Milton was the son of a London scrivener, and Pope and Southey were
the sons of linendrapers. Professor Wilson was the son of a
Paisley manufacturer, and Lord Macaulay of an African merchant.
Keats was a druggist, and Sir Humphry Davy a country apothecary's
apprentice. Speaking of himself, Davy once said, "What I am I have
made myself: I say this without vanity, and in pure simplicity of
heart." Richard Owen, the Newton of Natural History, began life as
a midshipman, and did not enter upon the line of scientific
research in which he has since become so distinguished, until
comparatively late in life. He laid the foundations of his great
knowledge while occupied in cataloguing the magnificent museum
accumulated by the industry of John Hunter, a work which occupied
him at the College of Surgeons during a period of about ten years.

Foreign not less than English biography abounds in illustrations of
men who have glorified the lot of poverty by their labours and
their genius. In Art we find Claude, the son of a pastrycook;
Geefs, of a baker; Leopold Robert, of a watchmaker; and Haydn, of a
wheelwright; whilst Daguerre was a scene-painter at the Opera. The
father of Gregory VII. was a carpenter; of Sextus V., a shepherd;
and of Adrian VI., a poor bargeman. When a boy, Adrian, unable to
pay for a light by which to study, was accustomed to prepare his
lessons by the light of the lamps in the streets and the church
porches, exhibiting a degree of patience and industry which were
the certain forerunners of his future distinction. Of like humble
origin were Hauy, the mineralogist, who was the son of a weaver of
Saint-Just; Hautefeuille, the mechanician, of a baker at Orleans;
Joseph Fourier, the mathematician, of a tailor at Auxerre; Durand,
the architect, of a Paris shoemaker; and Gesner, the naturalist, of
a skinner or worker in hides, at Zurich. This last began his