unusual, and the plan of importing sweethearts by the cargo really seems
to have been a very good one. It must have been a strange sight when the
girls landed and met the men who had come to the town to woo and marry
them. And many of the girls must have felt that they took great risks in
coming three thousand miles from home and marrying men whom they had
known for so short a time; but it seems that the marriages were happy
ones, in spite of the haste in which they were made. The newly-married
pairs went to work in earnest to create good homes for themselves, and
when their English friends learned from their letters how happy and
prosperous they were, another company of sixty sweethearts set sail for
the colony and became the wives of good men.
It was in this way that the English camp at Jamestown was changed into a
real colony of people who meant to live in America and to build up a
thriving community here. Now that the men had wives and children to
provide for, they no longer lived "from hand to mouth," hoping to make a
fortune by some lucky stroke, and then to leave the colony forever. They
went to work, instead, to cultivate the land, to build good houses, to
make and save money, to educate their children, and to become prosperous
and happy in their homes. Virginia, which had been a mere stopping-place
to them, was now their own country, where their families lived and their
nearest friends were around them. There they expected to pass their
lives in efforts to better their own fortunes, and to make the country
a pleasant one for their children and grandchildren after them to live
in. They were anxious to have schools and churches, and to keep up right
standards of morals and proper manners in the colony, so that their
children might grow to be good and happy men and women.
That is the way in which the first English colony in America became
prosperous, and many of the men who afterwards became famous in the
history of the nation were the great-great-grandsons of the women whom
Sir Edwin Sandys sent out as sweethearts for the colonists.
The Pilgrims, who settled at Plymouth about the time that all this
happened, brought their families with them, and quickly made themselves
at home in America. The planting of these two colonies--the first in
Virginia and the second in Massachusetts--was the beginning from which
our great, free, and happy country, with its fifty millions of people,
has grown.
THE BOYHOOD OF DANIEL WEBSTER.[A]
[A] For some of the materials used in this sketch I am indebted
to the work entitled "The Boyhood of Great Men," by John G. Edgar,
published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers.
Daniel Webster, the great statesman, orator, and lawyer, was born on the
18th of January, 1782.
His father lived near the head-waters of the Merrimac River, and the
only school within reach was a poor one kept open for a few months every
winter. There Webster learned all that the country schoolmaster could
teach him, which was very little; but he acquired a taste which did more
for him than the reading, writing, and arithmetic of the school. He
learned to like books, and to want knowledge; and when a boy gets really
hungry and thirsty for knowledge it is not easy to keep him ignorant.
When some of the neighbors joined in setting up a little circulating
library, young Webster read every book in it two or three times, and
even committed to memory a large part of the best of them. It was this
eagerness for education on his part that led his father afterwards to
send him to Exeter to school, and later to put him into Dartmouth
College.
There are not many boys in our time who have not declaimed parts of
Webster's great speeches; and it will interest them to know that the boy
who afterwards made those speeches could never declaim at all while he
was at school. He learned his pieces well, and practised them in his own
room, but he could not speak them before people to save his life.
Webster was always fond of shooting and fishing, and, however hard he
studied, the people around him called him lazy and idle, because he
would spend whole days in these sports. Once, while he was studying
under Dr. Woods to prepare for college, that gentleman spoke to him on
the subject, and hurt his feelings a little. The boy went to his room
determined to have revenge, and this is the way he took to get it. The
usual Latin lesson was one hundred lines of Virgil, but Webster spent
the whole night over the book. The next morning before breakfast he went
to Dr. Woods and read the whole lesson correctly. Then he said:
"Will you hear a few more lines, doctor?"
The teacher consenting, Webster read on and on and on, while the
breakfast grew cold. Still there was no sign of the boy's stopping, and
the hungry doctor at last asked how much farther he was prepared to
read.
"To the end of the twelfth book of the Æneid," answered the "idle" boy,
in triumph.
After that, Webster did not give up his hunting and fishing, but he
worked so hard at his lessons, and got on so fast, that there was no
further complaint of his "idleness." He not only learned the lessons
given to him, but more, every day, and besides this he read every good
book he could lay his hands on, for he was not at all satisfied to know
only what could be found in the school-books.
Webster's father was poor and in debt, but finding how eager his boy was
for education, and seeing, too, that he possessed unusual ability, he
determined, ill as he could afford the expense, to send him to college.
Accordingly, young Daniel went to Dartmouth.
Many anecdotes are told to illustrate the character of young Dan. He was
always lavish of his money when he had any, while his brother was
careful but generous, especially to Dan, whom he greatly admired. On one
occasion the boys went to a neighboring town on a high holiday, each
with a quarter of a dollar in his pocket.
"Well, Dan," said the father on their return, "what did you do with your
money?"
"Spent it," answered the boy.
"And what did you do with yours, Zeke?"
"Lent it to Dan," was the answer. The fact was that Dan had spent both
quarters.
Young Webster was very industrious in his studies, as we have seen, and
he was physically strong and active as his fondness for sport proved;
but he could never endure farm-work. One day his father wanted him to
help him in cutting hay with a scythe; but very soon the boy complained
that the scythe was not "hung" to suit him; that is to say, it was not
set at a proper angle upon its handle. The old gentleman, adjusted it,
but still it did not suit the boy. After repeated attempts to arrange it
to Dan's liking, the father said, impatiently, "Well, hang it to suit
yourself." And young Dan immediately "hung" it over a branch of an
apple-tree and left it there. That was the hanging which pleased him.
[Illustration: "'TO THE END OF THE TWELFTH BOOK OF THE ÆNEID,' ANSWERED
THE 'IDLE' BOY, IN TRIUMPH."]
After finishing his college course Webster began studying law, but
having no money, and being unwilling to tax his father for further
support, he went into Northern Maine, and taught school there for a
time. While teaching he devoted his evenings to the work of copying
deeds and other legal documents, and by close economy managed to live
upon the money thus earned, thus saving the whole of his salary as a
teacher. With this money to live on, he went to Boston, studied law, and
soon distinguished himself. The story of his life as a public man, in
the senate, in the cabinet, and at the bar, is well known, and does not
belong to this sketch of his boyhood.
THE SCULLION WHO BECAME A SCULPTOR.
In the little Italian village of Possagno there lived a jolly
stone-cutter named Pisano. He was poor, of course, or he would not have
been a stone-cutter; but he was full of good humor, and everybody liked
him.
There was one little boy, especially, who loved old Pisano, and whom old
Pisano loved more than anybody else in the world. This was Antonio
Canova, Pisano's grandson, who had come to live with him, because his
father was dead, and his mother had married a harsh man, who treated the
little Antonio roughly.
Antonio was a frail little fellow, and his grandfather liked to have him
near him during his working hours.
While Pisano worked at stone-cutting, little Canova played at it and at
other things, such as modelling in clay, drawing, etc. The old
grandfather, plain, uneducated man as he was, soon discovered that the
pale-faced little fellow at his side had something more than an ordinary
child's dexterity at such things.
The boy knew nothing of art or of its laws, but he fashioned his lumps
of clay into forms of real beauty. His wise grandfather, seeing what
this indicated, hired a teacher to give him some simple lessons in
drawing, so that he might improve himself if he really had the artistic
ability which the old man suspected. Pisano was much too poor, as he
knew, ever to give the boy an art-education and make an artist of him,
but he thought that Antonio might at least learn to be a better
stone-cutter than common.
As the boy grew older he began to help in the shop during the day, while
in the evening his grandmother told him stories or sang or recited
poetry to him. All these things were educating him, though without his
knowing it, for they were awakening his taste and stimulating his
imagination, which found expression in the clay models that he loved to
make in his leisure hours.
It so happened that Signor Faliero, the head of a noble Venetian family,
and a man of rare understanding in art, had a place near Pisano's house,
and at certain seasons the nobleman entertained many distinguished
guests there. When the palace was very full of visitors, old Pisano was
sometimes hired to help the servants with their tasks, and the boy
Canova, when he was twelve years old, sometimes did scullion's work
there, also, for a day, when some great feast was given.
On one of these occasions, when the Signor Faliero was to entertain a
very large company at dinner, young Canova was at work over the pots and
pans in the kitchen. The head-servant made his appearance, just before
the dinner hour, in great distress.
The man who had been engaged to furnish the great central ornament for
the table had, at the last moment, sent word that he had spoiled the
piece. It was now too late to secure another, and there was nothing to
take its place. The great vacant space in the centre of the table
spoiled the effect of all that had been done to make the feast artistic
in appearance, and it was certain that Signor Faliero would be sorely
displeased.
But what was to be done? The poor fellow whose business it was to
arrange the table was at his wits' end.
While every one stood dismayed and wondering, the begrimed scullion boy
timidly approached the distressed head-servant, and said, "If you will
let me try, I think I can make something that will do."
"You!" exclaimed the servant; "and who are you?"
"I am Antonio Canova, Pisano's grandson," answered the pale-faced little
fellow.
"And what can you do, pray?" asked the man, in astonishment at the
conceit of the lad.
"I can make you something that will do for the middle of the table,"
said the boy, "if you'll let me try."
The servant had little faith in the boy's ability, but not knowing what
else to do, he at last consented that Canova should try.
Calling for a large quantity of butter, little Antonio quickly modelled
a great crouching lion, which everybody in the kitchen pronounced
beautiful, and which the now rejoicing head-servant placed carefully
upon the table.
The company that day consisted of the most cultivated men of
Venice--merchants, princes, noblemen, artists, and lovers of art--and
among them were many who, like Faliero himself, were skilled critics of
artwork.
When these people were ushered in to dinner their eyes fell upon the
butter lion, and they forgot for what purpose they had entered the
dining-room. They saw there something of higher worth in their eyes than
any dinner could be, namely, a work of genius.
They scanned the butter lion critically, and then broke forth in a
torrent of praises, insisting that Faliero should tell them at once
what great sculptor he had persuaded to waste his skill upon a work in
butter, that must quickly melt away. But Signor Faliero was as ignorant
as they, and he had, in his turn, to make inquiry of the chief servant.
When the company learned that the lion was the work of a scullion,
Faliero summoned the boy, and the banquet became a sort of celebration
in his honor.
But it was not enough to praise a lad so gifted. These were men who knew
that such genius as his belonged to the world, not to a village, and it
was their pleasure to bring it to perfection by educating the boy in
art. Signor Faliero himself claimed the right to provide for young
Antonio, and at once declared his purpose to defray the lad's expenses,
and to place him under the tuition of the best masters.
The boy whose highest ambition had been to become a village
stone-cutter, and whose home had been in his poor old grandfather's
cottage, became at once a member of Signor Faliero's family, living in
his palace, having everything that money could buy at his command, and
daily receiving instruction from the best sculptors of Venice.
But he was not in the least spoiled by this change in his fortunes. He
remained simple, earnest, and unaffected. He worked as hard to acquire
knowledge and skill in art as he had meant to work to become a dexterous
stone-cutter.
Antonio Canova's career from the day on which he moulded the butter into
a lion was steadily upward; and when he died, in 1822, he was not only
one of the most celebrated sculptors of his time, but one of the
greatest, indeed, of all time.
THE BOYHOOD OF WILLIAM CHAMBERS.
Boys and girls who can buy attractive periodicals and books at any
bookstore or news-stand, can have very little notion of the difficulty
that little folk had seventy or eighty years ago in getting something to
read. It was only about fifty years ago, indeed, that this first efforts
were made to supply cheap, instructive, and entertaining literature, and
one of the men who made those efforts was Mr. William Chambers, who, in
1882, when he was eighty-two years of age, published a little account of
his life. What he has to tell of his boyhood and youth is very
interesting.
His father was unfortunate in business, and became so poor that young
Chambers had to begin making his own way very early in life. He had
little schooling--only six pounds' (thirty dollars) worth in all, he
tells us--and, as there were no juvenile books or periodicals in those
days, and no books of any other kind, except costly ones, it was hard
for him to do much in the way of educating himself. But William Chambers
meant to learn all that he could, and that determination counted for a
good deal. There was a small circulating library in his native town, and
he began by reading all the books in it, without skipping one. Then he
got hold of a copy of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," which most boys
would regard as very dry reading. He read it carefully. When that was
done young Chambers was really pretty well educated, although he did not
know it.
About that time the boy had to go to work for his living. He became an
apprentice to a bookseller in Edinburgh. His wages were only four
shillings (about a dollar) a week, and on that small sum he had to
support himself, paying for food, lodging, clothes, and everything else,
for five years. "It was a hard but somewhat droll scrimmage with
semistarvation," he says; for, after paying for his lodgings and
clothes, he had only about seven cents a day with which to buy his food.
In the summer he jumped out of bed at five o'clock every morning, and
spent the time before the hour for beginning business in reading and
making electrical experiments. He studied French in that way too, and on
Sundays carried a French Testament to church, and read in French what
the minister read in English.
Winter came on, and the poor lad was puzzled. It was not only cold, but
entirely dark at five o'clock in the morning during the winter months,
and William, who had only seven cents a day to buy food with, could not
afford either a fire or a candle to read by. There was no other time of
day, however, that he could call his own, and so it seemed that he must
give up his reading altogether, which was a great grief to the ambitious
lad.
Just then a piece of good-luck befell him. He happened to know what is
called a "sandwich man"--that is to say, a man who walks about with
signs hanging behind and before him. One day this man made him a
proposition. The sandwich man knew a baker who, with his two sons,
carried on a small business in a cellar. The baker was fond of reading,
but had no time for it, and as he and his sons had to bake their bread
early in the morning, he proposed, through the sandwich man, to employ
William Chambers as reader. His plan was that Chambers should go to the
cellar bakery every morning at five o'clock and read to the bakers, and
for this service he promised to give the boy one hot roll each morning.
Here was double good-fortune. It enabled Chambers to go on with his
reading by the baker's light and fire, and it secured for him a
sufficient breakfast without cost.
He accepted the proposition at once, and for two and a half hours every
morning he sat on a flour-sack in the cellar, and read to the bakers by
the light of a penny candle stuck in a bottle.
Out of his small wages it was impossible for the boy to save anything,
and so, when the five years of his apprenticeship ended, he had only
five shillings in the world. Yet he determined to begin business at once
on his own account. Getting credit for ten pounds' worth of books, he
opened a little stall, and thus began what has since grown to be a great
publishing business.
He had a good deal of unoccupied time at his stall, and "in order to
pick up a few shillings," as he says, he began to write out neat copies
of poems for albums. Finding sale for these, he determined to enlarge
that part of his business by printing the poems. For that purpose he
bought a small and very "squeaky" press and a font of worn type which
had been used for twenty years. He had to teach himself how to set the
type, and, as his press would print only half a sheet at a time, it was
very slow work; but he persevered, and gradually built up a little
printing business in connection with his book-selling. After a while he
published an edition of Burns's poems, setting the type, printing the
pages, and binding the books with his own hands, and clearing eight
pounds by the work.
Chambers wrote a good deal at that time, and his brother Robert wrote
still more, so that they were at once authors, printers, publishers, and
booksellers, but all in a very small way. After ten years of this work,
William Chambers determined to publish a cheap weekly paper, to be
filled with entertaining and instructive matters, designed especially
for the people who could not afford to buy expensive books and
periodicals. Robert refused to join in this scheme, and so, for a time,
the whole work and risk fell upon William. His friends all agreed in
thinking that ruin would be the result; but William Chambers thought he
knew what the people wanted, and hence he went on.
The result soon justified his expectations. The first number was
published on the 4th of February, 1832. Thirty thousand copies were sold
in a few days, and three weeks later the sale rose to fifty thousand
copies a week.
HOW A BOY WAS HIRED OUT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
When Michael Angelo was twelve years of age, although he had had no
instruction in art, he did a piece of work which greatly pleased the
painter Domenico Ghirlandajo. That artist at once declared that here was
lad of genius, who must quit his school studies and become a painter.
This was what the little Michael most wished to do, but he had no hope
that his father would listen for a moment to the suggestion. His father,
Ludovico Buonarotti, was a distinguished man in the state, and held art
and artists in contempt. He had planned a great political career for his
boy, as the boy knew very well.
Ghirlandajo was enthusiastic, however, and, in company with the lad, he
at once visited Ludovico, and asked him to place Michael in his studio.
Ludovico was very angry, saying that he wished his son to become a
prominent man in society and politics, not a dauber and a mason; but
when he found that young Michael was determined to be an artist or
nothing he gave way, though most ungraciously. He would not say that he
consented to place his son with Ghirlandajo; he would not admit that the
study of art was study, or the studio of an artist anything but a shop.
He said to the artist: "I give up my son to you. He shall be your
apprentice or your servant, as you please, for three years, and you must
pay me twenty-four florins for his services."
In spite of the insulting words and the insulting terms, Michael Angelo
consented thus to be hired out as a servant to the artist, who should
have been paid by his father for teaching him. He had to endure much,
indeed, besides the anger and contempt of his father, who forbade him
even to visit his house, and utterly disowned him. His fellow-pupils
were jealous of his ability, and ill-treated him constantly, one of
them going so far as to break his nose with a blow.
When Michael Angelo had been with Ghirlandajo about two years, he went
one day to the Gardens of St. Mark, where the Prince Lorenzo de'
Medici--who was the foremost patron of art in Florence--had established
a rich museum of art-works at great expense. One of the workmen in the
garden gave the boy leave to try his hand at copying some of the
sculptures there, and Michael, who had hitherto studied only painting,
was glad of a chance to experiment with the chisel, which he preferred
to the brush. He chose for his model an ancient figure of a faun, which
was somewhat mutilated. The mouth, indeed, was entirely broken off, but
the boy was very self-reliant, and this did not trouble him. He worked
day after day at the piece, creating a mouth for it of his own
imagining, with the lips parted in laughter and the teeth displayed.
When he had finished, and was looking at his work, a man standing near
asked if he might offer a criticism.
"Yes," answered the boy, "if it is a just one."
"Of that you shall be the judge," said the man.
"Very well. What is it?"
"The forehead of your faun is old, but the mouth is young. See, it has a
full set of perfect teeth. A faun so old as this one is would not have
perfect teeth."
The lad admitted the justice of the criticism, and proceeded to remedy
the defect by chipping away two or three of the teeth, and chiselling
the gums so as to give them a shrivelled appearance.
The next morning, when Michael went to remove his faun from the garden,
it was gone. He searched everywhere for it, but without success.
Finally, seeing the man who had made the suggestion about the teeth, he
asked him if he knew where it was.
"Yes," replied the man, "and if you will follow me I'll show you where
it is."
"Will you give it back to me? I made it, and have a right to it."
"Oh, if you must have it, you shall."
With that he led the way into the palace of the prince, and there, among
the most precious works of art in the collection, stood the faun. The
young sculptor cried out in alarm, declaring that the Prince Lorenzo
would never forgive the introduction of so rude a piece of work among
his treasures of sculpture. To his astonishment the man declared that he
was himself the Prince Lorenzo de' Medici, and that he set the highest
value upon this work.
"I am your protector and friend," he added. "Henceforth you shall be
counted as my son, for you are destined to become one of the great
masters of art."
This was overwhelming good-fortune. Lorenzo de' Medici was a powerful
nobleman, known far and wide to be a most expert judge of works of art.
His approval was in itself fame and fortune.
Filled with joy, the lad went straightway to his father's house, which
he had been forbidden to enter, and, forcing his way into Ludovico's
presence, told him what had happened. The father refused to believe the
good news until Michael led him into Lorenzo's presence.
When the prince, by way of emphasizing his goodwill, offered Ludovico
any post he might choose, he asked for a very modest place indeed,
saying, with bitter contempt, that it was good enough "for the father of
a mason."
THE WICKEDEST MAN IN THE WORLD.