Stock Exchange, he accumulated an immense property. He was author of many works on finance; and, in 1819 was elected to Parliament. Died in 1823. He had what he called his own three golden rules, the observance of which he used to press on his private friends. These were,

"Never to refuse an option when you can get it." "Cut short your losses."

"Let your profits run on.'

By cutting short one's losses, Mr. Ricardo meant that, when a member had made a purchase of stock, and prices were falling, he ought to re-sell immediately. And by letting one's profits run on, he meant that, when a member possessed stock, and the prices were rising, he ought not to sell until prices had reached their highest and were beginning again to fall. These are indeed golden rules, and may be applied with advantage to innumerable transactions other than those connected with the Stock Exchange.

STEPHEN GIRARD was born on the 24th day of May, 1750, within the environs of Bordeaux, in France. He sailed to the West Indies as a cabin boy, when only twelve years of age; and after residing there some time, removed to the United States. He followed the sea as mate, captain, and part owner of a vessel for a while, and accumulated some money. entered into partnership with Isaac Hazlehurst, of Philadelphia, and purchased two vessels to commence the St. Domingo trade; but they were captured, and that dissolved the firm.

He

During the war, he was at Mount Holly, in the business of bottling claret and cider. In 1779 he returned to Philadelphia, and entered upon the New Orleans and St. Domingo trade. He then tried a partnership with his brother, which, in the course of three or four years, exploded, as usual, in a rupture. Shortly after this, his prospects were materially aided by the acquisition of £10,000, deposited in one of his vessels during the innsurrection at St. Domingo, and for which the owners never called. In 1791 he commenced ship-building, and from that time until his death was engaged in various mercantile speculations, and in banking. In 1811 he had £200,000 in the hands of the **** who were then in imminent danger of failure. Had they failed, it is very probable that Girard College would never have been built. The effect on his peculiar constitution of mind would most likely have proved fatal. He died in 1832, estimated to be worth £2,500,000.

He never gave an opinion on the causes of his success, that I am aware of. When requested to furnish incidents for his life, he refused, replying, "My actions must make my life." We can probably glean his opinion from the following two or three little " actions."

A gentleman from Europe purchased a bill of exchange on Girard, to defray the expenses of a tour to this country. It was duly honoured on presentation, but in the course of their transactions it so happened, that one cent (a half-penny) remained to be refunded on the part of the European; and, on the eve of his departure from this country, Girard dunned him for it. The gentleman apologized, and tendered him a six and a quarter cent piece, requesting the difference. Mr. Girard tendered him in change five cents, which the gentleman declined to accept, alleging he was entitled to an additional quarter of a cent. In reply, Girard admitted the fact, but informed him that it was not in his power to comply, as the government had neglected to provide the fractional coin in question, and returned the

gentleman the six cent piece, reminding him, however, that he must still consider him his debtor for the balance.

"We saw that remarkable man (Girard), after his head was white with the frost of nearly fourscore years, and could not help noticing, even then, the minute attention which he gave to the most trivial thing that could affect his fortune. Take that lot of fowls away; the roosters are too many; they would keep the hens poor,' said the old merchant to a farmer, who had brought them for one of Girard's ships-'take them away-I will not buy them.'"

"Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves," was evidently his opinion.

A merchant of Boston, of fifty years' standing, who is represented to have amassed a fortune, states some incidents in his early life which impressed upon his mind the utility of two maxims, which he ever afterwards adopted as guides of conduct. Thence," he says, "I have had these Mentors before me,

"I am satisfied they have served me well threescore years."

REFLECTIONS ON THE EARLY CLOSING MOVEMENT.

In concluding a chapter of this kind, so varied with information to the Shopkeeper, it would be unpardonable not to say something regarding one of the chief obligations, both physically and morally speaking, which attaches to the pursuits of any retail occupation. The Shopkeeper has not only his own health and happiness to regard, but the health and happiness of all those whom he employs. He is therefore the repository of much responsibility, and as justice to himself ought to be regulated with an eye to the performance of justice to others, his first care ought to be to have a specific hour for opening and closing his establishment, so that those whom he employs may know at what hour they are to commence their daily labour, and at what hour this is to cease. Lord John Russell says:

"It is one of the greatest evils of this country, that toil has become so excessive, that all considerations of health-all attention to intellectual improvement and even all that time which ought to be devoted to spiritual worship, is lost in that excess of labour which the people of this country are compelled to undergo. Why is it that one generation after another is to pass away consumed in this hopeless toil, absorbed in such pursuits, and without the means of improvement?"

To whatever causes the amount of evil recorded by the language of this statesman is attributable, it is not our business here to inquire; but certain it is, that it is not exaggerated beyond the reality of its existence. In many instances, in the metropolis, young men are doomed to a life of nothing less than unmitigated slavery. Certainly the lash is not used, for low enough as the spirit of the toiling classes of England has sunk, it has not yet degenerated so far as to take in unretaliating submission the stripes of an employer; but it must bear with a system of grinding oppression that works with unceasing silent severity, and wears away the finest as well as the coarsest spirit, as the constant falling of water will fret away the rudest rock or the hardest marble.

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Young men," says the Prize Essay of the Metropolitan Drapers' Associ ation, "from 16 years of age to 25 or 30, are engaged in drapers' shops daily about fifteen hours, of which fourteen hours and a half are actually employed in business. During this time they are not permitted to sit down or to look into a book, but are standing or moving about from morning to night, generally in an atmosphere exhausted by respiration, and in rooms ill ventilated. When night arrives, gas-lights and closed doors complete the deterioration of the air, till at length it becomes almost pestiferous. Meanwhile their meals must be swallowed hastily, like the mouthful of water which impatient travellers afford to a smoking post-horse in the middle of a long stage. No exercise is allowed in the open sunshine, their only relaxation being to take a walk in the streets about ten o'clock at night-when the sober and virtuous part of the community have retired to their dwelling -or to smoke and drink away the last hour of their evening at a tavern, or to form pleasure parties for the Sabbath. From the company of their friends, from all cultivated and virtuous society, they are, by their circumstances, excluded; all scientific institutions are closed against them, by the lateness of their hours; they are too tired to read after their work; and when they throw themselves upon their beds, it is, too often, to breathe, in the close bed-rooms, where numbers are packed together, an air more pestilential than that which poisoned them during the day.

"The shops of druggists and grocers are kept open as late as those of drapers; while the slavery under which milliners and dressmakers are pining, is more relentless and more fatal still. Day and night, 'in the season,' with scarcely any relaxation or repose, as long as the dim eye can see the stitches, and the trembling hand direct the needle, they must work on, to gratify the impatience of fashionable customers, or starve. And all these classes are found in other cities as well as in London."

Well may Lord Russell say that the late hour or the long-hour system is one of the greatest evils of this country which requires a thorough reform in all that appertains to the causes, to which such an excess of labour as the above passage recounts, is to be ascribed.

CHAPTER VI.

1

REFLECTIONS ON SELF-MADE MEN-SEBASTIAN ERARD-ROBERT FULTON-THE HUBERS-JOHN KEATS-SIR JOHN LESLIE-BERNARD PALISSY-PESTALOZZI -WILLIAM SHAKSPERE, ETC. ETC.

SELF-MADE MEN.

THE history of all men whose lives have been productive of good or evil, deserves the attention of every student of human nature, as from its contemplation, he may learn what to follow and what to shun. When good, however, has been performed by an individual so situated, as to be under the influence of unfavourable circumstances, the impression which the perusal of such a life necessarily excites, must be of a highly virtuous kind, and as an appropriate close to the matter which more specifically than that which is to follow, belongs to the guidance of the Shopkeeper, we present a few sketches of men who have risen from humble life to eminence, in the various paths which their geniuses led them to pursue :

SEBASTIAN ERARD.

AMONG the distinguished class enrolled in the category of Self-Made Men, may be mentioned Sebastian Erard, who was born at Strasburg in 1752, and by whom the pianoforte, of a new and improved description, was introduced into France, and afterwards extensively circulated throughout England.*

Almost all families must feel interested in the history of this instrument, which has become an indispensable requisite to domestic enjoyment, and has rendered the cultivation of musical talent an essential part of the education of youth.

This instrument is stated, by some persons, to have been originally invented in Saxony by Silberman; or, according to others, by Bartolommeo Cristofali, a harpsichord maker in the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Erard, who was the son of an upholsterer, was originally destined to the

profession of an architect; but possessing strong inventive powers, and a partiality to mechanical pursuits, he apprenticed himself at the age of sixteen to a musical instrument maker at Paris, where his talents and skill soon became remarked. Another manufacturer gave him a commission to construct an instrument of a similar form, but on different principles to the harpischord then in ordinary use, and stipulated that his own name should appear as the maker.

*The first pianoforte that was brought into England was made by Father Wood, an English monk at Rome, for Mr. Crisp; and was afterwards purchased by Mr. Greville for one hundred guineas, being then unique in this country. For some time the instrument excited but little public attention, for no effort was made to introduce it, until Plenius, the maker of the lyrichord, constructed one in imitation of Father Wood's.

When finished, it was soon sold; and the purchaser, delighted with his acquisition, asked various questions respecting the mechanism. The dealer, unable to give any explanations on the subject, was obliged to have recourse to Erard, and acknowledge him as the inventor. The young man, who united to his other qualifications the most assiduous perseverance, speedily acquired celebrity, and obtained the particular patronage of the Duchess de Villeroi-a lady attached to the court of Louis the Sixteenth-and it was in her house that Erard constructed his first piano, which was pronounced by the best judges of music in Paris to be far superior to the German. Success crowned all his efforts; and in conjunction with his brother, Jean Baptiste Erard, he established a manufactory in Paris, and another in London. A large number of instruments were forwarded to Germany and the Netherlands; and at Hamburg, in the year 1799, upwards of two hundred were sold.

Among other improvements effected by Erard, was that of adapting pieces of music to voices of moderate power; and he entertained the idea of rendering the key of the piano moveable in either direction to the extent of half a note, a whole note, or a note and a half. This ingenious contrivance was first tried upon a piano made for the unfortunate Queen Marie Antoinette. It was also on this instrument that he made the first trial of the orgue expressif, in which, by the prolonged pressure of a finger, the sound was diminished or increased at will, like the inflections of the voice.

The invention of the harp with two pedals is also claimed by Erard, who not only gave more elegance of appearance to this instrument, but added to its richness of tone, by means of pedals and levers skilfully combined to correspond to the same sounds of the octave on different strings.

The last work of Erard was his improved grand piano, which added to his scientific reputation. He had obtained the gold medal at every exhibition of the products of French industry, and was the first musical instrument maker admitted into the ranks of the Legion of Honour.

By his liberality and kindness of disposition, Erard had endeared himself to the numerous workpeople he had employed; and an affecting tribute was paid by them to his memory after his decease, which occurred in 1831. By their united subscription, a bust of the excellent man who had administered to their comfort and happiness for so many years, was obtained, and inaugurated with becoming ceremonies. Such tributes from humble but grateful hearts speak more for the virtues of the departed than all the honours and distinctions conferred by royalty.

ROBERT FULTON

This celebrated man, to whom America is indebted for the first establishment of steam navigation on her seas and rivers, was born in 1765, at Little Britain, Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. His origin was obscure, his parents being Irish refugees of a humble class, who had sought a home in the forest wilds of the western world. When he had attained his fifth year his father died, leaving a widow and five children, with but scanty means of support, and wholly insufficient for the purposes of education. Robert, however, contrived, with the aid of some instruction in the school of his native town, and his own persevering efforts, to make considerable mental progress, and he laid the foundation of the sound practical knowledge which was afterwards