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]

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.