Gregory's), who was an able
writer on topics of the higher mathematics; of another correspondent, a
labouring Whitesmith, who was also well acquainted with the course of
pure mathematics, as taught at Cambridge, Dublin, and the military
colleges; of a Tailor, who was an excellent geometrician, and had
discovered curves which escaped the notice of Newton, and who laboured
industriously and contentedly at his trade until sixty years of age,
when, by the recommendation of his scientific friends, he was appointed
Nautical Examiner at the Trinity House; of a ploughman in Lincolnshire,
who, without aid of men or books, discovered the rotation of the earth,
the principles of spherical astronomy, and invented a planetary system
akin to the Tychonic; of a country Shoemaker, who became distinguished
as one of the ablest metaphysical writers in Britain, and who, at more
than fifty years of age, was removed by the influence of his talents and
their worth, from his native country to London, where he was employed to
edit some useful publications devoted to the diffusion of knowledge and
the best interests of mankind.
Students of Art have had to practise self-denial in many ways. Quentin
Matsys, having fallen in love with a painter's daughter, and determined
to win her. Though but a blacksmith and a farrier, he studied art so
diligently, and acquired so much distinction, that his mistress
afterwards accepted the painter whom she had before rejected as the
blacksmith.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122