did but gripe the ropes between the weight and the fulcrum in his hand, and all was fast; and double the number of men at the capstan could not have prevailed against that impediment to have raised the stone till he let go. We usually went there on Saturdays, which were Sir Christopher Wren's days, who was the surveyor; and we commonly got a snatch of discourse with him; who, like a true philosopher, was always obliging and com-municative, and in every matter we inquired about, gave short but satisfactory answers." To this subject, indeed, Sir Dudley seems to have applied himself, for some time, with a zeal that hardly allowed him to think of any thing else. "We had conversed so much with new houses," says Roger, on concluding a long detail of his brother's architectural investigations, "that we were almost turned rope-dancers, and walked as familiarly upon joists in garrets, having a view through all the floors down to the cellar, as if it had been plain ground." When in the country, they, in like manner, used to occupy themselves in trigonometrical surveys, on which we are told that the country people thought them conjurors, "pretending to survey a ground by views at two stations, without measuring a side or any part, but from one station to another."

All this while, although he had retired from commercial life, he still retained the punctual habits of a man of business, and even gave a considerable part of his time to occupations connected with his former calling. He had several laborious trusts, in particular, to superintend as executor, in the management of which he was as scrupulously exact and pains-taking as ever he had been in keeping his own mercantile books. For these purposes, he had one apartment in his house fitted up as a counting room, where he reckoned with his tradesmen, paid and received money, and kept a servant, or clerk, who was constantly employed, chiefly in copying, while he used another above it, as his brother expresses it, "to wilder in his accounts; and his wife used to wonder how it could be that he had so much to do there." At one time, we were told, when the custom-house books having got into

disorder were brought there for him to arrange, "he wallowed so much in them, and with so much application, that his wife was afraid he would have run mad." "There also,” adds his gossiping but lively and graphic biographer, "he read such books as pleased him; and (though he was a kind of a dunce at school) in his manhood he recovered so much Latin as to make him take pleasure in the best classics; especially in Tully's Philosophics, which I recommended to him."

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We cannot afford, however, to accompany this active merchant through the long catalogue of his employments and amusements; his vinegar-making, and his other "operations and natural experiments ;" his travelling through the country on a grave pad" of his brother's, with his predilection for the "very sure and easy, but slow" pace of that "sage animal;" his "hewing and framing of woodworks ;" his ingenious construction of a pair of bellows, for a smithy, out of a leather skin and a few pieces of elder; and his toils at the anvil, which he "followed so constantly and close," that, when his wife "came to call him to dinner, she found him as black as a tinker,' and "he," says his brother, "coming out sometimes with a red short waistcoat, red cap, and black face, the country people began to talk as if we used some unlawful trades there, clipping at least; and, it might be coining of money-upon which we were forced to call in the blacksmith and some of the neighbors, that it might be known there was neither damage nor danger to the state by our operations." For a full account of all these matters, as well as of the "turning and planning," which formed the more refined afternoon's employment of the two brothers, and for which they "sequestered a low closet," and a description of the "way-wiser," or roadmeasurer, which Roger invented, we must refer the reader to the latter's own faithful and amusing pages.

We must find room, however, for the concluding sentences of the narrative, conveying as they do a forcible lesson to vulgar ambition, and an illustration of how easily happiness may be found, even in the narrowest sphere, and at the humblest employment, if it be but sought for

in a right spirit. "In our laboratories," Roger remarks, "it was not a little strange to see with what earnestness and pains we worked, sweating most immoderately, and scarce allowing ourselves time to eat. At the lighter works in the afternoon, he had sat, perhaps, scraping a stick, or turning a piece of wood, and this for many afternoons together, all the while singing like a cobler, 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, eminent, 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 inquirers 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 countryhouse 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 probable; for 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, 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 thirtyseventh 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 favorite 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 writ