Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers

by W. E. Winks

Gifford was on board this vessel for about twelve months, a time of untold suffering and degradation. In fact, his position was so deplorable that some women from Ashburton, who went down to Brixham to buy fish, shocked to see the boy running about the beach in ragged clothes, spoke so plainly on their return home about the hardship of his lot, that his godfather was compelled for very shame to send for him home again. He was once more put to school, and now made such rapid strides in arithmetic that on an emergency he was invited to assist the school-master. He goes on in his own narrative to say that these encouragements led him to entertain the idea that he might be able to get his own living by teaching, and as his first master “was now grown old and infirm, it seemed unlikely that he should hold out above three or four years, and I fondly flattered myself,“ he adds, ”that notwithstanding my youth I might possibly be appointed to succeed him.” It is worth while to notice that he was but a boy in his teens when he first began to feel the noble spirit of ambition stir within him, and to cherish the laudable desire to rely upon his own efforts for his maintenance. It was this lofty and self-reliant spirit which carried him past all his difficulties; and, truth to tell, no one has ever done anything remarkable in the world without it. The youth who is altogether destitute of ambition, and is ever on the look-out for the help of friends, lacks the first elements of success in life. But Gifford’s bravery and persistence of mind had to be severely tested before meeting with their due reward.

Proceeding with his pathetic story, he says: “I was about fifteen years of age when I built these castles in the air. A storm, however, was collecting, which unexpectedly burst upon me and swept them all away. On mentioning my plan to my guardian, he treated it with the utmost contempt, and told me he had been negotiating with his cousin, a shoemaker of some respectability, who had liberally consented to take me, without fee, as an apprentice. I was so shocked at this intelligence that I did not venture to remonstrate, but went in sullenness and silence to my new master, to whom I was bound till I should attain the age of twenty-one. At this period I had read nothing but a romance called ‘Parismus,’ a few loose magazines—the Bible, indeed, I was well acquainted with; these, with the ‘Imitation of Thomas à Kempis,’ which I used to read to my mother on her death-bed, constituted the whole of my literary acquisitions.”

The account which follows has few things to equal it in the records of struggling genius. It will serve to show how abject and apparently hopeless was his condition as a student at this time of his life, and will show also, what it may be hoped no youth who reads these pages will fail to learn, how marvellous is the power of energy and perseverance to triumph over apparently insuperable obstacles.

“I possessed,” Gifford writes, “at this time but one book in-the world; it was a treatise on algebra given to me by a young woman who had found it in a lodging-house. I considered it a treasure; but it was a treasure locked up, for it supposed the reader to be acquainted with simple equations, and I knew nothing of the matter.” He then speaks of meeting with a book called Fenning’s “Introduction” belonging to his master’s son, who, by the way, was discovered afterward to have been all through this time a secret rival for the head-mastership. This “Introduction” gave Gifford just the information required to carry him forward into the study of algebra. But he was compelled to study it by stealth, lest it should be taken from him, and he goes on to say: “I sat up for the greater part of several nights successively and completely mastered it. I could now enter upon my own, and that carried me pretty far into the science. This was not done without difficulty. I had not a farthing on earth, nor a friend to give me one; pen, ink, and paper, therefore, were for the most part as completely out of my reach as a crown and sceptre. There was, indeed, a resource, but the utmost caution and secrecy were necessary in applying to it. I beat out pieces of leather as smooth as possible and wrought my problems on them with a blunted awl; for the rest my memory was tenacious, and I could multiply and divide by it to a great extent.”

Strange to say, although he displayed so much ability and zeal in the study of mathematics, he was not destined to achieve distinction in that department of study. A very trifling incident led to the exercise of new gifts, and turned the tide of his evil fortune. A shopmate had made a few verses on the blunder of a painter in the village who was engaged to paint a lion for a sign-board, and had produced a dog instead. Gifford thought he could beat the verses of his shopmate, and accordingly tried his hand at rhyme. His associates all agreed in pronouncing young Gifford’s verses the better of the two. This encouraged him to try again, and in the course of a short time he had composed about a dozen pieces. He says: “They were talked of in my little circle, and I was sometimes invited to repeat them out of it. I never committed a line to paper—first, because I had no paper; and, second, because I was afraid, for my master had already threatened me for inadvertently hitching the name of one of his customers into a rhyme.” The rest of this account of his poetical adventures would be amusing if it were not for the pathos which underlies it, and the fact that it is the prelude to one of the most painful incidents in the sad story of Gifford’s early life. Referring to these recitals of his poetical pieces he says: “These repetitions were always attended by applause, and sometimes by favors more substantial; little collections were now and then made, and I have received sixpence in an evening(!). To one who had long lived in the absolute want of money such a resource seemed a Peruvian mine. I furnished myself by degrees with paper, etc., and, what was of more importance, with books of geometry and of the higher branches of algebra, which I cautiously concealed. Poetry even at this time was no amusement of mine. I only had recourse to it when I wanted money for my mathematical pursuits. But the clouds were gathering fast. My master’s anger was raised to a terrible pitch by my indifference to his concerns, and still more by my presumptuous attempts at versification. I was required to give up my papers, and when I refused, was searched, my little hoard of books discovered and removed, and all future repetitions prohibited in the strictest manner. This was a severe stroke, I felt it most sensibly, and it was followed by another, severer still, a stroke which crushed the hopes I had so long and fondly cherished, and resigned me at once to despair. Mr. Hugh, Smerdon, the master of the school on whose succession I had calculated, died and was succeeded by a person not much older than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situation.”

Poor Gifford! hard, indeed, was thy lot; an orphan without friends, helpers, or sympathizers, having no proper leisure or means for study or recreation, and even the little pleasure and profit wrung from a few ciphering books and doggerel verses snatched away by cruel hands; trodden down like a worm in the mire, and every particle of talent and ambition threatened with extinction! For six long years this misery lasted in one form or another, while he strove to hope on against hope, and found himself compelled to labor at a trade which he declares he hated from the first with a perfect hatred, and never, consequently, made any progress in. What could be more miserable and disheartening? But to the industrious and patient, as “to the upright, there ariseth light in the darkness.” No darker hour occurred in all Gifford’s miserable boyhood and youth than that which is described in the sentences just quoted. And now the light is about to appear. A friend comes upon the scene, to whose generous interference the unhappy cobbler owed the educational advantages he afterward enjoyed. His obligations to this benefactor were always most readily and warmly expressed; for whatever faults Gifford might have, he was never charged with the meanness of forgetting his lowly origin, and the generous friend by whom he had been rescued from a wretched condition and introduced to a happier state of life. He speaks of his benefactor as bearing “a name never to be pronounced by him without veneration.” This gentleman, Mr. Cooksley, was a surgeon in the neighborhood. He had accidentally heard of the young cobbler’s poetry, and sought an interview with him. Gifford went down to the surgeon’s house, and, encouraged by the kindness he received, told the story of his attempts at self-culture, and of the hardships he had undergone. Deeply moved by the touching story, and convinced of the young man’s natural abilities and desert of encouragement, Mr. Cooksley resolved, there and then, on liberating the youth from the thraldom of his situation. The first thing was to free him from the bonds of his apprenticeship, and the next to give him the advantages of regular instruction. He was then twenty years of age, and he says, “My handwriting was bad, and my language very incorrect.” Accordingly, a subscription was started to furnish funds for this twofold purpose. It read as follows: “A subscription for purchasing the remainder of the time of William Gifford, and for enabling him to improve himself in writing and English grammar.” The kindness of Cooksley and a few other friends, whose sympathies were enlisted by his generous zeal for the youth, enabled him to receive two years’ instruction from a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Smerdon, who resided in the locality. Such was the progress made by Gifford, that at the end of that time his instructor pronounced him quite prepared for the university. Again Mr. Cooksley proved a friend. By his efforts and promises of support Gifford was entered at Exeter College, Oxford. Unfortunately his noble patron died before Gifford could take his degree. But he was not suffered to leave Oxford on account of Mr. Cooksley’s death. He found a second patron in Lord Grosvenor, by whose aid the grateful undergraduate was enabled to finish his term. The culture which he received in the university must have been very thorough and complete, evincing itself in refinement of manner as well as scholarship of no ordinary degree, for in the course of a few years after leaving Ashburton, we learn that the late shoemaker was taken into the family of Lord Grosvenor as private tutor and travelling companion to his son Lord Belgrave. The circumstance which led to Lord Grosvenor’s patronage of Gifford was remarkable, and deserves to be recorded as an illustration of the fact that an accident may lead to the most important events in our history. But we must premise, first of all, as a safeguard against a false inference or false hopes, that such accidents are sure to come in the way of industrious, clever and deserving men. If they occur to men of a different stamp they are of no avail. If William Gifford had not been a hard-working student, such a circumstance as the accidental perusal of one of his letters by a person for whom it was not intended could not have helped his fortunes in the least. It appears that he had been in the habit of corresponding with a friend in London on literary matters. His letters to this friend were sent under covers, and in order to save postage were left at Lord Grosvenor’s. One day the address of the literary friend was omitted, and his lordship, supposing the letter to be for himself, opened and read it. The contents excited his admiration, and awakened his curiosity to know who the author could be. He was sent for, and after an interview, in which, for the second time in his life, he told the story of his early struggles to willing and sympathizing ears, he was invited by Lord Grosvenor to come and reside with him.

It is deeply gratifying to record instances of disinterested generosity of this kind, and to read the glowing language in which the thankful young student refers to the kindness of his noble patron. Referring to the invitation to live with Lord Grosvenor, and his promise of honorable maintenance, Gifford says, “These were not words of course, they were more than fulfilled in every point. I did go and reside with him, and I experienced a warm and cordial reception, and a kind and affectionate esteem that has known neither diminution nor interruption, from that hour to this, a period of twenty years.”

In 1794, his “Baviad” was published, in imitation of the satires of Persius, and in the following year the “Mæviad,” after the style of Horace. These names were taken from the third Eclogue of Virgil—

“He may with foxes plough and milk he-goats,

Who praises Bavius or on Mævius dotes.”