CHAPTER X.

A Constellation of Celebrated Cobblers.

"This day is called the feast of Crispin:

.. .. .. .

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."

--_Shakespeare. King Henry Fifth's Address to the Leaders of the English Army on the Eve of the Battle of Agincourt. Act v. Scene 3._

Archbishop Whately once amused a clerical dinner-party by asking the question, "Why do _white_ sheep eat more than _black_ sheep?" When none of his friends could answer the question, the witty Archbishop dryly remarked that _one_ reason undoubtedly was that "there were more of them." The question is often asked, "How are we to account for the fact that shoemakers outnumber any other handicraft in the ranks of illustrious men?"[72] Perhaps this question may be answered in the same way. At all events, the answer "there are more of them," will go a long way toward a solution of this interesting social problem. The sons of Crispin are certainly a very numerous class, and it is but natural that they should figure largely in the lists of famous men. But inquirers on this subject are not generally satisfied by an appeal to statistics. It is felt that something more is required in order to account for the remarkable proportion of shoemakers in the roll of men of mark. In addition to this, it must be borne in mind that the reputation of shoemakers does not depend entirely on their most illustrious representatives. They have, _as a class_, a reputation which is quite unique. The followers of "the gentle craft" have generally stood foremost among artisans as regards intelligence and social influence. Probably no class of workmen could, in these respects, compete with them fifty or a hundred years ago, when education and reading were not so common as they are now. Almost to a man they had some credit for thoughtfulness, shrewdness, logical skill, and debating power; and their knowledge derived from books was admitted to be beyond the average among operatives. They were generally referred to by men of their own social status for the settlement of disputed points in literature, science, politics, or theology. Advocates of political, social, or religious reform, local preachers, Methodist "class-leaders," and Sunday-school teachers, were drafted in larger numbers from the fraternity of shoemakers than from any other craft.

[72] Among others, Coleridge observed that shoemakers had given to the world a larger number of eminent men than any handicraft. The philosopher was rather partial to shoemakers, from the time when, as a boy at Christ's Hospital, he wished to be apprenticed to the trade of shoemaking.

How are we to account for such facts as these? Is there anything in the _occupation_ of the shoemaker which is peculiarly favorable to habits of thought and study? It would seem to be so; and yet it would be difficult to show what it is that gives him an advantage over all other workmen. The secret may lie in the fact that he _sits_ to his work, and, as a rule, sits _alone_; that his occupation stimulates his mind without wholly occupying and absorbing its powers; that it leaves him free to break off, if he will, at intervals, and glance at the book or make notes on the paper which lies beside him. Such facts as these have been suggested, and not without reason, as helping us to account for the reputation which the sons of Crispin enjoy as an uncommonly clever class of men.

ANCIENT EXAMPLES IN ASIA AND AFRICA

THE COBBLER AND THE ARTIST APELLES.

"Let the cobbler stick to his last."

The reputation of the shoemaker class is not confined to our own country or to modern times. It is pretty much the same in all countries, and reaches back to very ancient times. The proverb, "_Ne Sutor ultra crepidam_"--"Let the cobbler stick to his last"--is one of the oldest in existence. Few proverbs are more universally and frequently quoted. It is based on a story which comes down to us from the times of Alexander the Great. Even if the story, as it is told in our Grecian histories, be not authentic, it serves to show that even in times preceding the Christian era cobblers were regarded as a shrewd and observant set of men. But there is no reason that we know of to doubt the story, which is well worth repeating. It is told of Apelles, one of the most celebrated of the old Greek painters, who flourished about 300 B.C. He was the friend of Alexander, and the only artist whom the great warrior would allow to paint his portrait. Apelles, we are told, was not ashamed to learn from the humblest critics. As Lord Bacon says, he did not object to "light his torch at any man's candle." For this reason, knowing that a good deal may sometimes be learned from the observations of passers-by, he was in the habit of placing his pictures before they were quite finished outside his house; and then, crouching down behind them, he listened to the remarks of spectators. On one occasion a cobbler noticed a fault in the painting of a shoe, and remarking upon it to a person standing by, passed on. As soon as the man was out of sight Apelles came from his hiding-place, examined the painting, found that the cobbler's criticism was just, and at once corrected the error. Once more the picture was exposed, while the artist lay behind it to hear what further might be said. The cobbler came by again, and soon discovered that the fault he had pointed out had been remedied; and, emboldened by the success of his criticism, began to express his opinion pretty freely about the painting of the _leg_! This was too much for the patience of the artist, who rushed from his hiding-place, and told the cobbler _to stick to his shoes_. Hence the proverb, which for more than two thousand years[73] has expressed the common feeling, that critics would do well not to venture beyond their legitimate province.

[73] It is used by Pliny, who died A.D. 79.

TWO SHOEMAKER-BISHOPS--ANNIANUS OF ALEXANDRIA, AND ALEXANDER OF COMANA.

If the shoemaker has found a place in classic history, it must not be forgotten that he has a place in ecclesiastical history also. In two instances a shoemaker is said to have been taken direct from the stall and elevated to the episcopal chair. No doubt many shoemakers have been endowed with sufficient piety and learning for this sacred and dignified office, and probably not a few have deemed themselves fit, whether they were so or not, to discharge its high functions; but the instances here given are, we believe, quite unique. The first is that of Anianus or Annianus (A.D. 62-86), who is said to have been appointed by St. Mark to assist him in the government of the Church at Alexandria. On the outbreak of persecution under Nero, Mark fled from the city; and, as Eusebius says, "Nero was now in his eighth year, when Annianus succeeded the Apostle and Evangelist Mark in the administration of the Church at Alexandria." The historian adds, "He (Annianus) was a man distinguished for piety, and admirable in every respect."[74] He died in the fourth year of Domitian, 86 A.D. He was the first Bishop of Alexandria, and filled the office twenty-two years.[75] To these simple statements of the historian are added the stories which found a ready acceptance in later times. To the fact that the worthy Alexandrian was a _shoemaker_ tradition added the account of the miracle wrought upon him by St. Mark. One account tells us that the Evangelist, on passing along the street, burst his shoe and turned in to get it repaired, and so became acquainted with Annianus. Another version of the story declares that the cobbler, having hurt his hand with an awl, uttered a not very pious exclamation, which Mark overheard as he passed by, and going in to inquire the cause, took the opportunity not only to heal the wound, but to speak to the impatient workman of the true and living God whose name he had taken in vain. Annianus is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology with St. Mark on the 25th April.[76]

[74] Eccles. Hist., Book ii. cap. xxiv.

[75] Ibid., Book iii. cap. xiv.

[76] Annianus is regarded in some countries as the patron saint of shoemakers. Campion's "Delightful History of ye Gentle Craft." Northampton: Taylor & Son, 2d ed., 1876, p. 25.

The other appointment of a shoemaker to the episcopate was due to the piety and wisdom of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the pupil and friend of Origen (220-270 A.D.). Gregory was then Bishop of Neo-Cæsarea in Asia Minor, and when a vacancy occurred in the bishopric of Comana in Cappadocia, he defied all conventionalism and prejudice, and appointed "a poor shoemaker named _Alexander_, despised by the world, but great in the sight of God, who did honor to so exalted a station in the Church."[77] He was chosen in preference to scholars and men of good social status on account of his extraordinary piety. This Alexander justified the choice thus made by reason of his excellent discourse, his holy living, and a martyr's death. He is honored in the Roman Calendar on August 11th.[78]

[77] Pressense's "Early Years of Christianity." London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1879, vol. ii. p. 355.

[78] Dr. Smith's "Dict. Christian Biog.," art. "Gregory Thaumaturgus." In this article Gregory is called a charcoal-burner. Probably, like many other shoemakers, he followed more than one vocation.

THE PIOUS COBBLER OF ALEXANDRIA.

Quite as good a man, no doubt, if not as fit to fill the episcopal chair, was _the pious cobbler of Alexandria_, of whom we read that St. Anthony paid him a visit in consequence of a voice from Heaven which said to him, "Antony, thou art not so perfect as a cobbler that dwelleth at Alexandria." The pious anchorite was in the habit of hearing such voices and obeying them. All the leading events of his life were accompanied by a similar message from heaven, as he deemed it. Accordingly he took his staff, and leaving his secluded retreat in the desert, came down to the great city in search of the pious cobbler. Arriving before his door, where the good man sat at work, Antony asked him for an account of himself and his mode of living. "Sir," answered the cobbler, "as for me, good works I have none. My life is but simple, seeing I am but a poor cobbler. In the morning when I rise, I pray for the whole city wherein I dwell, especially for all such neighbors and poor friends as I have; after that I sit me down to my labor, where I spend the whole day in getting my living; and I keep me from all falsehood, for I hate nothing so much as I do deceitfulness; wherefore when I make any man a promise, I keep it and perform it truly; and thus I spend my time poorly with my wife and children, whom I teach and instruct, so far as my wit will serve me, to fear and dread God; and this is the sum of my simple life."

RABBI JOCHANAN THE SHOEMAKER.

Speaking of Alexandria reminds us of another worthy of that city, the famous Jewish Rabbi Jochanan _Sandalarius_, or the shoemaker. Learned Rabbins were common enough in Alexandria from the time of its foundation by Alexander the Great, 332 B.C., down to its capture by the Arabs in the seventh century A.D. And as it was the custom with even the most learned Rabbins to learn a trade, it can be no matter of surprise that many of the most eminent leaders of thought among the Jews were employed in what are now regarded as very humble occupations. The Delegate Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, in an interesting article in the _Nineteenth Century_,[79] tells us that "in the grand basilica synagogue of Alexandria, separate portions of the building were assigned to the silversmiths, weavers, and other trades.... The Rabbins, the authorized expounders of the law, deemed it derogatory to receive any reward for the exercise of their spiritual, doctrinal, or judicial functions, and maintained themselves by the labor of their hands. And thus in the Talmud we meet, in curious juxtaposition, the Rabbi and his trade in such phrases as these: "It was taught by Rabbi Jochanan the shoemaker." This illustrious Rabbi came from Alexandria to Palestine, attracted by the great name of Akiba Ben Joseph, the famous Rabbi, who was the chief teacher of the rabbinical school at Jaffa at the close of the first century and the beginning of the second. In this school there were said to be no less than 24,000 pupils. Akiba sided with Bar Cocheba in his revolt against Rome, 132 A.D., acknowledged him as the Messiah, and became his armor-bearer. On the death of Bar Cocheba and the destruction of his army, Akiba was taken prisoner, and remained in the hands of the Romans for a long time, until his cruel death under Severus. During his imprisonment Jochanan managed to get access to his cell, and receive instructions from him on questions which had not been settled. Through Jochanan and Meir, Akiba greatly influenced the teachers of the next generation. Jochanan was certainly one of his most illustrious pupils, taking a leading part in the theological discussions of the Tanaim, the authors of the Mishna and Gamara, where his opinions are frequently quoted. In the Mishna Aboth[80] "Rabbi Jochanan the shoemaker" is reported to have made the following sensible remark, which reminds one of the counsel of Gamaliel to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem:[81] "An association established for a praiseworthy object must ultimately succeed; but an association established without such an object cannot succeed."

[79] December, 1881.

[80] 4:11.

[81] Acts 5:38, 39.

EUROPEAN EXAMPLES.

FRANCE.

SS. CRISPIN AND CRISPIANUS, THE PATRON SAINTS OF SHOEMAKERS.

Undoubtedly the first shoemakers who obtained anything like a general reputation were the famous brothers Crispin and Crispianus, who are said to have lived in the third century of our era. These saints have been regarded almost ever since that early time as the tutelary or patron saints of shoemakers, who are, to tell the truth, not a little proud of their romantic title, "the sons of Crispin." We must be careful how we speak of these saints, for it seems to be an open question whether the story of their holy self-denying lives and martyr-deaths be true or false. If the main features of the story be true, they have been greatly distorted by fable. We give the story as it is generally reported.

_SS. Crispin and Crispianus_ were born in Rome. Having become converts to Christianity, they set out with St. Denis from that city to become preachers of the Gospel, travelled on foot through Italy, and finally settled down at a little town, now called Soissons, in the modern department of Aisne, about fifty or sixty miles to the north-east of Paris. Here they are said to have devoted their time during the day to preaching, and to have maintained themselves by working during most of the night as shoemakers. This they did on the apostolic model of Paul, who, while he carried on his mission as a preacher, maintained himself by his trade as a tent-maker, that he might be "chargeable to no man." Very little more can be told of the life of these saintly shoemakers than this; but this, surely, is a great deal. The story goes that they suffered martyrdom by the order of Rictus Varus, governor or consul in Belgic Gaul, during the persecution under Diocletian and Maximinus, on the 25th of October, 287. The 25th of October is still kept in honor of these saints in some parts of England and Wales, and in other European countries. The shoemakers of the district turn out in large numbers and parade the streets, headed by bands of music, and accompanied by banners on which are emblazoned the emblems of the craft.

It is difficult, as already intimated, to tell how much of pure legend has been imported into the history of the saints of Soissons. One tradition declares them to have been of noble birth, and to have adopted their humble trade entirely for Christian and charitable purposes. Another story relates how they furnished the poor with shoes at a very low price, and that, in order to replenish their stock, and as a mark of divine favor, an angel came to them by night with supplies of leather; while yet another fable, not very creditable to their morals, avows that _Saint_ Crispin _stole_ the leather, so that he might be able to _give_ shoes to the poor. Hence the term _Crispinades_ to denote charities done at the expense of other people. To crown all, it is averred on one authority that after suffering a horrible death by the sword, their bodies were thrown into the sea, and were cast ashore at Romney Marsh.[82] Such tales are worthless, except as indicating the wide extent of popularity the shoemakers of Soissons secured by virtue of their piety and benevolence.[83]

[82] On the beach at Lidde, near Stonend, "there is yet to be seene," says Weever, in his "Funeral Monuments," "an heap of great stones which the neighbour inhabitants call St. Crispin's and St. Crispinian's tomb, whom they report to have been cast upon this shore by ship-wracke, and from hence called into the glorious company of the saints. Look _Jacobus de Voraigne_, in the legend of their lives, and you may believe perhaps as much as is spoken. They were shoemakers, and suffered martyrdom the tenth of the kalends of November (25th October), which day is kept holy to this day by all our shoemakers in London and elsewhere."--Quoted in "Crispin Anecdotes," Sheffield, 1827, p. 18.

[83] For the legends of these saints, and much curious information respecting the craft and its guilds in early times, the reader may consult Lacroix, "Manners, Customs, and Dress in the Middle Ages;" "Histoire de la Chaussure," etc. That quaint old book, "The Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft," by T. Deloney, 1678, gives the story of the _princely_ and _saintly_ brothers in its English dress, and it is one of the strangest tales even in legendary lore. This story, Deloney tells us, accounts for the term "gentle craft" as applied to shoemaking, and explains the saying "a shoemaker's son is a prince born." The _Princes_ Crispin and Crispinian becoming shoemakers sufficiently accounts for the former term, for

"The gentle craft is fittest then For poor distressed gentlemen;"

and the marriage of Crispine to Ursula, the daughter of the Emperor Maximinus, and the birth of a son to the Prince, will explain the latter. See the stories and ballads thereanent in Campion's "Delightful History of the Gentle Craft," Northampton, Taylor & Son, 2d ed., 1876, pp. 25-35. A most interesting and valuable little book on shoes and shoemakers in ancient and modern times.

Mrs. Jameson, in her interesting work on "Legendary Art,"[84] says, "The devotional figures which are common in old French prints represent these saints standing together, holding the palm in one hand, and in the other the awl or shoemaker's knife. They are very often met with in old stained glass working at their trade, or making shoes for the poor--the usual subjects in shoemakers' guilds all over France and Germany. Italian pictures of these saints are rare. There is, however, one by Guido, which presents the throned Madonna, and St. Crispin presenting to her his brother, St. Crispianus, while angels from above scatter flowers on the group. Looking over the old French prints of St. Crispin and St. Crispinian, which are in general either grotesque or commonplace, I met with one not easily to be forgotten. It represents these two famous saints proceeding on their mission to preach the gospel in France. They are careering over the sea in a bark drawn by sea-horses and attended by tritons, and are attired in the full court-dress of the time of Louis XV., with laced coats and cocked hats and rapiers!"

[84] Vol. ii. pp. 305, 306. London, Longmans, 1848.

Probably many of these curious prints may still be seen in the library of the cathedral at Soissons, famous for its rare MSS. and books. But a better memorial of these patron saints than any of the absurd representations of legendary art was the church erected in their honor in the sixth century, and the religious house which stood on the traditionary site of their prison. This house was afterward transformed into a monastery dedicated to St. Crispin, and in the year 1142 received the sanction of Pope Innocent II.[85]

[85] Another memorial of the saints, of a very different character, was the semi-sacred play entitled "The Mystery of St. Crispin and St. Crispinian," which used to be performed on St. Crispin's Day by the Guilds or Brotherhoods of Shoemakers in Paris and elsewhere.

THE LEARNED BAUDOUIN.

The eminent French antiquary, _Benoit Baudouin_, is by far the most learned man who has risen from the ranks of the shoemaker class in France. A native of Amiens, he was born somewhere about the middle of the sixteenth century. His father, who was also a _cordonnier_ in that city, taught him the art and mystery of the craft; but the clever youth soon rose above his lowly circumstances, and became first a theological student, and afterward the principal of the college in the old town of Troyes. Here the ancient and extensive library delighted him, and his studies as a historian and antiquary were determined to some extent by his former occupation as a shoemaker; for, besides a translation of certain ancient tragedies,[86] he is not known to have written any original work excepting his "Chaussures des Anciens," or "The Shoes of the Ancients." Baudouin never blushed to own his former vocation,[87] and in writing this remarkable work he was evidently moved by a desire to do it honor.[88] A strange book indeed it must be, full of the most curious and out-of-the-way learning and singular notions; for, not content with describing the various kinds of shoes worn by Roman and Greek and other ancient peoples who have flourished within the historic period, the enthusiastic and daring scholar pushes his inquiry back to the days "when Adam delved and Eve span," until, at length, he discovers the origin of the foot-covering in the communication of the secret by the Almighty Himself to "the first man, Adam!" Spite of its preposterous speculations, the work of the ex-shoemaker of Amiens is learned and valuable, contains a vast amount of curious lore in regard to a not unimportant subject, and helps to confirm his claim to the ambitious title of "the learned Baudouin." The first edition of this work seems to have been published in Paris, 1615.[89] It was afterward issued at Amsterdam, 1667, and at Leyden, 1711, and Leipsic, 1733, in Latin. A writer in the _Biographie Universelle_ says that Baudouin held at one time the office of director of the _Hotel Dieu_ at Troyes. This illustrious French shoemaker died and was buried in that town in 1632.

[86] "Biographie Universelle." Paris, 1811.

[87] Ibid.

[88] "Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique," tom. ii.

[89] "Nouvelle Biographie Generale." Paris, 1853, tom. iv. p. 786.

HENRY MICHAEL BUCH--"GOOD HENRY."

Whether the story of the shoemaker-saints of Soissons be regarded as apocryphal or not, it has undoubtedly had considerable influence for good, either directly or indirectly, over the minds of those who call themselves sons of Crispin. Much of this has been due to the character and work of a man who was evidently inspired by the story of St. Crispin. Through the agency of this man a very important movement was begun in the middle of the seventeenth century, which ultimately issued in a widespread religious and social reform among the shoemakers and other operatives of Western Europe. We allude to the foundation of a society called "The Pious Confraternity of Brother Shoemakers," having as their patrons and models the saints Crispin and Crispianus. The founder of this society was Henry Michael Buch, who was known throughout Paris, in his day and long after, as _Good Henry_.

Henry Michael Buch came from the Duchy of Luxemburg, where he had been born, and where his parents, who were day-laborers, had brought him up in a very simple manner. As a child, Buch was remarkably gifted and very pious. He was early apprenticed to a shoemaker, and was accustomed to spend his Sundays and holidays in public worship or private devotion. During his apprenticeship he began the work of reform among the members of his own craft, for his young heart was grieved to see them living in ignorance and vice. Enlisting the help of the more serious among them in his good work, he endeavored to instruct the apprentices of the town in the doctrines of religion, to draw them away from ale-houses and vicious company, and to persuade them to spend their time in a sensible and profitable manner. Taking the patron saints of the trade for a model, he cultivated habits of self-denial and beneficence, went always meanly clad, abandoned luxuries in food and clothing, and frequently gave away his own garments in order to clothe some poor brother shoemaker. While at Luxemburg and Messen, he lived chiefly on bread and water, so that he might be able to feed the hungry and destitute.

Having removed to Paris, his good deeds soon attracted the attention of Gaston John Baptist, Baron of Renti, who was so much impressed by the shoemaker's simplicity of manner, intelligence, and missionary zeal, that he persuaded Buch to establish in that city a confraternity among the members of his own humble craft for the purpose of instructing them in the principles and practices of a holy life. With a view to strengthen his hands for such a task, the freedom of the city was purchased for him, and means were supplied him for starting in business as a master shoemaker, "so that he might take apprentices and journeymen who were willing to follow the rules that were prescribed them."[90]

[90] Butler's "Lives of the Primitive Fathers, Martyrs, and Saints," 1799, p. 532.

Seven men and youths having joined him on these terms, the foundation of his Confraternity was laid in 1645, Good Henry being appointed the first superior.[91]

[91] This society flourished until the outbreak of the French Revolution, 1789, when it was suppressed.

Two years after this, the _tailors_ of the city, who had noticed the conduct of the shoemakers, and had been delighted with the goodly spectacle presented in their happy and useful lives, resolved to follow the example. They borrowed a copy of the rules, and started a similar society in 1647.

These brotherhoods, but notably those of the shoemakers, were spread through France and Italy, and were the means of doing an immense amount of good among the members of the two crafts.

The rules of the fraternity founded by Buch were assimilated to certain monastic orders. They enjoined rising at five o'clock and meeting for united prayer before engaging in work, prayers offered by the superior as often as the clock strikes, at certain hours the singing of hymns while at work, at other times silence and meditation; meditation before dinner, the reading of some devotional work by one of the number during meals; a _retreat_ for a few days in every year; assisting on Sundays and holy days at sermons and "the divine office;" the visitation of the poor and sick, of hospitals and prisons; self-examination, followed by prayer together at night and retiring to rest at nine o'clock.

Henry Michael Buch, the founder of this remarkable society with its offshoots all over Western Europe, succeeded in making the title _Sons of Crispin_ something more than a name in the case of thousands of his brother workmen. Bearing in mind his humble birth and training, his scanty means, his social position, the unpromising materials he had to work with, it will be allowed that the moral reform he inaugurated among working-men deserves to be classed among the best things of the kind of which we read in history. Buch died at Paris on the 9th June, 1666, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Gervaise.[92]

[92] If this were a history of the craft and trade of shoemaking, attention might be called to the genuinely illustrious _shoemaker_, Nicholas Lestage of Bordeaux. This clever artisan having made a remarkably fine pair of boots, presented them to the king, Louis XIV., on his visit to Bordeaux, shortly before his marriage to the Infanta of Spain. The fortunate son of Crispin was made shoemaker to his Majesty, and rose rapidly to wealth and favor at court. In 1663 he presented to his royal patron the famous boot "without a seam," which was spoken of as a "miracle of art," and of which it was declared that "the name of a boot would fill the world." About a dozen years after Lestage succeeded in making this wonderful seamless boot, a small book of poems was written to commemorate the extraordinary achievement. Among other extravagant things said about "cette admirable chaussure," it was affirmed that "neither antiquity nor the sun had ever seen its equal," "that man was not its inventor," and its structure was truly _divine_!" etc.

GERMANY.

HANS SACHS, THE NIGHTINGALE OF THE REFORMATION.

Before Good Henry's day two famous shoemakers had appeared in Germany, whose names are now much better known than his: _Hans Sachs_, the shoemaker-poet of the Reformation, and _Jacob Boehmen_, the mystic.

_Hans Sachs_ was the son of a tailor at Nuremberg, and was born November 5th, 1494. At the age of fifteen he was put apprentice in his native town. His schooling had been but slight, but he managed after school-days were passed to retain and add to the little he had learned. His studies as an apprentice soon lifted him considerably above the level of his class. All his spare time was given to poetry and music, in which arts he was greatly assisted by a clever fellow named Nunnenbeck, a weaver in the city. On attaining his majority, Sachs, after the fashion of the time, travelled as a workman from town to town throughout Germany, in order to learn his trade perfectly and see what he could of the wide world around him. In this expedition he seems to have thought as much of poetry as of shoemaking, for he never omitted, wherever he went, visiting the little poetical and musical societies which then existed in nearly every town in Germany. These societies were formed by the various trades guilds, and their members were called _meistersingers_.

On his return from this tour, Sachs settled down to work in Nuremberg, and proved himself both an expert shoemaker and a first-rate meistersinger. In fact, he outshone all his compeers of the guild to which he belonged, and it was not long before he earned the reputation of being the first German poet of his day. The Reformation movement, led by Martin Luther, was then in full vigor, and found a hearty sympathizer and vigorous supporter in this "unlettered cobbler but richly gifted poet," who was counted among the friends and admirers of the great Reformer. Luther had few more valuable supporters in his work than the shoemaker of Nuremberg, whose simple, spirit-stirring songs were rapidly learned and readily sung by the humbler sorts of people all over the country.

Sachs' writings were very numerous, both in prose and verse. Few poets, indeed, have ventured to write and publish so much. He averaged more than a volume a year for over thirty years. On an inventory being made of his literary stock in the year 1546, when he was about fifty-two years of age, it was found that he had written 34 volumes, containing 4275 songs, 208 comedies and tragedies, about 1700 merry tales, and secular and religious dialogues, and 73 other pieces.

His best writings are said to be the "Schwanke" or merry tales, the humor of which is sometimes unsurpassable. His collected works were published by Willer, 1570-79, in five folio volumes.

Exactly two hundred years after Hans Sachs' death, Goethe, who was a warm admirer of the shoemaker-poet, published a poem entitled _Hans Sachs Erklärung eines alten Holzschnitts, vorstellend Hans Sachs' poetische Sendung_ (Explanation of an old woodcut representing Hans Sachs' poetical mission). This tribute from the pen of Germany's greatest poet brought the shoemaker of Nuremberg again into notice, and put him in the right place in the temple of fame. Since the date of Goethe's poem, Sachs' works have been published in various forms, and are now as much read and as warmly appreciated as when they were first published. Nuremberg, his native town, is proud of her humble yet illustrious poet, and treasures up in her museum every relic connected with his name, MS. copies of his writings, poetical fly-sheets issued during his lifetime, or early editions of his works. In the libraries of Zwickau, Dresden, and Leipsic similar relics of the poet may be seen.

No testimony to his merit could be higher than that of Goethe, the prince of German critics in literature. It may be of value, however, in addition to this, to give the opinion of two very different men respecting Sachs. Dr. Hagenbach in his "History of the Reformation" says: "A happy union of wholesome humor and moral purity meets us in Hans Sachs of Nuremberg;" and Thomas Carlyle, in his own style, which happily is "inimitable," speaks of him as a "gay, childlike, devout, solid character--a man neither to be despised nor patronized, but left standing on his own basis as a singular product, and legible symbol, and clear mirror of the time and country where he lived."

He died on the 25th of January, 1576, at the age of eighty-two, in full mental vigor. He was busy writing verses and tales almost to the last days of his life. His grave is still shown in the churchyard of St. John's, Nuremberg.

JACOB BOEHMEN, THE MYSTIC.

Jacob Boehmen, or Boehme, was born at the village of Altseidenberg, near Gorlitz, in Prussian Silesia, about a year before the death of Hans Sachs. A shoemaker for the greater part of his life, Boehmen devoted the powers of a remarkable mind to philosophical and religious speculation, and produced works which, notwithstanding their mystical and well-nigh unintelligible character, are declared by some of the best authorities in Germany and England to have laid the foundation of metaphysics and philosophy. It is impossible to give a true idea of the writings of this extraordinary man except by a complete review of his philosophy and its influence on German philosophical writers. The most contradictory opinions have been expressed in regard to the value of his productions. By some critics he is set down as a rhapsodist who wrote nothing but mystical jargon, and by others as a profound philosopher whose thoughts and dreams are full of inspiration. Mosheim, _e.g._, says: "It is impossible to find greater obscurity than there is in these pitiable writings, which exhibit an incongruous mixture of chemical terms, mystical jargon, and absurd visions." On the other hand, it is curious to read the opinions expressed by our own King Charles I., who of all the Stuarts, not excepting his own father, James I., that "so learned and judicious a prince," was most capable of being a judge in such matters. Charles is reported to have said of the writings of the shoemaker of Gorlitz: "Had they been the productions of a scholar and a man of learning, they would have been truly wonderful; but if, as he heard, they were the productions of a poor shoemaker, they furnished a proof that the Holy Ghost had still a habitation in the souls of men."

Sir Isaac Newton was a student of Boehmen, whose dissertation on "The Three Principles" is said to have furnished hints to the philosopher which put him on the track of some of his great discoveries; and Blake, the half-mad, half-inspired poet, painter, and engraver, frequently spoke of him as a divinely inspired man. Before Blake's day the writings of Boehmen had been translated by William Law, author of "The Serious Call," and published by Ward & Co. in two quarto volumes (1762-84). Law's writings had immense influence over the minds of John and Charles Wesley, and their followers, the Methodists. Law, who was no mean judge of the worth of Boehmen's writings, held them in high esteem.

But of more value than these opinions is the estimate formed by philosophers themselves as to the works of this great mystic. Spinoza frequently studied them, and acknowledged their influence on his own mind. Schelling, the idealist philosopher, bears testimony to Boehmen's great merits as a thinker. Hegel speaks of him as the "Teutonic philosopher," and adds, "In reality, through him, for the first time, did philosophy in Germany come forward with a characteristic stamp." S. T. Coleridge in his "Literary Remains"[93] says: "I have often thought of writing a book to be entitled 'A Vindication of Great Men Unjustly Branded,' and at such times the names prominent to my mind's eye have been Giordano Bruno, Jacob Boehmen, Benedict Spinoza, and Emanuel Swedenborg." In the library of Manchester New College, London, is a copy of the works of Spinoza with marginal notes written by Coleridge,[94] and among them is the following note to Epistle xxxvi.: "The truth is, Spinoza, in common with all metaphysicians before him (Boehme perhaps excepted), began at the wrong end," etc., etc. Coleridge frequently spoke of Boehmen in the warmest terms of admiration.

[93] Vol. iv. p. 423.

[94] This book once belonged to Henry Crabb Robinson: see H. C. R.'s Diary, etc., vol. i. pp. 400, 401, for the above quotation.

At a very early age Jacob Boehmen showed a disposition to pious meditation and fancied himself inspired. He was poorly educated as a youth, and nearly all his knowledge was self-acquired. His first work was published when he was thirty-seven years of age, and was entitled "Aurora," or _the morning dawn_. He was severely attacked by the religious leaders of his day, but the court at Dresden patronized and protected him. His death took place November 27th, 1624. His works have been frequently published in Germany, Holland, and England, where they are much more warmly appreciated now than they were in his own lifetime.

ITALY.

GABRIEL CAPPELLINI, IL CALIGARINO, OR THE LITTLE SHOEMAKER.

If it be characteristic of Germany that one of her illustrious shoemakers should be a _poet_ and another a _philosopher_, it is no less characteristic of Italy and Holland that several followers of the gentle craft in these countries should have distinguished themselves as _painters_. We take three examples from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Gabriel Cappellini of Ferrara in Italy was more generally known by the appellation _Il Caligarino_, or the _little shoemaker_, a name derived from his original occupation. He is said to have been led to throw down the awl and take to the brush in consequence of a compliment paid to him one day by one of the great family of painters called Dossi, who told the shoemaker that a pair of shoes he had just made were so elegant that they looked as if they had been painted. He became a scholar of Dossi, and made a fair name as an artist in the sixteenth century. He is praised by Barotti for "the boldness of his design and the sobriety of his color." Several of his paintings may now be seen in the city of Ferrara, the best of which is in the Church of St. Giovannino. This is an altar-piece representing the Virgin and Child with infant saints attending upon them. In the Church of St. Francesco is a painting of SS. John and James. There is also an altar-piece ascribed to him in the Church of St. Alesandro at Bergamo, representing the Last Supper. A small painting of the same subject is in the possession of Count Carrara.[95]

[95] Lanzi's "History of Painting." London: Bohn, vol. iii. p. 200; and Bryan's "Dictionary of Painters." London: Bohn, p. 138.

FRANCESCO BRIZZIO, THE ARTIST.

Francesco Brizzio (or Briccio) was the most eminent of the three painters we have to name who began life as shoemakers. He was born at Bologna in 1574. Up to the age of twenty he worked as a shoemaker, and then, being free to follow his bent, became at first a pupil of Passerotti, who taught him design, afterward of Agostini, who initiated him in the engraver's art, and finally of Lodovico Caracci, under whom he became so proficient that "by some he has been pronounced the most eminent disciple of Caracci;" and it has been affirmed of this son of Crispin that of all Caracci's pupils except Domenichino he was gifted with the most universal genius. In perspective, landscape, architecture, and figures, a competent critic, Andrea Sacchi, the famous Roman artist, says, "Brizzio surpassed all his rivals." Guido speaks highly of the beauty of his cherubs. His extant paintings are an altar-piece entitled "The Coronation of the Virgin," which is very rich in coloring, and the "Table of Cebes," a grand painting executed for the Angellili family. Numerous engravings of his are known to connoisseurs, and highly prized as the work of an artist "who often approaches Guido." "His pictures were not only admired for the truth of the perspective and the beauty of his coloring, but also for the grandeur of his ideas, the majestic style of the architecture, the elegance of the ornaments, and the noble taste of the landscapes which he introduced to set off his buildings." Brizzio died in 1623 at the age of forty-nine.[96]

[96] Lanzi's "History of Painting." London: Bohn, vol. iii. p. 126; Bryan's "Dictionary of Painters." London: Bohn, p. 114; and Pilkington's "Dictionary of Painters," p. 95 (1770 ed.).

HOLLAND.

LUDOLPH DE JONG, THE DUTCH PORTRAIT-PAINTER.

Ludolph de Jong, was the son of a shoemaker at Oberschic, a village near Rotterdam, and was born in the year 1616. His father intended to bring his son up to his own humble trade, but having been treated with great severity, Ludolph ran away from home and bade good-by to the cobbler's stall, and became soon afterward a pupil of Sacht Coen. After two years spent with this master, he also studied under Palamedes at Delft and Baylaert at Utrecht. Seven years of his life were spent in France, where he gained renown as a portrait-painter, in which branch of art he showed his best hand. From France he returned to Holland and settled at Rotterdam, where his skill and fame gained him much patronage and a handsome fortune. His best work is at Rotterdam in the _Salle des Princes_, and consists of portraits of officers belonging to the Company of Burghers.

De Jong the younger, the clever etcher of battle-scenes, who signs himself IMDI (Jan Martss de Jong), is generally thought to be the son of the well-known painter.[97]

[97] Sons of shoemakers have often become famous. See the list given below, which might be greatly extended.

SONS OF SHOEMAKERS.

Before leaving the continent of Europe to come to Great Britain for examples, we may here mention one or two instances in which boys who have been brought up amid the humble surroundings of the shoemaker's home have become illustrious in the field of literature, or science, or theology.

_Pope John XXII._ (1316-1334), whose popedom was distinguished by the existence of an _anti-pope_, was the son of a shoemaker living at Cahors in France.

_Jean Baptiste Rousseau_ (1670-1741), the French poet, author of "Le Cafè," "Jason," "Adonais," "Le Flatteur," etc., was the son of a well-to-do shoemaker in Paris. The poet was always rather ashamed of his origin, and on one occasion treated his father in the most heartless manner because he stepped forward at the conclusion of the first performance of a play to offer his warm congratulations to his clever and popular son. "I know you not," said the proud poet, waving his father off. The poor fellow retired in bitter grief and uncontrollable anger.

_Johan Joachim Wincklemann_, the eminent art-critic and writer, was the son of a humble member of the craft, who lived at Stendal in Prussia. His father gave him as good an education as lay within his reach, and was rewarded by the progress his son made in the study of languages. From the position of teacher of languages in the College of Seehausen he passed on to that of librarian to Count Bunan, and finally to the curatorship of the Vatican Museum at Rome, where he published his famous works, "Ancient Statues," "Taste of the Greek Artists," "History of Art," and "Antique Monuments." He died by the hand of an assassin at Trieste, 1768, aged fifty-two.

_Hans Christian Andersen_ was born in 1805, at Adense in Denmark, where his father worked as a shoemaker. While a mere boy he went to Copenhagen in the hope of getting his living as a singer and writer of plays, and eventually became known as the writer of incomparable fairy tales, the joy and wonder of children, young and old, all over the world.

The name of Dr. Isaac Watts, the hymnist, has sometimes been set down in this category, on the authority of a line in Dr. Johnson's "Lives of the Poets." But Johnson speaks only of "common report," making the father of Isaac Watts a shoemaker. Johnson says he "kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen." He may have done so and followed the gentle craft as well; there is no knowing to what occupation the shoemaker may aspire!

If we go far enough back, we may find a very striking example of ability displayed by a shoemaker's son in military affairs. _Iphicrates_ (4th cent. B.C.), one of the most capable and trusted Athenian generals, rose from this humble position to the highest offices of command and trust in the armies of Greece. His reforms in the arms, dress, and tactics of the soldiers, formed an "epoch in the Grecian art of war." He distinguished himself in battles fought against the Thracians and Spartans, and in the service of the King of Persia in his Egyptian campaign.

GREAT BRITAIN.

"YE COCKE OF WESTMINSTER."

Coming now to Great Britain, we are able to select from the records of history and biography illustrations for our purpose which represent pretty nearly all the varieties of English life. Practical philanthropy all men will allow to be one of the most prominent and honorable features of the national character, and to this shoemakers have contributed a good share. Our readers will remember the good work done by Drs. Carey and Morrison, the pioneer missionaries to India and China, and noble old John Pounds, one of the founders of ragged schools in this country. Two examples, in a different field, may be given here. One can easily understand how shoemaking would pay better before the invention of machinery than it does now, yet it appears strange to us to read of men making anything like a fortune by so humble a craft. So it was, however, after a certain modest fashion; and shoemakers, like men whose fortune has been made on a larger scale, have shown themselves veritable philanthropists in the use they have made of their money. The two instances we refer to are wide apart as to time, but closely related as regards the benevolent spirit they exhibit. Holinshed has very properly thought it worth his while to chronicle the good deed of a benevolent old shoemaker who lived in Westminster in the reign of Edward VI. This true son and follower of Crispin bore the name of _Richard Castell_, but was still better known, in his own day, by the sobriquet, _Ye Cocke of Westminster_, not only "because he was so famous with the faculty of his hands," but on account of his early rising; for every morning, all the year round, saw him sitting down to his work "at four of the clock." His skill and diligence in the craft brought him in a considerable sum of money, which he invested in lands and tenements in the neighborhood of Westminster, yielding a yearly rental of £42--not at all a poor living for a retired shoemaker three hundred years ago. It appears that Castell greatly admired the generosity of his monarch, Edward VI., who had recently endowed Christ's Hospital, and the shoemaker having no family to whom he could bequeath his property, and being blessed, moreover, with a wife as generously disposed as himself, resolved to leave his property to the endowment fund of this public charity. It is much more than probable that the fame of the kingly founder of the hospital has totally eclipsed that of his humble subject, and for this reason it seems right for us to find a place in our list of illustrious shoemakers for a worthy man whose industry and benevolence are bearing good fruit to this day, and who once, it may be, was not a little proud of the honorable nickname of _Ye Cocke of Westminster_.[98]

[98] For this and one or two other examples of noted shoemakers the writer is indebted to a series of most interesting articles entitled "Concerning Shoes and Shoemakers," in the _Leisure Hour_, 1876.

TIMOTHY BENNETT, THE HERO OF HAMPTON-WICK.

It would be hard to find a name more worthy of being enrolled in our list than that of the public-spirited and courageous shoemaker of Hampton-Wick in Surrey named _Timothy Bennett_,[99] who, early in the last century, undertook, at his own cost, to rescue a right of road from loss to the public. This road ran from Hampton-Wick to Kingston-upon-Thames through the well-known Bushy Park, belonging to the Crown. Bennett was grieved to see the right of way infringed by the Crown authorities, and to observe the consequent inconvenience to thousands of his neighbors. He determined, therefore, to go to law about the matter, and, if possible, put a stop to the high-handed and unjust proceedings of the "Ranger of the Park." He went to a lawyer and inquired as to the probable chances of success in his project, and as to the cost, saying, "I have _seven hundred pounds_ which I would be willing to bestow upon this attempt. It is all I have, and has been saved through a long course of honest industry." Satisfied on both points, he resolved to carry out his plan. Lord Halifax was then Ranger of Bushy Park, and having heard of Bennett's intentions, sent for him. "Who are you, sir," demanded my lord, "that have the assurance to meddle in this affair?" "My name, my lord, is Timothy Bennett, shoemaker, of Hampton-Wick. I remember, an't please your Lordship, when I was a young man, of seeing, while sitting at my work, the people cheerfully pass by to Kensington market; but now, my lord, they are forced to go round about, through a hot sandy road, ready to faint beneath their burdens, and I am unwilling" (using a phrase he was very fond of) "to leave the world worse than I found it. This, my lord, I humbly represent, is the reason of my conduct." "Be gone! You are an impertinent fellow!" said the Ranger of Bushy Park. After thinking the matter over in a calmer mood, Lord Halifax saw the equity of the shoemaker's claim, and the certainty of his own failure to justify his conduct, and gave up his opposition. The road was opened, and remains open to this day, and is used not only by those who pass on business between Hampton and Kingston, but by thousands of pleasure-seekers from the busy and smoke-laden metropolis, who run down by rail in the spring and summer to enjoy the sight of one of the finest avenues of chestnut-trees in the world, or to breathe the sweet country air, and rest beneath the refreshing shade of the trees of the park. The good people who make constant use of the road, which the worthy shoemaker has secured to them and their descendants forever, can hardly be ignorant of the story of LORD HALIFAX THE NOBLEMAN nonsuited by TIMOTHY BENNETT THE SHOEMAKER; yet the stranger who goes down to the Park in May to see

"The chestnuts with their milky cones,"

will probably never have heard of this

"Village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood."

Bennett died an old man in 1756, having had his wish, at least, to leave the world no worse than he found it. Assuredly many who have more fame have done less to merit it.

[99] Born 1676; died 1756. Bennett is placed out of his chronological order because it seems most fitting that he should follow the benevolent Castell.

MILITARY AND NAVAL HEROES.

"THE SOUTERS OP SELKIRK."

The old Border song, sung at public dinners "when Selkirk folks began to be merry"--

"Up wi' the souters of Selkirk, And down wi' the Earl of Home; And up wi' a' the braw lads That sew the single shoon.

"Fye upon yellow and yellow, And fye upon yellow and green, And up wi' the true blue and scarlet, And up wi' the single-soled sheen.

"Up wi' the souters o' Selkirk, For they are baith trusty and leal; And up wi' the men o' the Forest,[100] And down wi' the Merse[101] to the deil,"

has made the "Souters of Selkirk" famous throughout Scotland. The origin of the song seems to be lost. Whether it has reference, as the common tradition in Selkirk goes, to the part which a gallant band of Selkirk men played at the battle of Flodden Field, 1513, "when the flower of the Scottish nobility fell around their sovereign, James IV.," which Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Plummer assert,[102] or to "a bet between the Philiphaugh and Home families" on a match of football "between the souters (or shoemakers) of Selkirk against the men of Home," as Mr. Robertson in his "Essay on Scottish Song" declares, it is not easy to determine. At any rate, whether the song points to the historical event or not, the event itself is beyond dispute. Selkirk did "certainly send a brave band of eighty or a hundred men to Flodden Field to support the cause of James. No doubt a large proportion of these men were veritable _souters_, for the chief trade of the town in the sixteenth century was the making of "a sort of brogues with a single thin sole." This local manufacture seems to have given a name to the inhabitants of the burgh, who were called _souters_, pretty much as natives of Sheffield might be called _blades_, or Birmingham folk _buttons_. The people of Selkirk are not ashamed of the designation, but rather glory in perpetuating the name and the tradition on which it rests. "A singular custom," we are told, is observed at conferring the freedom of the burgh. Four or five bristles, such as are used by shoemakers, are attached to the seal of the burgess ticket. These the new-made burgess must dip in his wine and pass through his mouth, in token of respect for the Souters of Selkirk. This ceremony is on no account dispensed with.[103]

[100] Selkirkshire, otherwise called Ettrick Forest.

[101] Berwickshire, otherwise, called the Merse.

[102] See "Border Minstrelsy."

[103] Scott's "Border Minstrelsy," foot-note.

WATT TINLINN.

That the souters of that time knew how to fight and win renown by their valor and skill may be gathered from the story which the author of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" tells us anent the reference to Watt of Liddelside in the fourth canto of the "Lay":

"Now loud the heedful gateward cried, 'Prepare ye all for blows and blood! Watt Tinlinn from the Liddelside Comes wading through the flood. Full oft the Tynedale snatchers knock At his lone gate and prove the lock; It was but last St. Barnabright They sieged him a whole summer night, But fled at morning; well they knew In vain he never twanged the yew.'"

This Watt was a shoemaker and a soldier, and if he had no large field for the display of his skill and valor in the Border skirmishes of his time, he nevertheless deserves a place among his more illustrious brethren of the craft, if only for the sake of the following note respecting him. "This person was in my younger days," says Sir Walter Scott,[104] "the theme of many a fireside tale. He was a retainer of the Buccleuch family, and held for his Border service a small tower on the frontiers of Liddesdale. Watt was by profession a sutor, but by inclination and practice an archer and warrior. Upon one occasion, the captain of Bewcastle, military governor of that wild district of Cumberland, is said to have made an incursion into Scotland, in which he was defeated and forced to fly. Watt Tinlinn pursued him closely through a dangerous morass; the captain, however, gained the firm ground, and seeing Tinlinn dismounted and floundering in the bog, used these words of insult, "Sutor Watt, ye cannot sew your boots; the heels risp and the seams rive."[105] "If I cannot sew," retorted Tinlinn, discharging a shaft which nailed the captain's thigh to his saddle--"if I cannot sew I can yerk."[106]

[104] Note IV. to Canto IV., "Lay of the Last Minstrel."

[105] Risp and rive, creak and tear.

[106] To twitch the thread as shoemakers do in securing the stitches.

COLONEL HEWSON, THE "CERDON" OF "HUDIBRAS."

In the turbulent days of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, when the lofty were laid low and the lowly were set in high places, it can hardly be matter of surprise that the shoemaker should have had his share of the favors of fortune. The circumstances of the time had led to the adoption of the rational rule of granting promotion by merit. In an army commanded by Cromwell it is not likely that any other rule would be adopted. His two chief requirements were military capacity and moral character. With men of this class he made up his invincible _Ironsides_. One of his colonels was John Hewson. "This man," Grainger says,[107] "once wore a leather apron, and from a mender of old shoes became a reformer of government and religion. He was, allowing for his education, a very extraordinary person. His behavior in the army soon raised him to the rank of a colonel; and Cromwell had so great an opinion of him as to intrust him with the government of the city of Dublin, whence he was called to be a member of Barebones'[108] parliament. He was a frequent speaker in that and the other parliament of which he was a member, and was at length thought a fit person to be a lord of the upper house. He was one of the committee of safety, and was, with several of his brethren, very intent upon a new model of the republic at the eve of the Restoration." Rugge, in his "Diurnal," 5th December, 1659, says that Hewson "was a very stout man, and a very good commander;" and adds, "But in regard of his former employment, they (the city apprentices) threw at him old shoes and slippers, and turnip-tops and brickbats, stones and tiles." He was the object of no end of lampooning on the part of the Royalists. Pepys, in his "Diary," 25th January, 1659-60, has an interesting memorandum in regard to the notoriety of the cobbler-colonel: "Coming home, heard that in Cheapside there had been but a little before a gibbet set up, and a picture of Huson (Hewson) hung upon it, in the middle of the street."[109] One of these squibs bore the title, "Colonel Hewson's Confession; or, a Parley with Pluto," and referred to his removal of the gates of Temple Bar. Lord Braybrooke informs us that Hewson "had but one eye, which did not escape the notice of his enemies." Nor did the burly cobbler-colonel escape the notice of Dr. Butler, who makes him a conspicuous figure in the first part of "Hudibras"[110] under the nickname of _Cerdon_:

"The upright Cerdon next advanc'd, Of all his race the valiant'st: Cerdon the Great, renowned in song, Like Herc'les, for repair of wrong.

He rais'd the low, and fortify'd The weak against the strongest side: Ill has he read that never hit On him in Muses deathless writ. He had a weapon keen and fierce, That through a bull-hide shield would pierce, And out it in a thousand pieces, Though tougher than the Knight of Greece his, With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor Was comrade in the ten years' war.

* * * * *

Fast friend he was to reformation, Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion; Next rectifier of every law, And would make three to cure one flaw. Learned he was, and could take note, Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote."[111]

[107] "Biographical History of England," vol. iii.

[108] The author of "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 127, says, "Praise-God Barebones was a shoemaker, but from all the writer can learn he was a leather-seller; and Bloomfield is reported as saying that Secretary Craggs was a chip of leather. On what authority it is hard to say. His father, the postmaster-general, is more likely to have been in such a position; but _his_ trade was that of a country barber."--Grainger, Noble's continuation, vol. iii.

[109] Pepys' Diary, note, January 25th, 1659-60.

[110] Part I. Canto II., 409-430, etc.

[111] Part I. Canto II., 409-430, etc.

Later on,[112] Hudibras describes the scene at the bear-gardens when Hewson and the Puritan party endeavor to put a stop to the savage sport of bear-baiting. The mob turn on the Puritans, but as for the fat colonel--

"Quarter he scorns, he is so stout, And therefore cannot long hold out."

[112] Part I. Canto III, 118, 119.

One of the squibs alluded to above was entitled "A Hymn to the Gentle Craft; or, Hewson's Lamentation."[113] The reader will observe that Hewson's _one eye_ "does not escape the notice of his enemies." This piece was sung as a ballad in the streets:

"Listen awhile to what I shall say, Of a blind cobbler that's gone astray Out of the Parliament's highway. Good people, pity the blind!

"His name you wot well is Sir John Howson, Whom I intend to set my muse on, As great a warrior as Sir Miles Lewson. Good people, pity the blind!

"He'd now give all the shoes in his shop The Parliament's fury for to stop, Whip cobbler like any town-top. Good people, pity the blind!

"Oliver made him a famous Lord, That he forgot his cutting-board, But now his thread's twisted to a cord. Good people, pity the blind!

"Sing hi, ho, Hewson!--the state ne'er went upright, Since cobblers could pray, preach, govern, and fight; We shall see what they'll do now you're out of sight. Good people, pity the blind!"

[113] Quoted in Chambers's "Book of Days," August 15th. W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh.

Having been one of the men who sat in judgment on King Charles I., the Colonel was with other regicides condemned to be hung October 14th, 1660;[114] but he is said to have escaped hanging by flight, and to have died at Amsterdam "in his original obscurity," 1662.[115]

[114] Evelyn's "Diary" of this date.

[115] Pepys, see above.

SIR CHRISTOPHER MYNGS, ADMIRAL OF THE ENGLISH FLEET.

Christopher Myngs (or Minns), "the son of an honest shoemaker in London, from whom he inherited nothing but a good constitution,"[116] is said to have worn the leathern apron for a short time before he went to sea. Speaking of the men of humble origin who, toward the end of the seventeenth century, made their way to high office by their skill and bravery, Lord Macaulay says: "One of the most eminent of these officers was Sir Christopher Mings, who entered the service as a cabin-boy, who fell fighting bravely against the Dutch, and whom his crew, weeping and vowing vengeance, carried to the grave. From him sprang, by a singular kind of descent, a line of valiant and expert sailors. His cabin-boy was Sir John Narborough, and the cabin-boy of Sir John Narborough was Sir Cloudesley Shovel. To the strong natural sense and dauntless courage of this class of men England owes a debt never to be forgotten."[117] Myngs knew how to be familiar and friendly with his men, and yet to keep his position and authority. Seamen learn to love bravery, and of this they saw enough in their gallant Admiral. They had additional reason for their devotion in the care he always took to see them well paid and fed, and the justice he did them in the distribution of prizes. It was in the great four days' fight off the English coast, June 1st-4th, 1666, between the English and Dutch fleets, that this brave man met with his death. The English fleet was commanded by the Duke of Albemarle and Prince Rupert, and the Dutch by De Ruyter and Van Tromp the younger. The battle was one of the most memorable on record, both for its length and the valor displayed on both sides. "On the fourth day of the famous battle that began on the 1st of June, he received a shot in the neck; after which, though he was in exquisite pain, he continued in his command, holding his wound with both his hands for above an hour. At length another shot pierced his throat and laid him forever at rest."[118]

[116] Grainger's "Biographical History of England," vol. iii.

[117] "History of England," vol. i. p. 316 (People's Edition).

[118] Grainger's "Biographical History of England," vol. iii. Grainger has an interesting note concerning Myngs, which we cannot forbear copying: "I am credibly informed that when he had taken a Spanish man-of-war and gotten the commander on board his ship, he committed the care of him to a lieutenant, who was directed to observe his behavior. Shortly after word was brought to Myngs that the Spaniard was deploring his captivity and wondering what great captain it could be who had made Don----, with a long and tedious string of names and titles, his prisoner. The lieutenant was ordered to return to his charge, and if the Don persisted in his curiosity, to tell him that 'Kit Minns' had taken him. This diminutive name utterly confounded the _titulado_, threw him into an agony of grief, and gave him more acute pangs than all the rest of his misfortunes."

The portrait of Sir Christopher Myngs is now in the Painted Hall of Greenwich Hospital. It is a half-length by Sir Peter Lely, and came from Windsor Castle, having been presented by George IV. in 1824.[119]

[119] See the "Descriptive Catalogue of the Portraits of Naval Commanders," etc., in the "Painted Hall, Greenwich Hospital," Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1881, p. 10. The editor of the catalogue states that "this portrait and those numbered 7, 8, 47-49, 102, 105, 107, 110-112 form the series of valuable pictures mentioned in Pepys' 'Diary,' as follows:--'To Mr. Lilly's the painter's, and there saw the heads--some finished and all begun--of the flagg-men in the late great fight with the Duke of York against the Dutch. The Duke of York hath them done to hang in his chamber, and very finely they are done indeed. Here are the Prince's (Rupert), Sir George Askue's, Sir Thomas Teddiman's, Sir Christopher Myngs', Sir Joseph Jordan's, Sir William Berkeley's, Sir Thomas Allen's, and Captain Harman's, as also the Duke of Albemarle's; and will be my Lord Sandwich's, Sir W. Penn's, and Sir Jeremy Smith's.'"

ASTROLOGERS AND OTHERS.

DR. PARTRIDGE, ASTROLOGER, PHYSICIAN TO HIS MAJESTY, ETC.

In the same age lived another noteworthy man, whose connection with the gentle craft was much more intimate, and, indeed, of almost life-long duration. This man was an astrologer, and blended with his study of the subtle influences of the stars over human affairs the study of medicine. What relation there is between these two things it were hard to tell; but certain it is, that for many years men who were not otherwise fools and knaves believed in this relation; and, combining the two "professions," found very often that success in the one gave them a certain prestige in the other. A lucky hit in "casting the nativity" of a notable person, brought the "astrologer and physician" endless patients and no small fortune. Probably an appointment as physician to the king was due to no better cause; and, with such an appointment, of course the practitioner's position was secure for life. This seems to have been pretty much the case with _John Partridge_, who is spoken of as a shoemaker in Covent Garden in 1680, and in 1682 is styled _physician to His Majesty Charles II._ Here is a case, then, of a cobbler who ventured _ultra crepidam_ to some purpose, and who might very well have taken James Lackington's motto for his own.[120] Partridge, it must be allowed, was a scholar of no mean attainments, whatever he may have been as a physician, and his scholarship was self-acquired. During his apprenticeship to a shoemaker he began the study of Latin with a copy of Lilye's Grammar, Gouldman's Dictionary, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and a Latin Bible. Having got a sufficient knowledge of Latin to read astrological works, he betook himself to the study of Greek and Hebrew. Then came _physic_, with the grand result of royal patronage. Partridge was a considerable author or editor, and the list of his works shows the strong bent of his mind toward the occult science. He published a "Hebrew Calendar" for 1678; "Vade Mecum," 1679; "Ecclesilegia, an Almanac," 1679; the same for 1680; "The King of France's Nativity;" "A Discourse of Two Moons;" "Mercurius Coelestis," being an almanac for 1681; "Prodomus, a Discourse on the Conjunction of Saturn and Mars;" "The Black Life of John Gadbury," in which a brother astrologer is roundly abused; and shown to be, as a matter of course, a rogue and impostor; and a "Translation of Hadrianus a Mynsicht's Treasury of Physic," 1682.

[120] Sutor ultra crepidam feliciter ausus. See Lackington's Life, p. 45.

The inscription over Partridge's tomb is in Latin, as becomes the memorial of so learned a man and so eminent a physician! The visitor to the churchyard of Mortlake in Surrey may still learn--if the great destroyer has dealt gently with the record--how

JOHANNES PARTRIDGE, ASTROLOGUS ET MEDICINÆ DOCTOR,

was born at East Sheen, in Surrey, on the 18th January, 1644, and died in London, 24th June, 1715; how he made medicine for two kings and one queen, _Carolo scilicet Secundo, Willielmo Tertio, Reginæque Mariæ_; and how the Dutch University of Leyden conferred on him the diploma _Medicinæ Doctor_.

Partridge seems to have given his MS. of the "Conjunction of Saturn and Mars" to Elias Ashmole, who presented it in 1682, with other curiosities, to the University of Oxford, where it may still be seen in the Ashmolean Museum.[121]

[121] Elias Ashmole appears to have been given to astrology and alchemy; see his "Way to Bliss," a work on the Philosopher's stone, published 1658.

Partridge is alluded to in Pope's "Rape of the Lock," where the poet speaks of Belinda's "wavy curl," which has been stolen and placed among the stars--

"This Partridge soon shall view in cloudless skies, When next he looks through Galileo's eyes; And hence the egregious wizard shall foredoom The fate of Louis and the fall of Rome."

"What sacrifices," says the author of "The Book of Days," "would many a sage or poet have made to be connected through all time with Pope and the charming Belinda! Yet here, in this case, we find the almanac-making shoemaker enjoying a companionship and a celebrity for qualities which, morally, have no virtue or endurance in them, but quite the reverse." Swift, whose satire stung many an abuse to death, made endless fun of Partridge and his absurd prophecies based on astrology. In 1708 Swift published a burlesque almanac containing "predictions for the year," etc., etc., the first of which was about Partridge himself. Fancy the astrologer's feelings when he read the following awful announcement:--"I have consulted the star of his nativity by my own rules, and find he will infallibly die on the 29th of March next of a raging fever; therefore I advise him to consider it and settle his affairs in time!"

After the 29th of March was past, Partridge positively took the trouble to inform the public that he was _not_ dead! This he did in his almanac for 1709. Whereupon the cruel Dean took the matter up again and tried to show Partridge his error. He was dead, argues Swift, if he did but know it; but then there is no accounting for some men's ignorance! He says, "I have in another place and in a paper by itself sufficiently convinced this man that he is dead; and if he has any shame, I don't doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance."[122] Not content with this, Swift wrote an "Elegy on the supposed Death of Partridge, the Almanac-maker," and wound up the _painful_ business by writing his epitaph too.

[122] _The Tatler_, April 11, 1709. Steele and Congreve assisted in the joke. Congreve pretended to take the side of Partridge by defending him against the charge of "sneaking about without paying his funeral expenses!" See Timb's "Anecdote Biog." vol. i. pp. 24 and 154.

THE EPITAPH.

"Here, five foot deep, lies, on his back, A cobbler, starmonger, and quack, Who to the stars, in pure good-will, Does to his best look upward still. Weep, all ye customers, that use His pills, or almanacs, or shoes; And you that did your fortunes seek, Step to his grave but once a week. This earth, which bears his body's print, You'll find has so much virtue in't, That I durst pawn my ear 'twill tell Whate'er concerns you full as well, In physic, stolen goods, or love, As he himself could when above."

THE BROTHERS SIBLY.--EBENEZER SIBLY, M.D., F.R.C.P., ASTROLOGER, ETC.

Here also may be mentioned the once famous _Dr. Ebenezer Sibly_, the physician and astrologer, and his brother Manoah, who by turns was shoemaker, shorthand reporter, and preacher of the "heavenly doctrines" of the New Jerusalem Church. However great a figure these men may have made in their day, they have managed to drop so completely out of notice that no encyclopædia, biographical dictionary, or magazine[123] the writer has met with contains any account of them. They are said to have been born in Bristol, and to have been brought up to the gentle craft.[124] The first edition of Ebenezer Sibly's "Astrological Astronomy" was published in 1789, in three vols. 8vo, and was entitled "Astronomy and Elementary Philosophy," being a translation of Placidus de Titus. The various editions of this work contain a collection of remarkable nativities, and among them Sibly includes that of Thomas Chatterton, "the marvellous boy" of Bristol.[125] Of course the astrologer sees in the horoscope of Chatterton sure signs of remarkable genius. Sibly was frequently consulted both for astrological and medical purposes, the two professions, astrology and medicine, being regarded as having a certain necessary relation. At all events, it answered the purposes of men like Sibly and Partridge to associate them in their practice. Human credulity dies hard, the race of fools seems to be endowed with wondrous vitality; even as late as 1826 Sibly's "Celestial Science of Astrology," in two bulky 4to vols., was published in a twelfth edition, and at that time there must have been many readers of his costly works[126] on the "Occult Sciences, comprehending the Art of Foretelling Future Events and Contingencies by the Aspect and Influences of the Heavenly Bodies." This work was accompanied by a key to physic and the occult sciences. "Many of my readers," says the author of "Crispin Anecdotes," "otherwise indebted to Dr. Sibly, may remember his solar and lunar tinctures, and may probably have experienced their efficacy in transmuting gold coin into AURUM POTABILE!" In his astrological works and his edition of "Culpepper's Herbal," Sibly signs himself "M.D.," "Fellow of the Royal Harmonic Philosophical Society at Paris," "Member of the Royal College of Physicians in Aberdeen," etc., etc. The "Herbal" is dated in the year of Masonry 5798, and is written from No. 1 Upper Tichfield Street, Cavendish Square, London. We have no record of the death of this illustrious son of Crispin, who, perhaps, had better have stuck to his last. He is called "_the late_ E. Sibly, M.D.," in the 1817 edition of his "Celestial Science."

[123] In regard to Manoah Sibly, see below.

[124] "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 85. The plates in E. Sibly's works are by Ames, a Bristol name a century ago. His portrait in the 1790 edition is by Roberts.

[125] His birth is set down as occurring 20th November, p.m., 1752.

[126] They were published at _two guineas_.

MANOAH SIBLY, SHORTHAND WRITER, ETC.

Manoah Sibly appears to have been a man of more varied and certainly of much more useful gifts than his brother "the doctor;" but it may well be doubted if he made as much capital out of them. He was born August 20th, 1757.[127] If the writer above quoted be correct in saying that Manoah was a shoemaker, he must have made good use of his spare time, and even of his working hours, for at the age of nineteen he is said to have been teaching Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Syriac. During the greater part of his life he was a prominent preacher in connection with the New Jerusalem or Swedenborgian community. For fifty-three years, from the time of his ordination in 1790, he held the pastorate of the congregation for which the Friars Street Chapel, London, was built in 1803. This congregation is now represented by the well-known Argyle Square Church, King's Cross, where a tablet to his memory has been erected. Manoah Sibly does not seem at any time to have been wholly occupied with the work of preaching, although he delivered two sermons a week for forty-three years, and one a week for the remaining ten of his ministry. "Whether he dabbled in the muddy waters of astrology or no, it is rather hard to tell; probably he left the task of reading the stars, for the most part, to his more astute brother, Ebenezer. At any rate, a translation of Placidus de Titus is set down in certain lists as having been published in his name in 1789;[128] and when he opened a shop as a bookseller, he dealt chiefly in works on occult philosophy. In 1795 he is styled shorthand writer to the City of London on the title-page of the published reports from his own notes of the trial of Gillman and of Thomas Hardy, the political shoemaker, whose trial and acquittal created so great an excitement throughout the country. Two years after this he obtained a situation in the Bank of England, which he held for no less than forty-three years. In addition to all this multifarious work, he found time for writing and slight editorial duties. In 1796 a volume of sermons preached in the New Jerusalem Temple appeared in his name, and in 1802 he edited a liturgy for his own church, and wrote a hymn-book. If in no other way, his memory will be perpetuated among his coreligionists by the hymns that bear his name. His first published work was a critical essay on Jeremiah 38:16, issued in 1777; and his last, a discourse on "Jesus Christ, the only Divine object of Praise," delivered on the forty-fifth anniversary of the promulgation of the "heavenly doctrines," appeared fifty-six years after, viz., in 1833. Manoah Sibly's long life of fourscore and three years came to an end December 16th, 1840.

[127] The Secretary of the Swedenborg Society, Mr. James Speirs, has obligingly supplied the writer with most of the facts given above, which are taken from an obituary of M.S. in the _Intellectual Repository_, a Swedenborg magazine for 1841. Mr. Speirs says that Manoah Sibly was "presumably" born in London, but see above.

[128] The exact correspondence in _title_ and _date_ between this book and the first edition of E. Sibly's similar work creates a suspicion of error in the name.

MACKEY, THE LEARNED SHOEMAKER OF NORWICH, AND TWO OTHER LEARNED SHOEMAKERS.

In this connection we may mention a curious instance of learning in lowly life, mentioned in one of a series of interesting articles in the _Leisure Hour_, already alluded to. The writer says: "In that most entertaining miscellany _Notes and Queries_ (No. 215) we find an interesting account of a very poor Norwich shoemaker named _Mackey_, whose mind appears to have been a marvellous receptacle of varied learning. He died in Doughty's Hospital, in Norwich, an asylum for aged persons there. The writer of the paper found him surrounded by the tools of his former trade and a variety of astronomical instruments and apparatus, and he instantly was ready for conversation upon the mysteries of astronomical and mythological lore, the "Asiatic Researches of Captain Wilford," and the mythological speculations of Jacob Bryant and Maurice, quoting Latin and Greek to his auditor. He was called "the learned shoemaker." His learning was probably greatly undigested and ungeneralized, but it was none the less another singular instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, as is shown by his published works on mythological astronomy and on "The Age of Mental Emancipation." To this notice of Mackey the writer in the _Leisure Hour_ adds an amusing story, which is too good to be omitted, of a brother of the gentle craft (a cobbler) who, in order to eclipse a rival who lived opposite to him, put over his door on his stall the well-known motto, "_Mens conscia recti_" (a mind conscious of rectitude). But his adversary, determined not to be outdone, showed himself also a cobbler in classics as well as in shoes, by placing over his door the astonishingly comprehensive defiance, "Men's and Women's _conscia recti_."

ANTHONY PURVER, THE SHOEMAKER WHO REVISED THE BIBLE.

Another curious instance of extensive reading and remarkable linguistic talent, somewhat similar to that of Dr. Partridge and the learned shoemaker of Norwich, is that of _Anthony Purver_. He was born at Up Hurstbourne in Hampshire in 1702. His parents were poor, and put their boy apprentice to the art and mystery of making and mending boots and shoes. When his "time was out," he betook himself to the leisurely and healthy employment of keeping sheep, and began to study. His special line in after-life was decided by his meeting with a tract which pointed out some errors of translation in the authorized version of the Bible. This led him to resolve that he would read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew and Greek. Taking lessons from a Jew, Purver soon learned to read Hebrew. After this he took up Greek and Latin, until he could read with ease in either language. "On settling as a schoolmaster at Andover," we are told,[129] "he undertook the extraordinary labor of translating the Bible into English, which work he actually accomplished, and it was printed at the expense of Dr. Fothergill in two vols. folio. This learned shoemaker, shepherd, and schoolmaster deeply felt the need of the great work which has been accomplished in our own day by the united scholarship of England and America. In his own way he completed the Herculean task single-handed; and if his translation was not of any general and practical utility, it none the less deserves mention as a monument of self-acquired learning and honorable industry. Purver died in 1777, at the age of seventy-five.

[129] "Maunder's Biographical Treasury." London: Longmans.

POETS OF THE COBBLER'S STALL.

In coming to speak of the _poets_ of the cobbler's stall, the task of selection is found to be by no means an easy one. It is hard enough to tell where to begin; it is harder still to know where to leave off. "This brooding fraternity" of shoemakers, it is said, "has produced more rhymers than any other of the handicrafts."[130]

"Crispin's sons Have from uncounted time with ale and buns Cherish'd the gift of song, which sorrow quells; And working single in their low-built cells, Oft cheat the tedium of a winter's night With anthems."[131]

[130] _Quarterly Review_, January, 1831, p. 76.

[131] Charles Lamb, "Album Verses," 1830, p. 57.

In the days of the revival of learning and the reformation of religion in England, shoemakers had their share in the mental and moral awakening. Many of them turned poets, and essayed to write ballads and songs, of which we have a sample in Deloney's "Delightful, Princely, and Entertaining History of the Gentle Craft."[132] Such a spirited songster as Richard Rigby, "a brother of the craft," who undertook to show in his "Song of Praise to the Gentle Craft" how "royal princes, sons of kings, lords, and great commanders have been shoemakers of old, to the honor of the ancient trade," also deserves to be mentioned. This song, beginning

"I sing in praise of shoemakers, Whose honor no person can stain,"[133]

is no mean performance; its historic allusions may not be unimpeachable, but its poetic ring is genuine. Scores of pieces of a similar character have issued from the cobbler's room, and either perished, like many another ballad and song of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or found their way into odd corners of our literature, where they are buried almost beyond hope of resurrection.

[132] London, 1675 and 1725.

[133] See Campion's "Delightful History," p. 51.

Speaking of men who have aspired to be poets and have published their productions, one is fain to begin with a name which, if it could be proved to belong to the gentle craft, would certainly have to stand at the head of the long list of poetical shoemakers--the Elizabethan dramatist _Thomas Dekker_, who wrote "one of the most light-hearted of merry comedies," _The Shoomaker's Holyday_. One of the most prominent characters in the play is Sir Simon Eyre, the reputed builder of Leadenhall Market, London, and Lord Mayor of the city.[134] Of this worthy, who lived in the time of Henry VI., Rigby, in his "Song in Praise of the Gentle Craft," says--

"Sir Simon, Lord Mayor of fair London, He was a shoemaker by trade."

[134] The author of "Crispin Anecdotes" mentions another shoemaker who was made Lord Mayor of London, viz., Sir Thomas Tichbourne, who was Mayor in 1656, during the Protectorate.--"Crispin Anecdotes," p. 127.

It is hard to think that the writer of _The Shoomaker's Holyday_, in which the ways of shoemakers and the details of the craft are described with all the ease and exactitude of familiarity, was not a brother of the craft.[135] When the famous quarrel arose between the quondam friends and coworkers, Ben Jonson and Dekker, Jonson in his _Poetaster_ satirized the author of _The Shoomaker's Holyday_ under the name of _Crispinus_. This epithet may be simply an allusion to the subject of Dekker's well-known comedy; but may it not also be regarded as a veritable "cut at a cobbler?"

[135] One is ready to ask who but a shoemaker could have gone so heartily into the rollicking fun of the shoemaker's room, or asked such a question as the following:--"Have you all your tools; a good rubbing pin, a good stopper, a good dresser, your four sorts of awls, and your two balls of wax, your paring knife, your hand and thumb leathers, and good St. Hugh's bones to smooth your work?" It may be remarked here that St. Hugh is another patron saint of the craft. Hugh, son of the king of Powis, was in love with Winifred, daughter of Donvallo, king of Flintshire. Both were martyrs under Diocletian. St. Hugh's bones were stolen by the shoemakers, and worked up into tools to avoid discovery. Hence the cobbler's phrase, "St. Hugh's bones." See Deloney's "Entertaining History."

JAMES WOODHOUSE, THE FRIEND OF SHENSTONE.

James Woodhouse stands first on our list in point of time, but not in regard to ability. He evidently owed his little brief popularity to the friendship of William Shenstone, author of "The Schoolmistress." Shenstone lived at Leasowes, seven miles from Birmingham, in a charming country-house surrounded by gardens, artistically laid out and cultivated with the utmost care by the eccentric, fantastic poet. Woodhouse, who was born about 1733, was a village shoemaker and eke a schoolmaster at Rowley, two miles off. Shenstone had been obliged to exclude the public from his gardens and grounds at Leasowes on account of the wanton damage done to flowers and shrubs. Whereupon the village shoemaker addressed the poet in poetical terms asking to be "excluded from the prohibition." In reply Shenstone admitted him not only to wander through his grounds, but to make a free use of his library. "Shenstone found," says Southey, "that the poor applicant used to work with a pen and ink at his side while the last was in his lap--the head at one employ, the hands at another; and when he had composed a couplet or a stanza, he wrote it on his knee." Woodhouse was then about twenty-six years of age. His lot must have been rather hard at that time, for, speaking of his wife's work and his own, he says in one of his poems--

"Nor mourn I much my task austere, Which endless wants impose; But oh! it wounds my soul to hear My Daphne's melting woes!

"For oft she sighs and oft she weeps And hangs her pensive head, _While blood her farrowed finger steeps_ _And stains the passing thread._

"When orient hills the sun behold, Our labors are begun; And when he streaks the west with gold, The task is still undone."

Five years after his introduction to Shenstone, a collection of his poems was published, entitled "Poems on Several Occasions." About forty years afterward he issued another edition with additional pieces, such as "Woodstock, an Elegy," "St. Crispin," etc. In the later years of his life he was living near Norbury Park, and had found a generous patron in Mr. Lock, who superintended the publication of his poetry, and in Lord Lyttleton of Hagley.

JOHN BENNET OF WOODSTOCK, PARISH CLERK AND POET.

The name of Bennet occurs once more in our list, and in this instance, if classed at all, it should be classed with the poets, although it must be confessed that the claim of John Bennet to that honorable title would hardly be allowed in some quarters. This little local celebrity inherited the office of parish clerk from his father, and with it some degree of musical taste, for his father's psalm-singing is said to have charmed the ear of Thomas Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and sometime curate of Woodstock. John Bennet, junior, succeeded to the clerkship in Warton's time, and thus came under the notice of the kindly clergyman, who was a generous patron of men of this class. When Bennet took to writing poetry and thought of publishing, Warton gave him every assistance in his power. A poor uneducated poet could scarcely have fallen into better hands, for the young curate was geniality itself, if we may judge from the estimate of him formed by Southey, who speaks of his "thorough good nature and the boyish hilarity which he retained through life," and furthermore adds, "The Woodstock shoemaker was chiefly indebted for the patronage which he received to Thomas Warton's good-nature, for my predecessor was the best-natured man that ever wore a great wig."[136] The shoemaker's poetry was "published by subscription" in 1774, and the long list of notable names speaks well for the industry and influence of the patron to whose efforts the splendid array of subscribers must be attributed. Bennet's poetry, which was not of a very high order of merit, consisted chiefly of simple rhymes on rustic themes, in which he does not forget to sing the praises of the _gentleman-like craft_ to which he belongs; nor does he hesitate frankly to declare that his reason for publishing his rhymes is "to enable the author to rear an infant offspring, and to drive away all anxious solicitude from the breast of a most amiable wife." Later in life he published another volume, having for its chief piece a poem entitled "Redemption;" and, as a set-off, a kindly preface by Dr. Mavor, Rector of Woodstock. This honest parish clerk of poetical fame died and was buried at Woodstock on the 8th of August, 1803.

[136] See Southey's preface to "Attempts in Verse, by John Jones," London, 1830; and article thereon in _Quarterly Review_, January, 1831, p. 81.

RICHARD SAVAGE, THE FRIEND OF POPE.

A far better poet but a far less worthy man than Bennet of Woodstock or Woodhouse of Rowley was _Richard Savage_, the friend of Pope. From beginning to end the story of his life, as told by Dr. Johnson in his "Lives of the Poets," is one of the most romantic and melancholy biographies in existence. It only concerns us here to say that Richard Savage, the reputed[137] son of Earl Rivers and the Countess of Macclesfield, was, on leaving school, apprenticed to a shoemaker, and remained in this humble position "longer than he was willing to confess; nor was it, perhaps, any great advantage to him that an unexpected discovery determined him to quit his occupation." Dr. Johnson thus speaks of this discovery and its immediate results: "About this time his nurse, who had always treated him as her own son, died; and it was natural for him to take care of those effects which, by her death, were, as he imagined, become his own. He therefore went to her house, opened her boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found some letters written to her by the Lady Mason, which informed him of his birth and the reason for which it was concealed. Dissatisfied with his employment, but unable to obtain either pity or help from his mother, to whom he made many tender appeals, he resolved to devote himself to literature. His first attempt in this line was a short poem called 'The Battle of the Pamphlets,' written anent the Bangorian Controversy; and his second a comedy under the title 'Woman's Riddle.' Two years after appeared another comedy, 'Love in a Veil.' In 1723 he wrote a drama, having for its subject certain events in the life of Sir Thomas Overbury. Previous to the publication of a small volume entitled 'A Miscellany of Poems,' Savage wrote the story of his life in a political paper called _The Plain Dealer_. His best poem, 'The Wanderer,' in which are some pathetic passages referring to himself, was published in 1729." For the story of the life of this unhappy man the reader must be referred to Johnson's "Lives." Savage died in the debtors' prison, Bristol, August 1st, 1743.

[137] For an able discussion of the question, "Was Richard Savage an Impostor?" to which the writer, Mr. Moy Thomas, says, "Yes," see _Notes and Queries_, 2d Series, vol. vi.

THOMAS OLIVERS, HYMN-WRITER, FRIEND AND COWORKER WITH JOHN WESLEY.

It is a relief to turn from the thought of Savage to _Thomas Olivers_, one of John Wesley's most intimate friends and zealous coworkers. We have seen already how prominent a part another shoemaker played in the Methodist revival;[138] but Olivers is perhaps better known to the general public than Samuel Bradburn, for the latter has left no mark on our literature, while the former has made a name among hymn-writers as the author of several excellent hymns, and of one, in particular, which holds a place of first rank in Christian hymnology. Olivers' fame outside Methodism rests chiefly on the fine hymn beginning--

"The God of Abram praise, Who reigns enthroned above, Ancient of everlasting days, And God of love. Jehovah great, I Am, By earth and heaven confest; I bow and bless the sacred name, Forever blest."

[138] See Life of Samuel Bradburn, President of the Wesleyan Conference.

One hymn may seem to be a very narrow basis on which to build a reputation, yet the name of Olivers will as surely be handed down to future generations, on account of this fine sacred lyric, as it would have been if he had written a whole volume of hymns of merely average merit. A dozen instances might be cited in which a single brief poem of rare excellence has won an undying fame for the writer. Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and Michael Bruce's "Elegy Written in Spring," Wolfe's "Burial of Sir John Moore," and Blanco White's single sonnet, "Night and Death," and, in an inferior degree, poor Herbert Knowles' "Lines Written in the Churchyard of Richmond, Yorkshire," are cases in point.

Thomas Olivers in his autobiography[139] tells us that he was born at Tregonon in Montgomeryshire in 1725. After the death of his father and uncle, Thomas was left in charge of another relative named Tudor, who sent him to school and afterward bound him apprentice to a shoemaker. He was, by his own account, idle, dissolute, and profane--"the worst boy seen in those parts for the last twenty or thirty years." His evil conduct compelled him to fly from the scene of his early dissipation as soon as he could; and, after living a wild life at Shrewsbury and Wrexham, he came to Bristol. This city was his spiritual birthplace; for, under a sermon by George Whitfield, the sinful, reckless young Welshman was converted, and became as noted for piety and earnest Christian work as he had once been for blasphemy and opposition to all religion. Shortly after his conversion he removed to Bradford in Wilts, where he joined the Methodists. On recovering from a terrible attack of small-pox he went back to visit the scenes of his early life. In this expedition he had a double object--to obtain a sum of money left him by his uncle, and then to go round to all his creditors and pay his debts. This most Christian conduct won him golden opinions and formed a capital introduction to the preaching of the Gospel; for Olivers had now begun to exercise his rare gifts in that direction. Returning to Bradford, he was soon appointed by John Wesley as a travelling preacher. After preaching in many parts of England and enduring the usual amount of hardship and risk to life and limb incident to the field-preacher's work in those days, he finally settled in London as John Wesley's _editor_, having charge of the _Arminian Magazine_, and other publications, for which Wesley was responsible. This office he held for twelve years; but he was never quite fit for it, and his chief was reluctantly compelled at last to put a more scholarly man in his place.

[139] See a book of unusual interest, "Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers," ed. by Rev. I. Jackson. Wesleyan Book-Room, London, 3 vols. 1865.

In the controversy between Wesley and Toplady on Predestination, etc., a controversy marked by the worst features of the time, the fiery Welshman was put forward to take the leading part on the Arminian side. Nothing could exceed the severity of Toplady's remarks and the fierceness of his attacks, both on the character and teaching of the veteran preacher, John Wesley, whom all the world now agrees to honor as one of the most devout, unselfish, and useful men who have adorned the Christian Church in any age. Right manfully did the "Welsh Cobbler," as Olivers was contemptuously styled, stand up for the doctrine of free grace. In his hands Wesley was quite content to leave the work of reply to Toplady's _Zanchius_, quietly remarking, "I can only make a few strictures, and leave the young man Toplady to be further corrected by one that is fully his match, Thomas Olivers."

Tyerman[140] speaks of Olivers as a man of high intellectual power; but "laments that the fiery Welshman undertook to meet the furious Predestinarian with the not too respectable weapons of his own choosing." What this means may be imagined by the following sample of Toplady's personalities in this strife of tongues. He says, "Mr. Wesley skulks for shelter under a cobbler's apron;" and again, "Has Tom the Cobbler more learning and integrity than John the Priest?" It must be confessed that Cobbler Tom hit hard in reply. But an end has now come to the discreditable and useless strife; and, happily, it is in no danger of revival; while the hymns written by the pious Calvinist[141] and the zealous Arminian are both alike sung with devout emotion wherever the Saviour's name is known and adored.

[140] "Life of Wesley," vol. iii. p. 108. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1870.

[141] Toplady wrote the fine hymn "Rock of Ages," etc.

Besides several controversial tracts, Olivers wrote a number of hymns, and is known as the composer of a number of Psalm-tunes.[142] He continued his ministry in London till March, 1799, when he died at the age of seventy-four. He was buried in John Wesley's tomb, in the City Road Chapel Yard, London, as a token of the esteem in which he was held by Wesley and his friends.

[142] "_Helmsley_" has been set down to Olivers; but Mr. Benham says it was composed by Martin Madan, Cowper's uncle, author of "_Thelyphthora_." See Cowper's "Poems," Globe Ed., Intro., p. 34.

THOMAS HOLCROFT, DRAMATIST, NOVELIST, ETC.[143]

[143] "Memoirs of the late Thomas Holcroft, written by Himself, and Continued to the Time of his Death from his Diary," by W. Hazlitt. The Traveller's Library, vol. xvii. 1856.

Thomas Holcroft was a much more noteworthy man. At the time of the State Trials he had made a considerable name as a writer of political novels. In his "Anna St. Ives" and "Hugh Trevor" he had exposed the follies and vices of society around him, and had set forth his own political views in a manner well calculated to captivate the fancy of young and ardent reformers. When the trial of Hardy began, Holcroft surrendered himself in court, deeming it base and unmanly to refuse to share the fate of those whose political views he had warmly espoused. Both friends and foes honored him for his chivalrous conduct in the affair. On the acquittal of his friends he was discharged without a trial.

The life of Holcroft is as full of romance as any of those depicted in his novels. He was born in London in 1745. During the first six years of the boy's life, his father was a shoemaker. Giving up this occupation in 1751, Holcroft, senior, "took to the road" as a hawker and peddler, and his poor child led a vagrant, gypsy-like life, and passed through privations which he could never afterward think of without shame and sorrow. And yet he managed to turn this worst period of his life to some account. The first-hand knowledge it afforded him of nature and human affairs gave freshness and power to the comedies and dramas written in later years. During these early years his father taught him to read out of the Bible, and such was his progress, that in a little while the daily task consisted of eleven chapters. These, he tells us, he could often have missed by telling a falsehood, which his conscience never would allow; and, besides this, he had no wish to evade the task, for the stories of the Old Testament were so full of interest to his boyish mind, that he was eager to go on to the end. While his father and mother were engaged as hawkers, young Holcroft was sent out to beg. In this miserable employment he became quite an expert; and, like many another unfortunate beggar, he was led to draw on his imagination for tales to answer his purpose. On returning home he would recount his adventures, and repeat the marvellous stories he had invented, until his father, who at first admired the lad's gift as a romancer, came to be ashamed of allowing him to lead such an idle and mischievous life, and put a stop to his escapades.

After this he was employed as a stable-boy and jockey at Newmarket. The change in his circumstances thus brought about was a very happy one, for he had now good fare, a comfortable bed to sleep on, decent or rather _smart_ clothes, of which he was not a little proud; and, added to all this, a certain position in respectable society! His father had a friend at Newmarket who had a taste for reading, and followed the "profession" of feeder and trainer of gamecocks for the pit. This man was struck with Thomas Holcroft's natural ability, and lent him books to read, such as the "Spectator" and "Gulliver's Travels." While at Newmarket he was one day passing a church, and stopped to listen to the music of the choir, then engaged in practice. He ventured to enter the church, and feeling a strong desire to learn to sing, spoke to the leader. Mr. Langham, who, finding the stable-boy had a good voice, admitted him into the choir. He threw himself so heartily into this new and fascinating study, that it was not long before he could read music and sing in good style.

At the age of sixteen, he again went to live with his father, who had once more returned to the shoemaker's stall, and lived in London. Here he learned enough of the trade to earn a livelihood, but he involved himself in premature cares by an imprudent marriage when only twenty years of age.

And now the passion for a roving life got the better of him, and quitting the monotony of a cobbler's room, he betook himself to the stage. For seven years he led the life of a strolling player, "and sounded all the depths and shoals" of misery incident to such a precarious existence.

It was not till after his thirtieth year that he began to acquire settled habits of study, to learn the languages--French, German, and Italian--in which he afterward became a ready translator, and to set about any kind of literary work. The first products of his pen appeared in the _Whitehall Evening Post_. He was in his thirty-fifth year when his first novel, "Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian," appeared. The year after this saw the issue of his earliest comedy, _Duplicity_, which was put on the stage at Covent Garden Theatre, and had a good run of success. This was followed by some thirty dramatic pieces of one kind or other, in poetry or prose, comedies and comic operas, dramas and melodramas, which last he had the credit of introducing into England. The _Road to Ruin_ is accounted, by some judges of note, the best of his dramas. Holcroft was a man of versatile powers and great industry. His natural gifts were remarkable, and his extensive knowledge was almost entirely self-acquired. As already indicated, he was a very prolific author. Besides the three novels and the plays referred to above, he issued translations from the _French_ of Toucher d'Obsonville and Pierre de Long; from the _German_, Goethe's "Herman and Dorothea;" and from the Italian. He spent much of his time in Germany and France, and his interesting work, "Travels into France," is one of his most valued productions. Thomas Holcroft died 23d March, 1809, at the age of sixty-four, having crowded as much work into his eventful life as most of the leading men of his time.

JOSEPH BLACKET, POET, "THE SON OF SORROW."

At the beginning of this century there were two young shoemakers in London who were spending their leisure time in hard reading and attempts at musical composition. One of them, Robert Bloomfield, a sketch of whom has already been given,[144] is known as widely as the English language itself. The other, _Joseph Blacket_, made but little stir in the world, and is now well-nigh forgotten. He took to writing poetry at a much earlier age than Bloomfield, who wrote nothing before his sixteenth year, while Blacket, if we may trust the notes in his "Specimens" and "Remains," began, very characteristically, with "The Sigh," written at _ten_ years of age. His unhappy life was brought to a close when he was but twenty-four years old. At this age Bloomfield had written very little poetry, and "The Farmer's Boy" was not begun. But if his genius ripened slowly, it produced fruits far more valuable than those presented to the world by the precocity of poor Blacket. There is nothing of Blacket's to compare with "The Farmer's Boy," or "Richard and Kate," or "The Fakenham Ghost." It is interesting to know that the two poetical sons of Crispin were acquainted, and cherished a high regard for each other. They seem to have met at the house of Mr. Pratt, Blacket's patron and editor, and afterward to have exchanged copies of each other's works, accompanied by friendly letters. What Bloomfield thought of his young friend may be gathered from the following portion of a letter: "The instant I received your volume I resolved to shake hands with you, by letter at least, and to thank you for a pleasure of no common sort. The 'Conflagration' is so truly full of fire that it almost burns one's fingers to read it. 'Saragossa' is a noble poem. Choose your own themes, and let the master-tints of your mind have full play."

[144] It may be thought by some readers that Bloomfield's brothers, George and Nathaniel, ought to have a place in our list of illustrious shoemakers. _George_, in his correspondence with Mr. Capel Lofft, Robert's patron, showed himself a man of good sense and a fair writer. See preface to Bloomfield's Poems. But _Nathaniel_, the author of a little volume of poems, edited by Capel Lofft, 1803, entitled, "An Essay on War," in blank verse, and "Honington Green, a Ballad," was _not_ a shoemaker. He was a _tailor_, though not a few writers have made Byron's mistake of classing him with "ye tuneful cobblers."

In a letter to his friend Mr. Pratt, Blacket says that he was born in 1786 at Tunstill, five miles from Richmond, in Yorkshire. His father was a day-laborer, who had eight children to provide for at the time Joseph was old enough for school.[145] It was therefore fortunate for him that the village schoolmistress took a fancy for him, and taught him for nothing. He stayed with her until he was seven, and then went to a school taught by a master. At the age of eleven he was removed to London, his brother John having engaged to provide a home for him and teach him his trade during the next seven years. In this respect his position was very similar to that of Bloomfield, whose brother George became the guardian of the shy Suffolk lad when he first went up to London.[146] John Blacket was so anxious that his ward should not forget his little learning that he often kept the lad at home to write on Sunday. There were such books in John's library as "Josephus," "Eusebius' Church History," "Fox's Martyrs," all of which were read through by the time Joseph was fifteen years of age. "At that time," he says, "the drama was totally unknown to me; a play I had neither seen nor read." One evening a companion called on him and begged him to go and see Kemble play _Richard the Third_ at Drury Lane. His brother John refused consent at first, but yielded at last to the clever strategy of an appeal made in a few impromptu verses, which so greatly pleased and surprised the fond brother, that he at once "gave him leave to go, together with a couple of shillings to defray his expenses." From this time forth he devoted himself to the study of the poets Milton, Pope, Young, Otway, Rowe, Beattie, Thompson, but especially, and for a time almost exclusively, to Shakespeare. As a young poet it is said of him that "His anxiety to produce something that should be thought worthy of the public in the form of a drama appears to have surpassed all his other cares.... Something of the dramatic kind pervades the whole mass of his papers. I have traced it on bills, receipts, backs of letters, shoe patterns, slips of paper hangings, grocery wrappers, magazine covers, battalion orders for the volunteer corps of St. Pancras, in which he served, and on various other scraps on which his ink could scarcely be made to retain the impression of his thoughts; yet most of them crowded on both sides and much interlined."[147]

[145] Blacket's "Remains," preface, vol. i. pp. 62, 63. London, 1811.

[146] Blacket's "Remains," preface, vol. i. pp. 2-7.

[147] Editor of Blacket's "Remains," Letters, pp. 9, 10.

Like most ardent young students in poor circumstances, Blacket was reckless of his health. His hard work by day and loss of nightly sleep sowed the seeds of the disease to which he eventually fell a victim. He married very young, and had the misfortune to lose his wife when he was only twenty-one years of age. A sister who came to nurse her was taken ill of brain fever, and nearly lost her life. "Judge of my situation," he says to his friend Mr. Pratt, "a dear wife stretched on the bed of death; a sister senseless, whose dissolution I expected every hour; an infant piteously looking round for its mother; creditors clamorous, friends cold or absent. I found, like the melancholy Jaques, that 'when the deer was stricken the herd would shun him.'" In this wretched position he was obliged to sell everything to pay his debts. No wonder that he became a "son of sorrow," and that most of the poetry written after this date bears the marks of gloom and distraction of mind. Yet it must be confessed that when the young poet sought to enter on his literary career by the publication of his poems, he had no cause to complain of want of friends. Mr. Marchant, a printer, took kindly to him, and published his first copies of "Specimens" free of expense. It was he who introduced the young aspirant for poetical fame to Mr. Pratt, the editor of the "Remains," who seems, from the letters published, to have been a man of considerable means, but not of the best judgment in literary affairs. This friend had the most exalted notions of the "genius" of his _protégé_, showed him the utmost kindness till the day of his death, and took charge of the funds raised by the publication of his "Remains," investing them in behalf of the poet's orphan child. In August, 1809, Blacket removed to Seaham, Durham, to the house of a brother-in-law, gamekeeper to Sir Ralph Milbanke of Castle Eden. The baronet and his family were very kind to him; a horse was lent him; dainty food was sent down for him from the castle; doctors were procured who attended him gratis; Lady Milbanke and Miss Milbanke, afterward Lady Byron, visited him constantly, and interested others in his behalf; among them the Duchess of Leeds, who procured a large number of subscribers to his volume of "Specimens."[148] No effort was spared by either doctors or friends to save his life and to ensure his reputation as a poet; but to no purpose, as it seemed, in either case. He died of consumption on the 23d of September, 1810, at the house of his brother-in-law, and was buried in Seaham churchyard by his friend Mr. Wallis, rector of the parish, who had been a Christian counsellor and comforter to the young poet during his long illness. At his own request, Miss Milbanke selected the spot for his grave, and caused a suitable monument to be placed over it, on which were inscribed the lines, taken from his own poem, "Reflections at Midnight"--

"Shut from the light, 'mid awful gloom, Let clay-cold honor rest in state; And, from the decorated tomb, Receive the tributes of the great.

"Let me, when bade with life to part And in my narrow mansion sleep, Receive a tribute from the heart, Nor bribe one sordid eye to weep."

[148] That these generous friends labored to some purpose may be judged from the fact that after Blacket's little legacies and funeral expenses were paid, £97 10s remained over for the benefit of his child. "Remains," p. 101.

DAVID SERVICE, AND OTHER SONGSTERS OF THE COBBLER'S STALL.

David Service of Yarmouth represents a pretty numerous class of songsters of the cobbler's stall, worthy men in their way, but writers of inferior merit, of whom much cannot be said. Such writers were _John Foster_ of Winteringham, Lincolnshire, who owed the publication of his "Serious Poems," in 1793, to the kindness of the vicar of the parish; _J. Johnstone_, a Scotchman, who published a small volume of poems in 1823; the Rev. _James Nichol_ of Traquair, Selkirkshire, who in his shoemaking days "published two or three volumes of poetry."[149] _Gavin Wilson_, of Edinburgh, who, in 1788, published "A Collection of Masonic Songs," of whom Campbell says: "I knew Gavin Wilson; he was an honest, merry fellow, and a good boot, leather-leg, arm, and hand maker, but as sorry a poetaster as ever tried a couplet."[150] _James Devlin_, a man of versatile gifts and most irregular habits, who by turns wrote poetry, corresponded for the _Daily News_, and contributed to the _Spectator_, _Builder_, and _Notes and Queries_, and died about twenty years ago in poverty and obscurity.[151] These men, as regards their literary merit and fame, excepting perhaps the last, are well represented by the herdboy from the banks of the Clyde, who, after serving his time as a _sutor_ at Greenock, journeyed south in search of work, and settled at Yarmouth, Norfolk, and there, at the age of twenty-seven, published a "Rural Poem," called "The Caledonian Herdboy," in 1802. Two years after he was encouraged by his friends to issue "The Wild Harp's Murmurs" and "St. Crispin, or the Apprentice Boy," the former being dedicated to that friend of unknown young poets, Capel Lofft, the friend of the Bloomfields and Kirke White. His last adventure in this line bore the romantic title "A Voyage and Travels in the Region of the Brain." This verse occurs in one of his publications--

"'Apollo, why,' a matron cried, 'Are poets all so poor?' 'They write for fame,' Apollo cried, 'And seldom ask for more.'"

But this _poet_, it is to be feared, obtained neither wealth nor fame.

He became an inmate of the Yarmouth Workhouse, and died there on the 13th of March, 1825. And his "memorial," like that of many another local celebrity, has well-nigh perished with him.

[149] "Crispin Anecdotes," pp. 87, 88.

[150] Ibid.

[151] "Campion's Delightful History," p. 81.

JOHN STRUTHERS, POET, EDITOR, ETC.

John Struthers, a Scottish poet, the friend of Sir Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie, followed the trade of a shoemaker for many years after he had begun to gain a literary reputation. He was born at Kilbride in Lanarkshire in 1776, and learned his trade in his own home, for his father was a member of the same craft. Struthers is best known in Scotland as the author of "The Poor Man's Sabbath," a simple, unpretentious poem, which appeared in 1804, and rapidly passed through several editions.[152] His success in this first venture led to the publication of "The Peasant's Death," in 1806; "The Winter's Day," in 1811; "The Plough," in 1816; "The Dechmont," in 1836. He was the editor of a Scottish anthology, called "The Harp of Caledonia," in three volumes, to which his friends Sir Walter Scott and Joanna Baillie "sent voluntary contributions." He wrote a history of Scotland from the Union, 1707 to 1827, by which his reputation was greatly enhanced.

[152] Of "The Sabbath," a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, January, 1831 (p. 77), says it is "a poem of which unaffected piety is not the only inspiration, and which but for its unfortunate coincidence of subject with the nearly contemporary one of the late amiable James Grahame, would probably have attracted a considerable share of favor, even in these hypercritical days."

A considerable number of the biographies in Chambers's "Lives of Illustrious Scotchmen" are from his pen. For several years he held the position of press-corrector for Khull, Blackie & Co., of Glasgow. In 1832 he was made librarian in Stirling's Library, which office he held until within a few years of his death in 1853. His poetical works were collected and published by himself in 1850. He is spoken of as an excellent specimen of a shrewd, intelligent, strong-minded Scotchman.[153]

[153] "Imperial Dictionary of Biography." Glasgow: Blackie & Co.

JOHN O'NEILL, THE POET OF TEMPERANCE.

The name of John O'Neill is intimately associated with that of George Cruickshank in the work of temperance reform; for not only did Cruickshank prove himself a friend to the poor shoemaker and poet by illustrating his little poem entitled "The Blessings of Temperance," but it is with good reason declared that these illustrations and the scenes depicted in the poem itself suggested to the artist the leading ideas worked out in his series of plates entitled "The Bottle." Some of these sketches, as, for example, "The Upas Tree" and "The Raving Maniac and the Drivelling Fool," derive their titles from O'Neill's language in the poem itself. So closely, indeed, do the graphic sketches of the artist and the poet correspond, that O'Neill in the later editions of his little work surnamed it "A Companion to Cruickshank's 'Bottle.'"[154] On its first appearance the poem was entitled "The Drunkard," and received favorable notice in the pages of the _Athenæum_ and the _Spectator_, besides other journals and papers of less literary merit. "The Drunkard" was not his first work, but it was his best, and the one by which his name became known and honored among teetotallers. As early as 1821 he had published a drama entitled "Alva." "The Sorrows of Memory" and a number of Irish melodies belonging to different periods in his life were issued a little later. His friend the Rev. Isaac Doxsey, in a sketch prefixed to "The Blessings of Temperance," speaks of O'Neill as the author of seven dramatic pieces, a collection of poems, and a novel called "Mary of Avonmore, or the Foundling of the Beach," and of numerous contributions to various periodicals.

[154] "The Blessings of Temperance, Illustrated in the Life and Reformation of the Drunkard: a Poem by John O'Neill, etc., forming a Companion to Cruickshank's 'Bottle,' with etchings from his pencil." London: W. Tweedie. 1851. Fourth edition.

John O'Neill was an Irishman, born at Waterford on the 8th of January, 1777. His mother was in wretched circumstances at the time of his birth, having been deserted by a worthless husband, who left her and her little family to the care of fortune. As a boy he was very slow to learn, and gave no indication of the gifts he afterward displayed. He and his brother, much his senior, were apprenticed to a relative who acted as a sort of guardian to the boys. O'Neill's mind was first awakened to a love for poetry by a drama in rhyme entitled "The Battle of Aughrim," by a shoemaker named Ansell, which he committed to memory. On leaving the service of his first master he became an apprentice to his brother, but soon quarrelled and the indentures were thrown into the fire. During the Rebellion of 1798 and 1799, when food was at famine prices, he lived in great poverty at Dublin and Carrick-on-Suir; and in the latter place, notwithstanding the miserable state of his affairs, he found some one with love and courage sufficient to enable her to become his wife. It was at this time also that he began to read in earnest, chiefly poetry, though nothing came amiss, and, as a matter of course, every book was borrowed. The first-fruits of his poetic genius, if the term be permissible, were presented to the world in a little satirical poem written at Carrick, "The Clothier's Looking-Glass." This was designed to expose what was regarded as the cruelty and heartlessness of the master-clothiers in uniting to reduce the wages of the men. O'Neill was induced to contribute to this trade dispute by a man named Stacey, a printer, under whose guidance the shoemaker acquired some knowledge of the art of printing, and set up a press. The press was a capital adjunct to the pen, which the active young shoemaker and amateur printer was now using pretty freely.

At this time he became a strong political partisan, and used both his pen and press in an election contest in favor of General Matthew, brother of the Earl of Llandaff. It was the Earl's promise of patronage that induced O'Neill to leave Ireland and settle in London, some time in 1812 or 1813. This promise was never redeemed, for the Earl about this time became a resident in Naples. Disheartened by his disappointment, the poor shoemaker dropped for a time all reading and literary toil and aspiration, and stuck doggedly and sullenly to his last.

For seven years he seems to have neither read nor written anything. At length a long period of "enforced leisure," occasioned by an accident which made work with the awl impossible, compelled him to betake himself to reading, and thus his mind was roused from its torpor. An English translation of a volume of Spanish novels fell in his way, and its perusal suggested the subject for the drama _Alva_, which, as we have said, he published in 1821. His other works are named above. None of these seem to have brought him much profit, neither were his attempts at "business for himself," once as a master-shoemaker and again as a huckster, at all successful. On several occasions he was assisted by grants from the Literary Fund, and was thankful for the kindly aid afforded him by his friends the teetotalers.

In spite of all his hard work as a shoemaker, and his many little literary adventures (perhaps because of _them_), he was in his old age a very poor man. Mr. Doxsey says in 1851, "John O'Neill and his aged partner dwell in a miserable garret in St. Giles's." In his poor earthly estate he had one comfort, at all events--he did not "suffer as an evil-doer," and he could feel pretty sure that he had done not a little by his graphic pen and rude eloquence to turn many a sinner from a life of misery and shame. His death occurred on the 3d of February, 1858.

JOHN YOUNGER, SHOEMAKER, FLY-FISHER, AND POET.

In 1860 a charming little book on "River Angling for Salmon and Trout"[155] was added to our extensive angling literature by a devout follower of Isaac Walton. The preface showed that it was the work of a Lowland Scotchman, who was accustomed to divide his time between the two "gentle" occupations of shoemaking and fishing, and that this man, _John Younger_, had an enthusiasm for other things besides making fishing-boots and fishing-rods and lines, and the sport of the river-side. He was a zealous and, we had almost said, a desperate politician. He made corn-law rhymes, which came into the hands and drew forth praise from the pen of Ebenezer Elliott, who sent the best copy of his works as a present to the poetical shoemaker. In 1834 Younger tried the public with a volume of verse under the quaint title, "Thoughts as they Rise."[156] But the public, like the shy fish of some of his own Scottish rivers, would not "rise" to his bait, for the work fell uncommonly flat. He was much more successful with his "River Angling," which appeared first in 1840, and again, with a sketch of his life, in 1860. In 1847 John Younger won the second prize for an essay on "The Temporal Advantages of the Sabbath to the Working-Classes," and it was a proud day for him and his neighbors at St. Boswell's when he set off to go up to London to receive his reward of £15 at the hands of Lord Shaftesbury in the big meeting at Exeter Hall. Younger, who was all his life a brother of the craft, was born at Longnewton, in the parish of Ancrum, 5th July, 1785. He died and was buried at St. Boswell's in June, 1860. As we are writing we observe that his autobiography[157] has just been published, concerning which a writer in the _Athenæum_ remarks,[158] "John Younger, shoemaker, fly-fisher, and poet, has left a Life which is certainly worth reading;" and adds, "There is something more in him than a vein of talent sufficient to earn a local celebrity." With this opinion agree the remarks of the _Scotsman_ and the _Sunderland Times_, which said of him at the time of his death, "One of the most remarkable men of the population of the South of Scotland, whether as a genial writer of prose or verse or a man of high conversational powers and clear common-sense, the shoemaker of St. Boswell's had few or no rivals in the South;" and "Nature made him a poet, a philosopher, and a nobleman; society made him a cobbler of shoes." He was certainly a most original character, and his originality and genius appear in every chapter of his Autobiography.

[155] Kelso: Rutherford. Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons.

[156] Glasgow, 1834.

[157] "Autobiography of John Younger, Shoemaker, of St. Boswell's." Kelso: J. & J. H. Rutherford, 1881.

[158] 6th May, 1882, p. 564.

CHARLES CROCKER, "THE POOR COBBLER OF CHICHESTER".

Charles Crocker, who was born in Chichester, 22d June, 1797, was the son of poor parents, who could not afford to send him to school after he was seven years of age, but they were assisted by friends who procured him admission to the Chichester "Greycoat School." He was sent before the age of twelve to work as a shoemaker's apprentice. "This arrangement," he says in the brief sketch of his life which is given in the preface to his poems,[159] "was perhaps rather favorable than otherwise to the improvement of my mind, for the sedentary labor necessary in this kind of employment, while it keeps the hands fully engaged, gives little or no exercise to the mental faculties, consequently the mind of a person so employed may, without any hindrance to his work, find occupation or amusement in intellectual or imaginative pursuits." His youthful days were spent in hard work and study. Spite of his schooling, grammar presented a great difficulty when he began to apply himself seriously to literary work. He even went so far as to commit an entire book to memory in his efforts to master the art. He mentions a lecture on Milton by Thelwall as having given him much help in trying to understand the structure of English verse. Besides Milton, Cowper, Collins, and Goldsmith became favorites, and he committed large portions of their writings to memory, and so learned to frame a style. The first volume of his poems was published in 1830, and the third in 1841. He also wrote "A Visit to Chichester Cathedral," which passed through several editions. Crocker died in 1861.[160]

[159] "The Vale of Obscurity, and Other Poems," by Charles Crocker, 3d edition. Chichester: W. H. Mason, 1841.

[160] It is perhaps best, on the whole, not to speak of living men in such a work as this. An exception has, however, been made to such a rule in the rare instances of the famous politician, poet, and preacher Thomas Cooper, and the American poet Whittier. If the writer did not feel the necessity of adhering, in the main, to this rule, it would be easy enough for him to cite many instances in proof of the statement that the literary reputation of shoemakers is being well sustained in the present day by writers in prose and poetry, who either have been or still are working at the stall. Most Scottish _sutors_, one would think, have heard of the author of "Homely Words and Songs" and "Lays and Lectures for Scotia's Daughters of Industry" (Edinburgh, 1853 and 1856). London craftsmen know and honor the names of J. B. Rowe, a political writer and poet, and John B. Leno, the editor of "St. Crispin," and author of the "Drury Lane Lyrics," "Tracts for Rich and Poor," and "King Labor's Song-Book" (London, 1867-68; see also "Kimburton, and Other Poems," London, 1875-76); and the shoemaker of Wellinborough, John Askham, by his "Sonnets of the Months," "Descriptive Poems," and "Judith" (Northampton: Taylor & Son, 1863, 1866, 1868, and 1875), has made a reputation which is not entirely confined to his own locality, nor to the members of the craft to which he belongs.

PREACHERS.

GEORGE FOX, FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.

The name of George Fox belongs to the list of practical philanthropists; for Fox may be said to have given himself body and soul to the good of his fellow-men, and to have lived the life of a martyr to the cause to which he felt called to consecrate himself. He was born in 1624, the year in which Jacob Boehmen died. We are the more inclined to notice this coincidence because the character and work of George Fox suggest a comparison between the two men. Both men were pietists and mystics; but in this alone are they alike. When we look at their life-work, we are at once reminded of their nationality. The German is speculative, the Englishman is practical; the one turns his dreams and visions into books, and the other into acts.[161]

[161] All the writings of George Fox were published after his death. See below.

George Fox's early life was spent near his native place, Drayton, in Leicestershire, with a man who combined the occupations of shoemaker and dealer in wool and cattle. After eight years' service with this master, the young shoemaker, then at the age of nineteen, clad in a leathern doublet of his own making, went forth into the world as a preacher and reformer. He was led to adopt this life by what he regarded as a voice from heaven. He had been to a fair, and was grieved by the intemperance of two of his youthful friends whom he saw there. In his "Journal" he speaks of the effect this sight produced upon his mind, and the resolve to which it led him. "I went away," he says, "and when I had done my business, returned home; but I did not go to bed that night, nor could I sleep, but sometimes walked up and down, and sometimes prayed and cried to the Lord, who said unto me, 'Thou seest how many young people go together into vanity, and old people into the earth; thou must forsake all, young and old, keep out of all, and be a stranger to all.'" After living the life of a wandering preacher for a few years, he was induced to return home for a short time, but the voice from heaven forbade his resisting, and summoned him again into the Lord's vineyard. In 1648, when only twenty-four years of age, he began to preach in Manchester, and to gather round him a number of adherents. From Manchester he went on a tour through the northern counties of England. Two years after this his followers began to be known by the name of Quakers. This term was first used by Justice Bennet of Derby, before whom Fox was cited for disturbing the peace. In 1655 he was summoned to appear before Cromwell, who dismissed the Leicestershire shoemaker as a harmless enthusiast, whose attempts at moral and religious reform could not do anything but good among the people. In fact, Cromwell, a sturdy Puritan and a religious enthusiast himself, was deeply moved by the spiritual fervor of the simple-hearted preacher; for Fox, who never feared the face of any man, did not fail to speak his mind to Cromwell on religious matters. As the preacher left the room, the Protector said to him, "Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour of a day together, we should be nearer one to the other."

In the reign of Charles II., when the anti-puritan reaction set in, Fox fared far worse than before. Time after time he was thrown into prison for speaking in the "steeple-houses" (churches) and disturbing public worship. It was not at all an uncommon thing for the rough preacher, clad in his leathern doublet, to stand up in church while service was going on, and rebuke the lukewarmness of the minister and the formalism of the worshippers. This he conceived to be part of the mission to which the spirit-voice had called him. Nor did he expect to be allowed to discharge it without bringing down the hand of the civil authorities upon his own head. But he had counted the cost, and was prepared to suffer. A large part of his time was spent in jail, where he underwent terrible hardships from want of food and clothing. Nothing, however, could daunt his ardor, or make him "disobedient unto the heavenly vision." He was no sooner at large than he began again to deliver his message, calling on men to listen to the voice of Christ within, and to reform their lives. Surely nothing could have been more pure, more simple, and more unselfish than the life of this devout and eccentric preacher of the gospel of love, peace, and truth; yet he was hounded from jail to jail by the bigots of his day as if he had been a common vagrant or thief. The sufferings he endured at the hands of furious mobs are often recorded in his journal. These he bore with the utmost meekness, as a firm believer in the doctrine of non-resistance to evil. Once when he had been half killed, and the mob stood round him as he lay upon the floor, he says, "I lay still a little while, and the power of the Lord sprang through me, and eternal refreshings revived me, so that I stood up again in the strengthening power of the eternal God, and stretching out my arms among them, I said, 'Strike again! here are my arms, my head, my cheeks!' Then they began to fall out among themselves." The distinctive principles of the Society of Friends, of which George Fox was the founder, are too well known to need description here. In 1669 Fox married the widow of Judge Fell. After visiting Ireland, America, Holland, Denmark, and Prussia, this apostle of the seventeenth century returned to England, and died in London, January 13th, 1691, at the age of sixty-seven.

Spite of all his so-called _vagaries_, his want of education and culture and grasp of intellect, the Leicestershire shoemaker, by dint of moral earnestness and undaunted courage, succeeded in laying the foundation of a religious society, which in proportion to its numbers has exerted a greater moral influence than any other denomination of Christians. His "Journal," which is one of the most singular records of mental experience and missionary adventure ever written, was first published in 1694. His "Epistles" were printed in 1698, and his "Doctrinal Pieces" in 1706.

THOMAS SHILLITOE, THE SHOEMAKER WHO STOOD BEFORE KINGS.

The term "calling," as applied to the trade or occupation a man follows, is, or rather was, originally supposed to indicate a belief that he is called and appointed of God to follow it. This belief underlies the teaching of the Church Catechism.[162] How far it prevails nowadays it would be hard to tell. The term seems to have survived the belief which gave rise to it; for one does not often meet with instances outside the Christian ministry in which men regard their daily avocation as a veritable "calling." This, however, was the case with _Thomas Shillitoe_, who was evidently as well satisfied of his "call" to be a shoemaker as of his Divine commission to stand before kings and rulers as a witness for the truth of God. This devout man would have had no hesitation, we apprehend, in the simplicity and strength of his conviction about the matter, to speak of himself as "called to be" a shoemaker. He was a member of the Society of Friends, a follower, and indeed a very close follower, in the spirit and method of his life-work, of the apostolic George Fox. Shillitoe's "Journal" will often remind the reader of the records and experiences of the shoemaker of Leicestershire.

[162] See answer to the question, "What is thy duty toward thy neighbor?"

Thomas Shillitoe was born in Holborn, London, in 1754. His father, who had been librarian to the Society of Gray's Inn, became the landlord of the "Three Tuns" public house, Islington, when Thomas was about twelve years of age. "Merry Islington" was then a village, and a favorite resort of idlers from the great city. Sundays were the busiest days of the week, and were chiefly spent by the boy in waiting on his father's customers. At the age of sixteen he became an apprentice to a grocer, whose failure very soon compelled Thomas to return home. About this time he began to attend the meetings of the Society of Friends. This led to serious thought and prayer, and the resolve to lead a Christian life and unite himself with these earnest Christian people. "His father, finding he was thus minded, was greatly displeased, and told him he would rather have followed him to the grave than he should have gone among the Quakers, and he was determined he should at once quit his house." But the youth was prepared for such a severe trial as this by that strong faith in Divine Providence which formed the most marked feature of his character throughout the rest of his life. Nor was his faith unrewarded, for, on the very day on which he bade good-by to his father's roof, a situation was offered him in a banking-house in Lombard Street. Here he remained until he was twenty-four years of age.

He was at this time very anxious to become a preacher, but dreaded the danger of "running before he was sent," and therefore he waited for the Divine voice bidding him "Go forth." But before he could be made fit for this great work he must learn to humble himself and take up the cross. The banking-house and its surroundings must be forsaken; he must go forth like Moses into the land of Midian, like Paul into Arabia, and be prepared by simpler ways of life for the stern duties of the ministry of God's word. And so it came to pass, he tells us, that one Sunday while in earnest prayer that the Lord would be pleased to direct him, "He in mercy, I believe, heard my cries, and answered my supplications, pointing out to me the business I was to be willing to take to for a future livelihood as intelligibly to my inward ear as ever words were expressed clearly and intelligibly to my outward ear--that I must be willing to humble myself and learn the trade of a shoemaker. This caused me much distress of mind, as my salary had been small, and having been obliged to make a respectable appearance, I had but little means to pay for instruction in a new line of business. Yet believing I was to keep close to my good Guide and He would not fail me, I entered on the work, though for the first twelve months my earnings only provided me at best with bread, cheese, and water, and sometimes only bread, and sitting constantly on the seat made it hard for me, yet both I and my instructor soon became reconciled to it." His diligence and thrift enabled him in a short time to open a shop of his own in Tottenham, and to employ workmen. It was not long after this that he received his first call to go forth from his home and preach. It was no easy matter to obey such a call at this time. His young wife knew nothing of business, and the foreman was not very trustworthy. Still the good man went out on a sort of missionary tour in Norfolk, and returned home to find, as he avers he always did find on returning from such a mission, that the words of Divine promise spoken to his inward ear were verified: "I will be more than bolts and bars to thy outward habitation, more than a master to thy servants, for I can restrain their wandering minds; more than a husband to thy wife, and a parent to thy infant children."

After continuing at the craft as a master-shoemaker for about twenty-seven years, Shillitoe in 1805 found that he had saved enough to put him in a position to relinquish business, and to devote himself more fully to the Christian and philanthropic work to which he believed he had been called of God. He paid several visits to Ireland, visiting the "drinking-houses" in every town to which he went, and endeavoring to reform the shocking abuses he met with in such places. First of all he would speak with the "keepers" of these houses, and plead with them to abolish the evils he saw around him; and then, turning his attention to the company of drinkers, revellers, and dancers, he would speak to them in such tender loving tones, that they were constrained to cease their rioting and listen to the faithful servant of Christ. He and his companion were rarely molested while engaged on these errands of mercy. In some instances crowds followed them to listen to their message, and where the company began by jeering and insulting the visitors, they soon settled down into a quiet and respectful demeanor. When at Clonmel in 1810, Shillitoe writes in his journal: "My companion used often to say it seemed as if the Good Master went into the houses before us to prepare the way." Not content with visiting the "drinking-houses," we read, "it was his practice to visit either the magistrates or the bishops and priests, and sometimes he did not feel clear until he had spoken faithfully to all."[163] To the bishops, Roman Catholic or Protestant, he spoke in the most uncompromising manner about their responsibility for the influence of their teaching and conduct upon the people. Six hundred visits of mercy were paid to the drinking-houses of Dublin alone in the year 1811. The year after this his "Journal" records a remarkable visit which he and a fellow-worker paid to "an organized company of desperate characters, who for nearly fifty years had infested the neighborhood of Kingswood, who lived by plundering, robbing, horse-stealing," and were a terror to the locality. Even these men listened patiently to correction and instruction from the lips of Thomas Shillitoe, and thanked him and his friend for their good counsel.

[163] "Select Miscellanies." London: Charles Gilpin. 1854, vol. iv. p. 135.

From the lowest and humblest members of society he sometimes turned his attention to the highest and most influential. He could not think of kings and emperors without remembering their grave responsibility before God for the good government of their people, and feeling that it was his duty to speak to them upon the subject. In 1794 he and a friend named Stacey went to Windsor intent on seeing and speaking with King George III. It was early morning, when the King was in the habit of visiting his stables. Shillitoe was about to follow the King into one of the stables, when he was stopped by an attendant. George III., hearing their remarks, came out; when Stacey said, "This friend of mine has something to communicate to the King." On which his Majesty raised his hat, and his attendants ranging on his left and right, Thomas Shillitoe advanced in front, saying, "Hear, O King," and, in a discourse of about twenty minutes' duration, pressed upon the monarch the importance of true religion in persons of exalted station, and the influence and responsibility attached to power. The King listened with respect and emotion, "tears trickling down his cheeks."[164] It was certainly a more difficult thing to pay such a visit to the Prince Regent; but even this the prophet-like Quaker accomplished at Brighton in 1813, and again at Windsor in 1823, when the gay Prince had become King George IV. The missionary zeal of Shillitoe carried him into Europe and America, where he never flinched from delivering his message to men in any position, high or low.

[164] "Journal of Thomas Shillitoe," vol. i. p. 21.

In Denmark he obtained an audience of the King, and spoke to him some plain words regarding the desecration of the Sabbath, and the evils attendant on Government-licensed lotteries. In Prussia he ventured to speak to the King in the garden of the Palace of Berlin, and was graciously received, the monarch promising to profit by the admonition he received. In Russia he saw the Czar Alexander in 1825, and spoke to him "of the abuses and oppressions that existed under his government." Alexander, who had great respect for the Friends, received his visitor very kindly, and conversed with him for a long time on religious subjects in the most frank and familiar manner.

After fifty years' faithful ministry, of the most singularly pure and disinterested character, this good man died at the age of eighty-two, 12th June, 1836.

JOHN THORP, FOUNDER OF THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH AT MASBRO'.

The conversion and ministry of John Thorp, a shoemaker at Masbrough, Yorkshire, may be set down among the most extraordinary incidents connected with the eighteenth century religious revival. Thorp's conversion was an indirect result of the preaching of the Methodists, and occurred in such a singular manner as to make the story worth telling, even if it had led to no other results; but in Thorp's case the results of conversion were very noteworthy. Southey in his "Life of Wesley"[165] gives the following account: "A party of men were amusing themselves one day in an ale-house at Rotherham,[166] by mimicking the Methodists. It was disputed who succeeded best, and this led to a wager. There were four performers, and the rest of the company were to decide after a fair specimen from each. A Bible was produced, and three of the rivals, each in turn, mounted the table and held forth in a style of irreverent buffoonery, wherein the Scriptures were not spared. John Thorp, who was the last exhibitor, got upon the table in high spirits, exclaiming, 'I shall beat you all!' He opened the book for a text, and his eyes rested on these words, 'Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish!' These words at such a moment and in such a place struck him to the heart. He became serious, he preached in earnest, and he afterward affirmed that his own hair stood erect at the feelings which then came upon him, and the awful denunciations which he uttered. His companions heard him with the deepest silence. When he came down not a word was said concerning the wager; he left the room immediately without speaking to any one, went home in a state of great agitation, and resigned himself to the impulse which had thus strangely been produced. In consequence he joined the Methodists, and became an itinerant preacher; but he would often say, when he related this story, that if ever he preached by the assistance of the Spirit of God, it was at that time." In the theological controversies which sprang up in the society at Rotherham, Thorp took the Calvinistic side. This roused the ire of the Arminian Wesley, who sent off the Calvinistic cobbler to labor in a circuit a hundred miles away. But though Wesley had the power to drive Thorp from Rotherham, the autocrat had no power to drive the cobbler away from his Calvinism. Wesley then dismissed Thorp from the Connection, and he returned to the scenes of his conversion and first Christian work, to take charge of a body of people who left the Methodists and formed an Independent Church, 1757-60.[167] This little society rapidly grew in numbers and influence, and is at the present time a large and flourishing church at Masbro'. One of its first members, Mr. Walker, an iron-founder, was a leading patron of the school, which afterward developed into Rotherham College under the presidency of the learned Dr. E. Williams.[168] "Thus to the pious zeal of an obscure shoemaker the Dissenters are indirectly indebted for their valuable academical institution."[169]

[165] "Bonn's Standard Library," p. 305.

[166] Rotherham and Masbro' are one town, only separated by the River Rother.

[167] "Masbro' Chapel Manual" for 1881, whence many of these particulars are taken. See also Miall's "Congregationalism in Yorkshire."

[168] Dr. Edward Williams became president in 1795. He edited the works of Jonathan Edwards, and was the author of a once famous controversial treatise on "Divine Equity and Sovereignty."

[169] "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 18.

Thorp was regularly ordained to the pastorate, and a chapel was built for his ministry, where he preached till his death, at the age of fifty-two, 8th November, 1776. He was a friend of the pious and eccentric John Berridge,[170] Vicar of Everton, who gave his watch to Thorp as a token of esteem. John Thorp's son, William, was a far more famous preacher than his father, and held a conspicuous place at the beginning of this century as pastor of the Castle Green Church, Bristol. Representatives of the family belonging to a _third_ and _fourth_ generation of preachers still hold an honorable position as Established or Free Church ministers.

[170] "Crispin Anecdotes," p. 18.

WILLIAM HUNTINGDON, S.S., CALVINISTIC METHODIST PREACHER.

One of the most eloquent and famous preachers in London at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present, when eloquent and famous preachers were by no means rare, was _William Huntingdon_, whose portrait may be seen in the National Portrait Gallery, South Kensington, London. Huntingdon's father was a farm laborer in Kent named Hunt. How the name Hunt grew into the more dignified Huntingdon (or Huntington) we cannot tell; probably through some whim of his own, for this eccentric man took liberties with his name, as the reader will see presently. He seems to have combined shoemaking with his other avocations, for one notice speaks of him as by turns hostler, gardener, cobbler, and coal-heaver.[171]

He was not favored with any early education, but by careful self-culture of his first-rate natural gifts acquired the rare art of speaking with an ease and elegance and force that pleased all sorts of hearers. Long after he had begun to attract crowds by his eloquence he worked for his daily bread as a cobbler. Many a sermon was made with his work on his lap and a Bible on the chair beside him. A chapel was built for his ministry in Tichfield Street, London, and when it proved too small, the congregation moved to a larger building erected in Gray's Inn Road.

[171] "Imperial Dictionary of Biography," vol. iv. Edinburgh: Blackie & Son.

In his diary, 22d October, 1812, H. C. Robinson[172] says, "Heard W. Huntingdon preach, the man who puts _S.S._ (sinner saved) after his name. He has an admirable exterior; his voice is clear and melodious; his manner singularly easy, and even graceful. There was no violence, no bluster; yet there was no want of earnestness or strength. His language was very figurative, the images being taken from the ordinary business of life, and especially from the army and navy. He is very colloquial, and has a wonderful Biblical memory; indeed, he is said to know the whole Bible by heart. I noticed that though he was frequent in his citations, and always added chapter and verse, he never opened the little book he had in his hand. He is said to resemble Robert Robinson of Cambridge."[173]

[172] Vol. i. p. 402.

[173] The eminent Baptist minister of St. Andrew's Chapel, 1761-1790, predecessor of Robert Hall.

In regard to the S.S. which he persisted in writing after his name. Huntingdon says, "M.A. is out of my reach for want of learning; D.D. I cannot attain for want of cash; but S.S. I adopt, by which I mean '_sinner saved_.'" He married as his second wife the wealthy widow of Alderman Sir J. Saunderson, once Lord Mayor of London. His death occurred in 1813, at Tunbridge Wells.[174] One of his best known works is entitled "The Bank of Faith," an extraordinary record of his own personal experience in illustration of the doctrine of special providence. His sermons, etc., were published in no less than twenty volumes.

[174] Huntingdon wrote his own epitaph, part of which reads--"Beloved of his God but abhorred by men. The Omniscient Judge at the Great Assize shall ratify and confirm this, to the confusion of many thousands; for England and its metropolis shall know that there hath been a prophet among them."

REV. ROBERT MORRISON, D.D., CHINESE SCHOLAR AND MISSIONARY.

A maker of wooden clogs and shoe-lasts is hardly a shoemaker, in the commonly understood sense of the term, yet he stands in a very close relation to the gentle craft, and for this reason we may not unfairly claim _Robert Morrison_ of Newcastle as a member of the illustrious brotherhood of the sons of St. Crispin. Dr. Morrison was the pioneer of modern missions to China, and did for the people and language of that country what another shoemaker did for the people of Bengal. The youthful Northumbrian had only a plain elementary education, and after he became an apprentice, spent all his spare time in reading religious books. At the age of nineteen he gave up his humble trade and began to study under a minister, who passed him on in two years to the academy at Hoxton, where he made such progress, that in a short time he was sent to London to study Chinese under Sam Tok, a native teacher, with a view to his becoming a missionary to China, in connection with the London Missionary Society. In 1807, he sailed for that country, and his rare gifts as a linguist were shown in the publication of a Chinese version of the Acts of the Apostles, after only three years' labor, in 1810. The Gospel of Luke appeared in 1812, and the entire New Testament in 1814. With the help of William Milne he issued the Old Testament shortly after the last date. His labors were not confined to the translation of the Sacred Scriptures. His greatest work was a "Dictionary of the Chinese Language," published in 1818 by the Hon. East India Company at a cost of £15,000. He also edited a Chinese grammar. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow.

In 1817, Dr. Morrison accompanied Lord Amherst in his embassy to Pekin, and afterward, as the last great work of a noble life, founded an Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca, to whose funds he left the bulk of his property. On his return to England in 1823 for rest and change, his great gifts and labors as a linguist and a missionary were cordially recognized in many quarters. The Royal Society made him a member, and King George IV. honored himself, as well as his distinguished subject, by seeking an interview with him. In 1826 he returned to the field of his missionary labors. On his death at Canton in 1834, England lost her best Chinese scholar, and one of the most devoted, self-sacrificing, and useful missionaries who ever left her shores.

THE REV. JOHN BURNET, PREACHER AND PHILANTHROPIST.

The eloquent and popular minister of Camberwell Green Congregational Church, the _Rev. John Burnet_, who divided his time and energies between preaching and philanthropic labors, is claimed by the craft as one of the most gifted and useful men who have sprung from their ranks.[175] He was of Highland descent, and was born in Perth, 13th April, 1789. His early education at the High School of Perth must have given him great advantage over most youths of the _souter_ fraternity. How long he plied the awl we cannot say. Soon after his union with a Christian Church in Perth his friends discovered his gifts as a speaker, and encouraged his adoption of the ministry as a profession. To this end they supplied him with funds, and for a time he studied with much advantage under the Rev. William Orme of Perth. In 1815 Mr. Burnet removed from Perth to Dublin, and soon afterward became an agent of the Irish Evangelical Society. His labors at Cork proving acceptable to the Independent Church there, he was invited to become their pastor, and for fifteen years was well known by all the Protestants of the district as an eloquent and faithful preacher. The growth of his congregation led to the building of a handsome new chapel for his ministry in George Street. But his labors were not confined to these localities (Cork and Mallow). His biographer states that "he continually visited the other towns and places in the South of Ireland, preaching in the court-houses, market-places, and frequently in the halls of the resident nobility and gentry--all the Protestants gladly giving him the requisite facilities. On these journeys he had usually a free pass by the mails and coaches, but he travelled a good deal on horseback."[176]

[175] See Campion's "Delightful History," p. 83.

[176] "Congregational Year-Book" for 1863, pp. 214-216. To the obituary notice given in the Year-Book I owe the facts given in this sketch.

It would have been an easy matter for Mr. Burnet to enter Parliament, if he could have been persuaded to quit the ministry and devote himself entirely to political life; for he was popular with the Liberals of his day, had rare gifts as a speaker, and was thoroughly acquainted with politics. But the best efforts of his friend Joseph Sturge, and the offer of ample means to maintain the position of a member of Parliament, failed to induce him to accept the flattering offer. He was constantly employed as a platform speaker, and never refused his aid to any cause "affecting the rights of the people or the progress of humanity."

For many years he was on the Committee of the Bible Society, the London Missionary Society, the Irish Evangelical and the British and Foreign Sailors' Societies. Yet with all this public work he never neglected the duties of the pastorate, but occupied his pulpit efficiently from Sunday to Sunday, and held several meetings during the week for the instruction of his people. In 1845 his brethren of the Independent Connection showed their esteem by electing him to fill the chair of the Congregational Union.

In 1825 Mr. Burnet was summoned to give evidence before a committee of the House of Lords on the state of the Catholic population in Ireland. At first he declined to attend, saying that he could not leave his work, for he had no one to supply his place in his absence. But a second summons made it clear that he was bound to obey orders, and he accordingly went up to London and gave the committee the benefit of his extensive acquaintance with the religious condition of the South of Ireland. His visit to London brought him again into the company of his old friend Mr. Orme, who introduced him to the congregation, of which Mr. Orme was the pastor, at the Mansion House Chapel. On his death in 1830, Mr. Burnet was invited to succeed his friend as the pastor of the church. This pastorate he held for thirty-two years, till the day of his death. In 1852 the new and costly building opposite Camberwell Green was built, the congregation removing thither from the old "Mansion House."

Mr. Burnet was best known for his philanthropic labors, chiefly in connection with the anti-slavery cause. In this work he labored side by side, and on intimate terms of friendship, with Wilberforce, Brougham, Zachary Macaulay, Lord Macaulay, Sir T. F. Buxton, and other advocates of freedom for the slave. "His labors," it is said, "in committee were continuous and valuable, and his good sense and sound judgment were not seldom needed in the conduct of this great movement. He went frequently on deputations to the Government, and was obliged to spend much time at the House of Commons to be near the anti-slavery leaders in all times of difficulty, and by this means became acquainted with the leading public men of the day, who admired his straightforward character, readiness, and humor." He died at the age of seventy-three, June 10th, 1862.

JOHN KITTO, D.D., THE BIBLICAL SCHOLAR.

Very few illustrious men have been so heavily handicapped in the race of life and the pursuit of knowledge as the eminent Biblical scholar, _John Kitto_, who was born at Plymouth, 4th December, 1804.[177] Added to poverty, the want of proper food and clothing, he had to endure in early life the deprivation of natural guardians and friends, terrible cruelty from a master under whose care he was placed, and, worst of all, the entire loss of the sense of hearing, so that from the age of twelve to the day of his death he never could hear a sound of any description. Deeply pathetic is the story of his early life as told by himself in his journal and letters. His father was a working mason at Plymouth, who had lost a good business by intemperate habits. When John was only four years old, his grandmother, who could not endure the sight of his misery at home, engaged to bring him up. This good woman was the guardian angel of Kitto's childhood, and did more, perhaps, than any one else to mould his character. It was a sad day for him when she was compelled by poverty and illness to break up her home and go with her little ward to live with his parents. He had already become fond of reading, and had even tried his hand at writing tales for the amusement of his childish companions and the more serious purpose of earning a few pence to buy books. One day, when working with his father, he fell from the top of a house thirty-five feet high, and was carried home in a state of unconsciousness. After lying in this state for a fortnight, he awoke to discover to his dismay that he was absolutely deaf. He had asked for a book which a neighbor had lent him just before the accident, and when his friends found that he could not hear their reply, one of them took up a slate and _wrote_ upon it. "Why do you not speak?" he cried. "Why do you _write_ to me? Why not speak? Speak, speak!" "Then," he tells us, "those who stood around the bed exchanged significant looks of concern, and the writer soon displayed upon his slate the awful words, 'YOU ARE DEAF!' Did not this utterly crush me? By no means. In my then weakened condition nothing like this could affect me. Besides, I was a child; and to a child the full extent of such a calamity could not be at once apparent. However, I knew not the future--it was well I did not; and there was nothing to show me that I suffered under more than a temporary deafness, which in a few days might pass away. It was left for time to show me the sad realities of the condition to which I was reduced."

[177] "Memoirs of John Kitto, D.D.," by R. E. Ryland, M.A. Edinburgh: William Oliphant & Sons, 1856.

At the age of fifteen he was sent to the workhouse, scarcely understanding what was being done with him. On realizing his true position in this place, "his anguish was indescribable." Yet in Kitto's time this place was hardly like an ordinary modern workhouse. It had long borne the name of _The Hospital of the Poor's Portion_, was founded in 1630 by Gayer, Colmer, and Fowell, and endowed in 1674 by Lanyon with £2000, and in 1708 was converted into a poorhouse by Act of Parliament. It had apartments for boys, who were admitted on Hele's and Lanyon's charities. Young Kitto was kindly treated by the guardians, even being allowed to go out every day, and for a long time to sleep at home. His occupation was the making of _list shoes_, in which he became so proficient that he was sent out as an apprentice to a shoemaker in the town, who treated him so savagely that the humane guardians quashed the agreement and took him again under their care. But even in this wretched situation, where he was often compelled to work sixteen or eighteen hours a day, the poor deaf boy managed to go on with his studies; and in his interesting work called "The Lost Senses," published twenty years afterward, he remarks, "Now that I look back upon this time, the amount of study which I did, under these circumstances, contrive to get through, amazes and confounds me."

About a year after his return to the poorhouse, certain gentlemen in Plymouth, who had come to hear of his superior abilities and passion for reading, drew up a circular asking for funds to enable him to devote his time entirely to study. This appeal was so successful that the poor workhouse boy was placed under the care of a good friend, named Mr. Barnard, to board and lodge, and allowed to go to the public library for the purpose of reading and study. His course as a student was now fairly open. In a few years he published his first book, "Essays and Letters," with a short memoir of the author. In 1825 his friend Mr. Groves of Exeter was the means of sending him to the Church Missionary Institution, London, where for a time he was employed as a printer. For two years he resided at Malta in the service of this Society. After this, an arrangement was made with his friend Mr. Groves which proved of the utmost possible service to the diligent student, whose mind had long been set on travelling as a means of increasing his knowledge. Mr. Groves asked Kitto to accompany him to the East. Five years were spent in a journey through Russia, Persia, and Asiatic Turkey, during which "the deaf traveller" obtained the vast stores of information of which he made such good use in the various works written on his return to England. In 1833 he was engaged by Mr. Charles Knight, the well-known publisher, to write for the _Penny Magazine_, and wrote for that journal a number of articles entitled "The Deaf Traveller." He contributed many articles also to the _Penny Cyclopædia_. His best known works are "The Pictorial Bible," "The Pictorial Sunday Book," "Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature," "The Lost Senses," "Journal of Sacred Literature," and "Daily Bible Illustrations," a work of great value, in eight volumes. In 1844 the University of Giessen conferred on him the diploma of D.D., and in the following year he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. Notwithstanding his immense labors and the great value of his writings, he was, toward the close of his life, considerably embarrassed by pecuniary difficulties, which were alleviated, but not entirely removed, by a Government pension of £100 per year. John Kitto died and was buried at Cannstatt, in Germany, 25th November, 1854, at the age of forty-nine.

SCIENCE.

WILLIAM STURGEON, THE ELECTRICIAN.

The name of _William Sturgeon_, so honorably connected with the science of electricity and magnetism, has a fair claim to be entered on this list. Sturgeon was a Lancashire man, born at Wittington in that county in 1783. All his youth was spent at the shoemaker's stall. On arriving at manhood he abandoned this quiet, peaceful occupation for the life of a soldier. After two years' service in the militia he enlisted in the Royal Artillery. Like William Cobbett, he found it possible to read in the midst of the distractions of the barrack-room. His chief attention was given to the study of electricity and magnetism, which at that time were attracting a great deal of attention on the part of men of science.[178] The first proof Sturgeon gave of special and extensive knowledge on the subject was in the papers which he contributed to the _Philosophical Magazine_ in 1823-24. In 1825 he published an account of certain magneto-electric appliances, for which the Society of Arts awarded him their silver medal and a purse containing £30. About this time, that is, soon after leaving the army, he was appointed to the chair of experimental philosophy in the East India Company's Military Academy at Addiscombe. His pamphlet, published in 1830, on "Experimental Researches in Electro-Magnetism and Galvanism," described his own experiments, which issued in an improved method of preparing plates for the galvanic battery; a method still found, in many respects, to be the best. He invented the electro-magnetic-coil machine, now used very frequently by medical men in giving a succession of shocks to the patient, and still preferred by the faculty to other instruments for this purpose. This industrious and original investigator was also the inventor of a method of driving machinery by electro-magnetism; but he little dreamt, it may be, of the extent to which electricity would be employed in these days as a motive power and for lighting purposes. He edited the "Annals of Electricity, Magnetism, and Chemistry," and published his own works in one volume a few years before his death. Like many inventors, he never made a fortune, but died poor. A Government pension of £50 per annum came to relieve him of his cares only the year before his death, which occurred in 1850.

[178] Magneto-electricity was discovered by Oersted in 1820.

POLITICIANS.

THOMAS HARDY, OF "THE STATE TRIALS."

The "_gentle_ craft." has been as prolific of fiery politicians as of peaceful poets. We have to speak now of two men who were connected respectively with the political agitations of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In the year 1794, when the events of the French Revolution had convulsed the whole of Europe, society in England was stirred to its depths, and grave fears were entertained by the King and his Parliament lest the spirit of revolution should break loose in this country. Such fears were not altogether unfounded. Societies sprang up whose object was reform, by legitimate means if possible, but if not, by violence and bloodshed. One of the strongest of these societies existed in London, and had carried its proceedings to such a pitch that four of its leading members were brought to trial on a charge of treason and sedition. It is a remarkable fact that of these four men--Hardy, Horne-Tooke, Thelwall, and Holcroft--the first and last belonged to the class of shoemakers.[179]

[179] A story is told of Sir Robert Peel which is worth repeating here. A deputation of working-men once waited on Sir Robert to lay the wants of the trades' societies before him. The two speakers selected by the deputation were shoemakers. On learning this interesting fact, the statesman turned to the sons of Crispin and said, half in earnest and half in jest, "How is it that you shoemakers are foremost in every movement? If there is a plot or conspiracy or insurrection or political movement, I always find that there is a shoemaker in the fray!"

It is a singular fact that the shorthand notes of Hardy's trial were taken down by another illustrious shoemaker--Manoah Sibly (see above). There is a printed copy of these notes in the British Museum, published 1795.

_Thomas Hardy_ was the secretary of the Association, and had to bear the brunt of the trial, in which he was defended by the Honorable Thomas Erskine. Speaking of these famous state trials, Henry Crabb Robinson, who was then living at Colchester, says, "I felt an intense interest in them. During the first trial I was in a state of agitation that rendered me unfit for business. I used to beset the post-office early, and one morning at six I obtained the London paper with NOT GUILTY printed in letters an inch in height, recording the issue of Hardy's trial. I ran about the town knocking at people's doors and screaming out the joyful words. Thomas Hardy, who was a shoemaker, made a sort of circuit, and obtained, of course, many an order in the way of his trade.... Hardy was a good-hearted, simple, and honest man. He had neither the talents nor the vices which might be supposed to belong to an acquitted traitor. He lived to an advanced age and died universally respected."[180] Hardy died in the year 1831, in his eighty-second year, having been born in 1751. At the close of his life he was connected with the Wesleyan Methodists. His monument may still be seen in the Bunhill Fields Burying Ground, opposite the City Road Chapel, London.

[180] H. C. Robinson's Diary, vol. i. pp. 26, 27.

GEORGE ODGER, POLITICAL ORATOR.

It has been remarked above, that shoemakers, whether "illustrious" or not, have played a prominent part in connection with religious and political reform. In proof of this we have only to ask the reader to recall what has been said of Henry Michael Buch, Hans Sachs, George Fox, Drs. Carey and Morrison, and John Pounds, among moral and religious reformers; and such men as Hardy, Holcroft, and Thomas Cooper, in the sphere of politics. The name of _George Odger_ deserves a place also in this list of reformers and improvers of the world, for although his field of labor was a very humble one, it was sufficient for the display of fine qualities of mind and heart. Odger was one of the best specimens this country has produced of a powerful class in modern society, called "working-men politicians." His influence as a working-man among the working-men of London was unrivalled in his day, and was always of a wholesome and ennobling character. Professor Fawcett said "he was as good and true a man as ever lived," paid a warm tribute to his "rare intelligence and power and eloquence," and added, moreover, that if the poor shoemaker "had been born in circumstances in which he could have had the advantages of education, there would have been for him a career as distinguished as any Englishman had achieved." John Stuart Mill also held similar opinions in regard to Odger's excellent character and remarkable abilities. Other members of Parliament have done honor to Odger's worth, and recognized his unselfishness and patriotism as a leader of the people. He was no vulgar demagogue, pandering to popular passion, and seeking fame and power at any cost. His appeals were always made to the intelligence of his hearers, and his demands for reform were based on what he conscientiously regarded as principles of justice. Throughout the American war, 1861-65, he sought to direct public opinion against the slave-holding interest.

George Odger was born at Rogborough, near Plymouth, in 1813. His father was a Cornish miner, and so poor that he was obliged to send his boy out to earn his living at shoemaking as soon as he was able to work. It goes without saying that under such circumstances he had no advantages of education, and that he was indebted to his own efforts for any measure of culture displayed in later life. In his youthful days he made diligent use of every moment of leisure for the purpose of study, and acquired an amount of general information which was of immense service to him as a public speaker. His first attempts at speaking were made in connection with the Reform movement. He rapidly acquired influence among the working class, and was well known and respected both in London and the provinces as a safe leader and counsellor of the people, so that in the Liverpool and Kendal strikes he was accepted by both masters and men as a mediator. In 1868 he stood for a time as a candidate for the newly made borough of Chelsea, and in the following year he was accepted by a large party as a candidate for Stafford, but in each case he retired from the contest lest his candidature should damage the interests of his party. In 1870 and 1874 he contested Southwark as a working-man's candidate, but was not successful. In the former of these contests he polled only 300 fewer votes than the elected candidate.

George Odger never followed any other trade than that of a shoemaker, and was always in very humble circumstances. Shortly before his death a subscription was raised by the Trade Union Congress at Newcastle to supply the wants of his declining years, and in consequence of the esteem in which he was held, "the result was liberal and prompt."[181] After a long illness he died at his residence, Bloomsbury, London, 3d March, 1877.

[181] "The Oracle," vol. vi. pp. 154, 237. London: 155 Fleet Street.

The honor done him at his funeral was such as many a nobleman might envy. The _Times'_ report of the funeral says: "The remains of Mr. Odger were borne to the grave at Brompton Cemetery with all the honors of a public funeral. The crowd around the house of the deceased was immense." The Shoemakers' Society, to which Odger belonged, held the foremost place in the long procession which accompanied the remains of this illustrious shoemaker to the grave. Members of the House of Commons, and other men of position and influence in the great city, stood side by side with the working-men of Clerkenwell, Southwark, and Bloomsbury, to pay their last tribute of esteem to the memory of this truly estimable man.

AMERICA.

NOAH WORCESTER, D.D., "THE APOSTLE OF PEACE."

America has her share of illustrious shoemakers. The United States can boast of men worthy to stand on a level with the best examples of merit the gentle craft can produce in the Old World. We select four "representative men" from the long list that might be named, to whom we shall chiefly devote our remaining space. These men show in their character and life-work the best features of the New England type of the American citizen. They are men of sterling moral and religious worth, intense haters of tyranny and slavery, and war and intemperance, "sound as gospel" in their political principles, "clear as Wenham ice" in their transparency of character.

We are fain to believe that every intelligent person in the United States knows the name of _Noah Worcester_, the "Apostle of Peace," as he has been very justly styled. Every intelligent person also on the British side of the Atlantic ought to know something of this good man. He was one of the world's reformers, and commenced a movement which is destined to deepen and widen in its influence until it becomes universal, and changes for the better the entire condition of mankind. We allude to the establishment of the Peace Society of Massachusetts--the parent of numberless similar societies in America and Europe. "I well recollect," says Dr. Channing,[182] "the day of its formation in yonder house, then the parsonage of this parish; and if there was a happy man that day on earth it was the founder of this institution. This Society gave birth to all the kindred ones in this country, and its influence was felt abroad. Dr. Worcester assumed the charge of its periodical, and devoted himself for years to this cause, with unabating faith and zeal; and it may be doubted whether any man who ever lived contributed more than he to spread just sentiment on the subject of war, and to hasten the era of universal peace. He began his efforts in the darkest day, when the whole civilized world was shaken by conflict and threatened with military despotism. He lived to see more than twenty years of general peace, and to see through these years the multiplication of national ties, an extension of commercial communications, an establishment of new connections between Christians and learned men throughout the world, and a growing reciprocity of friendly and beneficent influence among different States, all giving aid to the principles of peace, and encouraging hopes which a century ago would have been deemed insane."

[182] Sermon entitled "The Philanthropist, a Tribute to the Memory of the Rev. Noah Worcester, D.D." Channing's Works, People's Edition, vol. ii. p. 251, etc. Belfast: Simms & M'Intyre, 1843.

Noah Worcester, born at Hollis, New Hampshire, November 25th, 1758, was the son of a farmer, and until the age of twenty-one worked on the farm. His father's means were limited, and the education of the family was stinted in consequence. When hostilities commenced between the American Colonies and Great Britain, young Worcester, then only about eighteen years of age, became a soldier and fought at the battle of Bunker's Hill. It is said that his disgust with the vices of soldier life, and horror at the awful sights of the battle-field, drove him from the army and made him forever afterward a hater of war and an advocate of peace. Returning to farm life, he divided his time between outdoor labor and shoemaking, which occupation he followed when the darkness of night time or the cold of winter prevented his working in the fields. He also betook himself earnestly to the work of self-education. Like many another shoemaker, he made his work-room his study. The materials for the improvement of his mind lay all round his bench--books, pens, ink, paper, etc. An early marriage increased the difficulties of his situation as a poor student, yet he managed by dint of extraordinary application to improve himself and become fit for the ministry before he had reached the age of thirty. His first church was small, and his salary amounted to only two hundred dollars (£45.) Many of the members were poor, and the conscientious pastor could not allow them to pay their share to his support. On this account he often gave up as much as a quarter of his salary in the year, getting through as best he could by a little farming and a good deal of shoemaking. When times were bad he turned his "study" into a day-school and taught the children of his parishioners for nothing. "His first book was a series of letters to a Baptist minister, and in this he gave promise of the direction the efforts of his life were to assume." Its aim was to promote unity among men of different denominations. Later on he published a remarkable book, which made no small stir in its day, entitled "Bible News Relating to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;" and a second on the same subject, under the title "Letters to Trinitarians." "These works," says Channing, "obtained such favor, that he was solicited to leave the obscure town in which he ministered, and to take charge in this place (Brighton, Mass.) of a periodical at first called the _Christian Disciple_, and now better known as the _Christian Examiner_."[183]

[183] Written in 1837.

At length he issued, in 1814, the famous pamphlet by which his name became known and honored among Christian men and lovers of peace throughout the world. It bore the title "A Solemn Review of the Custom of War." No more effective tract was ever printed. It was translated into several of the languages of Europe. The impression it produced in America led to the formation of the "Peace Society of Massachusetts." Worcester's views on war were identical with those of the Society of Friends. "He interpreted literally the precept, 'Resist not evil,' and believed that nations as well as individuals would find safety as well as fulfil righteousness in yielding it literal obedience.... He believed that no mightier man ever trod the earth than William Penn when entering the wilderness unarmed, and stretching out to the savage a hand which refused all earthly weapons in token of peace and brotherhood." So absorbed was he in this great theme, that he declared, eight years after his famous pamphlet was issued, that "its subject had not been out of his mind when awake an hour at a time during the whole period." He died at Brighton, Mass., in his eightieth year, 31st October, 1838. It was his wish to have written on his tombstone the words, "He wrote the 'Friend of Peace.'" Dr. Channing's testimony to Dr. Worcester's character is the highest one man can bear to another. He says, "Two views of him particularly impressed me. The first was the unity, the harmony of his character. He had no jarring elements. His whole nature had been blended and melted into one strong, serene love. His mission was to preach peace, and he preached it, not on set occasions or by separate efforts, but in his whole life.... My acquaintance with him gave me clearer comprehension of the spirit of Christ and the dignity of man."

Worcester received his degree of Master of Arts from Dartmouth College, and his diploma of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard.

ROGER SHERMAN, ONE OF THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Another famous American citizen, contemporary during the early part of his life with Noah Worcester, was Roger Sherman, who was born at Newton, Massachusetts, 19th April, 1721. Until the age of twenty-two he was a shoemaker, and from the age of twenty supported his widowed mother and the younger members of the family, and found the means to enable two brothers to enter the ministry. At this time he devoted his leisure to the study of mathematics and astronomy. In 1743 he laid aside the awl, and left his native place to settle at New Milford, Connecticut, where he joined his elder brother in keeping a small store. His accomplishments very soon led to his appointment as surveyor of roads. While holding this office he began the study of law, and made such progress that in 1745, at the age of twenty-four, he was admitted to the bar. In 1748 he began to supply the astronomical calculations for a New York almanac. His life as a legislator commenced with his membership of the Connecticut Assembly, where he held a seat during several sessions. The appointment of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas was given him in 1759, and again in 1765, at New Haven, whither he had removed four years previously. He was made an assistant in 1766, and held the office for nineteen years. The judgeship was not resigned until 1789, part of the time since his appointment having been spent on the bench of the Superior Court.

Roger Sherman's connection with the American Congress was long and highly honorable. He became a Congressman in 1774, and served his country faithfully in that capacity for nearly twenty years till the time of his death, at which time he held a seat in the Senate of the United States. He was appointed also as a member of the Council of Safety. During the last nine years of his life he was Mayor of New Haven. For many years he held the honorable office of treasurer of Yale College.

In the year 1766 Sherman was placed on the Commission appointed to draught the Declaration of Independence, and he was one of those who afterward signed the Declaration. Having been one of those who framed the old "Articles of Confederation," and a very useful member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, his services in obtaining the indorsement or ratification of the Constitution by his own State Convention (_i.e._, of Connecticut) were of the utmost value.

The foregoing statements will sufficiently show how well the quondam shoemaker of Massachusetts earned the noble name of Patriot. Few men in his day did more solid and lasting public work. Although he was a man of remarkably cool, deliberate judgment, he was none the less an enthusiast in the cause of political freedom and independence. During the War of Independence he urged his compatriots by every means in his power to resist the English claims to impose taxation upon the colonies. He never swerved for a moment from the view he first took on the crucial question of "taxation without representation," but always avowed his firm conviction that "no European Government would ever give its sanction to such unfair legislation." His rectitude and integrity were unimpeachable, and his "rare good sense" made him a man of mark even among the noteworthy men of the first Federal Congress. Mr. Macon used to say of him, "Roger Sherman had more common-sense than any man I ever knew;" and Thomas Jefferson was wont to declare that Roger Sherman was "a man who never said a foolish thing in his life." To this opinion of his judgment and mental qualities may be added a valuable estimate of his moral and religious character. Goodrich[184] says that Sherman "having made a public profession of religion in early life, was never ashamed to advocate the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, which are often so unwelcome to men of worldly eminence. His sentiments were derived from the Word of God, and not from his own reason."

[184] In "American Biographical Dictionary." Boston: J. P. Jewett & Co.

The life of this man of "patriot fame"[185] came to an end July 23d, 1793. His good name is in no danger of being lost to posterity, for in addition to his own personal claim to immortality, he gave "hostages to fortune" in a family of fifteen children, one of whom, his namesake, died in 1856 at the patriarchal age of eighty-eight.

[185] See the allusion to Sherman in Whittier's lines, given below.

HENRY WILSON, "THE NATICK COBBLER."

Among the political leaders of modern times _Henry Wilson_ long held a conspicuous place in the United States. His early connection with the gentle craft procured for him the familiar and not unfriendly sobriquet "The Natick Cobbler." Wilson was born at Farmington, New Hampshire, February 16th, 1812. From his schoolboy days until he entered on political life he seems to have been connected both with shoemaking and farming, but chiefly with the former occupation. Part of his time, viz., from 1832 to 1837, he was a thorough-going son of Crispin, working on the stool from daylight till dusk. From 1837 to 1840 he was still connected with the trade, but in the more ambitious position of a "shoe manufacturer." In the year 1840 he devoted himself to the life of a politician. The office of President of the Massachusetts Senate was held by him in 1851 and 1852. Three years after this he became a senator as a representative of the same State. This honor he held for seventeen years, that is, till 1872. In 1861 he was made Colonel of the Twenty-second Massachusetts Volunteers. The highest office to which he attained was that of Vice-President of the United States, which post he held from 1872 to 1875, the year of his death. Henry Wilson was held at the time of his death in general and hearty esteem for the valuable services which he had rendered for thirty-five years to his country. Like many another famous son of St. Crispin, _The Natick Cobbler_ was a friend of freedom and a sworn foe to all kinds of tyranny. For many years he stood side by side with the best men in the Northern States, fighting the battle of liberation for the slaves, and at last was permitted to rejoice with them in the triumph of the good cause.

One is very much tempted to multiply instances of men like Wilson, who, having begun life as shoemakers, found their way into the Congress of the United States. _Seven_ such men at least have sat in Congress during the present century.[186] It may also be mentioned here that Franklin in his Autobiography speaks of a member of the _Junto_, a "William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but loving reading, who acquired a considerable share of mathematics," and "became surveyor-general;" and that Philip Kirtland, a shoemaker from Sherrington, Buckinghamshire, who settled at Lynn, Mass., in 1635, was the founder of the immense trade in boots and shoes for which that city has obtained an unrivalled name throughout the States.

[186] These are Roger Sherman and Henry Wilson, already noticed, and Daniel Sheffey, Gideon Lee, William Claflin, John B. Alley, and H. P. Baldwin. In answer to the question, "What shoemaker has risen to political or literary eminence in the United States?" a writer in the Philadelphia _Dispatch_, besides speaking of the four remarkable men we have selected as examples, says, "There are other famous names of graduates from that profession. _Daniel Sheffey_ of Virginia learned the trade, and worked at it many years, and from 1809 to 1817 represented his district in the Congress of the United States. His retort to John Randolph of Roanoke, who taunted him on the floor of Congress with his former occupation, was, 'The difference, sir, between my colleague and myself is this, that if his lot had been cast like mine in early life, instead of rising, by industry, enterprise, and study, above his calling, and occupying a seat on this floor, he would at this time be engaged in making shoes on the bench.' ... _Gideon Lee_, a mayor of New York City, and a member of Congress from about 1840 to 1844, was a working shoemaker, and afterward a leather dealer. _William Claflin_, an ex-governor of Massachusetts and a member of Congress, worked at the shoemaker's trade when young, and is now at the head of a very large shoe-manufacturing firm. _John B. Attey_, an ex-member of Congress from Massachusetts, was in the shoe trade, as was also _H. P. Baldwin_, ex-governor of Michigan, and ex-member of Congress from that State."

J. G. WHITTIER, "THE QUAKER POET."

The last name we have to give in this long, but still incomplete, list of illustrious shoemakers is that of _John Greenleaf Whittier_, who happily is still living to charm and educate the English-speaking people on both sides of the Atlantic with his simple, spirit-stirring poetry. Whittier is frequently spoken of in the States as _the Quaker Poet_. This designation is sufficiently distinctive, for poets are not very numerous in the Society of Friends. Preachers, patriots, philanthropists, orators, and writers of prose are numerous enough, but poets are very hard to find in this intensely earnest and practical religious community.

Like his coreligionists in every generation since the days of George Fox and William Penn, Whittier is "right on all points" relating to social and religious reform. The assistance his vigorous, thrilling lines have given to every philanthropic movement in the United States is beyond calculation. For many years he was the _Hans Sachs_ or _Ebenezer Elliott_ of the Liberation cause, giving similar help by his songs to the work of emancipation in America to that which the German gave to the cause of Protestantism on the continent of Europe, and the Englishman gave to the labors of the Anti-Corn Law League in Great Britain.

His father was a farmer at Haverhill, Massachusetts, where the poet was born in 1807. He remained on the farm until he was nearly nineteen years of age, and divided his time between field-work and shoemaking. In 1825 he was sent to a college belonging to the Society of Friends. Four years after this he became editor of _The American Manufacturer_, which office he held for only twelve months, and then resigned in order to take the management of the _New England Weekly Review_. In 1832 he went back to the old home, worked on the farm, and edited _The Haverhill Gazette_. Twice he represented Haverhill in the State Legislature. All through life he has been a strong and consistent anti-slavery advocate, and at various times has been made secretary of societies and editor of papers whose aim has been the abolition of slavery. About 1838-39 he became the editor of the _Pennsylvania Freeman_, an ardent anti-slavery paper. It required no small amount of courage to advocate freedom for the slave in those days. On one occasion Whittier's office was surrounded by a mob, who plundered and set fire to the building. His published works in prose and verse are very numerous, beginning with the "Legends of New England" in 1831, and coming down to volumes of verse like "The King's Missive, Mabel Martin, and Later Poems," etc.,[187] published within the last few years. Through all his writings there runs a healthy moral tone, and his poetry is no less distinguished for purity of sentiment than for sweetness of numbers and true poetic fire. No man in New England, nor, indeed, in the States, has earned a better title to the thanks and esteem of his fellow-countrymen than the "Quaker Poet," who began the hard work of life by blending the duties of the farm with the occupation of a shoemaker. Whittier College at Salem, Iowa, was established and named in his honor.

[187] In a review of this last volume of Whittier's poems (Macmillan & Co.), a writer in the _Athenæum_ (February 18th, 1882) gives the following just estimate of Whittier's character and merits as a man and a poet: "The poems in this collection ... show that delicate apprehension of nature, that deep-seated sympathy with suffering mankind, that unwavering love of liberty and all things lovable, that earnest belief in a spirit of beneficence guiding to right issues the affairs of the world, that beautiful tolerance of differences--in a word, all those high qualities which, being fused with imagination, make Mr. Whittier, not indeed an analytical and subtle poet, nor a poet dealing with great passions, but what he is emphatically, the apostle of all that is pure, fair, and morally beautiful.

Whittier has never forgotten his connection with the gentle craft in early life; nor has he been ashamed to own fellowship with its humble but worthy members. What he thinks of the craft itself, and of the spirit of the men who have followed it, may be learned from his lines addressed to shoemakers in the "Songs of Labor," published in 1850:

TO SHOEMAKERS.

Ho! workers of the old time, styled The Gentle Craft of Leather! Young brothers of the ancient guild, Stand forth once more together! Call out again your long array, In the olden merry manner! Once more, on gay St. Crispin's Day, Fling out your blazoned banner!

Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone How falls the polished hammer! Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown A quick and merry clamor. Now shape the sole! now deftly curl The glossy vamp around it, And bless the while the bright-eyed girl Whose gentle fingers bound it!

For you, along the Spanish main A hundred keels are ploughing; For you, the Indian on the plain His lasso-coil is throwing; For you, deep glens with hemlock dark The woodman's fire is lighting; For you, upon the oak's gray bark The woodman's axe is smiting.

For you, from Carolina's pine The rosin-gum is stealing; For you, the dark-eyed Florentine Her silken skein is reeling; For you, the dizzy goatherd roams His rugged Alpine ledges; For you, round all her shepherd homes Bloom England's thorny hedges.

The foremost still, by day or night, On moated mound or heather, Where'er the need of trampled right Brought toiling men together; Where the free burghers from the wall Defied the mail-clad master, Than yours, at Freedom's trumpet-call, No craftsmen rallied faster.

Let foplings sneer, let fools deride-- Ye heed no idle scorner; Free hands and hearts are still your pride, And duty done your honor. Ye dare to trust, for honest fame, The jury Time empanels, And leave to truth each noble name Which glorifies your annals.

Thy songs, Hans Sachs, are living yet, In strong and hearty German; And Bloomfield's lay, and Gifford's wit, And patriot fame of Sherman; Still from his book, a mystic seer, The soul of Behmen teaches, And England's priestcraft shakes to hear Of Fox's leathern breeches.

The foot is yours; where'er it falls, It treads your well-wrought leather, On earthen floor, in marble halls, On carpet, or on heather. Still there the sweetest charm is found Of matron grace or vestal's, As Hebe's foot bore nectar round Among the old celestials!

Rap, rap! your stout and bluff brogan, With footsteps slow and weary, May wander where the sky's blue span Shuts down upon the prairie. On beauty's foot, your slippers glance By Saratoga's fountains, Or twinkle down the summer dance Beneath the crystal mountains!

The red brick to the mason's hand, The brown earth to the tiller's, The shoe in yours shall wealth command, Like fairy Cinderella's! As they who shunned the household maid Beheld the crown upon her, So all shall see your toil repaid With heart and home and honor.

Then let the toast be freely quaffed, In water cool and brimming-- "All honor to the good old Craft Its merry men and women!" Call out again your long array, In the old time's pleasant manner: Once more, on gay St. Crispin's Day, Fling out his blazoned banner.

INDEX.

Adult schools at Gainsborough, started by J. F. Winks and T. Cooper, 171

Akiba, Ben Joseph, 194, 195

Alexander of Comana, 193

Alexandria, the pious cobbler of, 198

Alley, John B., 277

Andersen, Hans C., 210

Angling, book on, by Younger, 246, 247

Annianus of Alexandria, 192

Ansell and the battle of Aughrim, 245

Apelles and the cobbler, 191

Ashmole, Elias, and Partridge, 221

Askham, John, 248

Athenæum, quoted from, 115, 247, 278

Baldwin, H. P., 277

Baptist jubilee memorial, 131

Baptist missions commenced by Carey and Thomas, 141, 142

Barebones, Praise God, 216

Baudouin, the learned, 200

Baviad and Mæviad, 75, 82, 86-7

Benbow and nautical songs, 17

Bennet, John, poet, 229

Bennett, Timothy, of Hampton-Wick, 212

Bentinck, Lady, visits Carey when dying, 146

Berridge, John, and John Thorp, 257

Blacket, Joseph, 236, 242

Blanshard's Life of Bradburn, 65, 66, 67, 70

Bloomfield and Blacket, 239

Bloomfield, George, 94, 95, 96, 238

Bloomfield, Nathaniel, 94, 96, 98, 239

Bloomfield, Robert, a farmer's boy at Sapiston, 94 a ladies' shoemaker, 171 becomes a shoemaker, 94, 95 Birth and childhood, 94 his first poems, 96, 97 his mother, 94, 102 his last years, death, and burial, 101 life in London, 94, 101 list of his poems, 96, 97, 102-3 marriage of, 98 method of composing "The Farmer's Boy," 98 poetical tributes in "Blackwood," etc., 102, 103

Bloomfield, Robert, publishes "The Farmer's Boy," 99

Boehmen, Jacob, the mystic, 205-207 opinions of, by Charles I., William Law, &c., 206

Bowden, Mr., of Taunton, Lackington's master, 34

Bradburn, Samuel, and Charles Wesley, 66 and the clergyman, 68, 69 anecdotes of early preaching, 68 born at Gibraltar, 54 called to be a preacher, 61 circuits he travelled in, 64, 65, 66, 71 death and burial, 71 early life at Chester, 55-60 eloquence as a preacher, 67, 68 his conversion, 55-57 his father pressed into the army, 54 his first sermon, 61 his marriage with Betsy Nangle, 65 his marriage with Sophia Cooke, 66 his mother a Welshwoman, 54 his mother's death, note, 63 his wit and humor, anecdotes of, 70, 71 offered the pastorate of an Independent Church, 66 overtaken in a fault, 71 President of Wesleyan Conference, 67

Brizzio, Francesco, 208

Bruce's "Elegy written in Spring," 322

Buch, Henry Michael, "Good Henry," 201-203

Bunyan and Bradburn compared, 56

Burnet, Rev. John, 259-262

Bushey Park and Timothy Bennett, 213

Byron, Lord, allusion to Gifford, 93

Campion's "Delightful History of ye Gentle Craft," 193, 199, 242, 259

Capellini, _il Caligarino_, 207

Carey and Thomas sail for India, 142

Carey, Eustace, "Life of Dr. Carey," 131 William, abilities as a shoemaker, 131 and Rev. John Ryland, 131, 138 an enthusiast, 131, 132 apprenticed to a shoemaker, 133 baptized by Rev. J. Ryland, 135 D.D. conferred on him by Brown University, 144 first Bengali New Testament, 143 first marriage a mistake, 137 first sermon and pastorate, 135 first study of languages, 132, 133, 135 first thought of missions to heathen, 138 his death, 146

Carey, William his famous sermon at Nottingham, 141 his self-sacrificing spirit, 143 life briefly sketched, 129, 130 life in India, 142, 146 lives at Moulton, 137, 139 "Only a Cobbler," 132 pamphlet on Missions, 140 parentage and birth and childhood, 131, 132 Professor of Oriental Languages,

Calcutta, 129, 143 removes to Leicester, 140

Carlisle, Gifford's guardian, 205

Carlyle on _Hans Sachs_, 76, 77, 205 Thomas, and Thomas Cooper, 184

Carter, Edward, Esq., friend to John Pounds, 151, 157

Castell, Richard, "Ye Cocke of Westminster," 210

Caxton Printing Establishment and S. Drew, 121

Chambers's "Book of Days," 217

Channing on Noah Worcester, 271, 273

Charles, Rev. Thomas, of Bala, 139

Chartists and Thomas Cooper, 179, 182

Chartist Newspapers edited by Thomas Cooper, 181

Christ's Hospital and Richard Castell, 121

Claflin, William, Governor of Massachusetts, 277

Clarke, Dr. Adam, and Samuel Drew, 114, 122

Coke, Dr., and S. Drew, 122, 123

Coleridge, S. T., and Boehmen, 206 and shoemakers, 189

Cooksley, Dr., Gifford's friend, 80, 81 William, son of Dr. Cooksley, Gifford's will in favor of, 86

Cooper, _Robert_, mistaken for _Thomas_

Cooper, 186

Cooper, Thomas, a copyist at the Board of Health, 186

Cooper, Thomas, and "Stamford Mercury," 178 a sceptic, his lectures as, 185: _footnote_, 186 as a lecturer on Christianity, 187 becomes a shoemaker, 169 birth and parentage, 165 childhood at Exeter, 165-167 early studies while a shoemaker, 169-175 editorship and authorship in 1848-49, 185 final conversion to Christianity, 185, 186 first poem, 170 his connection with the Methodists, 177, 178 his excessive studies, 175, 176 his first published poems, 177 in Stafford Jail, 182-3 lectures at City Hall, London, on Theism, 186 life in Leicester, 180-3 life in Lincoln, 177 life in London, 179-180 Cooper, Thomas, list of his writings, 181-7 marries Miss Jobson, 177 professes Christianity in Baptism by immersion, 185 schoolboy days, 168, 169 sets up a school, 176 the railway accident, 186 Trial at Stafford and in London, 182-3

Craggs, Secretary, 216

Crispin and Crispianus, 197-199

Crispin anecdotes, 198-216, 223, 228, 242

Crocker, Charles, 247, 248

Cromwell and Fox, 249-51

Cruickshank and O'Neill, 244-6

Curwen's "History of Booksellers," 37, 45, 83

D'Albrione, Signor, 178

Davies, Ann, Gifford's lines on, 68, 87

Dekker, Thomas, 228

Della Cruscan School, 75, 82

Deloney's "History of Gentle Craft," 199, 228

Dennis, friend of Lackington, 40

Devlin, James, 242

Dey of Tripoli and Lieutenant Shovel, 20-21

D'Israeli, Mr., and Thomas Cooper, 183

"Dramatists, Early English," edited by Gifford, 75, 82

Drew, Samuel, as a preacher, 122, 123 as editor and author, list of works, 139-141 apprenticeship days, 111-113 attempts at poetry, 118-119 begins to study, 114-115 birth and childhood, 110-111 competes for prize of £1500, 122 conversion, joins the Wesleyans, 114 Defence of the Methodists, 119 his generosity, 117 his method of writing books while a shoemaker, 121 his works on immortality of the soul, 120 honors conferred on, 123, 124 last days, 124 lives in Liverpool and London, 124 marriage, 118 narrow escape from drowning, 113 quits the shoemaker's stall, 122 starts in business on £5, his thrift, 116 the midnight visitor, 118 writes "Remarks on Paine's Age of Reason," 118

Duncombe, T. S., M.P., and Thomas Cooper, 183

Elliott, Ebenezer, and John Younger, 246

Eyre, Sir Simon, Lord Mayor of London, 228

Fletcher, vicar of Madely and Bradburn, 62

Foster, John, 242

Fox, George, 249

Fullarton's "Lives of Eminent Englishmen," 84

Fuller, Rev. Andrew, the friend of Carey, 138, 141

Gainsborough the painter, 93

Gentle Craft, etc., origin of the terms, _note_, 198

George III. and Shillitoe, 254

Gifford, William, and Lord Grosvenor, 81, 82 childhood and youth, 76, 79 editorship of London "Quarterly," 75, 76, 83, 84 first attempts at verse, 79 his character, 83, 84 parentage and birth, 76 private tutor to Lord Belgrave, 81 story of the candle, 84 translations of Persius and Juvenal, 82 works his sums on pieces of leather, 78

Goethe's opinion of _Hans Sachs_, 204

Grafton, the duke of, and Bloomfield, 100

Grainger's "Biographical History," 215, 218, 219

Gray's Elegy, 232

Gregory Thaumaturgus, 143

Grosvenor, Lord, a friend to Gifford, 81, 82

Guilds or fraternities of shoemakers in Paris, 201-203

Guthrie, Dr., anecdotes and stories, 151 on John Pounds, 151, 152

Halifax, Lord, and Timothy Bennett, 212, 213

Hanley, Thomas Cooper's speech at, 182

Hardy, Thomas, 265, 266

"Helmsley," the tune, who composed it? 234

Hewson, Colonel, the Cerdon of Hudibras, 215-217

Holcroft, Thomas, 234

Hook, Dr., of Leeds, and Thomas Cooper, 186

Howard, John, 139

Hudibras and Colonel Hewson, 217

Hugh, Saint, 228

Huntingdon, William, S. S., 257-8

Imperial Dictionary of Biography, 244 257

Iphicrates, 219

Ireland, Dr., Lines to, by Gifford, 96

Jackson's Lives of Methodist Preachers, 232

Jameson, Mrs., on S. Crispin legendary art, 199

Jefferson on Roger Sherman, 275

Jerrold, Douglas, and Thomas Cooper, 183, 184

Jochanan, Rabbi, 194

Johnstone, J., 242

Jones, John, friend of Lackington, 35

Jong, Ludolph de, 209

Kettering, first collection for Baptist Missions, 141

Kingsley, Rev. Charles, and Thomas Cooper. 186

Kirtland, Philip, of Lynn, Mass., 277

Kitto, Rev. John, D.D., 261-4

Knowles, Herbert, "Lines," etc., 232

Krishnu, Carey's first convert in India, _note_, 146

Law, William, and Boehmen, 206

Lackington, James, and bargain-hunters, 39 apprenticeship, 33, 34 benefactions to Wesleyan denomination, 47 birth and parentage, 31 boyhood, vender of pies, almanacs. etc., 32 business and profits in 1791, 44 buys Young's "Night Thoughts," 38 courage as a boy--the ghost story, 32 death and burial, 47 extensive purchases, 42 first sale catalogue, 40 gives up shoemaking for book-selling, 38 goes to London, 1774, 37 helped by the Wesleyan Fund, 39 kindness to his relatives, 46 life in Bristol, 35, 36 marries Nancy Smith, 36 "Memoirs and Confessions," 29 motto for the door of his carriage, 30 "No credit" system, 41, 42 reads Epictetus, etc., 35 retires from business, 1798, 45 second marriage, 40 sets up a "chariot" and "country-house," 44 starts as bookseller, 38 strictures on the Wesleyans, 29 "Temple of the Muses," 29, 45 tour through England and Scotland, 45, 46

Lamb, Charles, on Shoemakers, 91, 227

Lacroix, "Manners and Customs of Middle Ages," 198

Lee, Dr. Samuel, 172 Gideon, Mayor of New York, 277 "Leisure Hour," articles on shoemakers, 211

Leno, John B., 248

Lestage, Nicholas, of Bordeaux, 203

Let the cobbler stick to his last, 191

"Literary Gazette " on Gifford, 93, 94

Living examples of illustrious shoemakers, 248

Llandaff, Earl of, and O'Neill, 245

Lofft, Capel, 99, 239, 243

Mackay, of Norwich, 225

Macon, Mr., on Roger Sherman, 275

Madan, Martin, and "Helmsley," 234

Marriage, remarks on, 136, 137

Marshman's "Carey, Marshman, and Ward," 131, 144, 145 John Clarke, author of "Carey, Marshman, and Ward," 145 Mr., Dr. Carey's friend and colleague, 143, 145

Meistersingers of Germany, 204

Men's and Women's _conscia recti_, 225-6

Milbanke, Miss (Lady Byron) and Blacket, 241

Miller, Thomas, and Thomas Cooper, 173, 180

Montgomery, Jas., and Thomas Cooper, 177

Morrison, Rev. Robert, D.D., 258, 259

Mutual Improvement Society at Gainsborough and T. Cooper, 171

Murray, John, and Gifford's editorial stipend, 83, 84

Murray, John, his "drawing-rooms," 83

Myngs, Sir Christopher, 19, 28, 219

Narborough, Sir John, 19-21, 219

Newton, Sir Isaac, and Boehmen, 206

Nichol, Rev. James, 239

Notes and Queries, 225

Odger, George, 266-8

Olivers, Thomas, 234

O'Neill, John, temperance poet, 244-6

"Oracle," The, 268

Parsons, William, of the _Junto_, 277

Partridge, Dr., 220-3

Peace Societies, founded in America, 273

Peel, Sir Robert, and shoemakers, 266

Polwhele, Rev. Mr., and S. Drew, 120

Pope John XXII., 209

Pope and Partridge, 221 and Savage, 230

Portraits of naval officers at Greenwich, 219

Pounds, John, begins teaching poor children, 153, 154 birth and childhood, 152, 153 gratitude of his old scholars, 156 his death, 157 his workroom described, 153, 154 kindness to his scholars, 156 memorials of, in Portsmouth, 158 method of teaching, 155-157 the roasted potato, 155

Pressgang, 53

"Purgatory of suicides," 179, 183

Purver, Anthony, 226

"Quarterly Review," 227, 243 on Baptist Missionary Society, 141, 142

Quarterlies, the Edinburgh and London, 75, 83, 84

Ragged schools, John Pounds a founder of, 151, 152

Raikes, Robert and Sophia Cooke start first Sunday-school, 66

Reading, growth of about 1790; Lackington's remarks on, 43

Rigby, Richard, ballad-writer, 227, 228

Robinson, Henry Crabb, Diary, 206, 257, 266

Rousseau, Jean Baptiste, 209

Rowe, J. B., 228

Russell, Admiral, 22

Sachs, Hans, the Nightingale of the Reformation, 203-205

Sandon, Lord, and Thomas Cooper, 188

Savage, Richard, 230

Scott, Rev. Thomas, the Commentator, and Carey, 113, 114

Service, David, 242

Sheaf, Mr., Shoemaker and artist, and John Pounds, 151, 157

Sheffey, Daniel, of Virginia, 276

Shenstone and Woodhouse, 228

Sherman, Roger, 274, 275

Shillitoe, Thomas, 251, 255

Shoemakers and literature, 75

Shoemaker's holiday, the, 227

Shoemakers, large proportion of eminent men, 189, 190

Shovel, Captain, knighted by William III., 22

Shovel, Cloudesley, made captain, 21

Shovel, Sir C., admiral of the _Blue_ and _Red_ and _White_, 22 at battle of "La Hogue," 22 at battle of Malaga, 23 at capture of Barcelona, 23 at the siege of Waterford, 22 death by drowning, 23, 24 epitaph, 17 exploit as cabin boy, 19, 20 exploit as lieutenant, 20, 21 governor of Greenwich Hospital, _note_, 24 M.P. for Rochester, _note_, 24 portraits of, 17, 24 presented to Queen Anne, 23 William III.'s opinion of, 22

Sibly, Dr. Ebenezer, 282, 323

Sibly, Manoah, 266

Smerdon, Rev. T., prepares Gifford for Oxford, 81

Smith, Sidney, 75, 130, 145

Sons of shoemakers, 209

Souters of Selkirk, 213-215

Southey, Robert, 230, 255

Southey's article in "Quarterly Review" on Carey, etc., _note_, 141, 143, 145

Struthers, John, 243

Sturgeon, William, electrician, 264, 265

Sunday-school, the first, 66, 139

Sutcliffe, Rev. John, the friend of Carey, 136, 138, 140

Swift and Partridge, 222

Tyerman's Life of Wesley, 233

Toplady and Olivers, 233

Tinlinn, Watt, 214, 215

Timmins, Rev. T., remarks on John Pounds, 154-156

Tichbourne, Sir Thomas, Lord Mayor of London, 227

Thorp, John, 255-7

Thomas, Mr., Carey's colleague in first mission work, 141, 142

Value of books in 1775, _note_, 39

Warton, Thomas, and John Bennet, 229

Watts, Dr. Isaac, 210

Wesley, John, and Bradburn, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71 and Olivers, 231-34 and Thorpe, 255

Weever's "Funeral Monuments," _note_, 198

Whately, Archbishop, 189

White, Henry Kirke, lines on Bloomfield, 103

Whitefield, George, and Olivers, 232

Whittaker, Rev. John, and S. Drew, 120, 122

Whittier, John Greenleaf, 227, 229 lines to "Shoemakers," 279-281

Wilberforce, William, remarks on Carey, 138

Williams, Dr. Edward, 256

Wilson, Bishop, friendship with Carey, 146

Wilson, Gavin, 242

Wilson, Henry, the Natick cobbler, 277-9

Wilson, Professor, his opinion of Bloomfield's poetry, 100

Wincklemann, J. J., 209

Winnifred, Saint, 227

Winks, Joseph, Foulkes, and Thomas Cooper, 171, 180, 186

Wolfe's "Burial of Sir J. Moore," 232

Woodhouse, James, 228

Worcester, Noah, D.D., 271-4

Wordsworth and Thomas Cooper, 184

Ye Cocke of Westminster, Richard Castell, 210

Younger, John, 246-7

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=_Eastern Proverbs and Emblems._=

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Complete in 7 volumes. First 6 volumes now complete.

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=_Talks to Farmers._=

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=_Burial of the Dead._=

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=_The Revisers' English._=

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Complete Edition, 12mo, 544 pages; Handsomely Bound in cloth. Price $1.50.

=_What Our Girls Ought to Know._=

BY MARY J. STUDLEY, M.D.

A most practical and valuable book; should be placed in the hands of every girl.

Intelligently read it will accomplish much in the elevation of the human race.

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The author, Dr. Mary J. Studley, was a physician of large practice and great success. She was a graduate, resident physician and teacher of the natural sciences in the State Normal School, Framingham, Mass.; also graduate of the Woman's Medical College, New York: Dr. Emily Blackwell, Secretary of the Faculty, and Dr. Willard Parker, Chairman of the Board of Examiners.

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These books are printed in readable type, on fair paper, and are bound in postal card manilla.

These books are printed wholly without abridgment, except Canon Farrar's "Life of Christ" and his "Life of Paul."

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No. Price.

1. John Ploughman's Talk. C. H. Spurgeon. On Choice of Books. Thomas Carlyle. 4to. Both $0 12

2. Manliness of Christ. Thomas Hughes. 4to. 10

3. Essays. Lord Macaulay. 4to. 15

4. Light of Asia. Edwin Arnold. 4to. 15

5. Imitation of Christ. Thomas à Kempis. 4to. 15

6-7. Life of Christ. Canon Farrar. 4to. 50

8. Essays. Thomas Carlyle. 4to. 20

9-10. Life and Work of St. Paul. Canon Farrar. 4to. 2 parts, both 50

11. Self-Culture. Prof. J. S. Blackie. 4to. 2 parts, both 10

12-19. Popular History of England. Chas. Knight. 4to. 2 80

20-21. Ruskin's Letters to Workmen and Laborers. 4to. 2 parts, both 30

22. Idyls of the King. Alfred Tennyson. 4to. 20

23. Life of Rowland Hill. Rev. V. J. Charlesworth. 4to. 15

24. Town Geology. Charles Kingsley. 4to. 15

25. Alfred the Great. Thos. Hughes. 4to. 20

26. Outdoor Life in Europe. Rev. E. P. Thwing. 4to. 20

27. Calamities of Authors. I. D'Israeli. 4to. 20

28. Salon of Madame Necker. Part I. 4to. 15

29. Ethics of the Dust. John Ruskin. 4to. 15

30-31. Memories of My Exile. Louis Kossuth. 4to. 40

32. Mister Horn and His Friends. Illustrated. 4to. 15

33-34. Orations of Demosthenes. 4to. 40

35. Frondes Agrestes. John Ruskin. 4to. 15

36. Joan of Arc. Alphonse de Lamartine. 4to. 10

37. Thoughts of M. Aurelius Antoninus. 4to. 15

38. Salon of Madame Necker. Part II. 4to. 15

39. The Hermits. Chas. Kingsley. 4to. 15

40. John Ploughman's Pictures. C. H. Spurgeon. 4to. 15

41. Pulpit Table-Talk. Dean Ramsay. 4to. 10

42. Bible and Newspaper. C. H. Spurgeon. 4to. 15

43. Lacon. Rev. C. C. Colton. 4to. 20

44. Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 4to. $0 20

45. America Revisited. George Augustus Sala. 4to. 20

46. Life of C. H. Spurgeon. 8vo. 20

47. John Calvin. M. Guizot. 4to. 15

48-49. Dickens' Christmas Books. Illustrated. 8vo. 50

50. Shairp's Culture and Religion. 8vo. 15

51-52. Godet's Commentary on Luke. Ed. by Dr. John Hall. 8vo, 2 parts, both 2 00

53. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part I. 8vo. 15

54-57. Van Doren's Suggestive Commentary on Luke. New edition, enlarged. 8vo. 3 00

58. Diary of a Minister's Wife. Part II. 8vo. 15

59. The Nutritive Cure. Dr. Robert Walter. 8vo. 15

60. Sartor Resartus. Thomas Carlyle. 4to. 25

61-62. Lothair. Lord Beaconsfield. 8vo. 50

63. The Persian Queen and Other Pictures of Truth. Rev. E. P. Thwing. 8vo. 10

64. Salon of Madame Necker. Part III. 4to. 15

65-66. The Popular History of English Bible Translation. H. P. Conant. 8vo. Price both parts 50

67. Ingersoll Answered. Joseph Parker, D.D. 8vo. 15

68-69. Studies in Mark. D. C. Hughes. 8vo, in two parts 60

70. Job's Comforters. A Religious Satire. Joseph Parker, D.D. (.London.) 12mo. 10

71. The Revisers' English. G. Washington Moon, F.R.S.L. 12mo. 20

72. The Conversion of Children. Rev. Edward Payson Hammond. 12mo. 30

73. New Testament Helps. Rev. W. F. Crafts. 8vo. 20

74. Opium--England's Coercive Policy. Rev. Jno. Liggins. 8vo. 10

75. Blood of Jesus. Rev. Wm. A. Reid. With Introduction by E. P. Hammond. 12mo. 10

76. Lesson in the Closet for 1883. Charles F. Deems, D.D. 12mo. 20

77-78. Heroes and Holidays. Rev. W. F Crafts. 12mo. 2pts., both 30

79. Reminiscences of Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D. 8vo. 10

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