p. 360Chapter XII — Example—Models

“Ever their phantoms rise before us,
  Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
By bed and table they lord it o’er us,
  With looks of beauty and words of
good.”—John Sterling.

“Children may be strangled, but Deeds never; they have
an indestructible life, both in and out of our
consciousness.”—George Eliot.

“There is no action of man in this life, which is not
the beginning of so long a chain of consequences, as that no
human providence is high enough to give us a prospect to the
end.”—Thomas of Malmesbury.

Example is one of the most potent
of instructors, though it teaches without a tongue. It is
the practical school of mankind, working by action, which is
always more forcible than words. Precept may point to us
the way, but it is silent continuous example, conveyed to us by
habits, and living with us in fact, that carries us along.
Good advice has its weight: but without the accompaniment of a
good example it is of comparatively small influence; and it will
be found that the common saying of “Do as I say, not as I
do,” is usually reversed in the actual experience of
life.

All persons are more or less apt to learn through the eye
rather than the ear; and, whatever is seen in fact, makes a far
deeper impression than anything that is merely read or
heard. This is especially the case in early youth, when the
eye is the chief inlet of knowledge. Whatever children see
they unconsciously imitate. They insensibly come to
resemble those who are about them—as insects take the
colour of the leaves they feed on. Hence the vast
importance of domestic training. For whatever may be the
efficiency of schools, the examples set in our Homes must always
be of vastly greater influence in forming the characters of our
future men and women. The Home is the crystal of
society—the nucleus of national character; and from that
source, be it pure or tainted, issue the habits, principles and
maxims, which govern public as well as private life. The
nation comes from the nursery. Public opinion itself is for
the most part the outgrowth of the home; and the best
philanthropy comes from the fireside. “To love the
little platoon we belong to in society,” says Burke,
“is the germ of all public affections.” From
this little central spot, the human sympathies may extend in an
ever widening circle, until the world is embraced; for, though
true philanthropy, like charity, begins at home, assuredly it
does not end there.

Example in conduct, therefore, even in apparently trivial
matters, is of no light moment, inasmuch as it is constantly
becoming inwoven with the lives of others, and contributing to
form their natures for better or for worse. The characters
of parents are thus constantly repeated in their children; and
the acts of affection, discipline, industry, and self-control,
which they daily exemplify, live and act when all else which may
have been learned through the ear has long been forgotten.
Hence a wise man was accustomed to speak of his children as his
“future state.” Even the mute action and
unconscious look of a parent may give a stamp to the character
which is never effaced; and who can tell how much evil act has
been stayed by the thought of some good parent, whose memory
their children may not sully by the commission of an unworthy
deed, or the indulgence of an impure thought? The veriest
trifles thus become of importance in influencing the characters
of men. “A kiss from my mother,” said West,
“made me a painter.” It is on the direction of
such seeming trifles when children that the future happiness and
success of men mainly depend. Fowell Buxton, when occupying
an eminent and influential station in life, wrote to his mother,
“I constantly feel, especially in action and exertion for
others, the effects of principles early implanted by you in my
mind.” Buxton was also accustomed to remember with
gratitude the obligations which he owed to an illiterate man, a
gamekeeper, named Abraham Plastow, with whom he played, and rode,
and sported—a man who could neither read nor write, but was
full of natural good sense and mother-wit. “What made
him particularly valuable,” says Buxton, “were his
principles of integrity and honour. He never said or did a
thing in the absence of my mother of which she would have
disapproved. He always held up the highest standard of
integrity, and filled our youthful minds with sentiments as pure
and as generous as could be found in the writings of Seneca or
Cicero. Such was my first instructor, and, I must add, my
best.”

Lord Langdale, looking back upon the admirable example set him
by his mother, declared, “If the whole world were put into
one scale, and my mother into the other, the world would kick the
beam.” Mrs. Schimmel Penninck, in her old age, was
accustomed to call to mind the personal influence exercised by
her mother upon the society amidst which she moved. When
she entered a room it had the effect of immediately raising the
tone of the conversation, and as if purifying the moral
atmosphere—all seeming to breathe more freely, and stand
more erectly. “In her presence,” says the
daughter, “I became for the time transformed into another
person.” So much does she moral health depend upon
the moral atmosphere that is breathed, and so great is the
influence daily exercised by parents over their children by
living a life before their eyes, that perhaps the best system of
parental instruction might be summed up in these two words:
“Improve thyself.”

There is something solemn and awful in the thought that there
is not an act done or a word uttered by a human being but carries
with it a train of consequences, the end of which we may never
trace. Not one but, to a certain extent, gives a colour to
our life, and insensibly influences the lives of those about
us. The good deed or word will live, even though we may not
see it fructify, but so will the bad; and no person is so
insignificant as to be sure that his example will not do good on
the one hand, or evil on the other. The spirits of men do
not die: they still live and walk abroad among us. It was a
fine and a true thought uttered by Mr. Disraeli in the House of
Commons on the death of Richard Cobden, that “he was one of
those men who, though not present, were still members of that
House, who were independent of dissolutions, of the caprices of
constituencies, and even of the course of time.”

There is, indeed, an essence of immortality in the life of
man, even in this world. No individual in the universe
stands alone; he is a component part of a system of mutual
dependencies; and by his several acts he either increases or
diminishes the sum of human good now and for ever. As the
present is rooted in the past, and the lives and examples of our
forefathers still to a great extent influence us, so are we by
our daily acts contributing to form the condition and character
of the future. Man is a fruit formed and ripened by the
culture of all the foregoing centuries; and the living generation
continues the magnetic current of action and example destined to
bind the remotest past with the most distant future. No
man’s acts die utterly; and though his body may resolve
into dust and air, his good or his bad deeds will still be
bringing forth fruit after their kind, and influencing future
generations for all time to come. It is in this momentous
and solemn fact that the great peril and responsibility of human
existence lies.

Mr. Babbage has so powerfully expressed this idea in a noble
passage in one of his writings that we here venture to quote his
words: “Every atom,” he says, “impressed with
good or ill, retains at once the motions which philosophers and
sages have imparted to it, mixed and combined in ten thousand
ways with all that is worthless and base; the air itself is one
vast library, on whose pages are written for ever all that
man has ever said or whispered. There, in their immutable
but unerring characters, mixed with the earliest as well as the
latest sighs of mortality, stand for ever recorded vows
unredeemed, promises unfulfilled; perpetuating, in the united
movements of each particle, the testimony of man’s
changeful will. But, if the air we breathe is the
never-failing historian of the sentiments we have uttered, earth,
air, and ocean, are, in like manner, the eternal witnesses of the
acts we have done; the same principle of the equality of action
and reaction applies to them. No motion impressed by
natural causes, or by human agency, is ever obliterated. . . . If
the Almighty stamped on the brow of the first murderer the
indelible and visible mark of his guilt, He has also established
laws by which every succeeding criminal is not less irrevocably
chained to the testimony of his crime; for every atom of his
mortal frame, through whatever changes its severed particles may
migrate, will still retain adhering to it, through every
combination, some movement derived from that very muscular effort
by which the crime itself was perpetrated.”

Thus, every act we do or word we utter, as well as every act
we witness or word we hear, carries with it an influence which
extends over, and gives a colour, not only to the whole of our
future life, but makes itself felt upon the whole frame of
society. We may not, and indeed cannot, possibly, trace the
influence working itself into action in its various ramifications
amongst our children, our friends, or associates; yet there it is
assuredly, working on for ever. And herein lies the great
significance of setting forth a good example,—a silent
teaching which even the poorest and least significant person can
practise in his daily life. There is no one so humble, but
that he owes to others this simple but priceless
instruction. Even the meanest condition may thus be made
useful; for the light set in a low place shines as faithfully as
that set upon a hill. Everywhere, and under almost all
circumstances, however externally adverse—in moorland
shielings, in cottage hamlets, in the close alleys of great
towns—the true man may grow. He who tills a space of
earth scarce bigger than is needed for his grave, may work as
faithfully, and to as good purpose, as the heir to
thousands. The commonest workshop may thus be a school of
industry, science, and good morals, on the one hand; or of
idleness, folly, and depravity, on the other. It all
depends on the individual men, and the use they make of the
opportunities for good which offer themselves.

A life well spent, a character uprightly sustained, is no
slight legacy to leave to one’s children, and to the world;
for it is the most eloquent lesson of virtue and the severest
reproof of vice, while it continues an enduring source of the
best kind of riches. Well for those who can say, as Pope
did, in rejoinder to the sarcasm of Lord Hervey, “I think
it enough that my parents, such as they were, never cost me a
blush, and that their son, such as he is, never cost them a
tear.”

It is not enough to tell others what they are to do, but to
exhibit the actual example of doing. What Mrs. Chisholm
described to Mrs. Stowe as the secret of her success, applies to
all life. “I found,” she said, “that if
we want anything done, we must go to work and do:
it is of no use merely to talk—none whatever.”
It is poor eloquence that only shows how a person can talk.
Had Mrs. Chisholm rested satisfied with lecturing, her project,
she was persuaded, would never have got beyond the region of
talk; but when people saw what she was doing and had actually
accomplished, they fell in with her views and came forward to
help her. Hence the most beneficent worker is not he who
says the most eloquent things, or even who thinks the most
loftily, but he who does the most eloquent acts.

True-hearted persons, even in the humblest station in life,
who are energetic doers, may thus give an impulse to good works
out of all proportion, apparently, to their actual station in
society. Thomas Wright might have talked about the
reclamation of criminals, and John Pounds about the necessity for
Ragged Schools, and yet done nothing; instead of which they
simply set to work without any other idea in their minds than
that of doing, not talking. And how the example of even the
poorest man may tell upon society, hear what Dr. Guthrie, the
apostle of the Ragged School movement, says of the influence
which the example of John Pounds, the humble Portsmouth cobbler,
exercised upon his own working career:—

“The interest I have been led to take in this cause is
an example of how, in Providence, a man’s destiny—his
course of life, like that of a river—may be determined and
affected by very trivial circumstances. It is rather
curious—at least it is interesting to me to
remember—that it was by a picture I was first led to take
an interest in ragged schools—by a picture in an old,
obscure, decaying burgh that stands on the shores of the Frith of
Forth, the birthplace of Thomas Chalmers. I went to see
this place many years ago; and, going into an inn for
refreshment, I found the room covered with pictures of
shepherdesses with their crooks, and sailors in holiday attire,
not particularly interesting. But above the chimney-piece
there was a large print, more respectable than its neighbours,
which represented a cobbler’s room. The cobbler was
there himself, spectacles on nose, an old shoe between his
knees—the massive forehead and firm mouth indicating great
determination of character, and, beneath his bushy eyebrows,
benevolence gleamed out on a number of poor ragged boys and girls
who stood at their lessons round the busy cobbler. My
curiosity was awakened; and in the inscription I read how this
man, John Pounds, a cobbler in Portsmouth, taking pity on the
multitude of poor ragged children left by ministers and
magistrates, and ladies and gentlemen, to go to ruin on the
streets—how, like a good shepherd, he gathered in these
wretched outcasts—how he had trained them to God and to the
world—and how, while earning his daily bread by the sweat
of his brow, he had rescued from misery and saved to society not
less than five hundred of these children. I felt ashamed of
myself. I felt reproved for the little I had done. My
feelings were touched. I was astonished at this man’s
achievements; and I well remember, in the enthusiasm of the
moment, saying to my companion (and I have seen in my cooler and
calmer moments no reason for unsaying the
saying)—‘That man is an honour to humanity, and
deserves the tallest monument ever raised within the shores of
Britain.’ I took up that man’s history, and I
found it animated by the spirit of Him who ‘had compassion
on the multitude.’ John Pounds was a clever man
besides; and, like Paul, if he could not win a poor boy any other
way, he won him by art. He would be seen chasing a ragged
boy along the quays, and compelling him to come to school, not by
the power of a policeman, but by the power of a hot potato.
He knew the love an Irishman had for a potato; and John Pounds
might be seen running holding under the boy’s nose a
potato, like an Irishman, very hot, and with a coat as ragged as
himself. When the day comes when honour will be done to
whom honour is due, I can fancy the crowd of those whose fame
poets have sung, and to whose memory monuments have been raised,
dividing like the wave, and, passing the great, and the noble,
and the mighty of the land, this poor, obscure old man stepping
forward and receiving the especial notice of Him who said
‘Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye did
it also to Me.’”

The education of character is very much a question of models;
we mould ourselves so unconsciously after the characters,
manners, habits, and opinions of those who are about us.
Good rules may do much, but good models far more; for in the
latter we have instruction in action—wisdom at work.
Good admonition and bad example only build with one hand to pull
down with the other. Hence the vast importance of
exercising great care in the selection of companions, especially
in youth. There is a magnetic affinity in young persons
which insensibly tends to assimilate them to each other’s
likeness. Mr. Edgeworth was so strongly convinced that from
sympathy they involuntarily imitated or caught the tone of the
company they frequented, that he held it to be of the most
essential importance that they should be taught to select the
very best models. “No company, or good
company,” was his motto. Lord Collingwood, writing to
a young friend, said, “Hold it as a maxim that you had
better be alone than in mean company. Let your companions
be such as yourself, or superior; for the worth of a man will
always be ruled by that of his company.” It was a
remark of the famous Dr. Sydenham that everybody some time or
other would be the better or the worse for having but spoken to a
good or a bad man. As Sir Peter Lely made it a rule never
to look at a bad picture if he could help it, believing that
whenever he did so his pencil caught a taint from it, so, whoever
chooses to gaze often upon a debased specimen of humanity and to
frequent his society, cannot help gradually assimilating himself
to that sort of model.

It is therefore advisable for young men to seek the fellowship
of the good, and always to aim at a higher standard than
themselves. Francis Horner, speaking of the advantages to
himself of direct personal intercourse with high-minded,
intelligent men, said, “I cannot hesitate to decide that I
have derived more intellectual improvement from them than from
all the books I have turned over.” Lord Shelburne
(afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), when a young man, paid a visit
to the venerable Malesherbes, and was so much impressed by it,
that he said,—“I have travelled much, but I have
never been so influenced by personal contact with any man; and if
I ever accomplish any good in the course of my life, I am certain
that the recollection of M. de Malesherbes will animate my
soul.” So Fowell Buxton was always ready to
acknowledge the powerful influence exercised upon the formation
of his character in early life by the example of the Gurney
family: “It has given a colour to my life,” he used
to say. Speaking of his success at the Dublin University,
he confessed, “I can ascribe it to nothing but my Earlham
visits.” It was from the Gurneys he “caught the
infection” of self-improvement.

Contact with the good never fails to impart good, and we carry
away with us some of the blessing, as travellers’ garments
retain the odour of the flowers and shrubs through which they
have passed. Those who knew the late John Sterling
intimately, have spoken of the beneficial influence which he
exercised on all with whom he came into personal contact.
Many owed to him their first awakening to a higher being; from
him they learnt what they were, and what they ought to be.
Mr. Trench says of him:—“It was impossible to come in
contact with his noble nature without feeling one’s self in
some measure ennobled and lifted up, as I ever felt
when I left him, into a higher region of objects and aims than
that in which one is tempted habitually to dwell.” It
is thus that the noble character always acts; we become
insensibly elevated by him, and cannot help feeling as he does
and acquiring the habit of looking at things in the same
light. Such is the magical action and reaction of minds
upon each other.

Artists, also, feel themselves elevated by contact with
artists greater than themselves. Thus Haydn’s genius
was first fired by Handel. Hearing him play, Haydn’s
ardour for musical composition was at once excited, and but for
this circumstance, he himself believed that he would never have
written the ‘Creation.’ Speaking of Handel, he
said, “When he chooses, he strikes like the
thunderbolt;” and at another time, “There is not a
note of him but draws blood.” Scarlatti was another
of Handel’s ardent admirers, following him all over Italy;
afterwards, when speaking of the great master, he would cross
himself in token of admiration. True artists never fail
generously to recognise each other’s greatness. Thus
Beethoven’s admiration for Cherubini was regal: and he
ardently hailed the genius of Schubert: “Truly,” said
he, “in Schubert dwells a divine fire.” When
Northcote was a mere youth he had such an admiration for Reynolds
that, when the great painter was once attending a public meeting
down in Devonshire, the boy pushed through the crowd, and got so
near Reynolds as to touch the skirt of his coat, “which I
did,” says Northcote, “with great satisfaction to my
mind,”—a true touch of youthful enthusiasm in its
admiration of genius.

The example of the brave is an inspiration to the timid, their
presence thrilling through every fibre. Hence the miracles
of valour so often performed by ordinary men under the leadership
of the heroic. The very recollection of the deeds of the
valiant stirs men’s blood like the sound of a
trumpet. Ziska bequeathed his skin to be used as a drum to
inspire the valour of the Bohemians. When Scanderbeg,
prince of Epirus, was dead, the Turks wished to possess his
bones, that each might wear a piece next his heart, hoping thus
to secure some portion of the courage he had displayed while
living, and which they had so often experienced in battle.
When the gallant Douglas, bearing the heart of Bruce to the Holy
Land, saw one of his knights surrounded and sorely pressed by the
Saracens, he took from his neck the silver case containing the
hero’s bequest, and throwing it amidst the thickest press
of his foes, cried, “Pass first in fight, as thou wert wont
to do, and Douglas will follow thee, or die;” and so
saying, he rushed forward to the place where it fell, and was
there slain.

The chief use of biography consists in the noble models of
character in which it abounds. Our great forefathers still
live among us in the records of their lives, as well as in the
acts they have done, which live also; still sit by us at table,
and hold us by the hand; furnishing examples for our benefit,
which we may still study, admire and imitate. Indeed,
whoever has left behind him the record of a noble life, has
bequeathed to posterity an enduring source of good, for it serves
as a model for others to form themselves by in all time to come;
still breathing fresh life into men, helping them to reproduce
his life anew, and to illustrate his character in other
forms. Hence a book containing the life of a true man is
full of precious seed. It is a still living voice; it is an
intellect. To use Milton’s words, “it is the
precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up
on purpose to a life beyond life.” Such a book never
ceases to exercise an elevating and ennobling influence.
But, above all, there is the Book containing the very highest
Example set before us to shape our lives by in this
world—the most suitable for all the necessities of our mind
and heart—an example which we can only follow afar off and
feel after,

“Like plants or vines which never saw the
sun,
But dream of him and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.”

Again, no young man can rise from the perusal of such lives as
those of Buxton and Arnold, without feeling his mind and heart
made better, and his best resolves invigorated. Such
biographies increase a man’s self-reliance by demonstrating
what men can be, and what they can do; fortifying his hopes and
elevating his aims in life. Sometimes a young man discovers
himself in a biography, as Correggio felt within him the risings
of genius on contemplating the works of Michael Angelo:
“And I too, am a painter,” he exclaimed. Sir
Samuel Romilly, in his autobiography, confessed himself to have
been powerfully influenced by the life of the great and
noble-minded French Chancellor Daguesseau:—“The works
of Thomas,” says he, “had fallen into my hands, and I
had read with admiration his ‘Eloge of Daguesseau;’
and the career of honour which he represented that illustrious
magistrate to have run, excited to a great degree my ardour and
ambition, and opened to my imagination new paths of
glory.”

Franklin was accustomed to attribute his usefulness and
eminence to his having early read Cotton Mather’s
‘Essays to do Good’—a book which grew out of
Mather’s own life. And see how good example draws
other men after it, and propagates itself through future
generations in all lands. For Samuel Drew avers that he
framed his own life, and especially his business habits, after
the model left on record by Benjamin Franklin. Thus it is
impossible to say where a good example may not reach, or where it
will end, if indeed it have an end. Hence the advantage, in
literature as in life, of keeping the best society, reading the
best books, and wisely admiring and imitating the best things we
find in them. “In literature,” said Lord
Dudley, “I am fond of confining myself to the best company,
which consists chiefly of my old acquaintance, with whom I am
desirous of becoming more intimate; and I suspect that nine times
out of ten it is more profitable, if not more agreeable, to read
an old book over again, than to read a new one for the first
time.”

Sometimes a book containing a noble exemplar of life, taken up
at random, merely with the object of reading it as a pastime, has
been known to call forth energies whose existence had not before
been suspected. Alfieri was first drawn with passion to
literature by reading ‘Plutarch’s Lives.’
Loyola, when a soldier serving at the siege of Pampeluna, and
laid up by a dangerous wound in his leg, asked for a book to
divert his thoughts: the ‘Lives of the Saints’ was
brought to him, and its perusal so inflamed his mind, that he
determined thenceforth to devote himself to the founding of a
religious order. Luther, in like manner, was inspired to
undertake the great labours of his life by a perusal of the
‘Life and Writings of John Huss.’ Dr. Wolff was
stimulated to enter upon his missionary career by reading the
‘Life of Francis Xavier;’ and the book fired his
youthful bosom with a passion the most sincere and ardent to
devote himself to the enterprise of his life. William
Carey, also, got the first idea of entering upon his sublime
labours as a missionary from a perusal of the Voyages of Captain
Cook.

Francis Horner was accustomed to note in his diary and letters
the books by which he was most improved and influenced.
Amongst these were Condorcet’s ‘Eloge of
Haller,’ Sir Joshua Reynolds’
‘Discourses,’ the writings of Bacon, and
‘Burnet’s Account of Sir Matthew Hale.’
The perusal of the last-mentioned book—the portrait of a
prodigy of labour—Horner says, filled him with
enthusiasm. Of Condorcet’s ‘Eloge of
Haller,’ he said: “I never rise from the account of
such men without a sort of thrilling palpitation about me, which
I know not whether I should call admiration, ambition, or
despair.” And speaking of the
‘Discourses’ of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he said:
“Next to the writings of Bacon, there is no book which has
more powerfully impelled me to self-culture. He is one of
the first men of genius who has condescended to inform the world
of the steps by which greatness is attained. The confidence
with which he asserts the omnipotence of human labour has the
effect of familiarising his reader with the idea that genius is
an acquisition rather than a gift; whilst with all there is
blended so naturally and eloquently the most elevated and
passionate admiration of excellence, that upon the whole there is
no book of a more inflammatory effect.” It is
remarkable that Reynolds himself attributed his first passionate
impulse towards the study of art, to reading Richardson’s
account of a great painter; and Haydon was in like manner
afterwards inflamed to follow the same pursuit by reading of the
career of Reynolds. Thus the brave and aspiring life of one
man lights a flame in the minds of others of like faculties and
impulse; and where there is equally vigorous efforts like
distinction and success will almost surely follow. Thus the
chain of example is carried down through time in an endless
succession of links,—admiration exciting imitation, and
perpetuating the true aristocracy of genius.

One of the most valuable, and one of the most infectious
examples which can be set before the young, is that of cheerful
working. Cheerfulness gives elasticity to the spirit.
Spectres fly before it; difficulties cause no despair, for they
are encountered with hope, and the mind acquires that happy
disposition to improve opportunities which rarely fails of
success. The fervent spirit is always a healthy and happy
spirit; working cheerfully itself, and stimulating others to
work. It confers a dignity on even the most ordinary
occupations. The most effective work, also, is usually the
full-hearted work—that which passes through the hands or
the head of him whose heart is glad. Hume was accustomed to
say that he would rather possess a cheerful
disposition—inclined always to look at the bright side of
things—than with a gloomy mind to be the master of an
estate of ten thousand a year. Granville Sharp, amidst his
indefatigable labours on behalf of the slave, solaced himself in
the evenings by taking part in glees and instrumental concerts at
his brother’s house, singing, or playing on the flute, the
clarionet or the oboe; and, at the Sunday evening oratorios, when
Handel was played, he beat the kettle-drums. He also
indulged, though sparingly, in caricature drawing. Fowell
Buxton also was an eminently cheerful man; taking special
pleasure in field sports, in riding about the country with his
children, and in mixing in all their domestic amusements.

In another sphere of action, Dr. Arnold was a noble and a
cheerful worker, throwing himself into the great business of his
life, the training and teaching of young men, with his whole
heart and soul. It is stated in his admirable biography,
that “the most remarkable thing in the Laleham circle was
the wonderful healthiness of tone which prevailed there. It
was a place where a new comer at once felt that a great and
earnest work was going forward. Every pupil was made to
feel that there was a work for him to do; that his happiness, as
well as his duty, lay in doing that work well. Hence an
indescribable zest was communicated to a young man’s
feeling about life; a strange joy came over him on discerning
that he had the means of being useful, and thus of being happy;
and a deep respect and ardent attachment sprang up towards him
who had taught him thus to value life and his own self, and his
work and mission in the world. All this was founded on the
breadth and comprehensiveness of Arnold’s character, as
well as its striking truth and reality; on the unfeigned regard
he had for work of all kinds, and the sense he had of its value,
both for the complex aggregate of society and the growth and
protection of the individual. In all this there was no
excitement; no predilection for one class of work above another;
no enthusiasm for any one-sided object: but a humble, profound,
and most religious consciousness that work is the appointed
calling of man on earth; the end for which his various faculties
were given; the element in which his nature is ordained to
develop itself, and in which his progressive advance towards
heaven is to lie.” Among the many valuable men
trained for public life and usefulness by Arnold, was the gallant
Hodson, of Hodson’s Horse, who, writing home from India,
many years after, thus spoke of his revered master: “The
influence he produced has been most lasting and striking in its
effects. It is felt even in India; I cannot say more than
that.”

The useful influence which a right-hearted man of energy and
industry may exercise amongst his neighbours and dependants, and
accomplish for his country, cannot, perhaps, be better
illustrated than by the career of Sir John Sinclair;
characterized by the Abbé Gregoire as “the most
indefatigable man in Europe.” He was originally a
country laird, born to a considerable estate situated near John
o’ Groat’s House, almost beyond the beat of
civilization, in a bare wild country fronting the stormy North
Sea. His father dying while he was a youth of sixteen, the
management of the family property thus early devolved upon him;
and at eighteen he began a course of vigorous improvement in the
county of Caithness, which eventually spread all over
Scotland. Agriculture then was in a most backward state;
the fields were unenclosed, the lands undrained; the small
farmers of Caithness were so poor that they could scarcely afford
to keep a horse or shelty; the hard work was chiefly done, and
the burdens borne, by the women; and if a cottier lost a horse it
was not unusual for him to marry a wife as the cheapest
substitute. The country was without roads or bridges; and
drovers driving their cattle south had to swim the rivers along
with their beasts. The chief track leading into Caithness
lay along a high shelf on a mountain side, the road being some
hundred feet of clear perpendicular height above the sea which
dashed below. Sir John, though a mere youth, determined to
make a new road over the hill of Ben Cheilt, the old let-alone
proprietors, however, regarding his scheme with incredulity and
derision. But he himself laid out the road, assembled some
twelve hundred workmen early one summer’s morning, set them
simultaneously to work, superintending their labours, and
stimulating them by his presence and example; and before night,
what had been a dangerous sheep track, six miles in length,
hardly passable for led horses, was made practicable for
wheel-carriages as if by the power of magic. It was an
admirable example of energy and well-directed labour, which could
not fail to have a most salutary influence upon the surrounding
population. He then proceeded to make more roads, to erect
mills, to build bridges, and to enclose and cultivate the waste
lands. He introduced improved methods of culture, and
regular rotation of crops, distributing small premiums to
encourage industry; and he thus soon quickened the whole frame of
society within reach of his influence, and infused an entirely
new spirit into the cultivators of the soil. From being one
of the most inaccessible districts of the north—the very
ultima Thule of civilization—Caithness became a
pattern county for its roads, its agriculture, and its
fisheries. In Sinclair’s youth, the post was carried
by a runner only once a week, and the young baronet then declared
that he would never rest till a coach drove daily to
Thurso. The people of the neighbourhood could not believe
in any such thing, and it became a proverb in the county to say
of an utterly impossible scheme, “Ou, ay, that will come to
pass when Sir John sees the daily mail at Thurso!”
But Sir John lived to see his dream realized, and the daily mail
established to Thurso.

The circle of his benevolent operation gradually
widened. Observing the serious deterioration which had
taken place in the quality of British wool,—one of the
staple commodities of the country,—he forthwith, though but
a private and little-known country gentleman, devoted himself to
its improvement. By his personal exertions he established
the British Wool Society for the purpose, and himself led the way
to practical improvement by importing 800 sheep from all
countries, at his own expense. The result was, the
introduction into Scotland of the celebrated Cheviot breed.
Sheep farmers scouted the idea of south country flocks being able
to thrive in the far north. But Sir John persevered; and in
a few years there were not fewer than 300,000 Cheviots diffused
over the four northern counties alone. The value of all
grazing land was thus enormously increased; and Scotch estates,
which before were comparatively worthless, began to yield large
rentals.

Returned by Caithness to Parliament, in which he remained for
thirty years, rarely missing a division, his position gave him
farther opportunities of usefulness, which he did not neglect to
employ. Mr. Pitt, observing his persevering energy in all
useful public projects, sent for him to Downing Street, and
voluntarily proposed his assistance in any object he might have
in view. Another man might have thought of himself and his
own promotion; but Sir John characteristically replied, that he
desired no favour for himself, but intimated that the reward most
gratifying to his feelings would be Mr. Pitt’s assistance
in the establishment of a National Board of Agriculture.
Arthur Young laid a bet with the baronet that his scheme would
never be established, adding, “Your Board of Agriculture
will be in the moon!” But vigorously setting to work,
he roused public attention to the subject, enlisted a majority of
Parliament on his side, and eventually established the Board, of
which he was appointed President. The result of its action
need not be described, but the stimulus which it gave to
agriculture and stock-raising was shortly felt throughout the
whole United Kingdom, and tens of thousands of acres were
redeemed from barrenness by its operation. He was equally
indefatigable in encouraging the establishment of fisheries; and
the successful founding of these great branches of British
industry at Thurso and Wick was mainly due to his
exertions. He urged for long years, and at length succeeded
in obtaining the enclosure of a harbour for the latter place,
which is perhaps the greatest and most prosperous fishing town in
the world.

Sir John threw his personal energy into every work in which he
engaged, rousing the inert, stimulating the idle, encouraging the
hopeful, and working with all. When a French invasion was
threatened, he offered to Mr. Pitt to raise a regiment on his own
estate, and he was as good as his word. He went down to the
north, and raised a battalion of 600 men, afterwards increased to
1000; and it was admitted to be one of the finest volunteer
regiments ever raised, inspired throughout by his own noble and
patriotic spirit. While commanding officer of the camp at
Aberdeen he held the offices of a Director of the Bank of
Scotland, Chairman of the British Wool Society, Provost of Wick,
Director of the British Fishery Society, Commissioner for issuing
Exchequer Bills, Member of Parliament for Caithness, and
President of the Board of Agriculture. Amidst all this
multifarious and self-imposed work, he even found time to write
books, enough of themselves to establish a reputation. When
Mr. Rush, the American Ambassador, arrived in England, he relates
that he inquired of Mr. Coke of Holkham, what was the best work
on Agriculture, and was referred to Sir John Sinclair’s;
and when he further asked of Mr. Vansittart, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, what was the best work on British Finance, he was
again referred to a work by Sir John Sinclair, his ‘History
of the Public Revenue.’ But the great monument of his
indefatigable industry, a work that would have appalled other
men, but only served to rouse and sustain his energy, was his
‘Statistical Account of Scotland,’ in twenty-one
volumes, one of the most valuable practical works ever published
in any age or country. Amid a host of other pursuits it
occupied him nearly eight years of hard labour, during which he
received, and attended to, upwards of 20,000 letters on the
subject. It was a thoroughly patriotic undertaking, from
which he derived no personal advantage whatever, beyond the
honour of having completed it. The whole of the profits
were assigned by him to the Society for the Sons of the Clergy in
Scotland. The publication of the book led to great public
improvements; it was followed by the immediate abolition of
several oppressive feudal rights, to which it called attention;
the salaries of schoolmasters and clergymen in many parishes were
increased; and an increased stimulus was given to agriculture
throughout Scotland. Sir John then publicly offered to
undertake the much greater labour of collecting and publishing a
similar Statistical Account of England; but unhappily the then
Archbishop of Canterbury refused to sanction it, lest it should
interfere with the tithes of the clergy, and the idea was
abandoned.

A remarkable illustration of his energetic promptitude was the
manner in which he once provided, on a great emergency, for the
relief of the manufacturing districts. In 1793 the
stagnation produced by the war led to an unusual number of
bankruptcies, and many of the first houses in Manchester and
Glasgow were tottering, not so much from want of property, but
because the usual sources of trade and credit were for the time
closed up. A period of intense distress amongst the
labouring classes seemed imminent, when Sir John urged, in
Parliament, that Exchequer notes to the amount of five millions
should be issued immediately as a loan to such merchants as could
give security. This suggestion was adopted, and his offer
to carry out his plan, in conjunction with certain members named
by him, was also accepted. The vote was passed late at
night, and early next morning Sir John, anticipating the delays
of officialism and red tape, proceeded to bankers in the city,
and borrowed of them, on his own personal security, the sum of
70,000l., which he despatched the same evening to those
merchants who were in the most urgent need of assistance.
Pitt meeting Sir John in the House, expressed his great regret
that the pressing wants of Manchester and Glasgow could not be
supplied so soon as was desirable, adding, “The money
cannot be raised for some days.” “It is already
gone! it left London by to-night’s mail!” was Sir
John’s triumphant reply; and in afterwards relating the
anecdote he added, with a smile of pleasure, “Pitt was as
much startled as if I had stabbed him.” To the last
this great, good man worked on usefully and cheerfully, setting a
great example for his family and for his country. In so
laboriously seeking others’ good, it might be said that he
found his own—not wealth, for his generosity seriously
impaired his private fortune, but happiness, and
self-satisfaction, and the peace that passes knowledge. A
great patriot, with magnificent powers of work, he nobly did his
duty to his country; yet he was not neglectful of his own
household and home. His sons and daughters grew up to
honour and usefulness; and it was one of the proudest things Sir
John could say, when verging on his eightieth year, that he had
lived to see seven sons grown up, not one of whom had incurred a
debt he could not pay, or caused him a sorrow that could have
been avoided.