"Sir EDMUND SAUNDERS, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench in the
reign of Charles II., was originally an errand boy at the Inns of Court,
and gradually acquired the elements of his knowledge of the law by being
employed to copy precedents.

"LINNAEUS, the founder of the science of Botany, although the son of the
clergyman of a small village in Sweden, was for some time apprenticed to a
shoemaker; and was only rescued from his humble employment by accidentally
meeting one day a physician named Rothman, who, having entered into
conversation with him, was so much struck with his intelligence, that he
sent him to the university.

"The father of MICHAEL LOMONOSOFF, one of the most celebrated Russian
poets of the last century, and who eventually attained the highest
literary dignities in his own country, was only a simple fisherman. Young
Lomonosoff had great difficulty in acquiring as much education as enabled
him to read and write; and it was only by running away from his father's
house, and taking refuge in a monastery at Moscow, that he found means to
obtain an acquaintance with the higher branches of literature.

"The famous BEN JONSON worked for some time as a bricklayer or mason; 'and
let not them blush,' says Fuller, speaking of this circumstance in his
'English Worthies,' with his usual amusing, but often expressive
quaintness, 'let not them blush that have, but those that have not, a
lawful calling. He helped in the building of the new structure of
Lincoln's Inn, when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his
pocket.'

"PETER RAMUS, one of the most celebrated writers and intrepid thinkers of
the sixteenth century, was employed in his childhood as a shepherd, and