CHAPTER III.

Advantages of Wealth in the Pursuit of Knowledge-Napier.

NOTWITHSTANDING the honourable reputation which the princes we have named, and others whom we have not room to notice, have acquired by their devotion to intellectual pursuits, it is to be observed, that science and literature have been much more indebted to the example and patronage, than to the actual performances, of the royal personages who are to be counted among their friends. No great discovery or immortal composition claims a king as its author. When the genius that might have accom plished such has been found on a throne, it has been otherwise occupied than with the quiet but divine pleasures of learning and philosophy.

And doubtless this is only as it should be. Men have not crowns put upon their heads that they may write books or spend their lives in constructing philosophical theories. Every station has its peculiar duties which must first be attended to, even before the pursuit of knowledge; and those of sovereigns are sufficiently arduous to make it impossible, when they are fully performed, that this pursuit can be anything more than the avocation of their leisure. To this extent only, therefore, it is desirable that they should devote themselves to it. But if so, it cannot be expected that this class of persons should contribute many, or even any, names of first-rate distinction to the history of literature or science. It were not fitting, indeed, that the same individual should have supremacy at once in two worlds so

entirely different and unconnected, as that of political dignity and that of genius. All, therefore, we repeat, which philosophy and the arts usually have to ask of kings is, their protection and countenance, and an example which may at least evidence an attachment to intellectual pursuits, even while duties of another sort demand the chief attention. Whether letters, generally speaking, flourish best with or without the patronage of courts, we do not here stop to inquire. It is at all events certain, that in some cases the literary progress of a country has been greatly indebted to a love of literature in its sovereign. Thus it was that Alfred imported civilization into England, James I. into Scotland, and Peter the Great into Russia.

But other individuals in possession of wealth or rank are differently situated from kings. They have often no public duties to perform, or none from which they may not disengage themselves, in so far at least as they would interfere with the closest application to intellectual pursuits. In most countries, indeed, they are not called upon to take a part in the management of affairs in ordinary circumstances, by any need that the state has of their services, so much as by their own ambition for political distinction; and so numerous are almost always the competitors here, that an individual who chooses to withdraw from the throng, will rarely have cause to reproach himself with having deserted a post which there are not a hundred others ready, and as well qualified, to occupy. However, we would neither condemn nor depreciate any path of honourable enterprise; doubtless it is the duty of every man, who believes that he can most benefit his country by his political services, to endeavour to do so. But this is at least an ambition by which many are apt to be seduced, who look rather to its glittering prizes, than to their own qua

lifications; and it is also undeniably one in which something else than merit often contributes to success. There can be no danger therefore of too many persons deserting politics for philosophy. There will always be a sufficient number of our men of wealth and rank to serve the state, and contend for her honours and her offices, although as many leave the crowd as the love of study and speculation can possibly withdraw.

But political ambition, in truth, is not that seduction by which persons of this description are most apt to be enthralled. The besetting temptations attendant upon the possession of wealth and leisure (which, rightly employed, constitute such inestimable advantages) are the facilities which they afford to the indulgence of mere indolence and love of pleasure. A rich man, who can live without exertion of any kind, is apt to lose the power even of that degree of exertion which is necessary for the acquisition of knowledge. Besides, his money provides him with other enjoyments; and he often never éven acquires a taste for those of an intellectual kind. A defective or misdirected education too frequently only prepares him the better for yielding to the unfortunate influences of his condition; and the habits and prejudices of society come also to assist their force and confirm their dominion. When an individual thus circumstanced, therefore, betakes himself in good earnest to the pursuit of knowledge, he also is entitled to be regarded as one who has exhibited much energy of character, and conquered many difficulties, as well as he who has had to struggle with poverty, or an uncongenial occupation, in his attempts to obtain an acquaintance with books. The impediments which have lain in the way of the former are different from those that have beset the path of the latter; but they may not have been less difficult to over

come. The fact, at all events, is, that the temptations of wealth have often exerted as fatal an effect in repressing all ardour for intellectual pursuits, as ever did the obstructions of indigence.

Yet, where the love of knowledge has taken full possession of the heart, the rich man is in a much more favourable situation than the poor man for the prosecution of great enterprises in science or literature. Those demand both leisure and ease of mind-two good things, of the first of which generally but little, and of the second often not much, are his who has to provide for his daily bread by his daily labour. Hence some of the greatest names, in all departments of philosophy and learning, are those of persons who, unembarrassed by the toils and cares of obtaining a subsistence, have been free to lead a life of contemplation, having purchased to themselves that inestimable privilege by a relinquishment of the other pleasures or objects of ambition, ordinarily followed by those in their situation, and seeking no other advantage from their riches or their competence than that of being at liberty to devote their time and their powers of mind to labours of their own choosing. From the list of the illustrious of ancient times, we need mention no others, and we can mention no greater, than Plato and Archimedes-both of whom were of distinguished birth, (the former being a descendant of the family of Solon, the other a near relation of king Hiero)—and, there is every reason to suppose, opulent. But we pass from times so remote, that, even when the circumstances of the case are well ascertained, the changes that have taken place in every thing detract from the value of an example or illustration, in order to notice two or three of the more remarkable instances which belong to a state of society more nearly resembling

our own.

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The first name we shall mention is that of JOHN NAPIER often, but erroneously, called Lord Napier. He was not a nobleman, but only what would in England be called a lord of a manor. Such persons, in Scotland, were formerly designated barones minores, or lesser barons; and to this class the baron of Bradwardine belonged as well as Napier, who in like manner was baron, or, as he himself expresses it, Peer of Marchistown*,". —an old seat of the family in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. Here, or, according to other authorities, at Gartness in Stirlingshire (an estate which also belonged to the family), Napier was born, in the year 1550, at which time his father, who lived for fifty-eight years after this, could not have been older than sixteen. In 1562 he entered St. Salvator's college, St. Andrew's, as appears by the books of the university †. At this time, of course, he was only twelve years old; but this was not an unusually early age in those times for going to the university in Scotland. Many entered even younger; and in the university of Glasgow it was found necessary to make a law that no student should be admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts before the age of fifteen, unless

* In his dedication of " A Plaine Discovery of the whole Revelation of St. John." So, on the title-page of his "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio," (Edin. 1614,) he calls himself, "Baro Merchistonii." He was not, on this account, however, either" the Lord Marchiston," as he is described by Lilly the astrologer, or "the Lord Napier," as he has been called by others. He was merely laird of Merchiston; a title which, although of course etymologically identical with the English lord, is applied in Scotland to any landed proprietor.

Lord Buchan, in his Life of Napier (Edinb. 1788), conjectures that he did not go to college till 1566; and observes that the records of the university do not ascend higher than the beginning of the seventeenth century. The fact is that they reach to the year 1413, when the university was opened.