A reward of a thousand thalers was offered for Bottgher's
apprehension, but in vain.  He arrived at Wittenberg, and appealed
for protection to the Elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus I.
(King of Poland), surnamed "the Strong."  Frederick was himself
very much in want of money at the time, and he was overjoyed at the
prospect of obtaining gold in any quantity by the aid of the young
alchemist.  Bottgher was accordingly conveyed in secret to Dresden,
accompanied by a royal escort.  He had scarcely left Wittenberg
when a battalion of Prussian grenadiers appeared before the gates
demanding the gold-maker's extradition.  But it was too late:
Bottgher had already arrived in Dresden, where he was lodged in the
Golden House, and treated with every consideration, though strictly
watched and kept under guard.

The Elector, however, must needs leave him there for a time, having
to depart forthwith to Poland, then almost in a state of anarchy.
But, impatient for gold, he wrote Bottgher from Warsaw, urging him
to communicate the secret, so that he himself might practise the
art of commutation.  The young "gold-cook," thus pressed, forwarded
to Frederick a small phial containing "a reddish fluid," which, it
was asserted, changed all metals, when in a molten state, into
gold.  This important phial was taken in charge by the Prince Furst
von Furstenburg, who, accompanied by a regiment of Guards, hurried
with it to Warsaw.  Arrived there, it was determined to make
immediate trial of the process.  The King and the Prince locked
themselves up in a secret chamber of the palace, girt themselves
about with leather aprons, and like true "gold-cooks" set to work
melting copper in a crucible and afterwards applying to it the red
fluid of Bottgher.  But the result was unsatisfactory; for
notwithstanding all that they could do, the copper obstinately
remained copper.  On referring to the alchemist's instructions,
however, the King found that, to succeed with the process, it was
necessary that the fluid should be used "in great purity of heart;"
and as his Majesty was conscious of having spent the evening in
very bad company he attributed the failure of the experiment to
that cause.  A second trial was followed by no better results, and
then the King became furious; for he had confessed and received
absolution before beginning the second experiment.

Frederick Augustus now resolved on forcing Bottgher to disclose the
golden secret, as the only means of relief from his urgent
pecuniary difficulties.  The alchemist, hearing of the royal
intention, again determined to fly.  He succeeded in escaping his
guard, and, after three days' travel, arrived at Ens in Austria,
where he thought himself safe.  The agents of the Elector were,
however, at his heels; they had tracked him to the "Golden Stag,"
which they surrounded, and seizing him in his bed, notwithstanding
his resistance and appeals to the Austrian authorities for help,
they carried him by force to Dresden.  From this time he was more
strictly watched than ever, and he was shortly after transferred to
the strong fortress of Koningstein.  It was communicated to him
that the royal exchequer was completely empty, and that ten
regiments of Poles in arrears of pay were waiting for his gold.
The King himself visited him, and told him in a severe tone that if
he did not at once proceed to make gold, he would be hung!  ("Thu
mir zurecht, Bottgher, sonst lass ich dich hangen").

Years passed, and still Bottgher made no gold; but he was not hung.
It was reserved for him to make a far more important discovery than
the conversion of copper into gold, namely, the conversion of clay
into porcelain.  Some rare specimens of this ware had been brought
by the Portuguese from China, which were sold for more than their
weight in gold.  Bottgher was first induced to turn his attention
to the subject by Walter von Tschirnhaus, a maker of optical
instruments, also an alchemist.  Tschirnhaus was a man of education
and distinction, and was held in much esteem by Prince Furstenburg
as well as by the Elector.  He very sensibly said to Bottgher,
still in fear of the gallows--"If you can't make gold, try and do
something else; make porcelain."

The alchemist acted on the hint, and began his experiments, working
night and day.  He prosecuted his investigations for a long time
with great assiduity, but without success.  At length some red
clay, brought to him for the purpose of making his crucibles, set
him on the right track.  He found that this clay, when submitted to
a high temperature, became vitrified and retained its shape; and
that its texture resembled that of porcelain, excepting in colour
and opacity.  He had in fact accidentally discovered red porcelain,
and he proceeded to manufacture it and sell it as porcelain.

Bottgher was, however, well aware that the white colour was an
essential property of true porcelain; and he therefore prosecuted
his experiments in the hope of discovering the secret.  Several
years thus passed, but without success; until again accident stood
his friend, and helped him to a knowledge of the art of making
white porcelain.  One day, in the year 1707, he found his perruque
unusually heavy, and asked of his valet the reason.  The answer
was, that it was owing to the powder with which the wig was
dressed, which consisted of a kind of earth then much used for hair
powder.  Bottgher's quick imagination immediately seized upon the
idea.  This white earthy powder might possibly be the very earth of
which he was in search--at all events the opportunity must not be
let slip of ascertaining what it really was.  He was rewarded for
his painstaking care and watchfulness; for he found, on experiment,
that the principal ingredient of the hair-powder consisted of
kaolin, the want of which had so long formed an insuperable
difficulty in the way of his inquiries.

The discovery, in Bottgher's intelligent hands, led to great
results, and proved of far greater importance than the discovery of
the philosopher's stone would have been.  In October, 1707, he
presented his first piece of porcelain to the Elector, who was
greatly pleased with it; and it was resolved that Bottgher should
be furnished with the means necessary for perfecting his invention.
Having obtained a skilled workman from Delft, he began to TURN
porcelain with great success.  He now entirely abandoned alchemy
for pottery, and inscribed over the door of his workshop this
distich:-


"Es machte Gott, der grosse Schopfer,
Aus einem Goldmacher einen Topfer." {16}


Bottgher, however, was still under strict surveillance, for fear
lest he should communicate his secret to others or escape the
Elector's control.  The new workshops and furnaces which were
erected for him, were guarded by troops night and day, and six
superior officers were made responsible for the personal security
of the potter.

Bottgher's further experiments with his new furnaces proving very
successful, and the porcelain which he manufactured being found to
fetch large prices, it was next determined to establish a Royal
Manufactory of porcelain.  The manufacture of delft ware was known
to have greatly enriched Holland.  Why should not the manufacture
of porcelain equally enrich the Elector?  Accordingly, a decree
went forth, dated the 23rd of January, 1710, for the establishment
of "a large manufactory of porcelain" at the Albrechtsburg in
Meissen.  In this decree, which was translated into Latin, French,
and Dutch, and distributed by the Ambassadors of the Elector at all
the European Courts, Frederick Augustus set forth that to promote
the welfare of Saxony, which had suffered much through the Swedish
invasion, he had "directed his attention to the subterranean
treasures (unterirdischen Schatze)" of the country, and having
employed some able persons in the investigation, they had succeeded
in manufacturing "a sort of red vessels (eine Art rother Gefasse)
far superior to the Indian terra sigillata;" {17} as also "coloured
ware and plates (buntes Geschirr und Tafeln) which may be cut,
ground, and polished, and are quite equal to Indian vessels," and
finally that "specimens of white porcelain (Proben von weissem
Porzellan)" had already been obtained, and it was hoped that this
quality, too, would soon be manufactured in considerable
quantities.  The royal decree concluded by inviting "foreign
artists and handicraftmen" to come to Saxony and engage as
assistants in the new factory, at high wages, and under the
patronage of the King.  This royal edict probably gives the best
account of the actual state of Bottgher's invention at the time.

It has been stated in German publications that Bottgher, for the
great services rendered by him to the Elector and to Saxony, was
made Manager of the Royal Porcelain Works, and further promoted to
the dignity of Baron.  Doubtless he deserved these honours; but his
treatment was of an altogether different character, for it was
shabby, cruel, and inhuman.  Two royal officials, named Matthieu
and Nehmitz, were put over his head as directors of the factory,
while he himself only held the position of foreman of potters, and
at the same time was detained the King's prisoner.  During the
erection of the factory at Meissen, while his assistance was still
indispensable, he was conducted by soldiers to and from Dresden;
and even after the works were finished, he was locked up nightly in
his room.  All this preyed upon his mind, and in repeated letters
to the King he sought to obtain mitigation of his fate.  Some of
these letters are very touching.  "I will devote my whole soul to
the art of making porcelain," he writes on one occasion, "I will do
more than any inventor ever did before; only give me liberty,
liberty!"

To these appeals, the King turned a deaf ear.  He was ready to
spend money and grant favours; but liberty he would not give.  He
regarded Bottgher as his slave.  In this position, the persecuted
man kept on working for some time, till, at the end of a year or
two, he grew negligent.  Disgusted with the world and with himself,
he took to drinking.  Such is the force of example, that it no
sooner became known that Bottgher had betaken himself to this vice,
than the greater number of the workmen at the Meissen factory
became drunkards too.  Quarrels and fightings without end were the
consequence, so that the troops were frequently called upon to
interfere and keep peace among the "Porzellanern," as they were
nicknamed.  After a while, the whole of them, more than three
hundred, were shut up in the Albrechtsburg, and treated as
prisoners of state.

Bottgher at last fell seriously ill, and in May, 1713, his
dissolution was hourly expected.  The King, alarmed at losing so
valuable a slave, now gave him permission to take carriage exercise
under a guard; and, having somewhat recovered, he was allowed
occasionally to go to Dresden.  In a letter written by the King in
April, 1714, Bottgher was promised his full liberty; but the offer
came too late.  Broken in body and mind, alternately working and
drinking, though with occasional gleams of nobler intention, and
suffering under constant ill-health, the result of his enforced
confinement, Bottgher lingered on for a few years more, until death
freed him from his sufferings on the 13th March, 1719, in the
thirty-fifth year of his age.  He was buried AT NIGHT--as if he had
been a dog--in the Johannis Cemetery of Meissen.  Such was the
treatment and such the unhappy end, of one of Saxony's greatest
benefactors.

The porcelain manufacture immediately opened up an important source
of public revenue, and it became so productive to the Elector of
Saxony, that his example was shortly after followed by most
European monarchs.  Although soft porcelain had been made at St.
Cloud fourteen years before Bottgher's discovery, the superiority
of the hard porcelain soon became generally recognised.  Its
manufacture was begun at Sevres in 1770, and it has since almost
entirely superseded the softer material.  This is now one of the
most thriving branches of French industry, of which the high
quality of the articles produced is certainly indisputable.

The career of Josiah Wedgwood, the English potter, was less
chequered and more prosperous than that of either Palissy or
Bottgher, and his lot was cast in happier times.  Down to the
middle of last century England was behind most other nations of the
first order in Europe in respect of skilled industry.  Although
there were many potters in Staffordshire--and Wedgwood himself
belonged to a numerous clan of potters of the same name--their
productions were of the rudest kind, for the most part only plain
brown ware, with the patterns scratched in while the clay was wet.
The principal supply of the better articles of earthenware came
from Delft in Holland, and of drinking stone pots from Cologne.
Two foreign potters, the brothers Elers from Nuremberg, settled for
a time in Staffordshire, and introduced an improved manufacture,
but they shortly after removed to Chelsea, where they confined
themselves to the manufacture of ornamental pieces.  No porcelain
capable of resisting a scratch with a hard point had yet been made
in England; and for a long time the "white ware" made in
Staffordshire was not white, but of a dirty cream colour.  Such, in
a few words, was the condition of the pottery manufacture when
Josiah Wedgwood was born at Burslem in 1730.  By the time that he
died, sixty-four years later, it had become completely changed.  By
his energy, skill, and genius, he established the trade upon a new
and solid foundation; and, in the words of his epitaph, "converted
a rude and inconsiderable manufacture into an elegant art and an
important branch of national commerce."

Josiah Wedgwood was one of those indefatigable men who from time to
time spring from the ranks of the common people, and by their
energetic character not only practically educate the working
population in habits of industry, but by the example of diligence
and perseverance which they set before them, largely influence the
public activity in all directions, and contribute in a great degree
to form the national character.  He was, like Arkwright, the
youngest of a family of thirteen children.  His grandfather and
granduncle were both potters, as was also his father who died when
he was a mere boy, leaving him a patrimony of twenty pounds.  He
had learned to read and write at the village school; but on the
death of his father he was taken from it and set to work as a
"thrower" in a small pottery carried on by his elder brother.
There he began life, his working life, to use his own words, "at
the lowest round of the ladder," when only eleven years old.  He
was shortly after seized by an attack of virulent smallpox, from
the effects of which he suffered during the rest of his life, for
it was followed by a disease in the right knee, which recurred at
frequent intervals, and was only got rid of by the amputation of
the limb many years later.  Mr. Gladstone, in his eloquent Eloge on
Wedgwood recently delivered at Burslem, well observed that the
disease from which he suffered was not improbably the occasion of
his subsequent excellence.  "It prevented him from growing up to be
the active, vigorous English workman, possessed of all his limbs,
and knowing right well the use of them; but it put him upon
considering whether, as he could not be that, he might not be
something else, and something greater.  It sent his mind inwards;
it drove him to meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art.  The
result was, that he arrived at a perception and a grasp of them
which might, perhaps, have been envied, certainly have been owned,
by an Athenian potter." {18}

When he had completed his apprenticeship with his brother, Josiah
joined partnership with another workman, and carried on a small
business in making knife-hafts, boxes, and sundry articles for
domestic use.  Another partnership followed, when he proceeded to
make melon table plates, green pickle leaves, candlesticks,
snuffboxes, and such like articles; but he made comparatively
little progress until he began business on his own account at
Burslem in the year 1759.  There he diligently pursued his calling,
introducing new articles to the trade, and gradually extending his
business.  What he chiefly aimed at was to manufacture cream-
coloured ware of a better quality than was then produced in
Staffordshire as regarded shape, colour, glaze, and durability.  To
understand the subject thoroughly, he devoted his leisure to the
study of chemistry; and he made numerous experiments on fluxes,
glazes, and various sorts of clay.  Being a close inquirer and
accurate observer, he noticed that a certain earth containing
silica, which was black before calcination, became white after
exposure to the heat of a furnace.  This fact, observed and
pondered on, led to the idea of mixing silica with the red powder
of the potteries, and to the discovery that the mixture becomes
white when calcined.  He had but to cover this material with a
vitrification of transparent glaze, to obtain one of the most
important products of fictile art--that which, under the name of
English earthenware, was to attain the greatest commercial value
and become of the most extensive utility.

Wedgwood was for some time much troubled by his furnaces, though
nothing like to the same extent that Palissy was; and he overcame
his difficulties in the same way--by repeated experiments and
unfaltering perseverance.  His first attempts at making porcelain
for table use was a succession of disastrous failures,--the labours
of months being often destroyed in a day.  It was only after a long
series of trials, in the course of which he lost time, money, and
labour, that he arrived at the proper sort of glaze to be used; but
he would not be denied, and at last he conquered success through
patience.  The improvement of pottery became his passion, and was
never lost sight of for a moment.  Even when he had mastered his
difficulties, and become a prosperous man--manufacturing white
stone ware and cream-coloured ware in large quantities for home and
foreign use--he went forward perfecting his manufactures, until,
his example extending in all directions, the action of the entire
district was stimulated, and a great branch of British industry was
eventually established on firm foundations.  He aimed throughout at
the highest excellence, declaring his determination "to give over
manufacturing any article, whatsoever it might be, rather than to
degrade it."

Wedgwood was cordially helped by many persons of rank and
influence; for, working in the truest spirit, he readily commanded
the help and encouragement of other true workers.  He made for
Queen Charlotte the first royal table-service of English
manufacture, of the kind afterwards called "Queen's-ware," and was
appointed Royal Potter; a title which he prized more than if he had
been made a baron.  Valuable sets of porcelain were entrusted to
him for imitation, in which he succeeded to admiration.  Sir
William Hamilton lent him specimens of ancient art from
Herculaneum, of which he produced accurate and beautiful copies.
The Duchess of Portland outbid him for the Barberini Vase when that
article was offered for sale.  He bid as high as seventeen hundred
guineas for it:  her grace secured it for eighteen hundred; but
when she learnt Wedgwood's object she at once generously lent him
the vase to copy.  He produced fifty copies at a cost of about
2500l., and his expenses were not covered by their sale; but he
gained his object, which was to show that whatever had been done,
that English skill and energy could and would accomplish.

Wedgwood called to his aid the crucible of the chemist, the
knowledge of the antiquary, and the skill of the artist.  He found
out Flaxman when a youth, and while he liberally nurtured his
genius drew from him a large number of beautiful designs for his
pottery and porcelain; converting them by his manufacture into
objects of taste and excellence, and thus making them instrumental
in the diffusion of classical art amongst the people.  By careful
experiment and study he was even enabled to rediscover the art of
painting on porcelain or earthenware vases and similar articles--an
art practised by the ancient Etruscans, but which had been lost
since the time of Pliny.  He distinguished himself by his own
contributions to science, and his name is still identified with the
Pyrometer which he invented.  He was an indefatigable supporter of
all measures of public utility; and the construction of the Trent
and Mersey Canal, which completed the navigable communication
between the eastern and western sides of the island, was mainly due
to his public-spirited exertions, allied to the engineering skill
of Brindley.  The road accommodation of the district being of an
execrable character, he planned and executed a turnpike-road
through the Potteries, ten miles in length.  The reputation he
achieved was such that his works at Burslem, and subsequently those
at Etruria, which he founded and built, became a point of
attraction to distinguished visitors from all parts of Europe.

The result of Wedgwood's labours was, that the manufacture of
pottery, which he found in the very lowest condition, became one of
the staples of England; and instead of importing what we needed for
home use from abroad, we became large exporters to other countries,
supplying them with earthenware even in the face of enormous
prohibitory duties on articles of British produce.  Wedgwood gave
evidence as to his manufactures before Parliament in 1785, only
some thirty years after he had begun his operations; from which it
appeared, that instead of providing only casual employment to a
small number of inefficient and badly remunerated workmen, about
20,000 persons then derived their bread directly from the
manufacture of earthenware, without taking into account the
increased numbers to which it gave employment in coal-mines, and in
the carrying trade by land and sea, and the stimulus which it gave
to employment in many ways in various parts of the country.  Yet,
important as had been the advances made in his time, Mr. Wedgwood
was of opinion that the manufacture was but in its infancy, and
that the improvements which he had effected were of but small
amount compared with those to which the art was capable of
attaining, through the continued industry and growing intelligence
of the manufacturers, and the natural facilities and political
advantages enjoyed by Great Britain; an opinion which has been
fully borne out by the progress which has since been effected in
this important branch of industry.  In 1852 not fewer than
84,000,000 pieces of pottery were exported from England to other
countries, besides what were made for home use.  But it is not
merely the quantity and value of the produce that is entitled to
consideration, but the improvement of the condition of the
population by whom this great branch of industry is conducted.
When Wedgwood began his labours, the Staffordshire district was
only in a half-civilized state.  The people were poor,
uncultivated, and few in number.  When Wedgwood's manufacture was
firmly established, there was found ample employment at good wages
for three times the number of population; while their moral
advancement had kept pace with their material improvement.

Men such as these are fairly entitled to take rank as the
Industrial Heroes of the civilized world.  Their patient self-
reliance amidst trials and difficulties, their courage and
perseverance in the pursuit of worthy objects, are not less heroic
of their kind than the bravery and devotion of the soldier and the
sailor, whose duty and pride it is heroically to defend what these
valiant leaders of industry have so heroically achieved.



CHAPTER IV--APPLICATION AND PERSEVERANCE



"Rich are the diligent, who can command
Time, nature's stock! and could his hour-glass fall,
Would, as for seed of stars, stoop for the sand,
And, by incessant labour, gather all."--D'Avenant.
"Allez en avant, et la foi vous viendra!"--D'Alembert.


The greatest results in life are usually attained by simple means,
and the exercise of ordinary qualities.  The common life of every
day, with its cares, necessities, and duties, affords ample
opportunity for acquiring experience of the best kind; and its most
beaten paths provide the true worker with abundant scope for effort
and room for self-improvement.  The road of human welfare lies
along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the
most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will usually be the
most successful.

Fortune has often been blamed for her blindness; but fortune is not
so blind as men are.  Those who look into practical life will find
that fortune is usually on the side of the industrious, as the
winds and waves are on the side of the best navigators.  In the
pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner
qualities are found the most useful--such as common sense,
attention, application, and perseverance.  Genius may not be
necessary, though even genius of the highest sort does not disdain
the use of these ordinary qualities.  The very greatest men have
been among the least believers in the power of genius, and as
worldly wise and persevering as successful men of the commoner
sort.  Some have even defined genius to be only common sense
intensified.  A distinguished teacher and president of a college
spoke of it as the power of making efforts.  John Foster held it to
be the power of lighting one's own fire.  Buffon said of genius "it
is patience."

Newton's was unquestionably a mind of the very highest order, and
yet, when asked by what means he had worked out his extraordinary
discoveries, he modestly answered, "By always thinking unto them."
At another time he thus expressed his method of study:  "I keep the
subject continually before me, and wait till the first dawnings
open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light."  It
was in Newton's case, as in every other, only by diligent
application and perseverance that his great reputation was
achieved.  Even his recreation consisted in change of study, laying
down one subject to take up another.  To Dr. Bentley he said:  "If
I have done the public any service, it is due to nothing but
industry and patient thought."  So Kepler, another great
philosopher, speaking of his studies and his progress, said:  "As
in Virgil, 'Fama mobilitate viget, vires acquirit eundo,' so it was
with me, that the diligent thought on these things was the occasion
of still further thinking; until at last I brooded with the whole
energy of my mind upon the subject."

The extraordinary results effected by dint of sheer industry and
perseverance, have led many distinguished men to doubt whether the
gift of genius be so exceptional an endowment as it is usually
supposed to be.  Thus Voltaire held that it is only a very slight
line of separation that divides the man of genius from the man of
ordinary mould.  Beccaria was even of opinion that all men might be
poets and orators, and Reynolds that they might be painters and
sculptors.  If this were really so, that stolid Englishman might
not have been so very far wrong after all, who, on Canova's death,
inquired of his brother whether it was "his intention to carry on
the business!"  Locke, Helvetius, and Diderot believed that all men
have an equal aptitude for genius, and that what some are able to
effect, under the laws which regulate the operations of the
intellect, must also be within the reach of others who, under like
circumstances, apply themselves to like pursuits.  But while
admitting to the fullest extent the wonderful achievements of
labour, and recognising the fact that men of the most distinguished
genius have invariably been found the most indefatigable workers,
it must nevertheless be sufficiently obvious that, without the
original endowment of heart and brain, no amount of labour, however
well applied, could have produced a Shakespeare, a Newton, a
Beethoven, or a Michael Angelo.

Dalton, the chemist, repudiated the notion of his being "a genius,"
attributing everything which he had accomplished to simple industry
and accumulation.  John Hunter said of himself, "My mind is like a
beehive; but full as it is of buzz and apparent confusion, it is
yet full of order and regularity, and food collected with incessant
industry from the choicest stores of nature."  We have, indeed, but
to glance at the biographies of great men to find that the most
distinguished inventors, artists, thinkers, and workers of all
kinds, owe their success, in a great measure, to their
indefatigable industry and application.  They were men who turned
all things to gold--even time itself.  Disraeli the elder held that
the secret of success consisted in being master of your subject,
such mastery being attainable only through continuous application
and study.  Hence it happens that the men who have most moved the
world, have not been so much men of genius, strictly so called, as
men of intense mediocre abilities, and untiring perseverance; not
so often the gifted, of naturally bright and shining qualities, as
those who have applied themselves diligently to their work, in
whatsoever line that might lie.  "Alas!" said a widow, speaking of
her brilliant but careless son, "he has not the gift of
continuance."  Wanting in perseverance, such volatile natures are
outstripped in the race of life by the diligent and even the dull.
"Che va piano, va longano, e va lontano," says the Italian proverb:
Who goes slowly, goes long, and goes far.

Hence, a great point to be aimed at is to get the working quality
well trained.  When that is done, the race will be found
comparatively easy.  We must repeat and again repeat; facility will
come with labour.  Not even the simplest art can be accomplished
without it; and what difficulties it is found capable of achieving!
It was by early discipline and repetition that the late Sir Robert
Peel cultivated those remarkable, though still mediocre powers,
which rendered him so illustrious an ornament of the British
Senate.  When a boy at Drayton Manor, his father was accustomed to
set him up at table to practise speaking extempore; and he early
accustomed him to repeat as much of the Sunday's sermon as he could
remember.  Little progress was made at first, but by steady
perseverance the habit of attention became powerful, and the sermon
was at length repeated almost verbatim.  When afterwards replying
in succession to the arguments of his parliamentary opponents--an
art in which he was perhaps unrivalled--it was little surmised that
the extraordinary power of accurate remembrance which he displayed
on such occasions had been originally trained under the discipline
of his father in the parish church of Drayton.

It is indeed marvellous what continuous application will effect in
the commonest of things.  It may seem a simple affair to play upon
a violin; yet what a long and laborious practice it requires!
Giardini said to a youth who asked him how long it would take to
learn it, "Twelve hours a day for twenty years together."
Industry, it is said, fait l'ours danser.  The poor figurante must
devote years of incessant toil to her profitless task before she
can shine in it.  When Taglioni was preparing herself for her
evening exhibition, she would, after a severe two hours' lesson
from her father, fall down exhausted, and had to be undressed,
sponged, and resuscitated totally unconscious.  The agility and
bounds of the evening were insured only at a price like this.

Progress, however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.  Great
results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to
advance in life as we walk, step by step.  De Maistre says that "to
know HOW TO WAIT is the great secret of success."  We must sow
before we can reap, and often have to wait long, content meanwhile
to look patiently forward in hope; the fruit best worth waiting for
often ripening the slowest.  But "time and patience," says the
Eastern proverb, "change the mulberry leaf to satin."

To wait patiently, however, men must work cheerfully.  Cheerfulness
is an excellent working quality, imparting great elasticity to the
character.  As a bishop has said, "Temper is nine-tenths of
Christianity;" so are cheerfulness and diligence nine-tenths of
practical wisdom.  They are the life and soul of success, as well
as of happiness; perhaps the very highest pleasure in life
consisting in clear, brisk, conscious working; energy, confidence,
and every other good quality mainly depending upon it.  Sydney
Smith, when labouring as a parish priest at Foston-le-Clay, in
Yorkshire,--though he did not feel himself to be in his proper
element,--went cheerfully to work in the firm determination to do
his best.  "I am resolved," he said, "to like it, and reconcile
myself to it, which is more manly than to feign myself above it,
and to send up complaints by the post of being thrown away, and
being desolate, and such like trash."  So Dr. Hook, when leaving
Leeds for a new sphere of labour said, "Wherever I may be, I shall,
by God's blessing, do with my might what my hand findeth to do; and
if I do not find work, I shall make it."

Labourers for the public good especially, have to work long and
patiently, often uncheered by the prospect of immediate recompense
or result.  The seeds they sow sometimes lie hidden under the
winter's snow, and before the spring comes the husbandman may have
gone to his rest.  It is not every public worker who, like Rowland
Hill, sees his great idea bring forth fruit in his life-time.  Adam
Smith sowed the seeds of a great social amelioration in that dingy
old University of Glasgow where he so long laboured, and laid the
foundations of his 'Wealth of Nations;' but seventy years passed
before his work bore substantial fruits, nor indeed are they all
gathered in yet.

Nothing can compensate for the loss of hope in a man:  it entirely
changes the character.  "How can I work--how can I be happy," said
a great but miserable thinker, "when I have lost all hope?"  One of
the most cheerful and courageous, because one of the most hopeful
of workers, was Carey, the missionary.  When in India, it was no
uncommon thing for him to weary out three pundits, who officiated
as his clerks, in one day, he himself taking rest only in change of
employment.  Carey, the son of a shoe-maker, was supported in his
labours by Ward, the son of a carpenter, and Marsham, the son of a
weaver.  By their labours, a magnificent college was erected at
Serampore; sixteen flourishing stations were established; the Bible
was translated into sixteen languages, and the seeds were sown of a
beneficent moral revolution in British India.  Carey was never
ashamed of the humbleness of his origin.  On one occasion, when at
the Governor-General's table he over-heard an officer opposite him
asking another, loud enough to be heard, whether Carey had not once
been a shoemaker:  "No, sir," exclaimed Carey immediately; "only a
cobbler."  An eminently characteristic anecdote has been told of
his perseverance as a boy.  When climbing a tree one day, his foot
slipped, and he fell to the ground, breaking his leg by the fall.
He was confined to his bed for weeks, but when he recovered and was
able to walk without support, the very first thing he did was to go
and climb that tree.  Carey had need of this sort of dauntless
courage for the great missionary work of his life, and nobly and
resolutely he did it.

It was a maxim of Dr. Young, the philosopher, that "Any man can do
what any other man has done;" and it is unquestionable that he
himself never recoiled from any trials to which he determined to
subject himself.  It is related of him, that the first time he
mounted a horse, he was in company with the grandson of Mr. Barclay
of Ury, the well-known sportsman; when the horseman who preceded
them leapt a high fence.  Young wished to imitate him, but fell off
his horse in the attempt.  Without saying a word, he remounted,
made a second effort, and was again unsuccessful, but this time he
was not thrown further than on to the horse's neck, to which he
clung.  At the third trial, he succeeded, and cleared the fence.

The story of Timour the Tartar learning a lesson of perseverance
under adversity from the spider is well known.  Not less
interesting is the anecdote of Audubon, the American ornithologist,
as related by himself:  "An accident," he says, "which happened to
two hundred of my original drawings, nearly put a stop to my
researches in ornithology.  I shall relate it, merely to show how
far enthusiasm--for by no other name can I call my perseverance--
may enable the preserver of nature to surmount the most
disheartening difficulties.  I left the village of Henderson, in
Kentucky, situated on the banks of the Ohio, where I resided for
several years, to proceed to Philadelphia on business.  I looked to
my drawings before my departure, placed them carefully in a wooden
box, and gave them in charge of a relative, with injunctions to see
that no injury should happen to them.  My absence was of several
months; and when I returned, after having enjoyed the pleasures of
home for a few days, I inquired after my box, and what I was
pleased to call my treasure.  The box was produced and opened; but
reader, feel for me--a pair of Norway rats had taken possession of
the whole, and reared a young family among the gnawed bits of
paper, which, but a month previous, represented nearly a thousand
inhabitants of air!  The burning beat which instantly rushed
through my brain was too great to be endured without affecting my
whole nervous system.  I slept for several nights, and the days
passed like days of oblivion--until the animal powers being
recalled into action through the strength of my constitution, I
took up my gun, my notebook, and my pencils, and went forth to the
woods as gaily as if nothing had happened.  I felt pleased that I
might now make better drawings than before; and, ere a period not
exceeding three years had elapsed, my portfolio was again filled."

The accidental destruction of Sir Isaac Newton's papers, by his
little dog 'Diamond' upsetting a lighted taper upon his desk, by
which the elaborate calculations of many years were in a moment
destroyed, is a well-known anecdote, and need not be repeated:  it
is said that the loss caused the philosopher such profound grief
that it seriously injured his health, and impaired his
understanding.  An accident of a somewhat similar kind happened to
the MS. of Mr. Carlyle's first volume of his 'French Revolution.'
He had lent the MS. to a literary neighbour to peruse.  By some
mischance, it had been left lying on the parlour floor, and become
forgotten.  Weeks ran on, and the historian sent for his work, the
printers being loud for "copy."  Inquiries were made, and it was
found that the maid-of-all-work, finding what she conceived to be a
bundle of waste paper on the floor, had used it to light the
kitchen and parlour fires with!  Such was the answer returned to
Mr. Carlyle; and his feelings may be imagined.  There was, however,
no help for him but to set resolutely to work to re-write the book;
and he turned to and did it.  He had no draft, and was compelled to
rake up from his memory facts, ideas, and expressions, which had
been long since dismissed.  The composition of the book in the
first instance had been a work of pleasure; the re-writing of it a
second time was one of pain and anguish almost beyond belief.  That
he persevered and finished the volume under such circumstances,
affords an instance of determination of purpose which has seldom
been surpassed.

The lives of eminent inventors are eminently illustrative of the
same quality of perseverance.  George Stephenson, when addressing
young men, was accustomed to sum up his best advice to them, in the
words, "Do as I have done--persevere."  He had worked at the
improvement of his locomotive for some fifteen years before
achieving his decisive victory at Rainhill; and Watt was engaged
for some thirty years upon the condensing-engine before he brought
it to perfection.  But there are equally striking illustrations of
perseverance to be found in every other branch of science, art, and
industry.  Perhaps one of the most interesting is that connected
with the disentombment of the Nineveh marbles, and the discovery of
the long-lost cuneiform or arrow-headed character in which the
inscriptions on them are written--a kind of writing which had been
lost to the world since the period of the Macedonian conquest of
Persia.

An intelligent cadet of the East India Company, stationed at
Kermanshah, in Persia, had observed the curious cuneiform
inscriptions on the old monuments in the neighbourhood--so old that
all historical traces of them had been lost,--and amongst the
inscriptions which he copied was that on the celebrated rock of
Behistun--a perpendicular rock rising abruptly some 1700 feet from
the plain, the lower part bearing inscriptions for the space of
about 300 feet in three languages--Persian, Scythian, and Assyrian.
Comparison of the known with the unknown, of the language which
survived with the language that had been lost, enabled this cadet
to acquire some knowledge of the cuneiform character, and even to
form an alphabet.  Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Rawlinson sent his
tracings home for examination.  No professors in colleges as yet
knew anything of the cuneiform character; but there was a ci-devant
clerk of the East India House--a modest unknown man of the name of
Norris--who had made this little-understood subject his study, to
whom the tracings were submitted; and so accurate was his
knowledge, that, though he had never seen the Behistun rock, he
pronounced that the cadet had not copied the puzzling inscription
with proper exactness.  Rawlinson, who was still in the
neighbourhood of the rock, compared his copy with the original, and
found that Norris was right; and by further comparison and careful
study the knowledge of the cuneiform writing was thus greatly
advanced.

But to make the learning of these two self-taught men of avail, a
third labourer was necessary in order to supply them with material
for the exercise of their skill.  Such a labourer presented himself
in the person of Austen Layard, originally an articled clerk in the
office of a London solicitor.  One would scarcely have expected to
find in these three men, a cadet, an India-House clerk, and a
lawyer's clerk, the discoverers of a forgotten language, and of the
buried history of Babylon; yet it was so.  Layard was a youth of
only twenty-two, travelling in the East, when he was possessed with
a desire to penetrate the regions beyond the Euphrates.
Accompanied by a single companion, trusting to his arms for
protection, and, what was better, to his cheerfulness, politeness,
and chivalrous bearing, he passed safely amidst tribes at deadly
war with each other; and, after the lapse of many years, with
comparatively slender means at his command, but aided by
application and perseverance, resolute will and purpose, and almost
sublime patience,--borne up throughout by his passionate enthusiasm
for discovery and research,--he succeeded in laying bare and
digging up an amount of historical treasures, the like of which has
probably never before been collected by the industry of any one
man.  Not less than two miles of bas-reliefs were thus brought to
light by Mr. Layard.  The selection of these valuable antiquities,
now placed in the British Museum, was found so curiously
corroborative of the scriptural records of events which occurred
some three thousand years ago, that they burst upon the world
almost like a new revelation.  And the story of the disentombment
of these remarkable works, as told by Mr. Layard himself in his
'Monuments of Nineveh,' will always be regarded as one of the most
charming and unaffected records which we possess of individual
enterprise, industry, and energy.

The career of the Comte de Buffon presents another remarkable
illustration of the power of patient industry as well as of his own
saying, that "Genius is patience."  Notwithstanding the great
results achieved by him in natural history, Buffon, when a youth,
was regarded as of mediocre talents.  His mind was slow in forming
itself, and slow in reproducing what it had acquired.  He was also
constitutionally indolent; and being born to good estate, it might
be supposed that he would indulge his liking for ease and luxury.
Instead of which, he early formed the resolution of denying himself
pleasure, and devoting himself to study and self-culture.
Regarding time as a treasure that was limited, and finding that he
was losing many hours by lying a-bed in the mornings, he determined
to break himself of the habit.  He struggled hard against it for
some time, but failed in being able to rise at the hour he had
fixed.  He then called his servant, Joseph, to his help, and
promised him the reward of a crown every time that he succeeded in
getting him up before six.  At first, when called, Buffon declined
to rise--pleaded that he was ill, or pretended anger at being
disturbed; and on the Count at length getting up, Joseph found that
he had earned nothing but reproaches for having permitted his
master to lie a-bed contrary to his express orders.  At length the
valet determined to earn his crown; and again and again he forced
Buffon to rise, notwithstanding his entreaties, expostulations, and
threats of immediate discharge from his service.  One morning
Buffon was unusually obstinate, and Joseph found it necessary to
resort to the extreme measure of dashing a basin of ice-cold water
under the bed-clothes, the effect of which was instantaneous.  By
the persistent use of such means, Buffon at length conquered his
habit; and he was accustomed to say that he owed to Joseph three or
four volumes of his Natural History.

For forty years of his life, Buffon worked every morning at his
desk from nine till two, and again in the evening from five till
nine.  His diligence was so continuous and so regular that it
became habitual.  His biographer has said of him, "Work was his
necessity; his studies were the charm of his life; and towards the
last term of his glorious career he frequently said that he still
hoped to be able to consecrate to them a few more years."  He was a
most conscientious worker, always studying to give the reader his
best thoughts, expressed in the very best manner.  He was never
wearied with touching and retouching his compositions, so that his
style may be pronounced almost perfect.  He wrote the 'Epoques de
la Nature' not fewer than eleven times before he was satisfied with
it; although he had thought over the work about fifty years.  He
was a thorough man of business, most orderly in everything; and he
was accustomed to say that genius without order lost three-fourths
of its power.  His great success as a writer was the result mainly
of his painstaking labour and diligent application.  "Buffon,"
observed Madame Necker, "strongly persuaded that genius is the
result of a profound attention directed to a particular subject,
said that he was thoroughly wearied out when composing his first
writings, but compelled himself to return to them and go over them
carefully again, even when he thought he had already brought them
to a certain degree of perfection; and that at length he found
pleasure instead of weariness in this long and elaborate
correction."  It ought also to be added that Buffon wrote and
published all his great works while afflicted by one of the most
painful diseases to which the human frame is subject.

Literary life affords abundant illustrations of the same power of
perseverance; and perhaps no career is more instructive, viewed in
this light, than that of Sir Walter Scott.  His admirable working
qualities were trained in a lawyer's office, where he pursued for
many years a sort of drudgery scarcely above that of a copying
clerk.  His daily dull routine made his evenings, which were his
own, all the more sweet; and he generally devoted them to reading
and study.  He himself attributed to his prosaic office discipline
that habit of steady, sober diligence, in which mere literary men
are so often found wanting.  As a copying clerk he was allowed 3d.
for every page containing a certain number of words; and he
sometimes, by extra work, was able to copy as many as 120 pages in
twenty-four hours, thus earning some 30s.; out of which he would
occasionally purchase an odd volume, otherwise beyond his means.

During his after-life Scott was wont to pride himself upon being a
man of business, and he averred, in contradiction to what he called
the cant of sonneteers, that there was no necessary connection
between genius and an aversion or contempt for the common duties of
life.  On the contrary, he was of opinion that to spend some fair
portion of every day in any matter-of-fact occupation was good for
the higher faculties themselves in the upshot.  While afterwards
acting as clerk to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, he performed
his literary work chiefly before breakfast, attending the court
during the day, where he authenticated registered deeds and
writings of various kinds.  On the whole, says Lockhart, "it forms
one of the most remarkable features in his history, that throughout
the most active period of his literary career, he must have devoted
a large proportion of his hours, during half at least of every
year, to the conscientious discharge of professional duties."  It
was a principle of action which he laid down for himself, that he
must earn his living by business, and not by literature.  On one
occasion he said, "I determined that literature should be my staff,
not my crutch, and that the profits of my literary labour, however
convenient otherwise, should not, if I could help it, become
necessary to my ordinary expenses."