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USES OF BIOGRAPHY.

him by the biography of the French statesman, Daguesseau. 'It excited to a great degree,' he says, 'my ardour and ambition, and opened to my imagination new paths of glory.' The life of Robert Hall has stirred many young hearts like the sound of a trumpet; and how many a gallant soul has been warmed into heroism by the career of Nelson! Alfieri became a poet through reading Plutarch, and Luther was made a Reformer by the life of John Huss. In the weighty pages of Biography you shall see how others have endured, and enduring triumphed; how through doubt, and danger, and suffering, the strong heart has worked its way to its goal at last; how the faltering brain and craven soul have gone down in life's battle, unheeded and unknown. For one's entrance into the world resembles one's entrance into

a crowded mart, or a thickly-peopled arena. The throng presses forward, resistless and defiant. Hold your own; keep your footing firmly; waver neither to the right hand nor the left; and you are safe. Soon, secure and exultant, you will gain admission into the charmed circle; you will win' success in life.' But falter ever so little, and you will be flung down by the remorseless crowd, which tramples you beneath its myriad feet as it presses onward to its desired goal. So the sea soon engulfs the swimmer, if he relax in his exertions, or bate one jot of heart and hope. The eternal surge

Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar

Our bubbles.

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5. From the lives of certain great and good men we now propose to furnish our young readers with some examples and encouragements, calculated to assist and console them in their endeavours to grapple with the world, and overcome it. We propose to point out the footprints on the sands of Time' made by those heroic men, whose names the world will not willingly let die; to show how from these enduring marks of a continual progress the heart may derive both hope and inspiration. For success in life' can only be secured by a resolute devotion of our energies to a particular object; by the entire concentration of our powers

THE MAGIC OF PURPOSE.

upon one steadfast aim. The 'bull's-eye' may not be hit by the rifleman whose hand is uncertain, and his footing infirm. The goal will never be reached by the runner who swerves from a straight course, and wanders into a pathless wilderness. The student will accomplish nothing who flies from study to study with the restlessness of discase; and no man, whatever his condition or his mental powers, will win or deserve success, unless he fixes upon some special object to be carried out, and through cloud and sunshine steadily perseveres in his settled purpose. It is Purpose, indeed, which is the very essence-the main element of an heroic character. It was Purpose which animated Ignatius Loyola in his ascetic labours; in persecution, and captivity, and physical suffering, still toiling at the fulfilment of his cherished design, the establishment of that 'Society of Jesus' whose influence on the world's history has been so signal and remarkable. Martin Luther's 'purpose' achieved the Reformation. Oliver Cromwell's 'purpose' turned the tide of battle at Naseby, and placed him in the seat of the English Kings. Mahomet's' purpose built up a mighty empire, and fixed the firm foundations of a new creed. The man who concentrates his energies upon the fulfilment of an unalterable design will assuredly wring success from the hands of a reluctant Fortune. Such a man will take no heed of ' impossibilities.' 'Impossible?' exclaimed Napoleon; there is nothing impossible; it is a word only found in the dictionary of fools.' The difference between genius and mediocrity lies chiefly in this matter of 'purpose;' for true genius has, what mediocrity usually wants, the capacity of labour. 'Work and Purpose' is the moral of every heroic life. It has been well and justly said, that 'whatever we wish, that we are; for such is the force of our will, joined to the Divine, that whatever we wish to be, seriously, and with a true intention, that we become.' Sir Fowell Buxton, himself a laborious worker, remarks: The distinction between the weak and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination a purpose once fixed, and then, death or victory! That quality will do anything that can

UNSTABLE AS WATER.

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be done in this world, and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it.'

6. Many men, from want of this inflexible resolution, though endowed with splendid talents, have passed away without accomplishing any good deed or noble action, without leaving behind them a 'shining mark' for the admiration of posterity; or any memorial by which the world might be the better for their having lived. Alcibiades was gifted with every grace of mind and person; was the idol of the gay Athenians; brave, eloquent, generous; yet he perished miserably, in a small Phrygian town, by the hands of blood-bedabbled Persian mercenaries. The Duke of Wharton, Pope's Duke of Wharton, was endowed with the highest intellectual gifts, and with every advantage of rank, affluence, and station, but he died in poverty-in a Spanish village without a friend to soothe his latest murmurs. seemed as if the fairies had loaded him at birth with a thousand blessings, but added that fatal curse of instability, which neutralises all. The bright and glittering Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham

A man so various, that he seemed to be

Not one, but all mankind's epitome;

It

the favourite of his sovereign, the darling of the crowdwit, poet, statesman, critic-died in shame, suffering, and indigence. For he,

In the course of one revolving moon,

Was fiddler, statesman, poet, and buffoon,

and upon him, therefore, fell the old scriptural curse, 'Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel!' From this life which had budded and flowered in the lustre of a court, but to terminate miserably in a 'dull inn's worst room,' canst thou not, O youth, derive a lesson and a warning? So, too, with the poet Coleridge: What a mighty intellect," said Robert Nicoll, was lost in that man for want of a little energy, a little determination!' It is not always the hare that wins the race: patient industry, plodding

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6 KNOWLEDGE USED FOR MAN'S ADVANTAGE.

diligence, resolute work, unchanging purpose-these are the qualities which achieve greatness.

7. Especially in the lives of men who have perfected noble inventions, or completed mechanical processes which have multiplied results while economising labour, are illustrated by the advantages of a steady aim-of work with a purpose. Days of toil and nights of thought have been ungrudgingly sacrificed, that the one fixed object might be secured. No obstacles have been suffered to daunt the earnest soul; no misgivings to paralyse the stalwart arm. In the extremest penury, in the bitterest desolation, these heroes have kept before them their settled resolve, and never doubted but that in the fulness of time the light and glory of success would break through the scattered clouds. Trifles light as air' have no power to move the enthusiastic mind. Men in earnest are influenced as little by the ridicule of the ignorant as by the warnings of the learned. They have had faith in themselves and their mission, and gathered up all their powers to carry out the work they had set themselves to do. And the crown of victory has rewarded their efforts, even if the world has grudged them a tardy and a scanty recognition. These men, indeed, cared nothing for the world. Their reward was not the applause of multitudes, nor the stars and ribbons with which the unthinking are deluded. They laboured under a higher inspiration and for a more precious prize-the consciousness of having done well, the sweet delight of labour, the exquisite felicity of having succeeded. No true man will fret himself with the foolish query, What will the world say ? Knowledge, like virtue, is its own reward; and to the earnest soul there is no greater gratification than to have deserved well of its fellows, to have aided, however so little, the onward march of humanity. Some men think,' says Lord Bacon, in stately phrase, that the gratification of curiosity is the end of knowledge; some, the love of fame; some, the pleasure of dispute; some, the necessity of supporting themselves by their knowledge: but the real use of all knowledge is this, that we should dedicate that reason which was given us by God to the use and advantage of man.'

WATT'S EARLY YEARS.

EXAMPLES.

JAMES WATT.

1. JAMES WATT was born at Greenock, on January 19, 1736. The son of a merchant, who was also one of the magistrates of that 'canny burgh,' in his youth he had not to encounter those difficulties which have beset so many of the world's greatest men -the privations and necessities arising from extreme poverty; but his health was so frail that he could not attend school, and his studies were pursued at home, without much more assistance than that afforded by his books.

At an early age he evinced a marked partiality for mechanical studies, which led to his being eventually apprenticed to a London mathematical instrument maker. His infirm health, however, prevented him from continuing under his instructions for any lengthened period. He then paid a visit to some relatives at Glasgow, and was induced to establish himself there as instrument maker to the University. He made up for the paucity of instruction he had received in his difficult trade by assiduous study, and soon became distinguished for the superior accuracy of his instruments. He also laboured at the acquirement of other branches of knowledge, despite his continuous ill health, and speedily attained a remarkable acquaintance with many of the most delicate mysteries of science. Such was his progress, though comparatively unassisted, in these arduous pursuits, that, in 1763, he felt competent to undertake the business of a general engineer, and abandoned his shop for the higher vocation. He rapidly obtained employment; and so wide was the reputation he had already won, that scarcely an improvement was now effected in the canals, roads, harbours, and bridges of Scotland without his advice, or except under his direction.

2. Meanwhile, his active and persevering intellect was intent upon one important pursuit, which was destined to revolutionise the world of Labour, and earn for himself an

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