which contained a collection of books that had been left by a former lodger of his master's, gradually formed in him so strong an attachment to study, and especially to natural history, to which many of the volumes related (their original possessor having been a medical gentleman), that he resolved to give up commerce, and to dedicate his life to literature and science. The late eminent French botanist, VILLARS, in like manner, after having set out in life as a farmer, suddenly became enamoured of natural science, from looking into an old work on medicine which he chanced to find at a house where he was staying.

The French dramatist, JoLY, was the son of a keeper of a coffee-house in Paris, where a sort of literary club was wont to meet. One evening a tale of Madame de Murat's was the subject of their conversation; and the warm encomiums they united in bestowing upon it arrested in an extraordinary degree the attention of Joly. As soon as the club broke up he retired to his bedroom, spent the night in writing, and, before morning, had contrived the plan of a drama in verse, and advanced a considerable way in its composition. A few days more enabled him to complete his work; which, to the astonishment of his father's literary guests, he put into their hands at their next meeting, requesting their opinion of it. The proposal of having the performance read excited at first only the merriment of the assembled critics; but its merits were soon felt and acknowledged; and, when it had been heard to the end, there was only one opinion as to the certainty of its success if it should be represented on the stage. Accordingly, the piece, entitled a 'School for Lovers,' in three acts, was brought out, and received with great applause. Joly now gave himself up to literature; but, although he afterwards produced several other dramatic compositions, it is remarked that

scarcely any of them equalled his first performance. The late French orientalist, JOURDAIN, was originally intended for the law, and had been placed with a notary, when, in the year 1805, the admiration he heard bestowed upon Anquetil Du Perron, then newly dead, who had in his youth enlisted as a private soldier in a corps going to India, in order that he might enjoy an opportunity of studying the eastern languages, kindled in him an irresistible passion to devote himself to similar pursuits. Jourdain was

at this time only seventeen years of age, and died when just thirty. Yet in that short interval he had acquired a distinguished name as an oriental scholar, and had given to the world a variety of able works; among which may be especially mentioned a very learned statistical account of Persia, in five volumes, which appeared when the author was only in his twenty-sixth year.

We will mention only a very few other instances of the manner in which accidental, and apparently trivial, occurrences have sometimes operated in exciting latent genius. The Italian sculptor BANDINELLI, whose name has been mentioned in a former chapter, is said to have been first led to turn his thoughts to the art of statuary by a great fall of snow which happened when he was a boy at his native city of Florence. He fashioned a statue of the snow, which was conceived to give a striking indication of his talent for modelling. The late eminent English engraver, RICHARD EARLOM, is reported to have been originally inspired with a taste for the art of design, by seeing the ornaments on the Lord Mayor's state coach, which happened to have been painted by the elegant pencil of Cipriani. Another of our countrymen, highly distinguished as an engraver of scientific subjects, the late Mr. LowRY, was induced to embrace the profession in which he

afterwards acquired so much celebrity, by the accidental inspection, when he was about fifteen years of age, of a portfolio of prints by Woollet, another of our eminent engravers. Thus, too, the famous German printer, BREITKOPF, the inventor of moveable types for printing music, and of many other improvements in typography and letter-founding, was first inspired with a liking for his profession, which he had originally embraced on compulsion, by falling in with a work of Albert Durer, in which the shapes of the letters are deduced from mathematical principles.

The celebrated BERNARD PALISSY, to whom France was indebted, in the sixteenth century, for the introduction of the manufacture of enamelled pottery, had his attention first attracted to the art, his improvements in which form to this time the glory of his name among his countrymen, by having one day seen by chance a beautiful enamelled cup, which had been brought from Italy. He was then struggling to support his family by his attempts in the art of painting, in which he was self-taught; and it immediately occurred to him that, if he could discover the secret of making these cups, his toils and difficulties would be at an end. From that moment his whole thoughts were directed to this object; and in one of his works he has himself given us such an account of the unconquerable zeal with which he prosecuted his experiments, as it is impossible to read without the deepest interest. For some time he had little or nothing to expend upon the pursuit which he had so much at heart; but at last he happened to receive a considerable sum of money for a work which he had finished, and this enabled him to commence his researches. He spent the whole of his money, however, without meeting with any success, and he was now poorer than ever. Yet it was

in vain that his wife and his friends besought him to relinquish what they deemed his chimerical and ruinous project. He borrowed more money, with which he repeated his experiments; and, when he had no more fuel wherewith to feed his furnaces, he cut down his chairs and tables for that purpose. Still his success was inconsiderable. He was now actually obliged to give a person, who had assisted him, part of his clothes by way of remuneration, having nothing else left; and, with his wife and children starving before his eyes, and by their appearance silently reproaching him as the cause of their sufferings, he was at heart miserable enough. But he neither despaired, nor suffered his friends to know what he felt; preserving, in the midst of all his misery, a gay demeanour, and losing no opportunity of renewing his pursuit of the object which he all the while felt confident he should one day accomplish. And at last, after sixteen years of persevering exertion, his efforts were crowned with complete success, and his fortune was made. Palissy was, in all respects, one of the most extraordinary men of his time; in his moral character displaying a high-mindedness and commanding energy altogether in harmony with the reach and originality of conception by which his understanding was distinguished. Although a Protestant, he had escaped, through the royal favour, from the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but, having been soon after shut up in the Bastile, he was visited in his prison by the king, who told him, that if he did not comply with the established religion, he should be forced, however unwillingly, to leave him in the hands of his enemies. "Forced!" replied Palissy. "This is not to speak like a king; but they who force you cannot force me; I can die!" He never regained his liberty, but ended his life in the Bastile, in the ninetieth year of his age.

CHAPTER XIII.

Early Life of Franklin.

THE name we are now to mention is perhaps the most distinguished to be found in the annals of self-education. Of all those, at least, who, by their own efforts, and without any usurpation of the rights of others, have raised themselves to a high place in society, there is no one, as has been remarked, the close of whose history presents so great a contrast to its commencement as that of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. It fortunately happens, too, in his case, that we are in possession of abundant information as to the methods by which he contrived to surmount the many disadvantages of his original condition; to raise himself from the lowest poverty and obscurity to affluence and distinction; and, above all, in the absence of instructors, and of the ordinary helps to the acquisition of knowledge, to enrich himself so plentifully with the treasures of literature and science, as not only to be enabled to derive from that source the chief happiness of his life, but to succeed in placing himself high among the most famous writers and philosophers of his time. It is in this latter point of view, chiefly, that at present we purpose to consider him; and we shall avail ourselves, as liberally as our limits will permit, of the ample details, respecting the early part of his life especially, that have been given to the public, in order to present to the reader as full and distinct an account as possible of the successive steps of a progress so eminently worthy of being recorded, both from the interesting nature of the

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