Napoleon III., ‘Life of CÆsar.’ Soult received but little education in his youth, and learnt next to no geography until he became foreign minister of France, when the study of this branch of knowledge is said to have given him the greatest pleasure.—‘Œuvres, &c., d’Alexis de Tocqueville. Par G. de Beaumont.’ Paris, 1861. I. 52 ‘Œuvres et Correspondance inÉdite d’Alexis de Tocqueville. Par Gustave de Beaumont.’ I. 398. “I have seen,” said he, “a hundred times in the course of my life, a weak man exhibit genuine public virtue, because supported by a wife who sustained hint in his course, not so much by advising him to such and such acts, as by exercising a strengthening influence over the manner in which duty or even ambition was to be regarded. Much oftener, however, it must be confessed, have I seen private and domestic life gradually transform a man to whom nature had given generosity, disinterestedness, and even some capacity for greatness, into an ambitious, mean-spirited, vulgar, and selfish creature who, in matters relating to his country, ended by considering them only in so far as they rendered his own particular condition more comfortable and easy.”—‘Œuvres de Tocqueville.’ II. 349. Since the original publication of this book, the author has in another work, ‘The Lives of Boulton and Watt,’ endeavoured to portray in greater detail the character and achievements of these two remarkable men. The following entry, which occurs in the account of monies disbursed by the burgesses of Sheffield in 1573 [?] is supposed by some to refer to the inventor of the stocking frame:—“Item gyven to Willm-Lee, a poore scholler in Sheafield, towards the settyng him to the Universitie of Chambrydge, and buying him bookes and other furnyture [which money was afterwards returned] xiii iiii [13s. 4d.].”—Hunter, ‘History of Hallamshire,’ 141. ‘History of the Framework Knitters.’ There are, however, other and different accounts. One is to the effect that Lee set about studying the contrivance of the stocking-loom for the purpose of lessening the labour of a young country-girl to whom he was attached, whose occupation was knitting; another, that being married and poor, his wife was under the necessity of contributing to their joint support by knitting; and that Lee, while watching the motion of his wife’s fingers, conceived the idea of imitating their movements by a machine. The latter story seems to have been invented by Aaron Hill, Esq., in his ‘Account of the Rise and Progress of the Beech Oil manufacture,’ London, 1715; but his statement is altogether unreliable. Thus he makes Lee to have been a Fellow of a college at Oxford, from which he was expelled for marrying an innkeeper’s daughter; whilst Lee neither studied at Oxford, nor married there, nor was a Fellow of any college; and he concludes by alleging that the result of his invention was to “make Lee and his family happy;” whereas the invention brought him only a heritage of misery, and he died abroad destitute. Blackner, ‘History of Nottingham.’ The author adds, “We have information, handed down in direct succession from father to son, that it was not till late in the seventeenth century that one man could manage the working of a frame. The man who was considered the workman employed a labourer, who stood behind the frame to work the slur and pressing motions; but the application of traddles and of the feet eventually rendered the labour unnecessary.” Palissy’s own words are:—“Le bois m’ayant failli, je fus contraint brusler les estapes (Étaies) qui soustenoyent les tailles de mon jardin, lesquelles estant bruslÉes, je fus constraint brusler les tables et plancher de la maison, afin de faire fondre la seconde composition. J’estois en une telle angoisse que je ne sÇaurois dire: car j’estois tout tari et desechÉ À cause du labeur et de la chaleur du fourneau; il y avoit plus d’un mois que ma chemise n’avoit seichÉ sur moy, encores pour me consoler on se moquoit de moy, et mesme ceux qui me devoient secourir alloient crier par la ville que je faisois brusler le plancher: et par tel moyen l’on me faisoit perdre mon credit et m’estimoit-on estre fol. Les autres disoient que je cherchois À faire la fausse monnoye, qui estoit un mal qui me faisoit seicher sur les pieds; et m’en allois par les ruËs tout baissÉ comme un homme honteux: . . . personne ne me secouroit: Mais au contraire ils se mocquoyent de moy, en disant: Il luy appartient bien de mourir de faim, par ce qu’il delaisse son mestier. Toutes ces nouvelles venoyent a mes aureilles quand je passois par la ruË.” ‘Œuvres ComplÈtes de Palissy. Paris, 1844;’ De l’Art de Terre, p. 315. “Toutes ces fautes m’ont causÉ un tel lasseur et tristesse d’esprit, qu’auparavant que j’aye rendu mes Émaux fusible À un mesme degrÉ de feu, j’ay cuidÉ entrer jusques À la porte du sepulchre: aussi en me travaillant À tels affaires je me suis trouvÉ l’espace de plus se dix ans si fort escoulÉ en ma personne, qu’il n’y avoit aucune forme ny apparence de bosse aux bras ny aux jambes: ains estoyent mes dites jambes toutes d’une venue: de sorte que les liens de quoy j’attachois mes bas de chausses estoyent, soudain que je cheminois, sur les talons avec le residu de mes chausses.”—‘Œuvres, 319–20. At the sale of Mr. Bernal’s articles of vertu in London a few years since, one of Palissy’s small dishes, 12 inches in diameter, with a lizard in the centre, sold for 162l. Within the last few months, Mr. Charles Read, a gentleman curious in matters of Protestant antiquarianism in France, has discovered one of the ovens in which Palissy baked his chefs-d’oeuvre. Several moulds of faces, plants, animals, &c., were dug up in a good state of preservation, bearing his well-known stamp. It is situated under the gallery of the Louvre, in the Place du Carrousel. D’AubignÉ, ‘Histoire Universelle.’ The historian adds, “Voyez l’impudence de ce bilistre! vous diriez qu’il auroit lu ce vers de SÉnÈque: ‘On ne peut contraindre celui qui sait mourir: Qui mori scit, cogi nescit.’” The subject of Palissy’s life and labours has been ably and elaborately treated by Professor Morley in his well-known work. In the above brief narrative we have for the most part followed Palissy’s own account of his experiments as given in his ‘Art de Terre.’ “Almighty God, the great Creator,
Has changed a goldmaker to a potter.” The whole of the Chinese and Japanese porcelain was formerly known as Indian porcelain—probably because it was first brought by the Portuguese from India to Europe, after the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Vasco da Gama. ‘Wedgwood: an Address delivered at Burslem, Oct. 26th, 1863.’ By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. It was characteristic of Mr. Hume, that, during his professional voyages between England and India, he should diligently apply his spare time to the study of navigation and seamanship; and many years after, it proved of use to him in a remarkable manner. In 1825, when on his passage from London to Leith by a sailing smack, the vessel had scarcely cleared the mouth of the Thames when a sudden storm came on, she was driven out of her course, and, in the darkness of the night, she struck on the Goodwin Sands. The captain, losing his presence of mind, seemed incapable of giving coherent orders, and it is probable that the vessel would have become a total wreck, had not one of the passengers suddenly taken the command and directed the working of the ship, himself taking the helm while the danger lasted. The vessel was saved, and the stranger was Mr. Hume. ‘Saturday Review,’ July 3rd, 1858. Mrs. Grote’s ‘Memoir of the Life of Ary Scheffer,’ p. 67. While the sheets of this revised edition are passing through the press, the announcement appears in the local papers of the death of Mr. Jackson at the age of fifty. His last work, completed shortly before his death, was a cantata, entitled ‘The Praise of Music.’ The above particulars of his early life were communicated by himself to the author several years since, while he was still carrying on his business of a tallow-chandler at Masham. Mansfield owed nothing to his noble relations, who were poor and uninfluential. His success was the legitimate and logical result of the means which he sedulously employed to secure it. When a boy he rode up from Scotland to London on a pony—taking two months to make the journey. After a course of school and college, he entered upon the profession of the law, and he closed a career of patient and ceaseless labour as Lord Chief Justice of England—the functions of which he is universally admitted to have performed with unsurpassed ability, justice, and honour. On ‘Thought and Action.’ ‘Correspondance de NapolÉon Ier.,’ publiÉe par ordre de l’Empereur NapolÉon III, Paris, 1864. The recently published correspondence of Napoleon with his brother Joseph, and the Memoirs of the Duke of Ragusa, abundantly confirm this view. The Duke overthrew Napoleon’s generals by the superiority of his routine. He used to say that, if he knew anything at all, he knew how to feed an army. His old gardener. Collingwood’s favourite amusement was gardening. Shortly after the battle of Trafalgar a brother admiral called upon him, and, after searching for his lordship all over the garden, he at last discovered him, with old Scott, in the bottom of a deep trench which they were busily employed in digging. Article in the ‘Times.’ ‘Self-Development: an Address to Students,’ by George Ross, M.D., pp. 1–20, reprinted from the ‘Medical Circular.’ This address, to which we acknowledge our obligations, contains many admirable thoughts on self-culture, is thoroughly healthy in its tone, and well deserves republication in an enlarged form. ‘Saturday Review.’ See the admirable and well-known book, ‘The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties.’ Late Professor of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrew’s. A writer in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ (July, 1859) observes that “the Duke’s talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only ‘food for powder.’ He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angers.” It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have excluded him from the army. Correspondent of ‘The Times,’ 11th June, 1863. Robertson’s ‘Life and Letters,’ i. 258. On the 11th January, 1866. Brown’s ‘HorÆ SubsecivÆ.’
