W. E. Winks

“ Hugh, Smerdon, the master of the school on whose succession I had calculated, died and was succeeded by a person not much older than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situation.”
Poor Gifford! hard, indeed, was thy lot; an orphan without friends, helpers, or sympathizers, having no proper leisure or means for study or recreation, and even the little pleasure and profit wrung from a few ciphering books and doggerel verses snatched away by cruel hands; trodden down like a worm in the mire, and every particle of talent and ambition threatened with extinction! ”

“ In Bristol, Exbridge, Bridgewater, Taunton, Wellington, and other places, I amused myself in calling on some of my masters, with whom I had, about twenty years before, worked as a journeyman shoemaker. I addressed each with, ‘Pray, sir, have you got any occasion?’ which is the term made use of by journeymen in that useful occupation when seeking employment. Most of those honest men had quite forgot my person, as many of them had not seen me since I worked for them, so that it is not easy for you to conceive with what surprise and astonishment they gazed on me. ”

“ Of his present employment, Thomas Cooper, writing in 1872, says, in his own simple fashion: “My work is indeed a happy work. Sunday is now a day of heaven to me. I feel that to preach ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ is the most exalted and ennobling work in which a human creature can be engaged. And believing that I am performing the work of duty—that I am right—my employment of lecturing on the ‘Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion,’ from week to week, fills me with the consoling reflection that my life is not being spent in vain, much less spent in evil.” ”

“ Having taken a glimpse of the work accomplished by William Gifford as a critic, a scholar, and an editor in the latter years of his life, let us turn to look at his circumstances in boyhood and youth, when, as a miserable cobbler’s apprentice, he began to yearn after knowledge and to cherish ambitious dreams. The contrast between the first and last scenes in the drama of life could hardly be more wonderful than that which is presented in the history of the man who passed from the cobbler’s stool to the editor’s chair. ”

“ In his eighteenth year, in consequence of certain disputes in the shoe-makers’ trade about the legality of employing boys who had not been bound as apprentices, he went back again to Suffolk for a short time, and was taken into the home of his uncle and former master, Mr. Austin of Sapiston. Here for two months of happy leisure he roamed the fields where he spent so much of his time as a boy, reviving old impressions, and deepening in his mind that keen sense of the beautiful which city life and the imprisonment of a shoemaker’s occupation had not been sufficient to destroy. ”

“ Time out of mind The Gentle Craft has been invested with an air of romance. This honorable title, given to no other occupation but that of shoemakers, is an indication of the high esteem in which the Craft is held. It is by no means an easy thing to account for a sentiment of this kind, or to trace such a title to its original source. Whether the traditionary stories which have clustered round the lives of Saints Anianus, Crispin and Crispianus, or Hugh and Winifred, gave rise to the sentiment, or the sentiment itself is to be regarded as accounting for the traditions, one cannot tell. ”

“ The poems in this collection ... show that delicate apprehension of nature, that deep-seated sympathy with suffering mankind, that unwavering love of liberty and all things lovable, that earnest belief in a spirit of beneficence guiding to right issues the affairs of the world, that beautiful tolerance of differences—in a word, all those high qualities which, being fused with imagination, make Mr. Whittier, not indeed an analytical and subtle poet, nor a poet dealing with great passions, but what he is emphatically, the apostle of all that is pure, fair, and morally beautiful. ”

“ Immersed in the common concerns of life, I endeavor to lift my thoughts to objects more sublime than those with which I am surrounded; and, while attending to my trade, I sometimes catch the fibres of an argument which I endeavor to note, and keep a pen and ink by me for that purpose. In this state what I can collect through the day remains on any paper which I may have at hand till the business of the day is despatched and my shop shut, when, in the midst of my family, I endeavor to analyze such thoughts as had crossed my mind during the day. I have no study, I have no retirement. ”

“ This wise resolve to pay his way and to live within his means, so vigorously carried out from the very beginning, was of the utmost service to him all through life, and saved him from the worry and discredit by which so many men of genius and literary gifts have been hampered and thwarted in their work. When once the resolute shoemaker had made a fair start and conquered the difficulties of early business-life, he was always at liberty to devote his mind to his favorite pursuits. ”

“ None but a man of original and uncommon powers of mind could have launched out on new speculations and adventures as Lackington did with the same uniform and certain success, and none but a man of good sense and lofty feeling would have been proof against the ill effects which so often attend on success. There is a touch of vanity in his memoirs, it is true, but it is not the vanity of a man who is vain and does not know it; he is quite conscious of his egotism, and indulges in it with thorough good-humor as a hearty joke. ”

“ Certain it is, that among all our craftsmen none appear to enjoy a popularity comparable with that of “the old Cobbler” or “Shoemaker.” Most men have a good word to say for him, a joke to crack about him, or a story to tell of his ability and “learning,” his skill in argument, or his prominence and influence in political or religious affairs. Both in ancient times and in modern, in the Old World and in the New, a rare interest has been felt in Shoemakers, as a class, on account of their remarkable intelligence and the large number of eminent men who have risen from their ranks. ”

“ With this opinion agree the remarks of the Scotsman and the Sunderland Times, which said of him at the time of his death, “One of the most remarkable men of the population of the South of Scotland, whether as a genial writer of prose or verse or a man of high conversational powers and clear common-sense, the shoemaker of St. Boswell’s had few or no rivals in the South;“ and ”Nature made him a poet, a philosopher, and a nobleman; society made him a cobbler of shoes.” He was certainly a most original character, and his originality and genius appear in every chapter of his Autobiography. ”

“ Account for it as men might, the change was marvellous, and infinitely beneficial, as we shall see, no less to his neighbors than to himself; for Samuel Bradburn was intensely social, and bound to influence his friends in one way or another, as well as to be influenced by them. It was impossible for him to remain inactive when a great impulse moved within him. The desire to go out and speak of the joy he had found, and the means by which he had found it, soon became a ruling passion. It is the desire which makes the philanthropist, the preacher, the missionary. ”

“ We like to do what comes easiest to us. The born artist, as he is termed, likes to draw and sketch because he can draw and sketch better than he can do anything else; the arithmetician enjoys working out problems in figures; the poet loves to indulge his fancy and clothe his imaginations in the guise of poetry; and the metaphysician is happiest when employed in the task of definition and reasoning. ”

“ But the best piece of good fortune in the way of reading came to him in the discovery that one “Nathaniel Robinson, mercer,” “had left his library for the use of the inhabitants of the town.” It seems that this boon had been neglected or forgotten by the good folk of Gainsborough. Once known to the ardent young shoemaker, it was not neglected nor forgotten, at all events as far as he was concerned. He pounced upon it with the avidity and excited joy of a naturalist who lights upon a new or rare specimen. ”

“ At the age of sixteen, he again went to live with his father, who had once more returned to the shoemaker’s stall, and lived in London. Here he learned enough of the trade to earn a livelihood, but he involved himself in premature cares by an imprudent marriage when only twenty years of age.
And now the passion for a roving life got the better of him, and quitting the monotony of a cobbler’s room, he betook himself to the stage. ”

“ When they came to hold positions of command, they had, perhaps, no culture nor general education; the little knowledge they possessed was confined to the arts of navigation and warfare, and this they had picked up in actual service. Such knowledge served them well, and made them equal to any emergency. It made them capable of deeds of valor and enterprise, that brought renown to their own name and honor to their country. They could sail round the world; they could, by their discoveries, add new territories to the British crown, and open up splendid fields for commercial enterprise ”

“ But the kindness he failed to find out-of-doors was more than doubled at home. The heart of a true mother and a right noble woman warmed toward the child in his weakness and sad disfigurement. Never had needy child a more devoted parent. It was hard work for the solitary woman to make a living and pay her way, yet she bore up bravely and did the best she could for her child. The picture which is given by Thomas Cooper in his Autobiography of his home at this time, and of his own and his mother’s position, has a pre-Raphaelite simplicity about it, and well deserves a moment’s attention. ”

“ ITALY. GABRIEL CAPPELLINI, IL CALIGARINO, OR THE LITTLE SHOEMAKER. If it be characteristic of Germany that one of her illustrious shoemakers should be a poet and another a philosopher, it is no less characteristic of Italy and Holland that several followers of the gentle craft in these countries should have distinguished themselves as painters. ”

“ Spite of all his so-called vagaries, his want of education and culture and grasp of intellect, the Leicestershire shoemaker, by dint of moral earnestness and undaunted courage, succeeded in laying the foundation of a religious society, which in proportion to its numbers has exerted a greater moral influence than any other denomination of Christians. ”

“ Samuel was then nearly thirteen years of age, and a situation was soon found for him as an out-door apprentice to a shoemaker, to whom he was bound for eight years. Brought up under the influences of Methodism, and accustomed to listen to a class of preachers who had done more than any others to awaken and keep alive the flames of religious revival and zeal, young Bradburn’s mind was always more or less under the influence of deep religious conviction. His history, as a youth, presents the most astonishing contrasts of religious fervor and sinful excess. ”

“ My life is but simple, seeing I am but a poor cobbler. In the morning when I rise, I pray for the whole city wherein I dwell, especially for all such neighbors and poor friends as I have; after that I sit me down to my labor, where I spend the whole day in getting my living; and I keep me from all falsehood, for I hate nothing so much as I do deceitfulness; wherefore when I make any man a promise, I keep it and perform it truly ”

“ Imagine a youth with any taste for literature living in a sleepy town like Taunton in 1760, and looking over his master’s bookshelves and finding there a school-size Bible, “Watts’ Psalms and Hymns,“ Foot’s ”Tract on Baptism,“ Culpepper’s ”Herbal,” the “History of the Gentle Craft,” an old imperfect volume of receipts on Physic, Surgery, etc., and the “Ready Reckoner.” ”

“ While engaged in shoemaking, he was so intent on learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew that he often forgot to fit the shoes to the last. No wonder if shoes were not “a pair,” and were sometimes returned; no wonder that while he became one of the first linguists in the world in his day he was spoken of by his neighbors as nothing more than “a cobbler!” With reference to his poor abilities in the craft a good story is told of the way in which he silenced an officious person whose “false pride in place and blood” had betrayed him into some disparaging remarks about Carey as a shoemaker. ”

“ From the art of making ships he was now fain to turn to that of making shoes, and finding an old man in High Street, Portsmouth, who was willing to give the needful instruction, John Pounds, at the age of fifteen, became a shoemaker. Indeed, he would scarcely have claimed that title of dignity for himself; for his chief thoughts were given to other affairs, so that he was never an adept at his craft, and would in all probability have preferred to be set down as “only a cobbler.” ”

“ He seems to have found out very early in his course that the secret of success in life lies in being ready, when the time comes, to seize and use the great opportunities of fortune which sooner or later come in every one’s way; that fortune waits on diligence and courage; and that the future is pretty secure to the man who, whatever be his position, works hard and does his plain duty every day. ”

“ For two years after the change we have noticed Drew continued working industriously at his trade, and filling up all his spare moments by reading such books as came to the shop to be bound, or any others he could borrow from friends. Attracted by one science after another, and finding, as most eager minds do, a charm in each, he finally settled to metaphysics, because, as he sometimes shrewdly observed, among other recommendations it has this, that it requires fewer books than other branches of study, and may be followed at the least expense. ”

“ Like Drew, he had learned to do a fair day’s work and not to neglect the means of earning his daily bread for the more fascinating occupations of reading and study. But if ordinary work was not neglected, it must be confessed that the work of the scholar was over [174] done. No one can live as Cooper lived from the age of nineteen to twenty-three without incurring fearful risk to body and mind. Rising at three, or four at the latest, he read history, or the grammar of some language, or engaged in translation till seven, when he sat down to his stall. ”

“ Crispin, The Natick Cobbler was a friend of freedom and a sworn foe to all kinds of tyranny. For many years he stood side by side with the best men in the Northern States, fighting the battle of liberation for the slaves, and at last was permitted to rejoice with them in the triumph of the good cause.
One is very much tempted to multiply instances of men like Wilson, who, having begun life as shoemakers, found their way into the Congress of the United States. Seven such men at least have sat in Congress during the present century. ”

“ Sometimes these discussions drew him from home into the house of a neighbor, and so absorbed his time that he found himself at the end of the day far behind in his work, and obliged to sit up till midnight in order to finish it. One night, however, he received a severe rebuke from some anonymous counsellor, which effectually put a stop to this bad habit. As he sat at work after most of the neighbors were in bed, he heard footsteps at the door, and presently a boy’s shrill voice accosted him through the keyhole with this sage remark: “Shoemaker, shoemaker, work by night, and run about by day! ”