p. 1Chapter I — Self-Help—National and Individual

“The worth of a State, in the long run, is
the worth of the individuals composing it.”—J. S.
Mill.

“We put too much faith in systems, and look too little
to men.”—B. Disraeli.

“Heaven helps those who help
themselves” is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small
compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of
self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual;
and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true
source of national vigour and strength. Help from without
is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within
invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or
classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and
necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to
over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to
render them comparatively helpless.

Even the best institutions can give a man no active
help. Perhaps the most they can do is, to leave him free to
develop himself and improve his individual condition. But
in all times men have been prone to believe that their happiness
and well-being were to be secured by means of institutions rather
than by their own conduct. Hence the value of legislation
as an agent in human advancement has usually been much
over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part of a
Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or five
years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can
exercise but little active influence upon any man’s life
and character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more
clearly understood, that the function of Government is negative
and restrictive, rather than positive and active; being
resolvable principally into protection—protection of life,
liberty, and property. Laws, wisely administered, will
secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour,
whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal
sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle
industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken
sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of
individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits,
rather than by greater rights.

The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but
the reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government
that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to
their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the
long run be dragged up. In the order of nature, the
collective character of a nation will as surely find its
befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its
own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the
ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves
to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less
upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its
men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual
conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the
personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom
society is composed.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy,
and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness,
selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as
great social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but
the outgrowth of man’s own perverted life; and though we
may endeavour to cut them down and extirpate them by means of
Law, they will only spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some
other form, unless the conditions of personal life and character
are radically improved. If this view be correct, then it
follows that the highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not
so much in altering laws and modifying institutions, as in
helping and stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by
their own free and independent individual action.

It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is
governed from without, whilst everything depends upon how he
governs himself from within. The greatest slave is not he
who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who
is the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and
vice. Nations who are thus enslaved at heart cannot be
freed by any mere changes of masters or of institutions; and so
long as the fatal delusion prevails, that liberty solely depends
upon and consists in government, so long will such changes, no
matter at what cost they may be effected, have as little
practical and lasting result as the shifting of the figures in a
phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of liberty must rest
upon individual character; which is also the only sure guarantee
for social security and national progress. John Stuart Mill
truly observes that “even despotism does not produce its
worst effects so long as individuality exists under it; and
whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever
name it be called.”

Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning
up. Some call for Cæsars, others for Nationalities,
and others for Acts of Parliament. We are to wait for
Cæsars, and when they are found, “happy the people
who recognise and follow them.” [4] This doctrine
shortly means, everything for the people, nothing
by them,—a doctrine which, if taken as a guide,
must, by destroying the free conscience of a community, speedily
prepare the way for any form of despotism. Cæsarism
is human idolatry in its worst form—a worship of mere
power, as degrading in its effects as the worship of mere wealth
would be. A far healthier doctrine to inculcate among the
nations would be that of Self-Help; and so soon as it is
thoroughly understood and carried into action, Cæsarism
will be no more. The two principles are directly
antagonistic; and what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword
alike applies to them, “Ceci tuera cela.” [This
will kill that.]

The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a
prevalent superstition. What William Dargan, one of
Ireland’s truest patriots, said at the closing of the first
Dublin Industrial Exhibition, may well be quoted now.
“To tell the truth,” he said, “I never heard
the word independence mentioned that my own country and my own
fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard a
great deal about the independence that we were to get from this,
that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were
to have from persons from other countries coming amongst
us. Whilst I value as much as any man the great advantages
that must result to us from that intercourse, I have always been
deeply impressed with the feeling that our industrial
independence is dependent upon ourselves. I believe that
with simple industry and careful exactness in the utilization of
our energies, we never had a fairer chance nor a brighter
prospect than the present. We have made a step, but
perseverance is the great agent of success; and if we but go on
zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period we
shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness,
and of equal independence, with that of any other
people.”

All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and
the working of many generations of men. Patient and
persevering labourers in all ranks and conditions of life,
cultivators of the soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and
discoverers, manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets,
philosophers, and politicians, all have contributed towards the
grand result, one generation building upon another’s
labours, and carrying them forward to still higher stages.
This constant succession of noble workers—the artisans of
civilisation—has served to create order out of chaos in
industry, science, and art; and the living race has thus, in the
course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich estate
provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which is
placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only
unimpaired but improved, to our successors.

The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action
of individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the
English character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as
a nation. Rising above the heads of the mass, there were
always to be found a series of individuals distinguished beyond
others, who commanded the public homage. But our progress
has also been owing to multitudes of smaller and less known
men. Though only the generals’ names may be
remembered in the history of any great campaign, it has been in a
great measure through the individual valour and heroism of the
privates that victories have been won. And life, too, is
“a soldiers’ battle,”—men in the ranks
having in all times been amongst the greatest of workers.
Many are the lives of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as
powerfully influenced civilisation and progress as the more
fortunate Great whose names are recorded in biography. Even
the humblest person, who sets before his fellows an example of
industry, sobriety, and upright honesty of purpose in life, has a
present as well as a future influence upon the well-being of his
country; for his life and character pass unconsciously into the
lives of others, and propagate good example for all time to
come.

Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism
which produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action
of others, and really constitutes the best practical
education. Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the
merest beginnings of culture in comparison with it. Far
more influential is the life-education daily given in our homes,
in the streets, behind counters, in workshops, at the loom and
the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy
haunts of men. This is that finishing instruction as
members of society, which Schiller designated “the
education of the human race,” consisting in action,
conduct, self-culture, self-control,—all that tends to
discipline a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of
the duties and business of life,—a kind of education not to
be learnt from books, or acquired by any amount of mere literary
training. With his usual weight of words Bacon observes,
that “Studies teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom
without them, and above them, won by observation;” a remark
that holds true of actual life, as well as of the cultivation of
the intellect itself. For all experience serves to
illustrate and enforce the lesson, that a man perfects himself by
work more than by reading,—that it is life rather than
literature, action rather than study, and character rather than
biography, which tend perpetually to renovate mankind.

Biographies of great, but especially of good men, are
nevertheless most instructive and useful, as helps, guides, and
incentives to others. Some of the best are almost
equivalent to gospels—teaching high living, high thinking,
and energetic action for their own and the world’s
good. The valuable examples which they furnish of the power
of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working, and steadfast
integrity, issuing in the formation of truly noble and manly
character, exhibit in language not to be misunderstood, what it
is in the power of each to accomplish for himself; and eloquently
illustrate the efficacy of self-respect and self-reliance in
enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for themselves
an honourable competency and a solid reputation.

Great men of science, literature, and art—apostles of
great thoughts and lords of the great heart—have belonged
to no exclusive class nor rank in life. They have come
alike from colleges, workshops, and farmhouses,—from the
huts of poor men and the mansions of the rich. Some of
God’s greatest apostles have come from “the
ranks.” The poorest have sometimes taken the highest
places; nor have difficulties apparently the most insuperable
proved obstacles in their way. Those very difficulties, in
many instances, would ever seem to have been their best helpers,
by evoking their powers of labour and endurance, and stimulating
into life faculties which might otherwise have lain
dormant. The instances of obstacles thus surmounted, and of
triumphs thus achieved, are indeed so numerous, as almost to
justify the proverb that “with Will one can do
anything.” Take, for instance, the remarkable fact,
that from the barber’s shop came Jeremy Taylor, the most
poetical of divines; Sir Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the
spinning-jenny and founder of the cotton manufacture; Lord
Tenterden, one of the most distinguished of Lord Chief Justices;
and Turner, the greatest among landscape painters.

No one knows to a certainty what Shakespeare was; but it is
unquestionable that he sprang from a humble rank. His
father was a butcher and grazier; and Shakespeare himself is
supposed to have been in early life a woolcomber; whilst others
aver that he was an usher in a school and afterwards a
scrivener’s clerk. He truly seems to have been
“not one, but all mankind’s epitome.” For
such is the accuracy of his sea phrases that a naval writer
alleges that he must have been a sailor; whilst a clergyman
infers, from internal evidence in his writings, that he was
probably a parson’s clerk; and a distinguished judge of
horse-flesh insists that he must have been a horse-dealer.
Shakespeare was certainly an actor, and in the course of his life
“played many parts,” gathering his wonderful stores
of knowledge from a wide field of experience and
observation. In any event, he must have been a close
student and a hard worker; and to this day his writings continue
to exercise a powerful influence on the formation of English
character.

The common class of day labourers has given us Brindley the
engineer, Cook the navigator, and Burns the poet. Masons
and bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson, who worked at the
building of Lincoln’s Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a
book in his pocket, Edwards and Telford the engineers, Hugh
Miller the geologist, and Allan Cunningham the writer and
sculptor; whilst among distinguished carpenters we find the names
of Inigo Jones the architect, Harrison the chronometer-maker,
John Hunter the physiologist, Romney and Opie the painters,
Professor Lee the Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor.

From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician,
Bacon the sculptor, the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster,
Wilson the ornithologist, Dr. Livingstone the missionary
traveller, and Tannahill the poet. Shoemakers have given us
Sir Cloudesley Shovel the great Admiral, Sturgeon the
electrician, Samuel Drew the essayist, Gifford the editor of the
‘Quarterly Review,’ Bloomfield the poet, and William
Carey the missionary; whilst Morrison, another laborious
missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts. Within the last few
years, a profound naturalist has been discovered in the person of
a shoemaker at Banff, named Thomas Edwards, who, while
maintaining himself by his trade, has devoted his leisure to the
study of natural science in all its branches, his researches in
connexion with the smaller crustaceæ having been rewarded
by the discovery of a new species, to which the name of
“Praniza Edwardsii” has been given by
naturalists.

Nor have tailors been undistinguished. John Stow, the
historian, worked at the trade during some part of his
life. Jackson, the painter, made clothes until he reached
manhood. The brave Sir John Hawkswood, who so greatly
distinguished himself at Poictiers, and was knighted by Edward
III. for his valour, was in early life apprenticed to a London
tailor. Admiral Hobson, who broke the boom at Vigo in 1702,
belonged to the same calling. He was working as a
tailor’s apprentice near Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight,
when the news flew through the village that a squadron of
men-of-war was sailing off the island. He sprang from the
shopboard, and ran down with his comrades to the beach, to gaze
upon the glorious sight. The boy was suddenly inflamed with
the ambition to be a sailor; and springing into a boat, he rowed
off to the squadron, gained the admiral’s ship, and was
accepted as a volunteer. Years after, he returned to his
native village full of honours, and dined off bacon and eggs in
the cottage where he had worked as an apprentice. But the
greatest tailor of all is unquestionably Andrew Johnson, the
present President of the United States—a man of
extraordinary force of character and vigour of intellect.
In his great speech at Washington, when describing himself as
having begun his political career as an alderman, and run through
all the branches of the legislature, a voice in the crowd cried,
“From a tailor up.” It was characteristic of
Johnson to take the intended sarcasm in good part, and even to
turn it to account. “Some gentleman says I have been
a tailor. That does not disconcert me in the least; for
when I was a tailor I had the reputation of being a good one, and
making close fits; I was always punctual with my customers, and
always did good work.”

Cardinal Wolsey, De Foe, Akenside, and Kirke White were the
sons of butchers; Bunyan was a tinker, and Joseph Lancaster a
basket-maker. Among the great names identified with the
invention of the steam-engine are those of Newcomen, Watt, and
Stephenson; the first a blacksmith, the second a maker of
mathematical instruments, and the third an engine-fireman.
Huntingdon the preacher was originally a coalheaver, and Bewick,
the father of wood-engraving, a coalminer. Dodsley was a
footman, and Holcroft a groom. Baffin the navigator began
his seafaring career as a man before the mast, and Sir Cloudesley
Shovel as a cabin-boy. Herschel played the oboe in a
military band. Chantrey was a journeyman carver, Etty a
journeyman printer, and Sir Thomas Lawrence the son of a
tavern-keeper. Michael Faraday, the son of a blacksmith,
was in early life apprenticed to a bookbinder, and worked at that
trade until he reached his twenty-second year: he now occupies
the very first rank as a philosopher, excelling even his master,
Sir Humphry Davy, in the art of lucidly expounding the most
difficult and abstruse points in natural science.

Among those who have given the greatest impulse to the sublime
science of astronomy, we find Copernicus, the son of a Polish
baker; Kepler, the son of a German public-house keeper, and
himself the “garçon de cabaret;”
d’Alembert, a foundling picked up one winter’s night
on the steps of the church of St. Jean le Rond at Paris, and
brought up by the wife of a glazier; and Newton and Laplace, the
one the son of a small freeholder near Grantham, the other the
son of a poor peasant of Beaumont-en-Auge, near Honfleur.
Notwithstanding their comparatively adverse circumstances in
early life, these distinguished men achieved a solid and enduring
reputation by the exercise of their genius, which all the wealth
in the world could not have purchased. The very possession
of wealth might indeed have proved an obstacle greater even than
the humble means to which they were born. The father of
Lagrange, the astronomer and mathematician, held the office of
Treasurer of War at Turin; but having ruined himself by
speculations, his family were reduced to comparative
poverty. To this circumstance Lagrange was in after life
accustomed partly to attribute his own fame and happiness.
“Had I been rich,” said he, “I should probably
not have become a mathematician.”

The sons of clergymen and ministers of religion generally,
have particularly distinguished themselves in our country’s
history. Amongst them we find the names of Drake and
Nelson, celebrated in naval heroism; of Wollaston, Young,
Playfair, and Bell, in science; of Wren, Reynolds, Wilson, and
Wilkie, in art; of Thurlow and Campbell, in law; and of Addison,
Thomson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, and Tennyson, in literature.
Lord Hardinge, Colonel Edwardes, and Major Hodson, so honourably
known in Indian warfare, were also the sons of clergymen.
Indeed, the empire of England in India was won and held chiefly
by men of the middle class—such as Clive, Warren Hastings,
and their successors—men for the most part bred in
factories and trained to habits of business.

Among the sons of attorneys we find Edmund Burke, Smeaton the
engineer, Scott and Wordsworth, and Lords Somers, Hardwick, and
Dunning. Sir William Blackstone was the posthumous son of a
silk-mercer. Lord Gifford’s father was a grocer at
Dover; Lord Denman’s a physician; judge Talfourd’s a
country brewer; and Lord Chief Baron Pollock’s a celebrated
saddler at Charing Cross. Layard, the discoverer of the
monuments of Nineveh, was an articled clerk in a London
solicitor’s office; and Sir William Armstrong, the inventor
of hydraulic machinery and of the Armstrong ordnance, was also
trained to the law and practised for some time as an
attorney. Milton was the son of a London scrivener, and
Pope and Southey were the sons of linendrapers. Professor
Wilson was the son of a Paisley manufacturer, and Lord Macaulay
of an African merchant. Keats was a druggist, and Sir
Humphry Davy a country apothecary’s apprentice.
Speaking of himself, Davy once said, “What I am I have made
myself: I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of
heart.” Richard Owen, the Newton of Natural History,
began life as a midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of
scientific research in which he has since become so
distinguished, until comparatively late in life. He laid
the foundations of his great knowledge while occupied in
cataloguing the magnificent museum accumulated by the industry of
John Hunter, a work which occupied him at the College of Surgeons
during a period of about ten years.

Foreign not less than English biography abounds in
illustrations of men who have glorified the lot of poverty by
their labours and their genius. In Art we find Claude, the
son of a pastrycook; Geefs, of a baker; Leopold Robert, of a
watchmaker; and Haydn, of a wheelwright; whilst Daguerre was a
scene-painter at the Opera. The father of Gregory VII. was
a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd; and of Adrian VI., a poor
bargeman. When a boy, Adrian, unable to pay for a light by
which to study, was accustomed to prepare his lessons by the
light of the lamps in the streets and the church porches,
exhibiting a degree of patience and industry which were the
certain forerunners of his future distinction. Of like
humble origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a
weaver of Saint-Just; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker
at Orleans; Joseph Fourier, the mathematician, of a tailor at
Auxerre; Durand, the architect, of a Paris shoemaker; and Gesner,
the naturalist, of a skinner or worker in hides, at Zurich.
This last began his career under all the disadvantages attendant
on poverty, sickness, and domestic calamity; none of which,
however, were sufficient to damp his courage or hinder his
progress. His life was indeed an eminent illustration of
the truth of the saying, that those who have most to do and are
willing to work, will find the most time. Pierre Ramus was
another man of like character. He was the son of poor
parents in Picardy, and when a boy was employed to tend
sheep. But not liking the occupation he ran away to
Paris. After encountering much misery, he succeeded in
entering the College of Navarre as a servant. The
situation, however, opened for him the road to learning, and he
shortly became one of the most distinguished men of his time.

The chemist Vauquelin was the son of a peasant of
Saint-André-d’Herbetot, in the Calvados. When
a boy at school, though poorly clad, he was full of bright
intelligence; and the master, who taught him to read and write,
when praising him for his diligence, used to say, “Go on,
my boy; work, study, Colin, and one day you will go as well
dressed as the parish churchwarden!” A country
apothecary who visited the school, admired the robust boy’s
arms, and offered to take him into his laboratory to pound his
drugs, to which Vauquelin assented, in the hope of being able to
continue his lessons. But the apothecary would not permit
him to spend any part of his time in learning; and on
ascertaining this, the youth immediately determined to quit his
service. He therefore left Saint-André and took the
road for Paris with his havresac on his back. Arrived
there, he searched for a place as apothecary’s boy, but
could not find one. Worn out by fatigue and destitution,
Vauquelin fell ill, and in that state was taken to the hospital,
where he thought he should die. But better things were in
store for the poor boy. He recovered, and again proceeded
in his search of employment, which he at length found with an
apothecary. Shortly after, he became known to Fourcroy the
eminent chemist, who was so pleased with the youth that he made
him his private secretary; and many years after, on the death of
that great philosopher, Vauquelin succeeded him as Professor of
Chemistry. Finally, in 1829, the electors of the district
of Calvados appointed him their representative in the Chamber of
Deputies, and he re-entered in triumph the village which he had
left so many years before, so poor and so obscure.

England has no parallel instances to show, of promotions from
the ranks of the army to the highest military offices; which have
been so common in France since the first Revolution.
“La carrière ouverte aux talents” has there
received many striking illustrations, which would doubtless be
matched among ourselves were the road to promotion as open.
Hoche, Humbert, and Pichegru, began their respective careers as
private soldiers. Hoche, while in the King’s army,
was accustomed to embroider waistcoats to enable him to earn
money wherewith to purchase books on military science.
Humbert was a scapegrace when a youth; at sixteen he ran away
from home, and was by turns servant to a tradesman at Nancy, a
workman at Lyons, and a hawker of rabbit skins. In 1792, he
enlisted as a volunteer; and in a year he was general of
brigade. Kleber, Lefèvre, Suchet, Victor, Lannes,
Soult, Massena, St. Cyr, D’Erlon, Murat, Augereau,
Bessières, and Ney, all rose from the ranks. In some
cases promotion was rapid, in others it was slow. Saint
Cyr, the son of a tanner of Toul, began life as an actor, after
which he enlisted in the Chasseurs, and was promoted to a
captaincy within a year. Victor, Duc de Belluno, enlisted
in the Artillery in 1781: during the events preceding the
Revolution he was discharged; but immediately on the outbreak of
war he re-enlisted, and in the course of a few months his
intrepidity and ability secured his promotion as Adjutant-Major
and chief of battalion. Murat, “le beau
sabreur,” was the son of a village innkeeper in Perigord,
where he looked after the horses. He first enlisted in a
regiment of Chasseurs, from which he was dismissed for
insubordination: but again enlisting, he shortly rose to the rank
of Colonel. Ney enlisted at eighteen in a hussar regiment,
and gradually advanced step by step: Kleber soon discovered his
merits, surnaming him “The Indefatigable,” and
promoted him to be Adjutant-General when only twenty-five.
On the other hand, Soult [15] was six years from
the date of his enlistment before he reached the rank of
sergeant. But Soult’s advancement was rapid compared
with that of Massena, who served for fourteen years before he was
made sergeant; and though he afterwards rose successively, step
by step, to the grades of Colonel, General of Division, and
Marshal, he declared that the post of sergeant was the step which
of all others had cost him the most labour to win. Similar
promotions from the ranks, in the French army, have continued
down to our own day. Changarnier entered the King’s
bodyguard as a private in 1815. Marshal Bugeaud served four
years in the ranks, after which he was made an officer.
Marshal Randon, the present French Minister of War, began his
military career as a drummer boy; and in the portrait of him in
the gallery at Versailles, his hand rests upon a drum-head, the
picture being thus painted at his own request. Instances
such as these inspire French soldiers with enthusiasm for their
service, as each private feels that he may possibly carry the
baton of a marshal in his knapsack.

The instances of men, in this and other countries, who, by
dint of persevering application and energy, have raised
themselves from the humblest ranks of industry to eminent
positions of usefulness and influence in society, are indeed so
numerous that they have long ceased to be regarded as
exceptional. Looking at some of the more remarkable, it
might almost be said that early encounter with difficulty and
adverse circumstances was the necessary and indispensable
condition of success. The British House of Commons has
always contained a considerable number of such self-raised
men—fitting representatives of the industrial character of
the people; and it is to the credit of our Legislature that they
have been welcomed and honoured there. When the late Joseph
Brotherton, member for Salford, in the course of the discussion
on the Ten Hours Bill, detailed with true pathos the hardships
and fatigues to which he had been subjected when working as a
factory boy in a cotton mill, and described the resolution which
he had then formed, that if ever it was in his power he would
endeavour to ameliorate the condition of that class, Sir James
Graham rose immediately after him, and declared, amidst the
cheers of the House, that he did not before know that Mr.
Brotherton’s origin had been so humble, but that it
rendered him more proud than he had ever before been of the House
of Commons, to think that a person risen from that condition
should be able to sit side by side, on equal terms, with the
hereditary gentry of the land.

The late Mr. Fox, member for Oldham, was accustomed to
introduce his recollections of past times with the words,
“when I was working as a weaver boy at Norwich;” and
there are other members of parliament, still living, whose origin
has been equally humble. Mr. Lindsay, the well-known ship
owner, until recently member for Sunderland, once told the simple
story of his life to the electors of Weymouth, in answer to an
attack made upon him by his political opponents. He had
been left an orphan at fourteen, and when he left Glasgow for
Liverpool to push his way in the world, not being able to pay the
usual fare, the captain of the steamer agreed to take his labour
in exchange, and the boy worked his passage by trimming the coals
in the coal hole. At Liverpool he remained for seven weeks
before he could obtain employment, during which time he lived in
sheds and fared hardly; until at last he found shelter on board a
West Indiaman. He entered as a boy, and before he was
nineteen, by steady good conduct he had risen to the command of a
ship. At twenty-three he retired from the sea, and settled
on shore, after which his progress was rapid “he had
prospered,” he said, “by steady industry, by constant
work, and by ever keeping in view the great principle of doing to
others as you would be done by.”

The career of Mr. William Jackson, of Birkenhead, the present
member for North Derbyshire, bears considerable resemblance to
that of Mr. Lindsay. His father, a surgeon at Lancaster,
died, leaving a family of eleven children, of whom William
Jackson was the seventh son. The elder boys had been well
educated while the father lived, but at his death the younger
members had to shift for themselves. William, when under
twelve years old, was taken from school, and put to hard work at
a ship’s side from six in the morning till nine at
night. His master falling ill, the boy was taken into the
counting-house, where he had more leisure. This gave him an
opportunity of reading, and having obtained access to a set of
the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ he read the
volumes through from A to Z, partly by day, but chiefly at
night. He afterwards put himself to a trade, was diligent,
and succeeded in it. Now he has ships sailing on almost
every sea, and holds commercial relations with nearly every
country on the globe.

Among like men of the same class may be ranked the late
Richard Cobden, whose start in life was equally humble. The
son of a small farmer at Midhurst in Sussex, he was sent at an
early age to London and employed as a boy in a warehouse in the
City. He was diligent, well conducted, and eager for
information. His master, a man of the old school, warned
him against too much reading; but the boy went on in his own
course, storing his mind with the wealth found in books. He
was promoted from one position of trust to another—became a
traveller for his house—secured a large connection, and
eventually started in business as a calico printer at
Manchester. Taking an interest in public questions, more
especially in popular education, his attention was gradually
drawn to the subject of the Corn Laws, to the repeal of which he
may be said to have devoted his fortune and his life. It
may be mentioned as a curious fact that the first speech he
delivered in public was a total failure. But he had great
perseverance, application, and energy; and with persistency and
practice, he became at length one of the most persuasive and
effective of public speakers, extorting the disinterested eulogy
of even Sir Robert Peel himself. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, the
French Ambassador, has eloquently said of Mr. Cobden, that he was
“a living proof of what merit, perseverance, and labour can
accomplish; one of the most complete examples of those men who,
sprung from the humblest ranks of society, raise themselves to
the highest rank in public estimation by the effect of their own
worth and of their personal services; finally, one of the rarest
examples of the solid qualities inherent in the English
character.”

In all these cases, strenuous individual application was the
price paid for distinction; excellence of any sort being
invariably placed beyond the reach of indolence. It is the
diligent hand and head alone that maketh rich—in
self-culture, growth in wisdom, and in business. Even when
men are born to wealth and high social position, any solid
reputation which they may individually achieve can only be
attained by energetic application; for though an inheritance of
acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom
cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work
for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by
another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture. Indeed,
the doctrine that excellence in any pursuit is only to be
achieved by laborious application, holds as true in the case of
the man of wealth as in that of Drew and Gifford, whose only
school was a cobbler’s stall, or Hugh Miller, whose only
college was a Cromarty stone quarry.

Riches and ease, it is perfectly clear, are not necessary for
man’s highest culture, else had not the world been so
largely indebted in all times to those who have sprung from the
humbler ranks. An easy and luxurious existence does not
train men to effort or encounter with difficulty; nor does it
awaken that consciousness of power which is so necessary for
energetic and effective action in life. Indeed, so far from
poverty being a misfortune, it may, by vigorous self-help, be
converted even into a blessing; rousing a man to that struggle
with the world in which, though some may purchase ease by
degradation, the right-minded and true-hearted find strength,
confidence, and triumph. Bacon says, “Men seem
neither to understand their riches nor their strength: of the
former they believe greater things than they should; of the
latter much less. Self-reliance and self-denial will teach
a man to drink out of his own cistern, and eat his own sweet
bread, and to learn and labour truly to get his living, and
carefully to expend the good things committed to his
trust.”

Riches are so great a temptation to ease and self-indulgence,
to which men are by nature prone, that the glory is all the
greater of those who, born to ample fortunes, nevertheless take
an active part in the work of their generation—who
“scorn delights and live laborious days.” It is
to the honour of the wealthier ranks in this country that they
are not idlers; for they do their fair share of the work of the
state, and usually take more than their fair share of its
dangers. It was a fine thing said of a subaltern officer in
the Peninsular campaigns, observed trudging alone through mud and
mire by the side of his regiment, “There goes
15,000l. a year!” and in our own day, the bleak
slopes of Sebastopol and the burning soil of India have borne
witness to the like noble self-denial and devotion on the part of
our gentler classes; many a gallant and noble fellow, of rank and
estate, having risked his life, or lost it, in one or other of
those fields of action, in the service of his country.

Nor have the wealthier classes been undistinguished in the
more peaceful pursuits of philosophy and science. Take, for
instance, the great names of Bacon, the father of modern
philosophy, and of Worcester, Boyle, Cavendish, Talbot, and
Rosse, in science. The last named may be regarded as the
great mechanic of the peerage; a man who, if he had not been born
a peer, would probably have taken the highest rank as an
inventor. So thorough is his knowledge of smith-work that
he is said to have been pressed on one occasion to accept the
foremanship of a large workshop, by a manufacturer to whom his
rank was unknown. The great Rosse telescope, of his own
fabrication, is certainly the most extraordinary instrument of
the kind that has yet been constructed.

But it is principally in the departments of politics and
literature that we find the most energetic labourers amongst our
higher classes. Success in these lines of action, as in all
others, can only be achieved through industry, practice, and
study; and the great Minister, or parliamentary leader, must
necessarily be amongst the very hardest of workers. Such
was Palmerston; and such are Derby and Russell, Disraeli and
Gladstone. These men have had the benefit of no Ten Hours
Bill, but have often, during the busy season of Parliament,
worked “double shift,” almost day and night.
One of the most illustrious of such workers in modern times was
unquestionably the late Sir Robert Peel. He possessed in an
extraordinary degree the power of continuous intellectual labour,
nor did he spare himself. His career, indeed, presented a
remarkable example of how much a man of comparatively moderate
powers can accomplish by means of assiduous application and
indefatigable industry. During the forty years that he held
a seat in Parliament, his labours were prodigious. He was a
most conscientious man, and whatever he undertook to do, he did
thoroughly. All his speeches bear evidence of his careful
study of everything that had been spoken or written on the
subject under consideration. He was elaborate almost to
excess; and spared no pains to adapt himself to the various
capacities of his audience. Withal, he possessed much
practical sagacity, great strength of purpose, and power to
direct the issues of action with steady hand and eye. In
one respect he surpassed most men: his principles broadened and
enlarged with time; and age, instead of contracting, only served
to mellow and ripen his nature. To the last he continued
open to the reception of new views, and, though many thought him
cautious to excess, he did not allow himself to fall into that
indiscriminating admiration of the past, which is the palsy of
many minds similarly educated, and renders the old age of many
nothing but a pity.

The indefatigable industry of Lord Brougham has become almost
proverbial. His public labours have extended over a period
of upwards of sixty years, during which he has ranged over many
fields—of law, literature, politics, and science,—and
achieved distinction in them all. How he contrived it, has
been to many a mystery. Once, when Sir Samuel Romilly was
requested to undertake some new work, he excused himself by
saying that he had no time; “but,” he added,
“go with it to that fellow Brougham, he seems to have time
for everything.” The secret of it was, that he never
left a minute unemployed; withal he possessed a constitution of
iron. When arrived at an age at which most men would have
retired from the world to enjoy their hard-earned leisure,
perhaps to doze away their time in an easy chair, Lord Brougham
commenced and prosecuted a series of elaborate investigations as
to the laws of Light, and he submitted the results to the most
scientific audiences that Paris and London could muster.
About the same time, he was passing through the press his
admirable sketches of the ‘Men of Science and Literature of
the Reign of George III.,’ and taking his full share of the
law business and the political discussions in the House of
Lords. Sydney Smith once recommended him to confine himself
to only the transaction of so much business as three strong men
could get through. But such was Brougham’s love of
work—long become a habit—that no amount of
application seems to have been too great for him; and such was
his love of excellence, that it has been said of him that if his
station in life had been only that of a shoe-black, he would
never have rested satisfied until he had become the best
shoe-black in England.

Another hard-working man of the same class is Sir E. Bulwer
Lytton. Few writers have done more, or achieved higher
distinction in various walks—as a novelist, poet,
dramatist, historian, essayist, orator, and politician. He
has worked his way step by step, disdainful of ease, and animated
throughout by the ardent desire to excel. On the score of
mere industry, there are few living English writers who have
written so much, and none that have produced so much of high
quality. The industry of Bulwer is entitled to all the
greater praise that it has been entirely self-imposed. To
hunt, and shoot, and live at ease,—to frequent the clubs
and enjoy the opera, with the variety of London visiting and
sight-seeing during the “season,” and then off to the
country mansion, with its well-stocked preserves, and its
thousand delightful out-door pleasures,—to travel abroad,
to Paris, Vienna, or Rome,—all this is excessively
attractive to a lover of pleasure and a man of fortune, and by no
means calculated to make him voluntarily undertake continuous
labour of any kind. Yet these pleasures, all within his
reach, Bulwer must, as compared with men born to similar estate,
have denied himself in assuming the position and pursuing the
career of a literary man. Like Byron, his first effort was
poetical (‘Weeds and Wild Flowers’), and a
failure. His second was a novel (‘Falkland’),
and it proved a failure too. A man of weaker nerve would
have dropped authorship; but Bulwer had pluck and perseverance;
and he worked on, determined to succeed. He was incessantly
industrious, read extensively, and from failure went courageously
onwards to success. ‘Pelham’ followed
‘Falkland’ within a year, and the remainder of
Bulwer’s literary life, now extending over a period of
thirty years, has been a succession of triumphs.

Mr. Disraeli affords a similar instance of the power of
industry and application in working out an eminent public
career. His first achievements were, like Bulwer’s,
in literature; and he reached success only through a succession
of failures. His ‘Wondrous Tale of Alroy’ and
‘Revolutionary Epic’ were laughed at, and regarded as
indications of literary lunacy. But he worked on in other
directions, and his ‘Coningsby,’ ‘Sybil,’
and ‘Tancred,’ proved the sterling stuff of which he
was made. As an orator too, his first appearance in the
House of Commons was a failure. It was spoken of as
“more screaming than an Adelphi farce.” Though
composed in a grand and ambitious strain, every sentence was
hailed with “loud laughter.”
‘Hamlet’ played as a comedy were nothing to it.
But he concluded with a sentence which embodied a prophecy.
Writhing under the laughter with which his studied eloquence had
been received, he exclaimed, “I have begun several times
many things, and have succeeded in them at last. I shall
sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear
me.” The time did come; and how Disraeli succeeded in
at length commanding the attention of the first assembly of
gentlemen in the world, affords a striking illustration of what
energy and determination will do; for Disraeli earned his
position by dint of patient industry. He did not, as many
young men do, having once failed, retire dejected, to mope and
whine in a corner, but diligently set himself to work. He
carefully unlearnt his faults, studied the character of his
audience, practised sedulously the art of speech, and
industriously filled his mind with the elements of parliamentary
knowledge. He worked patiently for success; and it came,
but slowly: then the House laughed with him, instead of at
him. The recollection of his early failure was effaced, and
by general consent he was at length admitted to be one of the
most finished and effective of parliamentary speakers.

Although much may be accomplished by means of individual
industry and energy, as these and other instances set forth in
the following pages serve to illustrate, it must at the same time
be acknowledged that the help which we derive from others in the
journey of life is of very great importance. The poet
Wordsworth has well said that “these two things,
contradictory though they may seem, must go together—manly
dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly
self-reliance.” From infancy to old age, all are more
or less indebted to others for nurture and culture; and the best
and strongest are usually found the readiest to acknowledge such
help. Take, for example, the career of the late Alexis de
Tocqueville, a man doubly well-born, for his father was a
distinguished peer of France, and his mother a grand-daughter of
Malesherbes. Through powerful family influence, he was
appointed Judge Auditor at Versailles when only twenty-one; but
probably feeling that he had not fairly won the position by
merit, he determined to give it up and owe his future advancement
in life to himself alone. “A foolish
resolution,” some will say; but De Tocqueville bravely
acted it out. He resigned his appointment, and made
arrangements to leave France for the purpose of travelling
through the United States, the results of which were published in
his great book on ‘Democracy in America.’ His
friend and travelling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, has
described his indefatigable industry during this journey.
“His nature,” he says, “was wholly averse to
idleness, and whether he was travelling or resting, his mind was
always at work. . . . With Alexis, the most agreeable
conversation was that which was the most useful. The worst
day was the lost day, or the day ill spent; the least loss of
time annoyed him.” Tocqueville himself wrote to a
friend—“There is no time of life at which one can
wholly cease from action, for effort without one’s self,
and still more effort within, is equally necessary, if not more
so, when we grow old, as it is in youth. I compare man in
this world to a traveller journeying without ceasing towards a
colder and colder region; the higher he goes, the faster he ought
to walk. The great malady of the soul is cold. And in
resisting this formidable evil, one needs not only to be
sustained by the action of a mind employed, but also by contact
with one’s fellows in the business of life.” [25]

Notwithstanding de Tocqueville’s decided views as to the
necessity of exercising individual energy and self-dependence, no
one could be more ready than he was to recognise the value of
that help and support for which all men are indebted to others in
a greater or less degree. Thus, he often acknowledged, with
gratitude, his obligations to his friends De Kergorlay and
Stofells,—to the former for intellectual assistance, and to
the latter for moral support and sympathy. To De Kergorlay
he wrote—“Thine is the only soul in which I have
confidence, and whose influence exercises a genuine effect upon
my own. Many others have influence upon the details of my
actions, but no one has so much influence as thou on the
origination of fundamental ideas, and of those principles which
are the rule of conduct.” De Tocqueville was not less
ready to confess the great obligations which he owed to his wife,
Marie, for the preservation of that temper and frame of mind
which enabled him to prosecute his studies with success. He
believed that a noble-minded woman insensibly elevated the
character of her husband, while one of a grovelling nature as
certainly tended to degrade it. [26]

In fine, human character is moulded by a thousand subtle
influences; by example and precept; by life and literature; by
friends and neighbours; by the world we live in as well as by the
spirits of our forefathers, whose legacy of good words and deeds
we inherit. But great, unquestionably, though these
influences are acknowledged to be, it is nevertheless equally
clear that men must necessarily be the active agents of their own
well-being and well-doing; and that, however much the wise and
the good may owe to others, they themselves must in the very
nature of things be their own best helpers.