Page images
PDF
EPUB

done; it seems to me that we may learn everything when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet.""

Under the patronage of the Duke of Argyll, Stone, some years after this, made his appearance in London, where, in 1723, he published his first work—a "Treatise on Mathematical Instruments," principally translated from the French. In 1725 he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society. Next year appeared his Mathematical Dictionary, which was followed by other occasional productions down to the year of his death. Of his private history, however, after he took up his residence in the metropolis, little or nothing is known. It is to be feared that he spent his latter days in neglect and poverty. He had contributed several papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society; but we find his name omitted in the list of members, after the year 1742, probably in consequence of his inability to pay the small annual contribution which, we may remark by-the-by, was a few years after remitted to Simpson, and which Sir Isaac Newton had, on his own petition, been excused from paying. He is spoken of, by a writer in the Critical Review for 1760, as of unblemished reputation; and yet, notwithstanding his universally acknowledged abilities, and his uncontested services to the public, "living, at an advanced age, unrewarded, except by a mean employment that reflects dishonour on the donors." Ramsay, in the letter already quoted, speaks in the strongest terms of Stone's simple, ingenuous, and upright character, and of his ardent and disinterested attachment to science. He was, however, by no means a man of the same powers of mind with Simpson. Even in those departments of learning in which he chiefly excelled, his knowledge appears to have been somewhat superficial; and his principal works have been characterized as abounding in errors. He seems, upon the whole, to have had rather a quick and active, than either a very profound or a very acute understanding; and some of his speculations are singularly unphilosophical, especially that contained in the last work he gave to the world, in which he attempts to expose the insufficiency of the proofs on which the spherical form of the earth has been assumed, arguing, with incredible absurdity, that it is just as likely to be an angular figure—as if the waters of the sea, for example, could anywhere maintain themselves in a position like that of the rafters of a house. We may, perhaps, trace something of all this to the entirely unassisted and solitary efforts to which he owed his first acquaintance with science and literature. A want of depth and solidity is by no means the necessary or uniform characteristic of the attainments of the self-educated scholar; who, on the contrary, is apt to be distinguished for a more than usually perfect acquaintance with the subjects which he has probably studied with more than usual effort and application. But a mind gifted in a remarkable degree with the capacity of rapid apprehension is the kind of mind that is likely to suffer most from being left to be altogether

its own instructor; and especially when placed in circumstances which shut it out from that most salutary and strengthening of all intellectual exercises, communication and encounter with other intellects. This was Stone's case. He had not only no master, but no companion in his studies-no one even to put his knowledge to the proof, or with whom, by trying it, as it were, in conflict, he might discover either its strength or its weakness. Then, his facility in possessing himself of the outlines of a subject deceived and betrayed him he skimmed its surface with so much ease and expedition, that he had no time to think what was beneath, or that anything was beneath; and thus he acquired a habit of precipitate procedure, and vague and unphilosophic thinking, in all his speculations. If he had had a few associates in his early pursuits, he probably would have escaped all this, as well as some other deficiencies and inaptitudes under which he laboured during his life.

Nothing can be more barbarous than the ambitious rhetoric of the selftaught mathematician's English style. He is talking, in the second edition of his book on Mathematical Instruments, published in 1760, of a newly-invented mariner's compass; and the following are the terms in which, at the close of his description, he expresses what must be understood, we presume, to be his unfavourable opinion of the contrivance: "The plants and trees of the gardens of the arts and sciences, cultivated by the dung of ambition, and nourished with the waters of interest, are very subject to be blasted by the winds of error, and sometimes stunted by the weeds of imposition." The metaphors of genuine eloquence start forth finished and glowing from the imagination; this is to construct them, as a mason does the wall of a house, with a plummet and a trowel.

Edmund Stone must not be confounded with his countryman and contemporary, JEROME STONE, who was also, in great part, a self-educated man. The only notice we have of his life is in Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, where we are told that he was born, in 1727, in the parish of Scoonie, in Fife, and that his father was a seaman, who died abroad when Jerome was only three years old, leaving his widow to maintain herself and her young family in the best way she could by her own exertions. Elementary education in Scotland, however, has long been so cheap as to be within the reach of the poorest ; and Jerome was accordingly taught reading, writing, and a little arithmetic, at the parish school. But in his mother's narrow circumstances it was necessary that he should, as soon as possible, do something for his own support; and therefore, while yet hardly more than a boy, he commenced travelling the country as a chapman or pedlar, with a miscellaneous assortment of trinkets, tapes, and other portable wares. He soon, however, found this occupation intolerably unintellectual; and converted his stock into books, with which he used to attend at fairs, in

those days the great marts of all kinds of popular commerce in Scotland. Profiting by the opportunities of his new vocation, he now proceeded to make himself a scholar; and either from a predilection for theological learning, natural to the Scottish peasantry in general, or from an idea that he was in this way beginning at the beginning, he commenced his studies with the Hebrew language. In this, unassisted by any instructor, he attained such proficiency, as to be able to read the Old Testament with ease. Encouraged by this success, he next applied himself to Greek; and in a short time made himself as familiar with the original of the New Testament as he was with that of the Old. All this time he knew nothing of Latin; but finding that all the best books even on the Greek and Hebrew were written in that language, he determined to acquire it also. It is probable, though it is not so stated, that he had obtained much of his knowledge of the two sacred tongues through the medium of the common translation of the Bible: no dictionary of either, with the words interpreted in English, was, we believe, as yet in existence. Possibly, when he proposed to make himself master of Latin, he might not be aware that the same resource was still open to him; nor, indeed, was it open in the same degree, as the English Bible does not correspond so exactly to any Latin version of the Scriptures as it does to the Greek and Hebrew originals. At all events he thought it necessary, we are told, to apply on this occasion to the parish schoolmaster. Under this master's guidance his Latin studies proceeded so prosperously, that he soon became known in the neighbourhood as a prodigy of learning. Fortunately, among the heritors, or landed proprietors, of the parish was the Rev. Dr. Tullidelph, Principal of the United College in the University of St. Andrew's, and a gentleman of distinguished erudition and talent. Struck with the remarkable abilities and acquirements of young Stone, he proposed his removal to the university, where he undertook that such provision should be made, in order to enable him to pursue his studies, as his circumstances required. Stone accordingly proceeded to St. Andrew's, where he soon more than fulfilled the expectations his early attainments had excited, both by his rapid progress in every branch of study, and by a display of talent out of the class-room, which still more contributed to make him the pride of the university and the idol of his fellow-students. Unhappily, the remainder of his history is too soon told. When he had been about three years at college, he was appointed, on the recommendation of the professors, assistant in the grammar-school of Dunkeld; and in two or three years after he was elected head master. It does not appear how long he held this situation; but he was in the midst of his literary pursuits, and giving every promise of a distinguished career, when he was suddenly cut off by fever, in 1757, in the thirtieth year of his age. At this time, none of his productions had been given to the world, except some humorous pieces in verse, which had

66

appeared in the Scots Magazine, when he was at college. Since his death, an allegory, which he left in manuscript, entitled "The Immortality of Authors," has been frequently printed. The work, however, which had principally engaged the last years of his short life, was An Inquiry into the Origin of the Nation and Language of the Ancient Scots, with Conjectures about the Primitive State of the Celtic and other European Nations." This, although unfinished, is said to have displayed extraordinary ingenuity and learning. It has never, we believe, been printed; although, if the manuscript be still in existence, its publication might not be unacceptable to the students of history and philology, with whom the subject to which it relates has long been one of high interest. Stone's views, in so far as they are stated, seem to have been in conformity with those supported by the most learned and enlightened of later inquirers.

CHAPTER VII.

PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNITED WITH THAT OF BUSINESS: CICERO ; SIR WILLIAM JONES; JULIUS CÆSAR; FREDERICK THE GREAT; SULLY; DE THOU; BACON; CLARENDON; SELDEN; HALE; GROTIUS.

In general, even with those who have had the ordinary advantage of education in their earlier years, only a very limited portion of time can be given to the pursuit of knowledge in after life. Yet it is wonderful how much has been sometimes done in this way by those whose leisure has been the scantiest. The cultivation of science and literature has

[graphic][merged small]

often been united with the most active and successful pursuit of business, and with the duties of the most laborious professions. It has been said of CICERO, that "no man whose life had been wholly spent in study,

ever left more numerous or more valuable fruits of his learning in every branch of science and the polite arts-in oratory, poetry, philosophy, law, history, criticism, politics, ethics; in each of which he equalled the greatest masters of his time; in some of them excelled all men of all times. His remaining works, as voluminous as they appear, are but a small part of what he really published. His industry was incredible, beyond the example or even conception of our days: this was the secret by which he performed such wonders, and reconciled perpetual study with perpetual affairs. He suffered no part of his leisure to be idle, or the least interval of it to be lost." These are the words of his learned and eloquent biographer, Dr. Middleton. He says himself in one of his orations:- "What others give to their own affairs, to the public shows and other entertainments, to festivity, to amusement, nay, even to mental and bodily rest, I give to study and philosophy." He tells us, too, in his Letters, that on days of business, when he had anything particular to compose, he had no other time for meditating but when he was taking a few turns in his walks, where he used to dictate his thoughts to his amanuenses, or scribes, who attended him. His Letters afford us, indeed, in every way, the most remarkable evidence of the active habits of his life. Those that have come down to us are all written after he was forty years old; and, although many of course are lost, they amount in number to about a thousand. "We find many of them," says Middleton, "dated before daylight; some from the senate; others from his meals, and the crowd of his morning levee." "For me," he himself exclaims, addressing one of his friends, “ne otium quidem unquam otiosum-even my every moment of leisure has its occupation."

In modern times the celebrated SIR WILLIAM JONES afforded the world, in this respect, the example of almost another Cicero. We have already mentioned his wonderful attainments in languages. All his philosophical and literary studies were carried on among the duties of a toilsome profession, which he was, nevertheless, so far from neglecting, that his attention to all its demands upon his time and faculties constitutes one of the most remarkable of his claims to our admiration. But he was from his boyhood a miracle of industry, and showed, even in his earliest years, how intensely his soul glowed with the love of knowledge. He used to relate that, when he was only three or four years of age, if he applied to his mother, a woman of uncommon intelligence and acquirements, for information upon any subject, her constant answer to him was, "Read, and you will know." He thus acquired a passion for books, which only grew in strength with increasing years. Even at school his voluntary exertions vied in amount with his prescribed tasks; and Dr. Thackeray, one of his masters, was wont to say of him, that he was a boy of so active a mind, that if he were left naked and friendless on Salisbury Plain, he would, nevertheless, find the road to fame and

« PreviousContinue »