w a
rich man!"

And he was right. For the man who, after satisfying his wants, has
something to spare, is no longer poor. It is certain that from that day
Stephenson never looked back; his advance as a self-improving man was as
steady as the light of sunrise. A person of large experience has indeed
stated that he never knew, amongst working people, a single instance of
a man having out of his small earnings laid by a pound, who had in the
end become a pauper.

When Stephenson proposed to erect his first locomotive, he had not
sufficient means to defray its cost. But in the course of his life as a
workman, he had established a character. He was trusted. He was
faithful. He was a man who could be depended on. Accordingly, when the
Earl of Havensworth was informed of Stephenson's desire to erect a
locomotive, he at once furnished him with the means for enabling him to
carry his wishes into effect.

Watt, also, when inventing the condensing steam-engine, maintained
himself by making and selling mathematical instruments. He made flutes,
organs, compasses,--anything that would maintain him, until he had
completed his invention. At the same time he was perfecting his own
education--learning French, German, mathematics, and the principles of
natural philosophy. This lasted for many years; and by the time that
Watt developed his steam-engine and discovered Mathew Boulton, he had,
by his own efforts, become an accomplished and scientific man.

These great workers did not feel ashamed of labouring with their hands
for a living; but they also felt within themselves the power of doing
head-work as well as hand-work. And while thus labouring with their
hands, they went on with their inventions, the perfecting of which has
proved of so much advantage to the world. Hugh Miller furnished, in his
own life, an excellent instance of that practical common sense in the
business of life which he so strongly recommended to others. When he
began to write poetry, and felt within him the growing powers of a
literary man, he diligently continued his labour as a stone-cutter.

Horace Walpole has said that Queen Caroline's patronage of Stephen Duck,
the thresher poet, ruined twenty men, who all turned poets. It was not
so with the early success of Hugh Miller. "There is no more fatal
error," he says, "into which a working man of a literary turn can fall,
than the mistake of deeming himself too good for his humble employments;
and yet it is a m