20 20 THE CALCULATING BOY. attracted Murillo's attention, the great master, convinced that Zombis would not paint Madonnas, instituted a rigid investigation, and discovered with surprise and admiration that it was the work of his mulatto-boy. He summoned Gomez to the studio, and when the poor slave flung himself on his knees and confessed the secret of his nightly vigils, he raised him up with words of encouragement, promised him his liberty, and adopted him as his pupil and successor. Gomez rose to a high position as a painter, and finished many admirable works, remarkable for their truth and depth of expression, their warmth and softness of colouring. He is best known in art-history as Murillo's mulatto, and only survived his illustrious master a few years, dying about 1689 or 1690. Bidder, the eminent civil engineer, well-known in his youth as the "Calculating Boy," has publicly attributed his successful career to his early habit of persevering application. Just as Luther's maxim, when translating the Psalms into German, was,— "Nulla dies sine linea," "No day without a line," so Bidder's seems to have been, "No day without something done." HOW TO LEARN ARITHMETIC. 16 21 His father was a working-mason at Moreton Hampstead in Devonshire, and he received his first lessons in arithmetic from his brother, who was of the same calling. He taught him to count up to one hundred, which he did by counting the tens almost incessantly, until every numeral became like a playmate and old familiar companion. He then addressed himself to the Multiplication Table—that bête noir and bugbear of young students-and mastered its intricacies in a very ingenious manner. Having obtained a small bag of shot, he arranged them into squares, each line containing an equal number, and, reckoning up their sides, he learned to multiply up to ten times ten. Thus, 4 times 3=12. 4 times 416. Opposite his father's cottage lived a blacksmith, a worthy old bachelor, who had taken a nephew into apprenticeship, and with this excellent graybeard Bidder became a favourite, was allowed to blow the bellows, and, seated on the hearth, to listen to his stories of old times and old friends. On one of these occasions. a village gossip chanced to mention a sum-say 22 THE BLACKSMITH'S FORGE. nine times eleven-young Bidder answered it correctly. His readiness excited the surprise of the village circle, and he was tested by other questions, while the blacksmith's nephew worked out the answers with chalk on a board to see if his solutions were accurate. The boy was soon talked of as a prodigy, and as gifts of halfpence rewarded his exertions, he became more warmly attached to his arithmetical studies, arriving at such really wonderful results that the "Extraordinary Calculating Boy" was eventually regarded as one of the phenomena of the day. He was then received as a clerk into a respectable assurance office, which he left to study as an articled pupil under Palmer the engineer. In his new pursuits he found the habits of perseverance which he had gained in his youth of invaluable service, and rapidly rose into a position of honour and influence. At the blacksmith's forge he had learned the lesson which, according to the poet, it is well adapted to teach ::- "Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Each burning deed and thought!" But a still more remarkable instance of youthful perseverance may be quoted from the life of Johann Ludwig, a poor Saxon peasant, who contrived to master the difficult secrets of His story is best told in his own astronomy. simple language :— "I was born," he says, "in the year 1715, in the village of Cossedande, and when very young was sent to the village school. The book from which I learned to read was the Bible; and it so interested and delighted me that I eagerly desired to read others; but there were none to be had, nor knew I by what means I could gain any. "In about a year my master taught me to write. At first I found this very irksome, but when I had overcome the difficulty of shaping the letters, I took to it readily enough, especially as books were then placed in my hands to copy as an exercise. At the age of ten I began to learn arithmetic, but as my teacher would not trouble himself to explain the numerous difficulties I encountered, but expected me to be content with the practice of certain definite rules, I grew disgusted with the science of figures, and after much scolding and beating, left the school without having learned anything more than reading, writing, and the catechism. "I was then sent into the fields to tend 24 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE. cows, where I herded with boys of my own age, and learned to be as idle and clownish as they, careless of everything except my daily task. The greater part of what I had learned was quite forgotten, and as I grew older I gave myself up to evil habits, and tried to find satisfaction in vicious ways and such amusements as came within my reach. Yet all this time I had not lost the remembrance of the pleasure I once felt in learning, and I recollected that I had been praised by my master and preferred before all my companions on account of my superior diligence and progress, and I wished I could again enjoy the same pleasures, but I knew not how to do so. "At length, when I was about twenty years old, I bought a small Bible, at the end of which was a catechism, with references to a great number of texts. As I had never been accustomed to take anything upon trust, I was continually turning over the leaves of my Bible to find the passages referred to; but finding this a troublesome task, I set about transcribing the catechism, with all the texts at large, in their proper places. In this way I filled two quires of paper, and though, when I began, the characters were scarcely legible, before I had |