THE FATHERS OF GREAT MEN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1106, 12 May 1893, Page 13

THE FATHERS OF GREAT MEN.

AN INTERESTING COMPILATION THAT IS WORTH KEEPING FOR REFERENCE. Lucian was a sculptor's son. Homer was a farmer's son. Pope's father was a merchant. Neander's father was a carter. Milton was the son of a copyist. Mozart's father was a bookbinder. Charles Lamb was a servant's son. The father of Cowley was a grocer. Schuman's father was a bookseller. The father of Pius IV. was a peasant. The father of Pius V. was a shopherd. Talma, the actor, was a dentist's son. The father of Verdi was a day labourer. Socrates was the son of a day labourer. Epictetus was the son of a day labourer. Oliver Cromwell's father was a brewer. Giotto, the artist, was a peasant's son. The father of James Mill was a cobbler. The father of Samuel Pepys was a tailor. Shakespeare's father was a wool merchant. Powers, the sculptor, was a farmer's boy. The father of Burns was a peasant farmer. The father of Goethe was the son of a tailor. Wagner's father was clerk in a police court. Sir Isaac Newton's father was a poor farmer. The father of Dr Rush was a farm i labourer. Paganini's father was a labourer in a factory. Dr Doddridge was the son of an oil dealer. The father of Etly, the colourist, was a miller. The Danish scholar, Rask, was a peasant's son. Hauy, the mineralogist, was a weaver's son. Canova, the sculptor, was a stonecutter's son. John Wesley's father was a country clergyman. The Emperor Diocletian was the son of a slave. Coply, the" artist, was the son of a day labourer. The father of Home Tooke was a poultry dealer. ■Opie's father was a carpenter and cabinetmaker. The father of the historian Rollin was a knifemaker. Vandyke's father was a merchant of limited means, Cardinal Antonelli's father was an Italian bandit. The composer Gluck was the sou of a gamekeeper.

Pythagoras is said to have beeuihe son of a soldier. Vo The father of Marshal Soult was a peasant farmer. The father of Franz Schubert was a schoolmaster. Lincoln's father was a poor farmer and labourer. Hans Christian Andersen's father was a cobbler. Dickens' father was a poor clerk in the navy pay office. Napoleon's father was a citizen of very humble means. Ashmore, the great antiquarian, was a saddler's son. Murray, the Oriental scholar, was a shepherd's son. Marshal Bernadotte was the son of a provincial notary. The father of Barry, the historical painter, was a sailor. Marshal Ney was a cooper's son, and himself a notary. The father of Adrian, the ascetic pontiff, was a beggar. Saussure, the naturalist, was the son of a Swiss farmer. Virgil's father was a porter, and for many years a slave. Massillon, the great French preacher, was a notary's son. Wyatt, the great architect, was the son of a farm labourer. The father of Niebuhr, the historian, was a farm labourer. Tannahill, the Scottish poet, was a weaver's son. Plautus, the Latin Shakespeare, was the son of a freedman. The father of Martin was a peasant and woodman. The father' of Raeburn, the land* scapist, was a stock farmer. The father of Cardinal Wolsey is said to have been a butcher. The father of George Frederick Handel was a country doctor. Gaussone, the great physician, was the son of a bricklayer. Tintoretto, the famous painter, was the son of a dye maker. Mezzofanti, the Prince of the Church, was a carpenter's son. Gesner, the German naturalist, was the son of a farm carter. Perugino, the great Italian painter, was the son of a peasant. Alvarez, the Spanish sculptor, was the son of a stonemason. Rembrandt's father is said to have been a miller and a farmer. The father of Thomas Hood was a dealer in poultry and game. Marshal St. Cyr was a pedlar's son and enlisted as a private. Murat was an inn-keeper's son, and intended for the priesthood. Fishbein, the great historical painter, was the sou of a baker. Magliabecchi, the linguist, was the son of a vegetable peddler. Farinelli, the wonderful male so- | prano, was the son of a miller. The father of Edward Irving, the great divine, was a tanner. Sallust was the son of a slave, or, as some say, of a freedman. Blake, the poet, engraver and painter, was the son of a hosier.

The father of Spontini, the opera composer, was a farm labourer. The father of Diderot, the encyclopaedist, was a knife-grinder. The Roman Emperor Maximian was the son of a common soldier.

The father of Thorwaldsen, the sculptor, a ship carpenter. Rosseau, the author of ' Emile,' was the son of a Watchmaker.

Gifford, the poet, was a sailor's son, and himself a shoemaker.

The father of David Livingstone was an operator in a cotton mill. Franklin was the son of a soapboiler, and was himself a printer. Marshal Lannes was a carpenter's son, and himself an apprentice. Ramus, the divine, was the son of a labourer, and himself a servant.

Demosthenes was the son of a swordmaker and blacksmith.

The father of Sir Robert Peel, the statesman, was a day labourer. The father of Johann Muller, the German scientist, was a peasant. The father of the great Tintorett6 was a watchmaker and jeweller. Cervantes'" father was a soldier, and he himself served in many wars. Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher, was the son of a pawnbroker. Marshal Suchet was a silk*winder's boy, and enlisted in the ranks. The father of Constable, the painter, was a miller and a flour merchant. The father of Oliver Cromwell was a country gentleman of small means.

Daniel Webster was the son of a farmer in very humble circumstances, The father of Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, was a day labourer.

Southey's father was a linen draper, and employed his son in the shop. Roger Aschaiu, the author of famous educational works, was the son of a footman. The Emperor Maximilian was the son of a peasant who had been a slave. The father of Whewell, the mathematician and philosopher, was a joiner. Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, was a farmer's boy. Defoe was the sou of a butcher, and himself was a stocking maker by trade.