he founders of the Royal Academy.

Turner was intended for a barber in Maiden Lane, but became the
greatest landscape-painter of modern times.

Claude Lorraine, the painter, was apprenticed to a pastry-cook;
Moliere, the author, to an upholsterer; and Guido, the famous painter
of Aurora, was sent to a music school.

Schiller was sent to study surgery in the military school at Stuttgart,
but in secret he produced his first play, "The Robbers," the first
performance of which he had to witness in disguise. The irksomeness of
his prison-like school so galled him, and his longing for authorship so
allured him, that he ventured, penniless, into the inhospitable world
of letters. A kind lady aided him, and soon he produced the two
splendid dramas which made him immortal.

The physician Handel wished his son to become a lawyer, and so tried to
discourage his fondness for music. But the boy got an old spinet and
practiced on it secretly in a hayloft. When the doctor visited a
brother in the service of the Duke of Weisenfelds, he took his son with
him. The boy wandered unobserved to the organ in a chapel, and soon
had a private concert under full blast. The duke happened to hear the
performance, and wondered who could possibly combine so much melody
with so much evident unfamiliarity with the instrument. The boy was
brought before him, and the duke, instead of blaming him for disturbing
the organ, praised his performance, and persuaded Dr. Handel to let his
son follow his bent.

Daniel Defoe had been a trader, a soldier, a merchant, a secretary, a
factory manager, a commissioner's accountant, an envoy, and an author
of several indifferent books, before he wrote his masterpiece,
"Robinson Crusoe."

Wilson, the ornithologist, failed in five different professions before
he found his place.

Erskine spent four years in the navy, and then, in the hope of more
rapid promotion, joined the army. After serving more than two years,
he one day, out of curiosity, attended a court, in the town where his
regiment was quartered. The presiding judge, an acquaintance, invited
Erskine to sit near him, and said that the pleaders at the bar were
among the most eminent lawyers of Great Britain. Erskine took their
measure as they spoke, and believed he could excel them. He at once
began the study of law, in which he eventually soon stood alone as the
greatest forensic orator of his country.

A. T. Stewart studied for the ministry,