It would be easy, from literary and political history, from the lives of all who have excelled in any way, to accumulate illustrations of the power of industry. Among those who have achieved what the world calls greatness, the list might be extended from Julius Cæsar to Napoleon, whose feats of labor are among the marvels of history. Nor should we forget Alfred, the father of English civilization, whose better fame testifies also to the wise employment of time. Our own country, this very town, furnishes a renowned example in Benjamin Franklin. Here I pronounce a name which has its own familiar echoes. His early studies, when a printer's boy,—his singular experience of life in its extremes,—sounding in childhood all the humilities, as in maturer years he reached all that was exalted in place,—the truant boy become a teacher to the nations, and pouring light upon the highest schools of science and philosophy, touching the throne with hands once blackened by types and ink,—all this must be present to you. His first and constant talisman was industry. The autobiography in which he has recorded his progress in knowledge is a remarkable composition, where the style flows like a brook of transparent water, without a ripple on its smooth surface. Perhaps no single book has had greater influence in quickening labor and the rigid economy of time, overcoming all obstacles, among those whose early life has been chilled by penury or darkened by neglect. But we must qualify our praise. It cannot fail to be regretted that the lessons taught by Franklin are so little spiritual in their character,—that they are so material, so mundane, so full of pounds, shillings, and pence. "The Almighty Dollar," now ruling here with sovereign sway and masterdom, was placed on the throne by Poor Richard. When shall it be dethroned? When shall the thoughts, the aspirations, the politics of the land be lifted from the mere greed of gain, with an appetite that grows by what it feeds on, into the serene region of inflexible justice and universal benevolence? Could we imagine the thrift, the worldly wisdom, the practical sense, the inventive genius of Franklin, softened, exalted, illumined, inspired by the imagination, the grace, the sensibility, the heavenly spirit of Channing, we should behold a character under whose influence our country would advance at once in all spiritual as well as material prosperity,—where money should not be the "main chance," but truth, justice, righteousness, drawing in their train all the goods of earth, and reflecting all the blessings of heaven. Then would time be the best ally of man, and no day would pass without some good thing done.
Among the contemporaries of Franklin in England, unlike in the patrician circumstances of his birth, education, and life, most unlike in his topics of thought and study, but resembling him in the diligence and constancy of labor marking his career, was Edward Gibbon, author of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He also has left behind an autobiography,—in style and tone how unlike the simple narrative of Franklin!—where in living colors are depicted the labors and delights of a scholar's life. This book has always seemed to me, more than any other in the English language, calculated to enkindle the love of learning, and to train the student for its pursuit. Here he will find an example and guide in the various fields of scholarship, who will challenge his admiration in proportion as he shares the same generous aspiration. The autobiographies of Gibbon and Franklin are complements of each other. They teach the same lesson of labor and study in different spheres of life and to different classes of minds. Both have rare excellence as compositions, and constitute important contributions to that literature which illustrates the employment of time.
There is another character, of our own age, whose example is, perhaps, more direct and practical, especially as described by himself: I mean William Cobbett. To appreciate this example, you must know something of his long life, from early and inauspicious youth to venerable years, filled always with labors various, incessant, and Herculean, under which his elastic nature seemed to rise with renewed strength. He died in 1835, supposed to be seventy-three years of age, although the exact date of his birth was never known, and such was the position he had acquired that he was characterized at that time, even by hostile pens, as one of the most remarkable men whom England, fertile in intellectual excellence, ever produced. The lapse of little more than ten years has begun to obscure his memory. It will be for posterity to determine whether he has connected his name with those great causes of human improvement which send their influence to future ages, and are destined to be the only consideration on which fame hereafter will be awarded or preserved. But the memory of his labors, and the voice of encouragement to the poor and lowly which sounds throughout his writings, must always be refreshing to those whose hopes of future usefulness are clouded by discouragement and poverty. There can be none so humble as not to derive succor from his example. He was conscious even to vanity of his own large powers, and at the close of his long career surveyed his succession of labors—the hundred volumes from his sleepless pen, and the wide influence they had exercised—with the self-gratulation of the miser in counting his stores of gold and silver.
The son of a poor farmer, at the age of twenty he ran away from the paternal acres, and became for a short time copying-clerk to a lawyer, but, tiring soon of these duties, he enlisted in the army and found himself private in a regiment at Chatham, which was ordered to America. His merit soon raised him to the rank of corporal, and then of sergeant-major. At this time he saw his future wife and the mother of his children. The circumstances of this meeting, as described by himself in his own peculiar style, belong to this picture, while they illustrate the subject. "When I first saw my wife," he writes, "she was thirteen years old, and I was within a month of twenty-one. She was the daughter of a sergeant-major of artillery, and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which I have said so much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and of course the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk, and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow, scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me!' said I, when we had got out of her hearing."[126] To her he plighted faith. After eight years of service in the army, and his return to England, he obtained his discharge and married her.
In 1792 Cobbett came to the United States, living in Philadelphia, where he was bookseller, publisher, author, and libeller by profession. As "Peter Porcupine" he is well known. He shot his sharp and malicious quills at the most estimable characters,—Franklin, Jefferson, Gallatin, Priestley, and even the sacred name of Washington. A heavy judgment for libel hanging suspended over him, he fled from America, and from the justice he had aroused, to commence in England a fresh career of unquestioned talents, unaccountable inconsistency, and inexhaustible malignity.
On his arrival in England Cobbett attached himself warmly to the interests of Mr. Pitt, in whose behalf he wielded for a while his untiring pen. At the same time he commenced business as bookseller, in which he soon failed. In politics he showed himself more Tory than the most Tory. Mr. Windham, in the House of Commons, made the remarkable declaration, that "he merited a statue of gold."[127] His Letters on the Treaty of Amiens produced a sensation throughout Europe.[128] The celebrated Swiss historian, Von Müller, pronounced them more eloquent than anything since Demosthenes. How transitory is fame! These Letters, once so much admired, which, with profane force, helped to burst open the Temple of Janus, happily closed by peace, are now forgotten. I do not know that they are to be found in any library in this part of the country.
It was at this period that he commenced his "Weekly Political Register," which for more than thirty years was the vehicle of his opinions and feelings. But the pungent Toryism with which he began his career was changed into a more pungent Liberalism; from the oil of Conservatism he passed to the vinegar of Dissent. He saw all things in a new light, and with unsparing criticism pursued the men he had recently extolled. His Ishmael pen was turned against every man. He wrote with the hardihood of a pirate and the ardor of a patriot. At length he was convicted of libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of a thousand pounds and to be imprisoned for two years. This severe incarceration he never forgave or forgot. With thoughts of vengeance he emerged from his prison to unaccustomed popularity. His "Register," into which, as into a seething caldron, he weekly poured the venom of his pen, reached the unprecedented circulation of one hundred thousand, an audience greater than was ever before addressed by saint or sinner. The soul swells in the contemplation of the good that might have been wrought by a spirit elevated to the high purpose, having access to so many human hearts. His pen waxing in inveteracy, and himself becoming daily more obnoxious to the Government, in 1817, by timely flight, he withdrew from the threatening storm, and sought shelter in the United States, where he lingered, principally on Long Island, till 1819, when he wandered back to England, there to renew his strifes and ruffle again the waters of political controversy. As late as 1831, he was, for the eighth time in his life, brought into court on a charge of libel. The veteran libeller, then seventy years of age, defended himself in a speech which occupied six hours. The jury did not agree,—six being for conviction and six for acquittal.
At the general election for the Reform Parliament in 1832, Cobbett was chosen member for the borough of Oldham, which seat he held until June 18, 1835, when his long, active, and disturbed career was closed by death, leaving her whom he had loved at the wash-tub, amid the snows of New Brunswick, his honored widow.
His character was unique. He was the most emphatic of writers, perhaps the most voluminous. He was foremost in the crew of haters; he was the paragon of turncoats. Sentiments uttered at one period were denied at another. At one time he wrote of Paine as follows: "He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth or to be dried in the air is of very little consequence. Whenever or wherever he breathes his last, he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes."[129] Later in life, on his second visit to America, he exhumed the bones of the man he had thus reviled, and bore them in idolatrous custody to the land of his birth.
Besides his multitudinous political writings, which in number remind us of the cloud of "locusts warping on the eastern wind," he produced several works of great and deserved popularity,—a Grammar of the French Language, written while he rocked the cradle of his first child,—a Grammar of the English Language,—a little volume, "Advice to Young Men,"—and a series of sketches entitled "Rural Rides," in which he gave unmixed pleasure to friend and foe.