THETRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE.
THE
TRIUMPHS OF PERSEVERANCE.
“If that boy were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would find the road to fame and riches!” the tutor ofSir William Joneswas accustomed to say of his illustrious pupil. His observation of the great quality ofperseverance, evinced in every act of study prescribed to his scholar, doubtless impelled the teacher to utter that remarkable affirmation. A discernment of high genius in young Jones, with but little of the great quality we have named, would have led Dr. Thackeray to modify his remark. It would have been couched in some such form as this: “If that boy had as much perseverance as genius, he would find the road to fame and riches, even if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain.” But, had the instructor regarded hispupil as one endowed with the most brilliant powers of mind, yet entirely destitute of perseverance, he would have pronounced a judgment very widely different from the first. “Alas, for this boy!” he might have said, “how will these shining qualities, fitfully bursting forth in his wayward course through life, displaying their lustre in a thousand beginnings which will lead to nothing, leave him to be regarded as an object of derision where he might have won general admiration and esteem, and cast him for subsistence on the bounty or pity of others, when he might have been a noble example of self-dependence!”
Let the reflection we would awaken by these introductory sentences be of a healthy character. It is not meant that celebrity or wealth are the most desirable rewards of a well-spent life; but that the most resplendent natural powers, unless combined with application and industry, fail to bring happiness to the heart and mind of the possessor, or to render him useful to his brother men. It is sought to impress deeply and enduringly on the youthful understanding, the irrefragable truth that, while genius is a gift which none can create for himself, and may be uselessly possessed, perseverance has enabled many, who were born with only ordinary faculties of imagination, judgment, and memory, to attain a first-rate position in literature or science, or in the direction of human affairs, and to leave a perpetual name in the list of the world’s benefactors.
Has the youthful reader formed a purpose for life? We ask not whether he has conceived a vulgar passionfor fame or riches, but earnestly exhort him to self-enquiry, whether he be wasting existence in what is termed amusement, or be daily devoting the moments at his command to a diligent preparation for usefulness? Whether he has hitherto viewed life as a journey to be trod without aims and ends, or a grand field of enterprise in which it is both his duty and interest to become an industrious and honourable worker? Has he found, by personal experience, even in the outset of life, that time spent in purposeless inactivity or frivolity produces no results on which the mind can dwell with satisfaction? And has he learned, from the testimony of others, that years so misspent bring only a feeling of self-accusation, which increases in bitterness as the loiterer becomes older, and the possibility of “redeeming the time” becomes more doubtful? Did he ever reflect that indolence never yet led to real distinction; that sloth never yet opened the path to independence; that trifling never yet enabled a man to make useful or solid acquirements?
If such reflections have already found a place in the reader’s mind, and created in him some degree of yearning to make his life not only a monument of independence, but of usefulness, we invite him to a rapid review of the lives of men among whom he will not only find the highest exemplars of perseverance, but some whose peculiar difficulties may resemble his own, and whose triumphs may encourage him to pursue a course of similar excellence. Purposing to awaken the spirit of exertion by the presentation of striking examples rather than the rehearsal of formal precepts, we proceed to open ourcondensed chronicle with a notice of the universal scholar just named, and whose world-famed career has entitled him to a first place in the records of the “Triumphs of Perseverance.”
Sir William Jones
Happily, had early admonitions of perseverance from his mother, in whose widowed care he was left at three years old; and who, “to his incessant importunities for information, which she watchfully stimulated,” says his biographer, Lord Teignmouth, “perpetually answered, ‘Read, and you will know,’” His earnest mind cleaved to the injunction. He could read any English book rapidly at four years of age; and, though his right eye was injured by an accident at five, and the sight of it ever remained imperfect, his determination to learn triumphed over that impediment. Again, the commencement of life seemeddiscouraging: he had been placed at Harrow School, at the age of seven, but had his thigh-bone broken at nine, and was compelled to be from school for twelve months. Such was his progress, in spite of these untoward circumstances, and although characterised, let it be especially observed, as a boy “remarkable for diligence and application rather than superiority of talent,” that he was removed into the upper school, at Harrow, in his twelfth year. At this period he is found writing out the entire play of the “Tempest,” from memory, his companions intending to perform it, and not having a copy in their possession. Virgil’s Pastorals and Ovid’s Epistles are, at the same age, turned into melodious English verse by him; he has learned the Greek characters for his amusement, and now applies himself to the language in earnest; his mother has taught him drawing, during the vacations; and he next composes a drama, on the classic story of “Meleager,” which is acted in the school. During the next two years he “wrote out the exercises of many of the boys in the upper classes, and they were glad to become his pupils;” meanwhile, in the holidays, he learned French and arithmetic.
But this early and unremitting tension of the mind, did it not leave the heart uncultured? Were not pride and overweening growing within, and did not sourness of temper display itself, and repel some whom the young scholar’s acquirements might otherwise have attached to him? Ah! youthful reader, thou wilt never find any so proud as the ignorant; and, if thou wouldst not have thy heart become a garden of rank and pestilentialweeds, leave not the key thereof in the soft hand of Indolence, but entrust it to the sinewed grasp of Industry. What testimony give his early companions to the temper and hearing of young Jones? The celebrated Dr. Parr—in his own person also a high exemplar of the virtue we are inculcating—was his playmate in boyhood, remained his ardent friend in manhood, and never spoke of their early attachment without deep feeling. Dr. Bennet, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, thus speaks of Sir William Jones: “I knew him from the early age of eight or nine, and he was always an uncommon boy. I loved him and revered him: and, though one or two years older than he was, was always instructed by him.” ... “In a word, I can only say of this amiable and wonderful man, that he had more virtues and less faults than I ever yet saw in any human being; and that the goodness of his head, admirable as it was, was exceeded by that of his heart.”
With the boys, generally, he was a favourite. Dr. Sumner, who succeeded Dr. Thackeray, used to say Jones knew more Greek than himself. He soon learned the Arabic characters, and was already able to read Hebrew. A mere stripling, yet he would devote whole nights to study, taking coffee or tea as an antidote to drowsiness. Strangers were accustomed to enquire for him, at the school, under the title of “the great scholar.” But Dr. Sumner, during the last months spent at Harrow, was obliged to interdict the juvenile “great scholar’s” application, in consequence of a returning weakness in his injured eye: yet he continued to compose,and dictated to younger students; alternately practising the games of Philidor and acquiring a knowledge of chess. He had added a knowledge of botany and fossils to the acquirements already mentioned, and had learned Italian during his last vacation.
Let us mark, again, whether all this ardent intellectual activity cramps the right growth of the affections, and warps the heart’s sense of filial duty. “His mother,” says his excellent biographer, “allowed him unlimited credit on her purse; but of this indulgence, as he knew her finances were restricted, he availed himself no further than to purchase such books as were essential to his improvement.” And when he is removed, at the age of seventeen, to University College, Oxford, he is not anxious to enter the world without restraint; his mother goes to reside at Oxford, “at her son’s request.” And how he toiled, and wished for college honours, not for vain distinction, not for love of gain, but from the healthy growth of that filial affection, which had strengthened with his judgment and power of reflection! He “anxiously wished for a fellowship,” says Lord Teignmouth, “to enable him to draw less frequently upon his mother, knowing the contracted nature of her income.” His heart was soon to be gratified.
He commenced Arabic zealously, soon after reaching the University; he perused, with assiduity, all the Greek poets and historians of note; he read the entire works of Plato and Lucian, with commentaries, constantly ready, with a pen in his hand, to make any remark that he judged worth preserving. What a contrast to the“reader for amusement,” who will leave the priceless treasure of a book ungathered, because it is hid in what he calls a “lumbering folio,” and it wearies his hands, or it is inconvenient to read it while lying along at ease on the sofa! Yet this “great scholar” was no mere musty book-worm; he did not claim kindred with Dryasdust. While passing his vacations in London, he daily attended the noted schools of Angelo, and acquired a skill in horsemanship and fencing, as elegant accomplishments; his evenings, at these seasons, being devoted to the perusal of the best Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese writers. At the University, how was the stripling urging his way into the regions of oriental learning—that grand high-road of his fame that was to be! He had found Mirza, a Syrian, who possessed a knowledge of the vernacular Arabic, and spent some portion of every morning in writing out a translation of Galland’s French version of the Arabian Tales into Arabic, from the mouth of the Syrian; and he then corrected the grammatical inaccuracies by the help of lexicons. From the Arabic he urged his way into the Persian, becoming soon enraptured with that most elegant of all eastern languages. Such was this true disciple of “Perseverance” at the age ofnineteen.
And now some measure of the rewards of industry, honour, and virtue begin to alight upon him. He is appointed tutor to Lord Althorpe, son of the literary Earl Spencer; finds his pupil possessed of a mind and disposition that will render his office delightful; has the range of one of the most splendid private libraries in thekingdom, together with the refined and agreeable society of Wimbledon Park; and is presented, soon after, with a fellowship by his college.
Mark well, from two incidents which occur about this time, what high conscientiousness, deep modesty, and sterling independence characterise the true scholar. The Duke of Grafton, then premier, offered him the situation of government interpreter for eastern languages. He declined it, recommending the Syrian, Mirza, as one better qualified to fill it than himself. His recommendation was neglected; and his biographer remarks that “a better knowledge of the world would have led him to accept the office, and to convey the emoluments to his friend Mirza. He was too ingenuous to do so. He saw the excellent lady who afterwards became his wife and devoted companion in study; but ‘his fixed idea of an honourable independence, and a determined resolution never to owe his fortune to a wife, or her kindred, excluded all ideas of a matrimonial connection,’” at that period, although the affection he had conceived was ardent.
In the year of his majority, we find him commencing his famous “Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry;” copying the keys of the Chinese language; learning German, by conversation, grammar, and dictionary, during three weeks passed at Spa with his noble pupil; acquiring a knowledge of the broad-sword exercise from an old pensioner at Chelsea; continuing to attend the two schools of Signor Angelo; and secretly taking lessons in dancing from Gallini, the dancing-master of Earl Spencer’sfamily, until he surprises the elegant inhabitants of Wimbledon by joining with grace in the amusements of their evening parties.
Such was the truly magnificent advancement made by this illustrious disciple of “Perseverance,” up to the age of twenty-one. Think, reader, how much may be done in the opening of life! How elevated the course of Sir William Jones! What cheering self-approval must he have experienced, in looking back on the youthful years thus industriously spent; but what humbling reflection, what severe self-laceration would he have felt, had he allowed indolence to master him, ease to enervate him, listlessness and dissipation to render him a nameless and worthless nothing in the world!
At the close of his twenty-first year he peruses the little treatise of our ancient lawyer, Fortescue, in praise of the laws of England. His large learning enabled him to compare the laws of other countries with his own; and though he had, hitherto, enthusiastically preferred the laws of republican Greece, reflection, on the perusal of this treatise, led him to prefer the laws of England to all others. His noble biographer adds a remark which indicates the solidity and perspicacity of Sir William Jones’s judgment:—“He was not, however, regardless of the deviations in practice from the theoretical perfection of the constitution, in a contested election, of which he was an unwilling spectator.” Yet the perfecttheoryof our constitution so far attracted him, as to lead him, from this time, to the resolve of uniting the study of the law to his great philological acquirements; his purposewas neither rashly formed, nor soon relinquished, like the miscalled “purposes” of weak men and idlers; it resulted in his elevation to high and honourable usefulness, in the lapse of a few years.
In his twenty-second year the “great scholar” undertakes a task which no other quality than perseverance could have enabled him to accomplish. The King of Denmark, then on a visit to this country, brought over with him an eastern manuscript, containing a life of Nadir Shah, and expressed his wish to the officers of government to have it translated into French, by an English scholar. The under secretary of state applied to Sir William Jones, who recommended Major Dow, the able translator of a Persian history, to perform the work. Major Dow refused: and, though hints of greater patronage did not influence the inclination of Sir William Jones, his reflection that the reputation of English learning would be dishonoured by the Danish king taking back the manuscript, with a report that no scholar in our country had courage to undertake the difficult labour, impelled him to enter on it. The fact that he had a French style to acquire, in order to discharge his task, and had, even then, to get a native Frenchman to go over the translation, to render it a scholar-like production, made the undertaking extremely arduous. It was, however, accomplished magnificently; and the adventurous translator added a treatise on oriental poetry, “such as no other person in England could then have written.” He was immediately afterwards made a member of the Royal Society of Copenhagen, and wasrecommended by the King of Denmark to the particular patronage of his own sovereign.
At twenty-six he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of England, and took his degree of Master of Arts the year after. Meanwhile he was composing his celebrated Persian Grammar; had found the means of entering effectively on the study of Chinese, a language at that time surrounded with unspeakable difficulties; had written part of a Turkish history; and was assiduously copying Arabic manuscripts in the Bodleian. The “Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry” were published in his twenty-eighth year, being five years after they were finished; his modesty, that invariable attendant of true merit, and his love of correctness, having induced him to lay the manuscript before Dr. Parr, and other profound judges, ere he ventured to give his composition to the world. Amidst so many absorbing engagements his biographer still notes the correct state of his heart. He was a regular correspondent with his excellent mother, and ever paid the most affectionate attention to her and his sister.
In his twenty-eighth year he devotes himself more exclusively to his legal studies, goes the Oxford circuit after being called to the bar, and afterwards attends regularly at Westminster Hall. Except the publication of a translation of the speeches of Isæus, he performs no remarkable literary labour for the next few years; his professional practice having become very considerable, and his thoughts being strongly directed towards a vacant judgeship, at Calcutta, as the situation in whichhe felt assured, by the union of his legal knowledge with his skill in oriental languages, he could best serve the interests of learning and of mankind.
Before this object of his laudable ambition was attained, however, Sir William Jones gave proof, as our great Englishman, Milton, had given before him, that the mightiest erudition does not narrow, but serves truly to enlarge the mind, and to nourish its sympathies with the great brotherhood of humanity. The war with the United States of America had commenced, and he declared himself against it; he wrote a splendid Latin ode, entitled “Liberty,” in which his patriotic and philanthropic sentiments are most nobly embodied; and became a candidate, on what are now called “liberal principles,” for the representation of Oxford. He withdrew, after further reflection, from the candidateship, still purposing to devote his life to the East, but not before he had testified his disapproval of harsh ministerial measures, by publishing an “Enquiry into the legal mode of suppressing riots, with a constitutional plan for their suppression.” Finally, to the record of this part of his life, Lord Teignmouth adds the relation, that Sir William Jones had found time to attend the lectures of the celebrated John Hunter, and to acquire some knowledge of anatomy; while he had advanced sufficiently far into the mathematics to be able to read and understand the “Principia” of Sir Isaac Newton.
The last eleven years of the illustrious scholar’s life form the most brilliant part of his career, and only leave us to lament that his days were not more extended. Inthe month of March, 1783, being then in his thirty-seventh year, he was appointed a judge of the supreme court of judicature, Fortwilliam, Calcutta, and on that occasion received the honour of knighthood. In the following month he married the eldest daughter of Dr. Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and thus happy in a union with the lady to whom he had been long devoted, almost immediately embarked for India.
As a concluding lesson from the life of Sir William Jones, let us note how unsubduable is the intellect trained by long and early habits of perseverance, under the corrupting and enfeebling influences of honours and prosperity. On the voyage, the “great scholar” drew up a list of “Objects of Enquiry.” If he could have fulfilled the gigantic schemes which were thus unfolding themselves to his ardent mind, the world must have been stricken with amazement. The list is too long to be detailed here; suffice it to say, that it enumerates the “Laws of the Hindus and Mahommedans,” “The History of the Ancient World;” all the sciences, all the arts and inventions of all the Asiatic nations, and the various kinds of government in India. Following the list of “Objects of Enquiry,” is a sketch of works he purposes to write and publish; including “Elements of the Laws of England,” “History of the American War,” an epic poem, to be entitled “Britain Discovered,” “Speeches, Political and Forensic,” “Dialogues, Philosophical and Historical,” and a volume of letters, with translations of some portions of the Scriptures into Arabic and Persian.
Intense and indefatigable labour enabled him to complete his masterly “Digest of Mahommedan and Hindu Law,” but to accomplish this work, so invaluable to the European conquerors of Hindoostan, he had first, critically, to master the Sanscrit, at once the most perfect and most difficult of known languages. If it be remembered that Sir William Jones was also most active in the discharge of his judicial duties, our admiration will be increased. His translation of the “Ordinances of Menu,” a Sanscrit work, displaying the Hindoo system of religious and civil duties—and of the Indian drama of “Sacontala,” written a century before the Christian era—and his production of a “Dissertation on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and Rome,” were among the last of his complete works. He also edited the first volume of the “Asiatic Researches;” and gave an impetus to eastern enquiry among Europeans, by instituting the Asiatic Society, of which he was the first president. His annual discourses before that assembly have been published, and are well known and highly valued.
The death of this great and good man, though sudden, being occasioned by the rapid liver complaint of Bengal, was as peaceful as his life had been noble and virtuous. A friend, who saw him die, says that he expired “without a groan, and with a serene and complacent look.” His death took place on the 27th April, 1794, when he was only in his forty-eighth year; yet he had acquired a “critical knowledge” of eight languages—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit; he knew eight others less perfectly, but was ableto read them with the occasional use of a dictionary—Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runic, Hebrew, Bengalee, Hindostanee, Turkish; and he knew so much of twelve other tongues, that they were perfectly attainable by him, had life and leisure permitted his continued application to them—Tibetian, Pâli, Phalavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, Chinese. Twenty-eight languages in all; such is his own account. When you sum up the other diversified accomplishments and attainments of the scarce forty-eight years of Sir William Jones, reflect deeply, youthful reader, on what may be achieved by “perseverance,” and when you have reflected—resolve.
To that emphatic early lesson of “read and you will learn,” and to his ready opportunities and means of culture, we must, undoubtedly, attribute much of the “great scholar’s” success. In the life of one still living, and enjoying the honours and rewards of virtuous perseverance, it will be seen that even devoid of help, unstimulated by any affectionate voice in the outset, and surrounded with discouragements, almost at every step, the cultivation of this grand quality infallibly leads on to signal triumph.
Now Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University of Cambridge, being the son of a poor widow, who was left to struggle for the support of two younger children, was apprenticed to a carpenter, at twelve years of age, after receiving a merely elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic in the charity-school of the village of Longmore, in Shropshire. His love of books became fervent, and the Latin quotations he found in such as were within his reach kindled a desire to penetrate the mystery of their meaning. The sounds of the language, too, which he heard in a Catholic chapel, where his master had undertaken some repairs, increased this desire. At seventeen he purchased “Ruddiman’s Latin Rudiments,” and soon committed the whole to memory. With the help of “Corderius’ Colloquies,” “Entick’s Dictionary,” and “Beza’s Testament,” he began to make his way into the vestibule of Roman learning; but of the magnificent inner-glory he had, as yet, scarcely caught a glimpse. The obstacles seemed so great for an unassisted adventurer, that he one day besought a priest of the chapel, where he was still at work, to afford him some help. “Charity begins at home!” was the repelling reply to his application; but, whether meant to indicate the priest’s own need of instruction, or sordid unwillingness to afford his help without pecuniary remuneration, does not appear. Unchilled by this repulse, the young and unfriended disciple of “perseverance” girt up “the loins of his mind” for his solitary butonward travel. Yet how uncheering the landscape around him! Think of it, and blush, young reader, if thou art surrounded with ease and comfort, but hast yielded to indolence; ponder on it, and take courage, if thou art the companion of hardship, but resolvest to be a man, one day, amongst men. Young Lee’s wages were but six shillings weekly at seventeen years old; and from this small sum he had not only to find food, but to pay for his washing and lodging. The next year his weekly income was increased one shilling, and the year following another. Privation, even of the necessaries of life, he had to suffer, not seldom, in order to enable himself to possess what he desired, now more intensely than ever. He successively purchased a Latin Bible, Cæsar, Justin, Sallust, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ovid; having frequently to sell his volume as soon as he had mastered it in order to buy another. But what of that? The true disciple of perseverance looks onward with hope—hope which is not fantastic, but founded in the firmest reason—to the day when his meritorious and ennobling toil shall have its happy fruition, and he shall know no scarcity of books.
Conquest of one language has inspired him with zeal for further victory; it is the genuine nature of enterprise. Freed from his apprenticeship he purchases a Greek grammar, testament, lexicon, and exercises; and soon, the self-taught carpenter, the scholar of toil and privation, holds converse, in their own superlative tongue, with the simple elegance of Xenophon, the eloquence and wisdom of Plato, and the wit of Lucian; he becomes familiarwith the glorious “Iliad,” with the pathos and refinement, the force and splendour, of the “Antigone,” of Sophocles.
“Unaided by any instructor, uncheered by any literary companion,” says one who narrates the circumstances of his early career, “he still persevered.” What wonder, when he had discovered so much to cheer him in the delectable mental realm he was thus subduing for himself! And he was now endued with the full energy of conquest. He purchased “Bythner’s Hebrew Grammar,” and “Lyra Prophetica,” with a Hebrew Psalter, and was soon able to read the Psalms in the original. Buxtorf’s grammar and lexicon with a Hebrew Bible followed; an accident threw in his way the “Targum” of Onkelos, and with the Chaldee grammar in Bythner, and Schindler’s lexicon, he was soon able to read it. Another effort, and he was able to read the Syriac Testament and the Samaritan Pentateuch, thus gaining acquaintance with four branches of the ancient Aramœan or Shemitic family of languages, in addition to his knowledge of the two grand Pelasgic dialects.
He was now five-and-twenty, and had mastered six languages, without the slightest help from any living instructor; some of the last-named books were heavily expensive; yet, true to the nobility of life that had distinguished his early youth, he had not relaxed the reins of economy, but had purchased a chest of tools, which had cost him twenty-five pounds.
Suddenly an event befel him which seemed to wither not only his prospects of further mental advancement,but plunged him into the deepest distress. A fire, which broke out in a house he was repairing, consumed his chest of tools; and, as he had no money to purchase more, and had now to feel solicitude for the welfare of an affectionate wife, as well as for himself, his affliction was heavy. In this distracting difficulty he turned his thoughts towards commencing a village school, but even for this he lacked the means of procuring the necessary, though scanty, furniture. Uprightness and meritorious industry, however, seldom fail to attract benevolent help to a man in need. Archdeacon Corbett, the resident philanthropic clergyman of Longmore, heard of Samuel Lee’s distress, sent for him, and on hearing the relation of his laudable struggles, used his interest to place him in the mastership of Shrewsbury Charity School, giving him what was of still higher value, an introduction to the great oriental scholar, Dr. Jonathan Scott.
New triumphs succeeded his misfortunes, and a cheering and honourable future was preparing. Dr. Scott put into the hands of his new and humble friend elementary books on Arabic, Persian, and Hindostanee; and, in a few months, the disciple of perseverance was not only able to read and translate, but even essayed to compose in his newly-acquired languages. So effectually had he mastered these eastern tongues, that the good doctor used his influence in introducing him as private tutor to sons of gentlemen going out to India; and, after another brief probation, procured him admission into Queen’s College, Cambridge.
Our sketch of this remarkable living scholar may herebe cut short. He has made himself master of twenty languages, distinguished himself alike by the virtue of his private life, his practical eloquence in the pulpit and zeal for the church, of which he is an honoured member; and, in addition to the service he has rendered to oriental literature, by his new Hebrew grammar and lexicon, his revision of Sir William Jones’s Persian grammar, and a number of philological tracts, has won respect and gratitude, by diligent and laborious supervision of numerous translations of the Scriptures into eastern tongues, prepared by the direction and at the cost of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
If the young scholar be bent on the acquirement of languages, he will find, in the lives of Alexander, Murray, Leyden, Heyne, Carey, Marshman, Morrison, Magliabechi, and a hundred others, striking proofs of the ease with which the mind overcomes all difficulties when it is armed with determination, and never becomes a recreant from the banner of perseverance.