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reading. "Books were not then," he remarks, "as they fortunately are now, great or small, on this subject or on that, to be found in almost every house. A book, except of prayers, or of daily religious use, was scarcely to be seen but among the opulent, or in the possession of the studious; and by the opulent they were often disregarded with a degree of neglect which would now be almost disgraceful." For some time after his arrival at Newmarket, he was not much better off. In about half a year, however, his father followed him to that place, where he at first found a little employment at his old trade of making shoes; and one of his shopmates, who happened to be fond of books, and to be in possession of a few, occasionally lent young Holcroft a volume from his collection. Among other works, this person put into his hand's "Gulliver's Travels" and the "Spectator," with which, the former especially, he was much delighted. He mentions, also, the "Whole Duty of Man," the Pilgrim's Progress,” and other religious books, as at this time among his chief favourites. As he was one day passing the church, he heard some voices singing, and was immediately seized with a strong desire to learn the art. Having approached the church door, he found the persons within engaged in singing in four parts, under the direction of a Mr. Langham. They asked him to join them, and, his voice and ear being pronounced good, it was agreed that he should be taken into the class; the master offering to give up the entrance-money of five shillings in consideration of his being but a boy, whose wages could not be great, and the others agreeing to let him sing out of their books. "From the little," he proceeds, "I that day learned, and from another lesson or two, I obtained a tolerable conception of striking intervals upwards or downwords, such as the third, the fourth, and the remainder of the octave, the chief feature in which I soon understood; but of course I found most difficulty in the third, sixth, and seventh. Previously, however, to any great progress, I was obliged to purchase 'Arnold's Psalmody;' and, studious over this divine treasure, I passed many a forenoon extended in the hay-loft. My chief, and almost my only difficulty, lay in the impenetrable obscurity of such technical words as were not explained either by their own nature, or by the author in other language. I was illiterate; I knew the language of the vulgar well, but little more. Perhaps no words ever puzzled poor mortal more than I was puzzled by the words major and minor keys. I think it a duty, which no one who writes an elementary book ought to neglect, to give a vocabulary of all the words which are not in common use, in the language in which he writes, and to explain them by the simplest terms in that language; or, if that cannot be done, by a clear and easy paraphrase. The hours I spent by myself in mastering whatever belonged to notation, and in learning the intervals, occasioned my progress to be so very different from that of the others, that it excited the admiration of them all and

Mr. Langham, the great man whom I then looked up to, declared it was surprising. If any part was out, I heard it immediately, and often struck the note for them-getting the start of Mr. Langham. If he should happen to be absent, he said that I could set them all right; so that by this, and the clearness of my voice, I obtained the nickname of "The sweet singer of Israel.'"

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His wages were four pounds a year, and he paid five shillings a quarter to his singing-master; and, upon Mr. Langham offering to give him lessons in arithmetic also for as much more, he agreed to the proposal, and attended him daily for three months. In that time he got so far as Practice and the Rule-of-Three. Except what I have already related," he says, "these three months, as far as others were concerned, may be truly called my course of education. At the age of two or three and thirty, indeed, when I was endeavouring to acquire the French language, I paid a Monsieur Raymond twenty shillings for a few lessons, but the good he did me was so little that it was money thrown away. At Newmarket I was so intent on studying arithmetic, that for want of better apparatus I have often got an old nail and cast up sums on the paling of the stable-yard." This will remind the reader of Gifford, with his leather for paper, and his blunted awl for a pen.

Holcroft continued at Newmarket for about two years and a half, when he determined to go to London once more to join his father, who now kept a cobbler's stall in South Audley Street. "My mind," he says, "having its own somewhat peculiar bias, circumstances had rather concurred to disgust me than to invite my stay. I despised my companions for the grossness of their ideas, and the total absence of every pursuit in which the mind appeared to have any share. It was even with sneers of contempt that they saw me intent on acquiring some small portion of knowledge, so that I was far from having any prompter either as a friend or a rival." He was at this time nearly sixteen. For some years he continued to make shoes with his father, and at last became an able workman. But he grew every day fonder of reading, and, whenever he had a shilling to spare, spent it in purchasing books. In 1765, having married, he attempted to open a school for teaching children to read at Liverpool, but was obliged to abandon the project in about a year, when he returned to town, and resumed his trade of a shoemaker. Beside his dislike to this occupation, however, on other accounts, it brought back an asthmatic complaint he had had when a boy, and every consideration made him resolve to endeavour to escape from it. Even at this time he had become a writer for the newspapers, the editor of the “Whitehall Evening Post" giving him five shillings a column for some essays which he sent to that journal. He again attempted to open a school in the neighbourhood of London; but after living for three months on potatoes and butter-milk, and obtaining only one scholar he

gave up the experiment, and returned to the heart of the town. Having acquired some notions of elocution at a debating club which he had been in the habit of attending, he next thought of going on the stage, and obtained an engagement from the manager of the Dublin theatre, at a poor salary, which was very ill paid. He was so ill treated, indeed, in this situation, that he was obliged to leave it in about half a year. He then joined a strolling company in the north of England, and wandered about as an itinerant actor for seven years, during which time he suffered a great deal of misery, and was often reduced almost to starving. In the midst of all his sufferings, however, he retained his love of books, and had made himself extensively conversant with English literature. At last, in the end of the year 1777, he came back to London, and, by means of an introduction to Mr. Sheridan, obtained an engagement in a subordinate capacity at Drury Lane. He had just before this, as a desperate resource, sat down to compose a farce, which he called "The Crisis," and this turned out the commencement of a busy and extended literary career. The farce, although only acted once, was well received, and it soon encouraged him to new efforts of the same kind; yet he continued for many years involved in difficulties, from which it required all his exertions to extricate himself. The remainder of Mr. Holcroft's history, with the exception of a short but stormy period, during which he was subjected to very severe usage on account of certain political opinions which he was supposed to hold, is merely that of a life of authorship. He never became a good actor, and after some time dedicated himself entirely to literary occupation. His industry in his new profession is abundantly evidenced by the long list of his works, which comprise several of high talent and established popularity. In his maturer years, beside many other acquirements, he made himself master of the French and German languages, from both of which he executed several wellknown translations.

Mr. Holcroft died in 1809. His life is in many respects admirably calculated to answer the design which he had in view, he tells us, in writing the account of the early part of it, namely :-"To excite an ardent emulation in the breasts of youthful readers, by showing them how difficulties may be endured, how they may be overcome, and how they may at last contribute, as a school of instruction, to bring forth hidden talent."

CHAPTER XXIV.

ENJOYMENT ATTENDING THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. PURSUIT OF

KNOWLEDGE BY PERSONS OF RANK OR WEALTH:-DEMOCRITUS; ANAXAGORAS; NICEPHORUS ALPHERY; MARCUS AURELIUS; JULIAN; CHARLEMAGNE; ALFRED; JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND; ELIZABETH; ALPHONSO X.

MANY of the examples we have given show that the Pursuit of Knowledge does much more than merely exercise and enrich the intellect. The moral habits which it has a tendency to create and foster form one of its chief recommendations. Knowledge is, essentially and directly, power; but it is also, indirectly, virtue. And this it is in two ways. It can hardly be acquired without the exertion of several moral qualities of high value; and, having been acquired, it nurtures tastes, and supplies sources of enjoyment, admirably adapted to withdraw the mind from unprofitable and corrupting pleasures. Some distinguished scholars, no doubt, have been bad men; but we cannot tell how much worse they might have been but for their love of learning, which, to the extent it did operate upon their characters, could not have been otherwise than beneficial. A genuine relish for intellectual enjoyments is naturally as inconsistent with a devotion to the coarser gratifications of sense, as the habit of assiduous study is with that dissipation of time, of thought, and of faculty, which a life of vicious pleasure implies.

But Knowledge is also happiness, as well as power and virtue ;-happiness both in the acquisition and in the possession. And, were the pursuit of it nothing better than a mere amusement, it would deserve the preference over all other amusements on many accounts. Of these, indeed, the chief is, that it must almost of necessity become something better than an amusement,—must invigorate the mind as well as entertain it, and refine and elevate the character while it supplies to listlessness and weariness their most agreeable excitement and relaxation. But, omitting this consideration, it is still of all amusements the best, for other reasons. So far from losing any part of its zest with time, the longer it is known the better it is loved. There is no other pastime that can be compared with it in variety. Even to him who has been longest conversant with it, it has still as much novelty to offer as at first. It may be resorted to by all, in all circumstances :-by both sexes; by the young and the old; in town or in the country; by him who has only his stolen half hour to give to it, and by him who can allow it nearly his whole day; in company with others, or in solitude, which it converts into the most delightful society. Above all, it is the cheapest of all

amusements, and consequently the most universally accessible. A book is emphatically the poor man's luxury, for it is of all luxuries that which can be obtained at the least cost. By means of itinerating libraries for the country, and stationary collections for each of our larger towns, almost every individual of the population might be enabled to secure access for himself to an inexhaustible store of intellectual amusement and instruction, at an expense which even the poorest would scarcely feel.

As yet, however, these advantages have been chiefly in the possession of the middle classes, to whom they have been a source not more of enjoyment than of intelligence and influence. Among the highest orders of society, the very cheapness of literary pleasures has probably had the effect of making them to be less in fashion than others, of which wealth can command a more exclusive enjoyment. Even such distinction as eminence in intellectual pursuits can confer must be shared with many of obscure birth and low station, and on that account alone has doubtless seemed often the less worthy of ambition to those who were already raised above the crowd by the accidents of fortune. Yet, whatever enjoyment there may really be in such pursuits will not, of course, be the less to any one because he happens to be a person of wealth or rank. On the contrary, these advantages are perhaps on no other account more valuable, than for the power which they give their possessor of prosecuting the work of mental cultivation to a greater extent than others. He can command, if he chooses, a degree of leisure, and freedom from interruption, greatly exceeding what the generality of men enjoy. Others have seldom more than the mere fragments of the day to give to study, after the bulk of it has been consumed in procuring merely the bread that perisheth; he may make literature and philosophy the vocation of his life. To be enabled to do this, or to do it only in small part, many have willingly embraced comparative poverty in preference to riches. Even in modern times, Alfieri, the great Italian dramatist, gave up his estate to his sister, that he might devote himself the more freely to his poetical studies. Among the philosophers of the ancient world, some are said to have spontaneously disencumbered themselves of their inheritances, that the cares of managing their property might not interrupt their philosophic pursuits. Crates, Thales, Democritus, Anaxagoras are particularly mentioned as having made this sacrifice. But in those days, it is to be remembered, knowledge was chiefly to be obtained by travelling into foreign countries, and those who sought it were therefore obliged, before setting out on the search, either to relinquish altogether the possessions they had at home, or to leave them in charge of trustees, who generally took advantage of their stewardship to embezzle or squander them. Doubtless no one of the celebrated persons we have enumerated would have thrown away his

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