from a few books, deriving both information and rules of taste from the writers they peruse, with a rapidity and felicity of apprehension which people of inferior endowments cannot comprehend. that, even had he never been a poet, he would have grown up to be no common man. Whatever he owed to Nature, it was to his admirable father and his own zealous exertions that he was indebted at least for that education of his powers, and that storing of his mind with knowledge, which in so great a degree contributed to make him what he afterwards became. It is an error to regard either Burns or Shakespeare as simply a poet of Nature's making. If learning be taken to include knowledge in general, instead of being restricted merely to an acquaintance with the ancient languages, it may be rather said that they were both learned poets-as, indeed, every great poet must be. Their minds, that of Shakespeare especially, were full of multifarious knowledge, which was the fruit both of vigilant observation and extensive reading, and was perpetually entering into, and in some degree regulating, the spirit or form of their poetry. The wonder in the case of each was, not that he produced poetical compositions of transcendent excellence without any acquaintance with literature, but that he acquired his literary knowledge in the face of difficulties which would have discouraged most men from mak-in valuable remarks, and charing the attempt to gain it. Such minds, too, learn a great deal GILBERT BURNS, the younger brother of Robert, had no turn for poetry; but he too derived infinite benefit from those studies which were intermixed, as we have seen, with the labours of his early days. To this excellent man literature was the solace of a life of hardships. He never became a scholar in the ordinary sense of the word; his situation, that of a small farmer, did not require that he should give himself to the study of Greek or Latin; but he obtained an extensive acquaintance with the best books in his native language, and learned to write English in a manner that would not have done discredit to a scholar. Some of his letters, indeed, which Dr. Currie has printed, would be ornaments to any collection of epistolary com positions-especially a long one, dated October 1800, which appeared first in Dr. Currie's second edition of the poet's works, and which contains a disquisition on the education of the humble classes, abounding acterised by no ordinary powers, both of expression and thought. AMONG narratives which illustrate the power of the Love of Knowledge in overcoming the opposition of circumstances, there are few more interesting than that which has been given us of his early life by WILLIAM GIFFORD. Gifford was born in 1755 at Ashburton, in Devonshire. His father, although the descendant of a respectable and even wealthy family, had early ruined himself by his wildness and prodigality; and even after he was married had run off to sea, where he remained serving on board a man-of-war for eight or nine years. On his return home, with about a hundred pounds of prize-money, he attempted to obtain a subsistence as a glazier, having before apprenticed himself to that business; but in a few years he died of a broken-down constitution before he was forty, leaving his wife with two children, the youngest only about eight months old, and with no means of support except what she might make by continuing the business, of which she was quite ignorant. In about a twelvemonth she followed her husband to the grave. I was not quite thirteen,' says her son, when this happened; my little brother was hardly two; and we had not a relation nor a friend in the world.' His brother was now sent to the workhouse, and he was himself taken home to the house of a person named Carlile, who was his godfather, and had seized upon whatever his mother had left, under the pretence of repaying himself for money which he had advanced to her. By this person, William, who had before learned reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, was sent again to school, and was beginning to make considerable progress in the last branch of study; but in about three months his patron grew tired of the expense, and took him home, with the view of employing him as a ploughboy. An injury, however, which he had received some years before, on his breast, was found to unfit him for this species of labour; and it was next resolved that he should be sent out to Newfoundland, to assist in a storehouse. But upon being presented to the person who had agreed to fit him out, he was declared to be 'too small,' and this scheme also had to be abandoned. My godfather,' says he, had now humbler views for me, and I had little heart to resist anything. He proposed to send me on board one of the Torbay fishing-boats; I ventured, however, to remonstrate against this, and the matter was compromised by my consenting to go on board a coaster. A coaster was speedily found for me at Brixham, and thither I went when little more than thirteen.' In this vessel he remained for nearly a twelvemonth. It will be easily conceived,' he remarks, that my life was a life of hardship. I was not only "a ship-boy on the high and giddy mast," but also in the cabin, where every menial office fell to my lot; yet if I was restless and discontented, I can say it was not so much on account of this as of my being precluded from all possibility of reading, as my master did not possess, nor do I recollect seeing during the whole time of my abode with him, a single book of any description except the Coasting Pilot. While in this humble situation, however, and seeming to himself almost an outcast from the world, he was not altogether forgotten. He had broken off all connection with Ashburton, and where his godfather lived; but the women of Brixham,' says he, who travelled to Ashburton twice a week with fish, and who had known my parents, did not see me without kind concern running about the beach in a ragged jacket and trousers.' They often mentioned him to their acquaintances at Ashburton; and the tale excited so much commiseration in the place, that his godfather at last found himself obliged to send for him home. At this time he wanted some months of fourteen. He proceeds with his own story as follows: 'After the holidays I returned to my darling pursuit, arithmetic; my progress was now so rapid that in a few months I was at the head of the school, and qualified to assist my master (Mr. E. Furlong) on any extraordinary emergency. As he usually gave me a trifle on those occasions, it raised a thought in me that, by engaging with him as a regular assistant, and undertaking the instruction of a few evening scholars, I might, with a little additional aid, be enabled to support myself. God knows, my ideas of support at this time were of no very extravagant nature. I had, besides, another object in view. Mr. Hugh Smerdon (my first master) was now grown old and regarded in the family, of which I sank by degrees into the common drudge. This did not infirm; it seemed unlikely that he should hold out above three or four years; and I fondly flattered myself that, notwith-much disquiet me, for my spirits standing my youth, I might were now humbled. I did not, possibly be appointed to suc- however, quite resign my hope ceed him. I was in my fifteenth of one day succeeding to Mr. year when I built these castles. Hugh Smerdon, and therefore A storm, however, was collect- secretly prosecuted my favourite ing, which unexpectedly burst study at every interval of leisure. upon me and swept them all These intervals were not very away. frequent; and when the use I made of them was found out, they were rendered still less so. I could not guess the motives for this at first; but at length I discovered that my master destined his youngest son for the situation to which I aspired. 'On mentioning my little plan to Carlile, he treated it with the utmost contempt, and told me in his turn that as I had learned enough, and more than enough, at school, he must be considered as having fairly discharged his duty (so, indeed, he had); he added that he had been negotiating with his cousin, a shoemaker of some respectability, who had liberally agreed to take me without a fee as an apprentice. I was so shocked at this intelligence that I did not remonstrate, but went in sullenness and silence to my new master, to whom I was soon after bound till I should attain the age of twenty-one.' Up to this period his reading had been very limited, the only books he had perused, besides the Bible, with which he was well acquainted, having been a black letter romance called Parismus and Parismenes, a few old magazines, and the Imitation of Thomas à Kempis. 'As I hated my new profession,' he continues, with a perfect hatred, I made no progress in it, and was consequently little 'I possessed at this time but one book in the world; it was a treatise on algebra, given to me by a young woman, who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered it as a treasure; but it was a treasure locked up, for it supposed the reader to be well acquainted with simple equations, and I knew nothing of the matter. My master's son had purchased Fenning's Introduction. This was precisely what I wanted; but he carefully concealed it from me, and I was indebted to chance alone for stumbling upon his hidingplace. I sat up for the greatest part of several nights successively, and, before he suspected that his treatise was discovered, had completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own, and that carried me pretty far into the science. This was not done without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, therefore (in despite of the flippant remark of Lord Orford), were for the most part as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource; but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible, and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest, my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.' been all the better for experiencing; for difficulties so encountered and subdued not only whet ingenuity, but strengthen a man's whole intellectual and moral character, and fit him for struggles and achievements in after life, from which other spirits less hardily trained turn away in despair. At last, however, Gifford obtained some alleviation of his extreme penury. He had scarcely, he tells us, known poetry even by name, when some verses, composed by one of his acquaintances, tempted him to try what he could do in the same style, and he succeeded in producing a few rhymes. As successive little incidents inspired his humble muse, he produced several more compositions of a similar de scription, till he had got to gether about a dozen of them. Certainly,' says he, 'nothing on earth was ever so deplorable;' but such as they were they procured him not a little fame among his associates, and he began at last to be sometimes invited to repeat them to other circles. 'The repetitions of which I speak,' he continues, 6 No situation, it is obvious, could be more unfavourable for study than this; and yet we see how the eager student succeeded in triumphing over its disadvantages, contriving to write and calculate even without paper, pens, or ink, by the aid of a piece of leather and a blunted awl. Where there is a strong determination to attain an object, it is generally sufficient of itself to create the means; and almost any means are sufficient. We mistake in supposing that there is only one way of doing a thing, namely, that in which it is commonly done. When-were always attended with ever we have to prove it, we applause, and sometimes with find how rich in resources is favours more substantial; little Necessity; and how seldom it collections were now and then is that, in the absence of the made, and I have received sixordinary instrument, she has pence in an evening. To one not some new invention to sup- who had long lived in the ply its place. This is a truth absolute want of money, such which studious poverty has a resource seemed a Peruvian often had experience of, and mine. I furnished myself by T |