IMPECUNIOSITY OF THE GREAT.
It must be admitted that impecuniosity is impartial, the peer and the
peasant being equally open to its visits, and the Sovereign, under certain
conditions, as liable to its influence as the subject. Edward the Third
was compelled to pawn his jewels, and his imperial crown three times, once
abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the
crown remained eight years. Henry the Fifth was also under the necessity
of pawning his crown and the silver table and stools which he had from
Spain. The Black Prince made the same use of his plate, and Queen
Elizabeth was obliged to part with some of her jewels.
More than two centuries ago when Clerkenwell was a sort of Court quarter
of London, and could boast amongst other distinguished residents the Duke
and Duchess of Newcastle, this couple, both of whom are remembered by
their literary eccentricities, had more than once to patronise the
pawnbroker. The duke, who was a devoted Royalist, after his defeat at
Marston Moor, retired with his wife to the Continent, and with many
privations owing to pecuniary embarrassments suffered an exile of eighteen
years, chiefly in Antwerp, in a house which belonged to the widow of
Rubens.
Many of our most illustrious families have been indebted to the exertions
or the genius of some humble ancestor. The case of Charles Abbot,
afterwards Lord Tenterden, is a typical one. He was the son of a
Canterbury barber, and at the age of seven was admitted on the foundation
of the King's School in that town, where he soon attracted attention by
his industry and intelligence. At an early age he much wished to become a
chorister, and was so disappointed when he failed that in after years,
when visiting the Cathedral with Mr. Justice Richards, who commended the
voice of a singer in the choir, his lordship exclaimed, "Ah, that is the
only man I ever envied. When at school in this town, we were candidates
for a chorister's place and he obtained it." When seventeen, there was no
prospect for the clever youth but the drudgery of trade, and on this
becoming known in the school there was a general wish expressed that his
perseverance and ability should be rewarded. To private generosity he was
indebted for his outfit, the trustees conferring a small exhibition upon
him, and adding a pittance which enabled him to live, with rigid economy,
until he took his B.A. degree. When asked by Mr. Lamont, the father of the
lady to whom he was engaged, what means he had to maintain a wife, he
replied, "The books in this room and two pupils in the next."
Sir Peter Laurie, when Lord Mayor of London, said at a dinner given to the
judges: "What a country is this we live in! In other parts of the world
there is no chance except for men of high birth and aristocratic
connections, but here genius and industry are sure to be rewarded. You see
before you the example of myself, the chief magistrate of the metropolis
of this great empire, with the Chief Justice of England sitting at my
right hand, both now in the highest offices of the State, and both sprung
from the very dregs of the people." There are many men who would have been
anything but pleased at this reference to their humble extraction; but it
was not distasteful to his lordship.
Macready, in recounting a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, says he was shown
by the verger the spot where a little shop once stood, and was informed
that when Lord Tenterden last visited the Cathedral, he said to his son,
"Charles, you see this little shop. I have brought you here on purpose to
show it you. In that shop your grandfather used to shave for a penny. That
is the proudest reflection of my life. While you live never forget that,
my dear Charles," an injunction which, coming from a Chief Justice of
England who died worth L120,000, ought to have a salutary effect on
upstarts.
The equally famous Lord Erskine, though a man of gentle birth, was
nevertheless indebted, to a certain extent, to impecuniosity for the
greatness he achieved, since that impelled him to the spirited defence of
Captain Baillie, which attracted the attention of all England. Called to
the bar on the 3rd July, 1778, Erskine made his first appearance in public
on the 24th November. Previous to this time he had been unknown. His first
brief fell to his lot in this way: A certain Captain Baillie, who, for
gallant services, had been appointed to a post in Greenwich Hospital,
discovered the gravest abuses there, and brought the state of things to
the notice of those in power, but being unable to get them remedied,
determined to publish the facts of the case. His statement implicated Lord
Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who, to serve his political
purposes, had filled the vacant posts at the Hospital with certain
landsmen. The Board of Admiralty immediately suspended the captain, and a
criminal information for libel was lodged against him, the case exciting
the greatest public interest. During the vacation Erskine had met Captain
Baillie at the house of a mutual friend, and, utterly unconscious of his
presence, had, after dinner, so strongly censured the shameful practices
ascribed to Lord Sandwich that the captain immediately inquired who the
young fellow was, and on being told that Erskine had formerly been in the
navy, but had recently been called to the bar, he exclaimed with warmth,
"Then that's the man I'll have for my counsel!"
In due course this now historic trial came on, when the young barrister's
marvellous speech created an impression called by Lord Campbell, "the most
wonderful forensic effort of which we have any account in our annals. It
was the _debut_ of a barrister just called, and wholly unpractised in
public speaking, before a court crowded with men of the greatest
distinction, belonging to all parties of the State. He came after four
eminent counsel, who might have been supposed to have exhausted the
subject. He was called to order by a venerable judge, whose word had been
law in that hall above a quarter of a century. His exclamation, 'I will
_bring_ him' (Lord Sandwich) 'before the Court!' and the crushing
denunciation of Lord Sandwich, in which he was enabled to persevere, from
the sympathy of the bystanders, and even of the judges, who, in
strictness, ought to have checked his irregularity, are as soul-stirring
as anything in this species of eloquence presented to us by ancient or
modern times." As Erskine walked along the hall after the rising of the
judges, attorneys flocked around him with their briefs. When asked how he
had the courage to stand up so boldly against Lord Mansfield, he replied
that he fancied he could feel his little children plucking at his robe,
and that he heard them saying, "_Now, father, is the time to get us
bread!_"
Lord Eldon's life furnishes abundant proof that he was perfectly familiar
with adversity. The son of a "fitter" employed in conveying coals in
barges from the pits to the different ports on the Tyne, John Scott was
born at Newcastle on the 4th June, 1751, and after being educated at the
Grammar School in the town would have been apprenticed to his father's
business but for the remonstrances of his brother William (afterwards Lord
Stowell), who had obtained an Oxford scholarship, and subsequently a
fellowship at the University. The success of the one son induced the
father to send John also to college, where he at first studied for the
church. While at Oxford he made a runaway match with Miss Bessy Surtees,
the daughter of a Newcastle banker. The young couple went to the Queen's
Head, at Morpeth, but on the third morning of their married life their
funds were exhausted, and they had no home to go to. Mrs. Scott was
naturally very much upset at the predicament in which they were placed,
but while lamenting it she suddenly caught sight of a fine wolf-dog
belonging to the family, called Loup, whose presence at Morpeth was to her
the joyous sign that help was at hand. In a few moments Mr. Henry Scott,
her husband's brother, entered the room. John Scott had written a
repentant letter from Morpeth to his father, which had the desired effect,
and the younger brother had been sent to announce pardon to the offending
couple, and to invite them to take up their abode under the parental roof.
The year of grace allowed for retaining a fellowship after marriage having
elapsed, Mr. Scott abandoned the thought of taking holy orders and studied
law. He was called to the bar in 1776, when he says, "Bessy and I thought
all our troubles were over, and we were to be rich almost immediately."
This golden dream was however speedily dissipated, for during the first
year the total amount of his professional income was ten shillings and
sixpence. But when Lord Chancellor, and living in a magnificent mansion in
the vicinity of Hyde Park, he often referred to this period of poverty as
the happiest time of his life, for then, he maintained, his wife, to whom
he was always passionately attached, was able to show him attentions never
so freely bestowed when Society asserted its claims on them. Like Lord
Tenterden he gloried in the obstacles he had overcome, and used to point
to a small house in Cursitor Street, saying "There was my first perch;
many a time have I run down to Fleet Market to buy sixpennyworth of sprats
for supper."
Edward Lord Thurlow, who rose to the woolsack in 1778, was not always
affluent. After being called to the bar in 1758 he seldom had the means of
going on circuit, and it is asserted that on one occasion he reached the
assizes on a horse that _he had taken out on trial from London_. Lord
Chief Justice Kenyon is found guilty of having been poor on the evidence
of Horne Tooke, his constant companion when they were students, who, with
a friend named Dunning, used to dine with him in vacation-time at a small
eating-house in Chancery Lane, for 7-1/2_d._ a head. Says Tooke, "Dunning
and myself were generous for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny a
piece, but Kenyon rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with only a
promise."
Sir Samuel Romilly also says, "At a later period of my life--after a
success at the bar which my wildest and most sanguine dreams had never
painted to me--when I was gaining an income of L8000 or L9000 a year--I
have often reflected how all that prosperity had arisen out of the
pecuniary difficulties and confined circumstances of my father."
Lord Campbell, before he was Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor of
England, often knew the inconvenience of want of money. The son of the
Rev. Dr. Geo. Campbell, second minister of Cupar, Fifeshire, he was
educated at the local Grammar School and the University of St. Andrew's,
and though intended originally for the ministry, after spending some years
at college gave up the idea of the church, and went up to London to try
some more congenial occupation. His first appointment was as tutor to a
Mr. Webster, and while engaged in that capacity he penned the following
letter:
"My dear brother,--I live very economically; I dine at home for a
shilling, go to the coffee-house once a day, 4_d._, to the theatre once a
week, 3_s._ 6_d._ My pen will keep me in pocket-money. I this day begin a
job which I must finish in a fortnight, and for which I am promised two
guineas, but alas! Willy Thompson paymaster. He owes me divers yellow-boys
already. I go no farther than write the history of the last war in India
for him till he pays me all."
After this he obtained the post of reporter and dramatic critic to the
_Morning Chronicle_, but in 1800 he determined to try the law, and entered
himself a student of Lincoln's Inn. At this time, however, there was a
strong feeling against one of their set having anything to do with
journalism, so that his position was uncomfortable and mortifying, and his
reporting prevented him from forming any acquaintance with his
fellow-students. He entered a special pleader's office in 1804, and in
June 1805, was able exultingly to announce that "he was no longer a
newspaper man." Called to the bar in 1806, he became a bencher in 1827;
member of Parliament for Stafford in 1830; Solicitor-General in 1832;
Attorney-General in 1834; Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1841; Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1846 (in which year he produced his
celebrated work 'The Lives of the Chancellors'); Lord Chief Justice in
1850, and Lord Chancellor in 1859.
Sir Rowland Hill, to whom we are indebted for the penny postage system,
was the son of a Birmingham schoolmaster, a man of simple, but high
character. An outbuilding attached to their house contained benches,
blacksmith's forge, and a vice. Here Rowland and his brother spent much
spare time and cash, which latter he remarks was very scanty. "Ever since
I can remember," he writes, "I have had a taste for mechanics, but the
best mechanician wants materials and materials cost money," and this want
caused his brother and himself on Good Friday morning to turn tradesmen.
They had been sent with a basket to buy a quantity of hot cross buns for
the family and as they went along were much amused by the itinerant
vendors, who were calling out, as was the custom in Birmingham then,
"Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns! One a penny, two a penny, hot cross
buns,
Sugar 'em, and butter 'em, and clap 'em in your muns, one a penny,
two a penny, hot cross buns."
On their way home the boys in the pure spirit of fun began to repeat the
cry, Matthew, the elder, being a capable mimic; and to their surprise they
found the public respond to their offers, the result being that the
youngsters soon "sold out," and had to return for more to the wholesale
establishment, the difference in this case between buying and selling
being, as is usual, very well worth the trouble. When the family lived at
Hill Top, his mother presented Rowland with a portion of the garden for
his own use, covered with horehound, which he was about to root out to
make way for his flowers, when he was given to understand that the
horehound possessed a monetary value. Immediately on discovering this, he
cut it up carefully, tied it in bundles, and borrowing a basket from his
mother started off to the market-place, where he took up his position with
all the air of a regular trader, but was saved the bother of retail
dealing by disposing of his entire stock for eightpence to a woman
standing near, who he presumed made a hundred per cent. by the
transaction, though with true business tact she complained of her
purchase, and told him to tell his mother, "she must tie up bigger bunches
next time." The proceeds of the sale went to purchase some tools and
materials for the mechanical contrivances spoken of.
The early years of Benjamin Franklin (one of a family of seventeen) were
uncongenially spent with his father, a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler,
and his brother, a printer. When seventeen years old he sold his books and
took a passage from Boston to New York, whence he was advised to proceed
to Philadelphia in search of work. On arriving there he tells us that he
was "fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want of sleep, and very
hungry: my whole stock of cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a
shilling in copper coin, which I gave to the boatmen for my passage. At
first they refused it, on account of my having rowed: but I insisted on
their taking it. Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money
than when he has plenty, perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but
little. I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about till near
Market Street, where I met a boy with bread. I had often made a meal of
dry bread, and inquiring where he had bought it, I went immediately to the
baker's he directed me to. I asked for biscuits, meaning such as we had in
Boston. That sort it seems was not made in Philadelphia. I then asked for
a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none. Not knowing the different
prices, nor the names of the different sorts of bread, I told him to give
me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me accordingly, three great puffy
rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it; and having no room in
my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.
Thus I went up Market Street, as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door
of Mr. Read, my future wife's father, when she, standing at the door, saw
me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous
appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street, and part of
Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found myself
again at Market Street Wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for
a draught of the river water; gave my other rolls to a woman and her child
that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go
farther. Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time
had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
joined them, and thereby was led into the great Meeting House of the
Quakers, near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking round
awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labour and want
of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the
meeting broke up, when some one was kind enough to rouse me. This,
therefore, was the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."
A strange beginning to the career of one who, in addition to his valuable
discoveries in electricity, lived to attain the highest honours his
country could bestow, and to be the ambassador to foreign countries; whose
marvellous intelligence carried out diplomatic undertakings which
undoubtedly affected the destinies of nations. It is interesting to note,
now that electricity plays such a leading part in the inventions of the
day, that when Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning
and electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, "Of what use is it?"
To which he replied, "What is the use of a child? It may become a man."
William Cobbett is another example of the wonderful results to be attained
by temperance, frugality, and unflagging industry, who, originally an
uninteresting yokel, rose to be a power in the land, to edit political
papers, to write political pamphlets (one of which had a circulation of
100,000), and to pen, amongst other most important matter, a volume of
'Advice to Young Men,' which, if followed by the rising generation, could
not fail to make them more worthy the name of Englishmen. At the time
referred to, when he was eleven years old, he was employed in the Bishop
of Winchester's garden at Farnham Castle, and happening to hear of the
royal gardens at Kew, he thought that he should like to be employed there,
started off next morning with only the clothes he was wearing, and
sixpence halfpenny in his pocket, he arrived at Richmond towards evening,
having expended threepence halfpenny on bread and cheese and small beer
and as he jogged along tired and weary with his walk of thirty miles he
was attracted to a bookseller's window, in which was displayed a
second-hand copy of Swift's 'Tale of a Tub,' price 3_d._ He expended his
remaining coppers on its purchase, sat down in an adjoining field, read
till he could see no longer, then putting the book into his pocket he
dropped off to sleep by the side of a haystack. In the morning, roused by
the birds, he continued his journey to Kew Gardens, where he succeeded in
getting engaged by an old Scotch gardener. A year, or two after this, when
he was working again in his native town of Farnham, the old idea of
getting into a larger field of action came back to him, and while waiting
one day for some young women whom he had arranged to escort to Guildford
fair, he was tempted by the sight of the London coach, secured the one
vacant place, and before he had time to realise the importance of the
step, was being whirled away in the direction of the metropolis. When he
arrived the next morning at the Saracen's Head on Ludgate Hill, his
possessions amounted to two shillings and sixpence, but fortunately he had
managed to interest a hop merchant, one of his fellow-passengers, who took
him home, and in the course of a day or two managed to obtain a situation
for him in a lawyer's office. Here he soon discovered that he had made a
"miserable exchange," for his want of skill as a penman made his duties
exceptionally irksome, and his close, confined lodging was very wretched
to one coming fresh from fields musical with the sweet songsters of the
spring.
Eight months later, he enlisted in the 54th regiment of foot, and was
ordered to Nova Scotia in twelve months. Here in five years, by temperance
and industry, he managed (doing clerical work for the quarter-master and
pay-sergeant) to save L150, and it was while serving with this regiment
that he acquired a knowledge of Lindley Murray. "I learned grammar," he
says, "when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge
of my berth was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit
of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand
anything like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil;
in winter time I could rarely get any evening light but that of the fire,
and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and
without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this
undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, however
pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other
conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego
some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; I had no
moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and to write
amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least
half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours
of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the farthing that
I had to give now and then, for pen, ink, or paper! That farthing was,
alas! a great sum to me! I was tall as I am now; I had great health and
great exercise. The whole of the money not expended for us at market was
twopence a week for each man. I remember, and well I may, that on one
occasion, I, after all necessary expenses, had on a Friday made shifts to
have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a
red herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at night, so
hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I had lost
my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and
cried like a child!"
Wonderful, however, as were the achievements of Franklin and Cobbett in
self-education, they were both eclipsed by Elihu Burritt. The son of a
shoemaker, he was at the age of sixteen apprenticed to the "village
blacksmith," and from that time applied himself to the study of languages
with such success, that he mastered French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, Danish, Syriac, Samaritan, Turkish,
Ethiopic and Persian. To understand how he accomplished this, we take a
glance at his diary.
"_Monday, June 18_: Headache; forty pages Cuvier's 'Theory of the Earth,'
sixty-four pages French, eleven hours' forging. _Tuesday_: sixty-five
lines of Hebrew, thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier's 'Theory,'
eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto
Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours' forging. _Wednesday_:
twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, seven hours' forging.
_Thursday_: fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours'
forging. _Friday_: unwell; twelve hours' forging. _Saturday_: unwell;
fifty pages of Natural History, ten hours' forging. _Sunday_: lessons for
Bible class."
There were times when, for a short season, he abandoned the anvil, and
devoted his whole time to study; but after a few months' absence from the
forge he would return to earn money for his support, and for the purchase
of books. Hearing one day of an Antiquarian Library at Worcester, U.S., he
determined to go there to work as a journeyman, for the sake of obtaining
access to such rare books, and started off to walk. It was a long journey,
and when he reached Boston Bridge, footsore and weary, he encountered a
waggon being driven by a boy, who was going to Worcester, forty miles
distant. All his valuables consisted of a dollar and an old silver watch.
He availed himself of the chance of a lift, but felt reluctant to part
with his single dollar, and suggested that the waggoner should take his
watch, which, if properly repaired, would be worth a great deal more than
his indebtedness, also suggesting that, in the event of the boy having the
watch mended, he should give Burritt the difference in money if they met
again in Worcester.
The young blacksmith obtained work on his arrival, and some short time
after received a visit from the waggon lad, who honourably brought him a
few dollars, the estimated difference. Some years afterwards Burritt
happened to be travelling from Worcester to New Britain by railway, when
he was accosted by a handsome, well-dressed fellow-traveller.
"You have forgotten me, Mr. Burritt?"
Burritt was obliged to confess that he had.
"Oh," said he, "I'm the boy to whom you gave the watch. I'm now a student
of Harvard College."
After chatting for a bit, Burritt said,--
"I should like to have that watch back again."
"You shall," said the student. "I sold it, but I know where it is."
In a few days he received the watch, which hung for many years in his
printing-office as a memento of early vicissitudes.
Michael Faraday, unquestionably one of the greatest English chemists and
natural philosophers, had few educational advantages before he was
apprenticed to a bookbinder in Blandford Street, Manchester Square, and
while working at his trade he constructed an electrical machine and other
scientific apparatus. These having been seen by his master, Mr. Riebau, he
called the attention of Mr. Dance to them, and he took the boy with him to
hear the last four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal
Institution. Faraday took copious notes of the lectures, and afterwards
wrote them out fairly in a quarto volume, and sent it to Sir Humphry,
begging him for employment, that he might quit the trade he hated, and
follow science, which he loved. The answer is a model of kindness and
courtesy:
"_December 24th, 1812._
"SIR,
"I am far from displeased with the proof you have given me of your
confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of memory, and
attention. I am obliged to go out of town, and shall not be settled in
town till the end of January. I will then see you at any time you
wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you. I wish it may
be in my power.
"I am, sir,
"Your obedient, humble servant,
"H. DAVY."
Through Sir Humphry's interest, Faraday obtained the post of assistant in
the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where he remained ever
afterwards, eventually becoming its first professor. Tyndall says of
Faraday, "His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and
elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but
let me not forget its union with modesty, tenderness, and sweetness in
the character of Faraday.... Taking the duration of his life into account,
this son of a blacksmith and apprentice to a bookbinder had to decide
between a fortune of L150,000 on the one side, and his unendowed science
on the other. He chose the latter, and died a poor man. But his was the
glory of holding aloft among the nations the scientific name of England
for a period of forty years." In 1835, when Sir Robert Peel retired from
office, he recommended Faraday to William IV. for a pension of L300. The
minute was placed in the hands of Lord Melbourne, Peel's successor, who
saw Faraday, and involved him in religious and political discussion,
wanting to entrap the philosopher into a promise to support the
Government. Failing in this, Lord Melbourne said, "I look upon the whole
system of giving pensions to literary and scientific people as a piece of
gross humbug." To which Faraday replied, "After this, my lord, I see that
my business with you is ended. I wish you good morning." The next day Lord
Melbourne received the following letter:
"MY LORD,
"After the pithy manner in which your Lordship was pleased to express
your sentiments on the subject of pensions that have been granted to
literary and scientific persons, it only remains for me to relieve
you, as far as I am concerned, from all further uneasiness. I will not
accept any favour at your hands nor at the hands of any Cabinet of
which you are a member.
"M. FARADAY."
It is said that for some years Faraday's income never exceeded L22 a year,
and it is a fact that when a youth he was much exercised about the
purchase of an electrical machine which he had seen in an optician's
window, price 4_s._ 6_d._ He had no money, but out of his dinner allowance
he saved the requisite sum, and this machine was the one he used in all
those early experiments which led to some of his great discoveries.