CHAPTER III.

Humble Station no Obstacle. Epictetus; Protagoras; Cleanthes; Hauy; Winckelman; Arnigio; Duval.-Affectation of high Birth. Bandinelli; Scaliger.-Men proud of their low Origin. Protogones; Baudouin; Gelli.-Obscure Origin. Metastasio; Haydn; Opie; Parini; Prideaux; Saunders; Linnæus; Lomonosoff; B. Jonson; the Milners; John Hunter.-Application of Examples.

THE difficulties which Heyne had to encounter in his pursuit of knowledge commenced with his life itself-his very birth throwing him out of the sphere of those excitements by which even the desire of knowledge is generally kindled. Yet this is a disadvantage which, great as it is, aspiring minds have often overcome. Of the ancient authors, not to mention the well-known case of ESOP, PUBLIUS SYRUS, and TERENCE were both originally slaves. EPICTETUS, the celebrated Stoic philosopher, was born in the same condition, and spent many years of his life in servitude. Having been at last fortunate enough to obtain his freedom, he retired to a small hut; and when he was barely able to procure the necessaries of life, devoted himself to the study of philosophy. A treatise of this writer was one of the works edited by Heyne, while at Dresden; and he used to relate that his fortitude, amid the difficulties that he had to struggle with at the time, was not a little strengthened and upheld by the precepts of severe virtue and determined endurance, which he found in the pages of the old philosopher. Epictetus's own conduct was strikingly in conformity with the lessons he taught, at least if we may believe one of the stories which are told of him, It is said, that

before he had obtained his liberty, his master, who was a very brutal man, chose one day to amuse himself by twisting the leg of his slave. "You will break it for me," remarked Epictetus. Immediately after, it happened as he had said. "I told you so,' ," added the philosopher, with all the indifference in the world. He lived at Rome in a house without a door; and with no furniture, except a table, a small bedstead, and a wretched coverlet; and this even at a time when he enjoyed the greatest familiarity with the Emperor Adrian. One day he was extravagant enough to purchase for himself a lamp made of iron; but he was punished for this deviation from his usual habits, by a thief soon after finding his way into the house, and running off with it. "He shall be cheated," said Epictetus, "if he come back to-morrow, for he shall find only an earthen one." PROTAGORAS,too, another of the Greek philosophers, had been a common porter, before he applied to study. He lived at Abdera, in Thrace, the same town in which resided the famous Democritus, commonly called the Laughing Philosopher, who one day met him carrying into the city a very heavy load of wood on his back, and was a good deal surprised on perceiving that the pieces were piled on one another exactly in the way best adapted to make the burthen rest easily on the shoulders. In order to discover whether this geometrical arrangement was the effect of skill or chance, he requested the young man to unbind the load, and make it up again in the same manner: this Protagoras immediately did with great dexterity; upon which Democritus, convinced that his talents were of a superior order, admitted him forthwith among his disciples, and spared no pains in instructing him in the different branches both of natural and moral philosophy. And, to mention no more instances, CLEANTHES, another

of the Stoics, was brought up to the profession of a pugilist, and used to exhibit himself in that character at the public games; till, longing to study philosophy, he betook himself for that purpose to Athens, where he arrived with only three drachms (about three shillings and sixpence) in his pocket. In these circumstances he was obliged, for his support, to employ himself in drawing water, carrying burdens, and other such humble and laborious occupations. He contrived, however to proceed with his studies at the same time, bringing his fee of an obolus, or penny, every day to his master, Zeno, with great punctuality. On the death of Zeno, he succeeded him in his school, but still continued his menial labours as usual. draw water," he was wont to say, "and do any other sort of work which presents itself, that I may give myself up to philosophy, without being a burthen to any one." He was so poor, indeed, that the wind having blown aside his mantle one day when he happened to be present at one of the public shews, his fellow-citizens perceived that he had no tunic, or under garment, and gave him one. He was always treated, notwithstanding his poverty, with the greatest respect at Athens.

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In modern times we have many examples, also, of persons whom the love of knowledge has found in the lowest obscurity, and who have possessed themselves of the highest acquirements in science or literature, in spite of every disadvantage of birth. Heyne, as we have mentioned, was the son of a poor weaver. So was the Abbé HAUY, who died in Paris a few years ago, celebrated for his writings and discoveries in Chrystallography-a science, indeed, of which he may be almost considered as the founder. It is the science which treats of those curious regular figures which so many solid bodies are found to possess in their

natural state, or which they may be made to assume artificially, by dissolving or fusing them, and then allowing their particles to return to a state of solidity, which latter process is called their chrystallization. Now it happens that the same substance is not found to have always the same figure externally when in a chrystallized state, but is susceptible of several different forms, some of which do not appear at first to have any resemblance to each other. All preceding inquirers had been very much perplexed by this circumstance, in their attempts to establish a theory of chrystallized bodies; and various principles had been successively adopted and rejected as the foundations of a scientific arrangement of them. At length the attention of Haüy was directed to the subject, by having accidentally picked up an uncommonly beautiful specimen of calcareous spar, which presented the figure of a six-sided prism, and had been detached from a group of similar crystals. By trying to split this specimen in various directions with the blade of a knife, and dividing it only where he found a natural joint, he at last reduced it to the form of a rhomboid, or oblongated cube, which it retained in spite of all subsequent sections. Now this is exactly the form in which another calcareous spar, called Iceland Spar, is commonly found; whence Haüy was led to suspect that, by the application of the process he had employed, all chrystallized substances of the same species might be reduced to the same primitive form. This idea he pursued with exceeding ingenuity; till, by means not only of his unparalleled dexterity in the dissection of chrystals, but of a most masterly combination of algebraical and geometrical reasoning, he rested his theory upon grounds which would almost lead to the conclusion, that the principle is of universal application, and that it is only necessary to strip

them of their external coatings to discover the same radical figure in all crystals of the same species.

But, to proceed; the celebrated WINCKELMAN, one of the most distinguished writers on classic antiquities and the fine arts that modern times have produced, was the son of a shoemaker. His father, after vainly endeavouring for some time, at the expense of many sacrifices, to give him a learned education, was at last obliged, from age and ill health, to retire to an hospital, where he was, in his turn, supported for several years in part by the hard labours of his son, who, aided by the kindness of his professors, contrived to keep himself at college, chiefly by teaching some of his younger or less-advanced fellow-students. BARTHOLOMEW ARNI GIO, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, of considerable genius and learning, followed his father's trade of a blacksmith till he was eighteen years old, when he began of his own accord to apply to his studies; and by availing himself of the aid sometimes of one friend, and sometimes of another, prepared himself at last for entering the University of Padua. VALENTINE JAMERAY DUVAL, a very able antiquarian of the last century, and who at the time of his death held the office of keeper of the imperial medals at Vienna, as well as that of one of the preceptors to the prince, afterwards the Emperor Joseph II., was the son of a poor peasant of Champagne, and lost his father when he was ten years of age. He was then taken into the service of a farmer in the village; but being soon after turned off for some petty fault, he resolved to leave his native place altogether, that he might not be a burthen to his mother. So he set out on his travels, without knowing in what direction he was proceeding, in the beginning of a dreadful winter; and for some time begged in vain even for a crust of bread and shelter against the inclemency of