OWLEDGE O' HISTORY!"

Dr. Arnold was a man of the same hearty cordiality of manner--full of
human sympathy. There was not a particle of affectation or pretence of
condescension about him. "I never knew such a humble man as the doctor,"
said the parish clerk at Laleham; "he comes and shakes us by the hand as
if he was one of us." "He used to come into my house," said an old woman
near Fox How, "and talk to me as if I were a lady."

Sydney Smith was another illustration of the power of cheerfulness. He
was ever ready to look on the bright side of things; the darkest cloud
had to him its silver lining. Whether working as country curate, or as
parish rector, he was always kind, laborious, patient, and exemplary;
exhibiting in every sphere of life the spirit of a Christian, the
kindness of a pastor, and the honour of a gentleman. In his leisure he
employed his pen on the side of justice, freedom, education, toleration,
emancipation; and his writings, though full of common-sense and bright
humour, are never vulgar; nor did he ever pander to popularity or
prejudice. His good spirits, thanks to his natural vivacity and stamina
of constitution, never forsook him; and in his old age, when borne down
by disease, he wrote to a friend: "I have gout, asthma, and seven other
maladies, but am otherwise very well." In one of the last letters he
wrote to Lady Carlisle, he said: "If you hear of sixteen or eighteen
pounds of flesh wanting an owner, they belong to me. I look as if a
curate had been taken out of me."

Great men of science have for the most part been patient, laborious,
cheerful-minded men. Such were Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and Laplace.
Euler the mathematician, one of the greatest of natural philosophers,
was a distinguished instance. Towards the close of his life he became
completely blind; but he went on writing as cheerfully as before,
supplying the want of sight by various ingenious mechanical devices,
and by the increased cultivation of his memory, which became exceedingly
tenacious. His chief pleasure was in the society of his grandchildren,
to whom he taught their little lessons in the intervals of his severer
studies.

In like manner, Professor Robison of Edinburgh, the first editor of the
'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' when disabled from work by a lingering
and painful disorder, found his chief pleasure in the society of his
grandchild. "I am infinitely delighted," he wrote to James Watt, "with
observing the gro