FAMOUS MEN AS AMATEURS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14587, 25 January 1911, Page 10

FAMOUS MEN AS AMATEURS.

Many famous men have been in the truest sense of the word amateurs. Mahommed, by profession, was a camel driver; St. Paul a" maker of tents. Outside their profession —that is to say, as amateurs— founded Islamism,the other organised Christianity. Cromwell, a farmer, defeated' the trained armies of Charles 1., founded a republic, and established Puritanism. Robert Burns, also a farmer, became the world's greatest song writer. ,; Arkwright, the subterranean barber who shaved for a penny, revolutionised the cotton industry. John Banyan, adopting his father's calling, ground knives and mended pots and pans for a, living ; but, unlike, Canning's "knife grinder, he had _ a story to tell, : and immortalised himself in the telling of it. ,- . - Cervantes, the creator of Don Quixote, followed the profession of arms ; Roxiget de Lisle author and composer of the "Marseillaise," was: an officer of the Engineers; while the "Wacht am Rhein" was the work of an obscure lawyer's clerk. , Herrick, whose poetry ■still charms, was by profession a cleric. Gilbert White, the precursor of Thoreau, lived the life of a country pareon. Swift, the greatest English satirist, and author of "Gulliver's Travels, was a dean of i the ( Church. ; Hogg,; the Ettrick Shepherd, is not famous.because he tended sheep, and we should not. have had occasion to remember that Sir Joseph Caxton was originally a workinggardener had he not designed the Crystal Palace. Benjamin Franklin worked as a printer; Galvaru, the "frog's dancing master," , practised medicine; Morse; wielded the Isnieh of an artist. Millgate Monthly. , . .- .