Booksellers and Printers continued. W. Hutton; R. Dodsley; Almon; Cruden; the Panckouckes; Roth- Self-educated men continued. Ferguson.-Influence of ac- cident in directing pursuits. Rennie, Linnæus; Vernet; Devotion to Knowledge in extreme poverty. Erasmus; Kepler; Schaeffer; Bullinger; Musculus; Postellus ; Castalio; Adrian VI.; Perrier; Claude Lorraine; Sal- vator Rosa; Marmontel; Hoche; Lagrange; Dr. John- son; Dr. Parr; Spagnoletto; Le Jay; Castell; Davies; Tytler; William Davy.—In exile and Imprisonment. Ovid; Boethius: Buchanan; Tasso; Smart; Maggi; Le Maistre; Lorenzini; Prynne; Madame Roland; Natural Defects overcome. Demosthenes; De Beaumont; Navarete; Saunderson; Rugendas; Diodotus; Didy- Difficulties occasioned by Blindness conquered. Homer; THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; ILLUSTRATED BY ANECDOTES. CHAPTER I. Introduction. Newton; Galileo; Torricelli; Pascal; Prince Rupert; Montgolfier. Self-education. WE are about to select from the records of Philosophy, Literature, and Art, in all ages and countries, a body of examples, to shew how the most unpropitious circumstances have been unable to conquer an ardent desire for the acquisition of knowledge. Every man has difficulties to encounter in this pursuit; and therefore every man is interested in learning what are the real hindrances which have posed themselves to the progress of some of the most distinguished persons, and how those obstacles have been surmounted. The Love of Knowledge will of itself do a great deal towards its acquisition; and if it exist with that force and constancy which it exhibits in the characters of all truly great men, it will induce that ardent, but humble spirit of observation and inquiry, without which there can be no success. Sir ISAAC NEWTON, of all men that ever lived, is the one who has mos extended the territory of human knowledge; and he used to speak of himself as having t B been all his life but "a child gathering pebbles on the sea-shore"-probably meaning by that allusion, not only to express his modest conviction how mere an outskirt the field of his discoveries was, compared with the vastness of universal nature, but to describe likewise the spirit in which he had pursued his investigations. That was a spirit, not of selection and system-building, but of childlike alacrity in seizing upon whatever contributions of knowledge Nature threw at his feet, and of submission to all the intimations of observation and experiment. On some occasions he was wont to say, that, if there was any mental habit or endowment in which he excelled the generality of men, it was that of patience in the examination of the facts and phenomena of his subject. This was merely another form of that teachableness which constituted the character of the man. He loved Truth, and wooed her with the unwearying ardour of a lover. Other speculators had consulted the book of nature principally for the purpose of seeking in it the defence of some favourite theory; partially, therefore, and hastily, as one would consult a dictionary: Newton perused it as a volume altogether worthy of being studied for its own sake. Hence proceeded both the patience with which he traced its characters, and the rich and plentiful discoveries with which the search rewarded him. If he afterwards classified and systematized his knowledge like a philosopher, he had first, to use his own language, gathered it like a child. It is, indeed, most instructive to all who are anxious to engage in the pursuit of knowledge (and is therefore properly introductory to the general subject we are about to treat), to consider the manner in which both this great man and many others, possessing a portion of his observant and inventive genius, have availed themselves, for the enlargement of the boundaries of philosophy, of such common occurrences as, from their very commonness, had escaped the attention of all less active and original minds. We are not now speaking of such lucky discoveries as mere chance has sometimes suggested, even to the most inattentive understandings. How far we are indebted to this source for many of those ordinary arts, the origin of which is lost in antiquity and fable, it would not be very easy to determine. The accounts relating to such subjects have been principally handed down to us by poetry and popular tradition, both which are lovers of the mysterious and the marvellous. Hence, there is abundant reason to believe that they are much too full of those wonders which strike an unenlightened fancy; and that, instead of the slow and successive efforts by which the arts in question were actually discovered and improved, there has been substituted, in many cases, the more dramatic incident of a sudden inspiration, merely for the sake of effect. Nay, in those times, the discoverer himself might probably be not unfrequently the first to contrive and spread the fiction; preferring, as he would in all likelihood do, the credit of being the chosen transmitter of supernatural communications to his fellow-mortals, to that of excelling those around him in such mere human and unvalued attributes as philosophic sagacity and patience. Add to this, that the legend of a mystical origin was not only the best recommendation by which any invention could, in the early ages of the world, be introduced to the notice of men; but, perhaps, under the tyranny of a jealous and engrossing superstition, was almost a necessary passport to its reception. However this may have been, it is worth remarking, that the current tales had probably some share in leading away the spirit of antiquity from that investigation and application of facts, from which |