exceptionally irksome, and his close, confined lodging was very wretched to one coming fresh from fields musical with the sweet songsters of the spring.

Eight months later, he enlisted in the 54th regiment of foot, and was ordered to Nova Scotia in twelve months. Here in five years, by temperance and industry, he managed (doing clerical work for the quarter-master and pay-sergeant) to save £150, and it was while serving with this regiment that he acquired a knowledge of Lindley Murray. “I learned grammar,” he says, “when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of my berth was my seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and the task did not demand anything like a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in winter time I could rarely get any evening light but that of the fire, and only my turn even of that. And if I, under such circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me, accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for any youth, however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper, I was compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own, and I had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whistling, and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of their freedom from all control. Think not lightly of the farthing that I had to give now and then, for pen, ink, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a great sum to me! I was tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The whole of the money not expended for us at market was twopence a week for each man. I remember, and well I may, that on one occasion, I, after all necessary expenses, had on a Friday made shifts to have a halfpenny in reserve, which I had destined for the purchase of a red herring in the morning; but when I pulled off my clothes at night, so hungry then as to be hardly able to endure life, I found that I had lost my halfpenny! I buried my head under the miserable sheet and rug, and cried like a child!”

Wonderful, however, as were the achievements of Franklin and Cobbett in self-education, they were both eclipsed by Elihu Burritt. The son of a shoemaker, he was at the age of sixteen apprenticed to the “village blacksmith,” and from that time applied himself to the study of languages with such success, that he mastered French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, Bohemian, Polish, Danish, Syriac, Samaritan, Turkish, Ethiopic and Persian. To understand how he accomplished this, we take a glance at his diary.

“Monday, June 18: Headache; forty pages Cuvier’s ‘Theory of the Earth,’ sixty-four pages French, eleven hours’ forging. Tuesday: sixty-five lines of Hebrew, thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier’s ‘Theory,’ eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours’ forging. Wednesday: twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, seven hours’ forging. Thursday: fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours’ forging. Friday: unwell; twelve hours’ forging. Saturday: unwell; fifty pages of Natural History, ten hours’ forging. Sunday: lessons for Bible class.”

There were times when, for a short season, he abandoned the anvil, and devoted his whole time to study; but after a few months’ absence from the forge he would return to earn money for his support, and for the purchase of books. Hearing one day of an Antiquarian Library at Worcester, U.S., he determined to go there to work as a journeyman, for the sake of obtaining access to such rare books, and started off to walk. It was a long journey, and when he reached Boston Bridge, footsore and weary, he encountered a waggon being driven by a boy, who was going to Worcester, forty miles distant. All his valuables consisted of a dollar and an old silver watch. He availed himself of the chance of a lift, but felt reluctant to part with his single dollar, and suggested that the waggoner should take his watch, which, if properly repaired, would be worth a great deal more than his indebtedness, also suggesting that, in the event of the boy having the watch mended, he should give Burritt the difference in money if they met again in Worcester.

The young blacksmith obtained work on his arrival, and some short time after received a visit from the waggon lad, who honourably brought him a few dollars, the estimated difference. Some years afterwards Burritt happened to be travelling from Worcester to New Britain by railway, when he was accosted by a handsome, well-dressed fellow-traveller.

“You have forgotten me, Mr. Burritt?”

Burritt was obliged to confess that he had.

“Oh,” said he, “I’m the boy to whom you gave the watch. I’m now a student of Harvard College.”

After chatting for a bit, Burritt said,—

“I should like to have that watch back again.”

“You shall,” said the student. “I sold it, but I know where it is.”

In a few days he received the watch, which hung for many years in his printing-office as a memento of early vicissitudes.

Michael Faraday, unquestionably one of the greatest English chemists and natural philosophers, had few educational advantages before he was apprenticed to a bookbinder in Blandford Street, Manchester Square, and while working at his trade he constructed an electrical machine and other scientific apparatus. These having been seen by his master, Mr. Riebau, he called the attention of Mr. Dance to them, and he took the boy with him to hear the last four lectures delivered by Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution. Faraday took copious notes of the lectures, and afterwards wrote them out fairly in a quarto volume, and sent it to Sir Humphry, begging him for employment, that he might quit the trade he hated, and follow science, which he loved. The answer is a model of kindness and courtesy: