106 Great Toilers. [CHAP. IV. he spoke of him as "of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts." While in the midst of his laborious though self-imposed duties, Hampden, on one occasion, wrote to his mother: "My lyfe is nothing but toyle, and hath been for many yeares, nowe to the Commonwealth, nowe to the Kinge. Not so much tyme left as to doe my dutye to my deare parents, nor to sende to them." Indeed, all the statesmen of the Commonwealth were great toilers; and Clarendon himself, whether in office or out of it, was a man of indefatigable application and industry. The same energetic vitality, as displayed in the power of working, has distinguished all the eminent men in our own as well as in past times. During the Anti-Corn Law movement, Cobden, writing to a friend, described himself as "working like a horse, with not a moment to spare." Lord Brougham was a remarkable instance of the indefatigably active and laborious man; and it might be said of Lord Palmerston, that he worked harder for success in his extreme old age than he had ever done in the prime of his manhood-preserving his working faculty, his good-humour and bonhommie, unimpaired to the end.1 He himself was accustomed to say, that being in office, and consequently full of work, was good for his health. It rescued him from ennui. Helvetius even held, that it is man's sense of ennui that is 1 A friend of Lord Palmerston mediate reply was, has communicated to us the follow-nine!" ing anecdote. Asking him one day when he considered a man to be in the prime of life, his im "Seventy "But," he added, with a twinkle in his eye, "as I have just entered my eightieth year, perhaps I am myself a little past it." CHAP. IV.] Genius and Business. 107 the chief cause of his superiority over the brute,—that it is the necessity which he feels for escaping from its intolerable suffering that forces him to employ himself actively, and is hence the great stimulus to human progress. Indeed, this living principle of constant work, of abundant occupation, of practical contact with men in the affairs of life, has in all times been the best ripener of the energetic vitality of strong natures. Business habits, cultivated and disciplined, are found alike useful in every pursuit-whether in politics, literature, science, or art. Thus, a great deal of the best literary work has been done by men systematically trained in business pursuits. The same industry, application, economy of time and labour, which have rendered them useful in the one sphere of employment, have been found equally available in the other. Most of the early English writers were men of affairs, trained to business; for no literary class as yet existed, excepting it might be the priesthood. Chaucer, the father of English poetry, was first a soldier, and afterwards a comptroller of petty customs. The office was no sinecure either, for he had to write up all the records with his own hand; and when he had done his "reckonings" at the custom-house, he returned with delight to his favourite studies at home-poring over his books until his eyes were "dazed" and dull. The great writers in the reign of Elizabeth, during which there was such a development of robust life in England, were not literary men according to the modern acceptation of the word, but men of action trained in business. Spenser acted as secretary to the Lord Deputy of Ireland; Raleigh was, by turns, a courtier, soldier, sailor, and discoverer; Sydney was a politician, diplomatist, and soldier; Bacon was a laborious lawyer 108 Literature and Business. [CHAP. IV. before he became Lord Keeper and Lord Chancellor ; Sir Thomas Browne was a physician in country practice at Norwich; Hooker was the hardworking pastor of a country parish; Shakspeare was the manager of a theatre, in which he was himself but an indifferent actor, and he seems to have been even more careful of his money investments than he was of his intellectual offspring. Yet these, all men of active business habits, are among the greatest writers of any age: the period of Elizabeth and James I. standing out in the history of England as the era of its greatest literary activity and splendour. In the reign of Charles I., Cowley held various offices of trust and confidence. He acted as private secretary to several of the royalist leaders, and was afterwards engaged as private secretary to the Queen, in ciphering and deciphering the correspondence which passed between her and Charles I.; the work occupying all his days, and often his nights, during several years. And while Cowley was thus employed in the royal cause, Milton was employed by the Commonwealth, of which he was the Latin secretary, and afterwards secretary to the Lord Protector. Yet, in the earlier part of his life, Milton was occupied in the humble vocation of a teacher. Dr. Johnson says, "that in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, he laboured with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting." It was after the Restoration, when his official employment ceased, that Milton entered upon the principal literary work of his life; but before he undertook the writing of his great epic, he deemed it indispensable that to "industrious and select reading" he should add "steady observation" and "insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs." 1 CHAP. IV.] Literary Men and Business. 109 Locke held office in different reigns: first under Charles II. aş Secretary to the Board of Trade, and afterwards under William III. as Commissioner of Appeals and of Trade and Plantations. Many literary men of eminence held office in Queen Anne's reign. Thus Addison was Secretary of State; Steele, Commissioner of Stamps; Prior, Under-Secretary of State, and afterwards Ambassador to France; Tickell, Under-Secretary of State, and Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland; Congreve, Secretary of Jamaica; and Gay, Secretary of Legation at Hanover. Indeed, habits of business, instead of unfitting a cultivated mind for scientific or literary pursuits, are often the best training for them. Voltaire insisted with truth that the real spirit of business and literature are the same; the perfection of each being the union of energy and thoughtfulness, of cultivated intelligence and practical wisdom, of the active and contemplative essencea union commended by Lord Bacon as the concentrated excellence of man's nature. It has been said that even the man of genius can write nothing worth reading in relation to human affairs, unless he has been in some way or other connected with the serious everyday business of life. - Hence it has happened that many of the best books extant have been written by men of business, with whom literature was a pastime rather than a profession. Gifford, the editor of the Quarterly,' who knew the drudgery of writing for a living, once observed that "a single hour of composition, won from the business of the day, is worth more than the whole day's toil of him who works at the trade of literature in the one case, the spirit comes joyfully to refresh itself, like a hart to the waterbrooks; in the other, it pursues its miserable way, panting and IIO The Great Italians. [CHAP. IV. jaded, with the dogs and hunger of necessity behind." 1 The first great men of letters in Italy were not mere men of letters; they were men of businessmerchants, statesmen, diplomatists, judges, and soldiers. Villani, the author of the best History of Florence, was a merchant; Dante, Petrarch, and Boccacio, were all engaged in more or less important embassies; and Dante, before becoming a diplomatist, was for some time occupied as a chemist and druggist. Galileo, Galvani, and Farini were physicians, and Goldoni a lawyer. Ariosto's talent for affairs was as great as his genius for poetry. At the death of his father, he was called upon to manage the family estate for the benefit of his younger brothers and sisters, which he did with ability and integrity. His genius for business having been recognised, he was employed by the Duke of Ferrara on important missions to Rome and elsewhere. Having afterwards been appointed governor of a turbulent mountain district, he succeeded, by firm and just government, in reducing it to a condition of comparative good order and security. Even the bandits of the country respected him. Being arrested one day in 1 Coleridge's advice to his young friends was much to the same effect. "With the exception of one extraordinary man," he says, "I have never known an individual, least of all an individual of genius, healthy or happy without a profession: i.e., some regular employment which does not depend on the will of the moment, and which can be carried on so far mechanically, that an average quantum only of health, spirits, and intellectual exertion are requisite to its faithful discharge. Three hours of leisure, unalloyed by any alien anxiety, and looked forward to with delight as a |