Sir Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning jenny, though a man of great personal strength, suffered from wretched health.

James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was continually ailing until he approached old age. He had a prodigious memory and as an inventive genius he has never been surpassed.

Ill health and failing eyesight forced Joseph Niepce to retire from the army at the age of twenty-eight. It was during this opportune leisure that the idea of obtaining sun-pictures first suggested itself to him. In 1826 he learnt that Daguerre was working on the same lines and three years later they cooperated in order to perfect what was, however, Niepce’s discovery.

XV
HISTORIANS AND MEN OF LETTERS

Aristides, surnamed Theodosius, was a Greek rhetorician and sophist. He was so celebrated that in many places statues were erected during his lifetime to commemorate his talents. He suffered for many years from a mysterious disease, which was, however, a positive benefit to his studies as they were prescribed as part of his cure.

Pliny, the Younger, was far from robust. He suffered from weakness of the eyes, throat and chest. He himself speaks of his delicate frame.

It has been said of Erasmus that he was the first man of letters since the fall of the Roman Empire. He occupied during his lifetime the position of supreme pontiff to an elect public which the ardors of the Renaissance had called into being. His admirers were to be found in every country and among all ranks. Presents were continually sent to him by great and small. We hear of a donation of two hundred florins from Pope Clement XII and of a contribution of comfits and sweetmeats from the nuns of Cologne. From England in particular, he obtained constant supplies of money. “I receive daily,” he writes, “letters from the most remote parts, from kings and princes, prelates and men of learning, and even from persons of whose existence I have never heard.”

His position as regards the Reformation has been for centuries a subject of passionate contention. It was said of him, “Erasmus laid an egg, and Luther hatched it.” This, however, is only partly true. As a matter of fact, Erasmus had but one passion, the passion for learning. When he found that Luther’s revolt aroused a new fanaticism—that of evangelism, he recoiled from the violence of the new preachers. “Is it for this,” he exclaimed, “that we have shaken off bishops and popes that we may come under the yoke of such madmen as Otto and Farel?”

Erasmus’ works are too numerous to enumerate separately. His greatest contribution is undoubtedly his Greek Testament.

Erasmus spent the greater part of his life in agony. For twenty years he was unable to sit down either to read, write or even to take his meals. He could eat but little and only of the most delicate meats. He could neither eat nor bear the smell of fish. “My heart,” he said, “is Catholic, but my stomach is Lutheran.” Nevertheless, his various biographers exclaim at the amount of work he accomplished. One of them writes, “Through the winter of 1514–1515 Erasmus worked with the strength of ten. In Venice ... he did the work of two men.”