Franklin was fifty before he fully entered upon the study of
Natural Philosophy. Dryden and Scott were not known as authors
until each was in his fortieth year. Boccaccio was thirty-five
when he commenced his literary career, and Alfieri was forty-six
when he began the study of Greek. Dr. Arnold learnt German at an
advanced age, for the purpose of reading Niebuhr in the original;
and in like manner James Watt, when about forty, while working at
his trade of an instrument maker in Glasgow, learnt French, German,
and Italian, to enable himself to peruse the valuable works on
mechanical philosophy which existed in those languages. Thomas
Scott was fifty-six before he began to learn Hebrew. Robert Hall
was once found lying upon the floor, racked by pain, learning
Italian in his old age, to enable him to judge of the parallel
drawn by Macaulay between Milton and Dante. Handel was forty-eight
before he published any of his great works. Indeed hundreds of
instances might be given of men who struck out an entirely new
path, and successfully entered on new studies, at a comparatively
advanced time of life. None but the frivolous or the indolent will
say, "I am too old to learn." {31}
And here we would repeat what we have said before, that it is not
men of genius who move the world and take the lead in it, so much
as men of steadfastness, purpose, and indefatigable industry.
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