In any event, he must have been a close student and a
hard worker; and to this day his writings continue to exercise a
powerful influence on the formation of English character.
The common class of day labourers has given us Brindley the
engineer, Cook the navigator, and Burns the poet. Masons and
bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson, who worked at the building of
Lincoln's Inn, with a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket,
Edwards and Telford the engineers, Hugh Miller the geologist, and
Allan Cunningham the writer and sculptor; whilst among
distinguished carpenters we find the names of Inigo Jones the
architect, Harrison the chronometer-maker, John Hunter the
physiologist, Romney and Opie the painters, Professor Lee the
Orientalist, and John Gibson the sculptor.
From the weaver class have sprung Simson the mathematician, Bacon
the sculptor, the two Milners, Adam Walker, John Foster, Wilson the
ornithologist, Dr. Livingstone the missionary traveller, and
Tannahill the poet. Shoemakers have given us Sir Cloudesley Shovel
the great Admiral, Sturgeon the electrician, Samuel Drew the
essayist, Gifford the editor of the 'Quarterly Review,' Bloomfield
the poet, and William Carey the missionary; whilst Morrison,
another laborious missionary, was a maker of shoe-lasts.
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