way of inventions only, and see where she would have been but for them." Arthur Helps. ONE of the most strongly-marked features of the English people is their spirit of industry, standing out prominent and distinct in their past history, and as strikingly characteristic of them now as at any former period. It is this spirit, displayed by the commons of England, which has laid the foundations and built up the industrial greatness of the empire. This vigorous growth of the nation has been mainly the result of the free energy of individuals, and it has been contingent upon the number of hands and minds from time to time actively employed within it, whether as cultivators of the soil, producers of articles of utility, contrivers of tools and machines, writers of books, or creators of works of art. And while this spirit of active industry has been the vital principle of the nation, it has also been its saving and remedial one, counteracting from time to time the effects of errors in our laws and imperfections in our constitution. CHAP, n] TOIL THE BEST SCHOOL 33 The career of industry which the nation has pursued, has also proved its best education. As steady application to work is the healthiest training for every individual, so is it the best discipline of a state. ^Honourable industry travels the same road with duty ; and Providence has closely linked both with happiness.J The gods, says the poet, have placed labour and toil on the way leading to the Elysian fields. Certain it is that no bread eaten by man is so sweet as that earned by his own labour, whether bodily or mental. By labour the earth has been subdued, and man redeemed from barbarism ; nor has a single step in civilization been made without it. Labour is not only a necessity and a duty, but a blessing : only the idler feels it to be a curse. The duty of work is written on the thews and muscles of the limbs, the mechanism of the hand, the nerves and lobes of the brain the sum of whose healthy action is satisfaction and enjoy- ment. In the school of labour is taught the best practical wisdom ;fnor is a life of manual employ- ment, as we shall hereafter find, incompatible with high mental cultured] ^ Hugh Miller, than whom none knew better the strength and the weakness belonging to the lot of labour, stated the result of his experience to be, that Work, even the hardest, is full of pleasure and materials for self-improvement. He held honest labour to be the best of teachers, and that the school of toil is the noblest of schools save only the Christian one, that it is a school in which the ability of being useful is imparted, the spirit of independence learnt, and the habit of persevering effort acquired. He was even of opinion that the training of the mechanic, by the exercise which 3 34 GREAT INVENTORS [CHAP. II it gives to his observant faculties, from his daily dealing with things actual and practical, and the close experience of life which he acquires, better fits him for picking his way along the journey of life, and is more favourable to his growth as a Man, emphatically speaking, than the training afforded by any other condition. The array of great names which we have already cursorily cited, of men springing from the ranks of the industrial classes, who have achieved distinction in various walks of life in science, commerce, literature, and art shows that at all events the difficulties interposed by poverty and labour are not insurmountable. As respects the great con- trivances and inventions which have conferred so much power and wealth upon the nation, it is unquestionable that for the greater part of them we have been indebted to men of the humblest rank. Deduct what they have done in this parti- cular line of action, and it will be found that very little indeed remains for other men to have accomplished. Inventors have set in motion some of the greatest industries of the world. To them society owes many of its chief necessaries, comforts, and luxuries; and by their genius and labour daily life has been rendered in all respects more easy as well as enjoyable. Our food, our clothing, the furniture of our homes, the glass which admits the light to our dwellings at the same time that it excludes the cold, the gas which illuminates our streets, our means of locomotion by land and by sea, the tools by which our various articles of necessity and luxury are fabricated, have been the result of the labour and ingenuity of many CHAP, n] INVENTION OF STEAM-ENGINE 35 men and many minds. Mankind at large are all the happier for such inventions, and are every day reaping the benefit of them in an increase of individual well-being as well as of public enjoyment. Though the invention of the working steam- engine the king of machines belongs, com- paratively speaking, to our own epoch, the idea of it was born many centuries ago. Like other contrivances and discoveries, it was effected step by step one man transmitting the result of his labours, at the time apparently useless, to his successors, who took it up and carried it forward another stage, the prosecution of the inquiry extending over many generations. Thus the idea promulgated by Hero of Alexandria was never altogether lost ; but, like the grain of wheat hid in the hand of the Egyptian mummy, it sprouted and again grew vigorously when brought into the full light of modern science. The steam-engine was nothing, however, until it emerged from the state of theory, and was taken in hand by practical mechanics ; and what a noble story of patient, laborious investigation, of difficulties encountered and overcome by heroic industry, does not that marvellous machine tell of! It is indeed, in itself, a monument of the power of self-help in man. Grouped around it we find Savary, the military engineer ; Newcomen, the Dartmouth blacksmith ; Cawley, the glazier ; Potter, the engine-boy ; Smeaton, the civil engineer; and, towering abo^e all, the laborious, patient, never-tiring James Watt, the mathematical-instrument maker. Watt was one of the most industrious of men ; and the story of his life proves, what all experience 36 JAMES WATT [CHAP, n confirms, that it is not the man of the greatest natural vigour and capacity who achieves the highest results, but he who employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most carefully disciplined skill the skill that comes by labour, application, and experience. Many men in his time knew far more than Watt, but none laboured so assiduously as he did to turn all that he did know to useful practical purposes. He was, above all things, most persevering in the pursuit of facts. He cultivated carefully that habit of active attention on which all the higher working qualities of the mind mainly depend. Indeed, Mr. Edgeworth entertained the opinion, that the difference of intellect in men depends more upon the early cultivation of this habit of attention, than upon any great disparity between the powers of one individual and another. Even when a boy, Watt found science in his toys. The quadrants lying about his father's carpenter's shop led him to the study of optics and astronomy ; his ill health induced him to pry into the secrets of physiology; and his solitary walks through the country attracted him to the study of botany and history. While carrying on the business of a mathematical-instrument maker, he received an order to build an organ ; and, though without an ear for music, he undertook the study of harmonics, and successfully con- structed the instrument. And, in like manner, when the little model of Newcomen's steam-engine, belonging to the University of Glasgow, was placed in his hands to repair, he forthwith set himself to learn all that was then known about heat, evapora- tion, and condensation, at the same time plodding CHAP, n] APPLICATIONS OF STEAM-ENGINE 37 his way in mechanics and the science of con- struction, the results of which he at length em- bodied in his condensing steam-engine. For ten years he went on contriving and inventing with little hope to cheer him, and with few friends to encourage him. He went on, meanwhile, earning bread for his family by making and selling quadrants, making and mending fiddles, flutes, and musical instruments ; measuring mason- work, surveying roads, superintending the construc- tion of canals, or doing anything that turned up, and offered a prospect of honest gain. At length, Watt found a fit partner in another eminent leader of industry Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham ; a skilful, energetic, and far-seeing man, who vigor- ously undertook the enterprise of introducing the condensing-engine into general use as a working power; and the success of both is now matter of history.* Many skilful inventors have from time to time added new power to the steam-engine; and, by numerous modifications, rendered it capable of being applied to nearly all the purposes of manufacture driving machinery, impelling ships, grinding corn, printing books, stamping money, hammering, planing, and turning iron; in short, of performing every description of mechanical labour where power is required. One of the most useful modifications in the engine was that devised by Trevithick, and eventually perfected by George Stephenson and his son, in the form of * Since the original publication of this book, the author has in another work, ' The Lives of Boulton and Watt,' endeavoured to portray in greater detail the character and achievements of these two remarkable men. 38 THE COTTON-MANUFACTURE [CHAP. II the railway locomotive, by which social changes of immense importance have been brought about, of even greater consequence, considered in their results on human progress and civilization, than the condensing-engine of Watt. One of the first grand results of Watt's in- vention which placed an almost unlimited power at the command of the producing classes was the establishment of the cotton-manufacture. The person most closely identified with the foundation of this great branch of industry was unquestionably Sir Richard Arkwright, whose practical energy and sagacity were perhaps even more remarkable than his mechanical inventiveness. His originality as an inventor has indeed been called in question, like that of Watt and Stephenson. Arkwright probably stood in the same relation to the spinning- machine that Watt did to the steam-engine and Stephenson to the locomotive. He gathered to- gether the scattered threads of ingenuity which already existed, and wove them, after his own design, into a new and original fabric. Though Lewis Paul, of Birmingham, patented the invention of spinning by rollers thirty years before Arkwright, the machines constructed by him were so imperfect in their details, that they could not be profitably worked, and the invention was practically a failure. Another obscure mechanic, a reed-maker of Leigh, named Thomas Highs, is also said to have invented the water-frame and spinning-jenny ; but they, too, proved unsuccessful. When the demands of industry are found to press upon the resources of inventors, the same idea is usually found floating about in many minds ; such has been the case with the steam-engine, SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT, 1732-1792. By Joseph Wright, A.R.A. \Tofacep. 38. CHAP, n] R. ARKWRIGHT BARBER 39 the safety-lamp, the electric telegraph, and other inventions. Many ingenious minds are found labouring in the throes of invention, until at length the master mind, the strong practical man, steps forward, and straightway delivers them of their idea, applies the principle successfully, and the thing is done. Then there is a loud out- cry among all the smaller contrivers, who see themselves distanced in the race; and hence men such as Watt, Stephenson, and Arkwright, have usually to defend their reputation and their rights as practical and successful inventors. Richard Arkwright, like most of our great mechanicians, sprang from the ranks. He was born in Preston in 1732. His parents were very poor, and he was the youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school : the only education he received he gave to himself; and to the last he was only able to write with difficulty. When a boy, he was apprenticed to a barber, and after learning the business, he set up for himself in Bolton, where he occupied an underground cellar, over which he put up the sign, " Come to the subterraneous barber he shaves for a penny." The other barbers found their customers leaving them, and reduced their prices to his standard, when Arkwright, determined to push his trade, announced his determination to give "a clean shave for a halfpenny." After a few years he quitted his cellar, and became an itinerant dealer in hair. At that time wigs were worn, and wig- making formed an important branch of the barber- ing business. Arkwright went about buying hair for the wigs. He was accustomed to attend the hiring fairs throughout Lancashire resorted to by 40 R. ARKWRIGHT INVENTOR [CHAP. II young women, for the purpose of securing their long tresses ; and it is said that in negotiations of this sort he was very successful. He also dealt in a chemical hair dye, which he used adroitly, and thereby secured a considerable trade. But he does not seem, notwithstanding his pushing character, to have done more than earn a bare living. The fashion of wig-wearing having undergone a change, distress fell upon the wig-makers ; and Arkwright, being of a mechanical turn, was con- sequently induced to turn machine inventor or "conjurer," as the pursuit was then popularly termed. Many attempts were made about that time to invent a spinning-machine, and our barber determined to launch his little bark on the sea of invention with the rest. Like other self-taught men of the same bias, he had already been devoting his spare time to the invention of a perpetual- motion machine ; and from that the transition to a spinning-machine was easy. He followed his experiments so assiduously that he neglected his business, lost the little money he had saved, and was reduced to great poverty. His wife for he had by this time married was impatient at what she conceived to be a wanton waste of time and money, and in a moment of sudden wrath she seized upon and destroyed his models, hoping thus to remove the cause of the family privations. Arkwright was a stubborn and enthusiastic man, and he was provoked beyond measure by this conduct of his wife, from whom he immediately separated. In travelling about the country, Arkwright had become acquainted with a person named Kay, a clockmaker at Warrington, who assisted him in CHAP, n] R. ARKWRIGHT INVENTOR 41 constructing some of the parts of his perpetual- motion machinery. It is supposed that he was informed by Kay of the principle of spinning by rollers ; but it is also said that the idea was first suggested to him by accidentally observing a red- hot piece of iron become elongated by passing between iron rollers. However this may be, the idea at once took firm possession of his mind, and he proceeded to devise the process by which it was to be accomplished, Kay being able to tell him nothing on this point. Arkwright now abandoned his business of hair collecting, and devoted himself to the perfecting of his machine, a model of which, constructed by Kay under his directions, he set up in the parlour of the Free Grammar School at Preston. Being a burgess of the town, he voted at the contested election at which General Burgoyne was returned ; but such was his poverty, and such the tattered state of his dress, that a number of persons subscribed a sum sufficient to have him put in a state fit to appear in the poll-room. The exhi- bition of his machine in a town where so many workpeople lived by the exercise of manual labour proved a dangerous experiment ; ominous growlings were heard outside the school-room from time to time, and Arkwright remembering the fate of Kay, who was mobbed and compelled to fly from Lancashire because of his invention of the fly- shuttle, and of poor Hargreaves, whose spinning- jenny had been pulled to pieces only a short time before by a Blackburn mob wisely determined on packing up his model and removing to a less dangerous locality. He went accordingly to Nottingham, where he applied to some of the local bankers for pecuniary assistance ; and the Messrs. 42 R. ARKWRIGHT INVENTOR [CHAP. II Wright consented to advance him a sum of money on condition of sharing in the profits of the inven- tion. The machine, however, not being perfected so soon as they had anticipated, the bankers recom- mended Arkwright to apply to Messrs. Strutt & Need, the former of whom was the ingenious in- ventor and patentee of the stocking-frame. Mr. Strutt at once appreciated the merits of the in- vention, and a partnership was entered into with Arkwright, whose road to fortune was now clear. The patent was secured in the name of " Richard Arkwright, of Nottingham, clockmaker," and it is a circumstance worthy of note, that it was taken out in 1769, the same year in which Watt secured the patent for his steam-engine. A cotton-mill was first erected at Nottingham, driven by horses ; and another was shortly after built, on a much larger scale, at Cromford, in Derbyshire, turned by a water-wheel, from which circumstance the spinning- machine came to be called the water-frame. Arkwright's labours, however, were, compara- tively speaking, only begun. He had still to perfect all the working details of his machine. It was in his hands the subject of constant modification and improvement, until eventually it was rendered practicable and profitable in an eminent degree. But success was only secured by long and patient labour : for some years, indeed, the speculation was disheartening and unprofitable, swallowing up a very large amount of capital without any result. When success began to appear more certain, then the Lancashire manufacturers fell upon Ark- wright's patent to pull it in pieces, as the Cornish miners fell upon Boulton and Watt to rob them of the profits of their steam-engine. Arkwright CHAP. ii] R. ARKWRIGHT MANUFACTURER 43 was even denounced as the enemy of the working people ; and a mill which he built near Chorley was destroyed by a mob in the presence of a strong force of police and military. The Lancashire men refused to buy his materials, though they were confessedly the best in the market. Then they refused to pay patent-right for the use of his machines, and combined to crush him in the courts of law. To the disgust of right-minded people, Arkwright's patent was upset. After the trial, when passing the hotel at which his opponents were staying, one of them said, loud enough to be heard by him, " Well, we've done the old shaver at last " ; to which he coolly replied, " Never mind, I've a razor left that will shave you all." He established new mills in Lancashire, Derbyshire, and at New Lanark, in Scotland. The mills at Cromford also came into his hands at the expiry of his partnership with Strutt, and the amount and the excellence of his products were such, that in a short time he obtained so complete a control of the trade, that the prices were fixed by him, and he governed the main operations of the other cotton-spinners. Arkwright was a man of great force of character, indomitable courage, much worldly shrewdness, with a business faculty almost amounting to genius. At one period his time was engrossed by severe and continuous labour, occasioned by the organizing and conducting of his numerous manufactories, sometimes from four in the morning till nine at night. At fifty years of age he set to work to learn English grammar, and improve himself in writing and orthography. After overcoming every obstacle, he had the satisfaction of reaping the reward of his enterprise. Eighteen years after he had 44 THE PEEL FAMILY [CHAP, n constructed his first machine, he rose to such esti- mation in Derbyshire that he was appointed High Sheriff of the county, and shortly after George III. conferred upon him the honour of knighthood. He died in 1792. Be it for good or for evil, Ark- wright was the founder in England of the modern factory system, a branch of industry which has unquestionably proved a source of immense wealth to individuals and to the nation. All the other great branches of industry in Britain furnish like examples of energetic men of business, the source of much benefit to the neigh- bourhoods in which they have laboured, and of increased power and wealth to the community at large. Amongst such might be cited the Strutts of Belper ; the Tennants of Glasgow ; the Marshalls and Gotts of Leeds; the Peels, Ashworths, Birleys, Fieldens, Ashtons, Heywoods, and Ainsworths of South Lancashire, some of whose descendants have since become distinguished in connexion with the political history of England. Such pre-eminently were the Peels of South Lancashire. The founder of the Peel family, about the middle of last century, was a small yeoman, occu- pying the Hole House Farm, near Blackburn, from which he afterwards removed to a house situated in Fish Lane in that town. Robert Peel, as he advanced in life, saw a large family of sons and daughters growing up about him ; but the land about Blackburn being somewhat barren, it did not appear to him that agricultural pursuits offered a very encouraging prospect for their industry. The place had, however, long been the seat of a domestic manufacture the fabric called " Black- burn greys," consisting of linen weft and cotton CHAP, n] THE FIRST ROBERT PEEL 45 warp, being chiefly made in that town and its neighbourhood. It was then customary previous to the introduction of the factory system for in- dustrious yeomen with families to employ the time not occupied in the fields in weaving at home ; and Robert Peel accordingly began the domestic trade of calico-making. He was honest, and made an honest article ; thrifty and hardworking, and his trade prospered. He was also enterprising, and was one of the first to adopt the carding cylinder, then recently invented. But Robert Peel's attention was principally directed to the printing of calico, then a compara- tively unknown art, and for some time he carried on a series of experiments with the object ot printing by machinery. The experiments were secretly conducted in his own house, the cloth being ironed for the purpose by one of the women of the family. It was then customary, in such houses as the Peels', to use pewter plates for dinner. Having sketched a figure or pattern on one of the plates, the thought struck him that an impression might be got from it in reverse, and printed on calico with colour. In a cottage at the end of the farm-house lived a woman who kept a calendering machine, and going into her cottage, he put the plate with colour rubbed into the figured part and some calico over it, through the machine, when it was found to leave a satisfactory impression. Such is said to have been the origin of roller-printing on calico. Robert Peel shortly perfected his process, and the first pattern he brought out was a parsley leaf; hence he is spoken of in the neighbourhood of Blackburn to this day as " Parsley Peel." The process of calico-printing 46 THE FIRST SIR ROBERT PEEL [CHAP. II by what is called the mule machine that is, by means of a wooden cylinder in relief, with an engraved copper cylinder was afterwards brought to perfection by one of his sons, the head of the firm of Messrs. Peel & Co., of Church. Stimu- lated by his success, Robert Peel shortly gave up farming, and removing to Brookside, a village about two miles from Blackburn, he devoted him- self exclusively to the printing business. There, with the aid of his sons, who were as energetic as himself, he successfully carried on the trade for several years ; and as the young men grew up towards manhood, the concern branched out into various firms of Peels, each of which became a centre of industrial activity and a source of remunerative employment to large numbers of people. From what can now be learnt of the character of the original and untitled Robert Peel, he must have been a remarkable man shrewd, sagacious, and far-seeing. But little is known of him except- ing from tradition, and the sons of those who knew him are fast passing away. His son, Sir Robert, thus modestly spoke of him : " My father may be truly said to have been the founder of our family; and he so accurately appreciated the importance of commercial wealth in a national point of view, that he was often heard to say that the gains to individuals were small compared with the national gains arising from trade." Sir Robert Peel, the first baronet and the second manufacturer of the name, inherited all his father's enterprise, ability, and industry. His position, at starting in life, was little above that of an ordinary working man; for his father, though laying the CHAP, ii] YATES, PEEL & CO. 47 foundations of future prosperity, was still strug- gling with the difficulties arising from insufficient capital. When Robert was only twenty years of age, he determined to begin the business of cotton- printing, which he had by this time learnt from his father, on his own account. His uncle, James Haworth, and William Yates of Blackburn, joined him in his enterprise ; the whole capital which they could raise amongst them amounting to only about 5oo/., the principal part of which was sup- plied by William Yates. The father of the latter was a householder in Blackburn, where he was well known and much respected ; and having saved money by his business, he was willing to advance sufficient to give his son a start in the lucrative trade of cotton-printing, then in its infancy. Robert Peel, though comparatively a mere youth, supplied the practical knowledge of the business ; but it was said of him, and proved true, that he " carried an old head on young shoulders." A ruined corn-mill, with its adjoin- ing fields, was purchased for a comparatively small sum, near the then insignificant town of Bury, where the works long after continued to be known as "The Ground " ; and a few wooden sheds having been run up, the firm commenced their cotton- printing business in a very humble way in the year 1770, adding to it that of cotton-spinning a few years later. The frugal style in which the partners lived may be inferred from the following incident in their early career. William Yates, being a married man with a family, commenced housekeeping on a small scale, and, to oblige Peel, who was single, he agreed to take him as a lodger. The sum which the latter first paid for board and 48 LADY PEEL [CHAP. H lodging was only 8s. a week ; but Yates, consider- ing this too little, insisted on the weekly pay- ment being increased a shilling, to which Peel at first demurred, and a difference between the partners took place, which was eventually com- promised by the lodger paying an advance of sixpence a week. William Yates's eldest child was a girl named Ellen, and she very soon became an especial favourite with the young lodger. On returning from his hard day's work at " The Ground," he would take the little girl upon his knee, and say to her, " Nelly, thou bonny little dear, wilt be my wife?" to which the child would readily answer " Yes," as any child would do. " Then I'll wait for thee, Nelly ; I'll wed thee, and none else." And Robert Peel did wait. As the girl grew in beauty towards womanhood, his determination to wait for her was strengthened ; and after the lapse of ten years years of close application to business and rapidly increasing prosperity Robert Peel married Ellen Yates when she had completed her seventeenth year ; and the pretty child, whom her mother's lodger and father's partner had nursed upon his knee, became Mrs. Peel, and eventually Lady Peel, the mother of the future Prime Minister of England. Lady Peel was a noble and beautiful woman, fitted to grace any station in life. She possessed rare powers of mind, and was, on every emergency, the high-souled and faithful counsellor of her husband. For many years after their marriage she acted as his amanuensis, conducting the principal part of his business corre- spondence, for Mr. Peel himself was an indifferent and almost unintelligible writer. She died in 1803, only three years after the Baronetcy had been con- CHAP. II] PEEL'S MERCANTILE ABILITIES 49 ferred upon her husband. It is said that London fashionable life so unlike what she had been accustomed to at home proved injurious to her health ; and old Mr. Yates afterwards used to say, "If Robert hadn't made our Nelly a 'Lady,' she might ha' been living yet." The career of Yates, Peel & Co was throughout one of great and uninterrupted prosperity. Sir Robert Peel himself was the soul of the firm ; to great energy and application uniting much practical sagacity, and first-rate mercantile abilities qualities in which many of the early cotton-spinners were exceedingly deficient. He was a man of iron mind and frame, and toiled unceasingly. In short, he was to cotton-printing what Arkwright was to cotton-spinning, and his success was equally great. The excellence of the articles produced by the firm secured the command of the market, and the char- acter of the firm stood pre-eminent in Lancashire. Besides greatly benefiting Bury, the partnership planted similar extensive works in the neighbour- hood, on the Irwell and the Roch ; and it was cited to their honour, that, while they sought to raise to the highest perfection the quality of their manufactures, they also endeavoured, in all ways, to promote the well-being and comfort of their workpeople ; for whom they contrived to provide remunerative employment even in the least pros- perous times. Sir Robert Peel readily appreciated the value of all new processes and inventions ; in illustration of which we may allude to his adoption of the process for producing what is called resist work in calico- printing. This is accomplished by the use of a paste, or resist, on such parts of the cloth as were intended 4 50 WILLIAM LEE [CHAP, n to remain white. The person who discovered the paste was a traveller for a London house, who sold it to Mr. Peel for an inconsiderable sum. It re- quired the experience of a year or two to perfect the system and make it practically useful; but the beauty of its effect, and the extreme pre- cision of outline in the pattern produced, at once placed the Bury establishment at the head of all the factories for calico-printing in the country. Other firms, conducted with like spirit, were established by members of the same family at Burnley, Foxhill Bank, and Altham, in Lancashire ; Salley Abbey, in Yorkshire ; and afterwards at Burton-on-Trent, in Staffordshire ; these various establishments, whilst they brought wealth to their proprietors, setting an example to the whole cotton trade, and training up many of the most successful printers and manufacturers in Lancashire. Among other distinguished founders of industry, the Rev. William Lee, inventor of the stocking- frame, and John Heathcoat, inventor of the bobbin- net machine, are worthy of notice, as men of great mechanical skill and perseverance, through whose labours a vast amount of remunerative employment has been provided for the labouring population of Nottingham and the adjacent districts. The ac- counts which have been preserved of the circum- stances connected with the invention of the stocking- frame are very confused, and in many respects contradictory, though there is no doubt as to the name of the inventor. This was William Lee, born at Woodborough, a village some seven miles from Nottingham, about the year 1563. According to some accounts, he was the heir to a small freehold, CHAP, n] ORIGIN OF STOCKING-LOOM 51 while according to others he was a poor scholar,* and had to struggle with poverty from his earliest years. He entered as a sizar at Christ College, Cambridge, in May, 1579, and subsequently re- moved to St. John's, taking his degree of B.A. in 1582-3. It is believed that he commenced M.A. in 1586; but on this point there appears to be some confusion in the records of the University. The statement usually made that he was expelled for marrying contrary to the statutes, is incorrect, as he was never a Fellow of the University, and there- fore could not be prejudiced by taking such a step. At the time when Lee invented the stocking- frame he was officiating as curate of Calverton, near Nottingham ; and it is alleged by some writers that the invention had its origin in dis- appointed affection. The curate is said to have fallen deeply in love with a young lady of the village, who failed to reciprocate his affections ; and when he visited her, she was accustomed to pay much more attention to the process of knitting stockings and instructing her pupils in the art, than to the addresses of her admirer. This slight is said to have created in his mind such an aversion to knitting by hand, that he formed the determina- tion to invent a machine that should supersede it and render it a gainless employment. For three years he devoted himself to the prosecution of the * The following entry, which occurs in the account of monies disbursed by the burgesses of Sheffield in 1573 [?], is supposed by some to refer to the inventor of the stocking frame : " Item gyven to Will Lee, a poore scholler in Sheafield, towards the settyng him to the Universitie of Chambrydge, and buying him bookes and other furnyture [which money was afterwards returned] xiii iiii ^. 4 statue of Perseus, 196-8 Chalmers, Rev. Dr., on hon- esty. 337 ; in boyhood, 418 Chambers, William, pub- lisher, 407 Chantrey, Sir Francis, 12, 184 ; character and works, 211-4 Character is power, 385, 449, 452 Charteris, Colonel, 454 Chatterton, poet, 376, 418 Chaucer, Geof., as a man of business, 312 Cheerfulness, 116, 440 Cheeryble Brothers, 465 Chisholm, Mrs., on work and success, 429 Civility and kindness, 461 Clarke, Adam, 376 Clarkson, Thomas, philan- thropist, 303-4 ; his im- mense labours, 304-5 Clay, Henry, orator, 404 Clergymen's sons, 13 Clive, Robert, 419 Clyde, Lord, 254, 271 Cobbett, William, author, 408 Cobden, Richard, 17 ; on thrift, 344 Cockburn, Lord, on character, 45i Coleridge, S. T., poet, 13, 396 Collingwood, Lord, on honest poverty, 367 ; on mean company, 433 ; on char- acter, 459 Columbus, a careful observer, 143 Comic literature, 391 Constant, Benjamin, 394 Courageous working, 265 Cromwell, Oliver, on integrity 456 Cuneiform inscriptions, 121 Curran, J. P., 405 Cuvier, Baron, 151-2, 165 D DAGUESSEAU, Chancellor of France, 154, 437 INDEX 483 D'Alembert, 12, 404 Dalton, John, 113, 153 Dargan, William, on inde- pendence, 5 Darwin, Dr., author, 154 Davy, Sir H., 12, 14, 149-50, 399, 422 ; on Coleridge, 151; in boyhood, 420 Deal boatmen, intrepidity of, 471 Decision, 380 Details, importance of, 352 Dick, Robert, geologist, 180 Difficulty, uses of, 400-6 Diligence indispensable, 21 Discoveries not accidental, 139 Dishonest gains, 337-8 Disraeli, Benjamin, 24, 27 ; on Cobden's influence, 426 Douglas, anecdote of the, 435-6 Drake, Sir F., Admiral, 13 ; character of, 479 Drew, Samuel, shoemaker and metaphysician, 1 30 ; his origin, 1 30 ; his career, 131-2; his studies, 132-3; his writings, 135 ; on fru- gality, 344-5. 377, 437 Drinking, vice of, 357 Dunces, illustrious, 306, 373, 417-22 ECONOMY and independence, 347-50 Edgeworth, Mr., 35, 432 Edwardes, Colonel, 13, 278 Edwards, Thomas, Banff, 10 Eldon, Lord, his career, 257 Erskine, Lord, his notes, 156 ; on conduct, 453 Etruscan pottery, 79 Etty, William, 183 ; as a worker, 217 Example, power of, 423-4, 429, 435 FARADAY, Professor, 12, 150 Ferguson, astronomer, 147, 377 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 468 Flaxman, John, sculptor, 108, 183 ; his life and works, 204-5 5 his wife, 208 ; his ' Anatomical Studies, 1 228 Foley Peerage, the founder of, 241 Foster, John, 10, 112 Fox, C. J., 19 ; his pains- taking, 319, 398 Francis, Emperor, 472 Franklin, Benjamin, and elec- tricity, 144, 437 ; his in- tegrity, 452 Franklin, Sir John, his tender- ness, 473 French generals risen from the ranks, 16 Fuller, Andrew, 376 GAINSBOROUGH, painter, 183, 187 Galileo's observing faculty, 142 Galvani and electricity, 144 Genius, definition of, 112, 146 Genteel life, 354 Gentleman, the true, 449, 467, 473 Gentleness, influence of, 460, 478 Geology, discoveries in, 171- 81 484 INDEX Gesner, naturalist, 14 " Getting on," 388 Gibson, John, artist, 9, 222 Gifford, Wm., 10, 147 Good, Dr. Mason, 153 Government and individual action, 2-3 Grant, Ulysses, in boyhood, 419 Grant, William and Charles, 464 Grote, Mr., historian, 313 Guthrie, Rev. Dr., and John Pounds, 430 H HABITS, importance of good, 457-8 Hale, Sir Matthew, as a stu- dent, 155 Hall, Dr. Marshall, his dis- coveries, 167 Handel, musician, 434-5 Hanway, Jonas, philanthro- pist, 288-93 Hardinge, Lord, 13, 254 Harvey, and the circulation of the blood, 162 Hastings, Warren, 13, 271-2 Hawkswood, Sir John, 10 Haydn, musician, 14, 434 Hay don, on debt, 351-2 Hazlitt, on business, 310 Health of great men, 374-6 Heathcoat, John, M.P., in- ventor of bobbin-net ma- chine, 50, 56-65 Heilmann, Joshua, invention of the combing machine, and its value, 74-8 Heroism, true, 474-7 Herschell, astronomer, n ; his discoveries, 168 Hobson, Admiral, 10 Hoche, General, 16 Hodson of Hodson's Horse, 279, 441 ; on health, 372 Hogarth, Wm., painter, 187-8 Home influence, 424 ! Honesty the best policy, 333- 36 Honour, the gentleman's sense of, 468 Hook, Rev. Dr., on work, 116 Hope a helper, 117, 440 Horner, Francis, his father's advice, 348 ; on good com- pany, 433, 451 j Howard, John, 287, 420 Humbert, General, 16 Hume, Joseph, his work and perseverance, 136 ; on high living, 353 Hunter, John, anatomist, 9, 14, 113-4; his patient industry, early life, and career, 156-8, 386, 398 Hunter, William, anatomist, 157 I IMMORTALITY in this world, 427 Impatience, 380-1 Independence, how secured, 347 India, Englishmen in, 475 Indian rebellion, 275-7 Indian swordsman, 274 Individualism and freedom, 1-4 ; its influence, 7 Industry, results of, 113 ; industry and success, 183-5; industry and the peerage,. 238 ; industry honourable, 359-62 Integrity, importance of, 452 Inventors, benefits to society, 34 Irving, Washington, on de- serts, 318-9 INDEX 485 JACKSON, Stonewall, in boy- hood, 419 Jackson, Wm., self-taught musician, 233-7 Jackson, W., Birkenhead, 20 Jacquard, inventor, 65-9 Jenner, Dr., discoverer of vaccination, 163 Jerrold, Douglas, on comic literature, 391 Jervis, Admiral, on debt, 353-4 Johnson, Andrew, President of the United States, 1 1 Johnson, Dr., on observation, 141 ; on genius, 146 ; on impatience, 380 ; on look- ing at the bright side, 459 Jones, Inigo, 9, 183 Jonson, Ben, 9 K KEMP, George, architect, 219 Kepler, 12, 112 Knowledge and goodness, 383 LABOUR a blessing, 33 Labourers' sons, distin- guished, 9 Lammenais" opinion on will, 267 Langdale, Lord, 259-61 ; on mother's influence, 426-7 Lansdowne, Marquis of, on Malesherbes, 433 Lansdowne peerage, the, 250 Late learners, 416 Lawrences, the, in India, 277 Layard, Austen, his persever- ance, 13, 122 Learning and wisdom, 385 Lee, Professor, linguist, 9, 147 ; his perseverance, 413 Lee, Rev. Wm., inventor of stocking-loom, 50-5 Ley den, John, his persever- ance, 411-2 Lindsay, W. S., 19 Linnaeus, naturalist, 312 Literary culture, 384 Livingstone, Dr., missionary, 10, 284-7 Locke, John, on debt, 352 Loom, the Jacquard, 72 Lorraine, Claude, painter, 189-90 Loudon, landscape-gardener, 129 Loyola, Ignatius, 378, 438 Luddites, the, machine- breakers, 62 Lyndhurst, Lord, defence of Heathcoat's patent, 60 ; on difficulty, 403 Lyons silk industry, 73 Lytton, Sir E. Bulwer, 26 M MALESHERBES, M. de, 433 Malthus, D., on exercise, 371-2 Manners, their influence, 461-2 Mansfield, Lord, lawyer, 255, 302 Martin, John, artist, 184, 217-8 Massena, Marshal, 17 Mather, Cotton, his essays, 437 Melbourne, Lord, and Moore's son, 314 Mendelssohn on criticism, 399 Method, 320 Meyerbeer, musician, 233 Mill, John Stuart, 4, 313 Miller, Hugh, geologist, his origin, 22 ; on work as a teacher, 33, 177, 240, 264 ; on drink, 356 485 INDEX Milton, John, 13 ; a man of business, 312 Misfortune and stupidity, 317 Models of character, 434 Money, its use and abuse, 341 ; making and saving, 358-68 Montalembert on the Indian rebellion, 277 Moreau, General, greatest in defeat, 399 Mother's influence, 426 Motte, La, anecdote of, 477 Mulready, artist, 189 Murat, Marshal, 17 Murchison, Sir Roderick, 180 Murray, Professor Alexander, 406 Musicians, industry of, 232 N NAPIER, Sir Charles, 273 ; on debt, 354-5 ; on rectitude, 469 Napoleon and Jacquard, 72 ; his character, and on will, 269 ; as a business man, attentive to details, 325-8 ; as a boy, 419 Navvies, anecdote of two English, 472 Negroes and Granville Sharp, 295 Nelson, Admiral, 13 ; his punctuality, 323 Newton, Sir I., sayings of, 112, 119, 140, 146; his labour, 155 ; as a man of business, 313, 373; a dull boy, 417 Ney, Marshal, 17 ; generous conduct, 474 Nicoll, Robert, poet, 397 Northcote, painter, 183, 435 Note-making, 155-6 OBSERVATION, intelligent, 141, 151. 175 Opie, painter, 9, 146, 183 Order, importance of, 151 Owen, Richard, naturalist, 14, 157 PALISSY, the potter, 79, 81-95 Pare, Ambrose, surgeon, 158- 62 Parental example, 425 Patient labour, its results, 5, 112, 116, 123, 404 Paton, Noel, artist, 223 Peasant, a noble, 470 Peel family, the, 44, 50 Peel, Sir Robert, statesman, his cultivation of memory, 115 ; his truthfulness, 455 Peerages founded by trades- men, 240 ; by lawyers, 255 Pergaeus and conic sections, 144 Perseverance, its value and results, 83-92, 113, 118-26, 136, 152, 261, 318, 411-5 ; commands success, 421 Perrier, Fran$ois, artist, 192 - Perseus,' casting of, 196-8 Petty, Sir William, and the Lansdowne peerage, 250 Phipps, William, founder of the Normanby peerage, 244-50 Physical health and educa- tion, 372 Pleasure, pursuit of, 393 Politeness, 461-4 Pope, Alexander, 13, 429 Porcelain, invention of, 98 Potters, illustrious, 79 Pottery manufacture, 109, 206 Pounds, John, and Ragged Schools, 430 INDEX 487 Poussin, Nicolas, artist, 140, 198-202 Priestley, Dr., 148 Promptitude, importance of, 321, 380, 447 Pugin, architect, 218 Punctuality, importance of, 126, 323 Purpose, force of, 263 R RAMUS, Pierre, 1 5 Randon, Marshal, 18 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, his perseverance, 121 Reading to bad purpose, 382 Rectitude of the gentleman, 468 Respectability, true, 366 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 13, 183-6, 208, 377, 403 Ricardo, David, 313 Riches and worth a tempta- tion to ease, 23, 365, 368 Robbia, Lucca della, sculptor, 80 Robertson of Brighton, on reading, 382 ; on kindness, 460 Robinson, Judge, and Curran, 406 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 25, 410, 437 Rosa, Salvator, 183 Ross, Dr., on intent men, 377 Rosse, Lord, 23 Russell, Earl, 24 ; on char- acter, 450-1 ST. VINCENT, Lord, 254 Saxony, Elector of, and Bott- gher, 96 Scheffer, Ary, artist, 202-4 Scott, John (Lord Eldon), 257 Scott, Sir Walter, 13; a patient worker, 125-7, J 48, 313 ; on self-education, 369 ; his athletic sports, 375 ; his boyhood, 418 Self-culture, 369-70, 389 Self-denial, 343, 479 Self-help, spirit of, 1-6 Self-respect, 387 Shakespeare, 9, 312 Sharp, Granville, philanthro- pist, 294-304 ; a cheerful man, 440 ; on character, 455 Sharpies, James, artist and blacksmith, 224-31 Sheridan, H. B., 418 Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 10, 1 1 Sinclair, Sir John, his public usefulness, his energy, his works, 442-48 Slaves in England, 297 Smeaton, James, engineer, I3 3S 373 Smith, Dr. Pye, 156 Smith, William, geologist, his knowledge, 170-7 Soult, Marshal, risen from the ranks, 17 ; loot in Spain, 333 Southey, Robert, 13 ; on abused powers, 391 ; his industry, 396 Spencer, poet, as man of business, 312 Spinoza, 312 Steam-engine, invention of, 35 Stephen of Colonna, saying of, 453 Stephenson, George, 11 ; per- severance, 1 20, 153, 373, 386 ; his play, 420 Sterling, J., 442 Stone, Edmund, 148, 377 Stothard, painter, 147 Stowell, Lord, 257 Strutts of Derby, 43, 252 488 INDEX Sugden, Sir E., 255 Suwarrow on will, 269-70 Sydenham, saying of, 433 TAGLIONI, labours of, 115 Tailors, distinguished, 10 Taylor, Jeremy, 8 ; on idle- ness, 372 Tempters of youth, 356-7 Tenterden, Lord, 8, 256-7 Thierry, Augustin, his noble character, 395 Thrift, 343-6 Thornburn, R., artist, 222 Thoroughness, 378 Time, value of, 154, 321, 324 Titian, his industry, 185 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 29-30 Tools, education in use of, 373-4 Trifles, attention to, 140, 143, 318, 325, 425 Truthfulness, 455 Turner, artist, 8, 183, 190-1 VAUCANSON, inventor, 69-71 Vauquelin, chemist, 15 Vicissitudes of families, 239 Victor, Marshal, 17 Vincent, Earl St., on debt, 353-4 W WALKER, author of { Ori- ginal,' on will, 265 Washington, George, 399 Watt, James, 1 1 , 3 5-8 ; his per- severance,"! 21 ; a thought- ful observer, 142 ; 373 Weavers' sons, illustrious, 10 Wedgwood, Josiah, 79 ; char- acter and reputation, 103- 10, 207 Wellesley, Marquis of, his rectitude, 469 Wellington, Duke of, 254, 270, 400 ; a business man, his honesty, 325, 328-34 ; on accounts, 352 ; as a boy, 419 ; on Sir R. Peel, 455 ; his rectitude, 468 West, Benjamin, painter, 147, 183, 186 Wilkie, Sir David, 13, 147, 183 ; his industry, 214 Will, power of, 266-70 Williams, John, missionary, 283 Wilson, Professor, 13, 375 Wilson, Richard, artist, 13, 183, 186 Wisdom, 385 Wolff, Dr., inspired by Xavier, 438 Wollaston, Dr., 13, 146 Worcester, Marquis of, and steam-power, 23, 145 Wordsworth, Wm., poet, 13; on self-reliance, 28, 313 Work, a necessity, 123, 216, 393 Wright, Captain, 9ist High- landers, 477 Wright, Thomas, philan- thropist, 360, 368 X XAVIER, Francis, missionary, 280-3 YATES, PEEL & Co., 46-50 Young, Dr., philosopher, 13, 118, 141 Printed and bound by Hagf II, Watson &Viney,Ld., London and Ayltsbury. .J&L, i; University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. i J I ' /j,^ -r^t x >' s r,_ - s*