trade. At length he confined himself
entirely to making telescopes; and then he gave up his trade of a silk
weaver. Winckelmann, the distinguished writer on classical antiquities
and the fine arts, was the son of a shoemaker. His father endeavoured,
as long as he could, to give his hoy a learned education; but becoming
ill and worn-out, he had eventually to retire to the hospital.
Winckelmann and his father were once accustomed to sing at night in the
streets to raise fees to enable the boy to attend the grammar school.
The younger Winckelmann then undertook, by hard labour, to support his
father; and afterwards, by means of teaching, to keep himself at
college. Every one knows how distinguished he eventually became.

Samuel Richardson, while writing his novels, stuck to his trade of a
bookseller. He sold his books in the front shop, while he wrote them in
the back. He would not give himself up to authorship, because he loved
his independence. "You know," he said to his friend Defreval, "how my
business engages me. You know by what snatches of time I write, that I
may not neglect that, and that I may preserve that independency which is
the comfort of my life. I never sought out of myself for patrons. My own
industry and God's providence have been my whole reliance. The great are
not great to me unless they are good, and it is a glorious privilege
that a middling man enjoys, who has preserved his independency, and can
occasionally (though not stoically) tell the world what he thinks of
that world, in hopes to contribute, though by his mite, to mend it."

The late Dr. Olynthus Gregory, in addressing the Deptford Mechanics'
Institution at their first anniversary, took the opportunity of
mentioning various men in humble circumstances (some of whom he had been
able to assist), who, by means of energy, application, and self-denial,
had been able to accomplish great things in the acquisition of
knowledge. Thus he described the case of a Labourer on the turnpike
road, who had become an able Greek scholar; of a Fifer, and a Private
Soldier, in a regiment of militia, both self-taught mathematicians, one
of whom became a successful schoolmaster, the other a lecturer on
natural philosophy; of a journeyman Tin-plate worker, who invented rules
for the solution of cubic equations; of a country Sexton, who became a
teacher of music, and who, by his love of the study of musical science,
was transformed from a drunken sot to an exemplar