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ford, and who, he says, was certainly not so well qualified for it as himself. "I look back,” he proceeds, on that part of my life which immediately followed this event with little satisfaction; it was a period of gloom and savage unsociability: by degrees I sunk into a kind of corporeal torpor; or, if roused into activity by the spirit of youth, wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexatious tricks, which alienated the few acquaintances which compassion had yet left me."

But his despondency and discontent seem to have gradually given way to the natural buoyancy of his disposition; some evidences of kindly feeling from those around him tended a good deal to mitigate his recklessness; and, especially as the term of his apprenticeship drew towards a close, his former aspirations and hopes began to return to him. He had spent, however, nearly six years at his uncongenial employment, before any decided prospect of deliverance opened upon him. "In this humble and obscure state," says he, "poor beyond the common lot, yet flattering my ambition with day-dreams which perhaps would never have been realized, I was found, in the twentieth year of my age, by Mr. William Cookesley, a name never to be pronounced by me without veneration. The lamentable doggerel which I have already mentioned, and which had passed from mouth to mouth among people of my own degree, had by some accident or other reached his ear, and given him a curiosity to look after the author." Mr. Cookesley, who was a surgeon, and not rich, having learned Gifford's history from himself, became so much interested in his favour, that he determined to rescue him from his obscurity. plan," says Gifford, "that occurred to him was naturally that which had so often suggested itself to me. There were, indeed, several obstacles to be overcome. My handwriting was bad, and my language very incorrect; but nothing could slacken the

"The

zeal of this excellent man. He procured a few of my poor attempts at rhyme, dispersed them among his friends and acquaintance, and, when my name was become somewhat familiar to them, set on foot a subscription for my relief. I still preserve the original paper; its title was not very magnificent, though it exceeded the most sanguine wishes of my heart. It ran thus: A subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in writing and English grammar.' Few contributed more than five shillings, and none went beyond ten and sixpence; enough, however, was collected to free me from my apprenticeship, and to maintain me for a few months, during which I assiduously attended the Rev. Thomas Smerdon."

*

The rest of the story may be very compendiously told. The difficulties of the poor scholar were now over; for his patrons were so much pleased with the progress he made during this short period, that, upon its expiration, they renewed their bounty and maintained him at school for another year. "Such liberality," he remarks, “was not lost upon me; I grew anxious to make the best return in my power, and I redoubled my diligence. Now that I am sunk into indolence, I look back with some degree of skepticism to the exertions of that period." In two years and two months from what he calls the day of his emancipation, he was pronounced by his master to be fit for the University; and a small office having been obtained for him by Mr. Cookesley's exertions at Oxford, he was entered of Exeter College, that gentleman undertaking to provide the additional means necessary to enable him to live till he should take his degree. Mr. Gifford's first patron died before his protegé had time to fulfil the good man's fond anticipations of his future celebrity;

"The sum my master received was six pounds."

but he afterward found in Lord Grosvenor another much more able, though it was impossible that any other could have shown more zeal, to advance his interests. A long and prosperous life, during which he acquired a distinguished name in the literary world, was the ample compensation for the humiliation and hardships of his youth. He was the editor, for many years, of the "Quarterly Review," which was placed under his management at its commencement in 1809; and which attained the most distinguished success, in a great degree through his judicious and careful attention to its conduct. The narrative from which we have extracted the preceding pages, and which is so interestingly written that we have generally preferred retaining the original words in our abridgment, is prefixed to his English version of Juvenal, the first edition of which appeared in 1802. Mr. Gifford died in London, on the 31st of December, 1826, in the seventy-first year of his age. It is a beautiful circumstance in his history, and one which shows how a generous act sometimes receives even a worldly reward, that he left the bulk of his fortune to the son of his first most kind and disinterested patron, Mr. Cookesley.

There has lately appeared in the newspapers an account of a scholar in humble life, who died some time since in London, and whose attainments seem to have been as extensive, and as entirely the result of his own exertions in quest of knowledge, as those of any one of the individuals we have yet mentioned.

JOSEPH PENDRELL had received at school nothing more than the ordinary education in English reading and writing, and at an early age was apprenticed by his father to a shoemaker, which business he followed until his death. He had, when young, a great taste for books; but was first led to the more learned studies, in which he eventually made so much progress, by the following accident: Stopping

at a bookstall one day, he laid hold of a book of arithmetic, marked fourpence; he purchased it, and availed himself of his leisure hours at home in making himself master of the subject. At the end of the volume he found a short introduction to the mathematics. This stimulated him to make farther purchases of scientific works; and in this way he gradually proceeded from the elements to the highest departments of mathematical learning. When a journeyman, he made every possible saving in order to purchase books. He found there were many valuable writers on his favourite subject in French: this determined him to study that language, for which purpose he procured a grammar, a book of exercises, and a dictionary, and he persevered until he was able to read the French writers with ease. In the same manner he proceeded to acquire the Latin and Greek languages, of the latter of which he made himself master so far as to have little difficulty in reading the Septuagint, or any other common prose work. He had formed a large collection of classical books, many of which he purchased at the auction-rooms in King-street, Covent Garden, formerly belonging to Paterson, the celebrated bookauctioneer, in whose time they formed a favourite resort of literary men. Pendrell did not, however, avail himself of any opportunity of becoming known to the literary characters he was accustomed to meet here. On the contrary, he always shunned notice, and made it a practice invariably to conceal his name when a lot was knocked down to him. He had often met in these rooms the learned Bishop Lowth, who frequently fell into conversation with him, as they sometimes happened to meet before the sale began. The bishop was much interested with his conversation, and one day asked Paterson who he was; on which Paterson took the first opportunity to inquire his name, acquainting him, at the same time, who the person was that felt inter

ested in his favour. The poor shoemaker, however, from extreme diffidence, declined telling Paterson his name, although the introduction to the bishop, of which an opportunity was thus given him, might probably have drawn him from obscurity and led to some improvement of his humble circumstances. Pendrell's knowledge of mathematical science was profound and extensive, embracing fortification, navigation, astronomy, and all the different departments of natural philosophy. He was also familiar with poetical literature; and had a thorough acquaintance with most English writers in the department of the belles lettres.

CHAPTER XV.

Difficulties occasioned by blindness overcome-Diodotus; Didymus; Nicaise of Vourde; Count de Pagan; Francis Salinas; J. Stanley; Scapinelli; Blacklock; Anna Williams.-Influence of accidents in directing pursuits-Rennie; Lalande; Linnæus; Harrison; Vernet; Claude Lorraine; P. C. Caravaggio; M. A. Caravaggio; Cavedone; James Tassie; Chatterton; G. Edwards; Villars; Joly; Jourdain; Bandinelli; Breitkopf.

DIODOTUS the Stoic was the preceptor of Cicero in Greek literature and geometry, and, as that great philosopher himself informs us, lived many years in his house after becoming blind, giving himself to philosophy more assiduously than ever, and even continuing to teach geometry; a thing, says, Cicero, which one would think scarcely possible for a blind man to do, yet would he direct his pupils where every line was to be drawn just as exactly as if he had had the use of his eyes. This was nothing, however, to what Saunderson did, who directed his