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turning a piece of wood, and this for many afternoons together, all the while singing like a cobbler, incomparably better pleased than he had been in all the stages of his life before. And it is a mortifying speculation, that of the different characters of this man's enjoyments, separated one from the other, and exposed to an indifferent choice, there is scarce any one but this I have here described, really worth taking up. And yet the slavery of our nature is such, that this must be despised, and all the rest, with the attendant evils of vexation, disappointments, dangers, loss of health, disgraces, envy, and what not of torment, be admired. It was well said of the philosopher to Pyrrhus: What follows after all your victories? To sit down and make merry. And cannot you do so now?" This is a little rhetorically, perhaps, and somewhat too strongly spoken to be taken literally; and, certainly, to spend life in nothing but trivial employments would not be to spend it either happily or worthily; but if it be understood as merely expressing and inculcating the real superiority of an active and healthy exercise of mind and body, in individual or domestic industry, the pursuit of knowledge, and such simple and generally accessible enjoyments as we have been contemplating, over the hot and exhausting chase after wealth or power, in which it is usual for men to waste their strength, it will not be far from a correct appreciation of the constituents of human happiness.

We have dwelt the longer on the life and character of Sir Dudley North, both because he affords us one of the very best examples to which we can refer, of the successful pursuit of business and of philosophy by the same individual, and because, fortunately, his history and habits have been transmitted to us with unusual fidelity and fulness. To his name might be added those of many others of his countrymen, emi

nent like him at once in the walks both of commerce and of literature; but we will only mention that of the late Mr. RICARDO. This gentleman, in the course of not a long life, for he died at the age of fifty-one, amassed a large fortune by his mercantile skill, activity, and attention to business, after having begun the world with little except a character for integrity and talent, and secured for himself, not merely a respectable reputation as a writer, but, in the important science to which he devoted himself, a place among the very first of his age. As we cannot here enter upon any examination of his peculiar doctrines, we express no opinion respecting the extent to which they may be well founded or may require limitation. But, whatever difference of sentiment may exist as to this point, there can be none as to the ability and ingenuity which their author always displays in unfolding and supporting them, and that originality of view which marks all his works, and has placed him at the head of a new and distinct school of enquirers in this department of philosophy. It has been said that Mr. Ricardo's attention was not directed to political economy till somewhat late in life; and a story has been told about his accidentally finding a copy of the Wealth of Nations' one day at the country house of a friend, and immediately purchasing the book, reading it through with great eagerness, and resolving to dedicate himself thenceforth exclusively to the study of the subject with which he had thus for the first time become acquainted. But this anecdote has been contradicted on better authority, and is not in itself very probafor it is not likely that a mind, such as that of Ricardo, occupied as it was every day among the very matters to which the science in question especially refers, would be long in having its attention drawn to the principles of that science. Be this, however,

ble;

as it may, he did not appear as an author till 1809, when he published his pamphlet entitled 'The High Price of Bullion, a proof of the depreciation of Bank Notes,' which immediately excited general attention and went eventually through four editions. He was at this time in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and, we believe, actively engaged in the pursuits of business. He continued to write, and give to the world a succession of productions on his favourite subject, till his death in 1823. His great work, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation,' appeared in 1817, two years after which time he was returned to Parliament, where he greatly distinguished himself, especially in all, discussions relating to finance and commerce. He is understood to have left several manuscripts ready, or nearly ready, for the press.

CHAPTER X.

Literary Pursuits of Booksellers and Printers. Gesner; Aldus Manutius, Paul, and Aldus the Younger; R. Stephens; H. Stephens; Scapula; Colinæus; Badius; Froben; Oporinus; Ruddiman; Bowyer; Nichols; Richardson.

MANY of our readers are probably familiar with the English translation of the popular German work, the Death of Abel. SOLOMON GESNER, the celebrated author of this production, and of many others written in a similar style that rank high in the literature of his native country, carried on the business of a bookseller, at Zurich, in Switzerland. In his case, however, as in that of the Dutch poet, Vondel, whom we have already mentioned, the cares and interruptions of business were, during the latter part of his life, rendered less annoying by the attention of his wife, who is said to have charged herself with the principal management of his commercial concerns, that he might have more leisure for literature. But it was amid the drudgery of the shop that almost all his earliest studies were carried on, and his literary taste nourished. We are told that Gesner was accounted a dunce by his first schoolmaster, who predicted that he never would get beyond reading and writing; and yet the person who was thus unsuccessful in developing, or even discerning, the talents of the future poet, was no other than the celebrated Bodmer, one of the distinguished names of German literature, and who afterwards became a great poet himself. This anecdote shows that even genius will not always discover genius in another; although possibly some may think that Bodmer must have been but an indifferent

teacher, whatever he was in another capacity. Young Gesner was afterwards sent by his father, who, like himself, was a bookseller in Zurich, to the house of a clergyman in the neighbourhood, who, having probably no poetical powers of his own, had more leisure to attend to the intellectual character of his pupil, and soon drew forth from the condemned dunce no doubtful indications of the light that was hidden within. But the young poet was after some time removed from the care of this congenial, or judicious, instructor, and despatched to Berlin, to take up his abode with a bookseller of that city, in quality of his apprentice or shop-boy. Here he was of course surrounded with books; but, either disliking the business, or not finding that it left him sufficient leisure to derive much advantage from the treasures of knowledge that were within his reach, he soon abandoned it, and took lodgings, under the idea of supporting himself by poetry and paintingfor he had already, without having any one to give him lessons, begun to apply himself also to the latter art. In this scheme he encountered at the outset

the difficulties which naturally beset one in his situation. There was no deficiency of talent, but á sad lack of experience, and ignorance of many things that a person more regularly instructed could not have failed to know. Having shown his verses to some of his literary acquaintances, he was told that they were so awkwardly constructed that he certainly never would be a poet, and advised to turn his attention forthwith to some less difficult species of composition. His paintings were still more literally the efforts of his own unaided genius than even his poetry. Here he had neither any model to imitate, nor was even acquainted with the elementary rules and most common methods and processes of the art. He had covered the walls of his humble lodging with land