Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford | Page 2

my life, whether in exile or not, eleven weeks only excepted, a periodical paper, containing more or less of matter worthy of public attention; writing and publishing, during _the same twenty-nine years_, a grammar of the French and another of the English language, a work on the Economy of the Cottage, a work on Forest Trees and Woodlands, a work on Gardening, an account of America, a book of Sermons, a work on the Corn-plant, a History of the Protestant Reformation; all books of great and continued sale, and the last unquestionably the book of greatest circulation in the whole world, the Bible only excepted; having, during _these same twenty-nine years_ of troubles and embarrassments without number, introduced into England the manufacture of Straw-plat; also several valuable trees; having introduced, during _the same twenty-nine years_, the cultivation of the Corn-plant, so manifestly valuable as a source of food; having, during the same period, always (whether in exile or not) sustained a shop of some size, in London; having, during the whole of the same period, never employed less, on an average, than ten persons, in some capacity or other, exclusive of printers, bookbinders, and others, connected with papers and books; and having, during these twenty-nine years of troubles, embarrassments, prisons, fines, and banishments, bred up a family of seven children to man's and woman's state.
5. If such a man be not, after he has survived and accomplished all this, qualified to give Advice to Young Men, no man is qualified for that task. There may have been natural _genius_: but genius alone, not all the genius in the world, could, without something more, have conducted me through these perils. During these twenty-nine years, I have had for deadly and ever-watchful foes, a government that has the collecting and distributing of sixty millions of pounds in a year, and also every soul who shares in that distribution. Until very lately, I have had, for the far greater part of the time, the whole of the press as my deadly enemy. Yet, at this moment, it will not be pretended, that there is another man in the kingdom, who has so many cordial friends. For as to the friends of ministers and the great, the friendship is towards the power, the _influence_; it is, in fact, towards those taxes, of which so many thousands are gaping to get at a share. And, if we could, through so thick a veil, come at the naked fact, we should find the subscription, now going on in Dublin for the purpose of erecting a monument in that city, to commemorate the good recently done, or alleged to be done, to Ireland, by the DUKE of WELLINGTON; we should find, that the subscribers have the taxes in view; and that, if the monument shall actually be raised, it ought to have selfishness, and not gratitude, engraven on its base. Nearly the same may be said with regard to all the praises that we hear bestowed on men in power. The friendship which is felt towards me is pure and disinterested: it is not founded in any hope that the parties can have, that they can ever profit from professing it: it is founded on the gratitude which they entertain for the good that I have done them; and, of this sort of friendship, and friendship so cordial, no man ever possessed a larger portion.
6. Now, mere genius will not acquire this for a man. There must be something more than _genius_: there must be industry: there must be perseverance: there must be, before the eyes of the nation, proofs of extraordinary exertion: people must say to themselves, 'What wise conduct must there have been in the employing of the time of this man! How sober, how sparing in diet, how early a riser, how little expensive he must have been!' These are the things, and not genius, which have caused my labours to be so incessant and so successful: and, though I do not affect to believe, that every young man, who shall read this work, will become able to perform labours of equal magnitude and importance, I do pretend, that every young man, who will attend to my advice, will become able to perform a great deal more than men generally do perform, whatever may be his situation in life; and, that he will, too, perform it with greater ease and satisfaction than he would, without the advice, be able to perform the smaller portion.
7. I have had, from thousands of young men, and men advanced in years also, letters of thanks for the great benefit which they have derived from my labours. Some have thanked me for my Grammars, some for my Cottage Economy, others for the Woodlands and the Gardener; and, in short,