loafed and played called him
lucky.

It was by steadfastly keeping at it, by indomitable will power, that
these men won their positions in life.

"We rise by the things that are under our feet;
By what we have mastered of good or gain."

TALENT IN TATTERS.

Among the companions of Sir Joshua Reynolds, while he was studying his
art at Rome, was a fellow-pupil of the name of Astley. They made an
excursion, with some others, on a sultry day, and all except Astley took
off their coats. After several taunts he was persuaded to do the same,
and displayed on the back of his waistcoat a foaming waterfall. Distress
had compelled him to patch his clothes with one of his own landscapes.

James Sharpies, the celebrated blacksmith artist of England, was very
poor, but he often rose at three o'clock to copy books he could not buy.
He would walk eighteen miles to Manchester and back after a hard day's
work, to buy a shilling's worth of artist's materials. He would ask for
the heaviest work in the blacksmith shop, because it took a longer time
to heat at the forge, and he could thus have many spare minutes to study
the precious book, which he propped up against the chimney. He was a
great miser of spare moments, and used every one as though he might
never see another. He devoted his leisure hours for five years to that
wonderful production, "The Forge," copies of which are to be seen in
many a home. It was by one unwavering aim, carried out by an iron will,
that he wrought out his life triumph.

"That boy will beat me one day," said an old painter as he watched a
little fellow named Michael Angelo making drawings of pot and brushes,
easel and stool, and other articles in the studio. The barefoot boy did
persevere until he had overcome every difficulty and become the greatest
master of art the world has known. Although Michael Angelo made himself
immortal in three different occupations,--and his fame might well rest
upon his dome of St. Peter as an architect, upon his "Moses" as a
sculptor, or upon his "Last Judgment" as a painter,--yet we find by his
correspondence, now in the British Museum, that when he was at work on
his colossal bronze statue of Pope Julius II., he was so poor that he
could not have his younger brother come to visit him at Bologna, because
he had but one bed in which he and three of his assistants slept
together. Yet

"The star of an unconquered will
Arose in his breast,
Serene,