280 Saenyic Reviews. 
branch of science or literature. Furnished as society now is, in all its depart- 
ments, with accommodations in aid of intellectual exertion, such as, in some re- 
spects, even the highest station and the greatest wealth in former times could not 
command, it may be safely asserted, that hardly any unassisted student can have 
at present difficulties to encounter, equal to those which have been a thousand 
times already triumphantly overcome by others. Above all, books, and especially 
elementary books, have, in our day, been multiplied to an extent that puts them 
within the reach almost of the poorest student ; and books, after all, are, at least 
to the more mature understanding, and in regard to such subjects as they are fitted 
to explain, the best teachers. He who can read, and is possessed of a good ele- 
mentary treatise on the science he wishes to learn, hardly, in truth, needs a mas- 
ter. With only this assistance, and sometimes with hardly this, some of the 
greatest scholars and philosophers that ever appeared have formed themselves, as 
the following pages will shew. And let him who, smitten by the love of know- 
ledge, may yet conceive himself to be on any account unfortunately circumstan- 
ced for the business of mental cultivation, bethink him how often the eager student 
has triumphed over a host of impediments, much more formidable in all probabi- 
lity than any by which he is surrounded. Want of leisure, want of instructors, 
want of books, poverty, ill health, imprisonment, uncongenial or distracting occu- 
pations, the force of opposing example, the discouragement of friends or rela- 
tions, the depressing consideration that the better part of life was already spent 
and gone,—these have all, separately or in various combinations, exerted their 
influence either to check the pursuit of knowledge, or to prevent the very desire 
of it from springing up. But they exerted this influence in vain. Here then is 
enough both of encouragement and of direction for all. To the illustrious van- 
quishers of fortune, whose triumphs we are about to record, we would point as 
guides for all who, similarly circumstanced, may aspire to follow in the same 
honourable path. Their lives are lessons that cannot be read without profit; nor 
are they lessons for the perusal of one class of society only. All, even those who 
are seemingly the most happily situated for the cultivation of their minds, may 
derive a stimulus from such anecdotes. No situation, in truth, is altogether 
without its unfavourable influences. If there be not poverty to crush, there may 
‘be wealth and ease to relax, the spirit. He who is left to educate himself in 
every thing, may have many difficulties to struggle with; but he who is saved 
every struggle is perhaps still more unfortunate. If one mind be in danger of 
starving for want of books, another may be surfeited by too many. If, again, a 
laborious occupation leave to some but little time for study, there are tempta- 
tions, it should be remembered, attendant upon rank and affluence, which are to 
the full as hard to escape from as any occupation. If, however, there be any one 
who stands free, or comparatively free, from every kind of impediment to the cul- 
tivation of his intellectual faculties, surely he must peruse with peculiar interest 
the account of what the love of knowledge has achieved in circumstances so oppo- 
site to his own.” 
The anecdotes which have been selected are of that encouraging: 
kind with which the history of human knowledge so much abounds ; 
and we feel, from their effect on our own mind, the important in- 
fluence which they must necessarily work on others. We rise from 
the perusal of this volume, able to laugh at disappointment in the 
face, and struggle on in hopes of more prosperous fortune. And 
“we recommend to the attention of all classes, a collection of facts 
‘so well calculated to support the flagging energies of the receg- 
nised philosopher, and to draw from seclusion those talents which 
are too often lost from the mere accident of privacy, or from an nn- 
worthy fear. 
