1 i: z 'fisi ■'! 
 
 ife'^i'
 
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 "^

 
 LIVES 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 " Lbt lis learn to regard MANnxt toil as the true discipline of a man. Nol 
 a few of the wisest, grandest Eplrils have toiled at the work-bench and the 
 plow. " Cbannino. 
 
 PORTLAND: 
 
 DAVIS & SOUTHWORTH. 
 
 1849.
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1849, by 
 
 DAVIS & SOUTHWORTH, 
 
 In the Clerk's office of the District Court of Maine. 
 
 Thuehtom ic. Co., Printers, 
 Portland, Me.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 CoLEEiDGE has Said, that the Shoemakers' trade has been 
 followed by a greater number of eminent men than any other 
 branch of mechanical employment. It was this remark which 
 led to the preparation of the following sketches, upon which 
 much diligent inquiry has been expended, and not a little labor. 
 Wherever we have found anything to aid us in our undertaking, 
 we have gladly availed ourselves of it, and turned it to the best 
 use we could. We have descended into the labyrinths of bio- 
 graphic lore, and brought up whatever of value to our purpose 
 we could find ; and, of course, acknowledge our deep indebt- 
 edness to the literary world, generally ; but the cutting out, 
 stitching together, and fitting for use, are ours. 
 
 As this is a work of true narration, and deals in things which 
 have actually existed or happened, it is not expected to be very 
 flowery or poetic in its composition. Imagination is compelled 
 to he fastened, like a horse to a crow-bar, and feed around in 
 a limited circle. Our object has not been to create, but to col- 
 lect what has been widely scattered, and condense what has 
 been greatly expanded, into a compact and available form, for 
 the benefit of readers whose access to extensive libraries, as 
 well as opportunities for reading, are necessarily limited. 
 
 We have made shoes — we hope to make many more — 
 and are aware that the craft is looked down upon by many, 
 who, did they know the state of the case, would be compelled 
 to look ui). We hope the following pages will disabuse their 
 innocent minds of tliis foolish prejudice, and lead all to judge 
 more as men and brothers — less as artisans — less as inferiors.
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 As for the critics, we expect to be made game of by tliem, 
 and have made no provisions against their attacks. We have 
 been " truthful and free, " and said what we intended, without 
 being flattered by hope, or kept back through fear ; — so our 
 anxiety on that score is small. We consider the tribe as a ne- 
 cessary evil. The North has its wolves and foxes — the South 
 has its buzzards and carrion crows — Literature has its critics 
 — all very good in their places. 
 
 We have written to do good — to elevate the aims and as- 
 pirations of a great and influential class, who have powers, if 
 developed and vnelded aright, for incalculable benefit in their 
 day and generation. Should our endeavors, feeble though 
 they be, induce one individual to form a nobler conception of 
 life — of the greatness of the intellectual gifts conferred upon 
 him, and of the almost infinite capacities of the soul lodged 
 within him ; should they lead but one individual to view himself 
 as something nobler and belter than a " digesting machine" — 
 to feel that the man is superior to the workman — that, to en- 
 large, instruct and develop the mind, to labor for the benefit 
 and advancement of the race, to do something for the future, 
 in order to cancel our debt to the past, is more important 
 than carving leather neatly and making money fast ; — the 
 writer will be abundantly satisfied. 
 
 We have confined ourselves entirely to such tis have passed 
 from the stage of fife, without attempting to speak of the many 
 distinguished characters, who are now acting in their various 
 spheres of usefulness and honor. With such, poets, philoso- 
 phers and statesmen, who are writing out their lives, from year 
 to year, on the tablets of history, we have nothing to do at 
 present. They, together with others whose history we have 
 been unable fully to arrive at, remain for a succeeding volume, 
 should public patronage indicate the fitness of the present un- 
 dertaking.
 
 TO THE 
 
 SHOEMAKERS 
 
 or 
 
 THE UNITED STATES; 
 
 Whose services are so necessary to the comfort and convenience 
 
 of all, from the cradle to the grave — a rough, stony, icy, 
 
 thorny, and often protracted journey ; 
 
 Whose handiwork ip the " Platform" on which the^ whole Amer- 
 ican People stand and act — which also bears up the enter- 
 prizing Yankee, not only in his own dear Yankeedom, 
 but in his characteristic peregrinations in all lands 
 yet heard-of or discovered ; 
 
 Which prevents our soles from becoming too deeply involved in 
 
 EARTHLv MATTER, and keeps them warm ; and which is 
 
 the favorite alike of kings and of beggars ; — 
 
 IN A WORD, 
 
 TO AN HONEST, INDUSTRIOUS, USEFUL AND INTELLIGENT CLASS 
 OF HIS FELLOW-CITIZENS. 
 
 THEIR FAeSS ARE 
 
 EESPECTRJLLY INSCRIBED, 
 
 • T 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOE. 
 
 SAINT CRISPIN 9 
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON, .... 12 
 
 TIMOTHV BENNETT, . . . . .40 
 
 ROGER SHERMAN, .... 42 
 
 WILLIAM CAREY, . . . . .77 
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, .... 105 
 
 SIMON ANTOINE, . . . . .137 
 
 HANS SACHS, 164 
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD 166 
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT 198 
 
 THOMAS HARDY, . . . . .321 
 
 CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL 998 
 
 GEORGE FOX. .346 
 
 JAMES WOODHOUSE, ... 979 
 
 JACOB BEUMEN, . . . . .979 
 
 NOAH WORCESTER, .... 299 
 
 JOHN POUNDS, . . . . . .331
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ST. CRISPIN. 
 
 The patron saints of the Shoemakers are certainly 
 entitled to a first notice in a book like this — and 
 they shall have it, though they have left but a scanty re- 
 cord of their deeds in the legends of the church. There 
 appear to have been two of this name, who lived and died 
 at the same time, and were probably brothers. Their 
 birth is pilt down as happening about the year 303 of the 
 Christian Era, at Rome, then the capital of the world. 
 They were, indeed, brought into being in dark and troub- 
 lous times ; for never has there been a period, when 
 persecution raged with more destructive violence and 
 wasting fury. It seemed as though all the powers of dark- 
 ness had consented, for a time, to forget their discordant 
 interests, and leagued together for one united effort to 
 crush the Christian religion at a blow. The Roman 
 Emperor, Galerius, issued his edicts for the utter extirpa- 
 tion of the Christian faith, against which he harbored the 
 most malignant hatred and ferocious opposition. Its 
 professors were forced, either to abjure their belief and 
 sacrifice to the thousand deities of Roman adoration, or 
 submit to undergo the most painful and ignominious death. 
 The Christian writings were burned, wherever found; 
 churches and towns were leveled with the ground ; 
 thousands perished by the severity of infernal tortures ;
 
 fO OISTINGUISnED SHaEMAKER5. 
 
 men, women and children were grasped in the same 
 sweeping edict, and experienced the same terrible doom ; 
 and had not Heaven interposed in mercy to his chosen, 
 the very footprints of Christianity would have been wash- 
 ed from the earth in blood and tears. 
 
 It was in a time like this, that the young Crispins spent 
 (heir childhood in the streets of Rome ; and, notwith- 
 standing imperial prohibitions,, and dungeons, and cruci- 
 fixes, they became members of the hated sect ; though, 
 perhaps not till after the victorious Constantine had usher- 
 ed in a better and a brighter day — for they were only 
 about ten years of age when that emperor commenced 
 his glorious and benignant reign. Be this as it may, they 
 became converts to Christianity, and set out on a mission 
 of peace and good will, to the remote regions of France, 
 which, under its ancient name of Gaul, had been, for more 
 than three centuries, a Roman province. To the idola- 
 troas inhabitants of this distantcountry,among whom the 
 arts and rices of civilized Hfe had been spread by their 
 conquerors, they went — not as Papal emissaries — for 
 ?he Christian faith had not then been wedded, in unholy 
 alliance, with the senseless forms and superstitious rites 
 of paganism — no Pope raised his mitered head above the 
 prostituted body of the church of God — but they went 
 as the humble advocates and teachers of the pure doctrines 
 of Christianity to their benighted fellow-men. In the dis- 
 charge of their mission, that they might be chargeable to 
 no one, but might freely dispense that gospel whereby 
 Christ makes his children free, they worked at their trade 
 of making shoes ; and in this way obtained a livelihood. 
 This was Christian, and independent, and very far from 
 making merchandise of the Word of Life, as is, perhaps, 
 chargeable upon the clergy of the present day. Our Sav-
 
 ST. CRISPIN. 11 
 
 ior himself was a carpenter, and doubtless labored at his 
 trade as he went about doing good. But now, in these 
 days of the more perfect division of labor, preaching is 
 erected into a profession — furnishing mouths for other 
 hands to feed, and backs for other hands to clotha. 
 
 How long these missionar)'-shoemakers continued to 
 teach the natives, and follow their occupation for support, 
 has not come down to us. But finally the spirit of per- 
 secution arose. They were seized as preachers of a new 
 religion, and being condemned by the bloody code of pa- 
 ganism, administered by the cruel hands of pagans, they 
 perished as martyrs to the faith they loved and left kin- 
 dred and home to promulgate. Their festival is celebrat- 
 ed on the 25th of October, which is hence called St. Cris- 
 pin's day.
 
 12 
 
 .JAMES LACKINGTON. 
 
 1 WAS born at Wellington, in Somersetshire, on the 
 31st of August, 1746. My father, George Lackington, 
 was a journeyman shoemaker, who had married a maiden 
 in humble life, named Joan Trott, the daughter of a weav- 
 er in Wellington. My grandfather, George Lackington, 
 had been a gentleman-farmer at Langford, a village two 
 miles from Wellington, and acquired a pretty considera- 
 ble property. But my father's mother dying when my 
 father was but about thirteen years of age, my grandfa- 
 ther, who had two daughters, bound my father appren- 
 tice to a Mr. Hordly, a master shoemaker in Wellington, 
 with the intention of setting him up in business at the 
 expiry of his lime. My father worked a year or two as 
 a journeyman, and then having given displeasure by mar- 
 rying, he was left to shift fot himself I was born in my 
 grandmother Trolt's poor cottage ; and that good old 
 woman carried me to church, and had me baptized. My 
 grandfather's resentment at the marriage having worn off, 
 he set my father up in a shop, which soon proved a fail- 
 ure. My father had contracted a fatal habit of tipling, 
 and of course his business was neglected ; so that, after 
 several fruitless attempts to keep him in trade, he was, 
 partly by a large family, but more particularly from his 
 habitual drunkenness, reduced to his old state of a jour- 
 neyman shoemaker. Yet so infatuated was he with the 
 love of liquor, that the endearing ties of husband and fa- 
 ther could not restrain him ; by which baneful habit him-
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. H 
 
 self and family were involved in extreme misery. I may 
 therefore affirm that neither myself, my brothers, nor sis- 
 ters, are indebted to a father for scarcely anything that 
 can endear his memory, or cause us to reflect on him 
 with pleasure. But to our mother we are indebted for 
 every thing. Never did I know a woman who worked 
 and lived so hard as she did to support eleven children ; 
 and were I to relate the particulars, they would not gain 
 credit. I shall only observe that, for many years togeth- 
 er, she worked nineteen or twenty hours out of every 
 twenty-four. Whenever she was asked to drink a half- 
 pint of ale at any shop where she had been laying out a 
 trifling sum, she always asked leave to take it home to 
 her husband, who was always so mean and selfish as to 
 accept it. 
 
 Out of love to her family, she totally abstained from 
 every kind of liquor, water excepted ; her food was chief- 
 ly broth (little better than water and oatmeal), turnips, 
 potatoes, cabbage, carrots, &c. Her children fared some- 
 thing better, but not much. When I reflect on the as- 
 tonishing hardships and sufferings of so worthy a woman 
 and her helpless infants, I find myself ready to curse the 
 husband and father that could thus involve them in such 
 a deplorable scene of misery and distress. It is dread- 
 ful to add that his habitual drunkenness shortened his 
 days nearly one-half, and that, about twenty years since, 
 he died unregrelted by his own children. Although 
 dropping a tear over his grave, we felt a degree of thank- 
 fulness that the cause of our poverty and misery was at 
 length taken out of the way. 
 
 While my father was still a careful, hard-working man, 
 I was put two or three years to a day-school, kept by an 
 old woman, by whom I was taught to read in the New
 
 14 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Testament. But my career of learning was at an end, 
 when my mother became so poor that she could not afford 
 the sum of twopence per week for my schooling ; besides, 
 I was obliged to supply the place of a nurse to several of 
 my brothers and sisters. The consequence of this was, 
 that I soon forgot what I had been taught, and was ex- 
 posed to mischievous habits among the loose boys of the 
 neighborhood. From this kind of life I was rescued by 
 being employed by a baker to cry and sell pies through 
 the streets. My manner of crying pies, and my activity 
 in selling them, soon made me a favorite of all such as 
 purchased halfpenny apple-pies and plum-puddings, so 
 that in a few weeks an old pie-merchant shut up his shop. 
 I lived with this baker about twelve or fifteen months, in 
 which time I sold such large quantities of pies, puddings, 
 cakes, &,c., that he often declared to his friends that I 
 had been the means of extricating him from embarrassing 
 circumstances which had pressed upon him. 
 
 I was fourteen years and a half old when I was taken 
 to Taunton to be placed with a shoemaker, George Bow- 
 den, who took me as an apprentice without any premium, 
 and engaged to find me in everything. I was accordingly 
 bound apprentice to George and Mary Bovvden, as hon- 
 est and worthy a couple as ever carried on a trade. They 
 carefully attended to their shop six days in the week, and 
 on the seventh went with their family twice to an Ana- 
 baptist meeting-house, where little attention was paid to 
 speculative doctrines, but where sound morality was con- 
 stantly inculcated. The two sons of Mr. Bowden having 
 joined the Wesleyan Methodists, who were at that time 
 making many converts, I was led to join the same sect. 
 The enthusiastic feelings which I now imbibed, and the 
 desire which I had to talk on religious subjects, many of
 
 JABIES LACKINGTON. ^i 
 
 which were beyond my depth, answered one valuable 
 purpose — it caused me to embrace every opportunity to 
 again learn to read, so that I could soon peruse easy parts 
 of the Bible, and Mr. Wesley's hymns; and every leisure 
 tninute was so employed. In the winter I was obliged to 
 attend my work from six in the morning until ten at 
 night. In the summer half year I only worked as long as 
 we could see without candle ; but notwithstanding the 
 close attention I was obliged to pay to my trade, for a 
 long time I read ten chapters in the Bible every day. I 
 also read and learned many hymns ; and as soon as I 
 could procure some of Mr. Wesley's tracts, sermons, &.c., 
 I read them likewise. I had such good eyes, that I often 
 read by the light of the moon, as my master would never 
 allow me to take a candle into my room. 
 
 In the fourth year of my apprenticeship my master died, 
 by which event I gained a little more liberty in attending 
 the meetings of the Methodists, who certainly never had 
 a more unscrupulous proselyte. In my excitement, «iy 
 memory became very tenacious, so that every thing I 
 read I made my own. I could have repeated several vol- 
 umes of hymns ; when I heard a sermon, I could have 
 preached it again, and nearly in the same words ; my Bi- 
 ble had hundreds of leaves folded down, and thousands of 
 marks against such texts as I thought favored the doc- 
 trines which I had imbibed. My religious exercises at 
 length suffered interruption. The election for two mem- 
 bers of parliament was strongly contested at Taunton just 
 as I attained my twenty-first year ( 1767), and being now 
 of age, the six or seven months which I had to serve of 
 my apprenticeship were purchased of my mistress by some 
 friends of two of the contending candidates, so that I was 
 at once set free amidst a scene of riot and dissipation. 
 Having a vote, and being possessed of a few ideas above
 
 16 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 those of my rank and situation, my company was court- 
 ed by some who were in a higher sphere ; and in such 
 company I soon forgot my former connexions, and ran 
 into the extreme of intemperance. My condition was de- 
 plorable ; for when the election was over, I had no lon- 
 ger open houses to eat and drink at free cost, and having 
 refused bribes, I was nearly out of cash. However, I 
 did not sink quite so low as I might have done, but in 
 general worked very hard, and did not spend all I earned 
 in dissipation. 
 
 Wearied with this mode of life, and wishing to see 
 more of the world, I shortly after went to Bristol, where 
 I procured work, and fell into a course of reading, which 
 occupied my leisure hours. In the course of my reading, 
 I learned that there had been various sects of philosophers 
 amongst the Greeks, Romans, &-c., and I well remember- 
 ed the names of the most eminent of them. At an old 
 book-shop I purchased Plato on the Immortality of the 
 Soul, Plutarch's Morals, Seneca's Morals, Epicurus's Mor- 
 als, the Morals of Confucius the Chinese philosopher, and 
 a few others. I now can scarcely help thinking that I 
 received more real benefit from reading and studying them 
 and Epictetus, than from all other books that I had read 
 before, or have ever read since that time. I was only 
 twenty-two years of age when I first began to read those 
 fine moral productions, and they made a very deep and last- 
 ing impression on my mind. By reading them, I was taught 
 to bear the unavoidable evils attending humanity, and to 
 supply all my wants by contracting or restraining my 
 desires — 
 
 " To mend my virtues, and exalt my thought, 
 
 What the bright sons of Greece and Rome have wrote 
 O'er day and night I turn ; in them we find 
 A rich repast for the luxurious mind."
 
 JAMES LACKINQTON. 17 
 
 It is now twenty-three years since I first perused them, 
 during which time 1 do not recollect that I have ever felt 
 one anxious painful wish to get money, estates, or any- 
 way to better my condition ; and yet I have never since 
 that time let slip any fair opportunity of doing it. Be 
 contented, says Isocrates, with what you have, and seek 
 at the same time to make the best improvement of it you 
 can. So that all I mean is, that I have not been over- 
 solicitous to obtain anything that I did not possess ; but 
 could at all times say with St, Paul, that I have learned 
 to be contented in all situations, although at times they 
 have been very gloomy indeed. Dryden says — 
 
 "We to ourselves may all our wishes grant, 
 For nothing coveting, we nothing want." 
 
 The pleasure of eating and drinking I entirely despis- 
 ed, and for some time carried this disposition to an ex- 
 treme ; and even to the present time I feel a very great 
 indifference about these matters : when in company, I 
 frequently dine off one dish when there are twenty on the 
 table. The account of Epicurus living in his garden at 
 the expense of about a halfpenny per day, and that, when 
 he added a little cheese to his bread on particular occa- 
 Bions, he considered it as a luxury, filled me with rap- 
 tures. From that moment I began to live on bread and 
 tea, and for a considerable time did not partake of any 
 other viands ; but in those I indulged myself three or four 
 times a-day. IVly reasons for living in this abstemious 
 manner were in ordier to save money to purchase books, 
 to wean myself from the gross pleasures of eating and 
 drinking, 6lc., and to purge my mind, and to make it 
 more susceptible of intellectual pleasures ; and here I 
 cannot help remarking that the term Epicure, when ap-
 
 18 DISTING DISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 plied to one who makes the pleasures of the table his 
 chief good, casts an unjust reflection on Epicurus, and 
 conveys a wrong idea of that contemplative and very ab- 
 stemious philosopher ; for although he asserted that pleas- 
 ure was the chief or supreme good, yet he also as strong- 
 ly asserted that it was the tranquility of the mind, and 
 intellectual pleasure, that he so extolled and recommend- 
 ed. " This pleasure," says he, " that is the very center 
 of our happiness, consists in nothing else than having our 
 mind free from disturbance, and our body free from pain ; 
 drunkenness, excessive eatings niceness in our liquors, 
 and all that seasons good cheer, have nothing in them 
 that can make life happy ; there is nothing but frugality 
 and tranquility of mind that establish this happy state ; 
 it is this calm that facilitates our distinguishing betwixt 
 those things that ought to be our choice, and those we 
 ought to shun ; and it is by the means thereof that we 
 discard those notions that discompose this first mover of 
 our life." St. Evermont, in his vindication of Epicurus, 
 says, '* Ignorant men know not his worth. Wise men 
 have given large and honorable testimonies of his exalted 
 virtue and sublime precepts. They have fully proved his 
 pleasures to be as severe as the Stoic's virtue ; that to be 
 debauched like Epicurus, a man must be as sober as Ze- 
 no. His temperance was so great, that his ordinary diet 
 was nothing but bread and water. The Stoics and alj 
 other philosophers agree with Epicurus in this — that the 
 true felicity of life is to be free from pertubations ; to 
 understand our duty towards God and man, and to enjoy 
 the present without any anxious dependence upon the fu- 
 ture ; not to amuse ourselves either with hopes or fears ; 
 to curb and restrain our unruly appetites ; to rest satis- 
 fied^with what we have, which is abundantly suflBcient ; 
 for he that is content wants nothing."
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. ;j|(9 
 
 I continued the above self-denying life until I left Bris- 
 tol, which was on Whitsunday, in 1769. 1 had, for some 
 time before, been pointing out to a young friend, John 
 Jones, some of the pleasures and advantages of traveling, 
 so that I easily prevailed on him to accompany me towards 
 the west of England ; and in the evening we arrived at 
 Bridgewater, where Mr. Jones got work. He was em- 
 ployed by Mr. Cash, with whom he continued near twelve 
 months, and in the end married his daughter, a very pret- 
 ty and amiable little woman, with some fortune. When 
 my friend was offered work by Mr. Cash, I prevailed on 
 him to accept of it, assuring him that I had no doubt of 
 my being able to get work at Taunton : but in that I was 
 disappointed ; nor could I get a constant seat of work 
 until 1 came to Exeter, and of that place I was soon tired ; 
 but being informed that a Mr. John Taylor, of Kings- 
 bridge (forty miles below Exeter), wanted such a hand, I 
 went down, and was gladly received by Mr. Taylor, 
 whose name inspires me with gratitude, as he never treat- 
 ed me as a journeyman, but made me his companion. 
 Nor was any part of my time ever spent in a more agree- 
 able, pleasing manner, than that which I passed in this 
 retired place, or, I believe, more profitable to a master. 
 I was the first man he ever had that was able to make 
 stuff and silk shoes ; and it being also known that I came 
 from Bristol, this had great weight with the country la- 
 dies, and procured my master customers, who generally 
 sent for me to take the measure of their feet ; and I was 
 looked upon by all to be the best workman in the town, 
 although I had not been brought up to stuff-work, nor 
 had ever entirely made one stuff or silk shoe before. Nor 
 should I have presumed to proclaim myself a stuff-man, 
 had there been any such workmen in the place ; but as
 
 ■f80 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 there were none, I boldly ventured, and succeeded very 
 well ; nor did any one in the town ever know that it was 
 my first attempt in that branch. 
 
 During the time that I lived here, I, as usual, was 
 obliged to employ one or other of my acquaintance to 
 write my letters for me. This procured me much praise 
 among the young men as a good inditer of letters. My 
 master said to me one day, he was surprised that I did 
 not learn to write my own letters ; and added, that he was 
 sure I could learn to do it in a very short time. The 
 thought pleased me much, and without any delay I set 
 about it, by taking up any pieces of paper that had writing 
 on them, and imitating the letters as well as I could. I 
 employed my leisure hours in this way for nearly two 
 months, after which time I wrote my own letters, in a bad 
 hand of course, but it was plain, and easy to read, which 
 was all I cared for ; nor, to the present moment, can I 
 write much better, as I never would have any person to 
 teach me ; nor was I ever possessed of patience enough 
 to employ time sufficient to learn to write well ; and yet, 
 as soon as I was able to scribble, I wrote verses on some 
 trifle or other every day for years together. 
 
 I came to this place in but a weak state of body ; how- 
 ever, the healthy situation of the town, together with bath- 
 ing in the salt water, soon restored me to perfect health. 
 I passed thirteen months here in a very happy manner; 
 but the wages for work being very low, and as I had 
 spent much time in writing hymns to every song tune 
 that I knew, besides a number of love verses, letters, &.c., 
 I was very poor ; and, to complete all, I began to keep a 
 deal of company, in which I gave a loose to my natural 
 gaiety of disposition, much more than was consistent with 
 the grave, sedate ideas which I had formed of a religious
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. 21 
 
 character ; all of which made me resolve to leave Kings- 
 bridge, which I did in 1770. 
 
 I traveled as far as Exeter the first day, where I work- 
 ed about a fortnight, and saved sufficient to carry me to 
 Bridgewater, where I worked two or three weeks more. 
 Before I arrived there, Mr. John Jones had gone back to 
 reside at Bristol ; but as soon as he heard of my being in 
 Bridgewater, he and his brother Richard sent me an in- 
 vitation to come to Bristol again and live with them. 
 Finding that I did not immediately comply, they both 
 came to Bridgewater, and declared their intentions of not 
 returning to Bristol without me ; so that, after a day or 
 two, I yielded to their solicitations, and lived very com- 
 fortably with them, their mother, and sister. 
 
 When residing at Taunton, I became acquainted with 
 a young woman of good character and charming manners, 
 with whom I afterwards kept up a correspondence ; and 
 I had not been long in Bristol before I wrote to her. I 
 informed her that my attachment to books, together with 
 traveling from place to place, and also my total disregard 
 for money, had prevented me from saving any ; and that, 
 while I remained in a single unsettled state, I was never 
 likely to accumulate it. I also pressed her very much to 
 come to Bristol to be married, which she soon complied 
 with ; and married we were, at St. Peter's church, tow- 
 ards the end of the year 1770. We kept our wedding at 
 the house of my friends the Messrs. Jones, and retired to 
 ready-furnished lodgings, which we had before provided, 
 at half-a-crown per week. Our finances were just suffi- 
 cient to pay the expenses of the day ; for the next morn- 
 ing, in searching our pockets (which we did not do in a 
 careless manner), we discovered that we had but one 
 halfpenny to begin the world with. It is true we had laid
 
 80 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 in eatables sufficient for a day or two, in which time we 
 knew we could by our work procure more, which we very 
 cheerfully set about, singing together the following lines 
 of Dr. Cotton : — 
 
 " Our portion is not large indeed, 
 But then how little do we need, 
 
 For nature's calls are few ; 
 In this the art of living lies : 
 To want no more than may suffice, 
 
 And make that little do." 
 
 At this time my wages were only nine shillings a-week 
 and my wife could get but very little, as she was learning 
 to bind shoes, and had never been much used to the 
 needle. Being pressed for a debt of forty shillings due to 
 Mr. Jones, I paid it off in two months, which greatly les- 
 sened our comforts. What we had to spend on provisions 
 was not more than four shillings and sixpence a-week. 
 Strong beer we had none, nor any other liquor (the pure 
 element excepted) ; and instead of tea, or rather coffee, 
 we toasted a piece of bread ; at other times we fried some 
 wheat, which, when boiled in water, made a tolerable 
 substitute for coffee ; and as to animal food, we made 
 use of but little, and that little we boiled and made broth 
 of. During the whole of this time we never once wished 
 for anything that we had not got, but were quite content- 
 ed ; and, with a good grace, in reality made a virtue of 
 necessity. 
 
 In a few days after we had paid the last of the debt 
 claimed by my friend Mr. Jones, we were both together 
 taken so ill as to be confined to bed ; but the good woman 
 of the house, our landlady, came to our room, and did a 
 few trifles for us. She seemed very much alarmed at our 
 situation — or rather for her own, I suppose, as thinking
 
 JAMBS LACKINGTON. ^ 
 
 we might in some measure or other become burdensome 
 to her. We had in cash two shillings and ninepence, 
 half-a-crown of which we had carefully locked up in a box, 
 to be saved as a resource on any extraordinary emergency. 
 This money supported us two or three days, in which 
 time I recovered, without the help of medicine ; but my 
 wife continued ill nearly six months, and was confined to 
 her bed the greater part of the time, which illness may 
 very easily be accounted for. 
 
 Before she came to Bristol, she had ever been used to 
 a very active life, and had always lived in the country ; 
 so that, in coming to dwell in a populous city, she had 
 exchanged much exercise and good air for a sedentary 
 life and very bad air ; and this, I presume, was the cause 
 of all her illness from time to time, which at length, as 
 unfortunately as effectually, undermined her constitution. 
 During the first six months' illness I lived many days 
 solely on water-gruel. " What nature requires," says 
 Montaigne, " it is so small a matter, that by its littleness 
 it escapes the gripes of fortune ;" for as I could not afford 
 to pay a nurse, much of my time was taken up in attend- 
 ance on her, and most of my money expended in procur- 
 ing medicines, together with such trifles as she could eat 
 and drink. But what added extremely to my calamity, 
 was the being within the hearing of her groans, which 
 were caused by the excruciating pains in her head, which 
 for months together defied the power of medicine. It is 
 impossible for words to describe the keenness of my sens- 
 ations during this long term ; yet as to myself, my pover- 
 ty, and being obliged to live upon water-gruel, gave me 
 not the least uneasiness. 
 
 At length my wife partially recovered, but yet continu- 
 ed in a very bad state of health ; and her constitution
 
 SMt DI8TINOVISBBD SHOBMAKERS. 
 
 having suffered such a dreadful shock, I thought that no 
 means could be used so likely to restore it as a removal 
 to her native air. Accordingly, I left my seat of work at 
 Bristol, and returned with her to Taunton, which is about 
 seven miles from Petherton, her native place. But in 
 Taunton I could not procure so niuch work as I could 
 do ; so that, as soon as I thought she could bear the air 
 of Bristol, we returned thither, where she soon relapsed, 
 and we again went back to Taunton. This removing to 
 Taunton was repeated about five times in little more than 
 two years and a half. 
 
 But at last finding that she had long fits of illness at 
 Taunton also, as well as at Bristol, with a view of having 
 a better price for my work, I resolved to visit London ; 
 and as I had not money sufficient to bear the expenses of 
 both to town, I left her all the money I could spare, and 
 took a place on the outside of the stage-coach, and the 
 second day arrived in the metropolis, in August 177^, 
 with two shillings and sixpence in my pocket. Having 
 procured a lodging, I was fortunate in immediately getting 
 work from Mr. Heath in Fore Street. In a month I 
 saved money sufficient to bring up my wife, and she had 
 a tolerable state of health : of my master I obtained some 
 stuff-shoes for her to bind, and nearly as much as she 
 could do. Having now plenty of work, and higher wages, 
 we were tolerably easy in oar circumstances, more so 
 than ever we had been, so that we soon procured a few 
 clothes. My wife had all her life before done very well 
 with a cloth cloak, but I now prevailed on her to have 
 one of silk. Until this winter, I had never found out 
 that I wanted a greatcoat, but now I made that import- 
 ant discovery. This requisite article of attire I purchas- 
 ed at a second-hand cluthes-shop for half a guinea.
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. 25 
 
 About the end of November I became heir to the sum 
 of ten pounds, Jeft by my grandfather ; and so totally was 
 I unacquainted with the modes of transacting business, 
 that I undertook a long journey in the heart of winter, 
 and suffered various hardships before my return to town 
 with the cash, one-half of which was consumed in getting 
 it. With the remainder of the money we purchased 
 household goods; but as we then had not sufficient to fur- 
 nish a room, we worked hard, and lived still harder, so 
 that in a short time we had a room furnished with articles 
 of our own ; and I believe that it is not possible for any 
 one to imagine with what pleasure and satisfaction we 
 looked round the room and surveyed our property. I be^ 
 lieve that Alexander the Great never reflected on his im- 
 mense acquisitions with half the heartfelt enjoyment 
 which we experienced on this capital attainment. 
 
 After our room was furnished, as we still enjoyed a 
 better state of health than we did at Bristol and Taunton, 
 and had also more work, aad higher wages, we often add- 
 ed something or other to our stock of wearing apparel. 
 Nor did I forget the old book-shops, but frequently added 
 an old book to my small collection ; and I really have 
 often purchased books with the money that should have 
 been expended in purchasing something to eat ; a striking 
 instance of which follows. At the time we were purchas- 
 ing household goods, we kept ourselves very short of mo- 
 ney, and on Christmas eve we bad but half-a-crown left 
 to buy a Christmas dinner. My wife desired that I would 
 go to market and purchase this festival dinner, and off I 
 set for that purpose ; but in the way I saw an old book- 
 shop, and I could not resist the temptation of going in, 
 intending only to expend sixpence or ninepence out of 
 my half-crown. But I stumbled upon Young's Night
 
 36 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Thoughts, forgot my dinner, down went my half-crown, 
 and I hastened home, vastly delighted with the acquisi- 
 tion. When my wife asked me where was our Christ- 
 mas dinner, I told her it was in my pocket. "In 
 your pocket 1" said she ; " that is a strange place ! How 
 could you think of stuffing a joint of meat into your pock- 
 et 1" I assured her that it would take no harm. But as 
 I was in no haste to take it out, she began to be more 
 particular, and inquired what I had got, &c. ; on which 
 I began to harangue on the superiority of intellectual 
 pleasures over sensual gratifications, and observed that 
 the brute creation enjoyed the latter in a much higher 
 degree than man ; and that a man who was not possessed 
 of intellectual enjoyments was but a two-legged brute. 
 I was proceeding in this strain : " And so," said she, 
 " instead of buying a dinner, I suppose you have, as you 
 have done before, been buying books with the money 1" 
 I confessed I had bought Young's Night Thoughts. 
 ** And I think," said I, "that I have acted wisely; for 
 had I bought a dinner, we should have eaten it to-morrow, 
 and the pleasure would have been soon over ; but should 
 we live fifty years longer, we shall have the Night 
 Thoughts to feast upon." This was too powerful an ar- 
 gument to admit of any further debate ; in short, my wife 
 was convinced. Down I sat, and began to read with as 
 much enthusiasm as the good doctor possessed when he 
 wrote it ; and so much did it excite my attention, as well 
 as approbation, that I retained the greatest part of it in 
 my memory. 
 
 Some time in June 1774, as we sat at work in our room, 
 Mr. Boyd, one of Mr. Wesley's people, called and inform- 
 ed me that a little shop and parlor were to be let in Fea- 
 therstone Street ; adding, that if I were to take them, I
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. 27 
 
 might there get some work as a master. I without hesi- 
 tation told him that I liked the idea, and hinted that I 
 would sell books also. Mr. Boyd then asked me how I 
 came to think of selling books ? I informed him that 
 until that moment, it had never once entered into my 
 thoughts ; but that, when he proposed my taking the 
 shop, it instantaneously occurred to my mind that for 
 several months past I had observed a great increase in a 
 certain old book-shop, and that I was persuaded I knew 
 as much of old books as the person who kept it. I fur- 
 ther observed that I loved books, and that if I could but 
 be a bookseller, I should then have plenty of books to 
 read, which was the greatest motive I could conceive to 
 induce me to make the attempt. My friend on this as- 
 sured me that he would get the shop for me, which he 
 did; and to set up in style, he recommended me to a 
 friend, of whom I purchased a bagfull of old books, chiefly 
 divinity, for a guinea. 
 
 With this stock, and some odd scraps of leather, which 
 together with all my books, were worth about five pounds, 
 I opened shop on Midsummer-day in 1744, in Featherstone 
 Street, in the parish of St. Luke ; and I was as well pleas- 
 ed in surveying my little shop with my name over it, as 
 was Nebuchadnezzar when he said, *' Is not this great 
 Babylon that I have built?" 
 
 Notwithstanding the obscurity of the street, and the 
 mean appearance of my shop, yet I soon found customers 
 for what few books I had, and I as soon laid out the mo- 
 ney in other old trash which was daily brought for sale. 
 At that time Mr. Wesley's people had a sum of money 
 which was kept on purpose to lend out, for three months, 
 without interest, to such of their society whose charac- 
 ters were good, and who wanted a temporary relief. To
 
 S3 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 increase my little stock, I borrowed five pounds out of this 
 fund, which was great service to me. 
 
 In our new situation we lived in a very frugal manner, 
 often dining on potatoes, and quenching our thirst with 
 water; being absolutely determined, if possible, to make 
 some provision for such dismal times as sickness, short- 
 ness of work, &c., which we had been so frequently in- 
 volved in before, and could scarcely help expecting not 
 to be our fate again. My wife foreboded it much more 
 than I did, being of a more melancholy turn of mind. I 
 lived in this street six months, and in that time increased 
 my stock from five to twenty-five pounds. 
 
 This immense stock I deemed too valuable to be buried 
 in Featherstone Street ; and a shop and parlor being to 
 let in Chiswell Street, No. 46, I took them. This was 
 at that time, and for fourteen years afterwards, a very dull 
 and obscure situation, as few ever passed through it be- 
 sides Spitalfields weavers on hanging days, and Method- 
 ists on preaching nights ; but still it was much better 
 adapted for business than Featherstone Street. 
 
 A few weeks after I came into this street I bade a final 
 adieu to the " gentle craft," and converted my little stock 
 of leather, &c., into old books ; and a great sale I had, 
 considering my stock, which was not only extremely small, 
 but contained very little variety, as it principally consist- 
 ed of divinity ; for as I had not much knowledge, so I 
 seldom ventured out of my depth. 
 
 I went on prosperously until some time in September, 
 1775, when I was suddenly taken ill of a dreadful fever ; 
 and eight or ten days after, my wife was seized with the 
 same disorder. 
 
 " Human hopes now mounting high 
 On the swelling surge of joy, 
 Now with unexpected wo 
 Sinking to the depths below."
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. 29 
 
 At that time I kept only a boy to help ia ray shop, ao 
 that I fear, while I lay ill, my wife had too much care 
 and anxiety on her mind. I have been told that, before 
 she was confined to her bed, she walked about in a deli- 
 rious state ; in which she did not long continue, but, 
 contrary to all expectation, died on the 9th of November. 
 She was, in reality, one of the best of women; and al- 
 though, for about four years, she was ill the greater part 
 of the time, which involved me in the very depth of 
 poverty and distress, yet I never once repented having 
 married her. 
 
 My recovery was slow ; and what added to my misfor- 
 tune, I was in the hands of nurses, who robbed ray draw- 
 ers, and kept themselves drunk with gin, while I lay un- 
 able to move in bed. My whole stock in trade would 
 also have gone, had the shop not been prudently locked 
 up by two friends, who took an interest in my affairs. 
 
 On fully recovering, and resuming business, I found it 
 necessary to resume the married state. Fortune threw 
 in my way Miss Dorcas Turton, an amiable young woman, 
 daughter of Mr. Samuel Turton of Staffordshire, a gen- 
 tleman in reduced circumstances, who was supported by 
 her industry. She cheerfully submitted to keep a school, 
 md worked very hard at plain work, by which means 
 »he kept her father above want. The old gentleman died 
 ibout this time ; and being partly acquainted with this 
 young lady's goodness to her father, I concluded that so 
 amiable a daughter was very likely to make a good wife. 
 I also knew that she was immoderately fond of books, 
 and would frequently read until morning. This turn of 
 mind in her was the greatest of all recommendations to 
 me, who, having acquired a few ideas, was at that time 
 restless to increase them ; so that I was in raptures with
 
 30 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 the bare thoughts of having a woman to read with, and 
 also to read to me. 
 
 I embraced the first opportunity after my recovery to 
 make her acquainted with my mind ; and as we were no 
 strangers to each other's characters and circumstances, 
 there was no need of a long formal courtship ; so I pre- 
 vailed on her not to defer our union longer than the 30th 
 of January 1776, when, for the second time, I entered in- 
 to the holy .state of matrimony. 
 
 " Wedded love is founded on esteem, 
 
 Which the fair merits of the mind engage, 
 
 For those are charms that never can decay ; 
 
 But time, which gives new whiteness to the swan. 
 
 Improves their lustre." 
 
 I am now, in February 1776, arrived at an important 
 period of my life. Being lately recovered from a very 
 painful, dangerous, and hopeless illness, I found myself 
 once more in a confirmed state of health, surrounded by 
 my little stock in trade, which was but just saved from 
 thieves, and which, to me, was an immense treasure. I 
 had never taken a fair estimate of the world, or looked 
 with a kindly eye on man's condition. My mind now 
 began to expand ; intellectual light and pleasure broke in 
 and dispelled the gloom of fanatical melancholy ; the sour- 
 ness of my natural temper, which had been much increas- 
 ed by superstition (called by Swift "the spleen of the 
 soul"), in part gave* way, and was succeeded by cheer- 
 fulness and some degree of good-nature ; I began to en- 
 joy many innocent pleasures and recreations in life ; and 
 saw, for the first time, that true religion was no way in- 
 compatible with, or an enemy to, rational enjoyments. 
 I now likewise began to read with great pleasure the ra- 
 tional and moderate divines of all denominations ; and a 
 year or two after, I began with metaphysics, in the intri-
 
 JAMES LACKINOTON. ^ 
 
 cate, though pleasing labyrinths of which I have occasion- 
 ally since wandered, nor am I ever likely to find my way 
 out. After this I did not long remain in Mr. Wesley's 
 society. 
 
 My new wife's attachment to books was a very fortu- 
 nate circumstance for us both, not only as it was a perpet- 
 ual source of rational amusement, but also as it tended 
 to promote my trade. Her extreme love for books made 
 her delight to be in the shop, so that she soon became 
 perfectly acquainted with every part of it, and, as my stock 
 increased, with other rooms where I kept books, and 
 could readily get any article that was asked for. Accord- 
 ingly, when I was out on business, my shop was well at- 
 tended. This constant attention and good usage procur- 
 ed me many customers, and I soon perceived that I could 
 sell double and treble the quantity of books if I had a 
 larger stock. But how to enlarge it I knew not, except by 
 slow degrees, as my profits should enable me ; for as I 
 was almost a stranger in London, I had but few acquaint- 
 ances, and these few were not of the opulent sort. I also 
 saw that the town abounded with cheats, swindlers, &c., 
 who obtained money and other property under false pre- 
 tences, of which the credulous were defrauded, which 
 often prevented me from endeavoring to borrow, lest I 
 should be suspected of having the same bad designs. I 
 was several times so hard put to it for cash to purchase 
 parcels of books which were offered to me, that I more 
 than once pawned my watch and a suit of clothes, and 
 twice I pawned some books for money to purchase others. 
 In 1778 I was relieved from this pinched state of affairs, 
 by entering into partnership with a worthy man, Mr. John 
 Dennis, who was possessed of some capital. This part- 
 nership existed two years, under the firm of J. Lacking-
 
 32 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ton and Company ; and while it lasted, we issued a cata- 
 Jogue of our books, which included twelve thousand vol- 
 umes. In 1780, the partnership was dissolved ; and as 
 Mr. Dennis had more money in the concern than myself, 
 he took ray notes for what was deficient, which was a 
 great favor done to me. We parted with great friendship, 
 and I was left to pursue trade in my own way. 
 
 It was some time in the year 1780 when I resolved, 
 from that period, to give no person whatever any credit. 
 I was induced to make this resolution from various mo- 
 tives. I had observed that where credit was given, raost 
 bills were not paid within six months, many not within 
 a twelvemonth, and some not within two years. Indeed 
 many tradesmen have accounts of seven years' standing, 
 and some bills are never paid. The losses sustained by 
 the interest of money in long credits, and by those bills 
 that were not paid at all ; the inconveniences attending 
 not having the ready money to lay out in trade to the 
 best advantage, together with the great loss of time in 
 keeping accounts and collecting debts, convinced nie that, 
 if I could but establish a ready-money business, without 
 any exceptions, I should be enabled to sell every article 
 very cheap — 
 
 *' Let all the learned say all they can, 
 'Tis ready money makes the man." 
 
 When I communicated my ideas on this subject to 
 some of my acquaintances, I was much laughed at and 
 ridiculed ; and it was thought that I might as well attempt 
 to rebuild the tower of Babel, as to establish a large bu- 
 siness without giving credit. But notwitstanding this 
 discouragement, I determined to make the experiment, 
 and began by plainly marking in every book, facing the
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. 753 
 
 title, the lowest price that I would take for it ; which be- 
 ing much lower than the common market-prices, I not 
 only retained my former customers, but soon increased 
 their numbers. But it can scarcely be imagined what 
 difficulties I encountered for several years together. I 
 even sometimes thought of relinquishing this my favorite 
 scheme altogether, as by it I was obliged to deny credit 
 to my very acquaintance : I was also under the necessity 
 of refusing it to the most respectable characters, as no 
 exception was or now is made, not even in favor of no- 
 bility ; my porters being strictly enjoined, by one gener- 
 al order, to bring back all books not previously paid for, 
 except they receive the amount on delivery. Again, many 
 in the country found it difficult to remit small sums that 
 were under bankers' notes (which difficulty is done away, 
 as all post-masters receive small sums of money, and give 
 drafts for the same on the post office in liondon) ; and 
 others, to whom I was a stranger, did not like to send the 
 money first, as not knowing how I should treat them, and 
 suspecting, by the price of the articles, there must cer- 
 tainly be some deception. Many, unacquainted with my 
 plan of business, were much offended, until the advanta- 
 ges accruing to them from it were duly explained, when 
 they very readiy acceded to it. As to the anger of such, 
 who, though they were acquainted with it, were still de- 
 termined to deal on credit only, I considered that as of 
 little consequence, from an opinion that some of them 
 would have been as much enraged when their bills were 
 sent in, had credit been given them. 
 
 I had also difficulties of another nature to encounter. 
 When I first began to sell very cheap, many came to my 
 shop preposessed against my goods, and of course often 
 saw faulty where none existed ; so that the beat editions 
 
 B
 
 34 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 were, merely from prejudice, deemed very bad editions, 
 and the best bindings said to be inferior workmanship, 
 for no other reason but because I sold them so cheap ; 
 and I often received letters from the country to know if 
 such and such articles were really as I stated them in 
 my catalogues, and if they really were the best editions, 
 if really in calf, and really elegantly bound, with many 
 other reallies. I was afraid, for some years, that I should 
 be really mad with vexation. But these letters of real- 
 lies have for years happily ceased ; and the public are now 
 really and thoroughly convinced that I will not assert in 
 my catalogues what is not really true. But imagine what 
 I must have felt on hearing the very best of goods depre- 
 ciated, on no other account whatever but because they 
 were not charged at a higher price ! 
 
 It is also worth observing that there were not wanting 
 among the booksellers, some who were mean enough to 
 assert that all my books were bound in sheep ; but many 
 other unmanly artifices were practiced ; all of which, so 
 far from injuring me, as basely intended, turned to my 
 account ; for when gentlemen were brought to my shop 
 by their friends to purchase some trifling article, or were 
 led into it by curiosity, they were often very much sur- 
 prised to see many thousands of volumes in elegant and 
 superb bindings. The natural conclusion was, that if I 
 had not held forth to the public better terms than others, 
 I should not have been so much envied and misrepre- 
 sented. 
 
 " To Malice, sure, I'm much obliged, 
 On every side by Calumny besieged : 
 Yet, Envy, I could almost call thee friend." 
 
 So that, whether I am righteous or not, all these afflictions 
 have worked together for my good. But my temporal
 
 JAMES LACKINGTON. 35 
 
 salvation was not effected without " conditions." As ev- 
 ery envious transaction was to me an additional spur to 
 exertion, I am therefore not a little indebted to Messrs. 
 Envy, Detraction, and Co., for my present prosperity ; 
 though I can safely say this is the only debt I am deter- 
 mined not to pay. 
 
 In the first three years after I refused to give credit to 
 any person, my business increased much ; and as the 
 whole of my profit, after paying all expenses, was laid ouj 
 in books, my stock was continually enlarged, so that my 
 catalogues in the year 1784 were very much augmented 
 in size. The first contained twelve thousand, and the 
 second thirty thousand volumes. This increase was not 
 merely in numbers, but also in value, as a very great part 
 of these volumes was better ; that is, books of a higher 
 price. 
 
 When I was first initiated into the various manoeuvres ; 
 practiced by booksellers, I found it customary among 
 them (which practice still continues), that when any books 
 had not gone off so rapidly as expected, or so fast as to 
 pay fur keeping them in store, they would put what re- 
 mained of such articles into private sales, where only 
 booksellers are admitted, and of them only such as were 
 invited by having a catalogue sent them. At one of these 
 sales I have frequently seen seventy or eighty thousand 
 volumes sold after dinner, including books of every des- 
 cription, good, bad, and indifferent : by this means they 
 were distributed through the trade. 
 
 When first invited to these trade sales, I was very much 
 surprised to learn that it was common for such as pur- 
 chased remainders to destroy one half or three-fourths of 
 such books, and to charge the full publication price, or 
 nearly that, for such as they kept on hand ; and there was
 
 36 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 a kind of standing order amongst the trade, that in case 
 any one was known to sell articles under the publica- 
 tion price, such a person was to be excluded from trade- 
 sales ; so blind were copyright-holders to their own in 
 terest. 
 
 For a short time I cautiously complied with this cus- 
 tom ; but I soon began to reflect that many of these books 
 so destroyed possessed much merit, and only wanted to 
 be better known ; and that, if others were not worth six 
 shillings, they were worth three, or two, and so in pro- 
 portion, for higher or lower-priced books. From that 
 time I resolved not to destroy any books that were 
 worth saving, but to sell them off at half or a quarter, of 
 the publication prices. By selling them in this cheap 
 manner, I have disposed of many hundred thousand vol- 
 umes, many thousands of which have been intrinsically 
 worth their original prices — greatly of course to the dis- 
 satisfaction of the trade. 
 
 It may be supposed I could not carry on this large bu- 
 siness, in which I had frequently to write catalogues, 
 without some knowledge of literature. This knowledge 
 I gained by dint of application. I read extensively in all 
 branches of literature , and in order to obtain some ideas 
 in astronomy, geography, electricity, pneumatics, &.C., I 
 attended a few lectures given by the eminent Mr. Fur. 
 guson, the very ingenious Mr. Walker, and others; and 
 for some time several gentlemen spent two or three eve- 
 nings in a week at my house, for the purpose of improve- 
 ment in science. At these meetings we made the best 
 use of our time with globes, telescopes, microscopes, elec- 
 trical machines, air-pumps, air-guns, and other philosoph- 
 ical instruments. 
 
 My thirst was, and still is, so great for literature, tha
 
 ^AMES LACKINGTON. 37 
 
 I could almost subscribe to the opinions of Herillus the 
 philosopher, who placed in learning the sovereign good, 
 and maintained that it was alone sufficient to make us 
 wise and happy. Others have said that *' learning is the 
 mother of all virtue, and that vice is produced from ig- 
 norance." Although that is not strictly true, yet I can- 
 not help regretting the disadvantages I labor under by 
 having been deprived of the benefits of an early educa- 
 tion, as it is a loss that can scarcely be repaired in any 
 situation. How much more difficult, then, was it for me 
 to attain any degree of proficiency, when involved in the 
 concerns of a large business ! 
 
 " Without a genius, learning soars in vain. 
 
 And without learning, genius sinks again ; 
 
 Their force united, crowns the sprightly reign." 
 
 To reading and study I added a gradually increasing 
 knowledge of mankind, for which I know of no school 
 equal to a bookseller's shop. A bookseller who has any 
 taste for literature, may be said to feed his mind as cooks 
 and butchers' wives get fat by the smell of meat. If the 
 master is of an inquisitive and communicative turn, and 
 is in a considerable line of business, his shop will then be 
 a place of resort for persons of various nations, and of 
 various capacities and dispositions. To talk to these dif- 
 ferent inquirers after books has given me much pleasure 
 and instruction, so that I have sometimes compared my 
 shop to a stage. 
 
 In my progress from penury to wealth I had occasion to 
 make many discoveries. I by and by found that lodging 
 in town is not so healthy as it is in the country. Gay's 
 lines were then repeated — 
 
 "Long in tlie noisy town I've been immured, 
 Respired in smoke, and all its cares endured." 
 
 The year after, my country lodging, by regular grada-
 
 96 
 
 DrSTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tion, was transformed into a country-house ; and in an- 
 other year, the inconveniencies attending a stage-coach 
 were remedied by a chariot. •* 
 
 ■; " My precious wife has ventured to declare, 
 
 'Tis vulgar on one's legs to take the air." 
 
 ' For four years Upper Holloway was to me an elysium ; 
 then Surrey appeared unquestionably the most beautiful 
 county in England, and Upper Merton the most rural 
 village in Surrey ; so now Merton is selected as the seat 
 of occasional philosophical retirement. In these various 
 improvements in my means and position, it was unpleas- 
 ant to find that I was pursued with envy and malevo- 
 lence; but I consoled myself with the observation of Dr. 
 Johnson, that " it is no less a proof of eminence to have 
 many enemies than many friends." All sorts of stories 
 injurious to my reputation were circulated by those who 
 envied me my success. Whatever was said as to my 
 means of attaining opulence, I can affirm that I found 
 the whole of what I am possessed of in — small profits, 
 bound by industry, and clasped by economy. 
 
 In conducting my business, I have ever kept an exact 
 account of my profits and expenses, and regulated my 
 mode of living accordingly. In 1791, the profits of my 
 shop amounted to four thousand pounds, since which time 
 they have yearly increased. My business being large, 
 and branching into different departments, in 1793 I sold 
 to Mr. Robert Allan, who had been brought up in my 
 shop, a fourth share of the business ; and as the trade is 
 constantly increasing, I suppose I shall be obliged to take 
 another partner very soon ; for we now sell more than 
 one hundred thousand volumes annually. The time also 
 approaches when I must retire, on account of the bad 
 health which both Mrs.Lackington and myself labor under.
 
 JAMES LACKINOITON. 39 
 
 In these latter years, while still in trade, I have made 
 several professional tours into Scotland and various parts 
 of England. One of ray most amusing excursions has 
 been to Bristol, Exbridge, Bridgewater, Taunton, Wel- 
 lington, and other places, where I called on my former 
 masters, and astonished them by pretending to seek em- 
 ployment as a shoemaker, while sitting in my carriage. 
 On telling them who I was, all appeared to be very hap- 
 py to see me, and they enjoyed the humor of my 
 address. Among a great number of poor relations I 
 distributed means of comfort, 
 
 Lackington here closes his memoirs, which bring his 
 life down to 1793, when his business, one of the largest 
 in London, was conducted in a shop of very large size, 
 called the ** Temple of the Muses," at the corner of Fins- 
 bury Square. The memoirs abound in severe, and we 
 have no doubt most unjust, remarks on the Methodists, 
 both as to life and doctrine, and these Lackington after- 
 wards repented having written. Uniting himself again 
 to the Wesleyan society, he endeavored to obviate the 
 injustice of his sarcasms by publishing a confession of his 
 errors. Much of what he had stated, he acknowledged to 
 have taken on trust ; and many things he now discovered 
 to have been without a proper foundation. These " Con- 
 fessions," which appeared in 1803, never altogether ac- 
 complished their purpose ; so difficult is it to recall or 
 make reparation for a word lightly spoken. In sincere 
 humiliation of spirit, Lackington retired to Budleigh Sul- 
 terton, in Devonshire, where he built and endowed a 
 chapel, and performed various other acts of munificence, 
 md spent the conclusion of his days. He died on the 
 22d of November 1815, in the seventieth year of his age.
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 TIMOTHY BENNETT. 
 
 This enterprising shoemaker resided in the village of 
 Hampton-Wick, near Richmond, in Surry. The first 
 passage from this village to Kingston-upon-Thames, 
 through Bushy Park (a royal demense), had been for 
 many years shut up from the public. This honest Eng- 
 lishman, " unwilling," as he said, *' to leave the world 
 worse than he found it," consulted a lawyer upon the 
 practicability of recovering this road, and the probable 
 expense of a legal process. " I have seven hundred 
 pounds," said this honest patriot, " which I should be 
 willing to bestow upon this attempt. It is all I have, and 
 has been saved through a long course of honest industry." 
 The lawyer informed him that no such sum would be ne- 
 cessary to produce this result ; and Timothy determined 
 accordingly to proceed with vigor in the prosecution of 
 this public claim. In the mean time Lord Halifax, ran- 
 ger of Bushy Park, was made acquainted with his inten- 
 tions, and sent for him. " Who are you. Sir," inquired 
 his lordship, " that have the assurance to meddle in this 
 affair ? " "My name, my lord, is Timothy Bennett, shoe- 
 maker, of Hampton-Wick. I remember, an't please your 
 lordship, when I was a young man, of seeing, while sitting 
 at my work, the people cheerfully pass by to Kingston 
 market ; but now, my lord, they are forced to go round 
 about, through a hot sandy road, ready to faint beneath 
 their burdens, and I am unwilling [it was his favorite ex-
 
 TIMOTHY BENNETT. 4| 
 
 pression] to leave the world worse than I found it. This, 
 my lord, I humbly represent, is the reason of my con- 
 duct." '* Begone ; you are an impertinent fellow !" re- 
 plied his lordship. However, upon more mature reflec- 
 tion, being convinced of the equity of the claim, and an- 
 ticipating the ignominy of defeat — " Lord Halifax, the 
 Nobleman, nonsuited by Timothy Bennett, the Shoemak- 
 er," — he desisted from his opposition, and opened the 
 road, which is enjoyed, without molestation, to this day. 
 Timothy died when an old man, in 1756. 
 
 " Such an instance of disinterested public virtue is 
 highly worthy of being recorded ; and though it may not 
 be in the power of every one to suggest valuable improve- 
 ments, or confer lasting benefits on posterity, yet each 
 may, like the patriotic Bennett, endeavor at least not to 
 leave the world worse than he found it."
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 
 
 The history of a great man, who has taken part in 
 public affairs, is the history of the times in which he lived. 
 In fact, all history derives its interest and variety from 
 men of superior talents and influence in their respective 
 generations. The multitude, in history, play the part as- 
 signed them by their leaders, whether that part lead them 
 to freedom and its advantages, or to tyranny and its 
 chains. Every thing, therefore, of peculiar interest in the 
 past — every great achievement that has produced commo- 
 tion or change, that has overthrown old systems or estab- 
 lished new ones — every great movement that has arous- 
 ed nations from the slumber of ages, and called forth new 
 energies and awakened new and powerful ideas — all can 
 be learned in the lives and characters of the great men of 
 the past, and no where else ; for they belong to them — 
 they attach themselves to, and go to make up their charac- 
 ters, and cannot be separated from them. 
 
 The glory of Greece, in arts, eloquence, and arms, is 
 wrapt up in the lives of her Aristides, her Themistocles, 
 her Phocion, Cimon, Sophocles and Demosthenes. 
 Rome, for centuries the mistress of the world — the 
 proud ruler of an hundred and twenty millions, may be 
 studied in all her dazzling splendor, in the characters of 
 her Cincinnatus, her Regulus, Cato, Caesar, Pompey, 
 Cicero, Virgil, and a host of such men. So of all
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 43 
 
 countries and all great events, both in ancient and mod- 
 ern times. Is a throne to be overturned ? A Cromwell 
 unites the agitated elements, directs them according to 
 his own will, and by the might of his own mind, compels 
 a nation to acknowledge him sovereign. So when Amer- 
 ica has to be severed from a powerful Monarchy, and 
 stand forth in the grandeur of a free Republic, — the wis- 
 dom that directed and the energy that executed this grand 
 achievement, may be found in Washington, Adams, Jef- 
 ferson, Sherman and their contemporaries in council and 
 in field. 
 
 It is gratifying to the author, to be able to present to 
 that class of readers for whom this little volume is espe- 
 cially designed, a brief narration of so distinguished, so 
 noble a man as Roger Sherman, one of the first men 
 of his times ; and as a statesman and patrio!, second to 
 to none of his contemporaries but Washington. 
 
 He was a native of Newton, Massachusetts. His an- 
 cestors came from Dedham, in England, about the year 
 1635, and settled at Watertown, near the place of his na- 
 tivity. 
 
 The father of Roger Sherman, was a respectable 
 farmer, but too poor to afford his son a liberal ed- 
 ucation ; he obtained his early education, therefore, at 
 a common parish school, which possessed very limit- 
 ed advantages. At an early age, he was apprenticed 
 to a shoemaker, at which occupation he labored some 
 five or six years. Having an uncommon thirst for 
 knowledge, neither the limited means of his schools, 
 nor the long hours of his daily toil, could prevent him 
 from making valuable acquisitions. What though he had 
 but few books and no experienced teachers ? He had an 
 inquiring mind, and the volume of Nature was spread out 
 before hira, full, and plainly vrritt«n. To one who is de-
 
 44 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 termined to educate himself, every incident, every event, 
 every word, and especially every man, is fraught with in- 
 struction. " Whoever thinks he can, can," is an an- 
 cient proverb, and accords with our more modern one, 
 " Where there is a will, there is a way," and the truth 
 of both is exemplified in young Sherman. Born in pov- 
 erty, with all its attendant evils upon him, he aspired to 
 a higher state, determined to beat down every obstacle in 
 his way, and make himself a man. Nobly did he do his 
 duty, and great was his reward. He was often found with 
 a book open before him when at his work ; and when it 
 permitted him, he would catch a sentence from the page. 
 We may well suppose that a youth of such habits and de- 
 sires, passed no idle hours. His idle hours were his 
 most laborious. 
 
 His father died in 1741, leaving a numerous and de- 
 pendent family to his care alone, his older brother having 
 previously removed to New Milford, Connecticut. This 
 was a serious and responsible trust to be committed to one 
 only nineteen years of age ; yet the duties of a father 
 and counselor, he performed with great kindness and sa- 
 gacity. Toward his mother, who lived to see her son 
 honored and'^respected, he ever manifested the most filial 
 affection and regard ; he also assisted his two younger 
 brothers in obtaining a liberal education, who were after- 
 wards able ministers in Connecticut. 
 
 In 1743, he judged it expedient to remove the family 
 to New Milford, where his elder brother resided ; he ac- 
 cordingly disposed of the farm and took up his residence 
 in that town in the same year. Here he commenced bu- 
 siness as a shoemaker, but did not continue in it long — 
 preferring to go into trade in company with his brother. 
 This probably, promised to be more lucrative than shoe-
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 
 
 4^ 
 
 making, which was a great consideration to him, with an 
 expensive family. Another inducement, no doubt, was 
 the prospect of getting more time to read and improve 
 his mind, which was ever a paramount object with him. 
 
 Mr. Sherman was already distinguished in his county, 
 for his great, and almost (considering his circumstances) 
 incredible attainments. He was particularly fond of the 
 science of Mathematics, and was so skillful in it, that at 
 the early age of twenty-four, he was appointed county 
 surveyor. lie had also made himself quite a master in 
 Astronomy, and in 1748, supplied the astronomical cal- 
 culations for an Almanac published in New York city, 
 and continued to do so for several succeeding years. 
 
 Knowledge, like virtue, is its own reward. The pecu- 
 liar pleasure experienced in cultivating the mind, the 
 calm and undisturbed peace which brings no pang after 
 it, and the noble aspirations it excites in the soul — these 
 are more than an equivalent for the sacrifices and re- 
 straints which it requires. 
 
 But there is another reward which by the multitude is 
 thought the only one, and into this reward we see young 
 Sherman early entering. 
 
 How little did this true lover of learning think of or 
 expect the promotion and patronage which he experien- 
 ced in after life, when he was so industriously pursuing 
 his studies in his youth 1 He sought knowledge for its 
 own sake. 
 
 In 1749, Sherman was married to Elizabeth Hart- 
 well, of Stoughton, Mass., being about twenty-nine years 
 of age. 
 
 How often are changes and important results produced 
 by the most trivial causes! A silent thought — oilen 
 how big with future events ! A word — what revolutions
 
 46 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 has it originated ! An occurrence unnoticed by you and 
 me, to another, perhaps, is the herald of a new life — a new 
 destiny. A little incident produced in Sherman's mind 
 a total change of aim and prospect. The result of it was, 
 that he was admitted to the bar as an attorney at the age 
 of thirty-four. While yet a young man and a shoemak- 
 er, he had occasion to visit a neighboring town on busi- 
 ness for himself. A neighbor of his had previously 
 become involved in difficulty, in settling the affairs of a 
 deceased person, and was in need of legal advice. 
 He stated the case to young Sherman, and desired him 
 to consult upon it with a lawyer who resided in the town 
 to which he was going. Sherman perceiving the case to 
 be somewhat difficult, committed it all to paper, which 
 he handed to the lawyer on his arrival at the office. We 
 can imagine that we see the young man in the office of 
 the grave lawyer, explaining the case to him, assisted by 
 a frequent reference to his manuscript. The lawyer no- 
 tices his use of his paper, and requests him to leave it, 
 as it will furnish him with data with which to draw up 
 a petition to court on the subject. The modest shoemak- 
 er blushes at so unexpected a proposal. "The paper," 
 says he, " was only drawn by myself to assist my memo- 
 ry." He complied reluctantly with the request, and the 
 lawyer, upon reading it, was surprised to find it a clear 
 and concise statement of the case. He told Sherman 
 that it would be as good a petition as he himself could 
 frame, with some slight verbal alterations. Upon this 
 the lawyer inquired of him what his occupation was, and 
 being told he was a shoemaker by trade, he advised him 
 to give his attention to ,the profession of law. This 
 must have been an interesting moment to Sherman. He 
 was pleased, no doubt, with even the thought of entering
 
 ttrjf ROGER SHERMAN. 4¥ 
 
 upon a career which would call forth his strongest pow- 
 ers, and at the same time afford him a fair remuneration ; 
 yet that glad day must have appeared distant to him, bur- 
 dened in his youth with the care of a needy family, and 
 engaged as he then was, in a branch of industry which 
 would not support him, without close and continued ap- 
 plication. This suggestion, however, was not lost upon 
 his practical mind. A new object was in view, an;l a 
 new direction given to his thoughts. All his studies were 
 now made to bear upon this one object, and he improved 
 every opportunity to improve himself in whatever related 
 to his chosen profession. So unabated was his persever- 
 ance, and steady his progress, that in 1754 he was quali- 
 fied and admitted to the bar. His practical and sound 
 judgment, combined with that inflexible integrity pecu- 
 liarly his own, soon distinguished him as an able lawyer 
 and judicious counselor, and he was consequently pro- 
 moted to offices of trust and responsibility. 
 
 In 1755, he was appointed justice of the peace for 
 New Milford, and was also elected a member of the Co- 
 lonial assembly. 
 
 In 1759, he was appointed judge of the court of com- 
 mon pleas for the county of Litchfield. He discharged 
 the duties of this station with distinguished ability, for 
 two years, and gained himself an excellent reputation. 
 At the expiration of this period, he removed to New 
 Haven. His name and fame went before him, and he 
 was very soon appointed justice of the peace, and sent 
 again to the colonial assembly. 
 
 In 1765, four years after he removed to New Haven, 
 he was appointed judge of the court of common pleas. 
 About the same time he became treasurer of Yale Col- 
 lege, which institution bestowed upon him the honorary 
 degree of Master of Arts.
 
 48 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 In the following year the colony elected him a mem- 
 ber of the upper house in the general assembly of Con- 
 necticut. The members of the upper house were called 
 assistants, and they held their sittings with closed doors. 
 No doubt he took a high rank among his compeers in that 
 assembly, but little of their proceedings is known. 
 
 During the same year Mr. Sherman was again remind- 
 ed of the estimation in which he was held, by his appoint- 
 ment to the office of judge of the superior court of Con- 
 necticut. 
 
 Thus we see this self-made man enjoying a full tide of 
 prosperity and success. He had held the office of judge 
 of the court of common pleas, in two counties ; had rep- 
 resented at different times, his towns. New Milford and 
 New Haven, in the colonial assembly, and was at this 
 time a member of the upper house, treasurer of Yale Col- 
 lege, and judge of the superior court of Connecticut ; 
 and all this in the brief period of twelve years from the 
 time he was admitted to the bar. He continued to hold 
 his seat in the upper house nineteen years ; at the end 
 of this period the membership and judgeship being 
 deemed incompatible, he resigned the former and retain- 
 ed the latter. He continued on the bench of the su- 
 preme court until 1785, when he resigned his seat, being 
 elected to Congress, under the federal constitution. 
 
 Says one of his biographers : " It is uniformly ac- 
 knowledged by those who witnessed his conduct and abil- 
 ities on the bench, that he discovered, in the application 
 of principles of law and the rules of evidence to the ca- 
 ses before him, the same sagacity that distinguished 
 him as a legislator. His legal opinions were received 
 with great defference by the profession, and their cor- 
 rectness was almost universally acknowledged." During
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 49 
 
 the last four years in which he was judge, the late Chief 
 Justice Ellsworth was an associate judge of the same 
 court, and from the period of his appointment in 1785, 
 until the death of Mr. Sherman, a close intimacy subsist- 
 ed between them. The elder President Adams remarks, 
 that "It is praise enough to say that Mr. Ellsworth told 
 me that he had made Mr. Sherman his model in his youth. 
 Indeed, I never knew two men more alike, except that the 
 Chief Justice had the advantage of a liberal education 
 and somewhat more extensive reading." 
 
 AVe have thus far viewed Mr. Sherman as the self- 
 taught scholar — the distinguished citizen of Connecticut. 
 We are now to follow him into a broader field of action, 
 to the halls of the Continental Congress, as a statesman 
 and patriot of the American Revolution. 
 
 In order to understand the actual state of things at that 
 eventful period, to know the justice of their cause, and 
 the rectitude of the men who prosecuted it, we must go 
 back to the beginning, and take a view of the history of 
 the colonies up to the revolution, in reference to their 
 relations with the mother country. We shall find in this 
 interesting and instructive period, causes sufficiently 
 numerous and powerful to produce the grand result. We 
 would ask our readers not to turn away from this histori- 
 cal sketch, as if it were dry and uninteresting. It is not 
 so. No period in our history is more interesting to an 
 American, and there is none with which he ought to be 
 more familiar. The alienation of an important branch 
 of a splendid monarchy, its revolution, the birth of a new 
 nation, which, in little more than half a century, stands 
 second to none in power and the extent of its resources, 
 and unrivaled in the general happiness and freedom of 
 its people — a subject so deep and comprehensive is wor-
 
 so DISTINGUISffBD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 thy the study of Statesmen and philosophers; and yet it 
 is so plain, and the results so natural, that it may be 
 understood by all. 
 
 It is the general impression, and we presume most of 
 our readers have imbibed it, that the celebrated stamp-act, 
 and tea-tax, and Boston Port Bill, those oppressive meas- 
 ures immediately preceding the revolution, were the sole 
 cause of provoking it. This is entirely erroneous. 
 These unjust measures were merely the last links in a 
 chain extending back into the pasta hundred years. The 
 affection of the colonies for their native country resem- 
 bled that of the child for its parent. They left there the 
 graves of their fathers and the scenes of their ancestral 
 glory. The name and fame of Old England they enthu- 
 siastically loved, and all the endearments of one's own 
 native country bound their hearts to her altars. Though 
 born in America, they were Englishmen ; England's king 
 was their king, and her glory theirs. Neglected, they 
 murmured not, but struggled on ; injured, they suppli- 
 cated ; oppressed, they remonstrated like men, yet loved 
 like children! Attachment like this could not be 
 destroyed by a single act of injustice. Natural affec- 
 tions are not so easily radicated from the human breast. 
 
 This is not the place to give a minute history of the 
 rise, progress, sufferings and calamities of the colonies. 
 This would require volumes. All I shall attempt is, to 
 state the more prominent facts in relation to their inter- 
 course with England, thus showing in a continued narra- 
 tive, her jealousy, injustice and oppression of the colo- 
 nies. 
 
 The thirteen colonies were planted between the years 
 1607 and 1732, with three distinct forms of government 
 — the charter, proprietary, and royal. In New Englandi
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 6t 
 
 the charter governments were adopted. Under this form 
 the people made their own laws, and were their own rul- 
 ers. In the proprietary governments, the proprietor ruled 
 with the advice, assent and approbation of the majority. 
 The royal governments were composed of a governor and 
 council appointed by the crown, and a legislature chosen 
 by the people. Under these respective forms of govern- 
 ment our fathers came out and settled the colonies. 
 Here they found an unbroken wilderness, ravenous beasts, 
 and a savage foe. Like men they labored, and like he- 
 roes they fought. They had strong hearts and strong 
 arms. Neither the tomahawk of the savage, the wither- 
 inc (Tripe of famine, nor the blasting breath of pestilence 
 could overcome them. In a few years their fields smiled 
 with abundant crops — the reward of their industry. Nor 
 were the energies of the colonies confined entirely to ag- 
 riculture. From the diversity of wants and products, 
 commerce and manufactures began to be early engaged 
 in. This excited the jealousy of the merchants and man- 
 ufacturers of England. They complained loudly that 
 their business would be injured, and called upon the gov- 
 ernment to stop it. "The colonists," said they "are be- 
 ginning to carry on trade, they vvill soon be our formida- 
 ble rivals. They are already setting up manufactures — 
 they will soon set up for independence. Accordingly, 
 acts were early passed restricting the trade with the col- 
 onies, as well as with the other parts of the world, to Eng- 
 lish-built ships. This had to do only with the export 
 trade. With this they were not long content ; but in 
 16G3, applied the same restriction to the import trade. 
 Notwithstanding these acts, the trade between the colo- 
 nies was free and briskly prosecuted. This was too great 
 a privilege to be permitted by the selfish politicians and
 
 52 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 monopolies of the parent country, for any length of time 
 In 1672, the following products transported from one col- 
 ony to another were subject to the following duties ; viz : 
 white sugars, five shillings, and brown sugars one shil- 
 ling and sixpence per hundred ; tobacco and indigo, one 
 penny, and cotton a half-penny per pound. These 
 duties were not imposed for the purpose of raising rev- 
 enue, but to render the trade between the colonies un- 
 profitable, and to act as a prohibition. So the colonies 
 understood it. Massachusetts entirely disregarded them 
 for a long time, because they were a violation of her 
 charter, and all the colonies declared them to be uncon- 
 stitutional and unjust. Their disregard of these enact- 
 ments called forth severe measures for their enforcement. 
 Conscious of their rights as Englishmen under the Eng- 
 lish constitution, and that they had not forfeited them by 
 their labors and hardships in founding their colonies and 
 enlarging the dominion of the kingdom, they felt most 
 keenly the gross injustice of these measures for crippling 
 their rising commerce and trade. At length the infant 
 manufactures of the colonies began to excite the solicitude 
 of England in a very special manner. In 1699, Parliament 
 began its system of restriction upon colonial manufac- 
 tures, by an enactment " that no wool, yarn or woolen 
 manufactures of their American plantations should be 
 shipped there, or even laden in order to be transported 
 thence to any other place whatever." In 1719, the 
 House of Commons declared " that the erecting of man- 
 ufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their depend- 
 ence upon Great Britain." In 1731, the board of trade 
 reported to the House of Commons, " that there are more 
 trades carried on and manufactures set up on the conti- 
 nent of America northward of Virginia, prejudicial to
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 
 
 1^ 
 
 the trade and manufactures of Great Britain, particularly 
 in New England, than in any other of the British colo- 
 nies." About this time New England had entratred in 
 the manufacture of hats, so extensively, it seems, as to be 
 able to supply themselves and export considerable quan- 
 tities to Spain and Portugal. This called forth loud 
 complaints from the London Company of Hatters, which 
 had, of course, the exclusive right to supply the whole 
 world with hats. The consequence of their outcry was, 
 that the exportation of hats from the colonies to for- 
 eign countries, and even to their neighbor colonies, was 
 prohibited. In 1732, it was enacted, that hats should 
 neither be shipped nor even laden upon a horse, cart or 
 other carriage with a view to transportation to any place 
 whatever, and that no hatter should employ more than 
 two apprentices at once, nor make hats, unless he had 
 served as an apprentice to the trade for seven years. Not 
 content with cutting off their trade in this article with 
 foreign countries, and with prohibiting even the colonies 
 that manufactured from supplying their sister colonies 
 that did not, with hats; the Government, by limiting the 
 number of apprentices and restricting the manufacture to 
 those who had served seven years, intended that the man- 
 ufacturers should not be able to supply their own home 
 market. Parental legislation Ihis! 
 
 The manufacture of iron must be suppressed also, for 
 the benefit of the iron interest in England. They most 
 graciously permitted the colonies to reduce the iron ore 
 into pig and bars ; but the working up of this iron into 
 the thousand useful implements and machines which they 
 needed at home and could sell abroad, they were not per- 
 mitted in the least to engage in. This must be done by 
 the pampered and selfish monopolies in the kingdom.
 
 54 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 See the wise laws of Great Britain's wise legislators. In 
 the year 1750, Parliament prohibited the erection or con- 
 tinnance of any mill or e7igine for slitting or rolling iron, 
 or any plating forge to work with, or tilt-hammer, or any 
 furnace for making steel, in the colonies, under the pen- 
 alty of two hundred pounds." Moreover every such mill 
 or engine or plating forge was declared a tommon nui- 
 sance, and the governors of the colonies, on the informa- 
 tion of two witnesses on oath, were directed to cause the 
 same to be abated within thirty days, or forfeit the sum of 
 five hundred pounds. 
 
 This was the beginning of vexations. The very basis 
 of their youthful institutions was to be overturned or set 
 aside. The charier or New England governments were 
 unrestricted in their authority, with the exception that 
 none of their laws should be repugnant to the laws of 
 England. The crown viewed these charters as consti- 
 tuting corporations for the time being, to be annulled 
 whenever it was its will. But to the colonists, their 
 charters were their bonds of existence, and to lay violent 
 hands on them was like touching the apple of their eye. 
 Under them they had suffered and toiled, and grown and 
 prospered. They were the warrant of their privileges, 
 and contained the solemn guarantee of their rights, seal- 
 ed with the broad seal of the kingdom. But the king 
 and his ministers were jealous of the growing power and 
 prosperity of the colonies, and so they were to be op- 
 pressed. Their charters were set at nought, and Sir Ed- 
 mund Andros was appointed governor-general of New 
 England. This man was a cruel and unscrupulous tyrant. 
 No act within his power was too mean or oppressive for 
 him to perform. So general was the abhorrence of his 
 (idministration, that, says a distinguished writer, " a deep
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 5& 
 
 gloom spread over the whole territory of New England." 
 One of the first acts of his despotism was, to place the 
 press under censorship. The lovely character of the man 
 is also seen in the following regulations: " Magistrates 
 alone were permitted to solemnize marriages, and no mar- 
 riages were allowed until bonds with sureties were given 
 to the governor, to be forfeited if any lawful impediment 
 should afterwards appear. No man could remove from 
 the country without the consent of the governor." 
 
 " Fees of office, particularly in matters of probate, were 
 exorbitant. Towns were not permitted to hold meetings 
 but once a year, and then for the sole purpose of electing 
 officers. All former grants of lands were considered in- 
 valid, either because they were rendered void by the de- 
 struction of their charter, or were destitute of the formal- 
 ity of a seal. The people were therefore obliged to take 
 out new patents for their lands and pay enormous patent 
 fees, or suffer them to be granted to others, and they 
 themselves be ejected from their hard-earned posses- 
 sions." 
 
 " In addition to this, taxes were imposed at the will of 
 the governor-general and a few of his council, nor had 
 the poor New Englanders the privilege of complaining, 
 and claiming the rights of Englishmen, without being 
 liable to fine and imprisonment. These taxes the gover- 
 nor and council, by their act, assessed upon the several 
 towns and directed each town to appoint a commissioner, 
 who, with the selectmen, was ordered to assess the same 
 on the individual inhabitants." 
 
 These are but an outline of the acts of that relentless 
 tyrant, and, as might be expected, they produced trouble 
 and collisions. But the day of his power at length closed, 
 a dark day for the oppressor, but joyous to the oppressed.
 
 56 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 When his besotted master fled from his exasperated coun- 
 try, this distinguished governor-general of all New Etig- 
 and, his excellency, Sir Edmund Andros, was promptly 
 placed in close confinement, so that his excellency might 
 be in safe keeping to await the orders of his government. 
 This Sir Edmund forgot that there was a possibility that he 
 would out-live his worthy master on the throne, under 
 whose protection he exercised his lordly sway over the 
 hardy New Englanders, and that in that event he would 
 meet a righteous retribution. The possibility became an 
 event — the tyrant was crushed. Thus may it ever be 
 with tyrants. 
 
 The accession of William, Prince of Orange, to the 
 throne, brought some relief to the colonies, but it was 
 slight and of short duration. The same old dispute arose 
 respecting the powers conferred by the charters, A vio- 
 lent and protracted controversy was occasioned by a re- 
 quisition from the king that a fixed and permanent sala- 
 ry should be provided for the officers appointed by the 
 crown. Massachusetts disputed this proposition for thir- 
 ty years. The assembly were willing to vote, from year 
 to year, money for the support of the governor ; but 
 neither menaces, threats nor promises could induce 
 them to establish a permanent salary. At lengtn the king 
 yielded the point. 
 
 The colonies were also treated most wrongfully by 
 Great Britain, by sending her prison convicts to our shores, 
 and making the colonies a rendezvous for felons. Against 
 this the colonies loudly complained. The Government's 
 justification of itself in this nefarious business was, " that 
 in many of his majesty's colonies and plantations, there 
 was a great want of servants, who by their labor and in- 
 dustry, might be the means odmproving and making the
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. ^ 
 
 co'onies more useful to his majesty." What an insult to 
 the common and moral sense of our fathers ! Such were 
 some of the grievances suffered by the colonists in their 
 iinmease labors in their new and rugged home. Yet they 
 were firmly attached to the parent country, despite all 
 ihis oppression, and these plans for keeping them in hum- 
 ble subjection. Even their treasure and their blood were 
 often sacri. iced for the benefit and glory of England. Of 
 their firm allegiance and heroic devotion to the mother 
 country, no bett?r testimony can be adduced than the 
 following: Said a distinguished member of parliament, 
 a few years previous to the revolution, " Whenever Great 
 Britain has declared war, the colonies have taken their 
 part. They were engaged in king William's war, 
 and queen Anne's war, even in their infancy. They con- 
 quered Arcadia in the last century for us ; and we then 
 gave it up. Again in queen Anne's war, they conquered 
 Nova Scotia, which from that time has belonged to Great 
 Britain. They have been engaged in more than one ex- 
 pedition to Canada, ever foremost to partake of honor 
 and danger with the mother country. 
 
 " Well, sir, what have we done for them ? Have we 
 conquered the country for them from the Indians? Have 
 we cleared it? Have we drained it? Have we made it 
 habitable? What have we done for them? I believe 
 precisely nothing at all, but just fcee/)tng" watch and ward 
 over their trade that they should receive nothing but from 
 ourselves and at our own price. I will not positively say 
 that we have spent nothing, though I don't know of any 
 such article upon our journals; I mean any national ex- 
 pense in setting them out as colonists. The royal mili- 
 tary government of Nova Scotia cost indeed not a little 
 sum ; above .£500,000 for its plantations and its first year 
 c
 
 53 DISTINGUISH KD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Hid your colonies cost any thing similar, either in their 
 outset or support, there would be something to say on 
 that side ; but instead of that, they have been left to 
 themselves for one hundred or one hundred and fifty 
 years, upon the fortune and capital of private adventurers, 
 to encounter every difficulty and danger. What towns 
 have we built for them ? What forests have we cleared ? 
 What country have we conquered for them from the In- 
 dians. Name the officers — name the troops — the expe- 
 ditions — their dates — where are they found ? Not on 
 the journals of this kingdom. They are no where to be 
 found. 
 
 " In all the wars which have been common to us and 
 them, they have taken their full share. But in all their 
 dangers, in the difficulties belonging separately to their 
 situation, in all the Indian wars which did not immedi- 
 ately concern us, we left them to themselves to struggle 
 through. For the whim of a minister you can bestow 
 half a million to build a town, and to plant a royal colo- 
 ny of Nova Scotia, a greater sum than you have bestow- 
 ed upon every other colony together. 
 
 "And notwithstanding all these which are the real 
 facts, now that they have struggled through their difficul- 
 ties, and begin to hold up their heads, and to show an 
 empire which promises to be foremost in the world, we 
 claim them and theirs as implicitly belonging to us, with- 
 out any consideration of their own rights. We charge 
 them with ingratitude, without the least regard to truth, 
 just as if this kingdom for a century and a half had at- 
 tended to no other subject ; as if all our revenue, all our 
 power, all our thought had been bestowed upon them, 
 and all our national debt had been contracted in the In- 
 dian wars of America ; totally forgetting the subordina-
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 59 
 
 tion in commerce and manufactures in which we have 
 bound and for which at least we owe them help 
 towards their protection." 
 
 The testimony of Mr. Pownal, one of the royal gov- 
 ernors, is of a similarly honorable character. 
 
 In 1765 he said, " I profess an affection for the colo- 
 nies, because having lived amongst those people, in a 
 private as well as public character, I know them ; I know 
 that in their private, social relations, there is not a more 
 friendly, and in their political ones, a more zealously loyal 
 people in all his majesty's dominions. When fairly and 
 openly dealt with, there is not a people who have a truer 
 sense of the necessary powers of government. They 
 would sacrifice their dearest interests, for the honor and 
 prosperity of their mother country. I have a right to 
 say this, because experience has given me a practical 
 knowledge and this impression of them." 
 
 " The duty of a colony is affection for the mother 
 country. Here I may affirm that in whatever frame and 
 temper this affection can lie in the human breast, in that 
 form by the deepest and most permanent affection it ever 
 did lie in the breast of the American people. They have 
 no other idea of this country than as their home ; they 
 have no other word by which to express it; and till of 
 late it has constantly been expressed by the name of home. 
 That powerful affection, that love for our na(ive country, 
 which operates in every breast, operates in this people 
 towards England, which they consider as their native 
 country ; nor is this a mere passive impression, a mere 
 opinion in speculation — it has been wrought in them to 
 a vigilant and active zeal for the service of this country." 
 
 Such was the character of our fathers — their earnest 
 and constant patriotism — in return for which we have 
 seen aad shall see what they received.
 
 00 DISTINSniSHBD SHOEMAKER!). 
 
 During the administration of Sir Robert Walpole and 
 Mr. Pilt, it was first proposed to tax the colonies for the 
 purpose of drawing a revenue from them. This proposi- 
 tion, when known to be a government measure, aroused 
 the whole country to a sense of their rights. The shrewd 
 Walpole and the noble and eloquent Pitt were not al- 
 ways to be at the helm of the British government. Said 
 Walpole, "I will leave the taxation o( the Americans for 
 my successors, who may have more courage than I have, 
 and are less fri 'ndly to commerce than I am." His suc- 
 cessors undertook what that great statesman feared to do, 
 an undertaking which cost them hundreds of millions 
 of dollars, besides their darling colonies. 
 
 Lord Grenville was the man to lead off in this un- 
 natural measure — and he was an unnatural man — haugh- 
 ty, self-willed and overbearing. This minister announced 
 to Dr. Franklin, and the other agents of the colonies then 
 residing in London in 1764, that he proposed to raise a 
 revenue from the colonies, and should, at the ensuing ses- 
 sion, recommend a duty on stamps. 
 
 The colonial assemblies took the earliest opportunity 
 to express their indignation. They declared the act " in- 
 iquitous, oppressive, and without precedent in the annals 
 of British legislation." Petitions from all quarters were 
 sent to the agents in London, accompanied with instruc- 
 tions to have them laid before the king and parliament. 
 The proceedings of the people at large, were marked 
 with less order and decorum. They were particular to 
 manifest the abhorrence of the stamp distributors. By ri- 
 ots, mobs and threats they compelled the stam|> officers 
 to resign their office. They would not have manifested 
 more resentment, had the paper been poisoned paper, in» 
 stead of stamped paper. It Was at length driven, like
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 
 
 ^ 
 
 leaves before the autumnal winds, from the land,on board 
 armed vessels, and finally, after passing through many 
 dangers, found its way back safely to England. 
 
 Such was the fate of the stamps, but the indignation it 
 raised among the American people cooled only into set- 
 tled distrust, and opened between them and the British 
 government an irreparable breach. A volume would not 
 give a full account of the proceedings on both sides of 
 the Atlantic concerning this measure. We will confine 
 ourselves to one or two of the most interesting transac- 
 tions. 
 
 The American cause had some noble champions on 
 the floor of the house of commons. Among these Gen. 
 Conway, Alderman Beckford, Col. Barre, Mr. Jackson, 
 and Sir William Merredith were conspicuous. A( the 
 close of a speech in support of the stamp-bill, Charles 
 Townshend, one of the ministers, exclaimed, " And now 
 will these Americans, planted by our care, nourished by 
 our indulgence until they have grown to a degree of 
 strength and importance, and protected by our arms, will 
 they now grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us 
 from the burden we lie under ? " The minister had no 
 sooner taken his seat than Col. Barre rose and replied : 
 "They planted by your care ! No, your oppression plant- 
 ed them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a 
 then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they 
 were exposed to almost all the hardships to which human 
 nature is liable; and among others to the cruelties of a 
 savage foe ; the most subtile, and I will take it upon me 
 say . the most formidable <if any people on the face of God's 
 earth ; and yet actuated by the principles of true English 
 liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared 
 with those they suffered in their own country from the
 
 62 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 hands of those who should have been their friends. They 
 nourished by your indulgence ! ! They grew by your 
 neglect of them. As soon as you began to take care of 
 them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule 
 them in one department and another, who were deputies 
 to some member of this house, sent to prey upon them ; 
 men whose behavior on many occasions has caused the 
 blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them ; men 
 promoted to the highest seats of justice, some to my 
 knowledge, were gl.id by going to a foreign country, to 
 escape being brought to a bar of justice in their own. 
 
 " They protected by your arms! They have nobly ta- 
 ken up arms in your defence ; have exerted their valor 
 amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the de- 
 fence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, 
 while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your 
 emolument. And believe me, that same spirit'of free- 
 dom which actuated that people at first, will accompany 
 them still. 
 
 " But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. 
 God knows I do not at this time speak from any party 
 heat. However superior to me in general knowledge 
 and experience the respectable body of this house may 
 be, yet I claim to know more of America than the most 
 of you, having seen and been constant in that country. 
 The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects 
 the king has, but a people jealous of their liberties, and 
 who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated. 
 But the subject is too delicate — I will say no more." 
 
 Notwithstanding this truthful and eloquent appeal, the 
 hou.=se passed the bill by a great majority. Such is the 
 blindness and infatuation that sometimes seizes the minds 
 of kings and rulers. Proud, oppressive and vain men !
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 63 
 
 On their side they beheld the instruments of power and 
 coercion — we were insignificant. How little they knew 
 of the unconquerable nature of right and justice. But 
 they had a lesson, an expensive and instructive lesson con- 
 cerning it ; the same lesson that the monarchs of Europe 
 are learning now in a more summary and striking manner. 
 
 At length in 1766, a change in the ministry brought 
 the repeal of the stamp act. Great was the joy this re- 
 peal produced in England, but greater still throughout 
 America. Massachusetts passed a vote of gratitude to 
 the king, and of thanks to Mr. Pitt, the Duke of Grafton, 
 and others who assisted in the measure. The house of 
 burgesses of Virginia resolved to erect a statue in honor 
 of the king, and an obelisk in honor of all who had dis- 
 tinguished themselves in favor of the colonies. 
 
 It was policy, and not a s*^nse of the injustice of the 
 measure, that caused its repeal ; for the repeal was ac- 
 companied by a declaratory act, that parliament had the 
 right to make la^vs and statutes to bind the colonies in 
 all cases whatsoever. Accordingly, the next year, '67, 
 this right was again exercised by an imposition of taxes 
 upon the colonies. The articles upon which duties were 
 laid, were glass, paper, pasteboard, white and red lead, 
 paints and tea. This was accompanied with two other 
 oppressive acts, one establishing a new board of custom- 
 house officers in the colonies ; tha other restraining the 
 legislature of New York from passing any act whatever, 
 until they should furnish the king with several required 
 articles. 
 
 Again were the colonies alarmed ! They saw in this 
 new revenue act, the same odiousness that they did in the 
 stamp act. It was the same old pill, sugared over with 
 (what its authors thought) a more palatable coating.
 
 64 DISTINgMH^ S^^fjA^KERS. 
 
 The opposition was vehement, and it was expressedin 
 more positive terms than ever before. Several of the 
 colonies declared their determination never to submit to 
 such abhorrent enactments. The people evaded the cus- 
 tom-house laws, and so deep was the resentment, that the 
 revenue officers were finally compelled to take refuge on 
 board a ship of war. 
 
 The public excitement was still increased by the arri- 
 val in Boston harbor of two regiments of British troops, 
 sent over to assist the civil officers in preserving peace 
 End enforcing the laws. The proud and free spirit of the 
 Bostonians could ill brock the sight of foreign trocps, 
 quartered on their common, and in their Stale house. 
 Foreign bayonets in their halls of justice and legislation, 
 was a sight not to be tamely endured by a people who 
 knew their rights and had the courage to maintain them. 
 Frequent quarrels and collisions indicated but too plainly 
 that the end of these things would be in blood ! 
 
 In 1770, the duties on all the articles before enumerat- 
 ed were abolished, except tea. The national honor re- 
 quired the principle, and this tea tax was the grand rep- 
 resentative of it. The other duties were taken off in 
 justice to the colonies ; the tea tax was continued, to pre- 
 serve the dignity of his majesty's government. 
 
 The trocps were still quartered in Boston ; and the 
 regulations of trcde were enforced with grest strictness 
 On the memorable evening of the fifth of March, 1770, 
 the British troops, in a quarrel with the citizens, killed and 
 wounded eleven of the latter in the streets of Boston ! 
 The whole city immediately assembled and demanded 
 the removal of the troops from the town. This bloody 
 affray has since been called the " Boston massacre." 
 The duty on teas continued, and petitions, remon-
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 65 
 
 strances and resolutions could not remove it. But there 
 was one way to render this tax partially harmless, and 
 that was, to buy no tea. This ihey resolved to do; and 
 the abstinence of our fathers and mothers from this deli- 
 cious beverage, was an indication of the sacrifice! they 
 could make, and the sufferings they could endure, when 
 called upon to preserve their liberties and their rights. 
 In consequence of their adherence to their resolution 
 of abstinence from tea, this article accumulated on the 
 hands of the East India Company in enormous quanti- 
 ties, until their houses groaned with the burden, and they, 
 for want of income. The Company was forced to seek 
 relief from its embarrassments, of government. 
 
 Accordingly in 1773, the government passed an act 
 allowing the Company to export their teas to America, 
 with a drawback of the duties paid at the custom-house. 
 This regulation would make tea cheaper in America than 
 in England, and government therefore thought the colo- 
 nies would buy it. But they had not yet learned the tem- 
 per of the people with whom they were dealing. The 
 tea destined for Charleston, was landed and stored, but 
 not permitted to be offered for sale. The cargoes brought 
 to New York and Philadelphia were not landed, but were 
 carried back to England without even making an entry 
 at the custom-house. Our readers well know the fate of 
 the tea at the wharf in Boston. A party of Mohawked 
 Americans committed it to the bosom of old Neptune, 
 the water god. 
 
 The British ministers were indignant and wrathful. 
 They determined to punish the Americans for not pur- 
 chasing their teas. Accordingly, the celebrated Boston 
 port bill was passed, prohibiting the landing or shipping 
 of any goods at that port after the first of June following.
 
 TO DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 About the same time another act was passed, altering the 
 charter of the colony of Massachusetts so that the ap- 
 poiutuient of council, justices, judges, sheriffs, and even 
 jurors, depended upon tlie king, restraining all town meet- 
 ings except the annual, without a written permission from 
 the governor. To these another was added, authorizing 
 the governor to send any person to Great Britain for tri- 
 al, who was indicted for any act done in violation of the 
 revenue laws. 
 
 This was enough. Affairs were now fast coming to u 
 crisis. Although most of these measures were aimed 
 directly at Boston and Massachusetts, yet all the colonies 
 sympathized with them in their sufferings, approved of 
 their spirit, and encouraged them in resisting. 
 
 Such is the story, hastily and imperfectly sketched, of 
 the trials, the sufferings, the forbearance and firmness of 
 our ancestors. Such was the unreasonable and cruel 
 policy of England toward ihein. 
 
 But the time was fast approaching when they were to 
 struggle in the offensive— »to contend for independence 
 and nationality — rather than against a tea tax or port 
 bill. At this period, affairs wore a dark and forbidding 
 aspect. On one side was power. Great Britain had a 
 large and veteran army ; and a navy good against that of 
 the whole world combined, with which she could block- 
 ade every considerable port in America. There was 
 probably but one opinion, except that in the hearts of our 
 countrymen, as to the result. All thought that America 
 would have to submit to the British lion. But to the 
 Americans it was more a question of principle than of 
 success. Many of them no doubt firmly believed in their 
 final triumph. All however were prepared to adopt the 
 motto, " Liberty or death." Successful or unsuccessful,
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. utm 67 
 
 submit to oppression, they never would. They believed it 
 was better to die freemen than live slaves, and ihey felt it, 
 and were willing to act up to it. 'i'hey knew that they 
 were few, and scattered, and undisciplined, that they were 
 not well provided with arms and military stores, and that 
 their country was poorly fortified. Accordingly they 
 sent their wisest men to meet in congress, to deliberate 
 and consult together, and to adopt measures for the pre- 
 servation of their rights. This noble band of patriots 
 met in Philadelphia, in September, 1774 ; and after or- 
 ganizing, appointed committees to report upon matters of 
 the greatest importance, and prepare addresses to the 
 people of Great Britain, to the inhabitants of the prov- 
 ince of Q,uebec, and to the colonies. 
 
 Says a distinguished historian, " The addresses pre- 
 pared, the various papers drawn up, the nieasures recom- 
 mended by this congress, form their highest eulogium, 
 and attest how judiciously a selection of character had 
 been made by the people, for the all-interesting concerns 
 intrusted to their care. Affection for the mother coun- 
 try, an exalted admiration of her national character, un- 
 willingness to separate from her, a knowledge of the 
 hazards and difficulties of the struggle to be engaged in, 
 mingled with an enthusiastic love of liberty, and of coun- 
 try, with a conviction that all which can make life valua- 
 ble was at stake, characterized their proceedings." 
 
 Of that celebrated band of patriots, Roger Sherman 
 stood in the front rank. His calm and reflecting mind, 
 his sound and tried judgment, and his characteristic sa- 
 gacity enabled him to see the end from the beginning, 
 lie knew that Britain was too proud to recede from even 
 an unjust position, and that America was too much in 
 earnest, too jealous of her liberties, to yield without a
 
 06 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 long and severe struggle. He was aware that Britain had 
 all the resources, with which to carry on a long and bloody 
 contest, and that his own countrymen had all the cour- 
 age, the patriotism and hrmness necessary to endure it. 
 Conscious of all this, he prepared himself for the contest 
 which he saw was inevitable. He was familiar with the 
 history of the colonies, and knew their grievances well. 
 His keen sense of right, his unswerving adherence to 
 justice and virtue, and his ardent patriotism, would not 
 for a moment permit him to hesitate or falter. At the 
 threatening period of 1774, when the minds of the 
 American people were pausing to consult and deliberate 
 upon the steps to be taken, and the mensures to be adopt- 
 ed, Roger Sherman took his seat in the first continental 
 congress in Philadelphia, firmly and irrevokably commit- 
 ted to the cause of his country ; nor could the thousand 
 battle-ships of England, nor her hundred thousand bayo- 
 nets, nor her prisons, nor her gibbets, move or intimidate 
 him. 
 
 As we have before observed, he was one of the most 
 prominent in this assembly of prominent men. His habits 
 of critical examination and close investigation — the cor- 
 rectness of his opinions and the soundness of his conclu- 
 sions, for which he was particularly distinguished, qualified 
 him for a safe adviser and wise counselor, and made him 
 one of the strongest pillars of the revolution. He was ac- 
 cordingly appointed on the most important committees, 
 some of which were the following ; to prepare instructions 
 to the army in Canada; to establish regulations in regard 
 to the trade of the United Colonies ; to regulate the cur- 
 rency of the country ; to furnish supplies for the army; 
 to devise ways and means fr providing ten millions of 
 dollars for the expenses of the current year ; to concert
 
 ROGER SHERMAir.»*<«MI 69 
 
 a plan of military operations for the campaign of 1776. 
 Our readers who are familiar with the history of this 
 country during the war, will at once perceive that the 
 duties devolving on the above committees were arduous 
 and responsible to the extreme, and that their investiga- 
 tions involved the highest interest if not the very exist- 
 ence of the country. 
 
 Perhaps no better evidence of his character and stand- 
 ing in that body, can be found, than the fact, that he was 
 on the committee with Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and 
 Livingston, to prepare a declaration of independence. 
 This committee, which was to proclaim a new nation, 
 was undoubtedly composed of their wisest and strongest 
 men ; and we venture to say that a better, a wiser, a no- 
 bler committee could not be found in any country at any 
 time. 
 
 In 1784, Mr. Sherman was elected Mayor of New 
 Haven, an office he held during the remainder of his 
 life. 
 
 Hitherto the articles of the confederation had been the 
 only compact among the several States since the time of 
 their adoption by Congress in 1778. This instrument 
 which but poorly answered the ends for which it was de- 
 signed, during the war, was found wholly inadequate for 
 the purposes of government, after the establishment of 
 peace. During the war, the love and defence of their 
 liberties were the great moving principles of action and 
 bonds of unity among the States. With these constantly 
 called into powerful operation by the presence of the 
 common foe, this imperfect system of legislation barely 
 sufficed. But in the absence of these strong motives to 
 united action, local and individual interests began to pre- 
 vail over, to the great detriment of, national interests.
 
 99 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 The compact of confederation left so much authority to 
 the States, and conferred so little upon congress, that in 
 all the important measures, the majority of the States 
 composed the general government in fact, and congress 
 simply a recommendatory committee. 
 
 The different pursuits consequent upon the different 
 locations of the States, some being commercial and oth- 
 ers agricultural, were erroneously supposed to be of 
 antagonistical nature ; and the regulation of trade with- 
 in its own jurisdiction being left entirely to each Stale, 
 the different interests frequently came in collison. Con- 
 gress had no power to regulate trade, or impose duties on 
 foreign merchandize, as a drawback on foreign nations, 
 which excessively taxed our own. Enormously in debt, 
 but without revenues, and without power to create them, 
 the general government lost the confidence of its citi- 
 zens, and on account of the heavy pressure from the loss 
 of credit and the depreciation of property, there was a 
 great lack, generally, of confidence among individuals 
 themselves. Trade languished, and a general stagnation 
 prevailed in all departments of business. At length, 
 after great suffering, and many local efforts to remedy the 
 evils, a proposition was made by Virginia to all the other 
 States, to meet in convention, for the purpose of forming 
 a plan of government equal to the exigencies of the 
 Union. It was acceded to by all the States, and finally 
 issued in the formation of a new constitution — an en- 
 tirely new government. To this convention, the States 
 sent their ablest, most distinguished and most experi- 
 enced statesmen. The immortal Washington presided 
 over its deliberations, and in them Roger Sherman par- 
 ticipated. This body met in May, 1787, and continued 
 itsi sittings four months with closed doors. Mr. Sherman
 
 *• ROGER SHERMAN.-rr«*«I 71 
 
 took a prominent part in the debates of the convention 
 and was one of its most prominent members. A paper 
 has been found anu)ng his manuscripts, containing a 
 number of propositions designed as amendments to the 
 articles of confederation, many of whicli were adopted 
 in the new constitution. In a letter to General Floyd he 
 says, " Perhaps a better constitution could not be made 
 upon mere speculation. If upon experience it should 
 be found to be deficient, it provides an easy and peacea- 
 ble m<»de of making amendments. But if the constitu- 
 tion should be adopted and the several States choose 
 some of their wisest and best men from lime to time 
 to administer the government, I believe it will not 
 want any amendments. I hope that kind Providence 
 which guided these States through a dangerous and dis- 
 tressing war to peace and liberty, will watch over them 
 and guide them in the way of safety." 
 
 This constitution, which bears the impression of great 
 skill and wisdom in its formation, with but few blemishes, 
 which most of its framers would gladly have omitted, and 
 fondly anticipated their children would expunge, owes, 
 no doubt, many of its wise and salutary provisions to the 
 clear, sagacious, penetrating mind of Mr. Sherman. He 
 saw the various, conflicting, still increasing interests of 
 the young and growing republic, as it were laid bare be- 
 fore him ; the effect of certain regulations upon these 
 various interest, and sections was equally exposed to his 
 view. In short, in wisely adapting means to ends, no man 
 in the nation excelled Roger Sherman. 
 
 After exerting his powers in moulding the form of gov- 
 ernment, his influence was required at home to urge its 
 adoption by his native State, As has been before ob- 
 served, there were local objections against any one plan
 
 1% DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 of government; and these objections in some States 
 were well nigh insuperable. According to the testimony 
 of Chief Justice Ellsworth, the adoption of the consti- 
 tution by Connecticut was in a great measure owing to 
 Mr. Sherman's arguments and influence. He appeared 
 before the State convention assembled to deliberate upon 
 the question of its adoption, and explained in a lucid and 
 forcible manner its probable operation. 
 
 Under this constitution Mr. Sherman was elected a 
 representative to congress. He served in this capacity 
 two years, when he was elected to a seat in the United 
 States senate, which he continued to hold, and the du- 
 ties of which he discharged with great credit and fidelity, 
 until the 23d of July, 1793. His work was now done ! 
 Death found the venerable patriot and statesman at his 
 post, in the seventy-third year of his age. 
 
 The character of this great man was strongly marked 
 by a few leading traits. His great practical knowledge, 
 common sense, knowledge of human nature, was a strik- 
 ing feature in his character, without which he could not 
 have been so pre-eminently distinguished. From earliest 
 life he had been a careful observer and constant thinker. 
 When on his seat at his trade, he accumulated stores of 
 knowledge which was ever after highly useful to himself 
 and others. Even his experience in the manufacture of 
 shoes, served to protect the government from imposition, 
 in contracting for this article for the army of the revolu- 
 tion. This little incident shows the folly of contemning 
 knowledge acquired in the humbler walks of life, and 
 that no real information is valueless. Roger Sherman 
 the shoemaker, little thought, when driving pegs in Con- 
 necticut, that he would have occasion to teach the na- 
 tional Congress the price of shoes. With his penetrating
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 73 
 
 eye out upon the world, studying human nature in busy 
 life, the only theater in which it can be rightly studied, 
 he knew well the virtues, the failings, the powers and the 
 weaknesses of man. He knew what they would be wil- 
 ling to do and endare, what would advance their interest 
 and promote their happiness. He was a practical man, 
 a common-sense man — a self-taught man, a true philo- 
 sopher. This practical cast of mind which Mr. Sherman 
 possessed, and which is generally characteristic of all 
 truly self-educated men, is of the greatest service to man- 
 kind. Its possessors are the teachers of the great body 
 of men ; their language is the language of common life 
 — the simple, plain expression of their ideas ; their il- 
 lustrations are drawn from the same source — familiar 
 and intelligible, yet apt and forcible. Such men speak 
 to (he poor toil-worn laborer as others never can — to 
 his heart. As clear and bright lights, they stand forth to 
 beckon and entice him on to a higher, nobler life. 
 Crowds are already pressing on. The multitude for ages 
 have been the sport of tyrants, crowned and uncrowned, 
 the tools of priestcraft and demagogueism. But the spell 
 is broken, and they behold with eager gaze the lights 
 which their brethren have set up for their instruction and 
 elevation. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking characteristic of Mr. Sher- 
 man was his inflexible integrity. Here he was beyond 
 all temptation. Nothing could move him from his con- 
 victions of duty and right : none who knew him would 
 dare undertake it. Patient in investigations, candid in 
 judgment, and careful in his conclusions, he was univer- 
 sally known to be ; but when once his conclusions were 
 formed, he did not hesitate, he was fixed, immovable as 
 the mountain. This unwavering adherence to his con-
 
 W» DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 victions has shed an imperishable luster on his name. 
 For this he was distinguished through life. He was hon- 
 ored and respected for it when on the shoemaker's bench 
 — it elevated him to the bench of the supreme court of 
 Connecticut, and placed him in the councils of the na- 
 tion, in the dark and perilous limes of the revolution. 
 The people knew the men whom they trusted. It was to 
 men like Roger Sherman that America was committed 
 in the hour of trial — men who knew the right, and would 
 pursue it, come life or come death ! It is truly lamenta- 
 ble that so little of the spirit of those patriots, those he- 
 roes of our heroic age, now glows in the breasts and an- 
 imates the lives of our public servants. Of how few 
 could it be said, as the great orator Ames used to say of 
 Sherman, " If I am absent during the discussion of a 
 subject, and do not know on which side to vote, I always 
 look at Roger Sherman, /or I am sure if I vote with him I 
 shall vote right! " 
 
 He was also a strictly religious man, a humble, devout 
 Christian. The same openness and sincerity distin- 
 guished him in his religious observances, as in all other 
 matters. He offered daily prayer in his family, and was 
 prompt in all his relations with the church of which he 
 was a member. The bible was his constant companion. 
 From this holy book he drew his politics, his morals and 
 his religion ; hence the harmony and consistency in his 
 character. He knew of no sphere in which his obliga- 
 tions to truth, to justice and to God did not bind him. 
 He was a stranger to that <iivorce between morals and 
 politics, so manifest in the conduct of modern politicians. 
 In his family he was a husband, a father and a Christian ; 
 in the senate chamber he was a statesman and a Chris- 
 tian ; in his seat on the supreme bench, he was a Chris- 
 tian judge ; in society he was a Christian citizen.
 
 ROGER SHERMAN. 75 
 
 Such was Roger Sherman. Would that his character 
 were studied and imitated by our public men of the pres- 
 ent day ! Would that his honesty and integrity might 
 adorn the presidential chair, characterize the proceed- 
 ings of the national legislature, and actuate the lives of 
 our fellow citizens generally. Then would our republic 
 stand firm on an enduring basis, a light and example to 
 the world, and our people be happy, and our name glori- 
 ous. 
 
 The following is the inscription upon the tablet, over 
 the tomb of this great and good man : 
 
 IN MEMORT OF 
 
 THE HON. ROGER SHERMAN, ESQ., 
 
 Mayor of the city of New Haven, 
 
 and Senator of the United States. 
 
 He was born at Newton, in Massachusetts, 
 
 April 19, 1721, 
 
 And died in New Haven, July 23, A. D. 1793, 
 
 Aged LXXH. 
 
 Possessed of a strong, clear, penetrating mind, 
 
 and singular perseverance, 
 
 he became the self-taught scholar, 
 
 eminent for jurisprudence and policy. 
 
 He was nineteen years an Assistant, 
 
 and twenty-three years a Judge of the Superior Court, 
 
 in high reputation. 
 
 He was a delegate in the first Congress, 
 
 signed the glorious act of Independence, 
 
 and many years displayed superior talents and ability 
 
 in the national legislature.
 
 m 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 He was a member of the general convention, 
 
 approved the federal constitution, 
 
 and served liis country with fidelity and honor 
 
 in the House of Representatives, 
 
 and in the Senate of the United States. 
 
 He was a man of approved integrity, 
 
 a cool, discriminating judge, 
 
 a prudent, sagacious politician, 
 
 a true, faithful and firm patriot. 
 
 He ever adorned 
 the profession of Christianity 
 
 which he made m youth ; 
 
 and, distinguished through life 
 
 for public usefulness, 
 
 died in the prospect of a blessed immortality.
 
 77 
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 Only a few hundred years have passed away, since-^ 
 the daring enterprise of the Italian and Portugese nav- 
 igators "pierced the night of ages," and laid open to the 
 wondering gaze of civilized nations the secrets of other 
 seas and unknown continents ; and established commu. 
 nication with people, whose existence had been hitherto 
 unknown, and nations whose names, customs, language, 
 and religion, were diverse from any thing in the specula- 
 tions of theorists, or the records of history. 
 
 Among all the discoveries of that age of discovery, 
 none was deemed more important at the time, than the 
 passage to the Indias by way of the Cape of Good Hope. 
 It was, indeed, an event full of interest; opening as it 
 did to the civilized nations of the west the fabled regions 
 of southern Asia, teeming wilh their dusky myriads of 
 population, with their strange habitations and stranger 
 languages. 
 
 There was China, with her countless millions — there 
 were Burmah, Siam, and the islands of the sea, embrac- 
 ing a numerous population all untaught in the arts and 
 advantages of European civilization — and there, too, 
 was the rich and covete<l country of Hindostan, with its 
 fertile plains, its towering mountains and embosomed 
 vales, blooming with flowers, and watered by the thousand 
 tributaries of the Indus, the Ganges, and the Burampoo- 
 ter ; doited all over with cities and villages, rice fields
 
 78 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 and pagodas. Nature has been profuse in its munifi- 
 cence, to enrich and beautify that country, and render it 
 fit to contend for the palm. of excellence, with the prime- 
 val paradise. Many have been strong in the belief, that 
 the Eden of our first parents was placed somewhere in 
 this delightful region. 
 
 All save man, was perfect in the excellence of beauty. 
 He alone was fallen — and such a fall ! In his moral 
 attributes it seemed as though Nature had expended all 
 her art, to see how vile and miserable a thing her hand 
 could fabricate; then made this meagre race; and, as in 
 mockery, placed it here, amid the loveliest of her works, 
 that nothing might be wanting, either in fact or contrast, 
 to illustrate the we plus ultra of human degradation. 
 
 The spirit of the benighted Hindoo has long been crush- 
 ed beneath the superstitious teachings, and cruel exac- 
 tions of an ignorant and lordly priesthood, and has been 
 for ages the victim of a caste, to which civilized history 
 affords no adequate parallel. " Courage; independence, 
 veracity," says a great modern writer, " arc qualities to 
 which his constitution and his situation are equally un- 
 favorable. All those arts which are the natural defence 
 of the weak, are more familiar to this subtle race than 
 to the Ionian of the time of Juvenal, or to the Jew of the 
 dark ages. What horns are to the buffalo, what the paw 
 is to the tiger, what the sting is to the bee, what beauty, 
 according to the old Greek song, is to woman, deceit is to 
 the Bengallee. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate 
 tissues of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, 
 and forgery, are the weapons offensive and defensive of 
 this people — as usurers, as money changers, as sharp 
 legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a 
 comparison vfiik them. But with ail bis softoessj the
 
 WILLIAM CAREV. 79 
 
 Hindoo is by no means prone to pity, nor placable in his 
 enmities." 
 
 Such was the character and such the condition of the 
 larger proportion of the Hindoo people, till Christianity 
 commenced its elevating and enlightening labors ; which 
 will ere long emancipate the devoted worshipers of false 
 gods from the long and bitter thraldom of caste and su- 
 perstition. 
 
 The projector, under the guiding hand of an overrul- 
 ing Providence, and the ardent, devoted pioneer in the 
 great work of spreading that gospel, which has done so 
 much for the enlightened nations of Europe and Ameri- 
 ca, among the swarming myriads of India, was William 
 Carey, the subject of this brief sketch. 
 
 This eminent man and ardent philanthropist was born 
 in Northamptonshire, England, the 17th of August, 1761. 
 Little is known in regard to his ancestry, except that it 
 was from among the lower ranks of the people. His 
 grandfather was, at one time, the humble instructor of a 
 parish school. His father was a weaver ; in which em- 
 ployment he was engaged, till young William was some 
 six years of age, when he was elected to the duties and 
 dignities of parish school-master. 
 
 Here William received the first rudiments of English 
 education ; but as his inheritance — the heir-loom of his 
 family, was poverty, he found it impossible to follow that 
 course of liberal education, which the youth of the high- 
 er classes in society are privileged to enjoy. 
 
 The doors of those famed institutions of learning, 
 which have formed the minds and made the fortunes of so 
 many of England's statesmen, jurists, divines and philo- 
 sophers, were closed to him. Wealth, the great patron 
 of modera genius, was not his. He is indebted for bis
 
 80 DISTINCOISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 lasting fame, to more of those external agencies, that min- 
 istered to the rising greatness of the Bacons, the New- 
 tons, the Miltons, the Lockes and the Chalmers of Brit- 
 ain's muster roll of mighty intellects. Like most of the 
 master minds of all ages, he was taught in the school of 
 adversity; and in the path which he traveled in early life 
 and indeed throughout almost the entire of his course, 
 he could derive neither assistance in his pursuits, nor en- 
 couragement in his studies, from any of his associates. 
 But his character was adapted to his condition, and ena- 
 bled him to meet with pleasure, and overcome with suc- 
 cess, obstacles, that to minds of a different mould, would 
 have proved insurmountable. 
 
 His steady perseverance, even in the days of boy 
 hood, was I roverbial. Whatever he began, he finished. 
 This trait of character, thus early manifested, combined 
 with an eager desire for knowledge — a craving thirst 
 for more extended information, fitted him in an eminent 
 det^ree, for that high rank among men of learning that he 
 afterwards sustained. 
 
 While in bis father's school, he was often engaged in 
 intellectual exercises far beyond his years, and would 
 spend the hours of night, while others slept, in making 
 substantial progress on the highway to knowledge. 
 
 Young Carey's taste for the natural sciences, was ear- 
 ly developed, in the desire to examine curious objects, 
 and pry into the nature aud causes of things. Every 
 thing new or remarkable attracted his attention. His 
 room was a queer kind of a cabinet — a real curiosity- 
 shop — here a heap of stones of some novel appearance, 
 or brilliant color — there a lot of bird-cages, where some 
 unlucky specimens of the little songsters were confined, 
 in order to be fed and watched — and all along the cor-
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 8f 
 
 ners of the ceiling, and on the shelves, were ahost of in- 
 sects, which he had procured, to watch their progress and 
 make himself acquainted with their habits. Here, among 
 this interesting family of broken minerals, birds, spiders 
 and caterpillars, he delighted to spend his time. 
 
 In this line of pursuit, to want, was to get, if the thing 
 could possibly be accomplished. If any new specimen 
 was to be had, though at the bottom of the stream, he 
 was in for it ; and wo to the unhappy bird's nest that 
 caught his boyish eye — no matter if it was on the top- 
 most bough of the tallest tree, if it could be seen by any 
 one, it was not likely to escape his keen observation. 
 
 An anecdote is related which illustrates this point, as 
 well as the aforementioned trait of obstinate adherence 
 to his purposes. I have somewhere met with the remark 
 of some phrenologist, that weavers acquire the faculty of 
 concentration, the power of fixing the mind for a great 
 length of time on a particular object, in a remarkable de- 
 gree ; if this be true, we may readily conceive that Wil- 
 liam inherited this peculiarity from his father. In at- 
 tempting to secure a bird's nest among the branches of a 
 tall tree, he failed, and fell to the ground. He was con- 
 siderably injured by the fall, and did not get over it for 
 some time ; but the first thing our hero does, when he 
 gets about again, is to climb that same tree, and take that 
 identical nest. 
 
 On account of a peculiar cutaneous disorder in his 
 face and hands, which unfitted him for active employ- 
 ment in the open air, and which did not entirely leave him 
 during life, he was, at the age of fourteen, bound ap- 
 prentice to a shoemaker in a neighboring village. Here 
 he remained for two years, till the death of his master 
 released him from the contract. Yet such was the up- 
 
 D
 
 OBI DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 right integrity of his character, that he purchased the re- 
 mainder of his time of his master's widow, though by law 
 the obligation of apprenticeship is dissolved by the death 
 of either party, and let himself as a journeyman. 
 
 In this employ he remained for several years ; and as 
 his wages were low, he was often in rather low circum- 
 stances. There is an amusing paragraph in the short 
 sketch of his early life written by himself, as follows: 
 
 " The childish story of my shortening a shoe to make it 
 longer, is entitled to no credit, though it would be silly 
 in me to pretend to recollect all the shoes I made. I was 
 accounted a very good workman, and recollect Mr. Old 
 keeping a pair I had made in his shop as a model of good 
 workmanship. But the best of workmen sometimes, from 
 various causes, put bad work out of their hands, and I 
 have no doubt I did so too." 
 
 With the same frankness he speaks of being addicted 
 to many bad habits in his early years, lying in particular, 
 "to which," he says, " I was awfully addicted." Cer- 
 tain it is, a great and marked reform in his character and 
 actions took place during the latter part of his minority, 
 and the subject of Christianity came to engross his almost 
 undivided attention. He spent much time in talking and 
 arguing upon the truths of religion, and knotty points of 
 theology, where he always seemed quite expert. His 
 was indeed a mind exceedingly well adapted by Nature, 
 to enter into such investigations ; and his opponents often 
 felt the logical weight of his skillful reasoning. 
 
 In his nineteenth year, young Carey entered into the 
 connubial relation ; and, perhaps, without that judgment 
 and wise forethought, which should guide a young man in 
 the choice of a bosom companion for life. 
 
 Nearly at the same time, the man with whom he was
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 engaged dying, he assumed his liabilities and stock in 
 trade, and commenced business for himself. His pros- 
 pects appeared good. Trade was flourishing. But the 
 Power that controlled his destiny would not suffer the 
 prospect of worldly advantage to interfere with that 
 scheme, which was to elevate him to another distant and 
 worthier calling. Unexpected reverses soon came, and 
 the fair formed hopes of profitable business were crush- 
 and withered in a moment. 
 
 Owing to the pressure of the times, or other causes, a 
 large order he expected to fill when he entered into the 
 business of his deceased master, was withdrawn, just as 
 the work was executed ; leaving a large quantity of shoes 
 on hand, which he was obliged to dispose of to great dis- 
 advantage. 
 
 Previous to this, he had, in compliance with urgent so- 
 licitation, several times officiated as public preacher, in 
 his own and adjoining neighborhoods ; he now received 
 a regular appointment, and entered upon the duties of his 
 calling. But his new avocation did not liberate him from 
 the work bench ; for the people over whom he was placed, 
 being too poor to furnish him an adequate salary, 
 he was compelled to toil during the week for the support 
 of a dependent and growing family. Many a sermon did 
 he compose over the last and the lapstone. 
 
 His was no New England pastorship, where the relig- 
 ious teacher is cheerfully and liberally supported. Nor 
 was it with him as though he had been within the pale of 
 the established church, to whose funds all the people are 
 obliged by government to contribute, and whose bene - 
 ficed clergy can riot in all the luxury of princes, without 
 caring one jot for the bodies or souls of their people. 
 
 Mr. Carey was not a friend to the establishment, but 
 early became a conscientious dissenter, and joined the
 
 84 DISTINGUISHED SHOEaiAKEBS. 
 
 Baptist denomination, as the society with whose views 
 his own most nearly coincided. 
 
 This choice on the part of Carey, was a matter of re- 
 gret to many who knew him and appreciated his talents; 
 and one gentleman of standing among the high church- 
 men, was heard to say, that " it was a lamentable thing 
 that he was a dissenter, for never a youth promised fairer 
 to make a great man, had he not turned * cushion 
 thumper.' " 
 
 The meagerness of his support, arising from the pov- 
 erty of the little societies to which he ministered, togeth- 
 er with numerous calls from other places offering supe- 
 rior advantages, subjected him to many removals ; but 
 wherever he sojourned, he was the sure to have a little 
 garden, in the cultivation of which, he took eminent sat- 
 isfaction. It was his glory to retire and watch the pro- 
 gress of his plants, root out the weeds, train the vines and 
 flowers, and admire the good hand of Nature in the tribes 
 of vegetation. 
 
 At one time he entered the lists as a schoolmaster ; but 
 in this department he was not successful. Remarkably 
 endowed with the powers for acquiring knowledge, he 
 was not equally fitted for imparling instruction. These 
 are two different faculties, not always combined in the 
 same individual. He could not put on the sovereign air, 
 utter the tones, nor wield the scepter of the pedagogue ; 
 and he used often to say, with a playful laugh, " when I 
 kept school, the boys kept me.'' 
 
 During all these complicated trials, the indefatigable 
 mind of Carey was engaged in patient, persevering efforts 
 for the acquisition of knowledge. His mind was con- 
 stantly active ; and without teacher, and almost without 
 books, he succeeded in mastering, in some good degree,
 
 WILLIAIMt CAREY. 85 
 
 the classical languages ; thus laying a deep and broad 
 foundation for the massive superstructure he afterwards 
 reared, and fitting his intellect for severe and long^ro- 
 tracted study, in that wide field where he was called to 
 exert its powers, and where we are soon to behold him, 
 in the plentitude of mighty projects and magnificent 
 achievements. 
 
 Some person presented him with a folio volume in 
 Dutch, and so great was his curiosity to examine it, that 
 he procured a grammar, and in a short time made him- 
 self master of the language. The acquisition of a lan- 
 guage, which to most minds is a Herculean task, waste 
 him a very little thing. 
 
 But this talent, though it marks him sufficiently high as 
 as scholar, is not the foundation on which his chief and 
 true claim to eminence rests. The devotion of all his 
 talents — his whole self, soul and body — to the good of 
 mankind — the turning of those faculties, which have 
 been so often used to gain applause and worldly renown, 
 to practical utility for the benefit of the race ; this was the 
 grand, distinguishing feature in the long and laborious 
 career of this remarkable man. 
 
 About the year 1789, he first brought to the view of 
 the public, the great scheme of missionary enterprise, as 
 an object of special regard. This subject had long oc- 
 cupied his mind, and within a year or two had been an 
 object of intense thought. 
 
 It seems his first idea of this glorious project was called 
 into being by the perusal of Capt. Cook's voyages. This 
 happy conception led to the study of geography, which 
 was for a season, his all engrossing pursuit. The shop 
 wher« he labored, for he was still at times compelled to 
 apply to the bench for aid, was hung with maps whereon
 
 86 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 he had marked the names and localities of the various 
 nations, together with all the information in regard to 
 each, he was able to glean from reading and inquiry. In 
 after times, the shop was pointed out and called " Dr. 
 Carey's College." 
 
 The great idea once fastened in his own mind, he 
 sought opportunities to press it upon the attention of his 
 brethren and the public. At a meeting held at North- 
 ampton, the younger ministers were called upon to pro- 
 pose a topic for discussion ; no one answering to the 
 call, Mr. Carey at length arose, and with characteristic 
 zeal proposed the subject of his constant meditations — 
 " The duty of Christians to attempt the spread of the gos- 
 pel among heathen nations." 
 
 This announcement was received with astonishment. 
 Veterans in the field of Christian warfare were amazed, 
 and looked upon Carey as an enthusiast for entertaining 
 the idea. 
 
 This indisposition on the part of many to enter into 
 the plan, had no other effect, than to quicken the exer- 
 tions of the young evangelist to higher and more strenu- 
 ous efforts. 
 
 He had become possessed, we might say the victim, of 
 a great idea. He would erect a standard for himself; 
 not the standard of his own ambition, but the standard of 
 the cross. He would disenslave a world. He would 
 emancipate nations ; not from the oppressive grasp of po- 
 litical tyranny, or the servitude of human power ; but 
 from the thraldom of ignorance, sin and superstition. 
 He would become a servant ; but the servant of a master 
 worthy of his service. He would become a ruler ; but 
 the ruler of his own passions, and powers, and capaci- 
 ties. It was one of those ideas, or inspirations, that no- 
 thing but death can quenc h.
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 87 
 
 Many of the young and ardent stood witK Thim ; among 
 whom may be found the names of Fuller, Hall, Morris 
 and Pierce. 
 
 Mr. Carey composed an able document, entitled, "In- 
 quiry into the obligations of Christians," &,c., which ex- 
 hibited depth of reflection and great geographical inves- 
 tigation in his particular department. Here he demon- 
 strated the practicability of the scheme he proposed, and 
 concluded with a judicious and spirited appeal to minis- 
 ters and people. 
 
 In the course of this year, (1789,) he made his last re- 
 moval in England. He went to Leicester. Here he had 
 much higher advantages for the accumulation of knowl- 
 edge than he had previously enjoyed. 
 
 Dr. Arnold allowed him free access to his large and 
 choice library, which, with other attentions from that gen- 
 tleman, gave him an acquaintance with the circle of po- 
 lite literature and the sciences, which was of the utmost 
 advantage to him while pursuing his labors in the East, 
 cut off from all access to libraries and converse with the 
 learned. 
 
 By this latter removal the circumstances of Mr. Carey 
 were decidedly improved, though he found it convenient 
 to assist himself by teaching schools, and became once 
 more, knight of the ferult, in the cause of youthful pro- 
 gression. 
 
 Many, we might say all, who ever accomplished much 
 in life, have been in the habit of dividing their time and 
 apportioning it among their various duties so that every 
 hour should have its appropriate work, and no time be al- 
 lowed to run to waste. Thus it was with Carey — he 
 had already commenced to lay out his work beforehand, 
 and assign to each particular branch of employment, its
 
 88 DISTINGUISnED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 own appropriate time. To this course he rigidly adher- 
 ed through life, and was by this method able, without in- 
 tense exertion, to perform the most Herculean tasks. A 
 moment's reflection on this idea of having a system in ev- 
 ery thing which can possibly be reduced to system, will 
 instruct us all to form the habit for ourselves, that we 
 see so conducive to the advantage and greatness of others, 
 and without which, no great good has ever been achieved 
 or the race by the exertion of individual powers. Should 
 this meet the attention of any, especially the young,^try 
 it — make it one of your habits — weave it into the very 
 fabric of your existence — have a time for everything, 
 and do every thing in its time; and you will find it a mine 
 of gold — a pearl of great price ; and will ever have oc- 
 casion for devout gratitude to Heaven, that you became 
 acquainted with this persevering and systematic shoe- 
 maker. 
 
 We now approach a new era in the life and labors of 
 Mr. Carey. We have seen him, up to the present time, a 
 humble mover in the common walks of life. Indeed an 
 active man, but not so active, perhaps, as thousands of 
 others in similar circumstances. But he has been in a 
 state of preparation, and nobly was he prepared. We 
 have seen the great idea that was fused into his very 
 soul, of spreading the " glad tidings " of Christianity in- 
 to remote lands, and among dark tribes of men, whose 
 thick veil of delusion had never yet been penetrated by 
 the morning light of truth. With him, this was no in- 
 operative idea, but a progressive, fruitful inspiration. 
 He had been baptized into the spirit of his Master ; and 
 he longed for an occasion to witness to the depth and 
 sincerity of his devotion. It came ; and at a meeting of 
 the friends of the cause, which his exertions had breath-
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ed into living existence, in 1792, he expressed his willing- 
 ness to be the first to embark in the missionary enter- 
 prise. 
 
 This voluntary tender of himself to the cause of his 
 adoption, was accepted, and he prepared immediately to 
 leave the country of his birth, to which he was bound by 
 so many ties of friendship and patriotism, and which he 
 had so deeply stirred by his voice, his pen, and his exam- 
 ple, to deeds of noble daring in the cause of God and hu- 
 manity. 
 
 " To be devoted," says he in a letter to his father, " like 
 a sacrifice, to holy uses, is the great business of a Chris- 
 tian. I consider myself as devoted to the cause of God 
 alone, and now I am to realize my profession. I am ap- 
 pointed to go to Bengal, in the East Indies, a missionary 
 to the Hindoos." 
 
 Every thing being prepared, Mr. Carey, with one col- 
 league, engaged his passage on board the Earl of Oxford, 
 one of the East India Company's ships, bound for Cal- 
 cutta. With a small venture, having prepaid the bill of 
 fare, they were actually on board waiting for the ship to 
 weigh anchor, when, for some unaccountable reason, an 
 order came for then) to leave the ship ; and they were 
 obliged to disembark, leaving the venture and the passage 
 money at the mercy of the Company's agents. Soon, 
 however, they providentially obtained a passage on board 
 a Danish East Indiaman, bound to Serarapore, and Mr. 
 Carey, with his whole family, was finally enabled to em- 
 bark in this long cherished enterprise. Just before he 
 sailed, he called on a young printer of his acquaintance. 
 " We shall want you, Mr. Ward," said he, " in a few 
 years, to print the bible. You must come after us." 
 At a later day this young man was among the most actirc 
 and efficient laborers on the mi-ssion ground of India, 
 n *
 
 90 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 The disappointments which had well nigh quenched 
 the hopes of Carey when driven from the Earl of Oxford, 
 had been turned to his advantage. Before, he was going 
 alone, leaving his family behind him : now his family was 
 with him. He had now fairly commenced the voyage 
 to the land of his devotion, never again, as he confident- 
 ly believed, to return to England. 
 
 On the 13th of June, 1793, the ship weighed anchor, 
 and his island home, with its joys and sorrows, friends, as- 
 sociations and dear remembrances, receded slowly from 
 his lingering gaze in the dim distance. He had made his 
 choice — his resolution was fixed, thenceforward to sur- 
 render himself, soul and body, with all the powers of his 
 intellect and heart, to the great work of rescuing, instruct- 
 ing and elevating the most degraded, ignorant and fal- 
 len of earth's children — a work in which he had noth- 
 ing to expect, but hardship without repose, toil without 
 relief, labor without recompense. But with the life and 
 precepts of his great Exemplar before him, who went 
 about doing good, he could not hesitate ; and when he 
 saw the green shores of his native childhood land grow 
 dim, in the closing twilight of the intervening waters, 
 he shed a tear of final separation, and consecrated him- 
 self afresh to the cause in which he was offered, a willing 
 sacrifice, on the altar of God and philanthropy — a sec- 
 ond Howard, in another field of self-devotion. 
 
 On the 11th of November, after a voyage of five months, 
 which was interrupted by no incidents of unusual impor- 
 tance, they arrived at Calcutta, the capital city of the 
 British possessions in the East. 
 
 Here, after their long confinement on shipboard, they 
 disembarked, and the foot of Carey pressed for the first 
 time the soil of India. He was in a new world — the
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 91 
 
 boundless plains of Hindostan stretched out before him, 
 and he was among strange sights and strange voices. 
 The scene was novel, and he was surrounded and merged 
 in difficulties. Embarked in an expensive undertaking, 
 he had the most slender means and scanty provisions. All 
 that he could muster for himself and family, together with 
 the contributions of the society which sent him out, 
 amounted to but a few hundred pounds. What was this 
 small sum for such a family, in a country necessarily the 
 most expensive to a European, of any on the globe. Ad- 
 ded to this, his colleague, of whose discretion we have 
 no very flattering testimony, though a good man, doubt- 
 less, who had previously resided in India, was found to be 
 deeply involved in debts, which his creditors were deter- 
 mined to force him to pay at any risk. This obliged him 
 to enter into business at Calcutta. 
 
 Thus was Carey left to sustain the whole weight of the 
 infant mission, while the officers of the East India Com- 
 pany, extremely averse to the instruction of the native 
 population, used their powerful influence, not n aid of 
 this humanizing and Godlike enterprise, but against its 
 accomplishment, in every way calculated to hinder its 
 progress and defeat its intentions. 
 
 Notwithstanding the serried phalanx of difficulty that 
 walled him round, his courage remained strong, his con- 
 stancy unshaken, and his perseverance as indefatigable 
 as ever. When his situation is contemplated, even at 
 this distance of time and space, a stranger in a strange 
 land, with a feeble family of five persons dependent upon 
 his exertions alone for support and protection, all must 
 acknowledge him possessed of superhuman faith and pa- 
 tience. 
 
 But it is not our object to detail his difficulties and pri-
 
 92 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 valions ; suffice it to say, they were of sufficient magni- 
 tude to defy the sternest courage, and the coolest calcu- 
 lation. As fast as he settled in one place, he was obliged 
 to take down his ebenezer and remove to another, with 
 the prospect of utter want, or possible starvation. 
 
 The first and chief object that occupied the attention 
 of Mr. Carey, was the acquisition of the native language ; 
 this, he so far accomplished, as in a short time to be able 
 to preach occasionally to the people in the Bengalli lan- 
 guage ; while at the same time, he applied himself dili- 
 gently to the translation of the scriptures into that tongue. 
 Indeed, the work he proposed to himself was no other 
 than the translation of the word of God into all the lan- 
 guages, and dialects of the East. 
 
 Finding it utterly impossible to maintain himself and 
 family in the vicinity of Calcutta, became to the conclu- 
 sion, as a last resource, to go far up the country and set- 
 tle among, and live like, the natives. 
 
 So, taking a boat and an interpreter as guide, he set 
 out with his family, " like the father of the faithful, not 
 knowing whither he went." They penetrated far into 
 the country, passing immense swamps, and through the 
 great jungle of theSunderbunds, an uninhabited forest of 
 many miles in extent, swarming with tigers, rhinoceroses, 
 buffaloes, and noxious reptiles. As they were rowing 
 alonor, threading the windings and turnings of the river, 
 they suddenly espied a house built after the fashion of 
 England. 
 
 Rejoiced at the discovery, Mr. Carey asked his guide 
 if he knew the owner, and was informed that he was an 
 English gentleman. Being thoroughly tired with their 
 long journey, and their provisions exhausted, they deter- 
 mined, without ceremony, to give him a call. So haul-
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 93 
 
 ing in for the shore, the whole party landed and proceed- 
 ed towards the house, where they were received by the 
 kind-hearted and intelligent Englishman in the most hos- 
 pitable manner. His surprise was great at the unexpect- 
 ed appearance of such a group of wanderers. Though 
 they had accomplished a long journey, they were no more 
 than 40 miles, in a direct line, from Calcutta. They 
 had traveled by water ; and the rivers of this level coun- 
 try seem more as if coiled up on the plain, than as 
 though they were discharging their immense volumes of 
 water from the mountains of the North into the far off 
 ocean. 
 
 Mr, Carey frankly told his host of his objects and his 
 circumstances, and though his hospitable friend had no 
 appreciation of missionary schemes, he urged him to 
 make his house a home for himself and family, as long 
 as he chose. 
 
 Such unaffected kindness, at such a time, made a deep 
 impression upon the sensitive and grateful spirit of Ca- 
 rey. 
 
 At a short distance from this place ha selected a spot 
 of ground, where he intended permanently to establish 
 himself, and commenced building a hut after the manner 
 of the natives, with whom he had cast his lot. He would 
 " become all things to all men." 
 
 Scarcely had he begun to erect his house, when he re- 
 ceived a letter from Mr, Udney, of Malda, to come and 
 superintend some indigo works he was about to put in 
 tvperation. This was glorious intelligence to Carey, for 
 he beheld in it the dawn of a brighter day upon the pros- 
 pects of Christianity in India ; and he joyfully commenc- 
 ed the long journey of 250 miles that lay between him 
 and the promise of a wider field and more extended use- 
 fulness.
 
 94 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Arrived in Malda, he at once entered upon the duties 
 of his station, with an annual salary of 2400 rupees 
 (about $840). This, with his prudence and economy, was 
 more than sufficient for the maintenance of his family, 
 and the surplus over and above his immediate and press- 
 in{» wants was not applied to his own benefit, but went 
 freely to the promotion of the cause in which he was en- 
 gaged. In this he was a bright and lively example of 
 self-denying benevolence — an example that may well put 
 to shame the wealthy Christians of Christian countries, 
 who will hardly part with a fragment of their immense 
 wealth, after the most heart-stirring appeals for the per- 
 ishing millions in heathen lands. Should they be actua- 
 ted by the same spirit of liberality which characterized 
 Carey, what an impulse would be given to the great work 
 of evangelizing the world — how soon would the standard 
 of the cross be planted by the devoted missionary, on 
 every mountain top and every island, from pole to pole, 
 around the habitable globe. Though for the last 30 
 years of his life, Mr. Carey was in the receipt of a large 
 income, such was the rigid and unreserved consecration 
 of his substance, as to give him the high privilege and 
 lasting dignity of dying poor. 
 
 The duties of his new situation were many and labori- 
 ous, for he had the direct or indirect control of more than 
 a thousand persons ; yet in addition to these he became fa- 
 miliar with the dialect of the district in which he lived, 
 attempted native education, preached daily to the na- 
 tives, and often traveled a considerable distance to preach 
 to the English. He omitted no opportunity of usefulness 
 ta4he natives under his direction. He reformed exist- 
 ing abuses, and gained universal love and confidence 
 among all classes, except those whose fraudulent prac-
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 95 
 
 tices he detected and punished. His correspondence 
 was extensive, and his diligence in the translation of the 
 Bible, unremitted. Says his biographer, referring to his 
 settlement at Malda — " By this disposition of circum- 
 stances, Mr. Carey became introduced to associations, 
 both European and native, favorable to his ministerial in- 
 fluence and operations, and found means at his command 
 to commence and pursue studies preliminary and indis- 
 pensable to those final and momentous labors, a retro- 
 spect of which, justified the declaration on his dying bed, 
 ' I have not a single wish ungratified.' Here he laid a 
 broad foundation of oriental grammatical science, by 
 mastering the elements of the Sanscrit, one of the most 
 difficult and classical languages in the world." 
 
 He now wrote to the society under whose patronage 
 he came out, to stop his allowance, as he was fully pro- 
 vided for, and advised them to use their funds in sending 
 out more missionaries to preach and teach in other coun- 
 tries, and among other people. 
 
 Here, as well as during the whole period of his labors, 
 he came in contact with the learned Bramins, the high- 
 est caste in India, with whom he held vigorous disputa- 
 tions — but he found it more easy to confound than to 
 convince and persuade them of a better faith. He 
 writes, " The obstacles in the way of the gospel are very 
 great, and were it not that God is almighty and true, 
 would be insurmountable. The caste is such a supersti- 
 tion as no European can conceive, and more tenaciously 
 regarded than life. It was, I think, originally political, 
 but is now interwoven with every circumstance of their 
 lives ; and their deceit and avarice are unparalleled. 
 They will stoop to anything whatsoever to get a few cou- 
 ries, and lie on every occasion."
 
 96 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Till the year 1799, Mr. Carey vras engaged in the in- 
 digo business for his own support and the advantage of 
 the mission : in the meantime he had succeeded in trans- 
 lating and preparing for the press, the greater part of the 
 Old and New Testaments, which were soon after print- 
 ed in the Bengalli tongue, at the society's establishment 
 at Serampore. 
 
 A letter from the seat of the mission, to a friend in 
 England, thus refers to Mr. Carey : " The society and all 
 those who feel for the wretched millions of India, per- 
 ishing for lack of knowledge, can never be sufficiently 
 thankful to God that brother Carey so cheerfully embark- 
 ed in the mission. His amazing knowledge of the lan- 
 guages and customs of countries, his assiduity in trans- 
 lating the scriptures, his diligence in preaching, his pa- 
 tience under trial, and his perseverance, though without 
 success, are admirable. He seems every way fitted to 
 lay the foundation of good to this country." 
 
 This year dates a new epoch in the affairs of the mis- 
 sion, and the life of the great pioneer. The indigo busi- 
 ness, in which he was engaged, became an entire fail- 
 ure, caused by the inundation of the low country. His 
 salary ceased, and he was thrown upon other resources, 
 he knew not what. The greatest straits had never 
 made him sit down in despair, neither did this. He at 
 at once set about building houses for himself and others, 
 whom he heard were on their way to join him. Just as 
 he had carried his labors to a good degree of perfection, 
 four new missionaries arrived at Calcutta; but the con- 
 tracted, illiberal policy of the East India Company re- 
 fused to allow them to settle in the British dominions. 
 This harsh and jealous policy of the Company has never 
 yet been defended on any ground, either of-justice or
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 97 
 
 of necessity, and it may not be unfair to infer that such a 
 defense is impossible. A corporation founded on the 
 narrowest basis of selfishness, could not be expected to 
 manifest very broad and comprehensive views in its de- 
 velopment. They had to the present time been steadily 
 and sternly opposed to the progress of religious teaching 
 among the native inhabitants ; and all that preserved Ca- 
 rey and his colleague fi-ora being forcibly expelled from 
 the province, was their connection with secular employ- 
 ment. 
 
 J. A little way up the country, on the west bank of the 
 Hoogley, was the small Danish settlement of Serampore ; 
 here the rejected apostles of Christianity found an asylum, 
 where the stern indifference of their own countrymen 
 compelled them to seek refuge. They found it ; and 
 from that day Serampore became the central sun of gos- 
 pel light in Hindostan. Carey, hearing the true state of 
 affairs, at once abandoned his preparations, and repaired 
 to the Danish town to place himself at the head of his 
 iminitiated followers. Here, under the ample protection 
 of the government and kind sympathy of the people, the 
 printing press, which had been procured at Calcutta, was 
 set up, and the work of printing the scriptures in the lan- 
 guages of the East, the chief end of so many years of 
 study and sacrifice, was immediately commenced. The 
 first printing was done sometime in the summer of 1800, 
 under the direction of the mission printer, Mr. Ward. 
 Next followed the New Testament, the same year. 
 
 Every thing here concurred to show that the removal 
 of the mission to Serampore was in the highest degree 
 important. It was near to Calcutta, the chief European 
 city in India, but 14 mile» distant. It was in contact 
 with a vast native population, and possessed means and
 
 98 DISTINOUISHP.D SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 facilities for the work of printing and circulating the 
 the scriptures, such as, perhaps, no other place could 
 have afforded. Nor was this all ; they were free from the 
 constant control and interference of the Company's offi- 
 cers. Here they purchased a house and other buildings 
 suitable to carry out their main object — living in com- 
 mon, like the primitive Christians and the Moravians. 
 A school was opened for the instruction of European 
 children, which in time became a source of income and 
 influential advantage. 
 
 But to the printing press, under the active supervision 
 of Carey, are we to look as the great engine in the work 
 of enlightening the darkened minds of the benighted 
 Hindoos. It was never idle. All its productions were 
 seized and read with avidity by those who could read, 
 and those who could not were impelled to learn. Lan- 
 guages that had no literature soon came to possess libra- 
 ries ; — minds that had always lived in clouds and twilight, 
 emerged into the glorious sunlight of a brighter day. A 
 taste for literature and knowledge of all kinds having 
 once been impressed upon the people, the demand for it 
 increased, till their language, not supplying the demand, 
 they were forced to seek it in the English, and the study 
 of the English tongue rapidly became a paramount ob- 
 ject in the education of the natives. From that time to 
 the present, it has advanced with incredible celerity, till 
 it promises ere long to become the grand medium of 
 communication among all classes of Asiatic society, to ~ 
 the extremities of the Indian empire. This great An- 
 glo-Saxon tendency among the people of India is mainly 
 owing to the labors of Carey in translating into their nu- 
 merous dialects, the scriptures, which have proved to the 
 Hindoos the key to the treasures of European literature.
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 99 
 
 During a short time immediately subsequent to the es- 
 tablishment of the mission at Serampore, Mr. Carey 
 spent the major part of his time in preaching to the peo- 
 ple, in which he was eminently successful ; and had the 
 satisfaction, after years of toil, of seeing the tree he had 
 been instrumental in planting, take root and bear pre- 
 cious fruit. 
 
 The year 1800 is remarkable in the literary history of 
 Bengal, for the erection of the college of Fort William, 
 for instruction in the oriental languages. The great 
 learning and profound research of Mr. Carey, pointed 
 him out to the founders as eminently qualified for the 
 Bengalli professorship, to which he was appointed in the 
 following year. Here he was called upon to teach a 
 language of the most difficult character, without books, 
 to pupils who had never attempted a task that bore the 
 remotest analogy to it. 
 
 But with his wonted zeal, the difficulty was overcome. 
 In a short time a grammar was printed, and the first prose 
 book ever written in the language composed — these 
 served as elementary text books. Soon after, he was nam- 
 ed professor of Sanscrit, the ancient language of India, 
 cotemporary with, and nearly allied to the Hebrew and 
 Arabic. It sustains the same relation to most of the east- 
 ern dialects, that the Latin does to those of southern Eu- 
 rope, or the ancient Saxon to the English. In this posi- 
 tion he was highly successful. But the duties of Mr. 
 Carey during this period were extremely laborious. The 
 duties of his professorships at Fort William, involving 
 instruction to numerous classes, in two of the most diffi- 
 cult of languages, together with the necessity of compil- 
 ing, at every progressive step, new text-books, would seem 
 to be enough, to engross all the time and vigor of the
 
 100 DISTINSOISHED SHOGMAKBRS. 
 
 most athletic intelligence ; but in addition to this, every 
 copy that passed through the industrious press of Seram- 
 pore, must pass, at least once, through the hands of Ca- 
 rey — and not only in the languages of which we have 
 spoken, but also in numerous other dialects, too many in 
 number and strange in name, to be mentioned in our con- 
 tracted limits. 
 
 In his letters he expresses the conviction, that so many 
 advantages for the translation of the scriptures would 
 never meet again at one time and in one place; and he 
 thought it his duty to use the present means to the ut- 
 most of his power, and the end of his career will testify 
 to the strength of purpose with which he adhered to his 
 convictions. 
 
 The first public oration in Sanscrit ever pronounced by 
 an European, was delivered in 1805, by Mr. Carey, be- 
 fore the public functionaries of Bengal, and is now among 
 the printed documents of Fort William. Not far from 
 this period, the Mahratta dialect was added to his depart- 
 ment of instruction, and in process of time he became 
 professor of that language, with an augmented salary, 
 which extended his means of usefulness. 
 
 In December 1807, the wife of Mr. Carey, who had 
 for near twelve years, been afflicted with mental derange- 
 ment, which rendered her the object of constant anxiety 
 and watchfulness, fell a victim to the fever of the coun- 
 try ; and in the following year, he was again united in 
 marriage. His second wife was a German lady of dis- 
 tinction, whose acquaintance he had made at Serampore. 
 This proved a happy union. Near this time his son, Fe- 
 lix Carey, founded, a mission among the Burmese, where, 
 after a few years of successful activity, he was cut down 
 by death, in the prime and vigor of early manhood.
 
 WILLIAM CAREY. 101 
 
 In 1812, the cause of the mission receive'l a severe 
 blow in the destruction of the printing establishment at 
 Serarapore, with almost the whole of its valuable con- 
 tents ; the collection of so many years of constant labor 
 and profound research. Great as was the magnitude of 
 the loss sustained, such was the energy and industry of 
 those concerned in the establishment, that a little more 
 than a year sufficed to repair it in a good degree; so that 
 the calamity, which for a season had hung a cloud over 
 their prospects, was speedily forgotten. 
 
 While Carey lived, the work could not stop. His mind 
 would not suffer it to rest. The great loss in the literary 
 department fell upon him, " but it is easier," he remark- 
 ed, " to travel a road the second than the first time." 
 
 May 17th, 1915, he writes — " At the present time ray 
 labor is greater than at any former period. We have now 
 translations of the Bible going forward in twenty-seven 
 different languages, all of which are in the press, except 
 two or three. The labor of correcting and revising all 
 of them, lies upon me." 
 
 Nor were the talents and researches of Dr. Carey (the 
 degree of Dr. was conferred near this time) confined ex- 
 clusively, to the province of literature ; nor was his only 
 work translation. When the Agricultural society of India 
 was formed, he took an active and leading part, and for a 
 series of years, was its president. Indeed this society 
 owed its origination to him. He was elected fellow of 
 the Linna^n society of London, and member of the Geo- 
 logical society, as well as corresponding member of the 
 London Horticultural society. To these institutions, his 
 contributions W8re neither few or small. He was pecu- 
 liarly celebrated in the field of Botany, of which he was 
 excessively fond. 
 
 Nothing delighted him more than to collect and culti-
 
 102 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 vate plants, and he was continually urging his friends to 
 send all sorts of seeds and plants from England, of which 
 he took the most devoted care in his own garden — a rare 
 and curious collection of vegetation, from all countries, 
 of either hemisphere and both continents. This garden 
 was his play-ground ; and its cultivation his pastime. 
 
 In 1823, Dr. Carey married for the third time. During 
 his sojourn in India his health had been preserved in a 
 remarkable manner; being better than it had ever been 
 in England. He had outlived his generation ; and now 
 the seeds of disease began to grow and manifest them- 
 selves in his constitution. But he continued with as much 
 devotedness as ever, to apply the residue of his strength 
 to the work of revising and correcting the translations of 
 the Bible. 
 
 The last work he did was to put the finishing stroke to 
 this mighty achievement, with which his exertions com- 
 menced, and towards whose consummation, all his best 
 energies had been directed. And he himself felt, as 
 shock after shock of fever and disease desolated his 
 health, that his work was done. "He had realized his 
 profession," and prepared himself for the visit of the de- 
 stroying angel, to release him from his life of toil, and 
 transfer his willing, waiting spirit to brighter scenes, and 
 an easier resting place. 
 
 To the very last he would visit his garden, to hold con- 
 verse with the sweet flowers his own hand had planted, 
 and his own attention reared — and when he could no 
 longer leave his chamber, he gave most careful instruc- 
 tion to the attendants in regard to its management. "His 
 ruling passion was strong in death ;" and even on that bed 
 from which he never rose, he would occasionally read a 
 proof sheet from the mission press, and converse with
 
 WILLIAM CAREV. lOS 
 
 earnestness in relation to that enterprise, whose interests 
 and advancement had been his constant study — the end 
 and scope of his unwearied labors for more than forty 
 years ; and into which he had breathed the breath of 
 life. 
 
 After lingering under the calm influence of a progres- 
 sive disease, till the ninth of June, 1834, in the seventy- 
 third year of his age, " he breathed out his peaceful spir- 
 it into the hands of him who gave it." It went to its sure 
 reward ; and as it left its clayey tenement, and launched 
 forth ijito a new existence, the angel of the covenant bent 
 forward from beside the eternal throne, and seeing the 
 disembodied spirit on its homeward flight, he seized the 
 recording pen, and dipping it in the blood of the atoning 
 sacrifice, he inscribed on the pure page of the muster roll 
 of Heaven, the name of Carey. 
 
 He died universally loved and lamented. 
 
 In his last will he bequeathed to the mission of Seram- 
 pore, with the exception of a few trifling legacies, the 
 whole of his property, embracing all he had expended in 
 and for the mission establishment ; a museum of natural 
 curiosities, minerals, shells, insects and corals : a large 
 collection of Bibles in foreign languages, together with 
 an extensive and valuable library. 
 
 Our space forbids going at length into the peculiarities 
 of the man whose life we have thus hastily traced. He 
 is a model to be studied. His projects, his perseverance 
 and success, were the result of steady adherence to the 
 motto he adopted, " attempt great things, expect great 
 things," modified, tempered and directed by a high Chris- 
 tian sentiment and deep desire for the good of men. He 
 bowed only to conscience, instructed and measured by 
 the will of God, Where that led, he followed ; hence
 
 104 DISTIN8UISHCD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 arose his great averBiou to oaths, as administered in civil 
 affairs : in this he was a true disciple of Fox — and no 
 inducement, no danger could make him swerve from 
 the resolution he had formed, never to take an oath. 
 Several times his constancy was put to (he severest test. 
 
 Let no one suppose that Carey was a genius — it is not 
 so. There was nothing brilliant — nothing dazzling in 
 his character. Steady, unhesitating, invincible persever- 
 ance was his peculiar trait — to this he owed every thing, 
 a s he remarked to one of his intimates. "If any one 
 should think it worth while to write my life, I can give 
 you a criterion by which you may judge of its correct- 
 ness. If he give me credit of being a plodder, he will 
 discribe me justly. Anything beyond this will be too 
 much. I can plod. I cditt persevere in any definite pur- 
 suit. To this I owe everything." But how few can plod! 
 While the genius is searching for splendid means to com- 
 pass a splendid end, the plodder has entered upon the 
 task, and by constant, unpretending effort, accomplished 
 the object. 
 
 That Carey has an eminent claim to greatness, none 
 can doubt when they contemplate the good that has re- 
 sulted from his individual labors, in the cause of man- 
 kind. With his laurels, none need envy the Alexanders, 
 the Caesars, the Napoleons of the race, with the bloody 
 wreath, and the scepter of empire. When these names 
 shall grow dim in the twilight of forgetfulness, his will 
 have but just begun to shine in its imperishable luster, 
 and fadeless beauty. When their glory shall have fallen 
 into the grave of their generation, his will be associated 
 with the hosts of those, who, in the cause of God and man, 
 have so nobly sacrificed themselves — " whose glory is 
 their goodness," whose renown, the grateful benediction 
 of generations yet to come.
 
 105 
 
 ROBERT BLOOM FIELD. 
 
 This ** most spiritual shoemaker that ever handled an 
 awl," was born in Suffolk, England, in 1776, that ever 
 memorable year in the history of our country. Robert 
 lost his father when a child a year old. His mother 
 opened school to gain a support for her family, consisting 
 of six children. When seven years of age, Robert at- 
 tended a writing school in Ixworth three months — the 
 only school he ever attended except his mother's. 
 
 At the age of eleven, he went to live with a Mr. Aus- 
 tin, his mother's brother. This man was a respectable 
 farmer, and he treated young Bloomfield as he did his 
 other laborers, very kindly ; but Robert was so young, 
 that he could command only his board for his services. 
 His mother furnished him clothing as long as she was 
 able, but was at length compelled to look to her two eld- 
 est sons, who were shoemakers in London, to assist her 
 in supporting him. She accordingly wrote to them upon 
 the subject, and George, the eldest, replied, that if she 
 would send Robert to London, he would learn him shoe- 
 making, and his other brother would clothe him. With 
 this proposition the kind mother was much pleased ; but 
 she could not trust him in any hands but her own, for 
 safety on his journey ; she therefore accompanied the lit- 
 tle fellow to the great city, where he was to dwell. Hav- 
 ing committed her darling boy to the care of his broth- 
 ers, she charged them, " as they valued a mother's bless- 
 
 E
 
 106 UISTINOUISUED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ing, to set good examples for him, and never to forget 
 that lie had lost his father." 
 
 The brothers lodged and labored in a garret in Bell 
 Alley, Coleman street, and their meals were brought to 
 them from the cook's shop — the custom of poor me- 
 chanics. In this garret there were two turn-up beds, 
 which accommodated the three brothers and two other 
 shoemakers. 
 
 Says George Bloomfield, " As we were all single men, 
 lodgers at a shilling per week, our beds were coarse, and 
 all things far from being clean and snug, like what Rob- 
 ert left at Sapiston. Robert was our man to fetch all 
 things to hand. At noon he brought our dinners from the 
 cook's shop ; and any one of our fellow workmen that 
 wanted to have any thing brought in, would send Robert, 
 and assist in his work, and teach him, for a recompense for 
 his trouble. Every day when the boy from the public house 
 came for the pewter pots, and to learn what porter was 
 wanted, he always brought the yesterday's newspaper. 
 The reading of this newspaper, we had been used to take 
 by turns ; but after Robert came, he mostly read for us, 
 because his lime was of the least value. " 
 
 This was young Bloomfield's school, and these news- 
 papers were his books. In them he often found words 
 the meaning of which he did not understand. This per- 
 plexed him greatly, until by chance his brother George 
 bought an old English dictionary, very much the worse 
 for using, for which he paid fourpence, and gave it to 
 him. This was a fortune to him. He now had a key to 
 unlock the dark words, and his frequent reference to it 
 soon made them familiar. But the dictionary did not 
 speak them for him; he wanted to know how \o pro- 
 nounce them, just as the writers would. He and his broth- 
 ers by chance attended a meeting one sabbath evening
 
 ROBBRT ULOOMFIELB. 187 
 
 where a distinguished preacher, Mr. Fawcet, was em- 
 ployed. This gentleman was a finished and eloquent 
 speaker — his style was elegant and polished. Robert 
 had found just what he desired. Besides the brilliant 
 and impressive thoughts, the fervent and impassioned style 
 of his oratory, which deeply interested and delighted 
 Robert, his pronunciation of the more uncommon words 
 was the chief object of attraction. He made the minis- 
 ter his teacher. If he had carried his words to the meet- 
 ing and put them out to the preacher, it could hardly have 
 answered his purpose better. He was constant in his 
 attendance at the meeting, and received great improve- 
 ment. He also spent several hours in reading a few books 
 to the workmen, every day. 
 
 But Robert was about to find something still more 
 congenial that would awaken a new interest, and kindle 
 within him an undying flame. Happy boy^! — yet his was 
 a sorrowful happiness. Says his brother George, " I at 
 this time read the London Magazine, and in that work 
 about two sheets were set apart for a Review. Robert 
 seemed always eager to read this Review. Here he could 
 see what the literary men were doing, and learn how to 
 judge of the merits of the works which came out, and 1 
 observed that he always looked at the poets' corner. One 
 day he repeated a long song which he had composed to an 
 old tune. I was much surprised that he should make 
 such smooth verses ; so I persuaded him to try whether 
 the editor of our paper would give them a place in the 
 poets' corner. He succeeded, and they were printed." 
 After this, he contributed a number of pieces to the same 
 Magazine. How did it gladden the heart of the young 
 poet to find himself capable of writing for a literary mag- 
 azine in London ! He, a poor, unpretending lad, without 
 money, without leisure, and without learning — in the
 
 108 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 poets' corner ! Ah ! there was genius, the native fire, 
 the inborn power, the fervent simplicity of spirit, the 
 vigor and purity of imagination of the natural poet. It 
 was this that charmed his life, that made hirn happy even 
 in sadness, that scattered flowers in his path, and made 
 every thing he saw in nature lovely and beautiful. 
 
 When his poetic nature began to have this free ex- 
 pression, his whole mind seemed to act with redoubled 
 activity. His powers were fast expanding, and soon he 
 became the teacher instead of the pupil of the workmen. 
 
 From this little circumstance we may get confirmation 
 of that important truth, that there is a sphere in which 
 the mind of every one is adapted to act — where its own 
 peculiar bent and balance seem naturally to belong, and 
 to produce harmonious and pleasing results — where all 
 the faculties are called into exercise according to their 
 relative force, giving unity and vigor of thought, and 
 consequently great power and effort. This truth is too 
 slightly regarded. Young men fall into this or that 
 branch of industry, or profession, with almost as little 
 forethought, as the ox submits to his yoke, or the camel 
 to his burden. From this cause, multitudes pass their 
 lives in mental inactivity, without a spark of that ambi- 
 tion which strives for things noble and manly, no thirst 
 for knowledge — for true elevation of soul. 
 
 Some other circumstances — different situations, asso- 
 ciates — different aims and objects — all or any of these 
 might have operated on the mind with stirring power. 
 
 Young reader, have you chosen your field of labor? 
 Choose, then, your field of thought. Do you work to live, 
 or live to work? Be not content to gain a livelihood — 
 to labor all the long years of your life for your back and 
 stomach. Oh shame ! Break the spell that is upon you 
 — the delusive, rfrtjnwiw^ thirst for gold. Shew thyself a 
 MAN, and cease to toil for toys forever.
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 109 
 
 As was before observed, Robert had found his sphere ; 
 his mind was inclined to poetry. The purity of his 
 thought, his love of the beautiful, the tenderness and re- 
 finement of sentiment — all tended in him to the poeti- 
 cal. Having changed his lodgings, he became acquaint- 
 ed with one Kay, a middle-aged man, who possessed many 
 books, among which were The Seasons, Paradise Lost, 
 and some novels. These were lent to Robert, and were, as 
 might be expected, a feast to him. The Seasons he de- 
 lighted in, and read it with enthusiasm. It was this book* 
 doubtless, that begat in him the idea of the Farmer's 
 Boy. He adopts Thomson's outline — the four seasons 
 of the year, but further than this the two poems are to- 
 tally unlike. 
 
 A visit at this time, of about two months, to his na- 
 tive county, gave him a happy opportunity 
 
 " To muse on nature with the poet's eye," 
 
 among the hills, the woods, the fields and the streams 
 whi^ch had witnessed his joys, his hopes, his toils and 
 tears. Ah 1 the tears of childhood how copious, how 
 frequent, and yet how bitter ! How the young bosom 
 heaves and swells with grief What pain, what agony, 
 what despair — all for want of a smile or a kind word 
 from some loved one. Speak kindly to the child, en- 
 courage him ; a word may make him happy. 
 
 Robert was now surveying the varied scenes of this 
 life of sunshine and clouds. Doubtless he remembered 
 his hopes, those faint, star-light hopes of early youth ; 
 and his fears too, those unwearying tormentors of young 
 Innocence. In yonder wood he had wandered alone with 
 brooks and birds, in the still hours of the sabbath in mid- 
 summer, when the thick drapery of the trees afforded the 
 squirrel a safe retreat, the bird a bower, and himself a
 
 110 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 canopy. Many a glorious spring morning he had climb- 
 ed yonder hill, a noble hill, and from its summit survey- 
 ed the wide domain spread out around him, teeming with 
 life and beauty and animation ; then his heart was light 
 and joyous. This visit to those old scenes and haunts, 
 reproduced, as it were, in his imagination, a second child- 
 hood, and this childhood he portrayed in the Farmer's 
 Boy. 
 
 He was now eighteen years of age. He had made ar- 
 rangements to engage, as an apprentice at shoemaking, 
 in the service of his brother's landlord. He according- 
 ly returned to London, arpplied himself to his business, 
 and became a very expert workman. He continued some 
 years to work at his trade, in this situation, improving 
 and amusing himself with reading, music, and occasion- 
 ally a few verses. 
 
 When he was married he hired a room in Coleman 
 street. He had permission to work at his trade in the 
 garret, two stories above his residence ; which it appears 
 was occupied for that purpose by a number of workmen. 
 There, amidst the din of hammers and voices, Robert 
 Bloomfield composed his great poem — the Farmer's 
 Boy. He composed and remembered about six hundred 
 lines, without committing a single line to paper ! This 
 is an astonishing achievement of memory; but no more 
 wonderful than the fixedness and continuity of thought 
 necessary in such confusion, to the production of such a 
 work. 
 
 When his poem was completed, he oifered it to seve- 
 ral booksellers, but none would publish it. The editor 
 of the Monthly Magazine gives the following account of 
 Robert's visit to his office. " He brought his poem to 
 our office, and though his unpolished appearance, his 
 coarse hand-writing, and wretched orthography afforded
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. Ill 
 
 no prospect that his production could be printed, yet he 
 found attention by his repeated calls, and by the humili- 
 ty of his expectations, which were limited to a half doz- 
 en copies of the Magazine. At length on his name be- 
 ing mentioned where a literary gentleman, particularly 
 conversant in rural economy, happened to be present, the 
 poem was finally examined ; and its general aspect excit- 
 ed the risibility of that gentleman in so pointed a man- 
 ner, that Bloomfield was called into the room, and ex- 
 horted not to waste his time and neglect his employment 
 in making vain attempts, and particularly in treading on 
 ground which Thomson had sanctified. His earnestness 
 and confidence, however, led the editor to advise him to 
 consult his countryman, Mr. Capel LofR, of Trooton, to 
 whom he gave him a letter of introduction. On his de- 
 parture, the gentleman present warmly complimented the 
 editor on the sound advice which he had given the poor 
 fellow, and it was naturally conceived that an industrious 
 man was thereby likely to be saved from a ruinous infat- 
 uation." 
 
 This was the kind of advice and encouragement which 
 Robert received from the great literati ! Because some 
 words were badly spelled, and all were " coarsely " writ- 
 ten — and more than all, because he was a " poor fellow " 
 — not dressed nor polished as became a poet ; why, these 
 very learned writers told him, in substance, he had bet- 
 ter give up all idea of publishing his wretched produc- 
 tion ! How anxious these gentlemen were, that the world 
 should not lose the services of an industrious mechanic, 
 by his attempting to be a poet. This is the encourage- 
 ment too often received in such cases. " The xoaste of 
 fimp. — neglect of employment ! " How many has not the 
 dread of these, prevented from making any efforts for 
 intellectual attainments !
 
 112 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Mr. Lofft, lo whom Robert, not at all disheartened, 
 immediately repaired, examined the poem, and decided 
 that it was well worthy of publication; and was himself 
 instrumental in procuring its sale to Messrs. Vernor and 
 Hood, for £50. When published, the poem was read with 
 universal admiration. Edition after edition was exhausted^ 
 until more than twenty-five thousand copies were sold ; 
 and the profits so considerable, that the publishers (honor 
 to their names) gave Bloomfield ,£200, nearly a thousand 
 dollars, in addition to the price agreed upon. 
 
 At the conclusion of this short sketch, we shall give 
 the greater part of this sweet poem. It is truly 
 worthy to be read and admired by all, showing as it 
 does, the simplicity and purity of his soul, the tenderness 
 and sweetness of his nature, spiritualizing and refining 
 whatever presented itself to his mind. 
 
 There was, too, a greatness of soul, a noble self-reli- 
 ance in his bearing, when he presented himself to the 
 editor of the Magazine, and met such a repulse. IIow 
 many an hour had been made bright and joyous, by the 
 hope of seeing his humble poem in print ! With what 
 enthusiasm did he rehearse and rewrite his roughly writ- 
 ten verses, so that they might make a respectable appear- 
 ance in manuscript. He threw into them his whole en- 
 ergies, his love, his hope, his joy, his sadness, his expe- 
 rience, himself They were his children, humble, un- 
 pretending, poorly clad, but he was their father, and he 
 loved -them, he knew their worth. See him ! his work is 
 completed ; he is going to the printing office ; he stoops a 
 little, like most of Crispin's sons, but his head is erect ; 
 his eye, see how light and ardent ! cheaply dressed, for 
 there the sons of toil inherit the rags. He enters the 
 office with his manuscript under his arm. The editor 
 looks at him a moment, and then says, " Well, sir, what
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIBLD. 113 
 
 have yoii, an article to print?" Robert, taking his book 
 in his hand, and turning the leaves slowly — "I have 
 here, sir, a short poem — .please look at it " — at the same 
 time handing it to the editor. The editor takes it and 
 looks it over carelessly, smiling ; finally remarks, " I 
 cannot spend the time to examine it through, but from 
 what I have seen I should not feel warranted in taking it 
 of you." " O sir, I ask but little for it; I should let 
 you have it for a few copies of your magazine. '* To 
 tell you the truth," says the editor, " I would not pub- 
 lish it if you would give it to me; and I would advise 
 you not to think of publishing it; you are a mechanic 
 and can get a living by industry, at your trade." " That 
 is the way," replies Bloomfield, " I always have got my 
 living, and this poem I composed while at my work ; and 
 I could but think that the productions of my mind, ar- 
 ranged with so much care as these have been, are worth 
 a trifle, as well as those of my hands. If, sir, as I must 
 believe, I ever had any poetry in my soul ; if the love of 
 nature, viewed in her most beautiful attire ; if the 
 meiTiory of days gone by, of childhood's spotless inno- 
 cency,of its joys and tears, ever thrilled, my bosom with 
 aught of inspiration, then, sir, there is poetry, there is in- 
 spiration in this little work." 
 
 Noble, divine young man ! Whether he talked like 
 this, is not known, but we know he was earnest and im- 
 portunate, and that the editor could do no less than re- 
 fer him to Mr. Lofft with a letter. He went and was suc- 
 cessful. Happy Bloomfield ! His reward was greater 
 even than his hopes, be persevered, undaunted, and con- 
 quered. So may other humble shoemakers act, and 
 when they think that they are poor, and ought to keep at 
 work, let them remember Robert Bloomfield. If friends 
 discourage, let them remember Robert Bloomfield. If 
 r.*
 
 114 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 men of learning and experience refuse to countenance 
 you, and pronounce your efforts a " vain attempt," re- 
 member Robert Bloomfield. 
 
 The poem brought Bloomfield many valuable presents 
 from the learned, the rich and the noble. He received 
 a small annuity from the Duke of Grafton, and also a sit- 
 uation in the seal office, in which he was paid a small 
 salary. But ill health compelled him to relinquish his 
 place in the office, and he again went toshoemaking. He 
 afterwards engaged in bookselling, but was unsuccessful. 
 This, with some other circumstances, reduced him again 
 to poverty and sadness. One or two kind-hearted poets 
 endeavored to obtain a pension for their sinking and sor- 
 rowing brother ; but a nervous affection in his head, to- 
 gether with low spirits, soon terminated his sufferings and 
 his sorrows. He died in August, 1823, in the fifty-sev- 
 enth year of his age. 
 
 We close this account of his varied and touching life, 
 with an extract from the pen of the celebrated Professor 
 Wilson. 
 
 " What did England do for her own Bloomfield ? He 
 was not, in genius, to be spoken of in the same year with 
 Burns; but he was, beyond all compare, the best poet- 
 that had arisen, produced by England's lower orders. He 
 was the most spiritual shoemaker that ever handled an 
 awl. The Farmer's Boy is a wonderful poem, and will 
 live in the poetry of England. Did England then keep 
 Bloomfield in comfort, and scatter flowers along the 
 smooth and sunny path that led him to the grave? No. 
 He had given him by some minister or other, we believe 
 Lord Sidraouth, a paltry place in some office or other, 
 most uncongenial with all his nature and all his habits, of 
 which the shabby salary was insufficient to purchase for 
 his family the bare necessaries of life. He thus dragged
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 115 
 
 out for many long years, a sickly existence, as miserable 
 as the existence of a good man can be made by the nar- 
 rowest circumstances, arid all the while, Englishmen 
 were scoffingly scorning, with haughty and bitter taunts, 
 the patronage that, at his own earnest desire, made Burns 
 an Exciseman. Nay, when Southey, late in Bloomfield's 
 life, and when it was drawing mournfully to a close, pro- 
 posed a contribution for his behoof, and put down his 
 own five pounds, how many purse-strings were untied ? 
 how much fine gold was poured out for the indigent son 
 of genius and virtue ? Shame shuffles the sum out of 
 sight, for it was not sufficient to have bought the manu- 
 mission of an old negro slave. 
 
 " It was no easy matter to deal rightly with such a 
 man as Burns. In those disturbed and distracted times, 
 still more difficult was it to carry into execution any de- 
 signs for his good, and much more was there even to ex- 
 cuse his countrymen then in power, for looking upon 
 him with an evil eye. But Bloomfield led a pure, peace- 
 able and blameless life. Easy indeed would it have been 
 to make him happy, but he was as much forgotten as if 
 he had been dead ; and when he died, did England mourn 
 over him, or after having denied him bread, give him so 
 much as a stone? No. He dropped into the grave with 
 no other lament we ever heard of, but a few copies of 
 poorish verses in some of the Annuals, and seldom or 
 never now, does one hear a whisper of his name. Oh, 
 fie ! well may the white rose blush red, and the red rose 
 turn pale. Let England, then, leave Scotland to her 
 shame about Burns; and, thinking of her own treatment 
 of Bloomfield, cover her face with both her hands, and 
 confess that it was pitiful."
 
 116 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM ROBERT BLOOMFIELD'S GREAT POEM, 
 
 THE FARMER'S BOY. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Oh, come, blest spirit ! whatsoe'er thou art, 
 
 Thou kiudliug warmth that hoverest round my heart, 
 
 Sweet inmate, hail ! thou source of sterling joy. 
 
 That poverty itself cannot destroy, 
 
 Be thou my muse ; and faithful still to me, 
 
 Retrace the paths of wild obscurity. 
 
 No deed of arms my humble lines rehearse ; 
 
 No Alpine wonders thunder through my verse, 
 
 The roaring cataract, the snow-topt hill, 
 
 Inspiring awe, till breath itself stands still ; 
 
 Nature's sublimer scenes ne'er charmed mine eyes, 
 
 Nor science led me through the boundless skies ; 
 
 From meaner objects far my raptures flow : 
 
 Oh, point these raptures ! bid my bosom glow ! 
 
 And lead my soul to ecstasies of praise 
 
 For all the blessings of my infant days ! 
 
 Bear me through regions where gay fancy dwells ; 
 
 But mould to truth's fair form what memory tells. 
 
 Live trifling incidents, and grace roy song, 
 That to the humblest menial belong : 
 To him whose drudgery unheeded goes, 
 His joys unreckoned as his cares or woes, 
 Though joys and cares in every path are sown, 
 And youthful minds have feelings of their own. 
 Quick springing sorrows, transient as the dew, 
 Delights from trifles, trifles ever new. 
 'Twas thus vvitli Giles : meek, fatherless and poor, 
 Labor his portion, but he felt no more ; 
 No stripes, no tyranny his steps pursued ; 
 His life was constant, cheerful servitude ;
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 117 
 
 Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look, 
 The fields his study, nature was his book ! 
 And as revolving seasons changed the scene 
 From heat to cold, tempestuous to serene. 
 Though every change still varied his employ, 
 Yet each new duty brought its share of joy. 
 
 Fled now the sullen murmurs of the north. 
 The splendid raiment of the Spring peeps forth ; 
 Her universal green, and the clear sky. 
 Delight still more and more the gazing eye. 
 Wide o'er the fields, in rising moisture strong, 
 Shoots up the simple flower or creeps along 
 The mellow'd soil ; imbibing fairer hues, 
 Or sweets from frequent showers and evening dews ; 
 That summon from their sheds the slumbering plows, 
 While health impregnates every breeze that blows. * 
 No wheels support the driving, pointed share ; 
 No groaning ox is doom'd to labor there ; 
 No helpmates teach the docile steed his road ; 
 (Alike unknown the plowboy and the goad ;) 
 But, unassisted through each toilsome day. 
 With smiling brow the plowman cleaves his way, 
 Draws his fresh parallels, and widening still. 
 Treads slow the heavy dale, or climbs the hill ; 
 Strong on the wing his busy followers play. 
 Where writhing earth-worms meet th' unwelcome day ; 
 Till all is changed, and hill and level down 
 Assume a livery of sober brown : 
 Again disturb'd, when Giles with wearying strides 
 From ridge to ridge the ponderous harrow guides ; 
 His heels deep sinking every step he goes. 
 Till dirt adhesive loads his clouted shoes. 
 Welcome, green headland ! firm beneath his feet ; 
 Welcome the friendly bank's refreshing seat ; 
 There, warm with toil, his panting horses browse 
 Their sheltering canopy of pendent boughs;
 
 118 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Till rest, delicious, chase each transient pain, 
 And new-born vigor dwell in every vein. 
 Hour after hour, and day to day succeeds ; 
 Till eveiy clod and deep-drawn fuiTow spreads 
 To crumbling mould ; a level surface clear, 
 And strew'd with corn to crown the rising year ; 
 And o'er the whole Giles once transverse again, 
 In earth's moist bosom buries up the grain. 
 The work is done ; no more to man is given ; 
 The grateful farmer trusts the rest to Heaven. 
 Yet oft witli anxious heart he looks around, 
 And marks the first green blade that breaks the ground : 
 In fancy sees his trembling oats uprun, 
 His tufted barley yellow with the stm ; 
 Sees clouds propitious shed their timely store, 
 And all his harvest gatber'd round his door. 
 But still unsafe the big swoln grain below, 
 A favorite morsel with the rook and crow ; 
 From field to field the flock increasing goes ; 
 To level crops most formidable foes ; 
 Their danger vv^ell the wary plunderers know, 
 And place a watch on some conspicuous bough ; 
 Yet oft the skulking gunner by surprise 
 Will scatter death among them as they rise. 
 * * # * * # * 
 
 The clattering dairy maid, immersed in steam, 
 Singing and scrubbing midst her milk and cream, 
 Bawls out ^^ Go fetch the. cows ! " — he hears no more ; 
 For pigs, and ducks, and turkeys throng the door. 
 And sitting hens, for constant war prepared ; 
 A concert strange to that which late he heard. 
 Straight to the meadow then he whistling goes ; 
 With well known halloo calls his lazy cows ; 
 Down the rich pasture heedlessly they graze. 
 Or hoar the summons with an idle gaze; 
 For well they know the cowyard yields no more 
 Its tempting fragrance, nor its wintry store.
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 119 
 
 Reluctance marks their steps, sedate and slow ; 
 
 The right of conquest all the law they know : 
 
 The strong press on, the weak by turns succeed, 
 
 And one superior always takes the lead ; 
 
 Is ever foremost, wheresoe'er they stray : 
 
 Allow'd precedence, undisputed sway : 
 
 With jealous pride her station is maintain'd. 
 
 For many a broil that post of honor gain'd. 
 
 At home, the yard affords a grateful scene ; 
 
 For Spring makes e'en a miry cowyard clean. 
 
 Thence from its chalky bed behold convey'd 
 
 The rich manure that drenching winter made, 
 
 Which piled near home, grows green with many a weed 
 
 A promised nutriment for Autumn's seed. 
 
 Forth comes the maid, and like the morning smiles ; 
 
 The mistress too, and followed close by Giles. 
 
 A friendly tripod forms their humble seat, 
 
 With pails bright scour'd, and delicately sweet 
 
 Where shadowing elms obstruct the morning ray, 
 
 Begins the work, begins the simple lay ; 
 
 The full charged udder yields its willing streams, 
 
 While Mary sings some lover's amorous dreams ; 
 
 And crouching Giles, beneath a neighboring tree, 
 
 Tugs o'er his pail, and chants with equal glee ; 
 
 Whose hat with tatter'd brim, of nap so bare, 
 
 From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair, 
 
 A mottled ensign of his harmless trade, 
 
 An unambitious, peaceable cockade, 
 
 As unambitious too that cheerful aid 
 
 The mistress yields beside her rosy maid , 
 
 With joy she views her plenteous, reeking store, 
 
 And bears a brimmer to the daii'y door ; 
 
 Her cows dismiss'd the luscious mead to roam, 
 
 Till eve again recalls them loaded home. 
 
 And now the dairy claims her choicest care, 
 
 And half her household find employment there : 
 
 Slow rolls the churn, its load of clogging cream 
 
 At once foregoes its quality and name ;
 
 120 DISTINGUISHKD SHOBMAKERlJ. 
 
 From knotty particles first floating Avide 
 Congealing butter's dash'd from side to side ; 
 Streams of new milk through flowing coolers stray, 
 Aud snow-white curd abounds, and wholesome whey. 
 
 Say, ye that know, ye who have felt and seen 
 Spring's morning smiles, and soul-enlivening green ; 
 Say, did you give the thrilling transport way ? 
 Did your eye brighten, when young lambs at play 
 Leap'd o'er your path with animated pride. 
 Or gazed in merry clusters by your side ? 
 Ye who can smile, to wisdom no disgrace. 
 At the arch meaning of a kitten's face ; 
 If spotless innocence, and infant mirth. 
 Excites to praise, or gives reflection birth, 
 In shades like these pursue your favorite joy, 
 Midst nature's revels, sports that never cloy. 
 
 A few begin a short but vigorous race. 
 And indolence abash'd, soon flies the place ; 
 Thus challenged forth, see thither one by one, 
 From every side assembling playmates run ; 
 A thousand wily antics mark their stay, 
 A starting crowd, impatient of delay. 
 Like the fond dove from fearful prison freed, 
 Each seems to say, " come, let us try our speed ;" 
 Away they scour, impetuous, ardent, strong, 
 The green turf trenjbling as they bound along ; 
 Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb, 
 Where every molehill is a bed of thytne ; 
 There panting stop ; yet scarcely can refrain ; 
 A bird, a leaf, will set them off again : 
 Or, if a gale with strength unusual blow. 
 Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow, 
 Their little limbs increasing eflforts try. 
 Like the torn flower tl)e fair assemblage fly. 
 Ah, fallen rose! sad emblem of their doom; 
 Frail as thyself, they perish while they bloom !
 
 ROBERT BLOOM FIELD. 121 
 
 Though unoffending innocence may plead, 
 Though frantic ewes may mourn the savage deed, 
 Their shepherd comes, a messenger of blood, 
 And drives them bleating from their sports and food. 
 Care loads his brow, and pity wrings his heart. 
 For lo, the murdering butcher with his cart. 
 Demands the firstlings of his flock to die. 
 And makes a sport of life and liberty ! 
 His gay companions Giles beholds no more ; 
 Clos'd are their eyes, their fleeces drench'd in gore. 
 Nor can compassion with her sofl:est notes, 
 Withhold the knife that plunges through their throats. 
 
 Down, indignation ! hence, ideas foul ! 
 Away the shocking image from my soul ! 
 Let kindlier visitants attend my way. 
 Beneath approaching Summer's fervid ray ; 
 No thankless glooms obtrude, nor cares annoy. 
 Whilst the sweet theme is universal joy. 
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 The farmer's life displays in every part 
 
 A moral lesson to the sensual heart. 
 
 Though in the lap of plenty, thoughtful still, 
 
 lie looks beyond the present good or ill ; 
 
 Nor estimates alone one blessing's worth. 
 
 From changeful seasons, or capricious earth ; 
 
 But views the fliture with the present hours. 
 
 And looks for failures as he looks for showei*s ; 
 
 For casual as for certain want prepares, 
 
 And round his yard the reeking haystack rears : 
 
 Or, clover, blossom'd lovely to the sight. 
 
 His team's rich store through many a wintry night. 
 
 What thougii abundance round his dwelling spreads, 
 
 Though ever moist his self-improving meads 
 
 Supply his diary with a copious flood. 
 
 And seems to promise unexhausted food;
 
 122 DISTINQUISHBD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 That promise fails when buried deep in snow, 
 And vegetative juices cease to flow. 
 
 Shot up from broad rank blades that droop below, 
 The nodding wheat-ear forms a graceful bow, 
 With milky kernels starting full, weigh'd down, 
 Ere yet the sun has tinged its head with brown ; 
 There thousands in a flock, forever gay. 
 Loud chirping sparrows welcome on the day, 
 And from the mazes of the leafy thorn 
 Drop one by one upon the bending corn. 
 Giles with a pole assails their close retreats 
 And round the grass-grown, dewy border beats, 
 On either side completely overspread, 
 Here branches bend, there corn o'erstoops his head. 
 Green covert, hail ! for through the varying year 
 No hours so sweet, no scene to him so dear. 
 Here wisdom's placid eye delighted sees 
 His frequent intervals of lonely ease. 
 And with one ray his infant soul inspires. 
 Just kindling there her never-dying fires, 
 Whence solitude derives peculiar charms, 
 And heaven directed thought his bosom warms. 
 Just where the parting boughs light shadows play, 
 Scarce in the shade, nor in the scorching day, 
 Stretch'd on the turf he lies, a peopled bed. 
 Where swarming insects creep around his head. 
 
 Delicious sleep ! From sleep who could forbear. 
 With guilt no more than Giles, and no more care ? 
 Peace o'er his slumbers waves her guardian wing. 
 Nor conscience once disturbs him with a sting ; 
 He wakes refresh'd from every trivial pain, 
 And takes his pole and brushes round again. 
 
 Hark ! where the sweeping scythe now slips along ; 
 Each sturdy mower, emulous and strong. 
 Whose writhing form meridian heat defies, 
 Bends o'er his work, and every sinew tries ;
 
 ROBERT BLOUMFIELD. 123 
 
 Prostrates the waving treasure at his feet, 
 But spares the rising clover, short and sweet. 
 Come, health ! come, jolHty ! light-footed, come ; 
 Here hold your revels, and make this your home. 
 Each heart awaits and hails you as its own ; 
 Each moisten'd brow, that scorns to wear a frown : 
 The unpeopled dwelling mourns its tenants stray'd ; 
 E'en the domestic, laughing dairy-maid 
 Hies to the field, the general toil to share. 
 Meanwhile the farmer quits his elbow chair. 
 His cool brick floor, his pitcher, and his ease, 
 And braves the sultryb earns, and gladly sees 
 His gates thrown open, and his team abroad. 
 The ready group attendant on his word, 
 To turn the swarth, the quivering load to rear. 
 Or ply the busy rake, the land to clear. 
 Summer's light garb itself now cumbrous grown. 
 Each his thin doublet in the shade throws down ; 
 Where oft the mastiff skulks with half shut eye, 
 And rouses at the stranger passing by; 
 While unrestmined the social converse flows, 
 And every breast love's powerful impulse knows. 
 And rival wits with more tlian rustic grace 
 Confess the presence of a pretty face. 
 
 For, lo ! encircled there, the lovely maid. 
 In youth's own bloom and native smiles array'd ; 
 Her hat awry, divested of her gown, 
 Her creaking stays of leather, stout and brown ; 
 Invidious barrier ; why art thou so high. 
 When the slight covering of her neck slips by. 
 There half revealing to the eager sight. 
 Her full, ripe bosom, exquisitely white ? 
 In many a local tale of harmless mirth, 
 And many a joke of momentary birth. 
 She bears a part, and as she stops to speak. 
 Strokes back the ringlets from her glowing cheek.
 
 124 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Still twilight, welcome ! Rest, how sweet art thou ! 
 Now eve o'erhangs the western cloud's thick brow: 
 The far stretch'd curtain of retiring light, 
 With fiery treasures fraught; that on the sight 
 Flash from its bulging sides, where darkness lowers. 
 In fancy's eye, a chain of mouldering towers ; 
 Or craggy coasts just rising into view. 
 Midst javelins dire, and darts of streaming blue. 
 
 Anon tired laborers bless their sheltering home, 
 When midnight, and the frightful tempest corae. 
 The farmer wakes, and sees with silent dread 
 The angry shafts of Heaven gleam round his bed ; 
 The bursting cloud reiterated roars, 
 Shakes his straw roof, and jars his bolted doors: 
 The slow-wing'd storm along the troubled skies 
 Spreads its dark course ; the wind begins to rise ; 
 And full-leard elms, his dwelling's shade by day. 
 With mimic thunder give its fury way : 
 Sounds in his chimney-top a doleful peal 
 Midst pouring rain, or gusts of rattling hail ; 
 With tenfold danger low the tempest bends, ^^ 
 
 And quick and strong the sulphurous flame descends : 
 The fi-ighten'd mastiff from his kennel flies, 
 And cringes at the door with piteous cries. 
 
 Where now's the trifler ? where the child of pride ? 
 These are the moments when the heart is tried ! 
 Nor lives the man, with conscience e'er so clear, 
 But feels a solemn, reverential fear; 
 Feels too a joy relieve his aching breast. 
 When the spent storm hath howl'd itself to rest 
 Still, welcome beats the long-continue<l shower. 
 And sleep protracted, comes with double power; 
 Calm dreams of bliss bring on the morning sun. 
 For every barn is fill'd and hai-vest done ! 
 Now, ere sweet summer bids its long adieu. 
 And winds blow keen where late the blossom grew, 
 The busthng day and jovial night must come. 
 The long accustomed feast of harvest-home.
 
 ROBERT BLOOMPIELD. 125 
 
 No blood-stain'd victory, in story bright, 
 
 Can give the philosophic mind dehght; 
 
 No triumph please, while rage and death destroy : 
 
 Reflection sickens at the monstrous joy. 
 
 And where the joy, if rightly understood, 
 
 Like cheerful praise for universal good ? 
 
 The soul nor check nor doubtful anguish knows. 
 
 But pure and free the grateful current flows. 
 
 Behold the sound oak table's massy fi-ame 
 Beside the kitchen floor ! nor careful dame 
 And generous host invite their friends around, 
 For all that clear'd the crop, or till'd the ground 
 Are guests by right of custom : — old and young ; 
 And many a neighboring yeoman join the throng. 
 With artizans that lent their dexterous aid. 
 When o'er each field the flaming sunbeams play'd. * 
 
 Yet plenty reigns, and from her boundless hoard, 
 Though not one jelly trembles on the board, 
 Supplies the feast with all that sense can crave ; 
 With all that u)ade our great forefathers brave. 
 Ere the cloy'd palate countless flavors tried, 
 And cooks had nature's judgment set aside. 
 With thanks to heaven, and tales of rustic lore. 
 The mansion echoes when the banquet's o'er : 
 A wider circle spreads, and smiles abound. 
 As quick the frothing horn performs its round ; 
 Care's mortal foe ; that sprightly joys imparts 
 To cheer the frame and elevate their hearts. 
 Here, fresh and brown, the hazel's produce lies 
 In tempting heaps, and peals of laughter rise, 
 And crackling music, with the frequent song, 
 Unheeded bear the midnight hour along. 
 
 Here once a year distinction lowers its crest. 
 The master, servant, and the merry guest. 
 Are equal all ; and round the happy ring 
 The reaper's eyes exulting glances fling, 
 And, warra'd with gratitude, he quits his place 
 With sun-biu'nt bands and ale-enliven'd face,
 
 126 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Refills the jug, his honor'd host to tend, 
 To serve at ouce the master and the friend ; 
 Proud thus to meet his smiles, to share bis tale, 
 His nuts, his conversation, and his ale. 
 
 «##*** '4 
 
 AUTUMN. 
 
 Again, the yeai''s decline, midst storms and floods, 
 The thundering chase, the yellow fading woods. 
 Invite my song ; that fain would boldly tell 
 Of upland coverts and the echoing dell, 
 By turns resounding loud, at eve and morn. 
 The swineherd's halloo, or the huntsman's horn. 
 No more the fields with scatter'd grain supply 
 The restless, wandering tenants of the sty ; 
 From oak to oak they run \vith eager haste, . 
 And wrangling share the first delicious taste 
 Of fallen acorns ; yet but thinly found 
 Till the strong gale has shook them to the ground. 
 It comes ; and roaring woods obedient wave : 
 Their home well pleased the joint adventurers leave : 
 The trudging sow leads forth her numerous young. 
 Playful, and white, and clean, the briars among. 
 Till briars and thorns increasing, fence them round. 
 Where last year's mouldering leaves bestrew the ground, 
 And o'er their beads, loud lash'd by furious squalls. 
 Bright from their cups the rattling treasure falls ; 
 Hot, thirsty food ; whence doubly sweet and cool 
 The welcome margin of some rush-grown pool. 
 The wild duck's lonely haunt, whose jealous eye 
 Guards every point ; who sits, piepared to fly, 
 On the calm bosom of her little lake, 
 Too closely screen'd for ruffian winds to shake ; 
 And as tiie bold intruders press around. 
 At once she starts, and rises with a bound : 
 With bristles raised the sudden noise they hear, 
 And ludicrously wild, and wing'd with fear,
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 127 
 
 The herd decamp with more than swinish speed, 
 
 And snorting dash through sedge, and rush, and reed : 
 
 Through tanghng thickets headlong on they go : 
 
 Then stop and listen for their fancied foe ; 
 
 The hindmost still the growing panic spreads, 
 
 Repeated fright the first alarm succeeds. 
 
 Till folly's wages, wounds and thorns, they reap ; 
 
 Yet glorying in their fortunate escape, 
 
 Their groundless terrors by degrees soon cease. 
 
 And night's dark reign restores their wonted peace. 
 
 For now the gale subsides, and from each bough 
 
 The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow 
 
 Invites to rest ; and huddling side by side. 
 
 The herd in closest ambush seek to hide ; 
 
 Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread ; 
 
 Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed. 
 
 In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall, 
 
 And solemn silence, urge his piercing call. 
 
 Whole days and nights they tarry midst their store, 
 
 Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more. 
 
 Nor his alone the sweets of ease to taste : 
 Kind rest extends to all; — save one poor beast, 
 That true to time and pace, is doom'd to plod, 
 To bring the pastor to the house of God: 
 Mean structure ; where^^^no bones of heroes lie ! 
 The rude inelegance of poveit)"^ 
 Reigns here alone ; else why that roof of straw ? 
 Those narrow windows with the frequent flaw ? 
 O'er whose low cells the dock and mallow spread. 
 And rampant nettles lift the spiry head, 
 Whilst from the hollows of the tower on high 
 The grey-capp'd daws in saucy legions fly. 
 
 Round these lone walls assembling neighbors meet, 
 Aud'tread departed friends beneath their feet ; 
 And new-briar'd graves, that prompt the secret sigh, 
 Show each the spot where he himself must lie.
 
 128 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Midst timely greetings village news goes round, 
 Of crops late shorn, or crops that deck the gi'ouud ; 
 Experienced plowmen in tlie circle join ; 
 While sturdy boys, in feats of strength to &ihine. 
 With pride elate, their young associates brave 
 To jump from hollow-sounding grave to grave ; 
 Then close consulting, each his talent lends 
 To plan fresli sports when tedious service ends. 
 
 Hither at times, with cheerfulness of soul, 
 Sweet village maids from neighboring hamlets stroll, 
 That like the light-heeled does o'er lawns that rove, 
 Look shyly curious ; ripening into love ; 
 For love's their en-and : hence the tints tliat glow 
 On either cheek, a heighten'd luster know: 
 When conscious of their charms, e'en age looks sly, 
 And rapture beams from youth's observant eye. 
 The pride of such a part}% nature's pride, 
 Was lovely Ann, who innocently tried. 
 With hat of airy sliape and ribands gay. 
 Love to inspire, and stand in Hymen's way : 
 But, ei'e her twentieth summer could expand, 
 Or youth was rendered happy with her hand. 
 Her mind's serenity, her peace was gone. 
 Her eye grew languid, and she wept alone : 
 Yet causeless seem'd her grief; for quick restrain'd, 
 Mirth follow'd loud ; or indignation reign'd ; 
 Whims wild and simple led her frora her home, 
 The heada, the common, or the fields to roam : 
 Terror and joy alternate ruled her houi-s; 
 Now blithe she sung, and gatliered useless flowers ; 
 Now pluck'd a tender twig fi-om every bough. 
 To whip the hovering demons from her brow. 
 Ill fated maid ! thy guiding spark is fled. 
 And lasting wretchedness awaits thy bed — ." * 
 
 Thy bed of straw ! for mark, where even now '• 
 O'er their lost child afiiicted parents bow ; 
 Their wo she knows not, but perversely coy, 
 Inverted customs yield her sullen joy ;
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 129 
 
 Her midniglit meals in secrecy she takes, 
 
 Low muttering to tlie moon, that rising breaks 
 
 Through night's dark gloom: Oh how much more forlorn 
 
 Her night, that knows of no returning morn ! — 
 
 Slow from the threshold, once her infant seat, 
 
 O'er the cold earth she crawls to her retreat ; 
 
 Quitting the cot's warm walls, unhoused to lie, 
 
 Or share the swine's impure and narrow sty ; 
 
 The damp night air her shivering limbs assails ; 
 
 In dreams she moans, and fancied wrongs bewails. 
 
 When morning wakes, none earlier roused than she, 
 
 When pendant drops fall glittering from the tree ; 
 
 But naught her rayless melancholy cheers. 
 
 Or soothes her breast, or stops her streaming tears. 
 
 Her matted locks unornamented flow ; 
 
 Clasping her knees, and waving to and fro ; — 
 
 Her head bow'd down, her faded cheek to hide ; — 
 
 A piteous mourner by the pathway side. 
 
 Some tufted molehill through the livelong day 
 
 She calls her throne ; there weeps her life away ! 
 
 And oft the gaily-passing stranger stays 
 
 His well-timed step, and takes a silent gaze, 
 
 Till sympathetic diops unbidden start, 
 
 And pangs quick springing muster round bis heart, 
 
 And soft he treads with other gazers round 
 
 And fain would catch her sorrow's plaintive sound : 
 
 One word alone is all that strikes the ear, 
 
 One short, pathetic, simple word, — " Oh dear !" 
 
 A thousand times repeated to the wind. 
 
 That wafts the sigh, but leaves the pang behind ! 
 
 For ever of the proffer'd parley shy, 
 
 She hears th' unwelcome foot advancing nigh : 
 
 Nor quite unconscious of her wretched plight, 
 
 Gives one sad look, and hurries out of sight. 
 
 Fair promised sunbeains of terrestrial bliss, 
 Healtii's gallant hopes, — and are ye sunk to this ? 
 
 F
 
 iM DISTINGUISHED SUOEMAKKRS. 
 
 For in life's road, thougii thorns abnndant grow, 
 There still ai"e joys poor Ann can never know ; 
 Joys which the gay companions of her prime 
 Sip, as they drift along the stream of time ; 
 At eve to hear beside their tranquil home 
 The lifted latch, that speaks the lover come : 
 That love matured, next playful on the knee 
 To press the velvet lip of infancy ; 
 To stay the tottering step, tlie features trace ; — 
 Inestimable sweets of social peace ! 
 
 O thou, who bidst the vernal juices rise ! 
 Thou, on whose blasts autumnal foliage flies ! 
 Let peace ne'er leave me, nor my heart grow cold. 
 Whilst life and sanity are mine to hold. 
 
 Bereft of song, and ever-cheering gi-een. 
 The soft endearments of the Summer scene, 
 New Harmony pervades the solemn wood, 
 Dear to the soul, and healthful to the blood : 
 For bold exertion follows on the sound 
 Of distant sportsmen, and the chiding hound ; 
 First heard from kennel bursting, mad with joy. 
 Where smiling Euston boasts her good Fitzroy, 
 Lord of pure alms, and gifts that wide extend ; 
 The farmer's patron, and the poor man's friend ; 
 Whose mansion glitters with the eastern ray. 
 Whose elevated temple points the way. 
 O'er slopes and lawns, the park's extensive pride. 
 To where the victims of the chase reside, 
 Ingulf'd in earth, in conscious safety warm. 
 Till lo ! a plot portends their coming harm. 
 
 In earliest hours of dark and hooded morn, 
 Ere yet one rosy cloud bespeaks the dawn, 
 Whilst far abroad the fox pursues his prey. 
 He's doomed to risk the perils of the day. 
 From bis strong hold block'd out ; perhaps to bleed, 
 Or owe his life to fortune or to speed, i ^
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFTEL0. 13t 
 
 For DOW the pack, impatient running on, 
 
 Range through the darkest coverts one by one ; 
 
 Trace every spot ; wliiJst down each noble glade 
 
 That guides the eye beneath a changeful shade, 
 
 The loitering sportsman feels th' instinctive flame, 
 
 And checks his steed to mark the springing game. 
 
 Midst intersecting cuts and winding ways 
 
 The huntsman chsers his dogs, and anxious strays. 
 
 Where every narrow riding, even shorn. 
 
 Gives back the echo of his mellow horn ; 
 
 Till fresh and lightsome, every power untried, 
 
 The starting fugitive leaps by his side, 
 
 His hfled finger to his ear he plies, 
 
 And the view halloo bids the chorus rise 
 
 Of dogs quick-mouth'd, and shouts that mingle loud. 
 
 As bursting thunder rolls from cloud to cloud. 
 
 With ears erect, and chest of vigorous mould, 
 
 O'er ditch, o'er fence, unconquerably bold, 
 
 The shining courser lengthens every boimd. 
 
 And his strong footlocks suck the moisten'd ground. 
 
 As from the confines of the wood they pour. 
 
 And joyous villages partake the roar. 
 
 O'er heath far stretch'd, or down, or valley low, 
 
 The stifT-limb'd peasant glorying in the show, 
 
 Pursues in vain, where youth itself soon tires, 
 
 Spite of the transports that the chase inspires : 
 
 For who unmounted long can charm the eye. 
 
 Or hear the music of the leading cry ? 
 
 Poor, faithful Trouncer ! thou canst lead no more ; 
 All thy fatigues and all thy triumphs o'er! 
 Triumphs of worth, whose long-excelling fame 
 Was still to follow true the hunted game ; 
 Beneath enormous oaks, Britatuiia's boast, 
 In thick, impenetrable covers lost. 
 When the warm pack in faltering silence stood, 
 Thine was the note that roused the listening wood. 
 Rekindling every joy with tenfold force, 
 Through all the mazes of the tainted course,
 
 133 niSTINUUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Still foremost thou the dashing stream to cross, 
 
 And tempt along the animated horse ; 
 
 Foremost o'er fen or level mead to pass, 
 
 And sweep the showering dewdrops from the grass ; 
 
 Then bright emerging from the mist below 
 
 To climb the woodland hill's exulting brow. 
 
 Pride of thy race ! With worth far less than thine, 
 Full many human leaders daily shine! 
 Less faith, less constancy, less generous zeal ! — 
 Then no disgrace my humble verse shall feel, 
 Where not one lying line to riches bows, 
 Or poison'd sentiment from rancor flows. 
 Nor flowers are strown around ambition's car : 
 An honest dog's a nobler theme by far. 
 Each sportsman heard the tidings with a sigh. 
 When death's cold touch had stopt his tuneful cry ; 
 And though high deeds, and fair exalted praise, 
 In memory lived, and flow'd in rustic lays, 
 Short was the strain of monumental wo ; 
 " Foxes rejoice ! here buried lies your foe !" 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 With kindred pleasures moved, and cares oppress'd. 
 
 Sharing alike our weariness and rest ; 
 
 Who lives the daily partner of our hours, 
 
 Through every change of heat, and frost, and showers ; 
 
 Partakes our cheerful meals, partaking first 
 
 In mutual labor, and fatigue, and thirst ; 
 
 The kindly intercourse will ever prove 
 
 A bond of amity and social love. 
 
 To more than man this generous warmth extends. 
 
 And oft the team and shivering herd befriends; 
 
 Tender solicitude the bosom fills. 
 
 And pity executes what reason wills; 
 
 Youth learns compassion's tale from everj' tongue. 
 
 And flies to aid the helpless and the young.
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 133 
 
 When now, unsparing as the scourge of war, 
 Blasts follow blasts, and groves dismantled roar, 
 Around their home the storm-pinch'd cattle lows, 
 No nourishment in frozen pastures grows; 
 Yet frozen pastures every morn resound 
 With fair abundance thundering to the ground. 
 For though on hoary twigs no buds peep out. 
 And even the hardy brambles cease to sprout, 
 Beneath dread Winter's level sheets of snow 
 The sweet nutritious turnip deigns to grow. 
 Till now imperious want and wide-spread dearth 
 Bid labor claim her treasures from the earth. 
 On Giles, and such as Giles, the labor falls. 
 To strew the frequent load where hunger calls. 
 On driving gales sharp hail indignant flies. 
 And sleet, more irksome still, assails his eyes ; 
 Snow clogs his feet ; or if no snow is seen, 
 Tiie field with all its juicy store to screen, 
 Deep goes the frost, till every root is found 
 A mass of rolling ice upon the ground. 
 No tender ewe can break her nightly fast, 
 Nor heifer strong begin the cold repast. 
 Till Giles with ponderous beetle foremost go. 
 And scattering splinters fly at every blow ; 
 When pressing round him, eager for the prize, 
 From their mix'd breath warm exhalations rise. 
 
 In beaded rows if drops now deck the spray, 
 While the sun grants a momentary ray, 
 Let but a cloud's broad shadow intervene, 
 And stiffen'd into gems the drops are seen ; 
 And down the furrow'd oak's broad southern side 
 Streams of dissolving rime no longer glide. 
 
 Though night approaching bids lor rest prepare. 
 Still the flail echoes through the frosty air, 
 Nor stops till deepest shades of darkness come, 
 Sending at length the weary laborer home. 
 From him, with bed and nightly food supplied. 
 Throughout the yard, housed round on every side,
 
 134 DISTINOUISHKD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Deep plunging cows their rustling feast enjoy, 
 And snatch sweet mouthfuls from the passing boy 
 Who moves unseen beneath his traihng load, 
 Fills the tall racks, and leaves a scatter'd road, 
 Where oft the swine from ambush warm and dry 
 Bolt out and scamper headlong to their sty, 
 When Giles with well-known voice, already there, 
 Deigns them a portion of his evening care. 
 
 In part these nightly terrors to dispel, 
 Giles, ere he sleeps, his little flock must tell. 
 From the fireside with many a shrug he hies, 
 Glad if the full-orb'd moon salute his eyes, 
 And through th' unbroken stillness of the night 
 Shed on his path her beams of cheering light. 
 With sauntering step he climbs the distant stile. 
 Whilst all around liim wears a placid smile ; 
 There views the white-i-obed clouds in clusters driven, 
 And all the glorious pageantry of heaven. 
 Low, on the utmost boundary of the sight, 
 The rising vapors catch the silver light ; 
 Thence fancy measures, as they parting fly. 
 Which first will throw its shadow on the eye, 
 Passing the source of light ; and thence away, 
 Succeeded quick by brighter still than they. 
 Far yet above these wafted clouds are seen 
 ( In a remoter sky, still more serene,) 
 Others detach'd in ranges through the air, 
 Spotless as snow, and countless as they're fair, 
 Scatter'd immensely wide from east to west, 
 A beauteous semblance of a flock at rest. 
 These to the raptured mind, aloud proclaim 
 Their mighty Shepherd's everlasting Name. 
 
 Whilst thus the loiterer's utmost stretch of soul 
 Climbs the still clouds, or passes those that roll. 
 And loosed imagination soaring goes 
 High o'er his home, and all his little woes,
 
 ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 135 
 
 Time glides away ; neglected duty calls ; 
 
 At once from plains of light to earth he falls, 
 
 And down a narrow lane, well known by day, 
 
 With all his speed pursues his sounding way. 
 
 In thought still half-absorb'd, and chill'd with cold, 
 
 When lo ! an object frightful to behold ; 
 
 A grisly specter, clothed in silver-gray, 
 
 Around whose feet the waving shadows play, 
 
 Stands in his path ! — He stops, and not a breath 
 
 Heaves from his heart, that sinks almost to death. 
 
 Loud the owl halloos o'er his head unseen ; 
 
 All else is silent, dismally serene : 
 
 Some prompt ejaculation, whisper'd low. 
 
 Yet bears him up against the threatening foe ; 
 
 And thus poor Giles, though half inclined to fly, 
 
 Mutters his doubts, and strains his steadfast eye, 
 
 " 'Tis not my crimes thou comest to reprove ; 
 
 No murders stain my soul, no perjured love ; 
 
 If thou'rt indeed what here thou seem'st to be, 
 
 Thy dreadful mission cannot reach to me. 
 
 My parents taught still to mistrust mine eyes. 
 
 Still to approach each object of surprise. 
 
 Lest fancy's formful visions should deceive 
 
 In moonlight paths, or glooms of falling eve. 
 
 This then's the moment when my mind should try 
 
 To scan thy motionless deformity ; 
 
 But oh, the fearful task ! yet well I know 
 
 An aged ash, with many a spreading hough, 
 
 ( Beneath whose leaves I've found a summer's bower, 
 
 Beneath whose trunk I've weather'd many a shower,) 
 
 Stands singly down this solitaiy way. 
 
 But far beyond where now my footsteps stay. 
 
 'Tis true, thus far I've come with heedless haste ; 
 
 No reckoning kept, no passing objects traced : 
 
 And can I then have reach'd that very tree ? 
 
 Or is its reverend form assumed by thee ?" 
 
 The happy thought alleviates his pain : 
 
 He creeps another step ; then stops again :
 
 136 PISTINQtJtSHED SHOEBIAKERS. 
 
 Till slowly, as his noiseless feet draw near, 
 
 Its perfect lineaments at once appear ; 
 
 Its crown of shivering ivy whispering peace, 
 
 And its white bark that fronts the moon's pale face. 
 
 Now, whilst his blood mounts upward, now he knows 
 
 The solid gain that from conviction flows ; 
 
 And strengthen'd confidence shall hence fulfill 
 
 (With conscious innocence more valued still) 
 
 The dreariest task that winter nights can bring, 
 
 By churchyard dark, or giove, or fairy ring ; 
 
 Still buoying up the timid mind of youth. 
 
 Till loitering reason hoists the scale of truth. 
 
 E'en Giles, for all his cares and watchings past. 
 And all his contests with the wintry blast, 
 Claims a full share of that sweet praise bestow'd 
 By gazing neighbors, when along the road. 
 Or village green, his curly-coated throng 
 Suspends the chorus of the spinner's song; 
 When admiration's unaffected grace 
 Lisps from the tongue, and beams in every face. 
 Delightful moments ! — Sunshine, health, and joy, 
 Play round, and cheer the elevated boy ! 
 "Another spring!" his heart exulting cries ; 
 " Another year ! with promised blessings rise ! — 
 Eternal, Power ! from whom those blessings flow, 
 Teach me still more to wonder, more to know ! 
 Seed-time and harvest let me see again ; 
 Wander the leaf-strewn wood, the frozen plain ; 
 Let tlie first flower, corn-waving field, plain, tree. 
 Here round my home, still lift my soul to thee ; 
 And let me ever, midst thy bounties, raise 
 An humble note of tliankfulness and praise."
 
 137 
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. 
 
 About ninety miles to the south-east of Paris, in the 
 little city of Froyes, on the banks of the beautiful Seine, 
 is found the birth-place of Simon Antoine, — a charac- 
 ter destined in after life to play his pan in that great rev- 
 olution, which, like a scourge of pestilence, or scath- 
 ing fire, drew around France the dark mantle of mourn- 
 ing widowhood and weeping orphanage — a revolution, 
 that has made every actor in its sanguinary scenes, whose 
 name is known, a hero — a canonized saint of a Godless 
 gospel, whose tidings made the nations pale, as with anx- 
 ious solicitude they gazed at the dancing demons of un- 
 holy incantations, called up from their gloomy cells in the 
 deep, black, hadean Bottomless, to hold their horrid or- 
 gies in sight of men and angels. 
 
 When from the remotest limit of coming time the eye 
 runs back through the historic eras of the race, that 
 deep-stained page of reckless depravity will arrest its gaze, 
 and like a great, ragged, snow-capt mountain, standing 
 alone in the midst of a horizon-bounded plain, will form 
 a stand-point, from whose towering height the backward 
 traveler of time may see the workings, relations, wan- 
 derinors and tendencies of associated man — causes and 
 effects for whole centuries before and after. That moun- 
 tain-top has been, and will be, for ages to come, the resi- 
 dence, the laboratory, the speculation-ground of the sage>
 
 138 DISTINGDISHE© SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 the philosopher, the historian, the political astrologer. 
 Sound heads will labor and be broken then, long years 
 hence, when ancient, torn and moldering manuscripts 
 shall be dug from ruined vaults and beneath old crumb- 
 ling domes, whose foundation stone has not yet been 
 laid. Even now the life of man is far too short to read 
 the libraries that have been already written to show its 
 history, its causes and effects ; and still they come. 
 Among all these works, perhaps Biography has had its 
 share of literary labor. The story of the men who acted in 
 that soul-stiring tragedy of revolution — whose throes 
 convulsed the world — whose shout summoned the na- 
 tions of civilized Europe to the field of battle, where for 
 twenty years the sulphureous dragon bathed his greedy 
 jaws in blood, and quenched the life of millions, and the 
 murderous steel devoured over all the hills and valleys of 
 that pleasant continent, as though living, intelligent, 
 soul-gifted men were prairie grass — has been, told, and 
 told again, till their names are as familiar as our own 
 house-hold words. The great ones, I mean — those 
 whom common consent calls heroes. There's JVlirabeau, 
 Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, — what child has not 
 heard of them ? And there's Napoleon too, and his sat- 
 ellites ; who, coming to the stage, drove to death that 
 beast of revolution, to make room for another. 
 
 But it is nonsense to suppose that these, and others 
 like them, whom history loves to talk about, are the only 
 heroes who lived and acted in those evil days, when deeds 
 that outraged humanity and insulted Heaven fell so thick, 
 that they trod upon each other, so crowded was the press. 
 These are the men, who, standing boldly out before the 
 world, exhibited in themselves the deeper pulsations of the 
 great popular heart. But there were other men standing
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. 139 
 
 between the people and these great leaders, who were ex- 
 ponents of the people to them, as they in turn were to the 
 world — a second rank of leaders — full of zeal, full of 
 animal courage, and base, low-running shrewdness. They 
 possessed the key to the affections of the people. They 
 were from them, and of them. Every herd of wild 
 cattle has its leader ; so has every flock of sheep ; to 
 which all the rest pay due deference and respect; chosen 
 on account of greater age, keener observation, more 
 shrewdness, better eye-sight, or superior strength and 
 conrage. Indeed, higher qualifications, of the practical, 
 motive kind will always lead, whether called or not — 
 they can't help it. 
 
 Such a leader of the second class was Simon Antoine, 
 in that stormy period of the French Revolution, which 
 ended with the "Reign of Terror," too familiar to history. 
 He was born, as before shown, in 1736, and played away 
 his childhood, like other boys, on the green banks of the 
 Seine, in all the independence and privilege of dirty, 
 ragged poverty. But we are not to infer from his connec- 
 tion in the bloody tragedies of Iiis later years, when 
 he seemed the very embodiment of cruelty and every 
 atrocious sentiment and passion, that his boyhood shad- 
 owed forth a life of more than ordinary wickedness, or 
 less than common goodness. Far from it. There is 
 nothing in the nature of man to call for such a judgment. 
 We know it is very natural to suppose that the child who 
 spends his infantile years in cruelizing flies, unlegging 
 crickets and grasshoppers, boring out the eyes of young 
 birds, and tormenting the cat, will by necessity make a 
 vicious, brutal man ; and the reverse, that a cruel man 
 must have been such a boy, appears to follow of course. 
 Now this may not be at all true. Circumstances have 
 much to do with the formation of human character.
 
 140 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Though we may not fully coincide with the idea, how- 
 ever beautiful, that likens the child to an unsoiied sheet 
 of white paper, upon which you may write just as and 
 what you please, still we believe the character of a human 
 being may be greatly modified and strangely altered. We 
 should rather say he is like the brief (or the heads of ar- 
 gument) which the orator takes with him to the assembly. 
 It contains the substance of what may be a very good or 
 a very bad oration, according as its various parts are 
 brought out and laid open. Or, rather, like a young fruit 
 tree in the nursery ; which has in miniature or in embryo 
 all the pans of a fully-grown, branching tree, loaded with 
 fruit. If it lives, it must be a fruit-tree, and in all prob- 
 ability bear fruit. It may be cultivated and pruned into a 
 lofty, spreading tree, or it may be dwarfed into a little, 
 scragly shrub. It may grow erect and trim, or crooked 
 and deformed. Its fruit may be fair, sweet and healthful, 
 or it may be blighted, sour, withered and worm-eaten ; 
 and though it be thus bad and bitter, its top may be cut 
 off and ingrafted with the most beautiful of fruits. So with 
 the child ; his qualities, passions and propensities exist, 
 part in miniature, part in embryo, waiting to be developed 
 into the state of perlect manhood. In education, by cir- 
 cumstances, some may be restrained ; some may be un- 
 duly developed ; some part of the mind may be cramped 
 and fettered, while its strength goes to nourish and invig- 
 orate organs more free to grow. Thus it comes to be 
 deformed, erratic in its movements, and ugly. Or should 
 it be left to grow and expand, in concord with Nature's 
 best provisions, till the shade of years is on the brow, even 
 then the force of circumstances, strong in coercive pow- 
 er, may head down the tree, and ingraft it almost through- 
 out with a different, viler kind of fruit. Who thought
 
 SIMON ANTOINK. 141 
 
 that the generation which was playing away its childhood 
 and youth during the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 would come to be leaders in a career of iniquity, when all 
 the basest passions and propensities of the human mind, 
 in its most savage state, seemed sublimated into fury, and 
 driven with a demoniac power, and impious, blasphemous 
 zeal, bidding defiance to Jehovah and to man, to the most 
 desperate lengths of cruelty, and the most frightful ex- 
 cesses of impiety, sacrilege and beastly obscenity ? Cer- 
 tainly, no one, not gifted with prophetic vision that can 
 bore into the night of coming time, and read the destiny 
 of men. 
 
 It was not, then, the peculiar and strange characteris- 
 tics of the men, but the unusual and peculiar circum- 
 stances of the times and the nation, which caused that 
 tremendous outburst, that kindling up of human pas- 
 sions and depravity. And here we may, perhaps, as well 
 speak briefly of some of those causes, before we proceed 
 further with the life of our subject, who, in process of 
 time, and after variety of fortune, came to be a shoemak- 
 er, by way of compromise with hunger; who condition- 
 ed with him, that he might live if he would build shoes. 
 This covenant being made, we cannot tell exactly when, 
 he faithfully performed his part, and thereby lived. This 
 was certainly honest, and boded nothing bad for future 
 life, but quite the reverse ; for, as far as we have examin- 
 ed yet, we are inclined to the opinion, that to be a shoe- 
 maker is a pretty sure passport to honor and virtue. 
 We certainly expected to find, among so many distin- 
 guished characters, more than one rascal. But after a 
 time, circumstances induced him to go to Paris, then rap- 
 idly increasing in population, and, of course, (if they 
 were all in the habit of wearing shoes, as doubtless they
 
 14^ DISTINeUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 were not,) holding out large inducements to the sons of 
 leather. Be that as it may, Simon went to Paris — poor, 
 but from all that can be gathered, honest and respectable. 
 
 But to the causes which made bad men of those, who 
 otherwise might have descended with virtuous reputation 
 to honored graves. Not loving to go alone into this dark 
 labyrinth, we are gl.id to let others lead us. Macauley 
 lights us along after this manner : 
 
 " It would be impossible even to glance at all the caus- 
 es of the French Revolution within the limits to which 
 we must confine ourselves. One thing is clear. The 
 government, the aristocracy, and the church, were re- 
 w arded after their works. They reaped that which they 
 had sown. They found the nation such as they had made 
 it. That the people had become possessed of irresistible 
 power, before they had attained the slightest knowledge 
 of the art of government ; that practical questions of vast 
 moment were left to be solved by men to whom politics 
 had been only matter of theory; that a legislature was 
 composed of persons who were scarcely fit to compose a 
 debating society ; that the whole nation was ready to lend 
 an ear to any flatterer who appealed to its cupidity, to its 
 fears, or to its thirst for vengeance — all this was the 
 effect of misrule, obstinately continued, in defiance of 
 solemn warnings, and the visible signs of an approaching 
 retribution. 
 
 " Even while the monarchy seemed in its highest and 
 most palmy state, the causes of that great destruction had 
 already begun to operate. They may be distinctly traced 
 even under the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. That 
 reign is the time to which the ultra Royalists refer as the 
 Golden Age of France. It was in truth one of those 
 periods which shine with an unnatural and delusive
 
 SIMON AXTOINE. 143 
 
 splendor, and which are rapidly followed by gloom and 
 decay. 
 
 " His person and his government have had the same 
 fate. He had the art of making both appear grand 
 and august, in spite of the clearest evidence that both 
 were below the ordinary standard. Death and time have 
 exposed both the deceptions. The body of the great 
 king has been measured more justly than it was measured 
 by the courtiers who were afraid to look above his shoe- 
 tie. His public character has been scrutinized by men 
 free from the hopes and fears of Boileau and Moliere. 
 In the grave, the most majestic of princes is only five 
 feet eight. In history, the hero and the politician dwin- 
 dles into a vain and feeble tyrant, the slave of priests and 
 won'.en, little in war, little in government, little in every 
 thing but the art of simulating greatness. 
 
 " He left to his infant successor a famished and miser- 
 able people, a beaten and humbled army, provinces turned 
 into deserts by misgovernment and persecution, factions 
 dividing the court, a schism raging in the church, an im- 
 mense debt, an empty treasury, immeasurable palaces, 
 an innumerable household, inestimable jewels and furni- 
 ture. All the sap and nutriment of the state seemed to 
 have been drawn to feed one bloated and unwholesome 
 excrescence. The nation was withered. The court was 
 morbidly flourishing. Yet it does not appear that the 
 associations which attached the people to the monarchy 
 had lost strength during the reign. He had neglected 
 or sacrificed their dearest interests ; he had struck their 
 imaginations. The very things which ought to have made 
 him most unpopular — the prodigies of luxury and mag- 
 nificence with which his person was surrounded, while, 
 beyond the enclosure of his parks, nothing was to be seen
 
 144 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKEKS. 
 
 but Starvation and despair — seemed to increase the re- 
 spectful attachment which his subjects felt for him. That 
 governments exist only for the good of the people, ap- 
 pears to be the most simple and obvious of all truths. 
 Yet history proves it to be the most recondite. We can 
 scarcely wonder that it should be so seldom present to the 
 minds of rulers, when we see how slowly, and through 
 how much suffering, nations arrive at the knowledge of it. 
 
 " During two generations, France was ruled by men,, 
 who, with the vices of Louis the Fourteenth, had none 
 of the art by which that magnificent passed off" his vices 
 for virtues. The people had now to see tyranny naked.; 
 That foul Duessa was stripped of her gorgeous orna- 
 ments. She had always been hideous ; but a strange en- 
 chantment had made her seem fair and glorious in the 
 eyes of willing slaves. The spell was now broken; the 
 deformity was made manifest ; and the lovers, lately so 
 happy and so proud, turned away loathing and horror- 
 struck. 
 
 " The administration of the Regent was scarcely less 
 pernicious, and infinitely more scandalous, than that of 
 the deceased monarch. It was by magnificent public 
 works, and by wars conducted on a gigantic scale, that 
 Louis had brought distress on his people. The Regent 
 aggravated that distress by frauds, of which a lame duck 
 on the stock exchange, would have been ashamed. 
 France, even while suffering under the most severe ca- 
 lamities, had reverenced the conquerer. She despised 
 the swindler. It seemed to be decreed that every branch 
 of the royal family should successively incur ihe abhor- 
 rence and contempt of the Nation. 
 
 " Between the fall of the Diike of Bourbon and the 
 death of Fleury, a few years of frugal and moderate gov-
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. 145 
 
 ernment intervened. Then recommenced the downward 
 progress of the. monarchy. Profligacy in the court, ex- 
 travagance in the finances, schism in the church, faction 
 in the parliaments, unjust war terminated by ignominious 
 peace — all that indicates, and all that produces, the ruin 
 of great empires, make up the history of that miserable 
 period. Abroad, the French were beaten and humbled, 
 everywhere, by land and by sea, on the Elbe and on the 
 Rliine, in Asia and in America. At home, they were 
 turned over from vizier to vizier, and from sultan to sul- 
 tan, till they had reached that point beneath which there 
 was no lower abyss of infamy. 
 
 " But unpopular as the monarchy had become, the ar- 
 istocracy was more unpopular still ; and not without rea- 
 son. The tyranny of an individual is far more supporta- 
 ble than the tyranny of a caste. The old privileges were 
 galling and hateful to the new wealth and the new knowl- 
 edge. Every thing indicated the approach of no common 
 revolution ; of a revolution destined to change not merely 
 the form of government, but the distribution of properly 
 and the whole social system ; of a revolution the effects of 
 which were to be felt at every fire-side in France. In the 
 van of the movement were the moneyed men, and the 
 men of letters — the wounded pride of wealth and the 
 wounded pride of intellect. An immense multitude, 
 made ignorant and cruel by oppression, was raging in the 
 rear. 
 
 " We greatly doubt whether any course which could 
 have been pursued by Louis the Sixteenth could have 
 averted a great convulsion. The church and the aristoc- 
 racy, with that blindness to danger, that incapacity of 
 believing that any thing can be except what has been, 
 which the long possession of power seldom fails togener-
 
 146 UISTINQUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ate, mocked at the counsel which might have savfd them. 
 They- would not have reform; and they had revolution. 
 They would not pay a small contribution in place of the 
 odious corvees ; and they lived to see their castles de- 
 molished and their lands sold to strangers. 
 
 " Then the rulers of France, as if smitten with judi- 
 cial blindness, plunged headlong into the American war. 
 They thus committed, at once, two great errors. They 
 encouraged the spirit of revolution. They augmented at 
 the same time those public burdens, the pressure of which 
 is generally the immediate cause of revolutions. The 
 event of the war carried to the height the enthusiasm of 
 speculative democrats. The financial difficulties pro- 
 duced by the war carried to the height the discontent of 
 that larger body of people who cared little about theories, 
 and much about taxes. 
 
 " The meeting of the States-General was the signal for 
 the explosion of all the hoarded passions of a century- 
 In that assembly there were undoubtedly very able men. 
 But they had no practical knowledge of the art of gov- 
 ernment. They did not understand how to regulate the 
 order of their own debates ; and they thought themselves 
 able to legislate for the whole world. All the past was 
 loathsome to them. All their agreeable associations were 
 connected with the future. Hopes were to them all that 
 recollections are to us. In the institutions of their coun- 
 try they found nothing to love or to admire. As far back 
 as they could look, they saw only the tyranny of one class 
 and the degradation of another. They hated the monar- 
 chy, the church and the nobility. They cared nothing 
 for the states or the parliament. It was long the fashion 
 to ascribe all the follies which they committed to the 
 writings of the philosophers. We believe that it was 
 misrule, and nothing but misrule, that put the sting into
 
 SIMON ANTCWNE. - 147 
 
 those writings. It is not true that the French abandoned 
 experience for theories. They took up with theories be- 
 cause they had no experience of good government. They 
 had experienced so much evil from the sovereignty of 
 kings, that they might be excused for lending a ready ear 
 to those who preached, iq an exaggerated form, the doc- 
 trine of the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 " The glory of the National Assembly is this, that they 
 were in truth, what Mr. Burke called them in austere 
 irony, the ablest architects of ruin the world ever saw. 
 They were utterly incompetent to perform any work 
 which required a discriminating eye and a skillful hand. 
 But the work which was then to be done was a work of 
 devastation. They had to deal with abuses so horrible, 
 and so deeply rooted, that the highest political wisdom 
 could scarcely have produced greater good to mankind, 
 than was produced by their fierce and senseless temerity. 
 Demolition is undoubtedly a vulgar task ; the highest glory 
 of the statesman is to construct. But there is a time for 
 every thing ; a lime to set up and a time to pull down. 
 The talents of the revolutionary leaders, and those of the 
 legislator, have equally their use and their season. It is 
 the natural, the almost universal law, that the age of in- 
 surrections and prescriptions shall precede the age of 
 good government, of temperate liberty, and liberal order. 
 
 " And how should it be otherwise ? It is not in swad- 
 dling bands that we learn to walk. It is not in the dark 
 that we distinguish colors. It is not under oppression 
 that we learn how to use freedom. The ordinary sophism 
 by which misrule is defended is, when truly stated, this ; 
 The people must continue in slavery, because slavery has 
 generated in them all the vices of slaves. Because they 
 are ignorant, they must remain under a power that has
 
 148 " DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 made anrJ keeps them ignorant. Because they have been 
 made ferocious by misgovernment, they must be misgov- 
 erned forever. If the system under which the^ live was 
 so mild and liberal, that under its operation they had be- 
 come humane and enlightened, it would be safe to ven- 
 ture on a change. But as this system has destroyed mo- 
 rality, and prevented the development of the intellect : as 
 it has turned men who might, under different training, 
 have formed a virtuous and happy community, into savage 
 and stupid wild beasts, therefore it ought to last forever 
 The English Revolution, it is said, was truly a glorious 
 revolution. Practical evils were redressed ; no excesses 
 were committed ; no sweeping confiscations took place ; 
 the authority of the laws was scarcely for a moment sus- 
 pended ; the fullest and freest discussion was tolerated in 
 parliament ; the nation showed by the calm and temperate 
 manner in which it asserted its liberty, that it was fit to 
 enjoy liberty. The French Revolution was, on the other 
 hand, the most horrible recorded in history; all madness 
 and wickedness, absurdity in theory and atrocity in 
 practice. What folly and injustice in the revolutionary 
 laws ! What grotesque affectation in the revolutionary 
 ceremonies ! What fanaticism ! What licentiousness i 
 What cruelty ! Anacharsis Clootz and Marat, feasts of 
 the Supreme Being, and marriages of the Loire, trees of 
 liberty, and heads dancing on pikes — the whole forms 
 a kind of infernal farce, made up of every thing ridicu- 
 lous and every thing frightful. This is to give freedom 
 to those who have neither wisdom nor virtue. It is 
 not only by bad men interested in the defence of abuses, 
 that auguments like these have been urged against all 
 schemes of political improvement. Some of the highest 
 and purest of human beings have conceived such scorn
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. 149 
 
 and aversioa for the follies and crimes of the French 
 Revolution, that they recanted, in the moment of tri- 
 umph, those liberal opinions to which they had clung in 
 defiance of persecution. And if we inquire why it was 
 hat they began to doubt whether liberty were a blessing, 
 we shall find that it was only because events had proved 
 in the clearest manner, that liberty is the parent of virtue 
 and order. They ceased to abhor tyranny, merely be- 
 cause it had been signally shown, that the effect of tyran- 
 ny on the hearts and understandings of men is more de- 
 moralizing and more stupefying than had ever been 
 imagined by the most zealous friend of popular rights. 
 
 We believe it to be a rule without an exception, that 
 the violence of a revolution corresponds to the degree of 
 misgovernment which has produced that revolution. 
 Why was the French Revolution so bloody and destruc- 
 tive ? Why was our Revolution of 1641 comparatively 
 mild ? Why was our Revolution of 1688 milder still ? 
 Why was the American Revolution, considered as an in- 
 ternal movement, the mildest of all ? There is an obvi- 
 ous and complete solution of the problem. 
 
 " The English under James the First and Charles the 
 First were less oppressed than the French under Louis the 
 Fifteenth and Louis the Sixteenth. The English were 
 less oppressed after the restoration than before the great 
 rebellion. And America under George the Third, was 
 less oppressed than England under the Stuarts. The re- 
 action was exactly proportioned to the pressure — the 
 vengeance to the provocation. 
 
 "The difference between Washington and Robespierre, 
 the difference between Franklin and Barrere, the differ- 
 ence between the destruction of a few barrels of tea, and 
 the confisdation of thousands of square miles, the differ-
 
 150 DISTINCUISHBO SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ence between the tarring and feathering a tax-gatherer, 
 and the massacres of September, measure the difference 
 between the government of America under the rule of 
 England, and the government of France under the rule 
 of the Bourbons." 
 
 We might go a great way further, and not find half so 
 much clear and sound philosophy. It is difficult to gain 
 an adequate conception of the miseries and corruption, 
 in which the French people, particularly of Paris, were 
 merged. All the accumulated evils of long centuries of 
 tyranny, were concentrated upon one generation, and that 
 generation had toiled on with the fatal burden to the very 
 verge of a frightful chasm. 
 
 The idea thai the whole great people of France were 
 made for the good of one man, named king, seemed to 
 possess the entire soul of court and sovereign. It was, 
 indeed, the first, last, and only article of their political 
 creed. On it they built their faith and practice. Under 
 it their people suffered. War succeeded war, tax suc- 
 ceeded tax, till the land was drained of laborers to till the 
 soil, and the soil without laborers refused to yield her 
 increase. The provinces were in a fair way to become a 
 depopulated waste. 
 
 Nor had the morals of the people escaped unimpaired. 
 Corruption, such as had scarce visited the earth since the 
 days of Nero and Caligula, enveloped cou'rt, capital and 
 country. Vice, in every nameless form, had left its cav- 
 erns and hiding-places, and stalked abroad in open sun- 
 light. The court, like a deep flowing fountain, poured 
 out its thousand streams of black pollution upon Paris, 
 whose deadly taint rose up like pestilential vapor, and 
 hovered around the provincial cities — a loathsome, de- 
 vouring curse.
 
 ^Il SIMON ANTOINE. 151 
 
 Literature was abased. The press, which should yield 
 forth living streams of purity, for the cleansing and invig- 
 orating of the popular mind, had become a spring of mor- 
 bid, licentious impurity. So great was the tendency to 
 literary corruption, that the writings of such sober Phi- 
 losophers as Montesquieu and Rousseau, did not entirely 
 escape its influence ; while the great, the talented, the 
 vigorous Madam Roland, herself by no means free, prais- 
 ed the works deeply stained with its blackening fumes. 
 What shall we say, then, of the thousand and one wri- 
 ters of the lighter sort — of what may be called the 
 yeWow-co»ercc? literature of those times? Oh, horrors! 
 what a slimy reservoir of filth, with vulgarity and beastly 
 obscenity oozing out at every pore ! 
 
 Religion, too, that foundation-rock of civil liberty, 
 had suffered in the general wreck. The priesthood held 
 the oracles of God. But they treated them as though 
 they were but the fabulous records of a former age. The 
 people, from long habit of generations, and from teaching, 
 were inclined to look to the clergy for spiritual and moral 
 guidance. Looking there, they often heard the truth ; 
 and then saw him who taught it, practice it into a lie. 
 But oftener, the priest, having never learned the import 
 of the oracles he held, instead of throwing more light 
 into the window of the soul, drew a veil of deeper, thicker 
 darkness. He hedged in the way, and showed the peo- 
 ple crooked roads, which reason, without looking for the 
 right, could see were wrong. Most, preach as they might, 
 acted as if they believed there was no way, no God, no 
 hereafter. 
 
 There is a certain idea of consistency in the human 
 mind, which cannot be yielded up, while the last spark 
 of that Heaven-infused principle of reason is left. That
 
 169 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. ;^- 
 
 there was something wrong and inconsistent in the re- 
 ligious establishment, could not escape the observation of 
 a people of far less intelligence than the French of the 
 last century. An intellectual day was breaking upon 
 France, such as had never yet arisen there. Great phi- 
 losophic minds were peering up here and there, and full 
 of an inspiration that stirred the depths of thought, they 
 hove up to the view of the great masses, new and hidden 
 ideas. These great minds, having caught none of the 
 true celestial fire from off the altar of the church, which 
 like a cold northern iceberg, had no principle of vitality 
 in it, or if any, it was smothered in the fumes of priestly 
 debauchery, proclaimed all religion false — a humbug, 
 designed by worthless quacks to cheat mankind. The 
 command is " search and see ;" but Rome had nullified 
 that law of Heaven ; and France was a province of Rome. 
 They did not search ; but declared the Bible — 
 
 " the only star, 
 By which the bark of man could navigate 
 The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
 Securely ; only star which rose on time, 
 And, on its dark and troubled billows, still, 
 As generation, drifting swiftly by, 
 Succeeded generation, threw a ray 
 Of Heaven's own light" — 
 
 to be a fable of the past — a rope of superstition where- 
 with to bind and enslave the ignorant ; and though " it 
 contained Heaven's code of laws to men, entire," they 
 pronounced it a baseless, delusive falsehood. Thus in 
 words the philosopher endorsed the actions of the priest, 
 and said, there is no way, no God, no hereafter. The 
 people heard and believed it; and thus slipped from their 
 moorings, they drifted out upon a broad, bottomless ocean, 
 broken-helmed, compass and chronometer ashore.
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. 153 
 
 With this faint outline of the political, moral and re- 
 ligious condition of France, we may, perhaps, be able to 
 form some slight idea, however inadequate, of the state 
 of the popular mind. It also sheds some light on the 
 habits and modes of thinking of our obscure shoemak- 
 er, plying the implements of trade on a dark street in 
 the suburbs of Paris. 
 
 Revolutions, and the French Revolution more than any 
 other, find their men in the lower classes — in what, in 
 peaceful times, would be called the under-current of so- 
 ciety. When conservative characters are out of use, 
 and destruction has become the order of the day, the 
 talented of those orders in the state not accustomed to 
 rule, are called out and put in requisition. Just so when 
 the Revolution burst upon France in 1789 ; when every 
 thing was reversed, and the under-current of society ran 
 uppermost, Simon Antoine stood forward as the natural 
 leader of his rebellious section, and early became a mem- 
 ber or instrument of the Commune of Paris, which ob- 
 tained such a detestable preeminence among the sanguin- 
 ary conclaves of that era of atrocity. 
 
 At first the actions and demands of the people, when 
 viewed as revolutionists, may be called moderate. They 
 only asked for that which a community deprived of should 
 be ashamed not to seek. They asked for freedom from 
 unjust taxation, and freedom of political representation. 
 They were hungry ! and their children cried for the 
 bread which the tax gatherer tore from their pale lips to 
 put in the coffers of the king, to be squandered in utijust 
 and unproductive wars, and lavished on a proud, con- 
 temptuous and worthless nobility. And when they saw 
 their just demands, which no people possessing the faint- 
 est shadow of liberty could live without making, resisted 
 o
 
 164 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 by a tyrannical abuse of the royal prerogative, they could 
 endure it no longer. They saw the parliament of Paris 
 forced to register a decree of taxation, which was to im- 
 merse them in a debt of 500,000,000 francs. They saw 
 the assembly of the States-General, the first time for near 
 two centuries, called together to deliberate for the public 
 good, driven from their hall, that it might be fitted up for 
 a display of royal pomp and power ; and beheld those 
 representatives of the people record their oath in solemn 
 earnestness, amid a concussion of the warring elements 
 which rent the clouds above them, that they would never 
 retire from their post till they had established the gov- 
 ernment on a different and freer basis. They heard the 
 royal mandate which denounced and dissolved that as- 
 sembly in which their hopes were centered, and saw ^it 
 fall harmless at their feet. Conscious of great wrongs, 
 they were determined on a great revenge. Mutual suf- 
 fering had made the people mutual sympathizers in a 
 common cause. And however liable the higher classes 
 of the state were to the charge of apathy, the people 
 showed no slumberous disposition. 
 
 Now came the dark side of the terrible reality ; one 
 whose every feature is black, whose every recollection is 
 bitter. Robbery, murder and confiscation became the 
 order of the day. Crime followed crime. Blood trod 
 on the heels of bloo'l. Every passion of the human heart 
 seemed goaded into frenzy. Under the workings of this 
 dire enthusiasm, men were transmuted into monsters. 
 The body seemed emptied of the natural soul of man, 
 and filled to bursting with the lusts of demons fresh from 
 the vaults of perdition. Murder became a trade, cruelty 
 a pastime; envy became a gnawing, insatiable rage. Ah, 
 they wanted a controlling belief in the Christian religion !
 
 SniON ANTOINE. 165 
 
 Cut loose from all restraint, and left to their own guid- 
 ance on the raging sea of their infuriate passions, they 
 needed faith in that God whom they declared was net; 
 they needed that Bible they had cast aside as worthless 
 raffs, for a sheet anchor in the storm. 
 
 Had the people of France been governed by the high 
 principles which guided our revolutionary fathers, how 
 different would have been the progress and result of the 
 French Revolution. In the smooth current of life, a 
 man's principles will be scarcely perceived in his actions;' 
 but let a general uprising come that rouses the mind 
 and passions to their utmost intensity, and then the con- 
 victions and principles, the teachings of earlier days, 
 become strangely visible. How different was Simon An- 
 toine from Roger Sherman ! The difference between 
 the moral and religious principles and notions of the two, 
 will very nearly measure the difference in their charac- 
 ters and actions. The one was famous for his wisdom 
 and moderation, the other for his folly and madness ; the 
 cue was known as the friend and exemplar of every virtue, 
 the other as the embodiment of every vice; the one led 
 the counsels of patriotic statesmen to works of durable 
 goodness, the other led the ragged pikemen of Paris to 
 riot, robbery and murder. Roger Sherman stood up for 
 peace and public order in the American Conjiress, Simon 
 Antoine raved for blood, terror and conscription in the 
 community of Paris. 
 
 Let this example teach us to guard well the sacred 
 character of our moral and religious institutions. They 
 are the bulwark, sign, seal, pledge and covenant of our 
 national ssifety. Our dearest interests, the interests of 
 generations yet to come, are bound up in the love, rev- 
 erence and conscientious regard with which we cherish
 
 156 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 the Bible, and study and practically exemplify the duties 
 it enjoins. The results of those causes of the French 
 Revolution which occasioned such a change of popular 
 character, should sink, like a warning voice from the 
 tomb of time, deep into our hearts. They should make 
 us hug, with more than filial affection, this richest legacy 
 of Heaven to man. 
 
 We may cast it aside, and enshrine Reason and Na- 
 ture in its place, and find our principles of morality in 
 the social wants and interests of men ; while all goes 
 peacefully around us, our loss of sound principles, the 
 fact that we are off from the only moral anchoring-ground 
 of life, may not be strongly obvious. Like a gallant 
 ship on some rocky, reef-girt coast, in a calm, we may 
 float safely and pleasantly along without dreaming of un- 
 safe anchorage. But let some jarring commotion agitate 
 the social state, and call up all the sleeping passions of 
 the soul in their collected, resistless might, like the same 
 ship, tempest-driven on that fearful shore, we must go 
 down amid the rush of discordant elements, or, surviv- 
 ing the storm, be towed back, a dismantled wreck, to that 
 moral anchoring-ground we unsafely ventured to con- 
 temn. 
 
 Reader, as you love yourself, as you love your country 
 and the world, I beseech you be watchful, be jealous of 
 every thing that may impairthose institutions which have 
 been so long the highest honor, the brightest ornament, 
 the firmest security of this pilgrim-land. They are com- 
 mitted to our keeping. Let us prove ourselves worthy 
 of that high trust — faithful guardians. Let no enemy 
 lay sacrilegious hands on this Palladium of our nation's 
 hopes. Let the example, the doom and the punishment 
 of the French people write our warning. They spurned
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. I^ 
 
 the Bible and its God, and listened to the insidious teach- 
 inffs of an unsound philosophy — and terrible was their 
 suffering. 
 
 But let us proceed with our subject. In the strangely 
 inverted state of society to which we have referred, when 
 ignorance and baseness were the sure passports to promo- 
 tion, and the road to preferment was down-hill, Antoine 
 became a bright and shining ornament in the powerful 
 jacobin fraternity. A Sans-Cullolte by birth and acquir- 
 ed endowments, it needed no painful abjuration on his 
 part to entitle him to the fraternal hug of those grisly 
 professors of " the rights of man." It was a most sym- 
 pathetic affiliation. Others might come down, and make 
 great relinquishment of virtue, of honor, of politeness, 
 and something like humanity and natural affection, to at- 
 test their devotion to the cause of glorious democracy ; 
 — Simon, never. A walking diploma of qualifications, 
 all he had to do was to put on the red cap, carry a pike, 
 and roar applause to the eloquence of Robespierre, Dan- 
 ton, Marat, Barrere and their grim associates, to show 
 himself an accredited son of liberty — a worthy recipient 
 of the baptismal sacrament in this graceless church of 
 assassins. 
 
 Here, watching and stirring the great Jacobinical seeth- 
 ing-pot of revolution, our shoemaking Simon received 
 the finishing stroke of his education. And why should 
 he not reach the climax of perfection in a school where 
 he heard such masters as Robespierre cant in whining 
 adulation about the wrongs and rights of the " poor peo- 
 ple, the sublime people, the virtuous people;'' and Marat, 
 who cried for blood I ke a thirsty jackal of the des- 
 ert — who talked of murder and cruelty as an Eng- 
 lishman talks of his dinner, or an American of mak- 
 ing money? "Give rae," says Marat, " Give roe two
 
 168 DISTINOUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 hundred Neapolitans — a dagger in their riglit hand — 
 in their left a muff to serve fur a target — with them I 
 will traverse France and complete the revolution." Then 
 he entered into an elaborate disquisition, to show how 
 260,000 men could be slaughtered at one day's work. 
 That number, varying upwards to 300,000, was a peculiar 
 favorite with that infuriated monster. 
 
 These jacobin societies branched out into all the de- 
 partments of France, each adding a new link to the chain 
 of tyranny which netted the empire, and bound the stu- 
 pefied people to the great moving influence of Paris. 
 The parent society at Paris, to which Simon belonged, 
 held complete control over the entire machinery of revo- 
 lut'ion. Secretly and openly, they exerted a tremendous 
 influence over the lower orders of the people. With one 
 word, the community of Paris, the supreme head and 
 most efficient exponent of the jacobin faction, could raise 
 a forest of pikes, cartloads of which they had distributed 
 in every section ; and nnsheath ten thousand daggers 
 with another. With these instruments of terror, follow- 
 ed by the deadly guillotine, that brought up the rear, 
 they overawed the National Assembly, and made it a 
 convenient mouth-piece. 
 
 The various schemes of insurrection and massacre in 
 which this black saint of ruin was engaged, would defy 
 our description, and transcend our limits. When the 
 deadly tocsin was pealed forth from every stee|)le in Paris, 
 at noonday or at midnight, to call the rabble to their 
 work of iiestruction, we can imagine, as the multitude 
 were gathering from every quarter, with what zeal the 
 enthusiastic Simon siezed his oft-reddened pike from the 
 leather loops where it hung over his work-bench, for or- 
 nament and ready convenience ; we can see him put
 
 SIMON ANTOINK. 159 
 
 himself at the head of his obedient suburb, and lead 
 them to the onset. We can figure in our minds the piirt 
 he acted when that old prison-house of despotism, the 
 Bastile, fell, on the night of the 14lh July, 1791, amid 
 the triumphant shouts of an exulting people ; the part he 
 played in the terrible massacre of September, of the same 
 year ; and, on the eventful tenth of August, 1792, when 
 the terrorists triumphed over the king. During these 
 thrilling scenes, which followed each other in rapid suc- 
 cession, Simon Antoine gained a not unenvied preem- 
 inence among his guilty associates. His hands were 
 dyed to the arm-pits in the blood of his brethren. He 
 had the unbounded confidence of the community of Paris , 
 and received the high approval of his master, Robespierre 
 — and the friendship, if such a thing could be said to 
 possess such a sentiment. 
 
 Being employed as an agent of the Commune in the 
 prison of the Temple, he was one of the chief among 
 those who tormented the unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth, 
 when on the eleventh of July, 1792, he was committed 
 to that gloomy castle. Under this barbarous jailor, and 
 his kindred spirits, what cruel insults, and studied, mali- 
 cious contempt did not that misguided monarch and his 
 refined and noble family endure ? But they suffered with 
 all the heroism of martyrs, with all the patience of Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 One of the men commissioned to guard the royal cap- 
 tive, whom we conclude from the reply must have been- 
 Antoine, not being relieved at the proper hour, the king 
 kindly expressed his hopes that he would suffer no in- 
 convenience from the delay. " I came here," answered 
 the ruffian, " to watch your conduct, not for you to trou- 
 ble your&eif. wUb.oiij9y|* ^Nooe^'^Jbe, added, fixing his hat
 
 160 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 firmly on his brow, " least of all, you, have any business 
 to concern themselves with it." On another occasion, 
 Simon seemed to exhibit the remnant of a feeling, which 
 might, with a liberal degree of charity, be called human- 
 ity ; for it is asserted, that seeing joy testified by the 
 queen and Madame Elizabeth, at being allowed to dine 
 with the king, he exclaimed, " I believe these confound- 
 ed women will make me cry." Whether the creature 
 actually did weep, deponent saith not. If he did, croco- 
 dile tears must have flowed like large warts dovni his 
 dry, unwashed and hairy cheeks. But we are confident 
 that he was not troubled with the above named feeling 
 afterwards — it went out then. 
 
 When the king was brought before the Convention to 
 undergo an examination, on the 11th of December, 1792, 
 his little son, whose promising talents had been early de- 
 veloped by careful instruction, and whose society had 
 greatly solaced the rigors of confinement, was forcibly 
 taken from him. They never met each other afterwards. 
 The father exhibited more intense affliction at this wan- 
 ton cruelty than at any other indignity he had suffered 
 from his steel-hearted jailers. What then must have 
 been the feelings of the Dauphin, yet a child ! Just be- 
 fore being separated, the royal prisoners were playing at 
 a game called Siam ; and in no way could the young 
 prince get beyond the number sixteen. " That is a very 
 unlucky number," exclaimed the boy. " True, indeed, 
 my child," answered the king ; " I have long had reason 
 to think so." 
 
 But the child, heir of the royal line of Louises, now 
 obnoxious to the fierce hatred of the triumphant factions, 
 being separated from his father, must have a keeper. 
 The Community of Paris, well acquainted where faithful
 
 SIMON ANTOINE. 161 
 
 ministers of their will were to be found, looked among 
 their trusty band of jacobins for an instrument of their 
 hatred to the unhappy child. Simon Antoine, as the 
 most ignorant and wicked of that infamous crew, was se- 
 lected for his well-earned preeminence in deeds of fiend- 
 ish atrocity. He asked of his employers, "What was to 
 be done with the young wolf-whelp ; was he to be slain 1" 
 "No." "Poisoned?" "No." "Starved to death?" 
 " No." " What then ?" " He was to be got rid of" 
 Antoine comprehended his terrible commission. A few 
 months before, he had met with three thousand shoemak- 
 ers at the Place Louis Quinze, to deliberate on the price 
 of shoes ; now he was to deliberate on the capacity for 
 misery and suffering, and the price of cruelty. And, 
 " in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such 
 things," he contrived to ruin mind and body both, of the 
 helpless youth entrusted to his charge. With an invent- 
 ive refinement of cruelty unknown to ordinary demons, 
 he feasted his ravenous appetite upon the tender sensi- 
 bilities of innocent childhood. And while his masters 
 were sending their daily sacrifice of victims to the guil- 
 lotine, (that sovereign ruler of France,) which every 
 morning made the sewers of the Place de Revolution run 
 crimson with the blood of innocence, which stood in 
 pools around the scaffold where from fifty to an hundred 
 severed heads, with fixed and glazing eyes, were staring 
 in the last mortal agony ; — while the plow was passed 
 over the grimmed and blackened squares of once pros* 
 perous Lyons, where Jacobinical rage and vengeance had 
 been wreaked upon the inhabitants, and a monument 
 erected, inscribed, " Lyons resisted the Republic ; Ly- 
 ons is no more !" — when La Vendee was lefl a blacken- 
 ed memorial of hatred and revenge, by ruin and deyaat
 
 162 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tation, with scarce an inhabitant ; — when Nantes and 
 Marseilles were decimated for the slaughter, and the 
 deadly guillotine — too moderate in the work of death, 
 though its reeking steel rose and fell, from sunrise to- 
 twilight, and severed heads were heaped in pyramids 
 like cannon balls in an armory — was aided by bringing 
 whole crowds of prisoners together and pouring among 
 them the grape and canister of loaded batteries, ranged 
 and filled for the .work of devastation, and boats and gal- 
 leys filled with their living freight of old and young, . 
 male and female, young girls of sixteen and boys of 
 twelve, were scuttled and went down in the dark waters 
 of the Loire, and children were tost from pike to pike 
 along the ranks of soldiers whom lust and unlicensed 
 anarchy had turned to demons ; — Simon Antoine exer- 
 cised his skill in a more secret, silent way, and with a 
 horrid zest that made him grin with triumphant exulta- 
 tion. •" 
 To take a child at the tender age of seven, in the 
 midst of childhood dreams and playfulness and inno- 
 cence, from the fond embrace of parental love, and con- 
 fide him to the tender mercies of such a guardian, will 
 make angels weep — should makehumanity sick at heart. 
 Compared to it, the doom of a prisoner in the hands of 
 American savages is mercy ; the tortures of the Spanish 
 Inquisition were the benevolent effusions of essential 
 love. True to his infernal trust, and his own base in- 
 stincts, Antoine quenched the vital energy, emaciated 
 the body, and broke the free spirit of his victim, by beat- 
 ings, and fasts, and, vigils, the recital of which chills the 
 blood. And then, to dry up the deep, pure fountains of 
 the soul, he taught his boyish lips to curse his father and 
 mother, and blaspheme the name of his Maker, whom iie
 
 U ( SIMON ANTOINE. 163 
 
 had learned to reverence and adore. He compelled him, 
 on pain of long hunger and suspended sleep, to sing the 
 hateful " Carmagnole," and cry " Long live the Sans- 
 Cullottes.'' And yet a lower deep — more bitter still 
 than death, more cruel than the grave — he poured down 
 his throat the destroying, damning draught of intoxica- 
 tion, which consumes the heaven-infused principles and 
 God-like attributes of the immortal mind, and blots out 
 the last lineaments of humanity. 
 
 Thus, from his merciless rage and insatiable crueUy — 
 the poor child died a living death of years — long years of 
 bitter, nameless wo. But why dwell longer on this dark 
 type of human character. His day came at last. Robes- 
 pierre, that black Sun of the Revolution, with all his 
 gloomy satellites, was cast down like Lucifer, from the 
 culminating point of his dark, terrible dominion. On 
 the 28th of July, 1794, Simon Antoine, with master and 
 protector, was carried to the guillotine, where mercy, 
 bathed in tears, stood pleading for his execution.
 
 164 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 HANS SACHS. 
 
 This eminent man, whose poetry has gained him a high 
 place in the esteem of his countrymen, was born in the 
 first part of the sixteenth century, and was a resident of 
 Nuremberg ; where he followed his calling, as shoemaker, 
 with commendable diligence. He wrote abundance of 
 poetry during the intervals of leisure, which his severe 
 industry enabled him to obtain. He was a man of deep 
 thought, and quick perception, and remarkably endowed 
 with the gift of expressing his ideas for the benefit and 
 amusement of others — and he certainly had the merit 
 of being one of the first poets of Germany. Hans Sachs 
 was a coteinporary and warm friend of Luther, and cheer- 
 ed and aided that great reformer on his way in no stinted 
 measure. Himself a reformer, in his own quiet way, he 
 wrote the songs of the people — and some writer has most 
 justly remarked, " Let me make the songs of the people, 
 and I don't care who makes their laws." 
 
 " His poem entitled the ' Morning Star,' " says Coler- 
 idge, " was the first production that appeared in praise 
 and support of Luther ; and an excellent hymn of Hans 
 Sachs', which has been deservedly translated into almost 
 all the European languages, was commonly sung in the 
 Protestant churches, whenever the heroic reformer visit- 
 ed them. 
 
 " Of this man's genius, five folio volumes, with double 
 •oIuEnnSy art txtant in print, and ntariy an tqual number
 
 HANS SACHS. 165 
 
 in manuscript ; yet the indefatigable bard takes care to 
 inform his readers, that he never made a shoe the less, 
 but had virtuously reared a large family, by the labor of 
 his hands." 
 
 He died in 1576, leaving a numerous circle of friends 
 to mourn his departure, and a grateful people to cherish 
 and embalm his memory,
 
 166 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 
 
 No stronger argument against aristocractic and mon- 
 archical forms of government is necessary, tlian the pover- 
 ty and degradation which prevail so universally among 
 the masses, over whom such governments are established. 
 As long as this state of things is so notorious, the fine- 
 spun theories of tory logicians and econonnsts, the illib- 
 eral and inconclusive reasoning of learned aristocrats, 
 are all in vain. 
 
 In England — the proudest and mightiest power in the 
 world — we find the people degraded to such an extreme, 
 that one-seventh of the whole population are paupers, 
 and two-thirds of the remainder are but little better off! 
 They arc neglected in respect to both body and mind ; 
 and if they can by hard, constant labor, get enough of 
 something to eat, to protract life, their rulers feel safe 
 from riots and insurrections. Without any system of 
 education, without schools, libraries, or apparatus for the 
 instruction of the youth, without leisure to attend to them 
 in case these were provided, when mere children they 
 are put to work ^br life, to get their bread. What a spec- 
 tacle does their laboring population present — struggling 
 with all their energies to escape starvation ! 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that we hear of so few 
 of the lower classes of England becoming distinguished 
 for learning and great talents. On the contrary, it is the 
 more surprising that we hear of so many who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves.
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. Id?' 
 
 The pampered sons of fortune are pushed forward in- 
 to every place of honor and emolument, and are alone 
 destined to occupy all stations requiring genius and learn- 
 ing. Influential and wealthy friends secure the high 
 position for them, and they have nothing to do, but pre- 
 pare themselves for the place of iheir ambition, with ev- 
 ery possible facility to aid them. 
 
 Few, then, must they be, who, from the toil-doomed 
 ranks of the people, can break the spell, and rise to em- 
 inence. But some there are who have ascended the rug- 
 ged steep, beating down every obstacle by the force of 
 their genius, and linked their names and fame with the 
 learning, arts and literature of their native land. 
 
 Conspicuous among these heroes from humble life, is 
 the name of William Gifford. lie was born in Ashbur- 
 ton, Devonshire, England, in KST. His father, a dissi- 
 pated n)an, was a seaman, and was once second in com- 
 mand of an armed transport. lie attempted to excite a 
 riot in a melhodist chapel, and fled from his country to 
 escape punishment. William's mother possessed three 
 or four small fields, and with these scanty means, assist- 
 ed him to attend school where he learned to read. Says 
 Gifford, " I cannot boast much of my acquisitions at this 
 school ; they consisted mostly of the contents of the 
 * child's spelling,' but from my mother, who had stored up 
 the literature of a country town — which about a half cen- 
 tury ago, amounted to little more than what was dissem- 
 inated by itinerent ballad singers, or ratlier readers — I 
 had acquired much curious knowledge of Catskin, and 
 the Golden Bull, and the Bloody Gardener, and mr.ny 
 other histeriea equally instructive and amusing." 
 
 When he was seven jearsold, his father returned from 
 sea, possessed of considerable property ; but he soou
 
 168 DTSTINeUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 squandered the most of it away, and died about four 
 years afterwards, a victim of intemperance. About a 
 year after the death of his father, William lost his best, 
 and as it seemed afterwards, his only friend — his mother. 
 She left nothing to her children but the evidence of her 
 love and anxiety for them, and the example of her pa- 
 tience and forbearance towards her dissolute husband. 
 
 He was not quite thirteen when his mother died, and 
 his little brother, the only child besides himself, was two 
 years old. This brother was sent to the work-house, 
 while he went to live with his god-father, named Carlile. 
 This man sent him to school at first, but just as he began 
 to make good progress in arithmetic, his favorite study, 
 Carlile, unwilling to incur the expense, took him from 
 school after he had attended only three months, intend- 
 ing to employ him at home as a plow-boy. His strength, 
 however, was not sufficient for this kind of service, and 
 his master next determined that he should be sent out to 
 Newfoundland, to go into a store-house. But when Wil- 
 liam was presented to the man who was to fit him out, 
 he was declared to be too small. Determined, however, 
 to rid himself of his charge, Carlile then proposed to 
 send him out a fishing in one of the Torkay fishing boats. 
 Young Gifford remonstrated against this, and escaped 
 this wretched business by consenting to go on board a 
 coaster. At Brixham a coaster was found, and at the age 
 of thirteen, he entered this toilsome service. 
 
 " It will be easily conceived," says Gifford, " that my 
 life was a life of hardships. I was not only a ship-boy 
 on the high and giddy n^ast, but also in the cabin, where 
 every menial office fell to my lot ; yet if I was restless 
 and discontented, it was not so much on account of this, 
 as my being precluded from all possibility of reading;
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 169 
 
 as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect of seeing, 
 during the whole time of my abode with him, a single 
 book of any description, except the ' Coasting Pilot.'" 
 
 Life, doubtless, presented a gloomy prospect to the 
 little sailor, as he ran about the beach bare-footed and 
 ragged, at Brixham. He thought himself forgotten by 
 all, an outcast in the world. But the severest and bitter- 
 est of all was, to be deprived the privilege of studying 
 arithmetic, and having books to read. But he was re- 
 memi)ered and pitied ; for he was an object of commis- 
 seration. The women of Brixharn, carrying fish to Ash- 
 burton, his native town, to market, represented his suf- 
 fering condition to the people there, in such a manner 
 that it excited their indignation, so that Carlile thought 
 it prudent to send and take him home. 
 
 In a few days he returned to his " darling pursuit." 
 as he calls arithmetic, and in a short time, he was the 
 best scholar in school — so rapid was his progress. He 
 assisted his master on extraordinary occasions, and re- 
 ceived a trifle for his services. This appears to- have 
 suggested the thought to him, that he might engage with 
 him as a regular assistant, and thereby be enabled to 
 support himself. But he had another more important 
 object in view. His former teacher was quite old and 
 infirm, and he flattered himself that he might possibly 
 succeed him. 
 
 '* I was," says he, " in my fifteenth year when I built 
 these castles; a storm, however, was collecting which 
 unexpectedly burst upon me, and swept them all away. 
 On mentioningmy liitle plan to Carlile, he treated it with 
 the utmost contempt ; and told me in his turn, that as I 
 had learned enou;jh, and more than enough at school, he 
 must be considered as having fairly discharged bis duty
 
 170 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 (so indeed, he had); he added that he had been negocia- 
 ting with .1 shoemaker of respectability, who had liberal- 
 ly agreed to take me, without fee, as an apprentice. I 
 was so shocked at this inieiligence, that I did not retnon- 
 strate, but went in sullcnness and silence to my new 
 master, to whom, on the first of January, 1772, I was 
 bound till I should attain the age of twenty-one." 
 
 At this time, the Bible, a black-letter romance, a f^ew 
 old magazines, and the Imitation of Thomas k Kempis, 
 were the only books he had read. 
 
 The deep dislike he felt for his new occupation, pre- 
 vented him from making much progress in it, and conse- 
 quently he became the common drudge of the family in 
 which he resided. He had not yet even given up all hope 
 of succeeding Mr. Smerdon as teacher, and continued 
 to prosecute his favorite study whenever he had an ojpor- 
 tunity. When it became known to his master, in what 
 manner GifFord spent his few leisure moments, fewer still 
 were allowed him. The motive for this brutal treatment 
 was apparent, when Gilford learned that his master de- 
 signed that his son should have the same situaticm as 
 teacher, which he hi r.self desired. 
 
 A treatise on algebra, given to him by a young lady, 
 was the only book which he possessed at this time. But 
 this was of little use to him, as it supposed the reader to 
 understand simple equations, and he knew nothing about 
 it. But the treasure was at length unlocked in the fol- 
 lowing manner, given in his own words. " My master's 
 son had purchased ' Fenning's Introduction ;' this was 
 precisely what I wanted — but he carefully concealed it 
 from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumb- 
 ling upon his hiding-place. I sat up the greater part of 
 several nights successively, and before he suspected that
 
 WILLIAM GIPFORD. 171 
 
 his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it; 
 I could now enter upon my own, and that carried me 
 pretty far into the science. This was not done without 
 difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to 
 give me one ; pen, ink and paper, therefore, (in despite 
 of the flippant remark of Lord Oxford,) were for the most 
 part as completely out of my reach, as a crown and scep- 
 ter. There wus indeed a resource ; but the utmost cau- 
 tion and secrecy were necessary in applying it. I beat 
 out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought 
 my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, 
 my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and di- 
 vide to a great extent." 
 
 What an example of determined, persevering effort is 
 here given, for the benefit of his craft, who, lack what 
 else they may, certainly cannot lack pen, ink and paper. 
 Come, reader, let this be a lesson to teach us, that pov- 
 erty, the want of the privileges of education, books, 
 teachers, &.C., are no apology for our not trying to edu- 
 ucate ourselves. We are always and every where bound 
 to try; to be successful is another thing — yet how cer- 
 tain the one to follow the other ! 
 
 Gifford was now fastapproaching better days. When he 
 scarcely knew the name of poetry, some verses were 
 compf)sed by one of his acquaintances ; this induced him 
 to try his hand at verse-making, and he succeeded in 
 composing about a dozen pieces of rhymes. These he 
 recited to his associates, who were greatly delighted, and 
 spread bi!< fame to such a degree, that GifFt)rd was in- 
 vited to repeat them in other circles. Here he also gain- 
 ed gre It applause, and what was of more importance to 
 him, a little money. Sometimes he received sixpence 
 in an evening. " To me," he remarks, " who had lived
 
 ITS DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 in the absolute want of money, such a resource seemed a 
 Peruvian mine. I furnished myself, by degrees, with pa- 
 per, &c., and what was of more importance, with books 
 of geometry and of the higher branches of algebra, 
 which I cautiously concealed." 
 
 His master soon heard of his verse-making, and was 
 enraged at the idleness and uselessness of such perform- 
 ances ; but especially at the ludicrous references to him- 
 self and his workmen, which his youthful productions 
 contained. He seized his books and papers, and posi- 
 tively forbade his ever again repeating his compositions. 
 To add to his misfortunes, the master whom he was still, 
 hoping to succeed, died, and another filled his place. This 
 was too much for him to bear ; his hopes blasted, his 
 spirits broken — even the resources of his own mind 
 were denied him for the purpose of self-improvement ! 
 He says he sank by degrees into a sort of corporeal tor- 
 por ; or if roused into activity by the spirit of youth, he 
 wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexatious tricks, 
 which alienated the few friends which compassion had left 
 him. 
 
 The term of his service was now drawing toward an, 
 end, and he began to hope again, as he beheld in the 
 distance the dawning of the day of his deliverance. Al- 
 most six long years had he toiled at a trade which he 
 says " he hated with a perfect hatred;" about one re- 
 mained, as he thought, for him to serve; but Providence 
 had ordered otherwise. The friendless was to find a 
 friend — a benefactor indeed I 
 
 He was found in this humble situation, in his twenti- 
 eth year, by Mr. William Cookesley, " a name," says 
 Gidbrd, " never to he pronounced by riiC without venera-, 
 tion." The report that was circulated among the people.
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 173 
 
 of Gifford's poetry, had reached Mr. Cookesley, and 
 excited his curiosity to see him and ascertain the 
 correctness of the reports. The interview awakened a 
 deep interest in behalf of the poor shoemaker, and he 
 resolved to help him out of his miserable condition. 
 Miserable, indeed ! a spirit longing for room and means, 
 in and by which to enlarge itself; eager to burst its 
 confines and dwell in the infinity of knowledge ; crushed 
 and degraded to the capacity of a menial, by unfeeling 
 tyrants, jealous of his genius ! Happy youth ! the day 
 of jubilee has come! Thou has found a benefactor 
 worthy of thee, and hereafter thou shalt be a man ! 
 
 This gentleman did not pity the shoemaker without 
 corresponding effort for his rescue. This was not that 
 passive sympathy, which exists but during a breath, and 
 that breath spent in wishing well. He went to work. 
 Having procured a few of Gifford's verses, he circulated 
 them among his friends and acquaintances, and when 
 they had become. familiar with his name, he started a 
 subscription for him. It ran thus ; " A subscription for 
 purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, 
 and for enabling him to improve himself in writing and 
 English grammar." 
 
 Enough was subscribed to pay his master six pounds 
 for the remainder of his time, and to maintain him at 
 school a few months. His patrons were pleased with his 
 progress, and renewed their subscription, so that he was 
 provided with schooling another year. In two years and 
 two months from the day of his emancipation, his teach- 
 er pronounced him prepared for the University. His 
 kind-hearted and zealous patron established him at col- 
 lege, and pledged himself ft)r the means necessary lo 
 support him until he should be graduated. But the good
 
 1T4 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 man died, before he could safely anticipate the future 
 celebrity of the object of his charities, <Jt believe that the 
 genius which he rescued from obscurity, would perpetu- 
 ate his own name and that of his benefactors to future 
 generations ! 
 
 Gifford found another patron in Lord Grosvenor, more 
 abundantly able to maintain him, but none could be more 
 generous, none more zealous to assist him, than Mr. 
 Cookesley. 
 
 While Gifford was at the University, he began his po- 
 etical translation of the satires of Juvenal, which w<*re 
 published some years afterwards, and gained him a high 
 reputation. After he was graduated, he traveled a few 
 years on the continent with Lord Belgrave. When he 
 returned, he settled in London, and devoted himself en- 
 tirely to literary pursuits. He published a number of 
 works, and in 1797, was editor of the Anti-Jacobin, — a 
 paper opposed to the democratic principles which were 
 zealously advocated in England ai that time. In 18C9, 
 he commenced the publication of the London Quarterly 
 Review. This Review, which was devoted to the inter- 
 est of the tory party, against innovation and reform, he 
 continued to edit fifteen years, when he retired from the 
 chair on account of his infirmities. He received a yearly 
 income of .£300, about thirteen hundred and thirty-three 
 dollars, as paymaster of the Board of Gentlemen Pen- 
 sioners ; and for a time, a salary besides of ^600 yearly, 
 as comptroller of the lotteries. 
 
 He died at Pimlico, in 1826, being almost seventy 
 years of age. He was interred in Westmister Abbey — 
 the resting place of England's great men. 
 
 As he had no family, he left the whole of his fortune 
 to the son of his noble-hearted benefactor, Mr. Cookes-
 
 WILLIAM GIFFOHD. 175 
 
 ley. Thus did the gratitude of his youth, which he then 
 lacked words to express, continue active and warm long 
 after his eyes were dim and his locks silvered ; and at 
 last, when all below was over, expired in his bosom in 
 the grand and beautiful act of giving all he possessed to 
 the representative of his friend ! 
 
 Of Gifford's personal character, we cannot speak very 
 highly. There was a coarseness in his manners, and a 
 bitterness in his spirit, which were no honor or advantage 
 to him. He moved in the highest circles of fashionable 
 life, was associated with the most polished and refined 
 classes; yet true politeness — the courtesy due toman 
 as man, and t]\e real dignity of a gentleman — he seems 
 never to have learned. We can readily find an apology 
 for the exhibition of such traits of character when he 
 was young; for certainly his early education (if worthy 
 the name) was directly calculated to embitter his spirit, 
 and make him heedless and morose. But in later years, 
 after having experienced the kindness and generous aid 
 of his benefactors, and having been surrounded by learn- 
 ed and wealthy friends, enjoying amply the pecuniary 
 and intellectual advantages of such a position ; he has 
 no excuse for not partaking in some degree of the cour- 
 tesy and refinement which his circumstances rendered 
 available. 
 
 He is open to censure on another point. He forgot 
 the millions of his countrymen, whose origin was as 
 humble as his own, and who were liable to sufferings as 
 great or greater than those which he experienced. He 
 labored for the interest of the lordly and wealthy few, to 
 the neglect of the poor degraded millions, of whom he 
 had been one. Indeed, he planted himself against all 
 reform, all progres* and amelioration, and savagely con-
 
 IW DISTINOUISUED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tended for the established order of things, when he 
 knew it bore down the mass of his brethren to the dust ! 
 He defended and supported a blind and profligate 
 administration, while it taxed the people beyond endur- 
 ance and sent the flower of the country to die on foreign 
 shores ! We do not know that he ever ?poke a word 
 for the benefit of mankind, although he had had abund- 
 ant evidence that the world wofully needed his talents 
 to aid in its reformation. 
 
 In his writings in the London Q,uarterly, he showed 
 considerable talent, and great severity. He was ever 
 true to the interests of his employers ; consequently 
 this Review presented tory wares of the rarest quality 
 — not in the least injured by a spirit of moderation or 
 liberality. It contained articles attacking all republics 
 and republicanism as a system — finding it convenient, 
 particularly , to assail our country and misrepresent its 
 institutions. It advocated monarchy as the true system 
 of government, and lauded almost every monarchy and 
 despotism, — finding it especially "profitable to praise 
 and extol the monarchy of England, and to admire her 
 mobility as giving strength and permanence to the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 He was entirely subservient to the English aristocracy, 
 and it has been more than intimated that he knew no oth- 
 er rule of action than self-interest — which fully accounts 
 for this subserviency. The aristocracy were able to pay 
 him for his services, and did pay him. His politics 
 (says a writer) were invariably those of his interest. 
 
 We give, in addition to this sketch, an extract from 
 one of his satires — the Maeviad. It evinces many of 
 the qualities of the good critic — correct taste and judg- 
 ment, an eye quick to detect the weak points, but he
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 177 
 
 says nothing of any good qualities. As a satirist he was 
 great; because severity — the all-essential element of 
 satire — was natural to him, in all its native force and 
 purity. 
 
 THE MJSVIAD. 
 
 Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, M*ti, 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 L\ the INTRODUCTION to the preceding pages, a brief account 
 is given of the rise and progress of that spurious species of 
 poetry which lately infested this metropolis, and gave occasion 
 to the Baviad. 
 
 I was not ignorant of what I exposed myself to by the pub- 
 lication of that work. If abuse could have affected me, I should 
 not probably have made a set of people my enemies, habituated 
 to ill language, and posttessed of such convenient vehicles* for 
 its dissemination. But I never regarded it from such hands, 
 and, indeed, deprecated nothing but their praise. I respect, in 
 common with every man of sense, the censure of the wise 
 and good; but the angry ebullitions of folly unmasked, and 
 vanity mortified, pass by me " like the idle wind," or, if no- 
 ticed, serve merely to grace succeeding editions of the Baviad. 
 
 * Most of these fashionable writers were connected with the 
 public prints. Delia Crusca was a worthy coadjutor of the mad 
 and malignant idiot who conducted the World. Arno and Lo- 
 renzo were either proprietors or editors of another paper. Edwin 
 and Anna Matilda were favored contributors to several ; and 
 Laura Maria, from the sums squandered on puffs, could com- 
 mand a corner in all. This wretched woman, indeed, in the 
 wane of her beauty, fell into merited poverty, exchanged poetry 
 for politics, and wrote abusive trash against the government, at 
 the rate of two guineas a week, for the Morning Post. 
 u
 
 178 DISTINGUISHKD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 I confess, however, that the work was received more favor- 
 ably than I expected. Bell, indeed, and a few others, whose 
 craft was touched, vented their indignation in prose and verse ; 
 but, on the whole, the clamor against me was not loud, and was 
 lost by insensible degrees in the applauses of such I as was 
 truly ambitious to please. 
 
 Thus supported, the good effects of the satire (gloriose lo- 
 quor) were not long in manifesting themselves. Delia Crusca 
 appeared no more in the Oracle, and, if any of his followers 
 ventured to ti-eat the town with a soft sonnet, it was not, as 
 before, introduced by a pompous preface. Pope and Milton 
 resumed their superiority ; and Este and his coadjutors silent- 
 ly acquiesced in the growing opinion of their incompetency 
 and showed some sense of shame. 
 
 With this I was satisfied. I had taken up my pen for no 
 other end, and was quietly retiring, with the idea that I had 
 " done the state some service," and proposing to abandon for 
 ever the csestus, which a respectable critic fancies I wielded 
 " with too much severity," when I was once more called into 
 the lists* by th& reappearance of some of the scattered enemy. 
 
 It was not enough that the stream of folly flowed more spar- 
 ingly in the Oracle than before ; I was detei'mined 
 
 " To have the current in that yl ice damm'd up ;" 
 and accordingly began the present poem — for which, indeed, 
 I had by this time other reasons. I had been told that there 
 were still a few admirers of the Cruscan school, miIio thought 
 
 * 1 hope no one will do me tlie injustice to suppose that I ima- 
 gine myself another Hercules contending with hydras, tfec. 
 Far from it. My enemies cannot well have an humbler opinion 
 of me than I have of myself; and yet, " if I am not ashamed of 
 them, I am a soused gurnet." Mere pecora inertia ! The con- 
 test is without danger, and the victory without glory. At the 
 same time, I declare against any undue advantage being taken of 
 these concessions. Though I knew the impotence of these lit- 
 erary Askaparts, the town did not ; and many a man, who now 
 affects to pity me for wasting my strength upon unresisting im- 
 becility, would, not long since, have heard their poems with ap- 
 plause, and their praises with delight,
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 179 
 
 the contempt expressed for it was not sufficiently justified by 
 the few passages produced in the Baviad. I thought it best, 
 therefore, to exhibit the tribe of Bell once more; and, as they 
 passed in review before me, to make such additional extracts* 
 fi-om their works, as should put their demerits beyond the 
 power of future question. 
 
 I remembered that this great critic, in his excellent remarks 
 on the Baviad, had charged the author with " bespattering 
 nearly all the poetical eminence of the day." Anxious, there- 
 fore, to do impartial justice, I ran for the Album, to discover 
 who had been spared. Here I read, " In this collection are 
 names whom genius will ever look upon as its best supporters ! 
 Sheridan" — what, is * Saul also among the prophets !' — 
 " Sheridan, Merry, Parsons, Cowley, Andrews, Jerniugham, 
 Greathead, Tophain, Robinson," &c. 
 
 Thus furnished with " all the poetical eminence of the 
 day," I proceeded, as Mr. Bell says, to bespatter it ; taking for 
 the vehicle of my design, a satire of Horace — to which I was 
 led by its supplying me (amid many happy allusions] with an 
 opportunity of briefly noticing the wretched state of dramatic 
 poetry among us.t 
 
 * It will now be said that I have done it usque ad nauseam. I 
 confess it ; and, for the reason given above. And yet 1 can hon- 
 estly assure the reader, that most, if not all, of the trash here'quo- 
 ted, passed with the authors for superlative beauties, every sec- 
 ond word being printed either in italics or capitals. 
 
 f I know not if the stage has been so low, since the days of 
 Gammer Gurton, as at this hour. It seems as if all the block- 
 heads in the kingdom had started up, and exclaimed, with one 
 voice, ('ome ! let us write for the theaters. In tliis there is noth- 
 ing, perhaps, altogether new; the striking and peculiar novelty 
 of the times seems to be, that all' they write is received. Of 
 the three parties concerned in this business, the writers and the 
 rhanagers seem the least culpable. If the town will feed on 
 husks, extraordinary pains need not be taken to find them any 
 
 1 I ntcollect but two exceptions. Merry's Idiotical opera, and Mrs. Uobinson's 
 radre idiotical farce. To have failed, where Miss Andrews succeeded, argues a 
 degree of stupidity scarcely credible. Surely " ignorance itaelf u a planet" over 
 tbe heroea and heroine* of the Baviad.
 
 180 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 t ■'^^* 
 
 When the M^viad, so I call the present poem, was nearly- 
 brought to a conclusion, I laid it aside. The times seemed 
 unfavorable to such productions. Events of real importance 
 
 thing more palatable. But what shall we say of the people ? The 
 lower orders are so brutefied by the lamentable follies of O'Keefe, 
 and Cobbe, and Pilon, and I know not who — Sardi venales, 
 each worse than the other — that they have lost all relish for sim- 
 plicity and genuine humor ; nay, ignorance itself, unless it be 
 gross and glaring, cannot hope for "their most sweet voices." 
 And the higher ranks are so mawkishly mild, that they take with 
 a placid simper whatever comes before them ; or, if they now 
 and then experience a sliirht fit of disgust, have not resolution 
 enough to express it, but sit yawning and gaping in each other's 
 faces for a little encouragement in their culpable forbearance. 
 
 When this was written, I thought the town had "sounded," 
 as Shakspeare says, "the very bass string of humility;" but it 
 has since appeared, that the lowest point of degradation had not 
 then been reached. The force of English folly, indeed, could go 
 no farther, and so far I was right ; but the auxiliary supplies of 
 Germany were at hand, and the taste vitiated by the lively non- 
 sense of O'Keefe and Co., was destined to be utterly destroyed 
 by successive importations of the heavy, lumbering, monotonous 
 stupidity of Kotzebue and Schiller. 
 
 The object of these writers has been detailed with such force 
 and precision in the introduction to " The Rovers," that noth- 
 ing remains to be said on that head — indeed the simple perusal 
 of " The Rovers" would supersede the necessity of any critique 
 on the merits of the German drama in general ; since there is not 
 a folly, however gross, an absurdity however monstrous, to be 
 found in that charming jeu d'esprit, that I would not undertake to 
 parallel from one or other of the most admired works of the 
 German Shakspeares.' Why it has not been produced on the 
 stage is to me a matter of astonishment, since it unites the beau- 
 ties of " The Stranger" and " Pizarro ;" and, though perfectly 
 German in its sentiments, is English in its language — intelligi- 
 ble English ; which is infinitely more than can be said of the 
 translation from Kotzebue, so maliciously attributed to Mr. Sher- 
 idan. 
 
 In a word, if you take from the German dramas their horrid 
 blasphemies, their wanton invocations of the sacred Name, and 
 their minute and ridiculous stage directions, which seem cahu- 
 lated to turn the whole into a pantomime, nothing will remain but 
 a caput mortunm, a vapid and gloomy mass of matter, unenlight- 
 ened by a single ray of genius or nature. If you leave them 
 their blasphemies, &c., you have then a nameless something, in- 
 
 1 So Kotzebue and Schiller are styled by the critical reviewere.
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 181 
 
 were momentarily claiming the attention of the public, and the 
 still voice of the muses was not likely to be listened to amid 
 the din of arras. After an interval of two years, however, cir- 
 cumjitances, which it is not material to mention, have induced 
 me to fiuish, and trust it, without more preface, to the candor 
 to which I am aheady so highly indebted for the kind recep- 
 tion of the Baviad 
 
 Yes, I DID say that Crusca's* " true sublime" 
 Lack'd taste, and sense, and every thing but rhyme ; 
 That Amo's "easy strains" were coarse and rough, 
 And Edwin's " matchless numbers" woful stuff. 
 And who — forgive, O gentle Bell, the word, 
 For it must out — who, prithee, so absurd. 
 So mulishly absurd, as not to join 
 In this with me, save always thee and thine ? 
 
 eipid thoiijr immoral, tedious though impious, and stupid though 
 extravagant ! — so much so, that, as a judicious writer well ob- 
 serves, "itbecones a doubt which are the greatest objects of 
 contempt ar.d scorn, those who conceived and wrote them, or 
 tho33 who I'ave the effrontery to praise them." Yet "these be 
 thy gods, O Israel !' and to those are sacrificed our taste, our 
 sense, and our national honor. 
 
 •Crusca's "true sublime." The words between inverted 
 commas in this and the following verses, are Mr. Bell's. They 
 contain, as the reader sees, a short character of the works to 
 which they are respectively affixed. Though I have the misfor- 
 tune to differ from this gentleman in the present instnnces, yet I 
 observe such acuteness of perception in his general criticism, 
 that] should have styled him the "profound" instead of the 
 " gentle" Bell, if I had not previously applied the epithet to a 
 still greater man, (absit invidia dicta,) to — Mr. T. Vaujrhan. 
 
 I trust that this incidental preference will create no jealousy 
 — for though, as Virgil properly remarks, " an oaken stiff each 
 merits," yet I need not inform a gentleman, who, like Mr. Bell, 
 reads Shakspeare every day after dinner, that " if two men ride 
 upon a horse, one of them must ride behind."
 
 182 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Yet still, the soul of candor ! I allow'd 
 . Their gingling elegies amused the crowd ; 
 
 That lords hung blubbering o'er each woful line, 
 
 That lady-critics wept, and cried " divine !" 
 
 That love-lorn priests reclined the pensive head, 
 
 And sentimental ensigns, as they read, 
 
 Wiped the sad drops of pity fi-om their eye, 
 
 And burst between a hiccup and a sigh. 
 
 Yet, not content, like horse-leeches they come, 
 
 And split my head with one eternal hum 
 
 For " more ! more ! more ! " Away ! for should I grant 
 
 The full, the unreserved applause ye want, 
 
 St. John* might then my partial voice accuse. 
 
 And claim my suffrage for his tragic muse ; 
 
 And Greatheadjf rising from his short disgrace, 
 
 Fling the forgotten " Regent" in my face, 
 
 Bid me my censure, as I may, deplore. 
 
 And like my brother critics, cry " Encore !" 
 
 * St. John, &c. Having already observed in the Introduction, 
 that the Maeviad was nearly finished two years since, and conse- 
 quently before the death of this gentleman, I have only to add 
 here, that though I should not have introduced any of the heroes 
 of the Baviad, quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina, yet 
 1 scarcely think it necessary to make any changes for the sake 
 of omitting such as have passed ad plures, in the interval be- 
 tween writing and publishing. 
 
 t Greathead's Regent. — Of this tragedy which was " recom- 
 mended to the world" by the monthly reviewers and others, as 
 "the work of a scholar," I want words to express my just con- 
 tempt. The plot of it is childish, the conduct absurd, the lan- 
 guage unintelligible, the thoughts false and unnatural, the meta- 
 phors incongruous, the general style groveling and base ; and, 
 to sum up all in a word, the whole piece the most execrable abor- 
 tion of stupidity that ever disgraced the stage. 
 
 It is to be wished that critics by profession, sensible of the in- 
 fluence which their opinions necessarily have on the public taste, 
 would divest themselves of their partialities when they sit down 
 to the execution of, what I hope they consider as, a solemn duty. 
 We should not then find them, as in the present instance, prosti- 
 tuting their applause on works that call for universal reprobation. 
 
 It is but fair, however, to observe, that Mr, Parsons has added
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 183 
 
 Alas ! my learned friends, for such ye are, 
 As Bell will say, or if ye ask it, swear ; 
 
 his all-sufficient suffrage to that of the reviewers, in favor of Mr. 
 Greathead. 
 
 " O bard ! to whom belongs 
 Each purest fount of poesy ! 
 Who old Ilyssus' hallow'd dews 
 In his own Avon dare infuse. 
 O favor' d clime ! O happy age ! 
 That boasts, to save a sinking stage ; 
 A Greathead ! ! !" — Gent. Mag. 
 
 When I first read these, and other high sounding praises, scatter- 
 ed over reviews, magazines, newspapers, and I know not what, 
 I was naturally led to conclude that Mr. G. had succeeded bet- 
 ter in his smaller pieces than in his tragedy, and thus justified in 
 some degree the cry of his " learning," &c' &c. But no — all 
 was a blank ! 
 
 Here are a few samples of the " Ilyssian dews infused by Mr. 
 Greathead into his own Avon" — muddied, I suppose, and de- 
 based by the home-bred streamlet of one Shakspeare." 
 
 "In fuller presence we descry, 
 'Mid mountain rocks — a deity 
 Than eye of man shall e'er behold 
 In living grace of sculptured gold."' 
 
 More matter for a May morning ! 
 
 " ODE ON APATHY. 
 
 " Accursed be dull lethargic Apathy. 
 Whether at eve she listless ride 
 In sluggish car by tortoise drawn — 
 With mimic air of senseless pride. 
 She feebly throws on all her withering sight, 
 While too observant of her sway, 
 Unmark'd her droning subjects lie. 
 Alike to her who murmur or obey." 
 I hope the reader understands it. 
 
 " ODE TO DUEL. 
 
 " Never didst thou appear 
 
 While Tiber's sons gave law to all the world ; 
 Yet much they loved to desolate and slaughter. 
 Carthage ! attest my words. 
 
 1 " These lines ( Mr. Parsons rays) are not Greathead's." Bui they are publish- 
 ed with his name in the Albunn ; which, exclusive of their stupidity, is sufficient 
 authority for me. If our doughty critic chooses to taice them to him.Heir, lean 
 have no objection : for, after ail, pugna est de paupere regno !
 
 184 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 'Tis not enough, though this be somewhat too, 
 And more, perhaps,* than Jerningliam can do, — 
 
 To glut their sanguinary rage. 
 
 Not citizens but gladiators fall. 
 
 Slavery and vassalage, 
 
 And savage broils 'twixt nobles are no more. 
 
 Vanish thou likewise" 
 
 And these are odes, good heavens ! " After the manner of 
 Pindar," I take for granted. 
 
 Enough of Mr. Greathead. 1 have only to add, that I am ac- 
 tuated by no personal dislike ; for I can say with truth, ( what 
 indeed, I can of all the heroes of the Mseviad,) that I have not 
 the slightest knowledge of him. But the daws have strutted too 
 long : it is more than time to strip them of their adventitious 
 plumage ; and if, in doing it, I should pluck off any feathers 
 which originally belonged to them, they have only to thank their 
 own vanity, or the forwardness of their injudicious friends. 
 
 * And more, perhaps, than Jerningham can do. No ; Mr. Jer- 
 ningham has lately written a tragedy and a farce ; both extreme- 
 ly well spoken of by the reviewers, and both — gone to the 
 " pastry cooks." 
 
 I once thought that I understood something of faces, but I 
 must read my Lavater again, 1 find. That a gentleman with the 
 " physiognomie d'un mouton qui reve" should suddenly start 
 forth a new Tyrtffius, and pour a dreadful note through a cracked 
 war-trump, amazes me. — Well, Frosti kulla Fints shall 
 henceforth be my motto. 
 
 In the pride of his heart Mr. Jerningiiam has taken the instru- 
 ment from his mouth, and given me a smart stroke on the head 
 with it : this is fair, 
 
 " Csedimus, inque vicem prsebemus crura sagittis." 
 
 He has also leveled a deadly blow at a gentleman who, most 
 assuredly, never dreamed of having our Dravvcansir for an an- 
 tagonist : this, though not quite so fair, is not altogether unpre- 
 cedented ; 
 
 " An eagle, towering in his pride of place, 
 Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at !" 
 
 There is a trait of scholarship in Mr. Jerningham's last poem, 
 which should not be overlooked ; more especially as it is the only 
 one. Having occasion to mention " Agave and her infant,'"'^ 
 he subjoins the following explanation: " Alluding to Agave, who 
 in a delirium slew her child. See Ovid." No, I'll take Mr. 
 Jerningham's word for it, though I had twenty Ovids before me. 
 
 I See his " Peace, Ignominy and Destruction," p. 16.
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 185 
 
 'Tis not enough to dole out Ahs ! and Ohs ! 
 Through Kemble's thorax, or through Bensley's nose, 
 To crowd our stage with scaffolds, or to fright 
 Our wives with rapes, repeated thrice a night ; 
 
 Judges Not such as, self-created, sit 
 
 On that TREMENDOUS BENCH* which skirts the pit 
 Where idle Thespis nods, while Arnof dreams 
 Of Nereids " pui'ling in ambrosial streams ;" 
 Where Este in rapture cons fantastic airs, 
 " Old Pistol new revived" in Topham stares, 
 And Boswell, aping, with preposterous pride, 
 Johnson's worst frailties, rolls from side to side, 
 His heavy head from hour to hour erects. 
 Affects the fool, and is what he affects4 — 
 Judges of truth and sense, yet moi-e demand 
 That art to nature lend a helping hand ! 
 That fables well devised be simply told, 
 Correct if new, and probable if old. 
 
 When Mason leads Elfrida forth to view, 
 Adorn'd with virtues which she never knew, 
 
 * When this was written, which was while the Opera House 
 was used for plays, the " learned justices" here enumerated, to- 
 gether with the others not yet taken, were accustomed to flock 
 nightly to this bench, from which the unlettered vulgar were 
 always scornfully repelled with an ovdeig afiovcog. 
 
 I have not heard whether the New Theater be possessed of 
 such a one ; I think not ; for critics are no more gregarious than 
 spiders. Like them, they might do great things in concert ; but, 
 like them too, they usually end with devouring one another. 
 
 t Arno. — Tlie dreams of this gentleman, which continue to 
 make their appearance in the Oracle under the name of Thespis, 
 are not always of Nereids. He dreamed one night, that Mr. 
 Pope played Posthumus with less spirit than usual, and it was 
 Mr. Johnston .ringing Grammachree ! Another night, that the 
 Mourning Bride might have been better cast, and lo ! it was the 
 Comt'dy of Errors that was played. 
 
 This was rather unfortunate ; but the reader must have alrea- 
 dy reflected, from the strange occupations of these " self-created 
 judges," (here faithfully described, )that sleeping or waking, they 
 were attentive to every thing but what passed before their eye». 
 t Pauper videri cotta vult, et est pauper !
 
 186 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 I feel for every tear ; while, borne along 
 
 By the full tide of unresisting song. 
 
 I stop not to inquire if all be just, 
 
 But take her goodness, as her griefj on trust, 
 
 Till calm reflection checks me, and 1 see 
 
 The heroine as she was, and ought to be ; 
 
 A bold, bad woman, wading to the throne 
 
 Through seas of blood, and crimes till then unknown; 
 
 Then, then I hate the magic that deceived. 
 
 And blush to think how fondly I believed.* 
 
 Not so, when Edgar, f made, in some strange plot, 
 
 The hero of a day that knew him not, 
 
 Struts from the field his enemy had won. 
 
 On stately stilts, exulting and undone ! 
 
 Here I can only pity, only smile ; 
 
 Where not one grace, one elegance of style, 
 
 Redeems th' audacious folly of the rest. 
 
 Truth sacrificed, and history made a jest. 
 
 * Mr. Parsons' note on this passage is — " Did you believe ? 
 could you possibly be so ignorant ?" — Even so. But 1 humbly 
 conceive that Mr. Mason, who seduced my unsuspecting youth, 
 is equally culpable with myself. There is also one William 
 Shakspeare, who, 1 am ready to take my oath, is a notorious of- 
 fender in this way ; having led not only me, but divers others, 
 into the most gross and ridiculous errors : making us laugh, cry, 
 &c., for persons whom we ought to have known to be mere non- 
 entities. 
 
 But Mr Parsons has happily obtained an obdurate and impas- 
 sable head : let him, therefore, "give God thanks, and make no 
 boast of it." He is a wise and a wary reader, and follows the most 
 judicious Bottom, who having, like himself, too much sagacity to 
 be imposed upon by a feigned character, was laudably an.xious to 
 undeceive the world, " No," quoth he, " let him thrust his face 
 through the lion's neck, and say, if you think 1 come hither as a 
 lion, it were pity of my life — no, I am no such thing : I am a 
 man, as other men are : — and then, indeed, let him name his 
 name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner." 
 
 t Edgar Atheling. — See the " Battle of Hastings," a tragedy 
 by Mr. Cumberland,
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 187 
 
 Let this, ye Cruscans,* if your heads be made 
 " Of penetrable stuff," let this persuade 
 Your husky tribes their wanderings to restrain, 
 Nor hope what taste and Mason fail'd to gain. 
 
 Then let your style be brief, your meaning clear, 
 Nor, like Lorenzo,t tire the laboring ear 
 With a wild waste of words ; sound without sense, 
 And all the florid glare of impotence. 
 Still with your characters your language change, 
 From grave to gay, as nature dictates, range ; 
 Now droop in all the plaintiveness of wo. 
 Now in glad numbers light and airy flow ; 
 Now shake the stage with guilt's alarming tone, 
 And make the aching bosom all your own : 
 
 Now But I sing in vain ; from first to last 
 
 Your joy is fustian, and your grief bombast : 
 Rhetoric has banish'd reason ; kings and queens 
 Vent in hyperboles their royal spleens ; 
 Guardsmen in metaphors express their hopes, 
 And " maidens in white linen," howl in tropes. 
 
 Reverent I greet the bards of other days : 
 Blest be your names, and lasting be your praise ! 
 From nature's varied face ye widely drew. 
 And following ages own'd the copies true. 
 Oh ! had our sots, who rhyme with headlong haste, 
 And think reflection still a foe to taste, 
 
 * Ye Cruscans ! 
 
 O voi, che della Crusca vi chiamate, 
 
 Come quel che farina non avendo 
 
 Di quelLa a tutto pasto vi saziate ! 
 t Lorenzo. " A lamentable tragedy by Della Crusca, mix- 
 ed full of pleasant mirth." The house laughed a-good at it, but 
 Mr. Harris cried sadly. Here is another instance, if it were 
 wanted, of the l)ad effects of prostitute applause. Could Mr. 
 Harris, if his mind had not been previously warped by the eter- 
 nal puffs of Bell and his followers, have supposed, for a moment, 
 that a knack of stringing together " hoar hills," and " rippling 
 rills," and " red skies glare," and " thin, thin air," qualified a 
 man for writing tragedy .'
 
 188 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 But brains your pregnant scenes to understand, 
 And give us truth, though but at second hand, 
 'Twere sometliing yet ! But no, they never look — 
 Shall souls of fire, they crj', a tutor brook ? 
 Forbid it, inspiration ! Thus your pain 
 Is void, and ye have lived, for them, in vain ; 
 In vain for Crusca and his skipping school, 
 Cobbe, Reynolds, Andrews, and that nobler fool ; 
 Who naught but Laura's* tinkling trash admire. 
 And the mad jangle of Matilda's* lyre. 
 
 * Laura's tinkling trash, «&c. — I had amassed a world of this 
 " tinkling trash" for the behoof of the reader, but having fortu- 
 nately for him, mislaid it, and not being disposed to undertake 
 again the drudgery of wading through Mr. Bell's collections, I 
 can only offer the little which occurs to my memory. Of this lit- 
 tle, the merits must be principally shared among Mrs. Robin- 
 son, Mrs. Cowley, and Mr. Merry ; 
 
 *' Et vos, O Lauri, carpam, et te, proxima Myrte, 
 
 Sic positae quoniam suaves miscetis odores." 
 " — Oh let me fly 
 
 Where Greenland darkness drinks the beamy sky ;" 
 " But Oh ! beware how thou dost fling 
 
 Thy hot pulse oer the quivering string !" 
 " Pluck from iheir dark and rocky bed 
 The yelling demons of the deep. 
 Who, soaring o'er the comet's head, 
 The bosom of the welkin sweep." 
 
 " And when the jolly full moon laughs. 
 
 In her clear zenith to behold 
 
 The envious stars withdraw their gleams of gold, 
 
 'Tis to thy health she stooping quaffs 
 
 The sapphire cup that fairy zephyrs bring !" 
 On considering these and the preceding lines, I was tempted to 
 indulge a wish" that the Blue Stocking club would issue an im- 
 mediate order to Mr. Bell to examine the cells of Bedlam. Cer- 
 tainly, if an accurate transcript were made from the " darkened 
 walls" once or twice a quarter, an Album might be presented to 
 the fashionable world, more poetical, and far more rational, than 
 any which they have lately honored with their applause. 
 
 " Why does thy stream of siceetest song 
 Foam on the mountain's murmuring side. 
 Or through the vocal covert glide ? 
 
 " I heard a tuneful phantom in the wipd,^
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 189 
 
 But Crusca still has merit, and may claim 
 No humble station in the ranks of fame ; 
 He taught us first the language to refine, 
 To crowd with beauties every sparkling line, 
 Old phrases with new meanings to dispense, 
 Amuse the fancy, — and confound the sense! 
 Oh, void of reason ! is it thus you praise 
 A linsey-woolsey song, framed with such ease, 
 Such vacancy of thought, that every line 
 Might tempt e'en Vaughan to whisper, " This is mine ! " 
 
 I saw it watch the rising moon afar, 
 
 Wet with the weeping of the twilight star 
 
 •' The pilgrim who with tearful eye shall view 
 The moon's wan luster in the midnight dew, 
 Soothed by her light " 
 
 This is an admirable reason for his crying ! — but what ! Un 
 sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui I'admire. Mr. Bell is in rap- 
 tures with it, and very properly recommends it to the admiration 
 of Delia Crusca, as being the production of " a congenial soul." 
 There is also another judicious critic, one Dr. Tasker, (should it 
 not be Dr. Trusler ?) who has given a decided opinion, it seems, 
 in favor of the writer's abilities ; wh'ch may console her for the 
 sneers of fifty such envious scribblers as the author of the Baviad. 
 And first you shall hear what Mrs. Robinson says of Dr. Task- 
 er. " The learned and ingenious Dr. Tasker, in the third 
 
 volume of his e/e^an^ and crtfira^ works, has pronounced some 
 of Mrs. Robinson's poems superior to those of Milton on the 
 same subject, particularly her Address to the Nightingale. The 
 praises of so competent and disinterested a judge, stamps celeb- 
 rity that neither lime nor envy can obliterate." — Oracle, Deo. 10. 
 
 Next you shall hear what Dr. Tasker says of Mrs. Robinson. 
 •' In ancient Greece by two fair forms were seen 
 Wisdom's stern goddess, and Love's smiling queen ; 
 Pallas presided over arms and arts. 
 And Venus over gentle virgins' hearts ; 
 But now both jiowers in one fair form combine, 
 And in famed Robinson united shine." 
 " This lady, equally celebrated in the polite and literary cir- 
 cles, has honored Mr." Lo ! the Dr. has dwindled into plain 
 
 Mr. " has honored Mr. Tasker's poetical and other produc- 
 tions with high and distinguished marks of her approbation." — 
 Gazetteer, Jan. 16.
 
 190 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Vaughan ! well remember'd. He, good man, complains 
 That I affix'd his name to Edwin's* strains : 
 
 Why this is the very song of Prodicus, 7/ \eip ttjv x«pa KviCei — 
 for the rest, I trust my readers will readily subscribe to the 
 praises which these most "competent and disinterested judges '" 
 have reciprocally lavished upon each other. 
 But allons ! 
 
 " My hand, at night's fell noon, 
 
 Plucks from the tresses of the moon 
 A sparkling crown of silvery hue. 
 Besprent with studs of frozen dew ! " 
 " On the dizzy height inclined, 
 I listen to the passing wind, 
 That loves my mournftil song to seize. 
 And bears it to the mountain breeze." 
 Here we find that listening to the wind, and singing to it, are one 
 and the same thing; and that — but I can make nothing of the 
 rest. 
 
 *' When in black obtrusive clouds 
 The chilly moon her pale cheek shrouds, 
 I mark the twinkling starry train 
 Exulting glitter in her wane. 
 And proudly gleam their borrow'd light 
 To gem the somber dome of night.'' 
 What an admirable observer of nature is this great poetess ! The 
 stars txoinkling in a cloudy night, and gleaming their borrowed 
 luster, is superlatively good. I had almost forgot to observe 
 tliat these and the preceding lines are taken from the Ode to the 
 Nightingale, so superior, in the reverend judgment of Dr. Task- 
 er, to one of a Mr. John Milton on the same subject. 
 
 " The lightning's rays 
 
 Leap through the night's scarce pervious gloom, 
 
 Attracted by " (what! for a ducat 7) 
 
 " Attracted by the rose's bloom ! " 
 
 " Let but thy lyre impatient seize. 
 Departing twilight's filmy breeze. 
 That winds th' enchanting chords among 
 
 In lingering labyrinths of song. " 
 
 " See in the clouds its mast the proud bark laves, 
 Scorning the aid of ocean's humble waves ! " 
 From this it appears, that Mrs. Cowley imagines proud barks to 
 float on their masts. It is proper to mention that the vessel takes 
 such extraordinary state on herself, because she carries Delia 
 Crusca ! 
 
 ♦' From a young grove's shade. 
 
 Whose infant boughs but mock th' expecting glade ! 
 • See note *, p. 19L
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 191 
 
 'Tis just — for what three kindred souls have done, 
 
 Is most unfairly charged, I ween, on one. 
 
 Pardon, my learned friend ! With watery eyes. 
 
 Thy growing fame to truth I sacrifice ; 
 
 To many a sonnet call thy claims in doubt, 
 
 And, " at one entrance, shut thy gloiy out" 
 
 Yet mewl thou still. Shall my lord's dormouse die 
 
 And low in dust without a requiem lie ? 
 
 No, mewl thou still : and, while thy d — s join 
 
 Their melancholy symphonies to thine. 
 
 My righteous verse shall labor to restore 
 
 The well earned fame it robb'd them of before : 
 
 Sweet sounds stole forth, upborne upon the gale, 
 Press'd through the air, and broke upon the vale ; 
 Then silent walk'd the breezes of the plain, 
 Or soar'd aloft, and seized the hovering strain. " — 
 
 Delia Crusca. 
 The force of folly can no farther go ! 
 
 * Edwin's strains. — If the reader will turn to the conclusion 
 of the Baviad, he will find a delicious EmTa(pLov on a tame 
 mouse, by this gentleman. As it seemed to give universal satis- 
 faction, 1 embrace the opportunity of laying before the public 
 another effusion of the same exquisite pen. 
 
 It will be found, I flatter myself, not less beautiful than the 
 former ; and fully prove that the author, though ostensibly de- 
 voted to elegy, can, on a proper occasion, assume an air of gaye- 
 ty, and be " profound " with ease, and instructive with elegance. 
 
 'ESoviv Tipo?.o-yi^Et. 
 '' On the circumstance of a mastiff's running furiously (sad dog .' ) 
 toward two young ladies, and, upon coming up to them, becom- 
 ing instantly gentle (good dog.') and ti'actable." 
 Tantum ad narrandum argumentum est benignitas ! 
 " When Orpheus took his lyre to hell. 
 To fetch his rib away. 
 On that same thing he pleased so well, 
 That devils learned to play. 
 
 " Besides, in books it may be read. 
 That whilst he swept the lute. 
 Grim Cerberus hung liis savage head, 
 And lay astoundly mute. 
 " But here we can with justice say. 
 That nature rivals art ; 
 He santf a mastiff's rage away, 
 
 You look'd one through the heart." — Fecit Edwin.
 
 192 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Edwin, whatever elegies of wo 
 Drop from the gentle mouths of Vaughan and Co., 
 To this or that, henceforth no more confined, 
 Shall, like a surname, take in all the kind. 
 
 Right ! ety the brethren. When the heaven-born muse 
 Shames her descent, and, for low, earthly views, 
 Hums o'er a beetle's bier the doleful stave, 
 Or sits chief mourner at a May-bug's grave. 
 Satire should scourge her from the vile employ. 
 And bring her back to friendship, love, and joy. 
 But spare Cesario,* Carlos,t Adelaide,t 
 The truest poetess ! the truest maid ! 
 
 * Cesario. In the Baviad are a few stanzas of a most delecta- 
 ble ode to an owl. They were ascribed to Arno ; nor was I con- 
 scious of any mistake, till I received a polite note from that gen- 
 tleman, assuring me that he was not only not the author of them, 
 but (horresco referens) that he thought them " execrable." Mr. 
 Bell, on the other hand, affirms them to be " admirable." 
 
 " Who shall decide when doctors disagree .' " 
 Be this as it may, I am happy to say that I have discovered the 
 true author. They were written by Cesario ; and asl rather in- 
 cline to Mr Bell, pace Arno dixerim, I shall make no scruple of 
 laying the remainder of this " mellifluous piece " before the rea- 
 der. 
 
 " Slighted love the soul subduing, 
 Silent sorrow chills the heart. 
 Treacherous fancy s\.\\\ pursuing. 
 Still repels the poison' d dart. 
 »' Soothing those fond dreams of pleasure, 
 Pictured in the glowing breast, 
 Lavish of her sweetest treasure. 
 
 Anxious /ear is charm' d to rest. 
 
 " Fearless o'er the whiten'd billows. 
 Proudly rise, sweet bird of night, 
 Safely through the bending willows. 
 
 Gently wing thy aery flight." — Cesario. 
 
 Though I flatter myself that I have good sense and taste enough 
 to see and admire the peculiar beauties of this ode, yet a regard 
 for truth obliges me to declare that they are not original. They are 
 taken (with improvements, I confess) from a most beautiful "Song 
 by a person of quality," in Pope's Miscellanies. This, though 
 t See note t, p. 193. t See note i, ib.
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 19*3 
 
 Lorenzo,§ Reiiben,1I spare : far be the thought 
 Of interest, far from them. Unbribed, unbought, 
 
 it detracts a little from Cesario's inventive powers, still leaves 
 him the praise (no mean one) of having gone beyond that great 
 poet, in what he probably considered as the ne plus ultra of in 
 genuity. 
 
 Venimus ad summura fortunjB ! Mr. Greathead equals Shak- 
 speare, Mrs. Robinson surpasses Milton, and Cesario outdoes 
 Pope in that very performance which he vainly imagined so com- 
 plete as to take away all desire of imitating, all possibility of ex- 
 celling it ! 
 
 " O favor'd clime ! O happy age ! " 
 t Carlos. — I have nothing of this gentleman (a most pertina- 
 cious scribbler in the Oracle) but the following " sonnet;" lucki- 
 ly, however, it is so ineffably stupid, that it will more than satisfy 
 any readers but Mr. Bell's. 
 
 " ON A lady's portrait. 
 
 " Oft hath the poet hail'd the breath of morn. 
 
 That wakens nature with the voice of spring, 
 And oft, when purple summer feeds the lawn. 
 
 Hath fancy touch'd him with her procreant wing ; 
 Full frequent has he bless'd the golden beam 
 
 Which yellow autumn glowing spreiads around, 
 And though pale winter press'd a paly gleam. 
 
 Fresh in his breast was young description found." 
 
 1 can copy no more — Job himself would lose all patience here. 
 Instead, therefore, of the remainder of this incomprehensible 
 trash, I will give the reader a string of judicious observations 
 by Mr. T. Vaughan : " Bruyere says, he will allow that good wri- 
 ters are scarce enough, but adds, and justly, that good critics are 
 equally so ; which reminds our correspondent also of what the 
 Abbe Trublet writes, speaking of professed critics, where he 
 says, if they were obliged to examine authors impartially — there 
 would be fewer writers in this way. Was this to be the liberal 
 practice adopted by our modern critics, we should not see a 
 Baviad — falling upon men and things that are much above his 
 capacity, and seemingly for no other reason than because they 
 are bo." 
 
 A Daniel came to judgment, yea, a Daniel ! This is in truth 
 the reason ; and when Mr. Vaughan and his coadjutors conde- 
 scend to humble themselves to my understanding, I will en- 
 deavor to profit by their elegant strictures. 
 
 X Adelaide. — And who is Adelaide .' O seri studiorum ! " Not 
 to know her, argues yourselves unknown." Hear Mr. Bell, the 
 Longinus of newspaper writers. 
 
 § See note § on page 195. IT See note TT ib.
 
 194 DISTINOUISHBD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 They pour* " from their big breast's prolific zone 
 A proud, poetic fervor, only known 
 
 " ADELAIDE. 
 
 " He who is here addressed by the first lyric writer in the king- 
 dom, must himself endeavor to repay a debt so highly honorable, 
 if it can he done by verse ! This lady shall have the praise which 
 ought to be given by the country, that of first discovering and 
 drawing out the fine poiccrs of Arno and Delia Crusca." 
 
 •' O thou, whom late I watch'd, while o'er thee hung 
 The orb whose glories 1 so oft have sung, 
 Beheld thee while a shower of beam 
 Made Qight a lovelier morning seem," &c. 
 We might here dismiss this "first lyric writer of the age," 
 who, from her flippant nonsense, appears to be Mrs. Ptozzi, were 
 it not for the sake of remarking, that, whatever be the merit of 
 " drawing out tlie fine powers of Arno," (which it seems, this un- 
 grateful country has not yet rewarded with a statue,) she must 
 be content to share it with Julia. Hear her invocation — but first 
 hear Mr. Bell. " A most elegant compliment, which for gener- 
 ous esteem has been seldom equaled, any more than the muse 
 which inspired it." 
 
 " JULIA TO ARNO. 
 
 s " Arno ! 'where steals thy dulcet lay. 
 
 Soft as the evening's minstrel note. 
 Say, does it deck the rising day. 
 Or on the noontide breezes float .' " 
 Mrs. Robinson (for we may as well drop the name of Julia) has 
 been guilty of a trifling larceny here ; having taken from the Ba- 
 viad, without any acknowledgment, a delicious couplet, which I 
 flattered myself would never have been seen out of that poem ; 
 but so it is, that, like Pope, 
 
 " Write whate'er I will. 
 
 Some rising genius sins up to it still." 
 This has nettled me a little, and possibly injured the great poet- 
 ess in my opinion ; for I have been robbed so often of late, that 
 I begin to think with the old economist, 
 
 OvToc aoiduv "kuarog og. e^ enev oiaeTac ovSev. 
 For the rest, this " elegant invocation " called forth a speci- 
 men of Arno's fine powers in the following dulcet lays. 
 
 " ARNO TO JULIA. 
 
 " Sure some dire star inimical to man. 
 
 Guides to his heart the desolating fire, 
 Fills with contention only his brief span. 
 And rouses him to murderous desire. 
 
 * See note * page 196.
 
 WILLIAM GIFPORD. 195 
 
 To souls like theirs ;" as Anna's youth inspires, 
 As Laura's graces kindle fierce desires, 
 
 " There are who sagely scan the tortured world, 
 And tell us war is but necessity, 
 That millions by the Great Dispenser hurl'd, 
 Must suffer by the scourge, and cease to be." 
 
 Euge, Poeta ! 
 § Lorenzo. , 
 
 Kac TTwf eyu 21?e^eXw (payotn' av fyrjfia n, 
 Etf o^oc efi[3a7\TO(i£vov, tj Ievkov^ oXaf — 
 Says a hungry wight in an old comedy. But I know of no 
 seasoning whatever, capable of making the insipid garbage of 
 this modern Sthenelus palatable ; I shall therefore spare myself 
 the disgust of producing it. 
 
 TI Reuben, whom I take to be Mr. Greathead in disguise, (it 
 being this gentleman's fate, like Hercules of old, to assumo the 
 merit of all unappropriated prodigies,) introduced himself to the 
 World by the following. 
 
 "addressed to anna matilda. 
 " To thee a stranger dares address his theme, 
 To thee, proud mistress of Apollo's lyre. 
 One ray emitted from thy golden gleam. 
 
 Prompted by love, would set the world on fire ! 
 " Adorn then love in fancy -tinctured vest. 
 Chameleon like, anon of various hue, 
 By Penserosoand Allegro dress'd. 
 
 Such genius claim'd when she Idalia drew." 
 Anna Matilda, what could she less ! found 
 " This resuscitating praise 
 
 Breathe life upon her dying lays," 
 like " the daisy which spreads her bloom to the moist evening!" 
 and accordingly produced a matchless "adornment of love," to 
 the great contentment of the gentle Reuben, 
 "But, bard polite, how hard the task 
 Which with such elegance you ask ! " 
 
 Would you have imagined that these lines, the simple tribute 
 of gratitude to genius, should nearly occasion "a perdition of 
 souls .'" Yet so it was. They unfortunately raised the jeal- 
 ousy of Delia Crusca "on the sportive banks of the Rhone." 
 
 One luckless evening 
 
 " When twilight on the western edge 
 Had twitied his hoary hair with sabling sedge," 
 as he was "weeping" (for, like Master Stephen, these good 
 creatures think it necessary to be always melancholy) at the 
 tomb of Laura, he started, as well he might, at the accursed 
 name of Reuben.
 
 196 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 As Henriet For hteaven's sake, not so fast. 
 
 I too, my masters, ere my teeth were cast, 
 
 Had learn'd, by rote, to rave of Delia's charms, 
 
 To die of transports found in Chloe's arms. 
 
 Coy Daphne with obstreperous phiiuts to Woo, 
 
 And curse the crueUy of — God knows who. 
 
 When Phoebus, (not the power that bade thee write, 
 
 For he, dear Dapper ! was a lying sprite,) 
 
 One morn, when dreams are true, approach'd my side, 
 
 And, frowning on my tuneful lumber, cried, 
 
 " Lo ! every corner with soft sonnets cramra'd. 
 
 And high-born odes, 'works damn'd, or to be damn'd!' 
 
 And is thy active folly adding more 
 
 To this most worthless, most superfluous store ? 
 
 Oh impotence of toil ! thou mightst as well 
 
 Give sense to Este, or modesty to Bell. 
 
 Forbear, forbear; — What though thou canst not claim 
 
 The sacred honors of a poet's name, 
 
 Due to the feyv alone, whom I inspire 
 
 With lofty rapture, with etherial fire ! 
 
 " Hark ! (qaoth he^) 
 What cruel sounds are these 
 Which float upon the languid breeze, 
 Which fill my soul with jealous fear i 
 Ha ! Reuben is the name I hear. 
 For him my Faithless Anna," &c. 
 It pains me to add, that the cold-blooded Bell has destroyed 
 this beautiful fancy-scene with one stroke of his clownish pen. 
 In a note on the above verses, Album, p. 134, he officiously in- 
 forms us that Delia Crusca knew " nothing of his rival, till he 
 read" — detested word I — " his sonnet in the Oracle." O Bell ! 
 Bell ! is it thus ihou humblest the strains of the sublime ? Sure- 
 ly we may say of thee, what was not ill said of one of thy si.sters! 
 
 Sed tu insulsa male et molesta vives, 
 Per quam non licet esse negligentem, 
 * They pour, &c. 
 
 " I love so well 
 
 Thy soul's deep tone, thy thought's high swell, 
 
 Tliy proud, poetic fervor, known 
 
 But in thy breast's prolific zone." — Delia Crusca.
 
 WILLIAM GIFFORD. 197 
 
 Yet mayst thou arrogate the humble praise 
 Of reason's bard, if, in thy future lays, 
 Plain sense and truth, and surely these are thine, 
 Correct thy wanderings, and thy flights confine." 
 Here ceased the god and vanished. Forth I sprang, 
 While in my ear the voice divine yet rang. 
 Seized every rag and scrap, approach'd the fire. 
 And saw whole Albums in the blaze expire. 
 
 Then shame ensued, and vain regret, t'have spent ' 
 So many hours (houra which I yet lament), 
 In thriftless industry ; and year on year 
 Inglorious roll'dj while diffidence and fear 
 Repress 'd my voice — unheard till Anna came, 
 What ! throbb'st thou yet, my bosom at the name ? 
 And chased the oppressive doubts which round me clung, 
 And fired my breast, and loosen'd all my tongue. 
 E'en then (admire John Bell ! my simple ways) 
 No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays, 
 No oaths, no execrations ; all was plain ; 
 Yet, trust me, while thy " ever-jingling train" 
 Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art, 
 And shock the reason, and revolt the heart, 
 My hopes and fears, in nature's language dress'd, 
 Awaken'd love in many a gentle breast
 
 198 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 
 
 The life of this talented and peculiar character was 
 laid through a rough and rugged scene. Few, among 
 the biographies of eminent men in any age or sphere, 
 will show a more curious and interesting variety. His 
 early life, to the twentieth year of his age, is found 
 written by himself; and as far as is possible, we like to 
 have him tell his own story. 
 
 " I was born in London, on the tenth day of Decem- 
 ber, 1745, and was baptized and registered in St. 
 Martin's church, where my name is erroneously written 
 ' Howlcroft.' Most persons, I believe, retain through 
 life a few strong impressions of early childhood. I well 
 remember being played with by my parents, when very 
 young, and the extreme pleasure it gave me : and many 
 little incidents and disasters that happened then were 
 never afterwards forgotten. 
 
 " My father one day whipped me very severely for 
 crying to go to school in the neighborhood, where chil- 
 dren were sent, more to keep them out of the way, than 
 to learn them any thing. He afterwards ordered an 
 apprentice he had to take me to school. 
 
 " Till I was about six years old, my father kept a 
 shoemaker's shop in Orange court ; and J have a faint 
 recollection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters. 
 But my father was not satisfied with the profits to be
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 199 
 
 acquired by shoemaking. He was fond of horses; and 
 having some knowledge of them, he became a dealer in 
 them. Young as 1 was, he earnestly wished to see me 
 able to ride; for this purpose, my petticoats were dis- 
 carded, and as^ he was fonder of me than even of his 
 horses — nay, of his pony — he had straps made, and I 
 was buckled to the saddle ; while a leading-rein was 
 fastened to the muzzle of the pony, which he carefully 
 held. 
 
 " About the same time, my father indulged another 
 whim, and when I was about five years old, he put me 
 under the tuition of a violin player. Either parental 
 fondness led my father to believe, or he was flattered into 
 the supposition, that I had an uncommon aptitude for the 
 art I had been put to learn. I shall never forget the 
 high praises I received, the affirmations that I was a 
 prodigy, and the assurances ray teachers gave that I 
 should be heard in public. These dreams were never 
 realized ; my practice soon after ceased, and at the age 
 of seven I had wholly forgotten what I had learned. 
 
 " Here a change took place in my father's aflfairs, and 
 he left London, and I was exposed to hardships to which 
 I had heretofore been a stranger." The family removed 
 to a place in Berkshire, where young Thomas was lucky 
 in getting a small share of schooling, and also in gaining 
 the friendship of a kind-hearted lad, apprentice to his 
 father. He continues, " This was the first remarkable 
 era in my life. In the retired spot where my father had 
 settled, he himself began to teach me to read. The task 
 I at first found difficult, till the idea one day suddenly 
 seized me of catching all the sounds I had been taught 
 from the arrangements of the letters ; and my joy at this 
 amazing discovery was so great, that the recollection of
 
 200 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 it has never been effaced. My progress after this was 
 so rapid, that it astonished my father ; he boasted of me 
 to every body ; and that I might lose no time, the task 
 he set me was eleven chapters a day in the Bible. 
 
 "One day as I was sitting at the gate with my Bible 
 in my hand, a neighboring farmer coming to see my 
 father, asked me if I could read in the Bible already ? I 
 answered, yes ; and he desired me to let him hear me. 
 I began at the place where the book was open, read 
 fluently, and afterwards told him that if he pleased he 
 should hear the tenth chapter of Nehemiah. At this he 
 seemed still more amazed, and wishing to be convinced, 
 bade me read. After listening till he found I could 
 really pronounce the uncouth Hebrew names so much 
 better and more easily than he supposed to be within 
 the power of so young a child, he patted my head, gave 
 me a penny, and said I was an uncommon boy. It would 
 be hard to say whether his praise, or his gift, was the 
 most flattering to me. 
 
 " Soon after, my father's apprentice, the kind-hearted 
 Dick, brought me two delightful histories [ Perismus 
 and Parismones, and the Seven Champions of Christen- 
 dom. ] It was scarcely possible for any thing to have 
 been more grateful to me than this present; and their 
 contents were soon as familiar to me as my catechism, 
 or the daily prayers I repeated kneeling before my father. 
 Oh, how I loved poor Dick ! 
 
 " My father was very fond and not a little vain of me. 
 He delighted to show how much I was superior to other 
 children, and, this propensity had sometimes a good 
 effect. One evening, when it was quite dark, the niglit 
 being cloudy, he boasted to a neighbor of my courage ; 
 and his companion seeming rather to doubt, my father
 
 THOMAS KOLCROFT. 201 
 
 replied he would immediately put it to the proof. 
 ' Tom,' said he, ' you must go to the house of farmer 
 such-a-one ( I forget the name, though I remember the 
 walk ), and ask whether he goes to London to-morrow.* 
 I was startled, but dared not dispute his authority, it 
 was too great over me; besides that, my vanity to prove 
 my valor was not a little excited. Accordingly I took 
 my hat and immediately obeyed. It may be proper to 
 observe here, that although I could not have been 
 without courage, yet I was really, when a child, exceed- 
 ingly apprehensive and full of superstition. When I 
 saw magpies, it denoted good or bad luck, according as 
 they did, or did not cross me. When walking, I pored 
 for pins, or rusty nails, which if they lay in certain 
 directions, foreboded some misfortune. Many such 
 whims possessed my brain. I went humming and 
 whistling along, and looking as carefully as I could, 
 now and then making a false step which served to 
 relieve me; for it obliged me to attend to the road. 
 When I arrived at the farm-house, I delivered my mes- 
 sage. * Bless me, child !' cried the people within, ' have 
 you come this dark night all alone?' Oh yes, 1 said, 
 assuming a tone of self-importance. * And who sent 
 you V My father wanted to know, I replied equivocally. 
 One of them then offered to take me home ; but my 
 whole stock of vanity was roused, and I hastily scam- 
 pered out of the house and was hidden in the dark. My 
 return was something, but not much, less alarming than 
 my journey thither. At last I got safely home, glad to 
 be rid of my fears, and inwardly not a little elated with 
 my success. I afterwards found that my father and his 
 companion had followed me all the way, at a little dis- 
 tance. 
 
 I
 
 202 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 " My father, after a short residence in Berkshire, took 
 me with him, and for some time traveled round the 
 country. I remember being in London, where I have a 
 faint notion of having been among boys with their 
 Bchool-books. If I was really sent to school, it must 
 have been for a very short time ; nor could I have been 
 provided with books and other means of improvement; 
 and, indeed, my father was so straitened in his circum- 
 stances that my mother very soon after turned pedlar, 
 having a basket with pins, needles, tape, garters, &,c., 
 on her arm, and hawked them through the outskirts of 
 London, while I trotted after her. I cannot say what 
 my father's employment was, while I and my mother 
 were, what they emphatically called, ' tramping the 
 villages to hawk our pedlary.' It may be presumed, it 
 was not very lucrative, for he soon left it, and they went 
 info the country'pedling their wares, and dragging me 
 after them. We at length came to a village, which I 
 thought remarkably clean and well built; my father 
 said it was the handsomest in the kingdom. 
 
 " We must have been very poor at this time ; for it 
 was here that I was sent one day by myself to beg from 
 house to house. Young as I was, I had considerable 
 readiness in making out a story, and on this" day my 
 little inventive faculties shone forth with much brilliancy. 
 I told one story at one house, and another at another ; 
 and continued to vary my tale, just as the suggestions 
 arose — the consequence was, I moved the good people 
 exceedingly. One called me a poor fatherless child ; 
 another exclaimed, ' What a pity ! I had so much sense !' 
 a third patted nie on the head and prayed God to bless 
 me, that I might make a good man. The result of this 
 expedition was, that I brought away as much as 1 could
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 203 
 
 carry to the place of rendezvous appointed by my 
 parents ; there I astonished them by again reciting the 
 false tales I had so readily invented. My father seemed 
 greatly alarmed, and fearing that I was in danger of 
 growing up a liar and a vagrant, declared I should never 
 go on such errands again. It was fortunate for me, in 
 this respect, that I had such a father. 
 
 " The reader will naturally suppose that from the 
 time I began to travel the country with my father and 
 mother, I had little leisure or opportunity to acquire 
 any knowledge by reading. 1 was too much oppressed 
 by hunger, cold and nakedness ; still, I continued to 
 repeat my prayers and catechism morning and evening ; 
 and on Sundays to read the prayer-book and the Bible — 
 at any rate I had not forgot to read ; for while at a house 
 near Rudgeley, by some means or other, the song of 
 ' Chevy Chace ' came into my possession, which I read 
 with great delight at our fire side. 
 
 " My father, who knew that my memory was retentive, 
 and saw the great number of verses the ballad contained, 
 said to me, ' Well, Tom, can you get that song by heart V 
 I readily answered, yes. I took it for my task, added to 
 ray numerous toils and labors, to accomplish in three 
 days, upon the generous offer of half a penny. I need 
 scarcely add that it was easily committed, and that I 
 then had the valuable sum of half-penny at my own 
 disposal. This made me think myself, at the time, 
 quite a wealthy man." 
 
 Near this time, the father managed to procure two or 
 three asses, and Thomas was set to driving them in the 
 transportation of coal and other articles of freight, over 
 long, dreary and miserable roads, where, in the depth of 
 winter, and without suitable food and clothing, he suffer-
 
 204 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ed severe hardships and privation. Though this would 
 seem to show a rise of circumstances on the part of his 
 father, it did not turn much to the advantage of the son. 
 " The bad nourishment I met with," says he, " the cold 
 and wretched manner in which I was clothed, and the 
 excessive weariness I endured in following these animals 
 day after day, and being obliged to drive creatures 
 perhaps still more weary than myself, were miseries 
 much too great, and loaded my little heart with sorrows 
 far too pungent ever to be forgotten. By-roads and 
 high-roads were alike to be traversed, but the former far 
 the oftenest, for they were then almost innumerable, and 
 the state of thera in the winter would scarcely at present 
 be believed." 
 
 In one instance he mentions he traveled on foot 
 thirty miles in one day ; when near the end of this long 
 journey, his little legs refused to carry him further, and 
 he was brought the rest of the way on the back of a 
 countryman. He was then only about ten, of small 
 stature, and slight, frail appearance. 
 
 When about twelve, he was taken by his father to the 
 Nottingham races. He was greatly attracted by the dis- 
 play there, the beauty of the horses, and especially the 
 good condition of the well-fed, clean and comfortably 
 clothed stable boys, which he contrasted with his own 
 miserable situation. " At this time," he continues, " I 
 was rather a burden than a help to my father. I believe 
 I assisted him a little in mending shoes, but my asthma, 
 till very lately, as well as my youth, had prevented me 
 from making much progress. The thought now occurred 
 to me, whether it would be possible for me to procure 
 the place of stable-boy at Newmarket. I was at this 
 time in a mean, not to say ragged condition. I liked
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 205 
 
 every thing I saw about them but their impudence, and 
 thought that if I could only obtain so high a place as 
 stable-boy, I should be very fortunate." Here he soon 
 engaged a place, and entered, as he remarks, " on a new 
 existence ;" his pleasure was indeed unbounded. " I 
 was delighted, full of hope and cheerful alacrity." He 
 had the good fortune to fall into the company of a good 
 and kind friend, who, being acquainted with the games 
 and tricks often played upon the ignorant and confiding, 
 warned him to be on his guard ; he was thus saved a 
 good deal of trouble and vexation. 
 
 Speaking of this subject he says, " I do not recollect 
 one half the tricks that are played off upon new comers ; 
 but that with which they begin, if I do not mistake, is 
 to persuade their victim that the first thing necessary for 
 a well-trained stable boy, is to borrow as many vests as 
 he can, and in the morning after he has dressed and fed 
 his horse, to put them all on, take a race of two or three 
 miles, return home, strip himself stark naked, and 
 immediately be covered up in the warm dung hill j 
 which is the method, they assure him, which the grooms 
 take when they sweat themselves dewn to ride a race. 
 Should the poor fellow follow these directions, they 
 conclude the joke with pails full of cold water, which 
 stand ready for the purpose of cooling off. Another of 
 their diversions used to be that of hunting the owl. To 
 hunt the owl is to persuade a booby that there is an owl 
 found at roost in a corner of the barn ; that a ladder 
 must be placed against a hole through which, when the 
 persons shall be pleased to hoot and hunt him, as they 
 call it, he must necessarily fly, as the door is shut and 
 every other outlet closed ; that the boy selected to catch 
 the owl must mount the ladder on the outside, and the
 
 206 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 purblind animal, they say, will fly directly into his hat. 
 The poor candidate for sport mounts to his place, 
 thoughtless of anything but fun. The chaps within, 
 laughing and shouting, pretend to drive the ill-starred 
 bird nearer and nearer to the hole ; when all at once 
 they discharge the contents of tubs and pails upon the 
 devoted head of the expecting owl-catcher, who is gener- 
 ally precipitated in fright and terror from the ladder into 
 some soft, but not very agreeable preparation below. 
 My friend warned me against these, and several other 
 games at which I should be invited to play ; and thus did 
 me essential service." 
 
 In his new employment, he remained for about three 
 years ; and after being turned over from one master to 
 another, on account of the slight knowledge of horse- 
 manship he was found to have, he at length had the 
 fortune to come into the service of one who had the 
 consideration, not to expect a finished groom from a boy 
 who had scarcely mounted a horse. He soon began to 
 distinguish himself by his expertness in the manage- 
 ment of horses, in which occupation he soon came to 
 outrival all his associates. The language in which he 
 speaks of his change of circumstances, forcibly paints 
 his sense of the miseries from which he had been 
 extricated. Alluding to the hearty meals which he and 
 his companions were wont to enjoy at nine in the 
 morning, after four hours exercise with the horses, he 
 says, " Nothing", perhaps, can exceed the enjoyment of a 
 stable-boy's breakfast ; what then may not be said of 
 mine, who had been so long used to suffer hunger, and 
 so seldom found means of satisfying it ! 
 
 For my own part, so total and striking was the change 
 which had taken place in my situation, that I could not
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 207 
 
 but feel it very sensibly. I was more conscious of it 
 than most boys would have been, and therefore not a 
 little satisfied. The former part of my life had been 
 spent in turmoil, and often in singular wretchedness. 
 I had been exposed to every want, every weariness, and 
 every occasion of despondency, except, that such poor 
 sufferers become reconciled to, and almost insensible of, 
 suffering; and boyhood and beggary are fortunately not 
 prone to despond. Happy had been the meal where I 
 had enough ; rich to me was the rag that kept me warm ; 
 and heavenly the pillow, no matter what, or how hard, 
 on which I could lay my head to sleep. Now I was 
 warmly clothed, nay, gorgeously ; for I was proud of my 
 new livery, and never suspected that there was disgrace 
 in it. I fed voluptuously ; not a prince on earth, perhaps, 
 with half the appetite and never-failing relish ; and 
 instead of being obliged to drag through the dirt 
 after the most sluggish and despised among our animals, 
 I was mounted on the noblest that the earth contains, 
 had him under my care, and was borne by him over hill 
 and dale, far outstripping the wings of the wind. Was 
 not this a change, such as might excite reflection, even 
 in the mind of a boy ? 
 
 " The feature in my character which was to distin- 
 guish it at a later period of life, namely, some few 
 pretentions to literary acquirement, has appeared for 
 same time to have lain dormant. After I left Berkshire, 
 circumstances had been so little favorable to me that, 
 except the mighty volume of Sacred Writ, (which I 
 always continued to peruse wherever I found a Bible,) 
 and the two small romances I have mentioned, letters 
 seemed to have lost sight of me, and I of letters. Books 
 were not then, as they fortunately are now, great or
 
 208 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 small, on this subject or on that, to be found in almost 
 every house ; a book, except of prayers, or daily 
 religious use, was scarcely to be seen but among the 
 opulent, or in the possession of the studious ; and by 
 the opulent, they were often disregarded with a degree 
 of neglect which would now be almost disgraceful. 
 
 " But I did not live wholly cut oif from books ; severtil 
 tales and romances fell in my way, among which I 
 recollect the writings of Swift and Addison. In ' Gul- 
 liver's Travels ' I was especially delighted. 
 tf- " Books of piety, if the author were but inspired with 
 JEeal, fixed my attention wherever I met with them; but 
 John Bunyan, I ranked among the most divine authors I 
 ever read. In fact I was truly well intentioned, but 
 my zeal was too ardent, and liable to become dangerous." 
 
 While passing the church one day, his attention was 
 attracted by the sound of music ; he entered, and found 
 to his surprise that the persons within were engaged in 
 singing in four parts, under the direction of a Mr. 
 Langham. They invited him to join them ; and his 
 voice being tried, and his ear pronounced good, it was 
 arranged that he should come into the class — the other 
 members consenting that he should sing out of their 
 books. His tuition was five shillings a quarter, but 
 nothing troubled at the expense, he entered into the 
 new diversion with great zeal and pleasure. " From the 
 little 1 learned that day," he observes, " and from another 
 lesson or two, I obtained a tolerable conception of strik- 
 ing intervals upwards and downwards; such as the 
 third, the fourth, and the remainder of the octave, the 
 chief feature of which I soon understood ; but of course 
 I found most difficulty in the third, sixth and seventh. 
 Previously to any great progress, I was obliged to pur-
 
 THOMAS HOLCBOFT. '209 
 
 chase Arnold's Psalmody ; and studious over this divine 
 treasure, I passed many a forenoon extended in the hay- 
 loft. My chief, and almost my only difficulty, lay in the 
 impenetrable obscurity of such technical words as were 
 not explained, either by their own nature, or by the 
 author in other language. I was illiterate. I knew 
 the language of the vulgar well, but little more. Per- 
 haps no words ever puzzled poor mortal more, than I 
 was puzzled by the words, ' major and minor keys.' " 
 
 It will afford an idea of the zeal with which young 
 Holcroft devoted himself to improvement, when we jnen- 
 tion that out of his wages (four pounds a year) he paid 
 five shillings a quarter to his singing-master - — and upon 
 Mr. Langham's offering to give him lessons in arithmetic 
 for the same tuition, he immediately took up with the 
 proposal, and attended him daily for three months. In 
 that time he went as far as Practice and the Rule of 
 Xhree. 
 
 ,i.'" Except what I have already related,'' continues he, 
 *' these three months, as far as others were concerned, 
 may be truly called my course of education. At New- 
 market I was so intent upon studying arithmetic, that 
 for want of better apparatus, I have often got an old nail 
 and cast up sums on the paling of the stable yard." 
 
 What happier illustration can we have of the truth of 
 the old adage, " where there is a will there is a way 1 " 
 Let those who are wont to complain of wanting the ap. 
 paratus of learning, remember Holcroft at the board fence 
 with the old nail. 
 
 " The boys all prophesied I should go mad ; in which 
 sagacious conjecture, our old maid and house-keeper 
 joined them. While my music and my arithmetic were 
 ihuB in some sort confusing wy bfain, I became not only
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ashamed, but even alarmed at myself; for being occs- 
 sionally sent on errands, I found my memory absent, and 
 made several blunders, a thing to which I had been whol- 
 ly unaccustomed. One day when my master was at 
 home, I was sent for only two things, and forgot one of 
 them, at which I heard him exclaim without any reproach, 
 " God bless /ne, what is come to the boy ! " 
 
 Being excited by v»ronderful stories he had heard of 
 bold adventure and immense gain, he was induced to try 
 his luck in betting at the race course. He entered the 
 lists, and in one day beheld all his little savings vanish, 
 and himself left in utter destitution. His grief was 
 great ; and he spent all his leisure time for days, in 
 searching with eager gaze in every corner and obscure 
 place wherever he had seen groups of people stand upon 
 the race ground, to see if he could not, by some possi- 
 bility, find a stray guinea, or even sixpence, to remuner- 
 ate him for his loss ; — but be was obliged to give up in 
 despair, and resign himself to his heavy disappointment, 
 with a heavy heart. 
 
 Not a great while after this incident took place, be de- 
 termined to quit his employment and join his father, who 
 kept a cobbler's stall in London. -Jk- 
 
 *' My mind," says he, " having its own somewhat pe- 
 culiar bias, circumstances had rather occurred to disgust 
 me, than to invite my stay. I despised my companions 
 for the grossness of their ideas, nnd the total absence of 
 every pursuit in which the mind appeared to have any 
 share. It was with sneers of contempt that they saw me 
 intent upon acquiring some small portion of knowledge. 
 As far as I was concerned vyith l)prses, I was pleased ; 
 but I saw scarcely a biped, my ma^ej e^t^pted, in whom 
 I could find anything to admire.
 
 THOMAS HOLCUOFT. 211 
 
 " Having taken my resolution, I summoned up my 
 courage to tell my master of my intention ; not that I in 
 the least suspected he would say anything more than, 
 very well ; but he had been a kind master, and relieved 
 me in my distress — had never imputed faults to me of 
 which I was not guilty — had fairly waited to give my fac- 
 ulties time to show themselves, and had rewarded them 
 with no common degree of praise, when accident 
 brought them to light. It was therefore painful to leave 
 such a master. 
 
 " With my cap off, and unusual awkwardness in my 
 manner, I went up to him ; and he perceiving 1 was em- 
 barrassed, yet had something to say, began thus : ' Well, 
 Tom, what is the matter now ? ' O sir, nothing much is 
 the matter; only, I just — a word to say. ' Well, well, 
 don't stand about it ; let me hear ! ' Nay, sir, it is a tri- 
 fle ; I only came to tell you I think of going to London. 
 ' To London ! ' Yes, sir, if you please. ' To Lon- 
 don I What the plague has put that whim into yonr 
 head?' I believe you know my father is in London. 
 'Well, what of that ? ' We have written together, and 
 so it is resolved on. ' Have you got a place ? ' I don' 
 want one, sir; I could not have a better than I have 
 now. ' And what are you to do ? ' I can't tell that yet, 
 but I think of being a shoemaker. ' Pshaw ! you are a 
 blockhead, and your father is a foolish man.' He loves 
 me very dearly, sir, and I love and honor him. ' Yes, 
 yes, I believe you are a good boy; but I tell you, you 
 are both doing a very foolish thing; stay at Newmar- 
 ket, and I will be bound fi)r it you will make your for- 
 tune.' I would rather go back to my father, sir, if 
 you please." 
 
 Young Holcrofi soon left for London, according to
 
 21*2 DISTINGUISHED SHOBMAKERS. 
 
 his determination. At this place he leaves us in his 
 narrative. For some years he continued to make shoes 
 with his father, till at length he became a very expert 
 workman, and could command the highest rate of wages. 
 But his fondness for reading and study grew upon him, 
 so that, although an exceedingly quick workman, he 
 would never lay up anything, and rarely had a shilling 
 to spend except for the most pressing necessities ; and 
 when he had, it was spent at an old book stall, and his 
 time was again " idled away in reading." Such was 
 the complaint habitually made against him. 
 
 At the age of twenty, in 1765, having married, Mr. 
 Holcroft attempted to open a school for teaching child- 
 ren to read, at Liverpool. Not being flattered with very 
 abundant success, he was obliged to give up this scheme 
 and return to London, where he worked at shoemaking 
 again as before. The stooping posture required at his 
 trade, together with the unwearied industry with which 
 he applied himself to books during the intervals of labor, 
 brought on a return of the old complaint of his childhood, 
 the asthma; this, together with other considerations 
 which made him dislike his occupation, compelled him 
 to quit the bench, and endeavor to seek other more con- 
 genial employment. 
 
 His poverty, which had previously affected only his 
 physical system, now began to operate on his mind — his 
 thoughts were continually drawn to reflect on the advan- 
 tages to be derived from a good education ; and the con- 
 sciousness that he had neither received one, nor had now 
 the means of procuring it, constantly gave him the ut- 
 most uneasiness. He was not aware that from the slen- 
 der beginning already made, he should see grow a fine 
 and well formed structure. He occasionally committed
 
 - THOMAS HOLCROFT. 213 
 
 his thoughts to paper ; and the editor of the Evening 
 Post at this time gave him five shillings a column, lor 
 some essays which he sent to that paper. 
 
 Having abandoned his mechanical calling, Mr. Hol- 
 croft attempted again to open a day school somewhere 
 in the vicinity of London ; but after living three months 
 on potatoes and buttermilk, and having only one scholar, 
 he discontinued his labors in that line, and once more 
 returned to town ; — this was his last quarter. After this, 
 he resided for a time in the family of the celebrated 
 Granville Sharpe, in the capacity of servant and secreta- 
 ry. This place, gained by his literary efforts, he did not 
 long retain. His close attendance at the reading room, 
 and the debating club to which he belonged, occupied 
 the major part of his time, so that his patron was induc- 
 ed to turn him from his employ ; and he again found him- 
 self alone in the streets of the great city, without money, 
 without friends, to whom either pride ©r shame would 
 allow him to disclose his destitution, or habitation where- 
 in to hide his head. 
 
 On the eve of embarking for British India in the ranks 
 of the Indian army as a common soldier, one of his lyce- 
 um-going friends, seeing his bundle and woful counte- 
 nance, asked him where he was going. Holcroft replied, 
 "Had you asked five minutes ago, I could not have told 
 you, but at present I am for the wars.' At this his spout- 
 ing companion proceeded to lay before hira a new field of 
 adventure — and he joined, more from the force of pov- 
 erty than any other reason, a band of strolling players. 
 With this company he traversed Ireland, where he first 
 appeared on the stage, and every part of England, with 
 various, but generally bad, success. At first he was be- 
 trayed, and cheated out of his wages ; and then, under-
 
 214 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 valued in his true powers, and overreached on account 
 of his necessities, he was kept in a state of continual tri- 
 al and vexation. 
 
 In this itinerant mode of life he continued for many 
 years, not less than seven or eight, during which time 
 he was called to endure a great deal of misery, and was 
 often reduced almost to starvation. However, as Carlyle 
 says, " that sharpest of human calamities, cleanness of 
 teeth," did not overtake him. " There were better days 
 coming," to him. He had seen the lowest ebb of his 
 fortune, and his star was soon to be in the ascendant. 
 In his wide-extended journeyings he had been introduced 
 to the most celebrated characters connected with the En- 
 glish stage, and had gained a mass of knowledge in regard 
 to men and manners, at once varied and extensive. The 
 pride of the British theater, the celebrated Garrick, and 
 Sheridan, and the beautiful and accomplished Siddons, 
 were his companions and associates. 
 
 But his success as an actor was not commensurate 
 with the zeal and assiduity with which he applied him- 
 self to the art. A more happy direction of his efforts, 
 soon brought him into a field where his talents were bet- 
 ter developed and more highly appreciated. In the midst 
 of his travels, labors, and disappointments, his love of 
 reading never forsook him ; and he made himself exten- 
 sively acquainted with English literature. He at last 
 tried his hand at compositions for the stage ; some of 
 which were well received, and others indifferently, till 
 finally his farce called " The Crisis " turned the tide of 
 fortune in his favor, and changed his mode of life. He 
 did not immediately realize great advantage from this 
 work ; but he had tried his powers, and successfully es- 
 tablished his reputation for industry and acutenesa.
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 215 
 
 From this time he continued to apply himself with 
 untiring industry to literary pursuits, mostly in the line 
 of plays and romance. Many of his productions contain 
 a rich fund of amusement. We quote from one of his 
 pieces, not because it is better and more attractive than 
 others, but because it is at hand. He brings in, by way 
 of satire upon some of his friends who had argued the 
 inhumanity of eating animal food, a rich old Hunker, 
 who had conceived the idea of establishing an humane 
 asylum for diseased and infirm animals. The results of 
 the experiment are thus set forth. The old man pro- 
 ceeds : 
 
 " I am pestered, plagued, teased and tormented to 
 death. I believe all the cats in Christendom are assem- 
 bled here in Oxfordshire ; — I am obliged to hire a clerk 
 to pay the people, and the village where I live is become 
 a constant fair. A fellow has set up the sign of the 
 ' three blind kittens,' and has the impudence to tell his 
 neighbors that if my whims and my money only hold out 
 for twelve months, he shall not care a fig for the king. I 
 thought to prevent this inundation by buying up all the 
 old cats, and secluding them in convents and monaste- 
 ries of my own ; but the value of the breeders is increas- 
 ed to such a degree, that I do not believe my whole for- 
 tune is capable of the purchase. Besides I am made an 
 ass of. A rascal, who is a known sharper in these parts, 
 hearing of the aversion I have to cruelty, bought an old 
 one-eyed horse that was going to the dogs, for five shil- 
 lings; — then taking a hammer in his hand, watched for 
 an opportunity of finding me alone, and addressed me in 
 the following manner : ' Look you, master — 1 know you 
 don't love to see any poor, dumb creature abused ; and 
 so if you don't give me ten pounds, why, I shsll just
 
 2W^ I)ISTIN(iUISHED SHOEMAKER!*. 
 
 scoop this old rip's odd eye right out with the claw of 
 this here hammer now before your face.' Aye, and the 
 villain would have done it, too, if I had not instantly 
 complied : but what was worse, the abominable scoun-„ 
 drel had the audacity to tell me, when I wanted him tatf 
 deliver the horse first, for fear he should extort a furthcEo 
 sum from me, that ' he had more honor than to breaks 
 his word.' u 
 
 " A whelp of a boy had yesterday caught a hedgehog.^ 
 and perceiving ine, threw it into the water to make it« 
 extend its legs ; then with the rough side of a knotty! 
 stick, sawed upon them till the creature cried like a child ; 
 and when 1 ordered him to desist, he told me he would 
 not till I had given him sixpence. There is something 
 worse than all this — the avaricious rascals, when they 
 can find nothing that they think will excite my pity, dis- 
 able the first animal that comes to hand, and then bring 
 it to me as an object worthy of commiseration ; so in 
 fact, instead of protecting, I destroy. The women, too, 
 seem to entertain the notion that I hate all two legged 
 animals ; and one of them called after me the other day 
 to tell me I was an old rogue, and that I had better give 
 my money to the poor, than to keep a lot of cats and dogs 
 to eat up the village. I perceive it is a vain attempt — 
 I cannot carry on the scheme much longer ; and then 
 my poor invalids will be worse off than they were before." 
 
 Holcroft had now regularly entered upon a life of au- 
 thorship. He wrote extensively for ihe book-sellers, in 
 various branches of literary labor. While engaged up- 
 on a work, that called him to attend the sittings of the 
 courts a good deal, he had the honorable pleasure of res- 
 cuing an innocent life from the grasp of legalized assas- 
 ination. During the time of the great riots of 1780,
 
 THOMAS IIOLCROFT. 217 
 
 when scores of victims were sacrificed to the Moloch of 
 constituted authority, by sweeping judicial decisions, a 
 poor man was brought before the court, charged with 
 riotous conduct. The evidence against him was full and 
 satisfactory. The penalty, upon conviction, was death. 
 Something about the man caused Holcroft to think he 
 had seen him before ; when suddenly the whole circum- 
 stances of the case burst upon his recollection — he had 
 seen him before, on the very night of the tumult — he 
 knew he could save him — he at once arose and desired 
 the judge to allow him to give in his testimony. He did 
 so — his counter-testimony turned the balance in the 
 prisoner's favor — he was saved. Holcroft often spoke 
 of this afterwards, with tears of grateful remembrance. 
 Speaking of the wholesale work carried on at the En- 
 glish courts at that time, he says, " Many were convicted 
 and condemned lo death, in the most disgraceful hurry 
 and carelessness ; — one man who had received a hurri- 
 ed examination and been convicted, as the judge pro- 
 nounced the doom, was heard to mutter to himself, with- 
 out any apparent intention of being heard, ' Short and 
 sweet — Innocent, by God.' " 
 
 Extending the scope of his labors, Holcroft went into 
 France, where he was employed in translating many rare 
 works of that prolific country into English, With the 
 French and German languages he possessed a thorough 
 and intimate acquaintance ; and his knowledge of the 
 former was put to a rather severe test, in the course of 
 his labors as procurer for the British theater. A comedy 
 was brought upon the stage and received the unbounded 
 commendation of the French people. Holcroft instantly 
 resolved to procure it, and with the least possible delay, 
 adapt it to the tastes and wants of the people across the 
 channel. There was no printed copy, and his request to
 
 218 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 be allowed to write one from the original, was met by a 
 flat denial — it was no way to be had for love or money. 
 But get it he would. So he attended at the house where 
 it was acted for a few evenings, till finally, with the aid 
 of a friend, he brought it away in his memory so perfect- 
 ly, that it could scarcely be distinguished from the origi- 
 nal. Considering the fact that the French was not his 
 mother tongue, this seems a surpassing feat of memory. 
 But he was well paid for it ; for the acclamation that 
 shook the theaters when this play was presented in Eng- 
 land, shook something more substantial into the pocket 
 of Holcroft, 
 
 Pursuing his course in the world of letters, he translat- 
 ed the works of Frederic the Great, of Prussia, in twelve 
 large volumes ; afterwards the curious and entertaining 
 writings of Lavater, the celebrated physiognomist, of 
 Germany. This work, successfully acconiplished, had 
 direct influence both upon his pocket and his fame. But 
 still devoted to the stage, where his earliest efforts com- 
 menced, he brought forward several plays of his own, 
 one of which, " The Road to Ruin," gained him a high 
 place among that brilliant cluster of English dramatists. 
 It was intensely and universally applauded. Another, 
 " The School of Arrogance," though not equally well 
 received, is certainly worthy of a high place among writ- 
 ings of similar character. In this our author shows up 
 the character and pretentions of the would-be so-called 
 nobility of the times. The epilogue to this play furnish- 
 es the following keen bit of satire : 
 
 " Such is the modern man of high flown fashion ! 
 Such are the scions sprung from Runny -mead, 
 The richest soil that bears the rankest weed ! 
 Potato-like, the sprouts are worthless found ; 
 And all that's good of them is underground."
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 219 
 
 Mr. Holcroft's " Road to Ruin" carried his fame as h 
 dramatic writer, into every corner of the kingdom where 
 there was a play-house. Nothing could e.Kceed the effect 
 produced by its first appearance, nor its subsequent pop- 
 ularity. It not only became a general favorite, but it de- 
 served to be so. But it is useless to go into an enume- 
 ration of the works in which he was from time to time 
 engaged — " Their name is legion." His industry was 
 bounded only by his capacity for labor — indeed his men- 
 tal activity was too great for his bodily powers, and he 
 often suffered from over exertion. 
 
 While Holcroft was thus in the highest prosperity, a 
 shadow passed over him and darkened the sun of his noon- 
 day. A fine boy, who had been the constant object of 
 parental solicitude, and in whom he thought he saw the 
 buds of a noble genius, which he had taken every pains 
 that the most doting affection could devise to develop 
 and cultivate, both at home and in Paris, where he was 
 always with his father, suddenly came to a tragical end 
 by his own hand. The father was present when the fa- 
 tal deed was done. Holcroft scarce survived the shock 
 — for days he would allow no one, not his most intimate 
 friends, to approach him ; and for an entire year he lived 
 secluded from the world, wrapt in melancholic gloom. 
 The freshness of his grief at length wore away, but he 
 never fully recovered from the shock. 
 
 About the period of the great revolution that convulsed 
 France, and through it the whole of Europe, Mr. Hol- 
 croft had imbibed more enlarged and comprehensive 
 views on moral and political questions, than were gener- 
 ally received, or at least acted upon, by the people of 
 England. 
 
 The interest he felt in these subjects may be gathered
 
 220 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 from one of his letters written February, 1790. He says, 
 " The great object I have in view, is not the obtaining of 
 riches, but the power of employing my time according to 
 the best of my genius, in the performance of some works 
 which shall remain when I am no more — works that will 
 promote the general welfare. This is the pjirpose I have 
 so strongly at heart that I would with .pleasure sacrifice 
 ease, peace, health and life for its accomplishment ; nay, 
 accomplish it I will ; unless cut off in the midst of my 
 labors. It has been my pursuit for years, and you are' my 
 witness, I have never relaxed — never been discouraged 
 by disappointment, to which I hold men of real strength 
 of mind to be superior." Such were his motives of action. 
 In 1792, when the societies for constitutional infor- 
 mation and parliamentary reform were agitating the Brit- 
 ish nation, Mr. Holcroft, who had from the first ardently 
 espoused the prime principles of the French revolution- 
 ists, was an active, working member of them. But he was 
 rather more conservative in character than most of those 
 with whom he was associated. He was a friend of popu- 
 lar political reform — he had thought, written and acted 
 for the people, whose dearest rights he saw daily, and in 
 numberless ways, trampled in the dust by those who held 
 no constitutional or moral guarantees too sacred to be 
 twisted and rent asunder. His motto was, Onward ! 
 There are better days coming to England ! These soci- 
 eties soon became very obnoxious to the dominant power, 
 and the members were the victims of the most violent 
 political persecution. In 1794, in the month of May, 
 the Habeas Corpus was suspended. This safeguard of 
 English liberties being broken down by the exertions and 
 corruption of the ministry, and against the heroic devo- 
 tion and matchless eloquence of Fo.x, Sheridan and Grey,
 
 THOMAS nOLCROFT. 221 
 
 who stood by the cause of tlie people in the house of com- 
 mons, the way was cleared for a fatal blow at the societies, 
 through the persons of their leading members. The same 
 month, informations were filed against Holcroft and eleven 
 of his associates ; and they were seized and committed 
 to the Tower, to await their trial on the charge of high- 
 treason. In October, the trials came on, at the old Bai- 
 ley. The day had come when the great question whether 
 the people should have any share in the government, even 
 to speak against its abuses, or in favor of its reform, was 
 to be settled in the verdict about to be rendered in the 
 case of these twelve selected victims of king, ministry 
 and judges. " This was the hour, and the power of 
 darkness." 
 
 Thomas Hardy, whose case was one of extreme peril, 
 was first brought tothe bar. He was from among the up- 
 per rank of the lower class, and by trade a shoemaker. 
 He was a man of great strength of purpose, a lover of 
 liberty, of the most incorruptible integrity, and a constan- 
 cy and devotion, that nothing could shake or intimidate. 
 Always laboring for the masses, of which he was a unit, 
 he early became interested in the absorbing questions of 
 parliamentary reform, demanding that the people should 
 have a voice in the legislation of the country. He believ- 
 ed that many of the plans so eminently successful in 
 America, might be engrafted without danger, and with 
 great positive advantage, upon the British government. 
 He acted according to his convictions, and early became 
 a member of the London Corresponding Society for Par- 
 liamentary Reform, of which he was the secretary, at the 
 time of the arrest of himself and Holcroft, together with 
 their associates. Had he not been marked out by the rul- 
 ing powers as a victim of signal vengeance, the name of
 
 222 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Thomas Hardy would long ere this have been forgotten 
 He would have remained making shoes to measure, till 
 his sands had run out, and the grave would have devoured 
 his memory then. But now, generations yet in the fature 
 will speak his name. It is woven into the fabric of En- 
 gland's history. Whenever or wherever coming times 
 are pointed back to the places and the days of daring 
 contest for the rights of man, and manly resistance to 
 the invading march of despotic power — to the great 
 stand-points in the progressive advance of liberal princi- 
 ples, there they will see Hardy breasting the mad torrent 
 of power, privilege, prerogative and corruption, combin- 
 ed to crush him, and through him the liberties of the mas- 
 ses whose cause was tried in his. 
 
 Though he was indicted for "conspiring, compassing and 
 imagining the death of the king," yet no evidence was 
 brought to prove his guilt, except the fact of his being an 
 advocate of an equal and pure representation of the peo- 
 ple in the house of commons ; to be procured by peaceful 
 public exertions, in the way provided by the English con- 
 stitution. A reference to the history of England at that 
 time, and a view of the condition of parliament and the 
 relation of the masses to it, will show the reader the ex- 
 tent of necessary reform. Many boroughs, with scarce 
 an inhabitant, sent one or more representatives ; while 
 other towns, with their thousands of citizens and millions 
 of property, were deprived of a single voice in its delib- 
 erations. And notwithstanding the exertions of the peo- 
 ple, which have been now and then put forth up to the 
 present time, the construction of parliament is but little 
 modified. The following letter, written by Hardy, we in- 
 sert to show the sort of evidence upon which he was 
 sought to be convicted ; as well as Id show the man of 
 whose acts and character we are speaking. A conven-
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 223 
 
 tjon had been broken up by the government in Scotland, 
 and several of the leaders had been prosecuted for, and 
 convicted of, misdemeanor, which called forth the letter 
 in question. 
 
 " March 27, 1794. 
 " Citizen : I am directed by the London Correspond- 
 ing Society, to transmit the following resolutions to the 
 Society for Constitutional Information, and to request the 
 sentiments of that Society respecting the important meas- 
 ures which the present juncture of affairs seems to re- 
 quire. 
 
 "The London Corresponding Society conceives that 
 the moment is arrived, when a full and explicit declara- 
 tion is necessary from all the friends of freedom — wheth- 
 er the late illegal and unheard of prosecutions and sen- 
 tences shall determine us to abandon our cause, or shall 
 excite us to pursue a radical reform, with an ardor propor- 
 tioned to the magnitude of the object, and with a zeal as 
 distinguished on our parts as the treachery of others in 
 the same glorious cause is notorious. The Society for 
 Constitutional Information is therefore required to deter- 
 mine whether or no they will be ready, when called upon, 
 to act in conjunction with this and other societies to ob- 
 tain a fair representation of the people — whether they 
 concur with us in seeing the necessity of a speedy con- 
 vention for the purpose of obtaining, in a constitutional 
 and legal method, a redress of those grievances under 
 which we at present labor, and which can only be effec- 
 tually removed by vi full and fair representation of the, 
 people of great Britain. The London Corresponding 
 Society cannot but remind their friends, that the present 
 crisis demands all the prudence, unanimity and vig( r that 
 may and can be exerted by men and Britons ; nor do they
 
 2Sft^ DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 doubt but that manly firmness and consistency will finally, 
 and they believe shortly, terminate in the full accom- 
 plishment of all their wishes. 
 
 "I am, follow citizens, (in my humble measure,) 
 A friend to the rights of man, 
 
 T. Hardy, Secretary." 
 
 With such as this — bits of letters, from and to him — 
 scraps of conversations and remote allusions from indi- 
 viduals whom he had never seen, and unwarrantable con- 
 structions forced upon sentiments uttered and measures 
 proposed, under all of which they alleged lurked some 
 covert, malicious, horrid design of undeveloped treachery, 
 did the crown labor to fasten treason upon Hardy ; and 
 thus nip in the bud the growing plant of reform. 
 
 He was defended by the celebrated Erskine, whose 
 name alone was a pyramid of strength. Pleading with 
 angelic eloquence, he showed by a weight of argument 
 that for once shook the confidence of the crown lawyers, 
 that for an Englishman to speak and publish to his breth- 
 ren what he thought of the government under which he 
 lived, its malconstruction, and maladministration, with a 
 view to its peaceable reform, could not be treason. Noth- 
 ing could exceed the force of argument, the legal learn- 
 ing and the masterly eloquence with which he delivered 
 himself to the jury. " He was aware that twelve good 
 and true men stood between the Lion and his prey ;" and 
 he threw himself, body and soul, into the cause. It ap- 
 peared as though he considered his own life suspended on 
 the result of the pending trial. 
 
 " I claim no merit with the prisoner, for my zeal," 
 says he, in his appeal to the jury ; — " it proceeds from a 
 selfish principle inherent in the human heart. I am coun- 
 sel, gentlemen, for my.self. In every word I utter, I feel
 
 THOMAS HOLCROFT. 235 
 
 that I am pleading for the safety of my own life, for the 
 lives of ray children after me, for the happiness of my 
 country, and for the universal condition of civil society 
 throughout the world." Erskine's defence of Hardy, in 
 which he for seven hours chained court and jury to 
 his lips, will live while the tablets which bear the glory 
 of England's eloquence and legal history, remain to tell 
 that England lived. 
 
 He gained the cause. " And perhaps," says Mr. Hol- 
 croft, " this country never witnessed a moment more por- 
 tentous ; the hearts and countenances of men seemed 
 pregnant with doubt and terror. They awaited in some- 
 thing like a stupor of amazement, for the fearful sentence 
 on which their deliverance or their destruction seemed to 
 depend. 
 
 "Never surely was thepublic mind more profoundly ag- 
 itated. The whole power of government was directed 
 against Thomas Hardy ; — in his fate seemed involved the 
 fate of the nation, and the verdict of not guilty appear- 
 ed to burst its bonds, and to have relieved it from incon- 
 ceivable miseries and ages of impending slavery. The 
 acclamations of the Old Bailey reverberated from the far- 
 thest shores of Scotland, and a whole people felt the en- 
 thusiastic transports of recovered freedom." 
 
 This was indeed a great day for England. Hardy was 
 acquitted by a jury of Englishmen. The right of speech 
 and discussion was maintained. " The crown lost; the 
 people won." 
 
 The old giant of reform felt a returning thrill of re- 
 juvenated vigor wake up his palsied limbs, and rising in 
 his might, he seized his ancient axe, and swaying aloft the 
 gleaming steel, he brought it down upon old antiquated 
 codes, and venerable prejudices, and time-worn systems 
 i
 
 326 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 of exclusive privilege ; then turning, knocked the fetters 
 from the chafed and bleeding limbs of the thrallbowed, 
 praying slave ; remodeled postoffice laws and annihilated 
 corn-laws; and now, with its flaming edge all burnished 
 with recent work, he stands at the threshhold of parlia- 
 ment, and whispers with his million tongues, " We must 
 have change in here among ye. The constitution must 
 be mended. We want equal and pure representation in 
 this house of commons of ours!" As one after another 
 he has shouted his triumphs, the nations of Christendom 
 turn from their plodding labors, and look to that rock- 
 girt island where Anglo-Saxon Liberty was born, and pray 
 for England. A few years longer, and in the museum of 
 antique relics, will be found the scepter and crown of 
 Britain. 
 
 Hardy returned to his home loaded with the blessings 
 .and congratulations of the people ; but alas ! he found it 
 not as six months before he left it, to pass the fiery ordeal. 
 His wife had fallen a victim to grief and anxiety. He 
 was alone in the world. 
 
 The verdict in the case of Hardy decided the rest. 
 Only one or two more were tried. Mr. Tooke came next. 
 He was pronounced not guilty — and then the Old Bailey 
 rang again ; for the people indeed felt their liberties were 
 coming back. Disappointed and sorely vexed, the crown 
 stayed the prosecutions here, and Holcroft and the re- 
 maining prisoners were set at liberty. 
 
 Released, Holcroft did not cease his efforts in the cause 
 of reform ; but for the most part, from here to the end of 
 his career, he was engaged in the arduous labors of a se- 
 vere literary life. He visited Hamburg and Paris, where 
 he extended his researches in various departments of let- 
 ters. While in Paris, he was engaged in collecting ma-
 
 terials for a large work he afterwards published upon the 
 manners, &c., of that famous capital. There he was em- 
 ployed about two years. This work was nobly performed, 
 and is at once one of the most entertaining and instruct- 
 ive books of travel in the language. He had some work 
 or other constantly in press. His mental powers remain- 
 ed unimpaired to the close of his life, which came in the 
 sixty-ninth year ofhis age, in March, 1804. 
 
 In him the extremes of life had met : he had reached a 
 good old age — seen poverty and affluence, degradation, 
 and honor, and been associated with the lowest and high- 
 est men of his times. His literary rank brought him into 
 the companionship of the great, the good and the wise, 
 both in England and on the continent ; born the heir of 
 poverty and ignorance, he had v/orked his way, by the in- 
 herent powers of his own mind, with persevering indus- 
 try and untiring energy, through all the discouragements 
 of his situation, and in spite of the opposition of circum- 
 stances, to the front rank of genius. He illustrated the 
 fact, that laboring with the hands does not depreciate the 
 value of the man.
 
 228 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ' -y ■»■?'■ 
 
 CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. '^ 
 
 Some are born loaded with titles, honors and nobility ; 
 cradled in the lap of luxury; the heirs of boundless 
 wealth ; surrounded by adoring friends, whose highest 
 wish seems gratified, when the infantile Noble of the 
 earth deigns to smile in satisfaction at their tireless 
 attempts to please. Thus born, they work themselves 
 down to the depths of degradation, infamy and unbe- 
 friended poverty. Perhaps the unknown and unhonored 
 vagrant you saw quitting life in the last stages of 
 drunken madness, or lingering out the few remaining 
 years of his earthly pilgrimage in the alms-house or the 
 prison, was one of them. 
 
 Others are ushered into life unnoticed and almost 
 uncared-for but by parental love, untitled and unknown ; 
 whose only inheritance is life guarantied upon the condi- 
 tion, that "by the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread all 
 the days of thy lif«." Thus born, they for a while 
 comply, like obedient children as they are, with the 
 hard necessity which pledged them existence ; till at 
 length, grown strong and sinewy in the giant conflict 
 of life, and having done their part manfully, in meeting 
 and surmounting difficulties, they dodge that hard 
 necessity, and work their way up to titles, honors and 
 nobility — carving out a fortune for themselves, that 
 might well excite the jealousy of the rich old Goddess 
 herself. They live then, and die, with the proud con- 
 sciousness that they created their own nobility.
 
 CLOtlDRSLET SHOVBIi. 522^ 
 
 Such an one was Cloudbsley Shovel, whose name 
 receives a prominent place in the naval history of Eng- 
 land. He was born about the year 1650, of humble 
 parentage. The place of his nativity and youth, though 
 in England, we are unable precisely to point out. His 
 parents had a relation whose name was Cloudesley, and 
 hoping that his wealth or influence might be turned to 
 good account, when this hopeful branch was added to 
 the family, they lovingly put upon him the name of 
 Cloudesley ; so he was duly christened and registered as 
 Cloudesley Shovel, and was looked upon, in his baby 
 days, as the important recipient of some unknown and 
 inestimable gift at the will of that rich old relation 
 when Death should have played his part in the game. 
 
 This arrangement, though apparently well put together 
 and beautifully designed, did not seem to work ; for in 
 process of time, v/e find this same Cloudesley Shovel 
 apprenticed to a shoemaker, for the purpose of learning 
 his art, and thereby augmenting his chances for exist- 
 ence. However well young Shovel might have been 
 pleased at first with the idea of making shoes — for he 
 appears to have applied himself diligently for several 
 years to his trade — upon a sober second thought, he 
 came to the conclusion that he did not like the business, 
 and that he was altogether averse to continuing in it any 
 longer. Like a great many other apprentices, he ascer- 
 tained that it did not agree with him, and likewise that 
 he did not agree with it. Perhaps it hurt his stomach. 
 Be this as it may, his "boss" found, one morning, to his 
 sore astonishment, that this young disciple of the sainted 
 Crispin, whom he had endeavored so many years to 
 initiate into the mysteries of boots, was among the 
 missing.
 
 230 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 O Cloudesley ! thou didst not know to what vexation 
 and disappointment thou wast putting thy faithful master, 
 who, in the midst of leather obligations, chores and 
 family affairs, was depending upon thy assistance! But 
 reflections of this kind did not trouble the head, nor 
 derange the plans, of the young adventurer. He was 
 determined tipon a larger view of the great world, and a 
 wider sphere of action. He had heard the tales of dis- 
 covery and bold adventure that were recited from the 
 lips of daring navigators, who. in that time of commer- 
 ical enterprise and naval activity, had penetrated to 
 distant and, till then, unnavigated seas, and brought 
 back vague and startling stories of terrestrial paradises, 
 mighty rivers and towering mountains, gigantic races of 
 men and frightful monsters. 
 
 He had heard, too, of the brilliant naval achievements 
 of his nation and his times. These things, with the un- 
 known and uncertain commingled with them, made him 
 love the sea ; and he determined, come what might, he 
 would be a sailor. He knew there was danger in it ; 
 but then, his was a stout heart, that loved to brave 
 dangers and overcome difficulties. And besides, he was 
 by nature of an aspiring disposition, and by this means 
 hoped to hew out for himself a path to eminence, and 
 fame, and fortune. 
 
 On his first voyage, he of course went in an inferior 
 capacity ; but applying himself with unwearied assiduity 
 to the art of navigation, and joining the teachings of 
 experience, that best of schoolmasters, to theory, he 
 soon became an able seaman. His genius was decidedly 
 well suited to the profession he had chosen, and as those 
 were stirring times, in which merit always flourishes, he 
 soon arrived at honorable preferment.
 
 CLOUD ESLEV SHOVEL. 23ll> 
 
 In what particular branch of service young Shovel 
 was engaged during the early part of his seafaring life, 
 does not appear ; but at the age of twenty-four, or sooner, 
 we find him a Lieutenant in the British Navy ; and as 
 he must have progressed step by step up to that position, it 
 is fair to conclude, that he received his training there. 
 
 After the second Dutch war, in the maritime exploits 
 of which he participated, was over, the seas, particularly . 
 the Mediterranean, were swarming with the armed 
 piratical vessels of Tripoli ; who, notwithstanding solemn 
 treaties, by which she pledged herself in good faith to 
 keep the peace of the ocean, began to commit new de- 
 predations, as soon as the power which compelled her to 
 treat was withdrawn. The mercantile interests of 
 England were suffering so severely, that, in 1674, a 
 strong squadron, under the command of Sir John 
 Narborough, was ordered into the Mediterranean, and in 
 the spring of that year arrived before the gates of Tripoli. 
 
 Lieutenant Shovel was an officer in this fleet ; and 
 so distinguished had he become, both for courage and 
 conduct, that the admiral, whose instructions compelled 
 him to try negociation first, selected Shovel for the 
 delicate commission of proposing terms of accommoda. 
 tion to the Dey of Tripoli, in which should be demanded 
 " indemnity for the past, and security for the future." 
 
 The young Lieutenant gladly accepted the appoint- 
 ment, and at once repaired on shore, and discharged his 
 commission with the most satisfactory promptness and 
 ability. But the Dey, confident in the strength of his 
 defences, and despising the youthful appearance of the 
 British officer, treated him with marked disrespect, and 
 sent him back with no definite answer. As for indemnity, 
 it was his object to get money, either by hook or by
 
 232 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 crook, not to pay it away in negociation ; and as for 
 security, he felt perfectly secure behind his fortresses of 
 rock and iron, and had no idea of being disturbed by 
 any one, or any intimation of insecurity. 
 
 When Lieut. Shovel returned, he laid the result of his 
 mission, together with the observations upon the state of 
 the enemy's defences, he had made on shore, before the 
 Admiral. So highly was the Admiral pleased with his 
 address and expertness, that he sent him back again 
 with another message, and with instructions to carry his 
 observations further, and inspect the position of the 
 enemy more minutely. The second time, the Dey be- 
 haved worse than the first ; but Shovel had learned to 
 bear insult and neglect with patience ; and he only made 
 such treatment an excuse for staying a longer time in 
 the city. 
 
 As the result of this visit, he came to the conclusion 
 that it was entirely practicable, and very expedient, to 
 burn the whole Tripolitan fleet in the harbor, notwith- 
 standing the lines and forts by which it was defended. 
 This well-laid scheme for cutting the Gordian knot of 
 controversy at a single blow, he opened, on his return, 
 to his commander. Accordingly, the Admiral, placing 
 the utmost reliance upon the judgment and sagacity of 
 Lieut. Shovel, placed him in command of a suitable 
 force for the carrying of his scheme into practical exe- 
 cution. On the night of the 4th of March, every thing 
 being previously arranged to his mind, Lieut. Shovel, 
 with all the boats in the squadron loaded with combusti- 
 bles, and manned by picked crews, moved through the 
 darkness, silently but boldly, into the harbor. Distrib- 
 uting themselves cautiously among the Tripolitan ships, 
 with one consentaneous action, they boarded the entire
 
 CLOUDESLEY SHOV£L. 233 
 
 fleet of the enemy. One fierce shriek of wild dismay 
 went to the stars, whose light was vailed in clouds of 
 smoke, mingled with surging billows of fire, which rose 
 as if by enchantment from the bosom of the still waters. 
 The splendid illumination, while it disconcerted the 
 endeavors of the enemy to cut off their retreat by a well- 
 timed opening of the outer batteries, aided the gallant 
 little fleet in securing a safe return, which they did with- 
 out the loss of a single man, or incurring any serious ac- 
 cident. 
 
 By this bold stroke he at once put an end to the difii- 
 culties of negociation, and taught that piratical nation a 
 practical lesson, not soon forgotten, nor necessary to be 
 immediately repeated. This brilliant and successful ex» 
 ploit raised the reputation of young Cloudesley so high,, 
 that he was raised to the rank of Captain. In this sta- 
 tion he remained for several years, through variety of for- 
 tune, in a field of constant activity. 
 
 When James the Second came to the throne of Eng- 
 land, though there were causes for great personal aver- 
 sion to Capt. Shovel on his part, yet, from reasons of 
 national policy, which required that the highest naval tal- 
 ent should be secured for the direction of maritime af-r 
 fairs, he confirmed him in the rank he had previously en- 
 joyed. Capt. Shovel was a determined whig; while King 
 James' sentiments were not peculiarly whiggi.sh in their 
 character. 
 
 In 1689, he was in the battle of Bantry Bay, in which 
 action he commanded the Edgar, man-of-war, and show- 
 ed such signal marks of coolness in maneuvering, and 
 courage in attack, as to gain the highest expressions of 
 commendation from his superiors in command ; and as a 
 reward for his distinguished service in that engagement,
 
 234 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 when King William went down to Portsmouth to review 
 his naval equipments there, and encourage his officers and 
 seamen, he was pleased to confer upon him the order of 
 Knighthood ; and he became thenceforth, Sir Cloudesley 
 Shovel, of the Royal Navy. , 
 
 This mark of royal esteem was soon followed by further 
 services, as they were by still further rewards. During 
 the winter of 1690, and the following spring, after cruis- 
 ing off the coast of Ireland and in the soundings,, he was 
 employed in convoying the king and his army into Ire. 
 land. So highly satisfied was his sovereign, with his abil- 
 ity in arranging his plans, and dexterity in developing 
 them, that immediately upon the conclusion of his gallant 
 services, William appointed him to the place of Rear Ad- 
 miral, and did him the unusual honor, to deliver the com- 
 mission with his own hand. 
 
 Sir Cloudesley Shovel had now, at the age of forty, arri- 
 ved at the highest rank in his profession ; but still he was 
 as active as ever in the service of his country. As the 
 French, then at war with England, threatened to enter St. 
 George's Channel with their fleet and burn the transport 
 ships lying there, he was directed to cruise off the islands 
 of Scilly, South of Ireland, and near the mouth of the 
 Channel, and intercept the enemy in their attempts, if 
 made; but the French fleet wisely declined the offer so 
 freely extended. Failing of active employment here, he 
 sailed with most of the ships under his command to the 
 strong town of Waterford, in the southern part of Ire- 
 land, which an English army were vainly endeavoring to 
 capture, on account of the numerous garrison in the cas- 
 tle, commanded by Gen. Bourk, who declared his reso- 
 lution not to surrender as long as one stone remained upon 
 fipother. -• ■- **"• l».w#c»
 
 ^^^.CLOUDESLEY SHOVE!-. 235 
 
 Sir Cloudesley, guessing that a large share of his brave, 
 ry arose from the fact that the English General had not 
 a single piece of artillery, immediately landed several 
 pieces from his ships, which, worked by a few marines, 
 soon brought the Irish General to terms of capitulation, 
 before he had seen one stone knocked from another ; — 
 thus illustrating the point, that prudence is a very valua- 
 ble trait, however highly courage may rank in popular 
 estimation. 
 
 This year, 1691, Sir Cloudesley was again engaged in 
 escorting the king, for which service he was named Rear 
 Admiral of the ' red^ as he had previously been of the 
 * i/we.' He seemed to be a man whom royalty delighted 
 to honor. 
 
 "It was his felicity, that as his services were well-in- 
 tended, so, generally speaking, they were well received ; 
 and if Sir Cloudesley Shovel any time missed of success, 
 nobody ever pretended to fix imputations upon his con- 
 duct — his courage and sincerity were alike unquestion- 
 able ; and, though this was not the most credulous age, 
 yet there never was heard of such an infidel, as one who 
 did not believe Shovel had both." 
 
 Next year, the fleet under his command formed a junc- 
 tion with that of Admiral Russel. This combined fleet, 
 led by the most experienced commanders of the times, 
 shaped its course so as to fall in with the French, which 
 had recently put to sea in most formidable force, with the 
 design of trying its strength in the mighty struggle for 
 the empire of the ocean. This mutual desire of theirs 
 was soon gratified, and on the 19lh of May, 1692, the pow- 
 erful armadas of these rival nations hove in eight of each 
 other off Cape La Hogue, and forming their lines of bat- 
 tle, rapidly bore down to the conflict. After several
 
 236 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 hours incessant cannonading, the French gave way, and 
 drew off their dismantled wrecks, to seek refuge in the 
 heavy mist that had settled upon the waters. This victo- 
 ry, though it could not be followed up on account of the 
 dense fog, was decisive for the maritime supremacy of 
 Britain. Towards this important victory, the skillful and 
 energetic conduct of Sir Cloudesley contributed, in no 
 small degree. 
 
 In 1693, the English fleet, under the command of three 
 joint Admirals, of whom Shovel was one, added nothing 
 to the luster acquired by the brilliant acheivements of 
 former years. It was beaten and dismantled off Smyrna; 
 but for some reason or other, Sir Cloudesley appears to 
 have escaped without censure from the people at home, 
 while his brother Admirals were condemned in no meas- 
 ured terms. The Dutch, who were partners with Britain 
 in the game of war, seem to have formed the same idea, 
 and in caricaturing the taking of the Smyrna fleet, their 
 painters represent Sir Cloudesley aboard his ship at a 
 distance, with his hands tied behind him, and each of his 
 colleagues holding an end of the line; thus seeming to 
 insinuate that he would have prevented the misfortune, 
 if they had not prevented him. " Too many cooks, spoil 
 the broth." Too many leaders almost invariably destroy 
 the harmony and success of concerted action. 
 
 However fiercely and bitterly his brethren were denoun- 
 ced and accused by public opinion. Sir Cloudesley Shov- 
 el nobly and generously defended them at the bar of the 
 Commons ; and thereby, while he lost none of the fame 
 which justly belonged to his past actions, he gained a 
 widely extended reputation for disinterestedness and 
 friendly sincerity. At the same time, he was a whig, and 
 his colleagues were devoted lories. r " t-'«h' • ' >
 
 CLOUDESLEY SBOVEL. 237 
 
 During the remainder of the war, up to the peace of 
 Ryswick, he continued actively engaged upon the water ; 
 and after that event, in the period of comparative peace 
 that preceded the " War of the Spanish Succession," 
 his naval duties and services, both in counsel and execu- 
 tion, were neither few nor small. 
 
 When subjects of maritime policy were under consid- 
 eration, his Majesty always consulted Sir Cloudesley, and 
 governed himself by the advice of that experienced and 
 judicious seaman. 
 
 When the War of Succession broke out, at the dawn 
 of the last century, in which the most powerful sove- 
 reigns of Europe entered the lists, in mortal conflict for 
 a crown that neither of them expected to wear, and drove 
 their people into the field of carnage, to fight the battles 
 of their unrighteous cause, Admiral Shovel committed 
 himself to the watery element, in consonance to the mot- 
 to he had adopted with the profession of soldier; " My 
 country, right or wroug." 
 
 From the first moment that he entered the naval ser- 
 vice of his country, he had, in fact, though unwittingly, 
 sold himself for a machine. Government was his will — 
 the commands of government his duty. The greatness 
 of the soldier seems to consist in successful obedience to 
 the requirements of national rulers, whatever they may 
 be, right or wrong. In this unnatural and ridiculous kind 
 of greatness. Sir Cloudesley has a large share. And while 
 the world suffers this to be considered the spring of fame, 
 he will continue to be famous. With strong faith in the 
 progress of the race, we believe there is a better day com- 
 ing, when man will no longer be a machine whose crank 
 is in the hands of governments and hierarchies — when 
 he will yield only to those pure motive influences, which
 
 238 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 flow out, spontaneously, from the throne of the Eternal, 
 into the human heart. 
 
 The first exploit of note Sir Cloudesley performed in this 
 war, was in seizing the treasure ships of Spain, in the 
 harbor of Vigo. Rumors were afloat, that treasures of 
 vast amount were on their way from the New World, un- 
 der convoy of the French fleet — Admiral Shovel at once 
 bore away with all speed to the Spanish main, so as to 
 cut off", and make spoils of this precious freight. When 
 he arrived on the coast he found the whole fleet, mer- 
 chantmen and men of war, all safely sheltered in the lit- 
 tle port of Vigo. But as Cadiz held the monopoly of 
 this kind of trade, the unrelenting functionaries of that 
 old despotism would not allow a " real" to be landed any 
 where else. To Cadiz it must go. While the merchants 
 and the board of trade were quarreling in the meshes of 
 this intricate policy. Sir Cloudesley, at the head of the 
 English squadron, appeared at the mouth of the harbor, 
 knocking for admission, in a tone, as polite as it was wel- 
 come, to the astonished Spaniards, and their quondam 
 associates, the French. The harbor was defended by 
 two old forts, and a strong boom had been thrown across 
 the entrance; but all to no purpose. Against the impet- 
 uosity of the assault, the fortifications were useless — the 
 boom was broken like a line of hemp. The greater part 
 of the Spanish galleons were taken, and the rest were 
 sunk. The French burned their ships and retreated to 
 the shore. The victors shared some millions of money, 
 and in less than a month, Sir Cloudesley arrived safely 
 at home, where he was received with the most enthusias- 
 tic greetings of applause and commendation. The 
 court immediately resolved, that for the future, his ser- 
 vices should be reserved for affairs of the greatest conse- 
 quence.
 
 CLODDESLEY SHOVEL. 239 
 
 From this time to the end of his life, his history is the 
 history of the war ; for as it was entirely foreign, the suc- 
 cess of every enterprise depended upon the navy. In 
 1703, he was cruising the Mediterranean, blockading the 
 French ports in that direction, cutting off their supplies, 
 and preventing the embarkation of troops for the seat of 
 war. He relieved the Protestants, then in arms in the 
 Covernes, and neutralized such of the Italian powers, as 
 were inclined to take sides with the French. 
 
 In 1704, he bore a prominent part in that great naval 
 engagement that took place off the coast of Malaga, in 
 which the French were totally defeated. This battle was 
 fought on Sunday, the 13th of August. Sir Cloudesley 
 Shovel, with his division of nine line of battle ships, led 
 the van in the attack, and broke the line of the enemy 
 with terrible slaughter — his own loss was 106 killed, 
 and 310 wounded. Amid the carnage and destruction that 
 fell on every hand, the Admiral's vessel escaped almost 
 uninjured ; though he remarks in a letter written at the 
 time, he, " never took more pains to be well beat in his 
 life." 
 
 This victory was indeed of great service to the cause 
 of England at that juncture of affairs, and it was so re- 
 garded by the home government ; and when prince 
 George presented Sir Cloudesley to the dueen as Lord 
 high Admiral of England, it testified in no ambiguous 
 manner, that his gallant services were fully appreciated. 
 Appointed to the chief command of the naval operations, 
 Sir Cloudesley accepted a joint command with that great 
 and singularly eccentric genius, the Earl of Peterborough, 
 who was then general-in-chief of the English land forces 
 in Spain. Here the Admiral found himself in a pecu- 
 liarly trying situation — before the walls of the strong
 
 240 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 fortress of Barcelona, which they were instructed to re- 
 duce. The garrison of that place wasequaUy as numer- 
 ous as the besieging army, and provisioned for an indefi- 
 nite length of time. At the satne time, great divisions 
 existed in the allied army. The Earl and the Prince of 
 Hesse were not on speaking terms. But by the almost 
 miraculous energy and skill of Peterborough, and the 
 judicious counsel, calmness and activity of Shovel, one 
 of the strongest fortified places in Europe was taken by 
 assault, the successful temerity of which, stands almost 
 without a parallel in the annals of modern warfare. 
 
 This memorable achievement was due to the unfailing 
 and daring genius of Peterborough ; though, had he not 
 been most ably and seasonably seconded by Sir Cloudes- 
 ley, he must ultimately have failed. But the laurels to 
 be acquired in this ill-conducted and reasonless war, were 
 few and leafless. Every thing undertaken was marked 
 with a carelessness and imbecility at home, that plainly 
 showed that the hearts of the people were not in sympa- 
 thy with the cause of the crown. Almost every enter- 
 prise miscarried ; and had it not been for the untiring 
 vigilance of the admiral, and the immense exertions of 
 the fleet, England and her allies, would everywhere have 
 suffered defeat and disgrace. What we regret is, that 
 Sir Cloudesley Shovel could not have exhibited his splen- 
 did talents in a nobler field, and under happier auspices. 
 England owes a deep debt of gratitude to him, for pre- 
 serving her falling fortune in those ill-starred times. 
 
 In 1707, he left the shores of his native country for 
 the last time. He transported some 10,000 troops to Al- 
 icant, in the South of Spain, sailed back to Lisbon for 
 outfit and repairs, and thence sailed, with the major 
 part of the fleet, for the South of France and the coast
 
 CLOUDESI.EY SHOVEL. 241 1 
 
 of Italy. The plan was to lay seige to Toulon, and ac- 
 complish the reduction of that great maritime stronghold 
 of France on the Mediterranean. To the accomplish- 
 ment of this enterprise, Sir Cloudesley lent all his ener- 
 gies. By the latter part of June, he had effected a junc- 
 tion with the land forces under the command of the Duke . 
 of Savoy, near the mouth of the River Var, along the 
 banks of which the French were strongly entrenched, 
 and determined to dispute the passage. Notwithstanding 
 the strength of the enemy's position, the importance of 
 carrying it decided for immediate action. Sir Cloudes- 
 ley ordered four English and one Dutch man-of-war, 
 into the mouth of the river to storm the enemy's works, 
 and aid the movements of the land army, while he landed 
 with six hundred English seamen, in open boats, under 
 cover of a heavy fire from the shipping. After a brief re- 
 sistance, the French soldiers threw down their arms, and 
 abandoned their position in the utmost confusion. In 
 their retreat, they were met by a large detachment that 
 was pushing on to their assistance; these, struck by the 
 general panic, turned, and made common cause with 
 their fugitive comrades. 
 
 The passage of the Var being forced, a council of war 
 was immediately held on board the Admiral's ship, in 
 which it was resolved to prosecute the march to Toulon 
 without delay. The Duke pledged himself to be before 
 the walls of the city in six days. Leaving ten or twelve 
 ships to intercept the communication of France with It- 
 aly, Sir Cloudesley at once weighed anchor for Toulon. 
 He awaited the end of six days, but no signs of the land 
 army were visible — six days more were spent, before the: 
 tardy movements of the allied chief brought the army with- 
 in sight of their destination. But the six days, which were
 
 243 DISTINQUISHBD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 of decisive importance, had been better improved by the 
 French, within the now beleaguered city. The garrison 
 was augmented ; stores of ail kinds were treasured up ; 
 useless mouths were dismissed ; the fortifications were 
 put in the best possible state of defence ; and every thing 
 betokened a long and vigorous resistance. 
 
 Never did the courage and military ability of this ex- 
 perienced naval officer shine forth in a manner more bril- 
 liant — but all in vain. Nothing he could do was able 
 to atone for the sluggish movements of his allies. They 
 were a week too late. The enterprise from which so much 
 was anticipated, and which had cost such abundant labor 
 and sacrifice, was ingloriously abandoned. They were 
 compelled to turn the backs of their thinned and scattered 
 legions upon the city they came to conquer, but found 
 impregnable. 
 
 Filled with silent grief and indignation at being foiled 
 after such heroic devotion. Sir Cloudesley shaped his 
 course slowly away toward England. On the 22dof Oct., 
 he came into soundings — the lead showing ninety fath- 
 oms. At noon of the same day he lay by, but at six, the 
 wind being fair, he made sail again, and stood away un- 
 der his courses, believing he could distinguish the light 
 of Scilly. Shortly after, his ship was perceived to hoist 
 a signal of distress ; but so difficult was her position, 
 that it was deemed impossible to render any assistance. 
 The foaming breakers hemmed them in ; and in the dim 
 twilight of that last night to the brave, storm-daring 
 mariner, the ship struck upon the sunken reef, and was 
 rent and scattered, in the fearful conflict of the surging 
 elements. All on board perished. Several other ships 
 met the same fate. 
 
 It is impossible to assign the reason for this fatal acci-
 
 CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. 243 
 
 dent. There was a report prevalent at the time, that the 
 crew were drunk, with drinking health to merry old Eng- 
 land, whose blue head-lands were just descried, peering 
 up in the dim distance. But these joyous visions of 
 sweet home were speedily dispelled, in the wild rush of 
 waters, as they dashed over the hidden rocks of Scilly, 
 giving the unwilling spirit of the drowning sailor to the 
 moaning winds. 
 
 The next morning, the body of the Admiral, which 
 had been washed upon the beach, was found by some 
 peasants ; who, after appropriating a costly emerald ring, 
 which was upon his finger, stripped and buried him in 
 the sand. This ring, being shown as a splendid prize, 
 was soon recognized, and by that means the remains of 
 Sir Cloudesley were discovered. The day after the fatal 
 disaster, they were conveyed aboard the Salsbury man- 
 of-war, and in it to Plymouth — thence to London, where 
 they were buried with great solemnity in Westminster 
 Abbey. His friends and brethren in arms wept over him 
 with a great and exceeding bitter lamentation. The 
 Queen expressed very deep concern at his untimely loss, 
 and was heard to remark, when she appointed Sir John 
 Leake rear Admiral, that " she knew no man, so fit to 
 repair the loss of the ablest seaman in her service." 
 
 On a beautiful monument of white marble, erected to 
 his memory by public munificence, and a few years ago 
 aaid to be the only one of its kind, may be traced the 
 following inscription : " Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Kn't., 
 Rear Admiral of Great Britain ; Admiral and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the fleet ; the just rewards of his long 
 and faithful services. He was deservedly beloved by his 
 Country, and esteemed, though dreaded, by the Enemy, 
 who had often experienced his conduct and courage.
 
 244 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Being shipwrecked on the rocks of Scilly in his voyage 
 from Toulon, the 22d of October, 1707, at night, in the 
 57th year of his age. His fate was lamented by all ; but 
 especially the seafaring part of the nation, to whom he 
 was a worthy example. His body was flung and buried 
 with others in the sands ; but being soon after taken up, 
 was placed under this monument, which his Royal Mis- 
 tress has caused to be erected to commemorate his steady 
 loyalty and extraordinary virtues." 
 
 In his manners and converse with men, Sir Cloudes- 
 ley Shovel was kind, social and familiar ; yet such was 
 the characteristic bluntness of his ways, that he by no 
 means acquired the reputation of being the most polite 
 and complaisant officer in the naval service. The kind- 
 ness of his heart was abundantly evinced in the tender- 
 ness he manifested towards his family and associates, in 
 all the varied relations of husband, father and friend. 
 His life was, indeed, mostly spent in the service of the 
 public; yet in all the circumstances of private life, he 
 exhibited such a share of prudence, wisdom and benevo- 
 lence that few men ever lived more beloved, or died more 
 lamented. 
 
 From so many beautiful traits of character, which cir- 
 cle around his memory, who can turn and look calmly, in 
 the mild, pure light of Christianity, at the chief and 
 chosen business of his existence, and not be struck with 
 the incongruity of the picture — and not abhor the san- 
 guinary customs of nations, which alienate the best af- 
 fections of the human soul, and put good men upon the 
 train of murder — which erect partition lines and barri- 
 ers around a kingdom or a clan, and say to the kindly 
 sympathies of universal fraternity, to these ye may go, 
 but beyond them, never.
 
 CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL. '245 
 
 He left an honest and honorable calling, fellow-crafts- 
 men in the trade of building shoes — one, by which he 
 might have done good service to mankind, and done no 
 violence to the law of God, nor the better sentiments of 
 his own nature, to engage in the murderous, cruel trade 
 of war ; to butcher, starve and mangle Frenchmen, 
 Spaniards, Germans, Dutchmen, Irishmen — all kinds of 
 men but Englishmen; — to plunder, conflagrate and 
 waste all lands but England. This, in the low dialect 
 of Earth, is glory. But there is a higher, purer dialect 
 men are learning to speak on Earth ; it is the same in 
 which the finger of the Most High has inscribed in rain- 
 bow characters across the heavens of humanity, all along 
 the pathway of the race from the beginning, that " God 
 hath made of one blood all nations of men.''
 
 246 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 GEORGE FOX. 
 
 em 
 
 George Fox, the founder of the Society of Quakers, 
 was a native of Drayton, in Leicestershire, England, 
 where he was born in July, 1624. His father, Christo- 
 pher Fox, was a weaver ; a man of great uprightness and 
 integrity, who on this account was called by his neigh- 
 bors, " righteous Christer." 
 
 His mother, a woman of unusual intelligence, piety, 
 and tenderness, early saw in him indications of an un- 
 common character, and labored to instill virtuous princi- 
 ples and sentiments into his mind, and endeavored to 
 strengthen his impressions and cherish his good resolu- 
 tions. On account of the humble circumstances of his 
 parents, George enjoyed no other literary advantages than 
 those of a plain English education; but the observing 
 turn of his mind, and the grave sobriety of his deport- 
 ment made his friends desirous that he should be edu- 
 cated for the clerical profession. This would perhaps 
 have been accomplished but for the objections of some 
 influential relatives, by whose interference he was placed 
 apprentice to a shoemaker, who also dealt in wool ; and 
 George's time was divided between his trade and the 
 care of the sheep, an employment well suited to his re- 
 tiring and contemplative disposition. 
 
 When very young he was remarkably averse to those 
 sports and amusements so common to his age in life, 
 and would often remark when he saw any behaving 
 themselves rudely, " If ever I come to be a man, surely 
 I shall not do so."
 
 GEORGE FOX. :•'.■■■ 247 
 
 " While I was a child," says he, " I was taught to 
 walk so as to be kept pure. The Lord taught me to be 
 faithful in all things ; to act faithfully in two ways, viz : 
 inwardly to God, and outwardly to man, and to keep to 
 yea and nay in all things." He also speaks of receiving 
 instruction from the same source, that he should be 
 temperate, both in eating and drinking. 
 
 In the transaction of business for his master, much 
 money and other property passed through his hands; 
 but in all his dealings he acquired a great reputation for 
 integrity and scrupulous honesty towards all. In his 
 dealings, he frequently used the word verily y and such 
 was the tried firmness with which he adhered to his 
 word, that it became a common saying in the neighbor- 
 hood, " If George says verily, there is no altering 
 him." 
 
 When about nineteen years of age, on a certain oc- 
 casion, as he was in company, he became deeply mov- 
 ed at the thoughtless levity of some, and the eager de^ 
 sire of riches manifested by others, though both classes 
 were making a high profession of religion. Withdraw- 
 ing in great trouble of mind from the company, he 
 spent the night in solitude, mourning for the wickedness 
 of the times. In this situation, these words seemed au- 
 dibly addressed to him : " Thou seest how young peo- 
 ple go together into vanity, and old people into the earth 
 — thou must forsake all, old and young, and be a strang- 
 er unto all." Soon after, he broke off acquaintance 
 with his former associates, and traveled through various 
 portions of the country, seeking out persons who were 
 most famous for devotion and piety, that he might gain 
 relief to his vexed and anxious spirit from their instruc- 
 tions and conversation. But he could find no one that
 
 248 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 understood his case; but was more and more convinced, 
 that the purity of Christianity was in a great measure 
 lost among the senseless forms and superstitious rites of 
 of the professed disciples of the simple gospel of the Sa- 
 vior. Among them all, he could find no response to the 
 sentiments harbored in his own bosom. He was possess- 
 ed of principles and sentiments to which they were 
 strangers. Some proposed that he should marry to quiet 
 the exercises of his mind, and give his feelings a more 
 peaceful flow ; others prescribed other restoratives, and 
 one minister advised him to take tobacco and sing 
 psalms. Such were the spiritual guides and teachers of 
 that day. 
 
 We, of this brighter era of Christian illumination, can 
 have but a faint idea of the corruptions of the time when 
 George Fox commenced his ministry. England had be- 
 come, under James the First and Charles the First, all 
 that a licentious priesthood and profligate and tyrannical 
 rulers could make it ; for the people are not apt to wait 
 for pressing invitations to follow in the steps of their 
 guides and instructors, both spiritual and temporal. 
 From this remark we should except the various sects of 
 dissenters, who were rapidly increasing, in spite of the 
 most cruel persecution, and who, in the end, subverted 
 the house of Stuart, and broke for a season the power 
 of episcopal domination. At this time, and long previous- 
 ly, the most vicious indulgences were allowed and openly 
 cherished in the established church. James, in 1618, 
 promulgated a decree instituting public games and sports 
 after the regular service of the Sabbath. Charles, his 
 successor, did not, of course, repeal such an institution 
 so much in consonance with his own inclinations, and 
 so pleasing to his licentious court ; but, on the contrary.
 
 GEORGE FOX. 
 
 249 
 
 he extended the license. These sports soon degenerated 
 into noisy and tumultuous revels, continuing late into the 
 night, which were appropriately called "wakes"; and 
 when the disturbance finally became so great as to en- 
 danger the peace of the realm, the judges attempted to 
 suppress them by a judicial prohibition. They were, 
 however, immediately summoned before the king by 
 Archbishop Laud, for invading the episcopal jurisdiction; 
 and after receiving a severe reprimand, the prohibition 
 was revoked. 
 
 Under such a state of things, it is no matter of sur- 
 prise that a mind like that of George Fox should be 
 deeply moved. Sensitive to every thing of a religious 
 character, these flagrant violations of all the precepts of 
 his most holy religion, were felt, till his whole soul was 
 kindled into a flame of enthusiastic opposition to the tide 
 of evil that was fast setting over the church and the na- 
 tion. He felt an inspiration from above, and could not 
 refrain from speaking. He believed he had received an 
 immediate call from the great Head of the Church to be- 
 come a minister of reformation to the people of England 
 and the world. He saw that a formal profession of 
 Christianity does not constitute a Christian. He believ- 
 ed that he was under the tuition of the Divine Spirit and 
 illumination ; and often speaks in his writings of the 
 " openings " he had ; " how he was made to see " ; or, 
 *' the Lord gave him to see." " When I had openings," 
 he observes, " they answered one another, and answered 
 the scriptures ; for I had great openings of the scrip- 
 tures." 
 
 In the twenty-third year of his age, amidst the most 
 violent political commotions, George Fox commenced 
 his ministry. The first individual who openly embraced 
 
 K
 
 Q50 DISTINGUISHED 8IIOEMAKKR8. 
 
 the sentiments he taught, was Elizabeth Hooton, who 
 became an active and noted preacher in the society. 
 The success that attended his preaching was very great ; 
 and the report of his piety and zeal being spread far and 
 wide, multitudes flocked to see and converse with him ; 
 while others were highly enraged at his doctrine of per- 
 fection, the possibility and necessity of which he enforced 
 in so bold and startling a manner, as to bring against 
 him the whole batteries of the dominant religion, which 
 met the young apostle with all the terrors of spiritual in- 
 fallibility, and political power. 
 
 In describing his ministry, he says, " I was sent lo 
 turn the people from darkness to light — to the grace of 
 God, and to the truth in the heart, which came by Jesus, 
 that all might come to know their salvation nigh. I saw 
 that Christ died for all men ; and that the manifestations 
 of the Spirit were given to every man to profit withal. 
 These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by 
 the letter, though they are written in the letter ; but I 
 eaw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by 
 his immediate spirit and power, as did the holy men of , 
 God, by whom the scriptures were written." 
 
 At this period there was a quite numerous class in 
 England, who, dissatisfied with the existingstate of things, 
 and little inclined to the peculiar tenets of any denomi- 
 nation of Christians, had entirely withdrawn from all re- 
 ligious connection, and were earnestly engaged in search- 
 ing for light and direction. Among such, the preaching 
 of George Fox was very influential. He traveled ex- 
 tensively, laboring everywhere with devoted zeal, and in 
 1648, several meetings of Friends (the name given to the 
 society by its founder) were settled in various parts of 
 England. But the nature of his principles, which were 
 oppoaed to all formality and outward, lifeless profeBeicn,
 
 GEORGE FOX. 251 
 
 tending to draw men from dependence on human teach- 
 ing and external ceremonies, brought upon him the most 
 violent opposition and cruel usage. He was imprisoned, 
 beaten, villified and traduced, and suffered all the evils 
 and perils of public and social excommunication. His first 
 imprisonment took place in 1643, for preaching his sen- 
 timents in Nottingham, the town where he learned and 
 labored at his trade. How long he remained in durance 
 is uncertain, but he says it was " a pretty long time." 
 The moment he obtained a discharge, he traveled as be- 
 fore, nothing daunted by th? perils that surrounded him 
 in the work of his ministry. In the following year, in 
 another part of the kingdom, while, on a Sabbath morn- 
 ing, he was speaking in a house of worship, the people 
 fell upon him, and beat him with their hands, sticks and 
 bibles ; then put him in the stocks, where he remained 
 for some time, and finally stoned him out of town. By 
 this barbarous treatment he was so injured as to be 
 scarcely able to stand or move ; but through the kind- 
 ness of compassionate friends, who took him in, he was 
 soon in a condition to commence his labors with increas- 
 ed zeal and ardor. 
 
 About this time, " I was exercised," says he, " in go- 
 ing to courts to cry for justice — in speaking and writing 
 to judges to do justly — in warning such as kept houses 
 for public entertainment, that they should not let the 
 people have more drink than would do them good — in tes- 
 tifying against wakes, feasts, may-games, sports, plays, and 
 shows, which train people up to vanity, and lead them 
 from the fear of God. In fairs, also, and markets, I was 
 made to declare against their deceitful merchandize and 
 cheating ; warning all to do justly, to speak the truth, to 
 let their yea be yea, and their nay, nay ; and to do unto 
 others as tbey would have others do uotu them. I was
 
 252 DTSTINGCI8HED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 moved also to cry against all sorts of music, and against 
 mountebanks playing tricks on their stages, for they bur- 
 dened the pure life, and stirred up the minds of the peo- 
 ple to vanity." And all who are acquainted with the 
 writings of Fox, will witness that his testimonies and 
 warnings were no lifeless form of words. 
 
 Among other subjects which engaged his attention, 
 was the extravagance and love of show that prevailed 
 among the people of his times. He believed that pure 
 Christianity was of an opposite spirit and tendency, di- 
 recting to plainness and siinplicity in life and habits; and 
 therefore inculcated, both by precept and example, a sim- 
 ple, frugal mode of living, free from attractive display 
 and idle expense. He was also convinced that all com- 
 pliments, and flattering titles; bowing and taking off the 
 hat, according to prevailing custom, were inconsistent 
 with Christian truth and equality ; he accordingly never 
 submitted to them, but preached boldly against their 
 practice. The custom of using the plural number when 
 addressing a single individual, likewise drew his atten- 
 tion, and was conscientiously opposed, as ministering to 
 the pride of human nature, which seeks unmerited hon- 
 or; — he therefore spoke strongly against its use, and 
 taught that people should keep to the scripture language 
 of " thou" and "thee" in speaking to one person, in 
 accordance with the strict rules of grammar. 
 
 On account of non-compliance with the established 
 usage ,he, with his brethren, suffered severe and unmiti- 
 gated persecution. "Oh," exclaims Fox, "the blows, 
 the punchings, the beatings and imprisonments we under- 
 went for not putting ofT the hat ! The bad language and 
 evil usage we received on this account is hard to be ex- 
 pressed ; besides the danger we were sometimes in of
 
 GEORGE FOX. 253 
 
 losing our lives for this mailer ; and that, too, by the 
 great professors of Christianity." 
 
 George Fox gave a vigorous testimony against a sala- 
 ried and beneficed clergy, maintaining that as the gospel 
 was free, it should be preached freely to the people; that 
 the system of exacting tithes and taxes for the support of 
 religion, was most unjust and anti-Christian ; and receiv- 
 ing pecuniary benefits for preaching the free principles of 
 Christianity, was mercenary, and " making a trade of the 
 word of life." 
 
 In 1650, Fox was again arrested for preaching, and 
 committed to the house of correction, where he remained 
 for six months. During the examination, the justices, 
 Bennet and Barton, endeavored to draw something from 
 him, in order to convict him of holding blasphemous 
 sentiments and opinions ; but not meeting with the suc- 
 cess they had hoped, they in great wrath ordered him to 
 prison, "as a person charged with holding opinions con- 
 trary to a late act of parliament." His friends then of- 
 fered to become sureties that he should preach no more 
 in that place, if set at liberty ; but Fox, declaring his 
 innocence of any crime, would purchase his freedom by 
 no unholy compromise of conscience and duty ; which 
 so enraged Bennet, that while Fox kneeled down to pray 
 for his tormentors, he struck him with great violence, 
 crying out, "Away with him ! take him away, jailer." 
 It was this justice Bennet that gave the society the name 
 of " Quakers," because Fox bid him "tremble at the 
 word of the Lord." 
 
 When the term of his imprisonment had nearly expired, 
 he was pressed to take a commission in the parliamentary 
 army ; but as Fox was a minister and messenger of the 
 Prince of Peace, and opposed to all war and contention, 
 he declined its reception. They still persuaded him to
 
 254 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 accept it, but finding it impossible to shake the constan- 
 cy of his resolution, they threw him into the conmon 
 jail, among criminals of the most desperate and malig- 
 nant character. Here he remained for half a year, among 
 thirty hopeless and abandoned rogues, in a loathsome, 
 offensive, vermin-infested den — shut out from the pure air 
 and sunlight of heaven. 
 
 George Fox early bore testimony against the severity 
 of judicial punishments : and during this confinement, 
 he interested himself in the case of a young woman 
 about to be tried for her life. He wrote to the judges and 
 jury, showing by clear and convincing arguments, that 
 the taking of life in any case, was contrary to the spirit 
 of Christianity and the welfare of the race. She was, 
 however, condemned ; but being subsequently pardoned, 
 she became a worthy and consistent duaker. So much 
 for the law of love, which directed his efforts. 
 
 After almost a year of close imprisonment, he was at 
 length liberated, and immediately resumed his travels; 
 preaching wherever he went, though often called to meet 
 the most violent opposition. In 1652, as he was speak- 
 ing on the Sabbath, the people fell upon him, and one of 
 them, of high standing in the church, struck him in the 
 face with a bible, so that his blood streamed upon the 
 floor. Tiiey then dragged him out of the church and 
 along the street, till he was all besmeared with dirt and 
 blood ; but no sooner was he able to get upon his feet, 
 than he preached repentance and better works to his per- 
 secutors, showing them the effects of false professions, 
 and how they disgraced the Christian name and charac- 
 ter. So great was the effect of his faithful and mild re- 
 buke, that the unworthy priest was seen to tremble; and 
 the people pointing to him, said, " See how the priest 
 shakes ; he also is turned Quaker. " When the outrage
 
 GEORGE FOX. 255 
 
 came to be investigated, though the man who shed his 
 blood was liable to a heavy penalty, George Fox forgave, 
 and refused to appear against him. 
 
 Though he preached every where, and exposed wick- 
 edness and crime in high places and in low, exclaiming 
 against the injustice of the courts, and the high-handed 
 iniquity, falsehood and perversion of the church — ex- 
 horting to peace and quiet, in times of war and political 
 confusion — to simplicity, in a time of general extrava- 
 gance and sensuality — to plainness of life and manners, 
 when ceremony and display were prominent features of 
 society, — Fox seems to have escaped the hands of the 
 civil power till some time in 1653 ; when, hearing that a 
 warrant had been made out for his arrest, he, without 
 waiting for it to be served, appeared before the magis- 
 trates; as was often his custom when he knew that he 
 was wanted. After a mock examination, he was com- 
 mitted " as a blasphemer, an heretic, and a seducer," and 
 cruelly confined among thieves of the basest sort. When 
 brought to the assizes, the charges being without foun- 
 dation, he was discharged ; and so fully did he expose 
 the barbarity of his confinement, that the magistrates re- 
 ceived a severe reprimand from the court, and his cruel 
 jailer was sentenced to the same dungeon whence Fox 
 was taken ; though his benevolence would gladly have 
 saved the wretch from merited punishment. 
 
 The act of parliament, under which the Quakers were 
 persecuted, was passed in 1650, in order to reach the 
 Ranters, a set of visionaries which arose during those 
 tumultuous times of civil and religious commotion. They 
 ascribed the attributes of Deity to men — contended that 
 no act, however atrocious, was sinful in the saints — that 
 the grossest violations of the moral law were not in them-
 
 356 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 selves sinful, and that there was no real difference be- 
 tween moral good and evil. 
 
 George Fox was accused of holding and promulgating 
 these sentiments ; and notwithstanding he denied them, 
 and inculcated a diametrically opposite doctrine, and was 
 known to lead a blameless life, and to be of the most de- 
 vout and benevolent disposition, still he was constantly 
 assailed with charges of this character. There were 
 those who could not bear the stern and scathing rebukes, 
 and high principles of morality, that emanated from this 
 zealous apostle of reform. " Their craft was in danger." 
 
 Being now at liberty, Fox commenced his labors with- 
 out loss of time ; going through many counties of Eng- 
 land. " The everlasting gospel and word of life," says 
 he, " flourished ; and the priests and professors who said 
 that we should be destroyed within a month, and that we 
 should eat one another out, because friends tarried at 
 each others' houses by the way, so that sometimes there 
 was not room enough to lodge, saw that we were blessed 
 both in field and in basket — they also saw the falsehood 
 of all their prophecies against us ; and that it was vain 
 to curse, where God has blessed." 
 
 Great revolutions had taken place in the government 
 of England. Charles had been condemned and behead- 
 ed as a traitor, and the parliament, which for several 
 years had held the reins of government with a feeble 
 hand, had been violently dissolved by Oliver Cromwell, 
 who, in 1653, was proclaimed Lord Protector of the realm 
 of England, Scotland and Ireland. Though the Quaker* 
 had taken no part in these political revolutions, yet the} 
 did not escape their influence. Fox was seized for hold- 
 ing unauthorized meetings, and sent up to the Protectc 
 at London. He was brought before Cromwell, at White
 
 GEORGE FOX. 257 
 
 hall, in 1654 ; when they had much conversation together 
 on the subject of religion. As Goorge was turning to 
 leave him, Oliver took him by the hand saying, " Come 
 again to my house, for if you and I were together an 
 hour of a day, we should be nearer the one to the other. 
 I wish thee no more ill than I do my own soul." 
 
 He was discharged by order of the Protector, and re- 
 ceived an invitation to dine at the palace, which he de- 
 clined, saying, " he would not eat of his bread nor drink 
 his drink." When Cromwell heard this, he is said to 
 have remarked, " Now I see there is a people arisen that 
 I cannot win either by gifts, honors, offices, or places ; 
 but all other sects and people I can." During this in- 
 terview, Fox never took off his hat, nor observed the 
 customary ceremonies of state ; but conversed with the 
 most perfect freedom and equality ; and what is some- 
 what remarkable, it did not excite the anger of the Pro- 
 tector. 
 
 Fox employed this season of liberty in preaching with 
 renewed diligence throughout the country ; but not with- 
 out frequent interruptions. At one time, he, with one of 
 his coadjutors, was taken before a justice, on the charge 
 of house-breaking. On hearing the case, the justice said 
 " he believed they were not the men who broke into the 
 house, but he was sorry he had no more against them." 
 Strange, indeed, that an officer of justice should be sor- 
 ry to find men innocent ! They were discharged, and 
 Fox says, " A great people were gathered to the Lord in 
 that place." 
 
 Not long after this. Fox, with a traveling brother, was 
 arrested by the authorities, and placed under guard of a 
 company of soldiers, to be conducted to a jail at a consid- 
 erable distance. On their journey an incident occurred,
 
 258 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 which shows the zealous and intrepid manner in which 
 the early Quakers followed their impressions of duty. 
 When the sabbath came, the soldiers made ready to pro- 
 ceed as usual, but Fox told them that it was not cus- 
 tomary to travel on that day ; and many people being 
 collected, he discoui-sed to the soldiers, while his com- 
 panion addressed the crowd ; and so they took turns, 
 while a Quaker in company went to the church and 
 preached to the people there. Thus they held them till 
 afternoon, when the troffps determined to go on ; having 
 mounted and reached the skirts of the town, Fox thought 
 it his duty to go back and speak to the man with whom 
 they had stayed. The soldiers presented their pistols 
 and swore he should not go; but careless of their threats, 
 he rode back and they followed him. Having discharged 
 his errand, and cleared his conscience, he returned, re- 
 proving them for their rudeness. In about nine weeks 
 they were brought to the assizes. As they stood in court 
 with their hats on, the judge ordered them to take them 
 off; whereupon Fox desired to be shown, either from the 
 scriptures or the law, the propriety of doing so. As a 
 short and conclusive answer to this, his honor command- 
 ed they should be taken back to prison. 
 
 "While in the court, their attention had been attracted 
 by the constant practice of taking oaths on every occa- 
 sion. Deeming this contrary to the commands of Christ, 
 George Fox wrote a short paper, setting forth his views, 
 which circulated pretty freely among the justices and 
 jurymen, till at length it fell into the hands of the judge. 
 This soon transferred Fox from the jail tothe court room. 
 He was asked if that " seditious paper" was his. The 
 court was crowded with people, and Fox, glad of an op- 
 portunity of speaking his sentiments, desired it might be
 
 • GEORGE FOX. 253 
 
 tda^, that all might hear if it contained any sedition, and 
 if rt was his, he would own il. They insisted on his 
 reading it himself; but as he persisted in his refusal, the 
 court was reluctantly obliged to read it aloud. He then 
 acknowledged the paper, and proceeded to show how 
 consistent it was with the scriptures. The judge at once 
 dropped the disagreeable subject and ordered their hats 
 to be removed.. The jailer took them off and handed 
 them to the two duakers, who put them on again. Sev- 
 eral charges were now preferred^gainst them, which not 
 being substantiated, the judge fined them twenty marks 
 apiece for keeping their hats on, remanding them to pris- 
 on till it should be paid. 
 
 Here they remained for six months ; but not idle. 
 Multitudes visited them, and the voice of Fox was heard 
 as loud and convincing from within the bolts and walls 
 of the prison, as from the pulpit, the way-side, and the 
 woods. During this confinement, a duaker went to 
 Cromwell, and desired to lie in prison himself, instead of 
 Fox. Such disinterested kindness made a deep impres- 
 sion on the mind of the Protector ; and turning to his 
 counsel and attendants he exclaimed, " Which of you 
 would do as much for me, were I in the same condi- 
 tion ? " 
 
 Once again at liberty, Fox showed the same activity 
 as ever, and among other places visited London, where 
 he had another interview with the Protector, before whom 
 he laid the grievances of the Quakers in various parts of 
 the nation. After spending considerable time in Lon- 
 don and its vicinity, he traveled into Wales and Scot- 
 land, carrying his ministry into parts and places hitherto 
 unreached. 
 
 Tiwit ^epyge Fox possessed a peculiar power over in-
 
 260 DISTINGUISHED SROKMAKERS. 
 
 dividuals and masses, seems evident throughout his his- 
 tory. At times he would make the most savage and 
 sanguinary, mild and peaceful — those who came toharm 
 or destroy, would go away disarmed of their hatred, or 
 utterly incapable, on account of his words of persuasive 
 love, to execute their malignant intentions. Several of 
 his jailers, and those who had been instrumental in in- 
 juring him, were led to see the error of their conduct, 
 embrace the opinions of, and identify themselves with, the 
 Quakers. A few, out of an ample list of kindred anec- 
 dotes, will show this. 
 
 While he was traveling through Wales, he was over- 
 taken by a man of note, who had maliciously determined 
 to arrest him as a highwayman ; but before they had 
 reached the town. Fox spoke to the man in a manner so 
 affecting as to reach the better feelings of his nature, 
 and he invited him to his house, where he was treated 
 with great hospitality and respect. In the event, both the 
 man and his wife became public and consistent converts 
 to the doctrines of Fox. 
 
 During one of his imprisonments, he received very 
 harsh and cruel treatment at the hands of the jailer, 
 which he always bore with patience, and repaid with kind 
 words and good and wholesome instruction, after praying 
 with and for his tormenter. A short time after his re- 
 lease, he received a letter from this jailer, written in the 
 most humble and affectionate language, signifying his 
 reformation and union with the Quakers. 
 
 Hearing, on a certain occasion, that an officer had 
 been dispatched by one Col. Kirby, to take him, Fox at 
 once repaired to his house, and being introduced to the 
 Colonel, he observed that "Understanding you was desi- 
 rous of seeing me, I have come to visit you, to know
 
 GEORGE FOX. 261 
 
 what you have to say, or whether you have any thing 
 against me." The Colonel seemed taken hy surprise, 
 and protested before the company, that he had nothing 
 against George Fox ; and after a friendly conversation 
 they parted, shaking hands in apparent good will. 
 
 A company of soldiers that had been sent thirty miles 
 to break up the meetings of the Quakers, found Fox 
 preaching by the way-side to a large and attentive audi- 
 ence. The captain immediately rode up and commanded 
 him to come down, and the assembly to disperse ; but 
 after being reasoned with a moment by Fox, who showed 
 him the hardness of the case, he led his band away, and 
 suffered them to continue the meeting as long as they 
 chose. 
 
 On getting into Scotland, it is said, " he found the peo- 
 ple under the influence of the dark doctrine of uncon- 
 ditional election and reprobation. George preached the 
 universal love of God to all mankind ; and proved that 
 reprobation was the consequence of sin committed, and 
 not of a personal decree of irremediable perdition — that 
 the Savior died for all, and enlightens all by the mani- 
 festations of his Spirit ; but those who vex and grieve the 
 Spirit are the reprobates, while those who receive and 
 obey Christ, become elected in him." 
 
 Such doctrines alarmed the Scottish clergy ; and to 
 deter the people from embracing them, they drew up a 
 list of curses to be read in the public assemblies, and 
 to which all the people should answer, amen. Here Fox 
 found little hinderance from the civil authorities, being 
 but once brought before the magistrates, who ordered 
 him to leave the country within a week. But he con- 
 tinued without further molestation, till such time as he 
 found it in his mind to depart ; when he returned into 
 England.
 
 262 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Till 1660, Fox continued preaching and writing with 
 incredible diligence; attending to all the multiplied and 
 multiform wants of a great and growing society, in and 
 out of prison ; for the jails, prisons and penitentiaries 
 were filled with Cluakers, whose comfort and enlargement 
 was the constant object of his exertions, and in whose 
 behalf he appeared before dignitaries, parliaments, pro- 
 tectors and sovereigns. 
 
 During this year he was seized and charged with being 
 a seditions and dangerous person; together with a long 
 catalogue of minor offences, upon which, without attempt- 
 ing, to adduce the proof, he was committed to prison. 
 
 The multiplied falsehoods that were circulated in re- 
 gard to Fox, produced some curious notions of his pow- 
 ers and character among the people. At the houise where 
 he was kept, the night after his arrest, they set a guard 
 of sixteen men to watch him, several of whom sat in the 
 fire-place, to prevent his taking leave through the chim- 
 ney. One of the fellows said " he did not believe a 
 thousand men could have taken him." 
 
 At the earnest solicitation of several prominent mem- 
 bers of the society, who waited upon the king, he was 
 brought before the court of king's bench for examination. 
 When sent up to London, those who apprehended hira 
 wished to convey him by the cheapest possible method. 
 Fox told them, " if he was such a man as they said, they 
 ought to send a few companies of horse to guard him ; " 
 but this would cost too much. They then proposed to 
 send him up attended by a few baliffs ; but this was like- 
 wise abandoned on account of the expense. They then 
 proposed that he should find bail for his appearance. This, 
 asserting his entire innocence, he refused to do ; and 
 finally, on his simple word that he would appear before
 
 GEORGE FOX. 263 
 
 the court, they were glad to set him at liberty. When 
 the charges came to be read before the high court of 
 England, the judges held up their hands in astonishment, 
 and, especially as no accuser appeared against him, he 
 was discharged by order of the king. 
 
 In 1661, parliament revived the oaths of allegiance and 
 supremacy, by an act pointed directly at the Quakers. 
 Foreseeing the sufferings this would bring upon his breth- 
 ren, Fox sent in a paper to the king, setting forth the 
 evils to which they had been, and were still exposed, and 
 praying that they might be exempted from taking the 
 prescribed oaths, as they could not conscientiously swear 
 in any case. He urged that they were willing to be dealt 
 with for breaking their solemn affirmation, the same as 
 others were for breaking their oaths. According to his 
 statement it appears, that there had been, up to that time, 
 no less than 6236 Quakers committed to the prisons of 
 England, where 32 had died " through cruel and hard 
 imprisonment upon nasty straw, and in dungeons." 
 
 Among other troubles, the marriages of Quakers were 
 called in question, and wills were attempted to be nulli- 
 fied in order to deprive their children of a rightful inheri- 
 tance. The question, long in dispute, was at length set- 
 tled by the decision of judge Archer, who thus suras up 
 the case. "There was a marriage in Paradise, when Ad- 
 am took Eve, and Eve took Adam ; and it was therefore 
 the consent of the parties which made the marringe. And 
 as Quakers married as Christians, he considered the mar- 
 rii^e was lawful, and the child lawful heir." As Fox had 
 taught the form of marriage adopted by the society, he 
 was deeply interested in the decision of this question. 
 
 From London, Fox journeyed, in the prosecution of 
 his ministerial labors, with his usual diligence, meeting
 
 264 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 with many narrow escapes, and being detained in custo- 
 dy on many groundless charges ; til! at length, in 1663, 
 he again fell under the power of persecution. When they 
 would take him, being among a numerous body of friends, 
 the officer asked which was George Fox. With charac- 
 teristic frankness and intrepidity he answered, " I am 
 the man." Declining the oath, the justices bound him over 
 to the next session ; but upon his word to appear at the 
 specified time he was allowed to depart. 
 
 Agreeably to his word, Fox appeared before his judges, 
 saluting the assembly with, " Peace be among you," ac- 
 cording to his custom. As he stood covered in presence of 
 the court, the chairman asked him if he knew where he 
 was ? He replied, " Yes, I do ; but may be my hat offends 
 you. That is a low honor. It is not the honor I give to 
 magistrates, for the true honor is from above. I hope it 
 is not the hat you look upon as the true honor." The 
 obnoxious hat was removed ; and being unable to sus- 
 tain the charges brought against him, they tendered the 
 oath of allegiance and supremacy, refusing to take which, 
 he was committed to prison. On the 14th of March, 
 1664, he was again brought to the assizes ; when a dia- 
 logue, of which the following is an extract, took place. 
 
 Fox. Peace be amongst you all. 
 
 Judge. What ! do you come into court with your hat 
 on ? 
 
 Fox. The hat is not the honor which comes from God. 
 
 Judge. Will you take the oath of allegiance ? 
 
 Fox, I never took an oath in my life. • 
 
 Judge. I ask you again — will you swear, or no ? 
 
 Fox. I am neither Turk, Jew, nor Heathen, but a 
 Christian. Dost thou not know that Christians in the 
 primitive times, and also some of the martyrs in Queen
 
 GEORGE FOX. 265 
 
 Mary's time, refused to swear, because Christ and the 
 Apostles had forbidden it ? You have had experience 
 enough how many first swore for the king, and then 
 against him. But as for me, my allegiance does not lie 
 in swearing, but in truth and faithfulness. Dost thou 
 own the king ? 
 
 Judge. Yes, I do own the king. 
 
 Fox. Then why dost thou not observe his declaration 
 from Breda, and his promises since he came into Eng- 
 land, that no man should be cnlled in question for mat- 
 ters of religion, so long as he lived peaceably ? 
 
 Judge. Sirrah ! Will you swear ? 
 
 Fox. I am none of your sirrahs — I am a Christian; 
 and for thee, an old man, to sit there and give nicknames 
 to prisoners, does not become either thy gray hairs or 
 thy office. 
 
 Judge. Well, I am a Christian, too. 
 
 Fox. Then do Christian works. 
 
 Remaining firm, he was remanded to prison, where he 
 employed his time in spreading the faith, by writing and 
 otherwise, as occasion offered, till the sitting of the next 
 court. In the meantime he had several warm religious 
 disputations, from which his opponents went away some 
 sorer, and a great deal wiser, for having tried their weap- 
 ons against such keen-tempered steel. 
 
 Again in court, the indictment was read, and witnesses 
 heard; whereupon Fox addressed the jury, urging that 
 they could not find him guilty on that indictment, as it 
 was wrongly laid, and full of errors. Here the judge inter- 
 rupted him, saying he would speak to the jury ; and ac- 
 cordingly he instructed them to bring in a verdict of 
 guilty against the prisoner. Before receiving sentence, 
 the judge asked him what he had to say why judgment
 
 266 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 should not be pronounced ; when a conversation, in part 
 as follows, took place. 
 
 Fox. I have much to say ; but have patience to hear 
 me — is the oath to be tendered to the king's subjects, or 
 to the subjects of foreign princes? 
 
 Judge. To the subjects of this realm. 
 
 Fox. Look into the indictment, and you may see that 
 you have left oat the word subject. 
 
 Judge. It is an error. 
 
 Fox. I have something else to stop judgment. Look 
 what day the indictment says the oath was tendered to 
 me at the sessions. 
 
 Court. On the 11th day of January. 
 
 Fox. On what day of the week was the sessions 
 held? 
 
 Court. On a Tuesday. 
 
 Fox. Look at your almanacs. 
 
 They accordingly looked, and found that the 11th 
 day was Monday. When they could not get around 
 this blunder, the judge exclaimed, " this is a great mis- 
 take, and an error." 
 
 Justices (in a furious passion). Who hath done this? 
 Somebody hath done this on purpose. 
 
 Fox. Are not the justices who have sworn to this in- 
 dictment, forsworn men in the face of the country ? But 
 this is not all. In what year of the king was the last assize 
 holden here, in the month called March ? 
 
 Judge. In the 16th year of the king. 
 
 Fox. But the indictment says it was the 15th. 
 
 The judge, in overflowing wrath, acknowledged the 
 error, and cried out, " Stop ! Enough ! " and notwith- 
 standing the extreme hardness and injustice of the thing, 
 he put the oath to him again. The clerk gave hiin the
 
 GEORGE FOX. 267 
 
 book (the bible) as directed, and the oath being read, 
 the judge asked him whether he would take it or not. 
 Fox replied, " Here you have given me a book to kiss 
 and to swear on ; and this book says, ' Kiss the Son ' ; 
 and the Son says, in this book, ' Swear not at all' ; and 
 so says the Apostle James. I say as this book says ; yet 
 you imprison me. How chance do ye not imprison the 
 book for saying so? How happens it that the book is at 
 liberty among you, which bids me not to swear, and yet 
 ye imprison me for doing as the book bids me." This 
 argument put his honor somewhat out of temper, and he 
 replied, " Nay, but we will imprison George Fox ! " 
 Then telling the court and jury that " it was for Christ's 
 sake that he could not swear " — that he followed the 
 dictates of conscience and the impulse of duty, he went 
 back to prison, where for the long period of six years he 
 was shut out from the sunlight, the beauties and the so- 
 ciety of nature. It seemed as though they had conspir- 
 ed, in all the malignity of perfect hatred, to kill him by 
 lingering torment. Exposed to summer's heat and win- 
 ter's piercing cold, amidst noisome vapors and corrupting 
 filth — with no friend to greet him with a kindly smile — 
 allowed no visitors but his ferocious jailers, or still more 
 barbarous priests, who came to mock and rejoice over 
 his wretchedness — he lingered out the weary days and 
 lonely nights of his imprisonment, with firm reliance and 
 unwavering faith in that Savior in whose cause he suf- 
 fered. His limbs had become swollen to an unnatural 
 size, and his health was greatly impaired. But he lived 
 through it; and when he was at last released, continued 
 as before, his mission of love to his fellow men. 
 
 While in confinenjent, the conduct of Fox worked a 
 salutary change in th^baracter of the officers and guards
 
 368 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 of the prison ; so that, during the last few months of his 
 detention, he was treated with comparative kindness ; 
 and they were heard to say, speaking of his firmness and 
 integrity, " He is as stiff as a tree, and as pure as a bell, 
 for we never could bow him." 
 
 In 1669, Fox married his wife Margaret, who was a 
 highly gifted and influential preacher among the Quakers, 
 and withal a woman of great virtue, energy and intelli- 
 gence. At the time of their marriage, he was 45, and 
 Margaret 55 years of age. They lived together but lit- 
 tle, but labored separately in the work of their ministry, 
 being frequently imprisoned in different parts of the 
 kingdom, and laboring for each other's liberty. 
 
 At one time he was convicted, upon an indictment full 
 of errors, of twice refusing the oath of allegiance and 
 supremacy, and sentenced to the penitentiary for life, 
 with a confiscation of all his property. Application be- 
 ing made to the king in his behalf, he offered and even 
 pressed him to accept a pardon ; but as he believed the 
 acceptance of a pardon involved the admission of wrong 
 he declined to receive it. Finally, he was brought b; 
 ' habeas corpus,' before Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice, 
 of King's Bench, where the indictment upon which he 
 was convicted being examined, it was declared void ; ant 
 thus after an unjust imprisonment of more than a year, 
 he was honorably acquitted. 
 
 From this time forward to the end of his career, hr 
 continued the same laborious activity which had thus fa« 
 marked his course. Ever building and enlarging in Eng 
 land, he promulgated his belief in other countries. He 
 journeyed into Scotland, Wales and Ireland. He twic 
 visited Holland and a part of Germany, where his preach 
 ing was followed by " great convincenient," and multi
 
 GEORGE FOX. 
 
 tudes joined the society. The years 1671-2 he spent in 
 British West Indies and the colonies of America, where 
 he traveled extensively, preaching and instructing. In 
 New England, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, he made 
 considerable stay. Returning to England, he labored to 
 complete that admirable system of Quaker discipline, 
 wliicli exists to the present day, a noble ornament of that 
 great Christian fraternity. He continued his public min- 
 istrations till within two days of his death, which came on 
 the 13th ofNovember, 1690, in the sixty-seventh year of 
 his age. His death was no doubt hastened by the rigor 
 and hardship of persecution, which greatly impaired his 
 once vigorous and robust constitution. For more than 
 forty years he hud been a devoted apostle of a detested 
 religious sjistem, through a scene of uninterrupted per- 
 secution, which would seem to be enough to crush out 
 the last vestige of the hated faith, and wash its very me- 
 mento frotn the crimson fields of England, in blood and 
 tears. He had been seized, and dragged before magis- 
 trates and courts, times unnumbered, and more than eight 
 years had he spent in unjust imprisonment for conscience 
 sake. 
 
 George Fox was above the ordinary size, of graceful 
 and engaging manners beyond the ordinary forms of po- 
 liteness; and with an eye of such piercing brilliancy, 
 that many who were disputing with him were unable to 
 bear it. In short, his appearance was manly, dignified 
 and commanding. In his living he was temperate; ate 
 sparingly, and avoided all intoxicating drinks as a bever- 
 age. He allowed himself but little sleep. As a minister, 
 his success demonstrates his power. Beginning alone, he 
 lived to see the faith and practices he preached take root, 
 and spread their healing branches far and wide; and had
 
 270 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS, 
 
 he remained six years longer, he would have seen all the 
 claims of his society fully recognized by the English par- 
 liament. In prayer, he is said to have chiefly excelled: 
 here he rose into impressive and awful sublimity. " His 
 presence," says William Penn, " expressed a religious 
 majesty." He believed he had received his cotimiission 
 directly from on high; and filled with a deep and abiding 
 inspiration, he poured his whole soul into the work of 
 his consecration. No threats could intimidate his fer- 
 vent zeal — no obstacles impede his progre.^s. He never 
 shrunk from the practical duties of Christianity; nor 
 was he ever known to revenge an injury; "smitten 
 on one cheek he turned the other also." 
 
 It seemed, at times, that he was endowed with a more 
 than human foresight ; and it is true that he predicted 
 some events with strange accuracy. The fall of Crom- 
 welTs government, together with other political changes, 
 was foretold by him with remarkable precision. At the 
 time when the Grand Turk was carrying his invading 
 arms into the heart of Europe, and the fears of many 
 were excited lest he should overrun Christendom, Fox 
 said " he had suddenly seen him turn backward." With- 
 in a month, the news reached England that he had been 
 defeated. He also had remarkable foresight of the terri- 
 ble plague and fire which desolated London — of which 
 he says: " As I was walking in my chamber, with my 
 eye to the Lord, I beheld an angel of the Lord with a 
 glittering drawn sword in his hand, stretched southward 
 towards the city." At the time that the Quakers were 
 undergoing such severe persecution in New England, 
 though no news had been received from them, Fox ob- 
 served to his friends that he felt the intense sufferings of 
 the brethren across the ocean, as perfectly as though^the
 
 GEORGE FOX. 271 
 
 halter were around his own neck. The next ships brought 
 tidings that several Quakers had been hung at that time 
 in the colonies of PJymcuth and Massachusetts. 
 
 We mention these, as facts related of the man, not as 
 the characteristics by which he is commonly known, and 
 which are to perpetuate his remembrance beyond the 
 boundaries of time. His great feature was that world- 
 wide philanthropy in which he grasped the whole human 
 race. He saw a brother in every member of the human 
 family ; and no narrow boundaries of states, or difference 
 of dialect or complexion, could alienate his affections 
 from any being who bore the impress of his Maker's im- 
 age. In the person of theermined emj>eror, the mitred 
 priest, and the purse-proud aristocrat, he could see only 
 a men; and beneath the homely garb of the peasant, in 
 the form of the houseless, famine-mortgaged mendicant, 
 and the robbed and trampled slave, he saw the same, in 
 all his noble, God-given attributes. He believed that 
 the gospel of Christ, carried out in practice, would 
 fuse all nations and tongues, into one common, harmo- 
 nious brotherhood — all loved, and loving all.
 
 373 nisTiNouisiiBD shoemakers. 
 
 JAMES WOODHOUSE. 
 
 Thr individual who bore this humble name was born 
 near Birmingham, of respectable parents, some time in the 
 year 1736; and was a village shoemaker in the town of 
 Rowley. Lil<e most of the sons of labor, he was from 
 that class whose chief characteristic is any thing but 
 wealth. An heir to toil by the preordination of necessity, 
 his genius for intellectual employments was left to be de- 
 veloped late in life, by that innate force of impulsive en- 
 ergy which drives the hidden powers of the soul outwards 
 to the view of the world, and upwards to high attain- 
 ments. All men have powers of mind capable of vast 
 and indefinite expansion : none are so weak in original 
 mental endowments as to justify despair of improvement ; 
 and none ever undertook in earnest, to sound deeper the 
 mysteries of his own being, and the busy, wonderful world 
 around him — to go farther in pursuit of knowledge — 
 and failed. The road is open to all. 
 
 No biographical sketch we have been able to find, 
 seems to do justice to this man's memory, or to us who 
 are inquiring into his history. Mr. Southey tells us tha' 
 he lived, made shoes, mended old boots, married a wife, 
 reared up a fine family of little Woodhouses, and wrote 
 poetry — good poetry, which was published in several edi- 
 .tions before he died. But this is not enough : we want 
 to follow him along the road of his journeyings, and see 
 the way and manner of his progress — how, in the midst
 
 JAMES WOODHOySE. 
 
 Wn 
 
 of labor and privation, his mind succeeded in liberating 
 and expanding itself — how he met obstacles and sur- 
 mounted difficulties, for his path was no path fringed with 
 roses and carpeted with flowers, but a rough and rugged 
 highway, where multitudes had traveled before him ; 
 where multitudes are now traveling, and will again. We 
 would like to hear a few of those little stories and inci- 
 dents of life that always linger about the spot where a 
 noted character has lived and gone down, and which are 
 passed from mouth to mouth, to recall and commemorate 
 the name of one departed, but still living in the memory 
 of his friends. These more than all else show the dispo- 
 sition, character and capacities of an individual. In these, 
 we seem to see him as he acted out himself. 
 
 Southey introduces Mr. Woodhouse, with others, as an 
 "uneducated poet," — but, methinks, he does not com- 
 prehend the true idea of education. — As if that man who 
 wends his toilsome way through the halls of learning, or 
 is drawn, or driven by external power, through his reluc- 
 tant course of mathematics, literature, divinity, or law, 
 and finds out a thing or two, must, per fatality, be an ed- 
 ucated man ; while he who, by the strong impulse of an 
 internal, struggling power, emancipates his own mind 
 without outward aid, from the shackles of ignorance, 
 tries and learns the strength of his own innate abilities 
 — who treasures up, with laborious exertion, knowledge 
 for knowledge's sake, and at last arrives at a point in the 
 vast wilderness of human learning that tons of thousands 
 of college-graduated dunces never dreamed of — is 
 minus an education ! Thought — intense, vigorous 
 thought, more than books and instructors, is the great el-' 
 evator and educator of the mind. Not that books and 
 instructors are to be despised, or cast aside as vain ; but, 
 
 L
 
 374 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERiS. 
 
 without mental exertion on the part of the individual, 
 these are of but little use. Indeed, the man, the mind 
 itself, is the greatest study that can command our atten- 
 tion — its powers, its origin, its duties and its destiny, are 
 all subjects, the solution of which will place the mind far 
 above the highest point ever reached by the oldest and 
 most gigantic created intelligence, during its earthly pil- 
 grimage. The unfolded book of Nature, which constant- 
 ly lies before us, the thousandth part of whose leaves have 
 not yet been cut open by human investigation, can be read 
 by all ; and he who reads the most diligently, carefully, 
 and truly, in this book, is acquiring an education of un- 
 rivaled value and importance, though he may never have 
 learned to decline bonus, or conjugate sum. 
 
 The idea lias !nng enough possessed the minds of the 
 people, that a college is a necessary prerequisite to the 
 acquiring of an education. It is time this notion were 
 exploded ; for if the history of the past and the present 
 teaches anything, it is the fact that many of the strongest 
 minds — the real Samsons of the race, who have guid- 
 ed and given character to the age in which they have liv- 
 ed, and shed an influence that must be felt through all 
 periods to the end of time, — have been men destitute of 
 what, in the dialect of the times, is denominated a liberal 
 education. 
 
 Look at Shakspeare, and Franklin, and Davy, and 
 Hunter, and Henry ; — if the education which these men, 
 together with a cloud of others who might be named, re- 
 ceived was not liberal, it must be because they did not 
 acquire it within the walls of the college and among the 
 professors. No matter what may be his condition and 
 circumstances in life, every individual who is learned at 
 all, must be so in a great measure by his own exertions.
 
 JAMES WOOBHOUSE. 278 
 
 Let him throw himself upon his own resources, and vow, 
 in the omnipotence of a noble self-reliance, that he will 
 be something, and accomplish something for himself and 
 the world. A few ideas added daily to one's stock of in" 
 formation, will, in the course of a common life-time, 
 amount to a splendid treasury of knowledge. 
 
 One idea, gained by an individual's own labor, is worth 
 a dozen that have been driven into his head by force of 
 external agents and appliances. Self-culture is the prov- 
 ince of every man gifted with mental endowments ; and 
 his fortune, his destiny, is thus |)laced in his own hands — 
 he may make or mar it, as he wills. The fatality of fate 
 ia subject to the determination ot individuals. Some are 
 forever complaining that fortune, luck is always againat 
 them. Strange that intelligent beings should thus allow 
 themselves to be humbugged and befooled. The fault is 
 in themselves ; for all history has shown that fortune is 
 the most pliant and obsequious of all the genii of human 
 adoration. Meet her with a resolute, determined confi- 
 dence in your own powers, and she is yours — you may 
 carry her where you list. Did you ever see a man 
 enter into any scheme, however unpromising, with dil- 
 igence, earnestness, perseverance, and faith in its practi- 
 cability and his own powers, and continue on for a reason- 
 able length of time, and fail ? Did'nt he prove to be a 
 lucky fellow? Such persons have always been the win- 
 ners in the game of life. In nothing is this more true 
 than in laboring to accumulate knowledge. Luck always 
 makes the lazy man ignorant; while the active, enterpris- 
 ing, persevering man becomes learned in spite of luck. 
 Fortune is the condition, not the cause. 
 
 But I is is straying from our subject. We were going 
 to say a word or two about Woodhouse. 
 
 The only school advantages our poet ever had, he re-
 
 Wft DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ceived previous lo his seventh year ; and these were of 
 that kind England is wont to give to the children of her 
 honest laborers, who toil for her national prosperity, and 
 pay taxes to support her privileged and petted nobility of 
 title, wealth and letters. Being composed of the coarser 
 human material, for he had no noble blood in his veins, 
 at the age of seven he was big enough to work. He was 
 therefore withdrawn from school before he had begun to 
 reap the first fruits of study, and curled up over the last, 
 and taught to wield the awl and draw the thread, accord- 
 ing to the inflexible law of hungry poverty — work, or 
 die ! However, the little opportunity he had enjoyed, 
 had created in him a love of learning ; and he continued 
 his application to books, as best he might, till at length he 
 enjoyed the high satisfaction of teaching the urchins 
 around him to read the language in which their laws, re- 
 ligion and history were written. 
 
 The first we hear of him as a poet, is when he was 
 about twenty-three years of age, though doubtless he had 
 exercised his powers to some extent previous to this. At 
 this period, his talent was called out by one of " the up- 
 per ten thousand," who lived in the neighborhood, and 
 owned a spacious park. (He was a nobleman, and of 
 course had a natural and indefeasible right to a park, no 
 matter if the " common herd" did'nt have room to stand.) 
 To this park the people were accustenu-d to resort for 
 amusement, and to refresh themselves under its cooling 
 shade, fancying, in the innocence of their untutored 
 minds, that nature had caused the trees to grow for the 
 benefit of common men. But the man of ^ne material 
 discovered that some little depredation had been commit- 
 ted on his grounds, and found it convenient to forbid gen- 
 eral access to the premises. This prohibition interdicted
 
 JAMBS WOODHOIJSE. 27T 
 
 one of the chief pleasures of Woodhouse, who used to 
 enjoy the shady recesses of the forest alone; and in a few 
 appropriate verses, he asked the proprietor to be still per- 
 mitted to enter his beautiful enclosures, and enjoy the 
 pleasures of solitude and imagination, as he had been ac- 
 customed. He gained his request, and the noble lord be- 
 came the friend and patron of the humble village shoe- 
 maker, not only opening his park, but his library, to his 
 entrance. 
 
 It is said that his lordship found that " the poor appli- 
 cant used to work with pen and ink by his side, while the 
 last was in his lap — the head at one employ, and the 
 hands at another j and when he had composed a couplet 
 or stanza, he wrote it on his knee," and then resumed his 
 work till thought favored his desire for another. 
 
 In this way he kept himself above want, and wrote some 
 fine specimens of native poetry; of some of which Sonthey 
 remarks, " these verses were pointed out to me for their 
 feeling and truth, by the greatest poet of the age." In 
 1764, a quarto volume of his poems was published, which 
 added both to the reputation, and to the pecuniary means 
 of the author. 
 
 Many years later, Mr. Woodhouse issued another edi- 
 tion of his works; and in his old age he again called the 
 attention of the British public to his humble name, by 
 appearing before them in a new form with the modest 
 motto, " Sutor ultra crepidam." 
 
 He was at this time sixty-eight years of age. When 
 he died, we have not been able to ascertain ; but he spent 
 his last days among those who had befriended him in his 
 literary career ; and who had the consolation of seeing 
 that their kindness had been well bestowed. 
 
 The following extract from his writings, will serve to
 
 278 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 show up the style and manner of the man, though from 
 a very small point of view. 
 
 " What ! cannot he who formed the fount of light, 
 And shining orbs that ornament the night ; 
 Who hangs his silken curtains round the sky, 
 And trims their skirts with fringe of every dye, 
 In sheets of radiance spreads the solar beams, 
 With softened luster o'er the tranquil streams ; 
 Or, o'er the glittering surface softly flings 
 The whispering winds, with gently waving wings. 
 While every kindled curl's resplendent rays 
 Quick dart and drown in bright successive blaze ; 
 Who dipt in countless greens the lawns and bowers, 
 And touched with every tint the faultless flowers. 
 With beauty clothed each beast that roams the plain ; 
 And birds, rich plumed, with ever-varied strain. 
 Each fair scaled fish in vvateiy regions known 
 And insect's robe, that mocks the colored stone ; 
 Doth he not form the peasant's visual sphere, 
 To catch each charm that crowns the chequered year ; 
 Construct his ear to seize the passing sound 
 From wind, or wave, or wing, or whistle round ; 
 From breathing breeze, or tempest's awful roar, 
 Soft lisping rills, or Ocean's thundering shore. 
 Unnumbered notes that fill the echoinjr field. 
 Or mingled minstrelsy the wood-lands yield, 
 The melting strains and melodies of song, 
 That float impassioned frotn the human tongue ? 
 Or fondly feel each sound, that sweetly slips 
 Through ear to lieart, from favorite lover's lips ; 
 And trace the nicer harmony that springs 
 From puny gnats' shrill-sounding, treble wings ; 
 Light flies' sharp counter, bees' strong tenor tone ; 
 Huge hornets' bass, and beetles' drowsy drone ; 
 Grass-hoppers' open shake, quick twittering all the day. 
 Or crickets' broken chirp, that chimes the night away .'"
 
 279 
 
 JACOB BEHMEN 
 
 This great mystical philosopher of Germany, whose 
 works have been the study and meditation of the learned 
 and sagacious in intellect, who have succeeded him, was 
 a child of poverty. His parents were peasants of the 
 poorest class. He was born at Alt Seidenberg, in Lower 
 Lusatia, in the year 1575, and spent the early part of his 
 life in tending cattle in the fields, where, no doubt, that 
 deep, meditative cast of mind, which was an inborn in" 
 her tance of his, was cherished and made to grow, till he 
 was enabled, nay, compelled, in after years to write those 
 immense volumes of profound speculations and mysteri- 
 ous conceptions, which have since been read, only to be 
 wondered at. 
 
 He had reached his eleventh year, before he received 
 the least instruction from books, and then only from the 
 Bible, the ability to read which, was the limit of his 
 school education; and the fruitsof subsequent years indi- 
 cate the nature of the seed sown, and witness to the truth 
 of the proverb, that " just as the twig is bent the tree's in- 
 clined." Nature was, indeed, his instructor — and the 
 teaching he received was emphatically spiritual. 
 
 In course of events, he adopted the trade of shoemak- 
 er, and practiced the craft at Gorlitz, a place not far 
 from where he was born. Betimen was a young man 
 then ; but the strong inclination of his genius to the pro- 
 found and unsearchable, the unseen and spiritua), in con.
 
 980 DISTINGVISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 tradistinction from the visible, tangible and material, was 
 sufficiently apparent in his character, actions and con- 
 versation. The idea of utility, which is the pole-star of 
 modern philosophy, and the test of every speculation and 
 theory, seems not to have dawned upon his mind. It 
 was not to be found on the catalogue of his conceptions. 
 The word had no place in his vocabulary of language. 
 Though engaged in a hard and laborious avocation, his 
 mind was free from its busy cares and endless vexations. 
 He must live, like the rest of us, and therefore he loorked 
 from day to day with his hands, — his thoughts, far- away 
 in the deep regions of unfathomable nature, sounding, 
 onthe wings of imagination, the hidden secrets of the 
 univ erse, or endavoring to scale " the dangerous heights 
 of God," and explore the inmost temple of Omnipotence. 
 "He was one of those to whom,[under ruder or purer form> 
 the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased to manifest it- 
 self, and across all the hulls of ignorance and earthly deg- 
 radation, shine through, in unspeakable awfulness, in 
 unspeakable beauty on their souls." 
 
 "Established in his calling at Gorlitz, sitting in his 
 stall, working on tanned hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, 
 rosin, swines'-bristles, and a nameless heap of rubbish," 
 he continued to see visions and dream dreams ; and be- 
 lieved himself the recipient and medium of divine revela- 
 tions. At three different times, according to his own ac- 
 count, he was environed with supernatural light, which 
 attended him, in one instance, for seven successive days. 
 Replenished with heavenly knowledge, he went out into, 
 the fields, and viewing the herbs and the grass, he saw 
 into their essences and properties, which were discovered 
 to him by their lineaments, figures and signatures. 
 
 Under the effects of this spiritual illumination, he pro-
 
 JACOB BEIIMCN. 281 
 
 duced his first work, entitled " Aurora," or " The Morn- 
 ing-redness in the East." He did not write this with the 
 intention of publishing it to the world, but merely as a 
 simple record of his passing thoughts — a kind of log- 
 book of his mental course. 
 
 He doubtless thought those i<leas, which appeared so 
 great and glorious to him, were too good to perish unre- 
 corded. So he wrote ; but at length " it became public 
 without his consent, and w;is seized nnd condemned as 
 heretical by the Senate of Gorlitz, at the instigation of a 
 clerical persecutor. The author was admonished to write 
 no more books, but to confine himself to his proper call- 
 ing. Behmen meekly promised obedience, not doubting 
 in his simplicity, that he had committed an error." 
 
 For seven years he heeded the kind admonitions ofhig 
 spiritual judges, and preserved an unbroken silence. Dur- 
 ing this time he had removed from Gorlitz to Dresden ; 
 and the Spirit coming upon him again, he felt impelled to 
 write, and publish, which he delayed not to do, as he 
 found utterance. 
 
 The spirit of prophecy continuing with him, he contiii 
 ued to write, putting forth volume after volume, in the 
 most prolific abundance. In these he sought to reveal to 
 the world the hidden mysteries of the universe, " strug- 
 gling painfully with want of culture and of language, in 
 his attempts to express ideas so far beyond the range of 
 that experience which had furnished the only dialect he 
 knew. Latin words and scientific terms, picked up in 
 conversation with scholars, without any clear understand- 
 ing of their import, are brought in to eke out his slen- 
 der vocabulary ; and serve only to enhance the obscurity, 
 by the unusual and illegitimate sense in which they are 
 employed.
 
 282 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 " * Art,' says he, * hath not written here, neither was 
 there any time to consider how to set it punctually down, 
 according to the right understanding of the letters, but all 
 was ordered according to the direction of the Spirit, which 
 often went in haste .And though I could have written in 
 a more accurate, fair, and plain manner, yet the reason 
 was this, that the burning fire did force forward with 
 speed, and hand and pen must hasten directly after it, for 
 it Cometh and goeth as a sudden shower.' — * I can write 
 nothing of myself, but as a child which neither knoweth 
 nor understandeth, but only that which the Lord vouch- 
 gafeth to know in me.' 
 
 "Never since the days of the Apostles, has such de- 
 fective scholarship been united with such intellectual fe- 
 cundity, and such important results. Jacob Behmen has 
 been a guide and a prophet to men of the profoundest in- 
 tellect, of the most exalted station, and the most distin- 
 guished piety. 
 
 " Religious sects have been founded on his doctrine, 
 and called by his name. William Law, the most devout of 
 English mystics, was his disciple, and published an 
 English edition of his works. Schelling, the most culti- 
 vated of German Transcendentalists, author of the" Phi- 
 losophy of Identity," bears witness to the depth and wealth 
 of his intuitive wisdom, and reflects it in his Ontoloory. 
 Goethe, in his youthful speculations, seems to have bor- 
 rowed from him the leading idea of his cosmogony. 
 (The idea that the material universe was created out of 
 the ruins of a fallen spiritual world.) 
 
 " King Charles L, of England, is said to have sent a spe- 
 cial messenger to Gorlitz to learn of Behmen, and after 
 reading in English, the ' Answers to the forty Questions 
 of the Soul,' to have declared, that ' if, as he had been
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 283 
 
 informed, the author was no scholar, it was evident that 
 the Holy Ghost yet dwelleth in men.' " 
 
 It would be difficult to give a lucid exposition of the 
 strange philosophy of this wonderful man ; spread as it 
 is, through eight huge quarto volumes, and written in a 
 style and dialect which it would take a sorcerer in lan- 
 guage to decipher well. But, however hard it may be to 
 understand aright the speculations he advanced, the fact 
 that they were highly influential upon the age in which 
 he lived, and subsequent periods, is indisputable. His co- 
 temporaries, indeed, held him in high estimation, which 
 was manifested by the significant title of " Teutonic Phi- 
 losopher," which they put upon him. " He belongs," 
 says Hedge, (to whom we are deeply indebted in prepar- 
 ing this article,) " to the Platonic family of philosophers, 
 by virtue of the triune nature which he ascribes to Being. 
 His system supposes three Principles, in which all Being 
 is comprised. The first Principle, or the Father, the 
 eternal Darkness, is destitute of intelligence, in itself, 
 although the father of intelligence. It is not so much 
 God as the source of God. From the first Principle pro- 
 ceeds, by eternal generation, the second Principle, the 
 Son, ' the eternal Light.' And from these two proceeds, 
 by eternal generation, the third, * the Outbirth,' which is 
 the immediate cause of the material creation. These 
 three Principles are undivided in God ; but, through the 
 fall of Lucifer and his angels, they have become separat- 
 ed in Nature, and in man. Man in his natural state, 
 partakes of the first Principle, and of the life which pro- 
 ceeds from the third. He becomes possessed of the sec- 
 ond only by the regeneration in Christ. Furthermore, 
 these three Principles are manifested in seven Elements, 
 or ' Fountain Spirits,' as ihey are denominated by Beh-
 
 284 DISTINGUISHED SHOKMAKERS. 
 
 men. The first is called Astringency ; the second, Attrac- 
 tion ; the third, Anguish ; the fourth, Heat. These four 
 constitute the first Principle. The fifth is the Light ; the 
 sixth, Sound. The two constitute the second Principle. 
 The seventh is the Body g'-nerated hy the other six, in 
 which they live and work, and which represents the third 
 Principle." 
 
 To enter more at length into this system of Behmen's 
 would be to eKceed the design of this sketch, and perhaps 
 will be found unnecessary, as we subjoin a few extracts 
 from his writings, for the special entertainment of the lov- 
 ers of light reading. 
 
 Though Behinen accomplished such a vast amount of 
 mental labor, while at the same time he was dependent 
 upon his daily toil at the work-bench for sustenance, yet he 
 scarcely reached the fiftieth year of his age. When he 
 felt his final sickness coming on, he had a presentiment 
 that it would terminate his earthly existence. He caused 
 himself to be removed to his old residence, Gorlitz. Here 
 he made all needful arrangements for his last, great remo- 
 val; and having calmly and confidentially foretold the hour 
 of his departure, he went, saying, " Now I go hence in- 
 to Paradise." He died in 1624. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF BEHMEN. 
 
 Of God and the Divine JVature. 
 
 The soul, which has its original out of God's first principle 
 in creation, and was breathed from God into man in the third 
 principle, (that is, into the sidereal and elementary birth,) is 
 capable of seeing fui'ther than any other creature into the first 
 principle of God, out of, and in, and from the essence of which,
 
 JACOB BEUMEN. 285 
 
 it proceeded. And this is not marvelous, for it does but be- 
 hold itself iu the rising of its birth, out of which it came orig- 
 inally, and by the power of its light, can see the whole depth 
 of the Father in the first principle, by which he manifested 
 himself in the creation. 
 
 This the devils also see in a degree ; for they also are out of 
 the same first principle ; they alsj wish that they might not 
 see nor feel it ; but it is their own fault that they sej)arated 
 t!iemsekes from the second principle, which is called, and is 
 Gfod, one in essence and three-lbid in personal distinction, 
 which is shut up to them. 
 
 When 1 consider what God is, then I say. He is the One ! 
 in reference to the creature, as an eternal nothing. He has 
 neither foundation, beginning, nor abode ; he needs not either 
 si>ace or place; he begetteth himself in himself, from eternity 
 to eternity; and the outgoing out of the will in itself is God. 
 He is neither like nor resembleth any thing, and has no pecu- 
 liar place where he dwells: The true heaven where God 
 dwells is all over and in all places, for wheresoever he was be- 
 fore the creation there he is still, namely, in himself, the es- 
 sence of all essences ; all is generated from him, and is origi- 
 nally from him. 
 
 God, without nature and creature, has do name, but is called 
 only the eternal Good, that is, the eternal One ! the Profundity 
 of all Beings ! There is no place found for him, therelbre can 
 no creature rightly name him ; for all names stand in the 
 formed word of power, but God is himself, the root of all 
 power, without beginning and name ; therefore said he to Jacob 
 " Wherefore askest thou what is my name.'"' 
 
 Of God's Jirst Manifestation of Himself in the Trinity. 
 
 God is the will of the wisdom ; the wisdom is his manifes- 
 tation. In his eternal generation we are to understand three 
 things ; namely, 1. An eternal will. 2. An eternal mind of 
 the will. 3. The egress, efflux, or effluence from the will 
 and mind, which is a spirit of the will and mind. The will is 
 the Father ; tlie mintl is the conceived comprehenaion, or re-
 
 286 DISTINGt'ISHED SUOBMAKmiS. 
 
 ceptacle of the will, or the center to something ; and it is the 
 will's heart, that is the Son of God; and the egress of the will 
 and mind is the power and spirit. 
 
 And as we perceive that in this world there is fire, air, wa- 
 ter, and earth, also the sun and the stars, and therein consist 
 all the things of this world ; so you may conceive, by way of 
 similitude, that the Father is the fire of the whole holy con- 
 stellations, and that the Sou, namely, his heart, is the sun which 
 sets all the constellations in a light, pleasant habitation ; and 
 that the Holy Ghost is the air of the life, without which neith- 
 er sun nor constellation would subsist. 
 
 Of Eternal JVature after the Fall of Lucifer, and the Creation of 
 this World and of Man. 
 
 Reader, understand and consider my writings aright. We 
 have no power or ability to speak of the birth of the Deity, 
 for it never had any beginning from all eternity, but we have 
 power to speak of God our Father, what he is, and how the 
 eternal geniture is, and of the nativity, birth and working of 
 nature. And though it is not very good for us to know the 
 austere, earnest,- strong, fierce, severe, and original birth of na- 
 ture, as it came to be separated, and first manifested by the 
 apostacy of Lucifer, and into the knowledge, feeling and com- 
 prehensibility of which our first parents brought upon them- 
 selves, and upon us their posterity, through the poisoning ven- 
 om and infection they received, by the instigation and deceit 
 of the devil, who dwells in the most strong, severe, and cruel 
 bu'th of all, and to know our own enemy, self, which our first 
 parents awakened and roused up, and we carry within us, and 
 which we ourselves now are. 
 
 I know very well, and my spirit and mind shows me, that 
 many will be offended at the simplicity and meanness of the 
 author, for offering to write of such high things, and will think 
 he has no authority to do it, and that he sins, and runs contra- 
 ry to Grod and his will, in presuming, being but a man, to go 
 about to speak and say what God is. For it is lamentable, that 
 since the fall of Adam, we should be so continually cheated
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 287 
 
 by the devil, as to think that we are not the children of God, 
 nor of his essence, or offspring. 
 
 Your monstrous, outward, beastial form or shape indeed is 
 not God, nor of his essence ; but the hidden man, which is 
 the soul, is the proper essence of God, for as much as the love 
 in the light of God, is sprung up in your center, out of which 
 the Holy Ghost proceeds, and wherein the second principle of 
 God consists. How then should you not have power and au- 
 thority to speak of God, who is your Father, of whose essence 
 you (the regenerated) are, as a child is the Father's own sub- 
 stance ? The Father is the eternal power, or virtue ; the Son 
 is the heart and light continuing eternally in the Father; and 
 all regenerated souls continue in the Father and the Son ; and 
 now seeing that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and 
 the Son, the eternal power of the Fatlier is in you, and the 
 eternal light of the Son shines in yon. 
 
 If you lift up your thoughts and minds, and ride upon the 
 chariot of the soul, and look upon yourself, and all creatures, 
 and consider how the birth of the life in you takes its original, 
 and what the light of your life is, whereby you can behold the 
 Bun, and also look with your imagination beyond the sun into 
 a vast space to which the eyes of your body cannot reach, and 
 then consider what the cause might be that you are more ra- 
 tional tliau the other creatures, seeing you can, by the opera- 
 tions of your mind, search into every thing ; you will, if you 
 be born of God, attain to what God and the eternal birth is ; 
 for you will see, feel, and find, that the creation must yet have 
 a higher root, from whence it proceeded, which is not visible, 
 but hidden. Now if you further consider what preserveth all 
 thus, and whence it is, then you will find the Eternal, that has 
 no beginning — the Original of the eternal principle, namely, 
 the eternal, indissoluble band of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
 And then, secondly, you will see the separation ; in that the 
 material world, witii the stars and elements, are out of tlie first 
 principle of creation, which contains the outward and third 
 principle of this world. For you will find in the elementary 
 kingdom or do.'ninion, a cause in every thing wheru fnre it gen-
 
 288 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 erates and moves Qs it does ; but you will not find the first 
 cause whence it is so ; and tliat therefore there must be two 
 several principles, for you find in the visible things a corrupti- 
 bility, and perceive that they must have a beginning, because 
 they have an end, and these two principles are the first and 
 the third. You find in all things a glorious power and virtue, 
 which is the life growing and springing of every thing, and 
 that therein lies its beauty and pleasant welfare. Now look 
 upon an herb or plant, and consider what is its life which 
 makes it grow, and you will find in the original, harshness, 
 bitterness, fire, and water, whence proceeds the ()Ieasant smell 
 and colors ; for if it be severed from its own mother, that gen- 
 erated it at the beginning, then it remains dead. Thus you 
 see that there is an eternal root which aflfords this, and must 
 be a principle, which tlie stock itself is not, and that principle 
 has its original from the light of nature. 
 
 But what do you think was before the times of the creating 
 of this world ? For out of that proceeded the root of this 
 earth and stones, as also the stars and elements. But of what 
 consists the root ? You will find therein nothing but bitter- 
 ness, harshness, astringent sourness, and fire, and these are but 
 one thing, namely, the pure, eternal element, and from which 
 all outward, natural things were generated after the fall of Lu- 
 cifer ; for, before his fall, there was but one pure element. Now 
 in these forms you cannot find God ; the pure Deity being in- 
 comprehensible, unperceivable, almighty and all-powerful. 
 Whence is it then men may find God ? 
 
 Here open your noble mind, and search further. For seeing 
 God is only good, whence comes the evil ? And seeing also 
 that he alone is the life, and the light, and the holy power, as 
 is undeniably true, whence comes the anger of God ? Whence 
 comes the devil, and his evil will ? And whence has hell-fire 
 its original ? Seeing there was nothing, before God manifest- 
 ed himself in the creation, but only God, who was, and is a 
 spirit, and continues so in eternity. Whence then is the first 
 matter of evil ? Here blind reason gives this judgment — that 
 there must needs have been in the Spirit of God, a will to gen- 
 erate tte source and fountain of anger and evil.
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 289 
 
 But the scripture saj's the devil was created a holy angel . 
 and further says, " Thou art not a God that wills evil ;"and by 
 Ezekiel, God declares, "that as sure as he lives, he wills not 
 the death of a sinner ; " and this is testified by God's earnest 
 and severe punishing of the devil, and all sinners, that he is 
 not pleased with death. 
 
 What then is the first matter of evil in the devil? And what 
 moved him to anger, seeing he was created out of the origi- 
 nal, eternal Spirit of God ? Or whence is the original of evil 
 and of hell, wherein the devils shall remain forever, when this 
 world with the stars, elements, earth, and stones, shall perish 
 in the end of time ? 
 
 Beloved reader, open the eyes of your mind here, and 
 know, that no other anguish or source of punishment will 
 spring up in Lucifer than his own quality, or working proper- 
 ty ; for that is iiis hell which he himself formed ; and because 
 the light of God is his eternal shame, therefore he is God's 
 enemy, because he is no more in the light of God. Now, 
 nothing can be here produced by reason, that God should ever 
 have used any matter out of which to create the devil, for then 
 the devil might justify himself, that he was made evil, and 
 created of evil matter. But God created him out of nothing, 
 but merely and entirely out of his own divine essence, as well 
 as the other angels; as it is written, "Through him, and in 
 him are all things." And his only is the kingdom, the power, 
 and the glory ; and all is in him, as the holy scriptures witness. 
 And if it were not thus, no sin could be imputed to the devil, 
 nor to men, if they were not eternal, and had their being out 
 of God himself. 
 
 If, therefore, you speak or think of Gfod, yoU must consider 
 that he is All. 
 
 And seeing that he himself witnesseth, that his is the king- 
 dom and the power, from eternity to eternity ; and that he calls 
 himself Father, (and die Son, the Second Person in the Trini- 
 ty, begotten of h\s Father,) therefore we must seek for him in 
 the original of his manifesting himself in the triune One; 
 namely. Father, Son, and Spirit ; from whom all creation pro-
 
 290 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ceeded ; and we can say no otherwise, but that the first prin- 
 ciple in the creation is God the Father himself, as the source, 
 or fountain of hfe. 
 
 Yet there is found in the original of life the most fierce and 
 strong birth, namely, hai-shness, bitterness, anguish, and fire ; 
 of which we cannot say that it is God ; and yet is the most in- 
 ward first source of all light, and that is in God the Father ; 
 according to which he calls himself an angry, zealous, or jeal- 
 ous God, and a consuming fire. And this source is the first 
 print^iple, and that is God the Father, in the originality, or first 
 manifestation of himself, at the beginning of the creation. 
 
 And in this first principle, prince Lucifer at the extinguish- 
 ing in himself the light of the second principle, continued; 
 and is ever the same abyss of hell; wherein the soul also con- 
 tinues which extinguishes that light which shines from the 
 heart of God, (into every man that cometh into the world,) be- 
 ing then separated from the second principle. For which 
 cause also, at the end of time, there will be a separation or 
 parting asunder of the saints of light from the damned, whose 
 source of life will be without the liglit of God, and the work- 
 ing fountain of their condition as a boiling, springing torment. 
 
 I will now write of the second principle, of the clear, pure 
 Deity ; namely, of the heart of God ; that is, the power, glory, 
 or luster of God the Fatlier, in the Son. In the first princii)le, 
 I have mentioned harshness, bitterness, anguish, and fire, yet 
 they are not separate, but are one only thing, and they generate 
 one another in the first source of all creation. And if now the 
 second principle did not break forth, and spring up in the birth 
 of the Son, then the Father would be a dark valley ; and the 
 Son, who is the heart, the love, the brightness, and the sweet 
 rejoicing of the Father (in whom the Father is well pleased ) 
 opens another principle. 
 
 This is now what t'le evangelist John says, chap. 1, " In the 
 beginning was the Word ; and the Word was with God; and 
 the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with 
 God. All things were made by him, and without him was not 
 any thing made. In him was life." And he is another per-
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 291 
 
 son than the Father, for in his center there is nothing else but 
 mere joy, love and pleasure. 
 
 The evangelist says further, " And the life was the light of 
 men." Here, O man, take now this lig-ht of life, which was 
 in the Word and is eternal ; and behold the Being of all be- 
 ings, and especially thyself; seeing thou art an image, life, and 
 derive thy being of the unsearchable God: and a likeness as 
 to him. Here consider time and eternity ; heaven and hell ; 
 this world ; light and darkness ; pain, and the source ; life and 
 death. Here examine thyself, whether thou hast the light and 
 life of the Word in thee ; so shalt thou be able to see and un- 
 derstand all things ; for thy life was in the word, and was made 
 manifest in the image which God created; it was breathed 
 into it from the Spirit of the Word. Now lift up thy under- 
 standing in the light of thy life ; and behold the formed 
 Word ! Consider its generation, for all is manifest in the 
 liglit of life. Although here the tongue of man cannot ut- 
 ter, declare, express nor fathom this great depth, when there 
 |s neither number nor end ; yet we have power to speak 
 thereof as children talk of their father. 
 
 Now being to speak of the holy Trinity, we must first say 
 that there is one God, and he is called God the Father and 
 Creator of all things, who is almighty, and ail in all; whose 
 are hII things, and in whom and from whence all things pro- 
 ceed, and in whom they remain eternally. 
 
 And then we say, that he is three in persons, and has, from 
 eternity, generated his Son out of himself, who is his heart, 
 light and love ; and yet they are not two, but one eternal es- 
 sence. And further we say, the scripture tells us there is a 
 Holy Ghost, which proceeds from the Father and the Son, 
 and there is but one essence in Father, Sou and Holy Ghost. 
 
 But the Holy Ghost is not known or manifested in the orig- 
 inal of the Father before the light or Son [break forth], but 
 when the soil fountain springs up in the light, then he goes 
 forth as a strong, almighty spirit, in great joy, from the pleas- 
 ant source ot water and the light ; and he makes the forming 
 [sbaging, figuring] and images [a species], and be is the can-
 
 292 DISTINOUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 ter of all created essences ; in which center the light of life, 
 in the light of the Son or heart of the Father, takes its origi- 
 nal. And the Holy Ghost is a several y)ersou, because he 
 proceeds [as a living power and virtue] from the Father and 
 the Son ; and confirms the birth, generating or working of 
 the lioly Trinity. 
 
 Thus God is one only undivided essence, and yet three-fold 
 in personal distinction, one God, one will, one heart, one de- 
 sire, one pleasure, one beauty, one almightiness, one fullness 
 of all things, neither beginning nor ending; for if I should go 
 about to seek for the beginning or ending of a small dot, or 
 puncture, or of a perfect circle, I should be confounded. And 
 although I have written here of the springing of the second 
 principle, and the birth of the Divine essence in the Trini^ty, 
 as if it took a beginning, yet you must not understand it as 
 having any beginning, for the eternal manifestation of the pure 
 Deity is thus, without beginning or end ; and that in the ori- 
 ginalness in creation ; for I am permitted to write as far as of 
 the origiualness,totheend that man might learn to know him- 
 self, what he is, and what God in the Triune One, heaven, an- 
 gels, devils, and iiell are. And also what the wrath of God 
 and hell fire is, by the extinguishment of the divine light. 
 
 Of the Creation of Angels, and of Lucfer ; describing how he 
 was in the Angelical form, and how he is now in his own prop- 
 er form, by his rejecting, and thereby extinguishing the Divine 
 Light of the Second Principle in Himself. 
 
 Behold, O child of man, all the angels were created in the 
 first principle, and by the flowing forth of the Holy Spirit were 
 formed, and bodied in a true angelical and spiritual manner, 
 and enlightened from the light of God, that they might in- 
 crease the paradisiacal joy, and abide therein eternally ; but 
 being they were to abide eternally, they must be formed out 
 of the first principle, which is an indissoluble band ; and they 
 were to look upon the heart or Son of God, to receive his 
 light and to feed upon the word, which food was to be their 
 holy preservation, and to keep their image clear and light \
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 293 
 
 even as the heart or Son of God in the second principle, man- 
 ifests and euHghtens the Fatlier, namely, the first principle ; 
 and in those two principles, the divine power, the pure ele- 
 ments, paradise and the kingdom of heaven spring up. 
 
 Thus it is with those angels that continued in the kingdom 
 of heaven in the first paradise ; they stand in the first principle 
 in the indissoluble band, enlightened by the Son in the second 
 principle ; their food is the divine word ; and their thoughts 
 and mind is in the will of the Trinity in the Deity. The con- 
 firming and establishing of their life, will, and doings, is the 
 power of the Holy Ghost : whatever the Holy Spirit does in 
 the regenerating of paradise, and the holy wonders, the angels 
 rejoice at, and sing the joyful hallelujahs of Paradise, con- 
 cerning the pleasant saving and eternal birth. All they do is 
 an increase of their heavenly joy, delight, and pleasure in the 
 heart or Son of God ; and they sport in holy obedience in the 
 the will of the eternal Father ; and to this end their God crea- 
 ted them ; that he might be manifested, and rejoice in his crea 
 tures, and his creatures in him; so that there might be an 
 eternal spirit of lov^e, in the center of the multiplying of the 
 pure eternal nature, in the indissoluble band. But this sport 
 of love was spoiled by Lucifer himself, who is so called, be- 
 cause of the extinguishment of the light of the Son of God 
 in him, and his being cast out of his throne. 
 
 Describing what he then was, and also ivhat he now is. 
 
 He was the most glorious prince in heaven, and king over 
 many legions of angels, and had he introduced his will into 
 the divine meekness, and the light of the Son of God, and 
 continued in the harmony wherein God created him, then he 
 would have stood, and nothing could have cast him out of the 
 light. For he, as well as the other angels, was created of the 
 pure eternal nature, out of the indissoluble band, and stood in 
 the first Paradise. He felt and saw the generation of the holy 
 Deity in the birth of the second princi|)le, namely, of the 
 heart or Son of Goti, and the out-flowing of the Holy Ghost 5
 
 294 DISTINGUISHKD SHOEMAKER:^. 
 
 liis food was the word of the Lord, and therein he should have 
 continued an angel of light. 
 
 But he saw his own great beauty and glorj', and that he was 
 a prince standing in the firet principle, and in his own desire 
 went into the center, and would himself be God. lie despis- 
 ed the birth of the Son and heart of God, and the soft, and 
 very lovely influence, working and qualification thereof. He 
 entered with his will into SELF, and meant to be a very po- 
 tent and terrible Lord in the first principle, and would work 
 in the strength of the fire, in the center of nature ; he there- 
 fore could no longer be fed from the word of the Lord, and so 
 his light went out by the heart or Son of God departing from 
 him; for thereby the second principle was shut up to him; 
 and presently he became loathsome in Paradise, and was cast 
 out with all his legions that stuck to and depended upon him. 
 And so he lost God, the kingdom of heaven, and all paradisi- 
 acal knowledge, pleasure and joy ; he also presently lost the 
 image of God, and the confirmation of the Holy Gliost ; for 
 because he despised the second principle, wherein he was an 
 angel and image of God, all heavenly things departed from him, 
 and he fell into the dark vale, or valley of darkness, juid could 
 no more raise his imagination up to God, but remained in the 
 anguishes of the four first forms of the original of nature. 
 
 For he is always shut up in the first principle, (as in the 
 eternal death,) and yet he raises himself up continually, think- 
 ing to reach the heart of God, and domineer over it ; for his 
 bitter sting climbs up eternally in the source or root of the 
 fire, and affords him a proud will to have all his pleasure, but 
 he attains nothing. His food is the source or fountain of poi- 
 son, namely, the brimstone spirit : his refreshing, is the eter- 
 nal cold fire ; he has an eternal hunger in the bitterness ; an 
 eternal thirst in the source of the fire. His climbing up is his 
 fall, and the more he climbs up in his will, the greater is his 
 fall, as one standing upon a high cliff would cast himself down 
 into a bottomless pit, he looks still further, and lie lulls in fur- 
 ther and further, and yet can find no ground. Tims he is an
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 295 
 
 eternal enemy to the heart or Son of God, and to all the holy 
 angels ; and he cannot now frame any other will in himself. 
 
 His angels or devils are of very many several sorts ; for, at 
 the time of Lucifer's creation, he stood in the kingdom of hea- 
 ven in the point, locus, or place, where the Holy Ghost in the 
 birth of the heart of GJod in ParadisdJ* did open infinite and 
 innumerable centers in the eternal birth of pure eternal na- 
 ture ; and therefore their quality was also manifold, and all 
 should have been, and continued angels of God, if Lucifer 
 bad not corrupted, and thereby destroyed them: and &a now 
 every one in his fall continues in his own essences, excluded 
 from the light of the second principle, which they extinguish- 
 ed in themselves : and so it is with the soul of man, when it 
 rejects the light of God, and it goes out of that soul. * 
 
 Of Paradise. 
 
 Moses says, that, when God had made man, he planted a 
 garden in Eden, and there he put the man, to till and keep the 
 same; and caused all manner of fruits to grow, pleasant to the 
 sight and good for food; and planted the tree of life also, and 
 the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst. 
 
 Here lies the veil bef ire the face of Moses, in that he had a 
 bright shining countenance, that sinful Israel cannot look him 
 in the face ; for the man of vanity is not worthy to know what 
 Paradise is : and albeit it be given us to know it according to 
 the inward, hidden man, yet by this description we shall re- 
 main as dumb as the beast, but yet be sufiiciently understood by 
 our fellow scholars in the school of the great Master. 
 
 Poor reason, which is gone forthwith Adam out of Paradise, 
 asks where is Paradise to be foimd ? Is it far off, or near ? 
 Or, when the souls go into Paradise, whither do they go ? Is 
 it in the place of this world, or without the place •f this world 
 above the stars ? Where is it that God dwells \\\i\\ the an- 
 gels ? And where is that desirable, native country, where 
 there is no death ? Being there is no sun, nor stars in it, 
 therefore it cannot be in this woi-ld, or else it would have been 
 found long ago.
 
 295 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Beloved, reason ; one cannot lend a key to another to unlock 
 this withal; and if anj' have a key, he cannot open it to an- 
 other, as Anti-Christ boasts that he has the keys of lieavenand 
 hell; it is true, a man may have the keys of both in this life 
 time, but he cannot open with them for any body else; every 
 one must unlock it witn his own key, or else he cannot enter 
 therein ; for the Holy Ghost is the key, and when any one has 
 that key, then he maj' go both in and out. Paradise was the 
 heavenly essentiality of the second principle. It budded in the 
 beginning of the world through the earthly essentiality, as the 
 eternity is in the time, and the divine power is tlirough all 
 things; and yet is neither comprehended nor understood of 
 any earthly tiling in selfhood. In Paradise the essence of 
 tlie divine world penetrated the essence of time, as the sun 
 penetrates the fruit on a tree, and effectually works it into a 
 pleasantness, that is lovely to look upon, and good to eat ; the 
 like we are to understand of the garden of Eden. 
 
 The garden of Eden was a place upon the earth where 
 man was tempted ; anil the Paradise was in heaven, and yet 
 was in the garden of Eden; for as Adam before his sleep, 
 and before his Eve was made out of him, was, as to his in- 
 ward man, in heaven, and, as to the outward, upon the earth . 
 and as the inward, holy man penetrated the outward, as a 
 fire through heats an iron, so also the heavenly power out of 
 the pure, eternal element penetrated the four elements, and 
 sprang through the earth, and bare fruits, which were heav- 
 enly and earthly, and were qualified, sweetly tempered of the 
 divine power, and the vanity in the fruit was held as it were 
 swallowed up, as the day hides the night, and holds it cap- 
 tive in itself, that it is not known and manifest. The whole 
 world would have been a mere Paradise, if Lucifer had not 
 corrupted it, who was in the begiiuiing of his creation an 
 hierarch in the place of this worhl; but seeing God knew that 
 Adaui would fall, therefore Paradise sprung forth and budded 
 only in one certain place, to introduce and confirm man in 
 his obedip^nce therein. God nevertheless saw he would de-
 
 JACOB BEHMEN. 297 
 
 part thence, whom he would agaia introduce thereinto by 
 Christ, and establish him anew in Christ to eternity in Para- 
 dise, therefore God promised to regenerate it anew in Christ, 
 in the Spirit of Christ in the human property. 
 
 Thei*e is nothing that is nearer you than heaven, Para- 
 dise, and hell ; unto which of them you are inclined, and to 
 which of them you tend or walk, to that in this life-time you 
 are most near. You are between both ; and there is a birth 
 between each of them. You stand in this world between both 
 the gates, and you have both the births in you. God beckons 
 to you in one gate and calls you ; the devil beckons you in the 
 other gate and calls you; with whom you go, with him you 
 enter in. The devil has in his hand power, honor, pleasure, 
 and worldly joy ; and the root of these is death and hell-fire. 
 On the contrary, God has in his hand crosses, persecutions, 
 miseiy, poverty, ignominy, and sorrow ; and the root of these 
 is fire also, but in the fire there is a light, and in the light the 
 virtue, and in the virtue the Paradise ; and in the Paradise are 
 angels, and among the angels, joy. The gross, fleshly eyes 
 cannot behold it, because they are from the third principle, 
 and see only in the splendor of the sun ; but when the Holy 
 Ghost comes into the soul, then he regenerates it anew in God, 
 and then it becomes a paradisiacal child, who gets the key of 
 Paradise, and the soul sees into the midst thereof. 
 
 But the gross body cannot see into it, because it belongs not 
 to Paradise ; it belongs to the earth, and must putrefy and rot, 
 and rise in a new virtue and power in Christ, at the end of 
 days ; then it may also be in Paradise, and not before ; it 
 must lay off" the third principle, namely, this skin or cover- 
 ing which father Adam and mother Eve got into, and in which 
 they supposed they should be wisely wearing all the three 
 principles manifested on them. Oh ! that they had preferred 
 the wearing two of the principles hidden in them, and had 
 continued in the principle of light, it had been well for us. 
 
 Thus now, in the essence of ail essences, there are three 
 distinct properties, with one source of property free from one 
 another, yet not parted asunder, but are in one another as one 
 
 M
 
 2d8^ 
 
 DISTIN6UI8HKD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 only essence ; nevertheless the one does not comprehend the 
 otyier, as in the three elements, fire, air and water -, all three 
 are in one another, but neither of them comprehended the 
 other. And as one element generates another, and yet is not 
 of the essence, source, or property thereof, so the three prin- 
 ciples are in one another, and one generates the other ; and 
 yet none of them all compehends the other, nor is any of them 
 the essence or substance of the other. 
 
 The third principle, namely, the material world, shall pass 
 away, and go into its ether, and then the shadow of all crea- 
 tures remain, also of all growing things (vegetables and fruits) 
 and of all that ever came to light ; as also the shadow and fig- 
 ure of words and works ; and that incomprehensibly, like a 
 nothing or shadow in respect to light, and after the end oftime 
 there will be nothing but light and darkness ; where the source 
 or property i-emains in each of them as it has been from eter- 
 nity, and the one shall not comprehend the other. 
 
 Yet whether God will create more after this world's time, 
 that my spirit doth not know ; for it apprehends no farther 
 than what is in its center wherein it lives, and in which the 
 Paradise and the kingdom of heaven stands.
 
 299 
 
 NOAH WORCESTER, D. D. 
 
 The biography of all illustrious men is interesting and 
 instructive. Though many of them have been great in 
 error and wickedness — distinguished for great crimes 
 and great talents — still their history is valuable and im- 
 pressive. There are occasions, indeed, on which they 
 appear to have triumphed by their vices — their fame is 
 so splendid and captivating, and that, too, without the 
 least spark or semblance of virtue ! But follow them to 
 the end of the chapter, and if vice conquers them, virtue 
 triumphs over both. From the grave even of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, the mad and mighty warrior, or of Byron, 
 the gifted but licentious poet, comes a silent yet awful 
 voice in attestation of the worth and power of Virtpe. 
 
 " Virtue, like God, whose excellent majesty, 
 Whose glory Virtue is, is omnipresent. 
 No being once created rational, 
 Accountable, endowed with moral sense, 
 With sapience of right and M^ong endowed, 
 And charged — however fallen, debased, destroyed, 
 However lost, forlorn and miserable ; 
 In guilt's dark shrouding wrapp'd however thick. 
 However drunk, delirious and mad 
 With sin's full cup ; and with whatever damned, 
 Unnatural diligence it work and toil. 
 Can banish Virtue from its sight, or once 
 Forget that she is fair. 
 
 So Ood 
 
 Ordains; and lovely to the worst she seems.
 
 300 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 And ever seems : and as they look and still 
 Must ever look upon her loveliness, 
 Remembrance dire of what they were, of what_ 
 They might have been, and bitter sense of what 
 They are — polluted, ruined, hopeless, lost — 
 With most repenting torment rend their hearts." 
 
 But in the study of the characters of men who were 
 great because they were good, we have not this voice of 
 warning, but the more pleasing and alluring voice of 
 invitation — a beckoning on to truth and duty, by the 
 influence of a noble and excellent example — the exam- 
 ple of men who lived to do the world good — who labor- 
 ed to remove the difficulties in the way of our elevation 
 and happiness — who endeavored to make earth beauti- 
 ful and life pleasant to you and to me. They loved your 
 interest and my interest, and thought themselves well 
 employed, could they but do us good service. Hard, 
 deep, and constant study, in devising some more ex- 
 cellent way for us to walk in, where more flowers grow 
 
 — where more enchanting music delights our souls — 
 where dignity and honor await us — where friendship 
 is, with her ever-open, ever-true heart — where truth 
 and virtue purify the soul — where God smiles and blesses 
 
 — this was their labor, t^ipir devotion to our welfare! 
 Honored, exalted names ! What a repulsive scene would 
 the world present, were it not for your labors, your sac- 
 rifices, and your example ! Despite the Alexanders, 
 the Caesars, the Attillas, Tamerlanes and Napoleons, 
 who have bled and scourged the world, honor, eternal 
 honor to your immortal names, — it is yet a beautiful 
 abode for us ! 
 
 It is the life and character of one of these preemi- 
 nently good men — one who lived and labored for the
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 301 
 
 welfare and happiness of mankind, that we propose, 
 briefly but faithfully, to contemplate ; and we would 
 add, that should the harmony, the imperishable grandeur 
 of this great man's character inspire the heart of one 
 of our readers, and impel him to a like noble fame, we 
 shall be amply rewarded for our labor. 
 
 Noah Worcester was the eldest of five sons of 
 Noah Worcester, Esq., of Hollis, N. H. The latter 
 was the son of Rev. Francis Worcester, whose great- 
 grandfather came from England, and was the first min- 
 ister of Salisbury, Mass. His pastorship began in 1638. 
 The ancestors of the subject of this memoir were dis- 
 tinguished for their ability and integrity, in their vari- 
 ous spheres of life. His father possessed vigorous pow- 
 ers of mind and sterling virtues; was one of the framers 
 of the Constitution of New Hampshire, and filled 
 many responsible stations. Three of his four brothers 
 were ministers, one of whom was a distinguished theo- 
 logian. Here we find a family of five sons, and 'four of 
 them ministers of the gospel — a striking indication of 
 the virtue and piety of their parents, and the purity and 
 seriousness of their own minds. 
 
 When Noah was twelve years old, he was accustomed, 
 in the absence of his father;' to lead in family prayer. 
 Once before he was five years old, he felt deeply distress- 
 ed at the thought that he had told a falsehood in stating 
 as true what had been told him as such, without positive- 
 ly knowing it to be so. His little heart was light again, 
 when he was told that this was entirely different from an 
 intentional falsehood. 
 
 His advantages at school were very limited, attending 
 only a few weeks in the winter ; but he was one of the 
 first scholars in his school, and was remarkably fond of
 
 302 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 reading. His privileges at school ceased entirely when 
 he was sixteen years old — in 1775. 
 
 At the breaking out of the Revolution, the sound of 
 the spirit-stirring drum filled the breast of many a noble 
 youth with patriotic ardor, and impelled them to the 
 standards of their country. Yountr Worcester caught 
 the enthusiasm, joined the army and remained in it elev- 
 en months. He came very near being captured in the 
 retreat at Bunker Hill. 
 
 In the campaign of 1777, he did service as fife-major a 
 short time — long enough, however, to be engaged in the 
 battle of Bennington. He disliked war — it was not his 
 chosen occupation ; his nature was too tender and sym- 
 pathetic to witness its horrors and miseries, and he quit- 
 ted the business forever. He did not wholly escape the 
 deleterious influences of the camp and field, for on return- 
 ing again to private life, he was shocked to find his 
 sensibilities less susceptible than before he entered the 
 service. 
 
 The young soldier had already plighted his love to a 
 respectable young lady — Hannah Brown — to whom 
 he was fondly attached. He taught school during the 
 winter of 1776-7, then eighteen years of age, and it ap- 
 pears that this employment gerved to show him the im- 
 portance of learning, and his great lack of it. He ac- 
 cordingly set about acquiring it by every means in his 
 power, and found, as every one will find, that his labors 
 were crowned with succe.ss. In 1778, he took up what 
 he supposed would be a permanent residence in the town 
 of Plymouth. The following year he was married, on his 
 twenty-first birth-day. 
 
 He had not yet attempted to write a piece of composi- 
 tion of his own, except letters, notes and bonds, but he
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 303 
 
 was soon to be called upon to write, not only for his own 
 improvement, but for the benefit of the public. A Con- 
 stitution had been framed, and circulated among the 
 several towns, that individuals might examine for them- 
 selves, and send in such amendments and alterations as 
 should be suggested, to the Convention. Mr. Worcester 
 examined it, and finding some objections, w rote them 
 out hnd showed them to a neighbor. In consequence of 
 this, he was chosen one of the town committee to con- 
 sider the Constitution and report thereon. The writing 
 of the report was assigned to him, which he did to the 
 satisfaction of all. This was his first attempt, and he was 
 much encouraged by the result, and it is quite probable 
 that after this he assiduously practiced original writing. 
 
 In 1782, he changed his residence from Plymouth to 
 Thornton, soon after which he made a public profession 
 of religion, and became a member of the Congregational 
 church under the care of Rev. Experience Estabrook. 
 After this, his mind was deeply impressed with religious 
 subjects, and he began immediately to examine such, by 
 writing short dissertations. He was compelled to labor 
 constantly to support his growing family ; still he found 
 time, by improving the little intervals which people gen- 
 erally throw away, and Sundays, to make considerable 
 progress. He was now a shoemaker ; and how could a 
 shoemaker educate himself? — an important problem, 
 truly, to most of our readers. Well, he had pen, ink 
 and paper, and, unlike poor Gifford, he had no unfeeling 
 master determined that he should be forever a poor, ig- 
 norant artizan. He had a lap-board — what shoemaker 
 has not ? These four utensils were placed at the end of 
 his bench, while he was at work. Now Mr. Worcester 
 was a thinker, and, what is peculiar to real thinkers,
 
 304 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 always had a subject uppermost in his mind for special 
 consideration. After selecting his subject, he dwelt up- 
 on it with earnest thought, until he discovered something 
 worth writing down : he then took his lap-board, pen and 
 paper, and wrote that thovght down. Again he plies his 
 hands to his work and his thoughts to his subject — and 
 again puts down the next valuable thought. This is the 
 way he got his education. His mind was active, and he 
 concentrated its whole power upon one point at a time 
 — the Bonaparte an method in military tactics — much 
 more honorably adopted in the. intellectual field. Thus 
 he exercised and improved his powers. 
 
 The minds of most men — a lamentable truth — re- 
 semble a noble stream, whose waterfalls are unappropri- 
 ated. The mighty current sweeps down the rocks in 
 confused and broken fragments. So with them — the 
 current of thought, never-ceasing, ever-flowing, is brok- 
 en, divided and confused, by the continual jargon of life, 
 and its powers are lost to the man and the world. 
 
 Thus we find that the mass of mankind make but little 
 progress during their lives. Men, whose minds were 
 made especially and solely for progress — whose thoughts, 
 rushing with all the rapidity and constancy of Time, 
 might raise them higher and still higher in the enchant- 
 ing regions of knowledge, where their mental vision 
 would be almost as clear and far-reaching as angels' — 
 how little true advancement (we speak of the multitude) 
 do they make, after they attain to the years of manhood ! 
 As far as intellectual powers or even mental acquirements 
 are concerned, the last thirty or fifty years is little better 
 than lost ! 
 
 We often hear it remarked, by young men, too, that 
 they regret they had not better advantages for learning in
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 366R 
 
 their youth — they would give anything could they have 
 gone to school as much as A, B and C ; then they might 
 have made something ; but they had only six weeks 
 schooling in a year, and that^ they went two miles to 
 obtain. Now, therefore, they must be content to remain 
 ignorant. Thus do they deliberately consign themselves' 
 to the ignorance which they pretend to deprecate ! Look 
 at Noah Worcester, on his work-bench. He never went 
 to school, as a scholar, a single day after he was sixteen 
 years old, and never studied grammar or geography when 
 he did attend ! 
 
 He made a study of his shop, and a table of his lap- 
 board. Those thoughts which he there committed to 
 paper were just as valuable as if they had occurred to 
 him while sitting in a stuffed chair, at a mahogany table, 
 in a well-fashioned library, surrounded with all the lore 
 of ancient and modern times. There is nothing more 
 fatal to the interests of the minds of men, than the idea 
 that the acquisition of knowledge is necessarily confined 
 to academies and colleges, and that ignorance is the sure 
 inheritance of the laboring man. In this country, books' 
 are cheap, and Nature — that precious volume, more val- 
 uable than all the books of the British Museum and the 
 Royal Library of France — is free as air to the humblest 
 student. 
 
 This is not their manner of reasoning in pecuniary ; 
 matters. Who thinks that because his parents had no » 
 fortune to bestow on him when he became of age, there- 
 fore he must live poor and die poor ? No one. The 
 young man goes to work with the energy of an earnest 
 soul, and accumulates what his father could not give 
 him. This is common sense. 
 
 The truth is, those who neglect the cultivation of their
 
 308 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 minds, at this late day, do not desire knowledge ; they 
 prefer to go to the market and there offer for sale, to the 
 highest bidder, a birthright akin to that of angels. 
 
 The first book which Mr. Worcester composed was 
 occasioned by a sermon to which he listened, on the 
 " Origin of Evil." This sermon contained some singu- 
 lar propositions, which were not self-evident truths. Mr. 
 Worcester examined them carefully in his mind, and was 
 satisfied of their error. The result of his thoughts on 
 the subject, he published in form of a " Letter " to the 
 author of the sermon. This Letter was thought to be a 
 sound and conclusive argument, and a total refutation of 
 the doctrines of the sermon. 
 
 Whenever he undertook the examination of a subject, 
 he was singularly unbiassed and independent. He seem- 
 ed to have but one object, and that was the truth on the 
 subject under consideration. Truth, or at least what 
 appeared such to his mind, he followed faithfully — even 
 when it led him where there was no bread. 
 
 He had, previously to this, fixed his attention on th« 
 ministry as a very interesting field for those who were 
 prepared for its duties, but did not yet dare to hope to 
 enter it himself At length, through the influence of a 
 valued friend, he consented to think seriously of the step ; 
 and he found by reflection that he was more and more 
 inclined to enter the work. In 1786, he was regularly 
 examined, and received into the ministry. 
 
 Soon after this he was settled as pastor of the church 
 in Thornton, of which he was a member. This parish 
 was small and poor — not able to support a minister but 
 partially, paying him only two hundred dollars annually. 
 Many were unable to pay their small share of this scanty 
 salary ; of such persons be was accustomed to abate the
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 307 
 
 whole tax. He was therefore compelled to labor for his 
 support, which he did, as a farmer and shoemaker. 
 
 Notwithstanding this small return for his pastoral serv- 
 ices, he faithfully performed the duties of that responsible 
 relation, — as much so as if he received a thousand dol- - 
 lars per annum ; and in addition to this, he often taught 
 the children of his parish, when no other school teacher 
 was provided. 
 
 In 1797, he lost his wife, which was a heavy stroke 
 upon him. Eighteen years they had lived in peace and 
 love — had become the parents of eight children, and 
 shared together the cares and anxieties of their various re-, 
 lations in life. Mrs. Worcester was an excellent woman 
 — a fond and tender mother, intelligent and pious. In 
 the following year he was married to Miss Hannah Hunt- 
 ington, of Norwich, Conn. In 1802, he preached as mis- 
 sionary in the northern towns of New Hampshire, in the^ 
 employ of the N. H. Missionary Society, and also at sub- • 
 sequent times. 
 
 In 1806, he received very serious injury in the legs — 
 the tendons being partially separated from the muscles. 
 This caused much suffering, and he never entirely re- 
 covered the natural powers of these limbs. Before this, 
 he had been a man of uncommon muscular powers — so 
 that he was noted for his capacity of labor on a farm ; but 
 he was now very feeble and infirm, and in middle age he 
 had become, /)7tystca//y, an old man. 
 
 His reputation as a minister had been gradually ex- 
 tending in his own State, and he was accounted one of 
 the first in piety and talents ; yet his society were unable 
 to support him without his own aid in manual labor. This 
 he was no longer al)le to perform, on account of his in- 
 firmities. For this reason, he accepted an invitation to
 
 308 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 supply his brother's desk in Salisbury for a time. His 
 brother was obliged to suspend his labors by reason of ill 
 health. He had ministered to his people in Thornton 
 about twenty-three years, faithfully and acceptably, and 
 the bonds of fraternal love between him and them were 
 peculiarly strong. The church were not willing that the 
 pastoral relation should be severed, but consented to his 
 leaving, hoping that at a future time he might return to 
 them. 
 
 He removed to Salisbury in 1810, and remained there 
 about three years, when he was unexpectedly called to a 
 different field of employment. 
 
 At the time of his removal, he was engaged in the pub- 
 lication of a work, containing his views on the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, and showing an entire change in his sen- 
 timents on that subject. For many years his mind had 
 been in a state of inquiry respecting the personal char- 
 acter of Christ ; the result of his investigations he gave 
 to the world in this book, entitled " Bible News; or Sa- 
 cred Truths relating to the Living God, his only Son, 
 and Holy Spirit." This work, written in a perfectly can- 
 did and Christian spirit, without the least bitterness or 
 censoriousness towards his brethren of the ministry who 
 differed from him, was the occasion of much coldness 
 and alienation on their part. This he severely felt, as it 
 was entirely unexpected to him. His frank and gener- 
 ous spirit knew nothing of that too common disposition, 
 which makes an honest difference of opinion a reason for 
 neglect and intolerance. 
 
 Mr. Worcester, in this book, preceded the spirited dis- 
 cussion which shortly after resulted in a separation be- 
 tween the Trinitarians and Unitarians. 
 
 He had been reflecting on the subject many years in 
 the retirement of his study, and knew not that so many
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 309 
 
 minds were already prepared to sympathize with him in 
 his honest conviction. The work excited much interest 
 and attention, and was greatly influential in producing 
 the animated controversy which followed. In this con- 
 troversy, Mr. Worcester was regarded as the pioneer, and 
 was, as is usual in such cases, the object of warm sym- 
 pathy and attachment. A journal was about to be start- 
 ed, to advocate the sentirnents of the Unitarians, both on 
 the doctrines and spirit of Christianity. In selecting an 
 editor, the patrons of the journal desired a man combin- 
 ing talents and decision, with great candor and true 
 Christian liberality. Such a man Mr. Worcester was 
 known to be, and accordingly he received and accepted 
 an invitation to become its editor. He expressed him- 
 self as sincerely grateful to Divine Providence, for this 
 call to engage in a work so suited to his habits of thought 
 and his desires of usefulness. His brother, whose place 
 he had been filling, was now recovering, and was soon 
 able to resume his labors. This seasonable and agreea- 
 ble opening, therefore, he was at liberty to improve. He 
 moved to Brighton, the place where the periodical was 
 to be published, in 1813, and took the editorial charge of 
 it, under the name of the Christian Disciple. He con- 
 ducted this journal until 1818. During these five years 
 he breathed through its columns the very spirit of Chris- 
 tian love. He opposed with all the power of his strong 
 mind, every manifestation of intolerance and bigotry. 
 This he could not endure. He saw that this infernal 
 spirit stands in the way of all progress — that it prevents 
 impartial investigation, by its denunciations and anathe- 
 mas, its neglect and its enmity — all of which threaten 
 the sincere inquirer, if perchance he should find in his 
 searchings aught that militated against the existing or- 
 der of things.
 
 310 DISTINOCI8HED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Never, since Satan entered the garden of perfect bliss 
 to tempt and to destroy, did a more malignant enemy — 
 a fouler spirit come up from the dark abodes into the 
 precints of mankind. Without freedom of thought, there 
 is no progress — no advancement ; and without progress 
 — without the ascending principle — without a promis- 
 ing future and an impelling of the soul to attain it, what 
 is the hope of man ! Not a single glowing, burning 
 thought, not a single noble effort of the mind, not the 
 discovery of a single principle, but speaks of progress ; 
 yet the monster Intolerance — the tyrant Bigotry, would 
 shut up the mind in darkness, stifle every progressive im- 
 pulse of the soul, and hide, with the pall of ignorance, 
 the animating prospect of a glorious yw/j/re. 
 
 It was this that tormented and burnt the early Chris- 
 tian heroes ! It was this that desolated the beautiful 
 provinces of Languedoc and Provence, and exterminated 
 the refined and Christian Albigenses, for a difference 
 of religious creed ! It was this that uttered its terrible 
 anathemas in the ear of the lion-hearted Luther, to pre- 
 vent him from exposing the iniquities of consecrated des- 
 pots and debauchees. This dragged innocent men to 
 the infernal tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, for dif- 
 ference of opinion ! It summoned Galileo, the immortal 
 discoverer of the true theory of the solar system, from 
 his scientific retreat, grey with years of glorious study, 
 to the papal tribunal, and there compelled him to abjure 
 his own discoveries, and deny the light of his own mind 
 on pain of imprisonment ! 
 
 " The supplicating hand of innocence 
 That made the tiger mild, and in his wrath, 
 The lion pause — the groans of suffering most 
 Severe — were naught to her : ehe laughed at groans,
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 311 
 
 No music pleased her more ; and no repast 
 
 So sweet to her as blood of men redeemed 
 
 By blood of Christ. Ambition's self, though mad, 
 
 And nursed with human gore, with her compared, 
 
 Was merciful. Nor did she always rage : 
 
 She had some hours of meditation set 
 
 Apart, wherein she to her study went , 
 
 The Inquisition, model most complete ^^ 
 
 Of perfect wickedness, where deeds were done — 
 
 Deeds ! let them ne'er be named — and sat and planned 
 
 Deliberately, and with most musing pains. 
 
 How to extremest thrill of agony 
 
 The flesh and blood and souls of holy men, 
 
 Her victims, might be wrought; and when she saw 
 
 New tortures of her laboring fancy born 
 
 She leaped for joy, and made great haste to try 
 
 Their force, well pleased to hear a deeper groan." 
 
 Those days are past, and we believe, forever. Bigotry 
 has lost its terrible clutch of the sword, which has fallen, * 
 we trust, beyond her reach hereafter. But it is not 
 many years since, in our own country, the bitter spirit 
 was rife among those who professed to seek the truth I ' 
 Christian sects attacked each other with a fierceness re- 
 sembling more that of contending armies than the love 
 of inquiring Christians. This was the case when Mr. 
 Worcester wrote against intolerance in the Christian 
 Disciple. He had a full and comprehensive view of the 
 genius of Christianity — its universal liberality — its 
 overpowering love. These, he knew, were incomparably 
 more important than tenets, dogmas, and human creeds. 
 He could not silently see them sacrificed to that which 
 was comparatively of little value. He knew well how 
 sincerely people might differ on doctrinal topics, for he 
 had differed with himself, and still was conscientious and 
 obedient to his convictions of truth in both cases. And
 
 31^' 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 was he to be denounced for his sincere opinions in either 
 instance ? He felt the deep injustice of such treatment, 
 as but few can feel it; his benevolence and sense of jus- 
 tice were so strong. He therefore wrote on this subject 
 freely and earnestly, for his journal. Its pages breathed 
 the sentiments of charity and fraternal love. In his at- 
 tacks upon what he considered errors — and they were 
 frequent — he manifested the kindliest spirit towards 
 those with whom he differed ; showing thereby his con- 
 sistency and sincerity. 
 
 There was also another subject, that of war, which 
 greatly interested him, and which finally engrossed his 
 whole attention. For years the good man had deliberat- 
 ed upon this momentous subject with solemn earnestness 
 ■ — surveyed it in all its bearings — examined its cause 
 and effects — its influences on both conquered and con- 
 querers — its expense and its profit — in a word, he had 
 mastered it as thorougVily, seemingly, as it was capable of 
 being mastered. He had also some experience in the 
 matter, having been engaged in two of the bloodiest bat- 
 tles of the Revolution, Bunker Hill and Bennington. He 
 had been an eye witness to the terrible carnage of battle, 
 and could describe it with the ghastly picture spread out 
 before him. 
 
 He had long been convinced of the folly — the dread- 
 ful folly and wickedness of war. The more he dwelt upon 
 it, the worse and more inexcusable it appeared to him, 
 until his convictions pressed upon his mind with all the 
 certainty of demonstration, and the power of inspiration : 
 and he felt bound to proclaim to the world his sublime 
 and truthful views. This he did in various ways, in ser- 
 mons, conversation, and in the Christian Disciple. On 
 the breaking out of the war with Great Britain in
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 313 
 
 1812, his mind became fully established on the firm basis 
 of peace, and convinced of the sinfuhiess and impolicy 
 of war. 
 
 He observed the means used to excite the prejudices 
 of the people, by making the question of the war a party 
 issue, together with other corrupting measures ; and he 
 saw at a glance that the war was the result of any thing 
 but good feelings and correct principles. The president 
 of the United States had called upon all ministers of the 
 gospel to pray for the success of our arms. This Mr. 
 Worcester could not conscientiously do ; and on the na- 
 tional fast day, gave his reasons for declining to comply 
 with the president's request, calmly, clearly and kindly, 
 in a sermon of much power, which gave offence to the 
 war-men. He could not pray for the success of our arms, 
 for that was praying that we might out-slavghter our ene- 
 mies. How could he do this? He was a disciple of 
 Christ, who commanded him (and to him the commands 
 of Christ were paramount to all human authority) to love 
 his enemies, and pray for those who despitefuily used him. 
 This he did, by praying that the lives of the poor soldiers 
 on both sides might be preserved, and the war speedily 
 terminated. 
 
 In 1814, his mind being deeply and increasingly inter- 
 ested in the subject, he sat down to write an article for 
 the Disciple, to show that war is the effect of popular de- 
 lusion ; but s<^> absorbed was his whole soul on that oc- 
 casion, that writing only increased his fervor, and the 
 more he wrote, the more urgent and copious were his 
 thoughts. When this article was finished, instead of a 
 short paper for his journal, it was the celebrated " Sol- 
 emn Review of the Custom op War." This was a 
 great and successful effort. It appealed to the judgments
 
 314 mSTINOUISHED 8HOKMAKER». 
 
 of men, to their consciences — their sense of right and 
 duty. It came in good time. Almost tlie whole civiliz- 
 ed world had been convulsed and desolated with war, for 
 more than twenty years. The bones of the sons of 
 France were bleaching on the fields of every nation from 
 the frozen regions of Muscovy to the sunny plains of 
 Spain. Every mother of that bewildered nation was in 
 mourning, and almost every nation in Europe had- been 
 ravaged and plundered by the merciless hordes of war. 
 Our own country had also in the mean time sipped the 
 crimson chalice. All had drunk enough. The wearied 
 nations longed for repose. There was therefore a wil- 
 lingness on the part of the more thoughtful, at least, to 
 listen to the solemn warning of wisdom. Accordingly, 
 the " Solemn Review" attracted public notice, and was 
 soon extensively circulated. Immediately after its pub- 
 lication, (so great was the interest in the subject of which 
 it treated) the Massachusetts Peace Society was formed ; 
 and simultaneously in this country and England similar 
 societies arose, the design of which was to call the at- 
 tention of the public to the subject, by addresses and 
 publications. These movements were the result of Mr. 
 Worcester's pamphlet, and they were formed upon the 
 first matured plan of Peace Reform in modern times. 
 This *' Review " is now stereotyped for the American 
 Peace Society, as *' Tract No. 1," and has been publish- 
 ed in several foreign languages. It commences in the 
 following calm and philosophical manner : 
 
 " ' Shall the Sword devour forever ? ' * We read 
 with horror the custom of the ancient heathens in offer- 
 ing their children in sacrifice to idols. We are shocked 
 with the customs of the Hindoos, in prostrating them- 
 selves before the car of an idol, to be crushed to death ;
 
 '^ • NOAH WORCESTER. 315 
 
 in burning women alive on the funeral piles of their hus- 
 bands; in offering a monthly sacrifice, by casting their 
 children into the Ganges to be drowned. We read with 
 astonishment of the sacrifices made in the Papal cru- 
 sades, and in the Mahometan and Hindoo pilgrimages. 
 We wonder at the blindness of Christian nations who 
 have esteemed it right and honorable to buy and sell Af- 
 ricans as property, and reduce them to bondage for life. 
 But what is fashionable and popular in any country is 
 esteemed right and honorable, whatever may be its nature 
 in the views of men better informed. 
 
 " But while we look back, with a mixture of wonder, 
 indignation and pity, on many of the customs of former 
 ages, are we careful to inquire whether some customs 
 which we deem honorable, are not the effect of popular 
 delusion ? and whether they will not be so regarded by 
 future generations ? Is it not a fact that one of the most 
 horrid customs of savage men, is now popular in every 
 nation of Christendom? What custom of the most bar- 
 barous nations is more repugnant to the feelings of pie- 
 ty, humanity, and justice, than that of deciding contro- 
 versies by the edge of the sword, by powder and ball, or 
 the point of the bayonet ? What other savage custom 
 has occasioned half the desolation and misery to the hu- 
 man race ? And what but the grossest infatuation could 
 render such a custom popular among rational beings? 
 
 " When we consider how great a part of mankind have 
 perished by the hands of each other, and how large a por- 
 tion of human calamity has resulted from war, it surely 
 cannot appear indifferent, whether this custom is or is 
 not the effect of delusion. Certainly there is no custom 
 which deserves a more thorough examination than that 
 which has occasioned more slaughter and misery than all 
 the abominable customs of the heathen world."
 
 316 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 He then proceeds with the same spirit of candor to ex- 
 amine the pleas for war, on account of its advantages, its 
 unavoidable necessity, &c. He also considers the ob- 
 jections to the peace reform, such as the magnitude of 
 the change required, — the exposure to insult and ag- 
 gression which the carrying out of its prinpiples would 
 occasion. On the character of its wofully corrupting 
 tendency, its diabolical, absolutely anti-Christian spirit, 
 he speaks boldly and earnestly. 
 
 In reference to the character of military heroes, and 
 their praise and glorification by mankind, he says : 
 
 " May we then plead for the custom because it pro- 
 duces such mighty robbers as Alexander ? Or if once 
 in an age it should produce such a character as Wash- 
 ington, will this make amends for the slaughter of twen- 
 ty millions of human beings, and all the other concom- 
 itant evils of war ? 
 
 " If the characters of such men as Alexander had 
 been held in just abhorrence by mankind, this single 
 circumstance would probably have saved many millions 
 from untimely death. But the celebrity which delusion 
 has given to that desolating robber, and the renown at- 
 tached to his splendid crimes, have excited the ambition 
 of others, in every succeeding age, and filled the world 
 with misery and blood. 
 
 " Is it not then time for Christians to learn not to at- 
 tach glory to guilt, or to praise actions which God will 
 condemn 1 That Alexander possessed talents worthy 
 of admiration, will be admitted. But when such tal- 
 ents are prostituted to the vile purposes of military 
 fame, by spreading destruction and misery through the 
 world, a character is formed which should be branded 
 with everlasting infamy. And nothing, perhaps, short
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 317 
 
 of the commission of such atrocious deeds can more en- 
 danger the welfare of a community than the applause 
 given to successful military desperadoes. Murder and 
 robbery are not the less criminal for being perpetrated 
 by a king or a mighty warrior." 
 
 Such were the sentiments of this wise philanthropist, 
 thirty years ago ; during the lapse of which, the wise, 
 considerate and good of all civilized nations have learned 
 them to be correct sentiments, and of the greatest impor- 
 tance. 
 
 How many hundred times have we heard distinguished 
 orators, statesmen, and intelligent men, speak of war as 
 " a necessary evil ! " It is blasphemy against our Crea- 
 tor ! Were it true that He has placed us in relations 
 that render the horrid crimes of war necessary and 
 unavoidable, it would impeach His wisdom and goodness. 
 But we know it is not so. A few lines from the Review 
 of Mr. Worcester, shows its falsity : 
 
 " That there is nothing in the nature of mankind, 
 which renders war necessary and unavoidable — nothing 
 which inclines them to it which may not be overcome by 
 the power of education, may appear from what is discov- 
 erable in sects already mentioned. The Cluakers, Shak- 
 ers and Moravians are of the same nature with other 
 people, " men of like passions" with those who uphold 
 the custom of war. All the difference between them and 
 others results from their education and habits. The 
 principles of their teachers are diffused through their 
 societies, impressed on the minds of old and young ; ' 
 and an aversion to war and violence is excited, which 
 becomes habitual, and has a governing influence in their 
 hearts, their passions, and their lives. 
 
 " If then it has been proved to be possible, by the force
 
 318 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 of education, to produce such an aversion to war, that 
 people will not defend even their own lives by acts of vi- 
 olence ; shall it be thought impossible, by similar means, 
 to destroy the popularity of offensive war, and exclude the 
 deadly custom from the abodes of men ?" 
 
 We have given enough of this " Review" to show its 
 spirit and ability. These truths which are now so famil- 
 iar to our ears, were then fresh and new, and full of inter- 
 est to the reader. 
 
 In 1818, Mr. Worcester relinquished the Christian Dis- 
 ciple, and in the following year commenced the publica- 
 tion of a quarterly magazine called the Friend of Peace. 
 This he continued to publish ten years, and furnished 
 with his own pen, almost the whole matter of every num- 
 ber. Yet so full was every number, of interest — so 
 abounding in new arguments and different methods of 
 applying them — so ingenious were they in presenting 
 the question as connected with every great interest of man 
 and society, that they furnish a vast Peace Reform Re- 
 pository ; embracing facts and sketches, historical and 
 biographical — selections from writers of all nations and 
 times, all bearing directly or indirectly upon the one great 
 object of his labors. He seems to have surveyed the 
 whole ground, collected every variety of material and 
 treasured up a full magazine of truths on the subject, so 
 that nothing was left for his successors to do, but to pre- 
 sent and apply anew the arguments he produced. So far 
 as discussion is concerned, he is the David and Solomon 
 of this God -like reform. He laid the foundation and rais- 
 the superstructure. 
 
 In the midst of almost universal war, desolation and 
 commotion — in an era of blood and carnage, this Chris- 
 tian herQ. opened a new era — that of Peace aiid Love.
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 319 
 
 To the nations mustered on the tented field, with their 
 death-implements around them, he spake again the senti- 
 ments of his divine Master — "Peace, — put up the 
 sword forever, and be brothers." And he spake with au- 
 thority, as the sequel will prove. Not many generations, 
 nay, not many years shall pass, ere the command of this 
 philanthropist will be generally obeyed. He spake in faith 
 — not thinking that the world would listen in a day ; he 
 had the hope of a great soul — the world was its object, 
 and he could afford to wait for " the good time coming." 
 He saw that time, the Golden Age, not far distant in the 
 future, when the nations should learn war no more — 
 when the sweet and quiet reign of Peace would give a . 
 new energy and direction to the faculties of man, and 
 crown him with new dignity and worth — when kings 
 should not consider him a machine for their own use and 
 aggrandizement. Already do hundreds of pulpits advo- 
 cate the principles of Peace ; and hundreds of presses 
 give to the world millions of peace-distilling messages, 
 scattering them " thick as leaves in Vallarabrosa," all 
 over the civilized world! Nations seek as eagerly to 
 avoid, as formerly they sought for, war ; and when war at 
 last comes, each endeavors to show to the world that the 
 other is the aggressor, and that at its door lies the whole 
 charge. Almost every individual in enlightened commu- 
 nities is a deprecator and despiser of war, and an advo- 
 cate of peace, while a Christian who advocates war has 
 become an anomaly and a wonder ! Surely then may we 
 hope that the blissful era of Peace has dawned upon us ! 
 And who does not wish to assist in hastening its develop- 
 ment. Reader, in the eloquent language of another, 
 " To this work let roe summons you. That future which 
 filled the lofty visions of Greece and Rome, which was
 
 320 DISTINOUISHKD SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 foretold by the prophets, and heralded by the evangelists, 
 when man iti Happy Isles, or in a new Paradise, shall 
 confess the loveliness of Peace, may be secured by your 
 care, if not for yourselves, at least for your children. 
 Believe that you can do it, — and you can do it. The 
 true golden age is before you, not behind you. If man 
 has been driven once from Paradise, while an angel with 
 a flaming sword forbade his return, there is another Par- 
 adise, even on earth, which he may form for himself by 
 the cultivation of the kindly virtues of life, where the 
 confusion of tongues shall be dissolved in the union of 
 hearts, where there shall be a perpetual jocund spring, 
 and sweet strains borne on ' the odoriferous wing of gentle 
 gales,' more pleasant than the vale of Tempe, richer 
 than the garden of the Hesperides, with no dragon to 
 guard its golden fruit." 
 
 As has been remarked, Dr. Worcester* published the 
 Friend of Peace ten years. At the expiration of this pe- 
 riod, being seventy years of age, he thought he ought to 
 be relieved of some of his cares, and enjoy that repose 
 so desirable and so sweet in the autumn of life. Accord- 
 ingly he discontinued the publication of the Friend of 
 Peace and also resigned his office of Secretary of the 
 Peace Society. 
 
 About this time, his attention was attracted to another 
 subject — the Atonement. This continued to become 
 more interesting to him, and finally, as was the case with 
 all his subjects of investigation, so absorbed his mind 
 that he found it difficult to write for the Friend of Peace. 
 For two years, he gave his undivided powers to the 
 study of the nature of the Atonement. In 1829, he 
 
 *In the early part of his ministry, the degrees of A. B. and 
 M. A, were conferred on him by Dartmouth College, and that 
 of D. D. in 1818, by Harvard University.
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 321 
 
 pub'ished his conclusions upon it, in a small volume 
 entitled, " The Atoning Sucrifice a display of Love, not 
 of Wrath." This book was read with great interest, and 
 the demand for it quickly exhausted two editions. It 
 has been likewise several times republished in England. 
 Its arguments have doubtless been attacked, but its spirit 
 has been universally admired, as a perfect example of 
 Christian discussion. In 1831, he published another 
 book, entitled " The Causes and Evils of Contention 
 among Christians." It was his earnest desire to promote 
 harmony and love among Christians of different sects, 
 and, in his own words, " to correct some injurious opin- 
 ions, and abate the heat of party passions." This book 
 was but the expression of his long cherished and practic- 
 ed opinions on the subject of which it treats; consequent- 
 ly it did not detain him long. No sooner was this dispos- 
 ed of, than this indefatigable septuagenary again gave his 
 whole soul to the investigation of another subject — Hu- 
 man Depravity. This long and oft-discussed doctrine, ap- 
 parently so uninviting, completely engrossed his mind, and 
 presented him a new and delightful field of inquiry. " Im- 
 mediately," he observes, " I took my pen to sketch the 
 thoughts which had occurred, that nothing might be lost ; 
 and I wrote v/ith such freedom and delight as I had sel- 
 dom before experienced. I seemed to myself to have en- 
 tered a new world of thought and reflection. At every 
 advancing step, the character of God, like the path of the 
 just, seemed to shine brighter and brighter, and the guilt 
 and inexcusableness of sin, was more and more manifest."* 
 
 " The above quotation is from Ware's Memoirs of Worcester, 
 a book to which the author is indebted for much of his knowledge 
 of this excellent man, and which he would recommend to his 
 readers, as more minute and full, than this sketch was designed 
 to be. 
 
 N
 
 382 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 In this field, whose walks were so refreshing, and Ihe 
 flowers of which were so captivating to his mind, this 
 venerable student gathered matter sufficient to fill a duo- 
 decimo volume of more than three hundred pages, which 
 he published with the title of " Last Thoughts on Impor- 
 tant Subjects, in three parts : 1. Man's Liability to Sin ; 
 2. Supplemental Illustrations ; 3. Man's Capacity to 
 Obey." 
 
 While this book was in course of publication, his ever 
 active mind again went forth in search of truth on anoth- 
 er subject — the character of Christ. He made exten- 
 sive inquiries and wrote many chapters on this question, 
 but did not finish them, nor leave them in a state which 
 rendered their publication advisable. The old man had 
 now finished his public labors, and they had indeed been 
 arduous. Nothing but his industry and his application 
 could have accomplished them. The writing of his books 
 might, of itself, be thought no easy task for even a long 
 life ; but he was engaged, besides all this, more than forty 
 years as minister and editor — situations which generally 
 demand the whole time and attention. Such was the 
 ceaseless industry of this self-made man. 
 
 In looking back upon his Christianand peaceful, yet 
 active and laborious life, we find exhibited many very ex- 
 cellent and lovely traits of character, one of which is pe- 
 culiarly striking and worthy of remark. This is his love of 
 the truth. Of all the men of whom we have read, none 
 ever manifested more zeal in searching for this treasure, 
 cr more -readiness in receiving it when found. While 
 most men are satisfied with sentiments and opinions which 
 were received in early life, he wanted a better reason for 
 his opinions, than that they were taught him while young. 
 Whilt others shrink from the examination of their own
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 323 
 
 adopted principles, he demanded it, spurning to hold any 
 opinion which would not bear the light of candid investi- 
 gation. What he considered truth, he followed, wher- 
 ever it led him ; and it generally led him, as it ever has 
 others, counter to popular sentiment and customs. He 
 seemed always suspicious of old, established ideas — he 
 was disposed to examine such for himself. He spent al- 
 most his whole life in such occupation, and in the eigh- 
 tieth year of his age, when the mind is prone to fixed- 
 ness — to cling to the past and its opinions, death found 
 him literally searching for truth, with all the energy of 
 earlier days ! 
 
 Many examples of such devotedness to the right — 
 8uch submission to the convictions of the mind, and such 
 earnestness and sincerity in obtaining those convictions, 
 we shall look in vain to find. 
 
 Dr. Worcester's infirmities were so severe, that he was 
 obliged to pass the last years of his life in retirement and 
 seclusion from the world. He especially found it very 
 difficult to walk. He had been long afilicted with a dis- 
 ease of the heart, and had also been once entirely pros- 
 trated by a stroke of paralysis. He recovered, however, 
 from these attacks, in his later years, but the difficulties at 
 the heart, troubled him seriously through life. At length, 
 his lungs, which had appeared sound, became much dis- 
 eased, and the philanthropist died in 1837, in his eighti- 
 eth year. 
 
 His death was such as might have been expected from 
 his life — calm and peaceful — enduring his pains with- 
 out a murmur, and choosing rather to depart, which for 
 him was far better. Thus died Worcester — eminent in 
 learning and Christian attainments — eminent, as a min- 
 ister and divine — and as a philanthropist in the cause of 
 Peace, preeminent.
 
 984 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 As long as an ardent love of knowledge, and persever- 
 ance in acquiring it, are commended, as long as humility, 
 integrity and exalted Christian kindness are practiced and 
 admired, as long as originality of thought and fearlessness 
 of expression challenge the respect of mankind, so long 
 will the memory of this Christian hero be cherished and 
 preserved. As long as benevolence, wide as the earth 
 and deep as the soul, shall call forth the glad and irre- 
 pressible approbation of the virtuous and the good, so long 
 shall this world's benefactor have a seat in the purest af- 
 fections of men. And when the world learns wisdom — 
 when nations learn their true grandeur and glory — when 
 the mind — the soul — the man — is universally consid- 
 sidered of more value than the diamonds of Golconda, 
 the mines of Peru, or the territories of Mexico; and the 
 ruling of one's own spirit, and the subjugation of the evil 
 passions, a more glorious dominion than that of the north- 
 ern Autocrat, and a more splendid triumph than Napo- 
 leon's at Austerlitz, or Wellington's at Waterloo — 
 when the ties that bind man to man, wherever found, are 
 like the bonds of the virtuous and intelligent family, eve- 
 ry man a brother and friend — when music shall no lon- 
 ger mock at mourning, and call brethren to the slaughter 
 — when Peace, with her attendant, smiling train, shall 
 come and take up her abode among men and dwell with 
 them forever ; — then will the name of Worcester be a 
 household word, and the story of his deeds be told around 
 the hearth-stone of every dwelling. Young men and maid- 
 ens will gather around his tomb, and sing to his memo- 
 ry the songs of Peace, and wreath his monument with 
 garlands of roses. Then will the luster of his name be 
 beautiful and eternal !
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 325 
 
 Over his grave, in that beautiful resting-place, Mount 
 Auburn, a monument stands with the following inscrip- 
 tion : 
 
 (On one side.) 
 
 To 
 NOAH WORCESTER, D. D. 
 
 Erected by his Friends, 
 
 In commemoration of zealous Labors 
 
 In the Cause op Peace : 
 
 And of the 
 
 Meekness, Benignity, and Consistency 
 
 Of his Character, 
 
 As a 
 
 Christian Philanthropist aicd Divine: 
 
 " Speaking the Truth in Love." 
 
 (On the other side.) 
 
 NOAH WORCESTER, 
 
 Born at Hollis, N. H., Nov. 25, 1758 : 
 Died at Brighton, Mass., Oct. 31, 1837: 
 Aged 79 years. 
 " Blessed are the Peacemakers, 
 For they shall be called 
 The Children of God."
 
 326 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Extracts from Dr. Channing''s " Tribute to the Memo- 
 ry of Noah Worcester, I). D." 
 
 " Dr. Worcester's efforts in relation to war, or in the 
 cause of peace, made him eminently a public man, and 
 constitute his chief claim to public consideration ; and 
 these were not founded on accidental circumstances or 
 foreign influences, but wholly on the strong and peculiar 
 tendencies of his mind. He was distinguished above 
 all whom I have known, by his comprehension and deep 
 feeling of the spirit of Chri.siianity ; by the sympathy 
 with which he seized on the character of Jesus Christ 
 as a manifestation of Perfect Love; by the honor in 
 which he held the mild, humble, forgiving, disinterested 
 virtues of our religion. This distinguishing trait of his 
 mind was embodied and brought out iu his whole life 
 and conduct. He especially expressed it in his labors 
 for the promotion of Universal Peace on the earth. 
 He was struck, as no other man within my acquaintance 
 has been, with the monstrous incongruity between the 
 spirit of Christianity and the spirit of Christian commu- 
 nities ; between Christ's teaching of peace, mercy, for- 
 giveness, and the wars which divide and desolate the 
 church and the world. Every man has particular im- 
 pressions which rule over and give a hue to his mind. 
 Every man is struck by some evils rather than others. 
 The e.xcellent individual of whom I speak was shocked, 
 heart-smitten, by nothing so much as by seeing that man 
 hates man, that man destroys his brother, that man has 
 drenched* the earth with his brother's blood, that man, 
 in his insanity, has crowned the murderer of his race 
 with the highest honors; and, still worse, that Christian 
 hates Christian, that church wars against church, that 
 differences of forms and opinioa array against each other
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 327 
 
 those whom Christ died to join together in closest broth- 
 erhood, !ind that Christian zeal is spent in building up 
 sects, rather than in spreading the spirit of Christ, and 
 enlarging and binding together the universal church. 
 The great evil on which his mind and heart fixed, was 
 War, Discord, Intolerance, the substitution of force for 
 Reason and Love. To spread peace on earth became 
 the object of his life. Under this impulse he gave birth 
 and impulse to Peace Societies. This new movement 
 is to be traced to him above all other men ; and his 
 name, I doubt not, will be handed down to future time 
 with increasing veneration as the * Friend of Peace,' 
 as having given new force to the principles which are 
 gradually to abate the horrors, and ultimately extinguish 
 the spirit of war." • * # 
 
 " On the subject of war. Dr. Worcester adopted opin- 
 ions which are thought by some to be extreme. He in- 
 terpreted literally the precept, ' Resist not evil ' ; and he 
 believed that nations, as well as individuals, would find 
 safety as well as ' fulfil righteousness,' in yielding it lit- 
 eral obedience. One of the most striking traits of his 
 character, was his confidence in the power of love, jtj 
 might say, in its omnipotence. He believed, that the 
 surest way to subJue a foe was to become his friend • 
 that a true benevolence was a surer defence than swords, 
 or artillery, or walls of adamant. He believed, that no 
 mighter man ever trod the soil of America than William 
 Penn, when entering the wilderness unarmed, and 
 stretching out to the savage a hand which refused all 
 earthly weapons, in token of brotherhood aiid peace. 
 There was something grand in the calm confidence with 
 which he expressed his conviction of the superiority of 
 moral to physical force. Armies, fiery passions, quick
 
 388 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 resentments, and the spirit of vengeance, miscalled 
 honor, seemed to him weak, low instruments, inviting, 
 and often hastening, the ruin which they are used to 
 avert. Many will think him in error ; but if so, it was 
 a grand thought which led him astray. 
 
 " At the age of seventy, he felt as if he had discharged 
 his mission as a preacher of peace, and resigned his of- 
 fice as secretary to the society, to which he had given 
 the strength of many years. He did not, however, re- 
 tire to unfruitful repose. Bodily infirmity had increased, 
 so that he was very much confined to his house ; but he 
 returned with zeal to the studies of his early life, and 
 produced two theological works, one on the Atonement, 
 the other on Human Depravity, or the moral state of man 
 by nature, which I regard as among the most useful 
 books on these long-agitated subjects. These writings, 
 particularly the last, have failed of the popularity which 
 they merit, in consequence of a defect of style, which 
 may be traced to his defective education, and which nat- 
 urally increased with years. I refer to his difFuseness, 
 to his inability to condense his thoughts. His writings, 
 however, are not wanting in merits of style. They are 
 simple and clear. They abound to a remarkable degree 
 in ingenious illustration, and they have often the charm 
 which original thinking always gives to composition. He 
 was truly an original writer, not in the sense of making 
 great discoveries, but in the sense of writing from his 
 own mind, and not from books or tradition. What he 
 wrote had perhaps been written before ; but in conse- 
 quence of his limited reading it was new to himself, and 
 came to him with the freshness of discovery. Some- 
 times great thoughts flashed on his mind as if they had 
 been inspirations; and in writing his last book, he seems
 
 331 
 
 JOHN POUNDS 
 
 A FEW centuries ago, who ever thought of schools ? 
 In those glorious old days of Feudal Chivalry, the idea 
 of schools for the instruction of the common people, or 
 even of colleges and universities for the education of the 
 rich and powerful, would have been as much out of place 
 as a Frenchman at home, or pumpkins in Nova Zembla. 
 But since then, colleges and the higher institutions of 
 learning, have multiplied and extended the range of their 
 influence, till now they are thought no more of than 
 the atmosphere we breathe, and the bread we keep from 
 moulding. And not only have these multiplied and in- 
 creased all over the civilized world, but school-houses, 
 which a few hundred years ago would have been as cu- 
 rious as cotton-factories in Greenland, have been built in 
 every village and neighborhood throughout our country, 
 and many countries in the old world, for the instruction 
 of the children of the common people, at public expense. 
 
 These are all very well, and speak loudly of progress ; 
 but when we go into our cities and larger towns, what do 
 we find? True, we find the school-house, and the school- 
 master ; and we find multitudes of boys and girls, who 
 are taught the rudiments of science and literature. Let 
 us go out into the streets and by-lanes, and see what we 
 can find. Here are the sons and daughters of poverty. 
 Ask one of these little children, half covered with rags, 
 and crusted over like the hide of a rhinoceros with dirt.
 
 332 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 " Do you go to school? " "No." "Why not?" "Cause 
 I hain't no clothes." " But you don't want clothes to go 
 to school ; you can learn to read without." " I went once, 
 and they laughed at me so, I run home." " If I would 
 come every day and teach you, would you come then 1 " 
 ♦' Yes, yes, we'd come then all the time ; but we can't go 
 to the big school, and we hain't no books neither; our 
 folks is poor, and hain't no money to buy books." 
 
 Now there are hundreds and thousands of little chil- 
 dren, of that plastic age, when impressions are most eas- 
 ily made, and are made deep and enduring, who cannot, 
 on account of the broad gulf Poverty has fixed between 
 them and others, avail themselves of the privileges ex- 
 tended by the public schools. Should they go there in 
 their rags, and dirt, and uncouth manners, they would 
 be like frogs in a dry sand heap. They cannot live there. 
 If it is so in a measure in this country, how much more 
 so must it be in England, where a regular system of 
 common school education is still a dream of reformers, 
 and where poverty, which is here an exception, is 
 the general rule among the l6wer and most numerous 
 classes, in the cities and manufacturing districts. 
 
 But there are lirighl signs of advancement there, which 
 speak good words of hope for England, and for the poor 
 all over the world. We refer to the so called " Ragged 
 Schools," which have lately attracted so much atten- 
 tion. It is, indeed, a scheme full of encouragement, full 
 of benevolence, full of hope. As by the glorious mis- 
 sion of Christianity, the poor are having the gospel preach- 
 ed to them, so are the children of the poor having educa- 
 tion carried to them, even in their rags. 
 
 Ragged Schools ! It sounds strangely ; and yet there 
 is something familiar, after all, and hopeful, in the name. 
 Thousands are thus, by the exertions and self-sacrifice
 
 NOAH WORCESTER. 9|29 
 
 to have felt as if some extraordinary light had been im- 
 parted from above. After his seventy-fifth year he ceased 
 to write books, but his mind lost nothing of its activity. 
 He was so enfeebled by a distressing disease, that he 
 could converse but a few moments at a time ; yet he en- 
 tered into all the great movements of the age, with an in- 
 terest distinguished from the fervor of youth only by its 
 mildness and its serene trust." * • * 
 
 " I have thus given a sketch of the history of a good 
 man, who lived and died the lover of his kind, and the 
 admiration of his friends. Two views of him particu- 
 larly impressed me. The first, was the unity, the har- 
 mony of his character. He had no jarring elements. 
 His whole nature had been blended and melted into one 
 strong, serene love. His mission was to preach peace, 
 and he preached it not on set occasions, or by separate 
 efibrts, but in his whole life. It breathed in his tones. 
 It beamed from his venerable countenance. He carried 
 it, where it is least apt to be found, into the religious 
 controversies which raged around him with great vehe- 
 mence, but which never excited him to a word of anger 
 or intolerance. All my impressions of him are harmo- 
 nious. I recollect no discord in his beautiful life. And 
 this serenity was not the result of torpidness or tame- 
 ness ; for his whole life was a conflict with what he 
 thought error. He made no compromise with the world, 
 and yet he loved it as deeply and constantly as if it had 
 responded in shouts to all his views and feelings. 
 
 "The next great impression which I received from 
 him, was that of the sufficiency of the mind to its own 
 hiippiness, or of its independence on outward things. 
 He was for years debilitated, and often a great sufferer; 
 and his circumstances were very narrow, compelling him 
 s •
 
 DISTINQUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 to SO strict an economy, that he was sometimes repre- 
 sented, though falsely, as wanting the common comforts 
 of life. In this tried and narrow condition, he was 
 among the most contented of men. He spoke of his 
 old age as among the happiest portions, if not the very 
 happiest, in his life. In conversation his religion mani- 
 fested itself in gratitude more frequently than in any 
 other form. When I have visited him in his last years, 
 and looked on his serene countenance, and heard his 
 cheerful voice, and seen the youthful earnestness with 
 which he was reading a variety of books, and studying 
 the great interests of humanity, I have felt how little of 
 this outward world is needed to our happiness. I have 
 felt the greatness of the human spirit, which could create 
 to itself such joy from its own resources. I have felt the 
 folly, the insanity of that prevailing worldliness, which, 
 in accumulating outward good, neglects the imperishable 
 soul. On leaving his house and turning my face toward 
 this city, I have said to myself, how much richer is this 
 poor man than the richest who dwell yonder ! I have 
 been ashamed of my own dependence on outward good. 
 I am always happy to express my obligations to the bene- 
 factors of my mind ; and I owe it to Dr. Worcester to 
 say, that my acquaintance with him gave me clearer com- 
 prehension of the spirit of Christ, and of the dignity of 
 a man."
 
 JOHN POUNDS. 335 
 
 One of his amusements was that of rearing singing- 
 birds, jays and parrots, which he so perfectly domesticat- 
 ed, that they lived harmoniously with his cats and guinea- 
 pigs. Often, it is said, he might be seen seated on his 
 stool mending shoes, with a canary-bird perched on one 
 shoulder and a cat upon the other. 
 
 John was a good natured fellow, and his mind was al- 
 ways running on some scheme of benevolence ; and, like 
 all benevolent, self-helpfuI people, he got enough to do. 
 While still a young man, and entirely dependent upon the 
 hard labor of his hands, he was favored with the charge 
 of one of the numerous children of his brother ; and to 
 enhance the value of the gift, the child was a feeble lit- 
 tle fellow, with his feet overlapping each other and turn- 
 ed inwards. This poor child soon came to be an object 
 of so much affection with John, as thoroughly to divide 
 his attention with the birds and pet animals, which be- 
 fore had received the whole. Ingenious as well as kind- 
 hearted, he did not rest till he had made an apparatus of 
 old shoes and leather, which untwisted the child's feet, 
 and in time, set him fairly upon his legs. The next thing 
 was to teach his nephew to read ; and this, too, he under- 
 took, as a labor of love. After a time, he thought the 
 boy would learn mucli better, and be happier, if he had 
 a companion ; so he obtained one, the son of a wretch- 
 edly poor mother ; then another and another were added, 
 till John acquired a passion for gratuitous teaching, which 
 nothing but the limits of his booth could restrain. 
 
 " His humble workshop," to follow the language of bis 
 memoir, a small pamphlet published in London, " was 
 about six feet wide, and about eighteen feet in length; 
 in the midst of which he would sit on his stool, with his
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 last orlapstone on his knee, and other implements by his 
 side, going on with his work, and attending at the same 
 time to the pursuits of the whole assemblage ; some of 
 whom were reading by his side, writing from his dicta- 
 tion, or showing up their sums; others seated around, on 
 forms or boxes on the floor, or on the steps of a small 
 staircase in tlie rear. Although the master seemed to 
 know where to look for each, and to maintain a due com- 
 mand over all, yet, so small was the room, and so defi- 
 cient in the usual accommodations of a school, that the 
 scene appeared to an observer from without, to be a mere 
 crowd of children's heads and faces. Owing to the lim- 
 ited extent of his room, he often found it necessary to 
 make a selection from asnong several subjects or candi- 
 dates for his gratuitous instruction ; and in such cases 
 always preferred, and prided himself on taking in hand, 
 what he called the little blackguards, and taming them. 
 He has been seen to follow such to the town quay, and 
 hold out in his hand to them the bribe of n roasted potato, 
 to induce them to come to school. VVhen the weather 
 permitted, he caused them to take turns in sitting on the 
 threshhold of his front door, and on a little form on the 
 outside, for the benefit of fresh air. His modes of tuition 
 were chiefly of his own devising. Without having ever 
 heard of Pestalozzi, necessity led him into the interrog- 
 atory system. He taught the children to read from hand- 
 bills, and such remains of old school books as he could 
 procure. Slates and pencils were the only implements for 
 writing, yet a creditable degree of skill was acquired ; and 
 in ciphering, the Rule of Three and Practice were per- 
 formed with accuracy. With the very young, especially, 
 his manner was particularly pleasant and facetious. He
 
 JOHN POUNDS. 333 
 
 of private individuals, male and female, instructed in the 
 elements of practical knowledge, who otherwise must 
 grow up in ignorance, and almost by consequence, in 
 vice. There is not an example on record of an indus- 
 trious and educated people, who ever became vicious, — 
 and no idle and ignorant people was ever yet found, that 
 were not, at the same time, openly immoral and shame- 
 lessly brutish. And, till this great elevating engine was 
 put in operation, the mutual action and reaction of caus- 
 es and effects went on, with a fearfully augmenting ratio 
 of increase ; — poverty producing ignorance and idle- 
 ness, and ignorance and idleness producing poverty. 
 That " the destruction of the poor is their poverty," is no 
 more true nor apparent, than that " an idle brain is the 
 devil's workshop." 
 
 Nor are these ragged recipients of gratuitous instruc- 
 tion, slow to avail themselves of it, when offered. An 
 American writer, speaking of a visit to one of these 
 schools, says, (I quote entirely from memory) "We went 
 to the place where the school is held, where we found 
 several teachers collected. I was told that the pupils were 
 not admitted till a specified time. When that hour ar- 
 rived, the doors were thrown open — and such a rush of 
 children, and scramble to get in, and secure a place in 
 the school 1 The room was soon filled to overflowing, 
 and many were turned away for want of space to arrange 
 them for instruction. The little urchins went away with 
 rueful faces and downcast looks of disappointment. Those 
 that remained, in all their rags and wretchedness, showed 
 faces sparkling with happiness, that indicated a joyous, 
 grateful heart." We think he said further, that a police- 
 man was stationed at the door, to prevent the outsiders 
 from effecting an entrance, at any rate.
 
 331 
 
 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 Newton first applied the principle of gravitation to the 
 solution of great natural problems, which had dodged the 
 investigations and inquiries of philosophers for a score of 
 centuries. Robert Fulton applied the mighty energies of 
 steam to purposes of navigation. Morse has applied the elec- 
 tric principle to the social intercourse of nations, and made 
 the untamed lightning of heaven, the docile news-carrier 
 of mankind. They have done these for the benefit of 
 their race, and thereby secured a first place in the affec- 
 tions of posterity, to the last hour of time. But the 
 higher, holier achievement of first applying the principle 
 of love to the education of the ragged sons and daugh- 
 ters of poverty, without money and without price, was 
 left for John Pounds, the cobbler of Portsmouth. He 
 did this for the love of God, and the happiness of man ; 
 and has gained thereby an eternity of fame. 
 
 The following sketch of his life, we have taken, for 
 the most part, from Chambers' Miscellany : 
 
 John Pounds was born in a humble rank of life, in 
 Portsmouth, England, in the year 1766. In early life, 
 while working with a shipwright in the royal dock-yard, 
 he had the misfortune to have one of his thighs broken, 
 and so put out of joint as to render him a cripple for life. 
 He was then at the age of 15, Compelled, from this 
 calamity, to choose a new means of subsistence, he be- 
 took himself to the shoemaking craft. The instructions 
 he received in this profession, however, did not enable 
 him to make shoes, and in that branch of the art he was 
 diffident in trying his hand. Contenting himself with 
 the more humble department of mending, he became the 
 tenant of a small weather-boarded tenement in St. Mary's 
 street, in his native town.
 
 JOHN POUNDS. 337 
 
 would ask them the names of the different parts of their 
 bodies, make them spell the words, and tell their uses. 
 Taking a child's hand, he would say, 'What is this? 
 Spell it.' Then slapping it, he would say, ' What do I 
 do? Spell that.' So with the ear, and the act of pul- 
 ling it; and in like manner with other things. He found 
 it necessary to adopt a more strict discipline with them 
 as they grew bigger, and might have become turbulent ; 
 but he invariably preserved the attachment of all. In 
 this way some hundreds of persons have been indebted 
 to him for all the schooling they ever had, and which has 
 enabled them to fill useful and creditable stations in life, 
 who might otherwise, owing to the temptations attendant 
 on poverty and ignorance, have become burdens on so- 
 ciety, or swelled the calendar of crime." 
 
 As the number of his scholars increased, the domestic 
 animals which had formerly occupied his attention, were 
 one by one crowded out, till in the end, his school num- 
 bered as many as forty, including about a dozen little 
 girls. He gave them book-learning, and taught them al- 
 so to cook their own victuals and mend their own shoes. 
 He was not only frequently their doctor and nurse, but 
 their play-fellow. Will the reader credit the fact, that 
 this excellent individual never sought any compensation 
 for these labors, nor did he ever receive any ! Of no 
 note or account, his weather-boarded establishment was 
 like a star radiating light around ; but of the good he 
 was doing, John scarcely appeared conscious. The chief 
 gratification he felt was the occasional visit of some man- 
 ly soldier or sailor, grown up out of all remembrance, 
 who would call to shake hands, and return thanks for 
 what he had done for him in his infancy. At times, also,
 
 338 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 he was encouragingly noticed by the authorities ; but we 
 do not hear of any marked testimony of their approba- 
 tion. Had he been a general, and conquered a province, 
 he would doubtless have been considered a public bene- 
 factor, and honored accordingly ; but being only an ama- 
 teur school-master, and a reclaimer from vice, John 
 Pounds was allowed to find the full weight of the prov- 
 erb, that virtue is its own reward. And thus obscurely, 
 known principally to his humble neighbors, did this hero 
 — for was he not a hero of the purest order ? — spend a 
 long and useful existence ; every selfish gratification be- 
 ing denied, that he might do the more good to others. 
 
 On the morning of the first day of January, 1839, at 
 the age of seventy-two years, while looking at the pic- 
 ture of his school which had lately been executed by Mr 
 Sheaf, he suddenly fell down and expired. His death 
 was severely felt. The abode of contentment and peace- 
 ful frugality became at once a scene of desolation. The 
 children wept ; and some even fainted when they heard 
 of their sudden and unexpected bereavement; for they 
 had hoped, in the expectancy of childhood, that their 
 kind old grey-headed friend would live always, to in- 
 struct, cherish and love them. On the little mantel-piece 
 remained, uncooked, a mugfuU of fresh sprats, on which 
 he and his nephew were to have regaled themselves in 
 honor of the New Year ; for it was to them a luxurious 
 repast. The next day, some of the little ones came to 
 the door, where they had been welcomed so often, and 
 cried because they could not be admitted; and for seve- 
 ral succeeding days, the younger ones came two or three 
 together, looked about the room, and not finding their 
 friend, went away disconsolate. John Pounds was, as he 
 had wished, called away without bodily suffering, from
 
 JOHN POUNDS. 339 
 
 his useful labors. He has gone to await the award of 
 Him who has said, " Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of 
 the least of these, ye did it unto me." 
 
 A few years before, on a desolate island in the midst 
 of the broad Atlantic, far away from his childhood-home, 
 and the scenes and associations around which all the sym- 
 pathies of his nature were clustered, there died a being, 
 whose fame filled the earth ; whose voice had stirred the 
 fears and hopes of continents ; whose brow had been 
 pressed by the coronet and the crown ; whose victorious 
 legions, led by the star of his genius as by the decree of 
 Destiny, had passed from conquest to conquest, till pros- 
 trate kings, and kneeling emperors, and suppliant pon- 
 tiffs, bent in the audience-chamber of his power, and ask- 
 ed to hold as vassals of his will, their crowns and miters, 
 palaces and dominions. Napoleon died, and was buried 
 amid waving trees, and the deep, gloomy responses of the 
 heaving Atlantic — and who mourned the loss? None 
 wept for friendship's sake, to think his days were num- 
 bered and finished. The widow, his bloody waywardness 
 had made, smiled again ; for she thought the plea she had 
 entered at Heaven's Chancery, long years before, was be- 
 ing heard. The grave of the warrior was never garland- 
 ed with the affections of childhood — the grass which 
 waved over it, was never wet with the tears of innocence. 
 No sympathetic cord had bound him to the good, the beau- 
 tiful, the lovely of the earth — and Death had broken 
 none. He had lived for himself alone; and all he had 
 lived for, had descended with him to the eternal stillness ; 
 leaving none to mourn, in sincerity of heart. Not so 
 with the noble founder of the first Ragged School. He 
 was the benefactor of his race. He had not lived for 
 himself alone. There was a sympathetic cord that bound
 
 340 DISTINGUISHED SHOEMAKERS. 
 
 him to the good, the beautiful, the lovely of the earth, 
 and twining round his heart, was fastened among the 
 flowers of Paradise, close by the throne of God. Death 
 severed this cord of affinity between him and earth ; 
 and there were wounded hearts and blasted hopes ; and 
 little children came in the greatness of their grief and 
 wept.
 
 
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