208 



It Is said ihat he "is Ignorant." What then? If Ignorance be ne- 

 cessarily despicable, then those who were called eighteen hundred 

 years ago to be "fishers of men," were proper objects of contempt. But 

 he is not always destitute of knowledge, and sometimes retorts upon 

 his accusers. The poor fisher-boy Jones acquired in his boat, and 

 before he reached the age of twenty years, the Greek, the Hebrew, 

 Latin, French, and Italinn languages; and read the Iliad, and many 

 works of a similar description, in the original tongue. In a word, his 

 astonishing attainments in the darkest recesses of ancient learning 

 were a kingdom's wonder. When asked his opinion of the celebrated 

 Dr. Parr- — who, in a long conversation, had attempted to sound the 

 depth and accuracy of his acquirements — he answered that this great 

 scholar was only "less ignorant than most men!" 



The fisherman Is called "wasteful and improvident." What then? 

 If to mis-spend the mere pittance of one's own earnings be a crime 

 w^orthy of rebuke, what shall be thought of those who, born to wealth 

 and polished life, sport with vi^hole patrimonies, waste large estates, 

 die sots, and In penury ? 



His rank is humble ; but sometimes he inscribes his name on the 

 page of history. Beukels, who Invented the process of preserving the 

 fish of Holland in pickle, and who, according to the sneer, caused the 

 "Dutchmen's bodies to be built of pickled herrings," was a benefactor 

 to his race; and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, accompanied by his 

 sister Margaret, of Hungary, visited his grave and ordered a magnifi- 

 cent monument to be erected to his memory. 



Massaniello, the j^oung fisherman of Naples, led his countrymen In 

 their revolt against Spanish rule, and rose to supreme power more 

 rapidly than mortal had ever done before him; but, shot down at last 

 without trial, and like a dog, was dragged by the rabble set on by the 

 nobles, through the ditches of the city. In American annals, Phlpps 

 and Pepperell rose to the highest rank to which colonial subjects ever 

 attained, and were envied and traduced in consequence of the honors 

 bestowed upon them. In our own day, a Spanish fisherman of tJie 

 name of Jep-del Estango joined the party of Don Carlos as a simple 

 volunteer ; but, promoted step by step, was finally appointed to the 

 command of an army of eighty thousand men. So, too, the Count de 

 Morello, whose father was of the same humble occupation, and who 

 himself commenced life as a pauper-student, became, by the force of 

 his talents and the circumstances of a civil war, the second general in 

 the Carlist army.* 



mense value, and sold at enormous prices. Indeed, those persons M'ho could not purchase a 

 whole fish, gladly possessed themselves of a few scales, or a ./Tn /' The water where the " royal 

 person" had been washed, when bottled and offered for sale, was known as "Berri hrine." 

 Have fishermen, in any age, been guilty of gi'eater folly than these fashionable people of 

 France ? 



* In 1750, the clerk of the company of fishmongers of London, in addressing Frederick, 

 Prince of Wales, made the remarkable statement, that, "This company, sir, is famous for hav- 

 ing had near three score lord mayors of the city of London, besides many of the most conside- 

 rable merchants and eminent citizens of it." 



It appears from another source that the fishmongers' company is one of the oldest in the 

 r(\ilm, and that six of the lord mayors spoken of were appomted in the space of twenty-four 

 years. 



Died, in 1797, Solomon Southwick, aged 66 years. He was a native of Newport, E. L 



