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[Illustration: SALVATOR ROSA.]
THE
TRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE
AND
ENTERPRISE.
[Illustration: MICHAEL ANGELO.]
LONDON:
DALTON AND CO., HOLBORN HILL.
THE
TRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE
AND
ENTERPRISE:
_Recorded as Examples for the Young._
“Lives of great men all remind us
We may make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”—LONGFELLOW.
LONDON
DARTON AND CO., HOLBORN HILL.
LONDON:
WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, 37, BELL YARD,
TEMPLE BAR.
PREFACE.
These records of the Triumphs of Perseverance and Enterprise have
been written with the view to inspire the youthful reader with a
glow of emulation, and to induce him to toil and to advance in the
peaceful achievements of science and benevolence, remembering the
adage, “Whatever man has done, man may do.”
CONTENTS
TO
THE TRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE.
CHAPTER I.
LINGUISTS.
PAGE
Sir William Jones—Dr. Samuel Lee 1
CHAPTER II.
AUTHORS.
Shakespeare—Spenser—Johnson—Gifford—Gibbon 22
CHAPTER III.
ARTISTS.
Canova—Chantrey—Salvator Rosa—Benjamin West 45
CHAPTER IV.
MUSICIANS.
Handel 69
CHAPTER V.
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERERS AND MECHANICIANS.
Sir Humphrey Davy—Sir Richard Arkwright—Dr. Edward
Cartwright—James Watt—Columbus—Sir Isaac
Newton—Sir William Herschel—Reaumur—Hon.
Robert Boyle 80
CHAPTER VI.
MEN OF BUSINESS.
Sir Thomas Gresham—Lackington 112
CHAPTER VII.
PHILANTHROPISTS.
John Howard 122
CONCLUSION.
Dignity and advantages of Labour, and encouragements of
Perseverance 141
CONTENTS
TO
THE TRIUMPHS OF ENTERPRISE.
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
Enterprise—a distinguishing trait of civilisation 145
CHAPTER I.
Enterprise as displayed in Man’s combats with, and mastery
over the Wild Animals—General Putnam’s engagements
with Wolves—Lieutenant Evan Davies’s capture
of a Tiger—Combats with Wild Elephants in India—Account
of the Whale Fishery, its dangers and its excitements—Is
Whale Fishery justifiable on humane
grounds? 148
CHAPTER II.
Enterprise as displayed in overcoming natural difficulties
in visiting new Regions of the Earth—Travels of the
African Discoverers, Major Denham, Dr. Oudney, and
Captain Clapperton—Arctic Travellers, Dr. Edward
Daniel Clark, Captain Cochrane—Perils of Mr.
Temple’s journey from Peru to Buenos Ayres—Humboldt’s
description of South America—Suffering occasioned
by Mosquitoes—Captain Back’s Arctic Land
Expedition—Annoyance of the Sand-flies—Sir John
Franklin’s gentleness 165
CHAPTER III.
Enterprise as displayed in Maritime Discovery—Increased
dangers attending the Voyage—Perilous condition of
Ross and his companions—Terrors of an Iceberg—Wearisomeness
of an Arctic Winter—Departure from
the Ship across the Ice—Singular return to his Vessel—Wretched
plight of himself and companions—Drake’s
Voyage round the World—Safe return and knighthood
by Queen Elizabeth 190
CHAPTER IV.
Belzoni’s Discoveries in Egypt 214
CHAPTER V.
Enterprise as displayed in construction of Roads, Harbours,
Bridges, Lighthouses, &c—Gibbon’s description
of the great Roman Highways—Bell’s account of
the Great Wall of China—Porcelain Tower of Nankin—Famous
Slide of Alpnach in Switzerland—Monument
to the memory of Peter the Great—Eddystone
Lighthouse—Plymouth Breakwater 243
CONCLUSION.
Gradual reception of the truth that War, under an
circumstances, is an evil to be deplored 279
THE
TRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE.
CHAPTER I.
LINGUISTS.
SIR WILLIAM JONES.—DR. SAMUEL LEE.
“If that boy were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he
would find the road to fame and riches!” the tutor of SIR WILLIAM
JONES was accustomed to say of his illustrious pupil. His observation
of the great quality of _perseverance_, evinced in every act of study
prescribed to his scholar, doubtless impelled the teacher to utter
that remarkable affirmation. A discernment of high genius in young
Jones, with but little of the great quality we have named, would have
led Dr. Thackeray to modify his remark. It would have been couched
in some such form as this: “If that boy had as much perseverance
as genius, he would find the road to fame and riches, even if he
were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain.” But, had the
instructor regarded his pupil as one endowed with the most brilliant
powers of mind, yet entirely destitute of perseverance, he would
have pronounced a judgment very widely different from the first.
“Alas, for this boy!” he might have said, “how will these shining
qualities, fitfully bursting forth in his wayward course through
life, displaying their lustre in a thousand beginnings which will
lead to nothing, leave him to be regarded as an object of derision
where he might have won general admiration and esteem, and cast him
for subsistence on the bounty or pity of others, when he might have
been a noble example of self-dependence!”
Let the reflection we would awaken by these introductory sentences
be of a healthy character. It is not meant that celebrity or wealth
are the most desirable rewards of a well-spent life; but that the
most resplendent natural powers, unless combined with application
and industry, fail to bring happiness to the heart and mind of the
possessor, or to render him useful to his brother men. It is sought
to impress deeply and enduringly on the youthful understanding, the
irrefragable truth that, while genius is a gift which none can create
for himself, and may be uselessly possessed, perseverance has enabled
many, who were born with only ordinary faculties of imagination,
judgment, and memory, to attain a first-rate position in literature
or science, or in the direction of human affairs, and to leave a
perpetual name in the list of the world’s benefactors.
Has the youthful reader formed a purpose for life? We ask not
whether he has conceived a vulgar passion for fame or riches, but
earnestly exhort him to self-enquiry, whether he be wasting existence
in what is termed amusement, or be daily devoting the moments at
his command to a diligent preparation for usefulness? Whether he
has hitherto viewed life as a journey to be trod without aims and
ends, or a grand field of enterprise in which it is both his duty
and interest to become an industrious and honourable worker? Has he
found, by personal experience, even in the outset of life, that time
spent in purposeless inactivity or frivolity produces no results
on which the mind can dwell with satisfaction? And has he learned,
from the testimony of others, that years so misspent bring only a
feeling of self-accusation, which increases in bitterness as the
loiterer becomes older, and the possibility of “redeeming the time”
becomes more doubtful? Did he ever reflect that indolence never yet
led to real distinction; that sloth never yet opened the path to
independence; that trifling never yet enabled a man to make useful or
solid acquirements?
If such reflections have already found a place in the reader’s mind,
and created in him some degree of yearning to make his life not
only a monument of independence, but of usefulness, we invite him
to a rapid review of the lives of men among whom he will not only
find the highest exemplars of perseverance, but some whose peculiar
difficulties may resemble his own, and whose triumphs may encourage
him to pursue a course of similar excellence. Purposing to awaken
the spirit of exertion by the presentation of striking examples
rather than the rehearsal of formal precepts, we proceed to open
our condensed chronicle with a notice of the universal scholar just
named, and whose world-famed career has entitled him to a first place
in the records of the “Triumphs of Perseverance.”
SIR WILLIAM JONES,
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM JONES]
Happily, had early admonitions of perseverance from his mother, in
whose widowed care he was left at three years old; and who, “to
his incessant importunities for information, which she watchfully
stimulated,” says his biographer, Lord Teignmouth, “perpetually
answered, ‘Read, and you will know,’” His earnest mind cleaved to
the injunction. He could read any English book rapidly at four years
of age; and, though his right eye was injured by an accident at
five, and the sight of it ever remained imperfect, his determination
to learn triumphed over that impediment. Again, the commencement
of life seemed discouraging: he had been placed at Harrow School,
at the age of seven, but had his thigh-bone broken at nine, and
was compelled to be from school for twelve months. Such was his
progress, in spite of these untoward circumstances, and although
characterised, let it be especially observed, as a boy “remarkable
for diligence and application rather than superiority of talent,”
that he was removed into the upper school, at Harrow, in his twelfth
year. At this period he is found writing out the entire play of the
“Tempest,” from memory, his companions intending to perform it, and
not having a copy in their possession. Virgil’s Pastorals and Ovid’s
Epistles are, at the same age, turned into melodious English verse by
him; he has learned the Greek characters for his amusement, and now
applies himself to the language in earnest; his mother has taught him
drawing, during the vacations; and he next composes a drama, on the
classic story of “Meleager,” which is acted in the school. During the
next two years he “wrote out the exercises of many of the boys in the
upper classes, and they were glad to become his pupils;” meanwhile,
in the holidays, he learned French and arithmetic.
But this early and unremitting tension of the mind, did it not leave
the heart uncultured? Were not pride and overweening growing within,
and did not sourness of temper display itself, and repel some whom
the young scholar’s acquirements might otherwise have attached to
him? Ah! youthful reader, thou wilt never find any so proud as the
ignorant; and, if thou wouldst not have thy heart become a garden of
rank and pestilential weeds, leave not the key thereof in the soft
hand of Indolence, but entrust it to the sinewed grasp of Industry.
What testimony give his early companions to the temper and hearing
of young Jones? The celebrated Dr. Parr—in his own person also a
high exemplar of the virtue we are inculcating—was his playmate in
boyhood, remained his ardent friend in manhood, and never spoke of
their early attachment without deep feeling. Dr. Bennet, afterwards
Bishop of Cloyne, thus speaks of Sir William Jones: “I knew him from
the early age of eight or nine, and he was always an uncommon boy. I
loved him and revered him: and, though one or two years older than he
was, was always instructed by him.” ... “In a word, I can only say
of this amiable and wonderful man, that he had more virtues and less
faults than I ever yet saw in any human being; and that the goodness
of his head, admirable as it was, was exceeded by that of his heart.”
With the boys, generally, he was a favourite. Dr. Sumner, who
succeeded Dr. Thackeray, used to say Jones knew more Greek than
himself. He soon learned the Arabic characters, and was already
able to read Hebrew. A mere stripling, yet he would devote whole
nights to study, taking coffee or tea as an antidote to drowsiness.
Strangers were accustomed to enquire for him, at the school, under
the title of “the great scholar.” But Dr. Sumner, during the last
months spent at Harrow, was obliged to interdict the juvenile “great
scholar’s” application, in consequence of a returning weakness in his
injured eye: yet he continued to compose, and dictated to younger
students; alternately practising the games of Philidor and acquiring
a knowledge of chess. He had added a knowledge of botany and fossils
to the acquirements already mentioned, and had learned Italian during
his last vacation.
Let us mark, again, whether all this ardent intellectual activity
cramps the right growth of the affections, and warps the heart’s
sense of filial duty. “His mother,” says his excellent biographer,
“allowed him unlimited credit on her purse; but of this indulgence,
as he knew her finances were restricted, he availed himself no
further than to purchase such books as were essential to his
improvement.” And when he is removed, at the age of seventeen, to
University College, Oxford, he is not anxious to enter the world
without restraint; his mother goes to reside at Oxford, “at her son’s
request.” And how he toiled, and wished for college honours, not for
vain distinction, not for love of gain, but from the healthy growth
of that filial affection, which had strengthened with his judgment
and power of reflection! He “anxiously wished for a fellowship,” says
Lord Teignmouth, “to enable him to draw less frequently upon his
mother, knowing the contracted nature of her income.” His heart was
soon to be gratified.
He commenced Arabic zealously, soon after reaching the University;
he perused, with assiduity, all the Greek poets and historians
of note; he read the entire works of Plato and Lucian, with
commentaries, constantly ready, with a pen in his hand, to make any
remark that he judged worth preserving. What a contrast to the
“reader for amusement,” who will leave the priceless treasure of a
book ungathered, because it is hid in what he calls a “lumbering
folio,” and it wearies his hands, or it is inconvenient to read it
while lying along at ease on the sofa! Yet this “great scholar” was
no mere musty book-worm; he did not claim kindred with Dryasdust.
While passing his vacations in London, he daily attended the noted
schools of Angelo, and acquired a skill in horsemanship and fencing,
as elegant accomplishments; his evenings, at these seasons, being
devoted to the perusal of the best Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese
writers. At the University, how was the stripling urging his way
into the regions of oriental learning—that grand high-road of his
fame that was to be! He had found Mirza, a Syrian, who possessed a
knowledge of the vernacular Arabic, and spent some portion of every
morning in writing out a translation of Galland’s French version of
the Arabian Tales into Arabic, from the mouth of the Syrian; and he
then corrected the grammatical inaccuracies by the help of lexicons.
From the Arabic he urged his way into the Persian, becoming soon
enraptured with that most elegant of all eastern languages. Such was
this true disciple of “Perseverance” at the age of _nineteen_.
And now some measure of the rewards of industry, honour, and virtue
begin to alight upon him. He is appointed tutor to Lord Althorpe, son
of the literary Earl Spencer; finds his pupil possessed of a mind and
disposition that will render his office delightful; has the range of
one of the most splendid private libraries in the kingdom, together
with the refined and agreeable society of Wimbledon Park; and is
presented, soon after, with a fellowship by his college.
Mark well, from two incidents which occur about this time, what
high conscientiousness, deep modesty, and sterling independence
characterise the true scholar. The Duke of Grafton, then premier,
offered him the situation of government interpreter for eastern
languages. He declined it, recommending the Syrian, Mirza, as one
better qualified to fill it than himself. His recommendation was
neglected; and his biographer remarks that “a better knowledge of
the world would have led him to accept the office, and to convey
the emoluments to his friend Mirza. He was too ingenuous to do
so. He saw the excellent lady who afterwards became his wife and
devoted companion in study; but ‘his fixed idea of an honourable
independence, and a determined resolution never to owe his fortune
to a wife, or her kindred, excluded all ideas of a matrimonial
connection,’” at that period, although the affection he had conceived
was ardent.
In the year of his majority, we find him commencing his famous
“Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry;” copying the keys of the Chinese
language; learning German, by conversation, grammar, and dictionary,
during three weeks passed at Spa with his noble pupil; acquiring
a knowledge of the broad-sword exercise from an old pensioner at
Chelsea; continuing to attend the two schools of Signor Angelo; and
secretly taking lessons in dancing from Gallini, the dancing-master
of Earl Spencer’s family, until he surprises the elegant inhabitants
of Wimbledon by joining with grace in the amusements of their evening
parties.
Such was the truly magnificent advancement made by this illustrious
disciple of “Perseverance,” up to the age of twenty-one. Think,
reader, how much may be done in the opening of life! How elevated the
course of Sir William Jones! What cheering self-approval must he have
experienced, in looking back on the youthful years thus industriously
spent; but what humbling reflection, what severe self-laceration
would he have felt, had he allowed indolence to master him, ease to
enervate him, listlessness and dissipation to render him a nameless
and worthless nothing in the world!
At the close of his twenty-first year he peruses the little treatise
of our ancient lawyer, Fortescue, in praise of the laws of England.
His large learning enabled him to compare the laws of other countries
with his own; and though he had, hitherto, enthusiastically preferred
the laws of republican Greece, reflection, on the perusal of this
treatise, led him to prefer the laws of England to all others. His
noble biographer adds a remark which indicates the solidity and
perspicacity of Sir William Jones’s judgment:—“He was not, however,
regardless of the deviations in practice from the theoretical
perfection of the constitution, in a contested election, of which
he was an unwilling spectator.” Yet the perfect _theory_ of our
constitution so far attracted him, as to lead him, from this time, to
the resolve of uniting the study of the law to his great philological
acquirements; his purpose was neither rashly formed, nor soon
relinquished, like the miscalled “purposes” of weak men and idlers;
it resulted in his elevation to high and honourable usefulness, in
the lapse of a few years.
In his twenty-second year the “great scholar” undertakes a task
which no other quality than perseverance could have enabled him to
accomplish. The King of Denmark, then on a visit to this country,
brought over with him an eastern manuscript, containing a life of
Nadir Shah, and expressed his wish to the officers of government to
have it translated into French, by an English scholar. The under
secretary of state applied to Sir William Jones, who recommended
Major Dow, the able translator of a Persian history, to perform the
work. Major Dow refused: and, though hints of greater patronage did
not influence the inclination of Sir William Jones, his reflection
that the reputation of English learning would be dishonoured by
the Danish king taking back the manuscript, with a report that no
scholar in our country had courage to undertake the difficult labour,
impelled him to enter on it. The fact that he had a French style
to acquire, in order to discharge his task, and had, even then, to
get a native Frenchman to go over the translation, to render it a
scholar-like production, made the undertaking extremely arduous.
It was, however, accomplished magnificently; and the adventurous
translator added a treatise on oriental poetry, “such as no other
person in England could then have written.” He was immediately
afterwards made a member of the Royal Society of Copenhagen, and was
recommended by the King of Denmark to the particular patronage of his
own sovereign.
At twenty-six he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of England,
and took his degree of Master of Arts the year after. Meanwhile he
was composing his celebrated Persian Grammar; had found the means
of entering effectively on the study of Chinese, a language at that
time surrounded with unspeakable difficulties; had written part of a
Turkish history; and was assiduously copying Arabic manuscripts in
the Bodleian. The “Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry” were published in
his twenty-eighth year, being five years after they were finished;
his modesty, that invariable attendant of true merit, and his love
of correctness, having induced him to lay the manuscript before
Dr. Parr, and other profound judges, ere he ventured to give his
composition to the world. Amidst so many absorbing engagements his
biographer still notes the correct state of his heart. He was a
regular correspondent with his excellent mother, and ever paid the
most affectionate attention to her and his sister.
In his twenty-eighth year he devotes himself more exclusively to his
legal studies, goes the Oxford circuit after being called to the bar,
and afterwards attends regularly at Westminster Hall. Except the
publication of a translation of the speeches of Isæus, he performs no
remarkable literary labour for the next few years; his professional
practice having become very considerable, and his thoughts being
strongly directed towards a vacant judgeship, at Calcutta, as the
situation in which he felt assured, by the union of his legal
knowledge with his skill in oriental languages, he could best serve
the interests of learning and of mankind.
Before this object of his laudable ambition was attained, however,
Sir William Jones gave proof, as our great Englishman, Milton, had
given before him, that the mightiest erudition does not narrow, but
serves truly to enlarge the mind, and to nourish its sympathies with
the great brotherhood of humanity. The war with the United States of
America had commenced, and he declared himself against it; he wrote
a splendid Latin ode, entitled “Liberty,” in which his patriotic
and philanthropic sentiments are most nobly embodied; and became
a candidate, on what are now called “liberal principles,” for the
representation of Oxford. He withdrew, after further reflection, from
the candidateship, still purposing to devote his life to the East,
but not before he had testified his disapproval of harsh ministerial
measures, by publishing an “Enquiry into the legal mode of
suppressing riots, with a constitutional plan for their suppression.”
Finally, to the record of this part of his life, Lord Teignmouth
adds the relation, that Sir William Jones had found time to attend
the lectures of the celebrated John Hunter, and to acquire some
knowledge of anatomy; while he had advanced sufficiently far into the
mathematics to be able to read and understand the “Principia” of Sir
Isaac Newton.
The last eleven years of the illustrious scholar’s life form the most
brilliant part of his career, and only leave us to lament that his
days were not more extended. In the month of March, 1783, being then
in his thirty-seventh year, he was appointed a judge of the supreme
court of judicature, Fortwilliam, Calcutta, and on that occasion
received the honour of knighthood. In the following month he married
the eldest daughter of Dr. Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and thus
happy in a union with the lady to whom he had been long devoted,
almost immediately embarked for India.
As a concluding lesson from the life of Sir William Jones, let
us note how unsubduable is the intellect trained by long and
early habits of perseverance, under the corrupting and enfeebling
influences of honours and prosperity. On the voyage, the “great
scholar” drew up a list of “Objects of Enquiry.” If he could have
fulfilled the gigantic schemes which were thus unfolding themselves
to his ardent mind, the world must have been stricken with amazement.
The list is too long to be detailed here; suffice it to say, that it
enumerates the “Laws of the Hindus and Mahommedans,” “The History of
the Ancient World;” all the sciences, all the arts and inventions
of all the Asiatic nations, and the various kinds of government in
India. Following the list of “Objects of Enquiry,” is a sketch of
works he purposes to write and publish; including “Elements of the
Laws of England,” “History of the American War,” an epic poem, to be
entitled “Britain Discovered,” “Speeches, Political and Forensic,”
“Dialogues, Philosophical and Historical,” and a volume of letters,
with translations of some portions of the Scriptures into Arabic and
Persian.
Intense and indefatigable labour enabled him to complete his masterly
“Digest of Mahommedan and Hindu Law,” but to accomplish this work,
so invaluable to the European conquerors of Hindoostan, he had
first, critically, to master the Sanscrit, at once the most perfect
and most difficult of known languages. If it be remembered that Sir
William Jones was also most active in the discharge of his judicial
duties, our admiration will be increased. His translation of the
“Ordinances of Menu,” a Sanscrit work, displaying the Hindoo system
of religious and civil duties—and of the Indian drama of “Sacontala,”
written a century before the Christian era—and his production of a
“Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and Rome,” were among the
last of his complete works. He also edited the first volume of the
“Asiatic Researches;” and gave an impetus to eastern enquiry among
Europeans, by instituting the Asiatic Society, of which he was the
first president. His annual discourses before that assembly have been
published, and are well known and highly valued.
The death of this great and good man, though sudden, being occasioned
by the rapid liver complaint of Bengal, was as peaceful as his life
had been noble and virtuous. A friend, who saw him die, says that he
expired “without a groan, and with a serene and complacent look.”
His death took place on the 27th April, 1794, when he was only in
his forty-eighth year; yet he had acquired a “critical knowledge”
of eight languages—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic,
Persian, Sanscrit; he knew eight others less perfectly, but was
able to read them with the occasional use of a dictionary—Spanish,
Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengalee, Hindostanee, Turkish;
and he knew so much of twelve other tongues, that they were perfectly
attainable by him, had life and leisure permitted his continued
application to them—Tibetian, Pâli, Phalavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac,
Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese. Twenty-eight
languages in all; such is his own account. When you sum up the
other diversified accomplishments and attainments of the scarce
forty-eight years of Sir William Jones, reflect deeply, youthful
reader, on what may be achieved by “perseverance,” and when you have
reflected—_resolve_.
To that emphatic early lesson of “read and you will learn,” and to
his ready opportunities and means of culture, we must, undoubtedly,
attribute much of the “great scholar’s” success. In the life of
one still living, and enjoying the honours and rewards of virtuous
perseverance, it will be seen that even devoid of help, unstimulated
by any affectionate voice in the outset, and surrounded with
discouragements, almost at every step, the cultivation of this grand
quality infallibly leads on to signal triumph.
DR. SAMUEL LEE,
Now Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, being
the son of a poor widow, who was left to struggle for the support of
two younger children, was apprenticed to a carpenter, at twelve years
of age, after receiving a merely elementary instruction in reading,
writing, and arithmetic in the charity-school of the village of
Longmore, in Shropshire. His love of books became fervent, and the
Latin quotations he found in such as were within his reach kindled a
desire to penetrate the mystery of their meaning. The sounds of the
language, too, which he heard in a Catholic chapel, where his master
had undertaken some repairs, increased this desire. At seventeen
he purchased “Ruddiman’s Latin Rudiments,” and soon committed the
whole to memory. With the help of “Corderius’ Colloquies,” “Entick’s
Dictionary,” and “Beza’s Testament,” he began to make his way into
the vestibule of Roman learning; but of the magnificent inner-glory
he had, as yet, scarcely caught a glimpse. The obstacles seemed so
great for an unassisted adventurer, that he one day besought a priest
of the chapel, where he was still at work, to afford him some help.
“Charity begins at home!” was the repelling reply to his application;
but, whether meant to indicate the priest’s own need of instruction,
or sordid unwillingness to afford his help without pecuniary
remuneration, does not appear. Unchilled by this repulse, the young
and unfriended disciple of “perseverance” girt up “the loins of
his mind” for his solitary but onward travel. Yet how uncheering
the landscape around him! Think of it, and blush, young reader,
if thou art surrounded with ease and comfort, but hast yielded to
indolence; ponder on it, and take courage, if thou art the companion
of hardship, but resolvest to be a man, one day, amongst men. Young
Lee’s wages were but six shillings weekly at seventeen years old; and
from this small sum he had not only to find food, but to pay for his
washing and lodging. The next year his weekly income was increased
one shilling, and the year following another. Privation, even of the
necessaries of life, he had to suffer, not seldom, in order to enable
himself to possess what he desired, now more intensely than ever. He
successively purchased a Latin Bible, Cæsar, Justin, Sallust, Cicero,
Virgil, Horace, Ovid; having frequently to sell his volume as soon
as he had mastered it in order to buy another. But what of that? The
true disciple of perseverance looks onward with hope—hope which is
not fantastic, but founded in the firmest reason—to the day when his
meritorious and ennobling toil shall have its happy fruition, and he
shall know no scarcity of books.
Conquest of one language has inspired him with zeal for further
victory; it is the genuine nature of enterprise. Freed from his
apprenticeship he purchases a Greek grammar, testament, lexicon,
and exercises; and soon, the self-taught carpenter, the scholar of
toil and privation, holds converse, in their own superlative tongue,
with the simple elegance of Xenophon, the eloquence and wisdom of
Plato, and the wit of Lucian; he becomes familiar with the glorious
“Iliad,” with the pathos and refinement, the force and splendour, of
the “Antigone,” of Sophocles.
“Unaided by any instructor, uncheered by any literary companion,”
says one who narrates the circumstances of his early career, “he
still persevered.” What wonder, when he had discovered so much to
cheer him in the delectable mental realm he was thus subduing for
himself! And he was now endued with the full energy of conquest.
He purchased “Bythner’s Hebrew Grammar,” and “Lyra Prophetica,”
with a Hebrew Psalter, and was soon able to read the Psalms in the
original. Buxtorf’s grammar and lexicon with a Hebrew Bible followed;
an accident threw in his way the “Targum” of Onkelos, and with the
Chaldee grammar in Bythner, and Schindler’s lexicon, he was soon
able to read it. Another effort, and he was able to read the Syriac
Testament and the Samaritan Pentateuch, thus gaining acquaintance
with four branches of the ancient Aramœan or Shemitic family of
languages, in addition to his knowledge of the two grand Pelasgic
dialects.
He was now five-and-twenty, and had mastered six languages, without
the slightest help from any living instructor; some of the last-named
books were heavily expensive; yet, true to the nobility of life that
had distinguished his early youth, he had not relaxed the reins of
economy, but had purchased a chest of tools, which had cost him
twenty-five pounds.
Suddenly an event befel him which seemed to wither not only his
prospects of further mental advancement, but plunged him into
the deepest distress. A fire, which broke out in a house he was
repairing, consumed his chest of tools; and, as he had no money to
purchase more, and had now to feel solicitude for the welfare of
an affectionate wife, as well as for himself, his affliction was
heavy. In this distracting difficulty he turned his thoughts towards
commencing a village school, but even for this he lacked the means
of procuring the necessary, though scanty, furniture. Uprightness
and meritorious industry, however, seldom fail to attract benevolent
help to a man in need. Archdeacon Corbett, the resident philanthropic
clergyman of Longmore, heard of Samuel Lee’s distress, sent for him,
and on hearing the relation of his laudable struggles, used his
interest to place him in the mastership of Shrewsbury Charity School,
giving him what was of still higher value, an introduction to the
great oriental scholar, Dr. Jonathan Scott.
New triumphs succeeded his misfortunes, and a cheering and
honourable future was preparing. Dr. Scott put into the hands of
his new and humble friend elementary books on Arabic, Persian, and
Hindostanee; and, in a few months, the disciple of perseverance was
not only able to read and translate, but even essayed to compose
in his newly-acquired languages. So effectually had he mastered
these eastern tongues, that the good doctor used his influence in
introducing him as private tutor to sons of gentlemen going out to
India; and, after another brief probation, procured him admission
into Queen’s College, Cambridge.
Our sketch of this remarkable living scholar may here be cut short.
He has made himself master of twenty languages, distinguished himself
alike by the virtue of his private life, his practical eloquence
in the pulpit and zeal for the church, of which he is an honoured
member; and, in addition to the service he has rendered to oriental
literature, by his new Hebrew grammar and lexicon, his revision of
Sir William Jones’s Persian grammar, and a number of philological
tracts, has won respect and gratitude, by diligent and laborious
supervision of numerous translations of the Scriptures into eastern
tongues, prepared by the direction and at the cost of the British and
Foreign Bible Society.
If the young scholar be bent on the acquirement of languages, he
will find, in the lives of Alexander, Murray, Leyden, Heyne, Carey,
Marshman, Morrison, Magliabechi, and a hundred others, striking
proofs of the ease with which the mind overcomes all difficulties
when it is armed with determination, and never becomes a recreant
from the banner of perseverance.