There were several blind poets, of whom Milton is, of course, the most famous; he became totally blind in May, 1652, being then forty-one years of age. A large number of his works, "Paradise Lost" among others, were written after his misfortune. He lived in darkness for twenty-two years, dying November 8, 1674.
Homer was known as "the blind bard of Chio's rocky isle," but he did not become blind until late in life—if indeed he was a real person at all.
Another blind poet of note was Luigi Grotto, an Italian, known as "Il Cieco d'Adria." He lived from 1541 to 1585.
Giovanni Gonelli (1610-1664) was a noted Tuscan sculptor, and much of his work may be seen to-day. Though totally blind, he made admirable likenesses, and his portrait bust of Pope Urban VIII is very celebrated.
In more modern times we have the late Henry Fawcett, of Salisbury, England. Born in 1833, he was graduated from Cambridge in 1856. In 1858 he became totally blind, through an accident while hunting. This terrible misfortune at the outset of a promising career would have been enough to daunt most men, but in spite of it Fawcett soon became an authority on economic and political subjects, and in 1863 he was made a professor of political economy at the University of Cambridge. He was elected to the British House of Commons, and in 1880 he entered the cabinet as postmaster-general of England, in which position he proved himself an active and efficient minister. He died in 1884.
Another notable modern example is the great yacht designer, John B. Herreshoff. Although he became blind at fifteen, he has built up and managed the successful business that bears his name—the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, builders of several defenders of the America Cup. In spite of his blindness, he is perfectly at home in his shops or on board ship.
THE OWNERS OF THE SOIL.
By EDWARD EVERETT.
