The chance perusal of De Foe's "Essay on Projects," Dr. Franklin tells us, influenced the principal events and course of his life; so the reading of the "Lives of the Saints" caused Ignatius Loyola to form the purpose of creating a new religious order,--which purpose eventuated in the powerful society of the Jesuits. Benjamin West says, "A kiss from my mother made me a painter."[176] La Fontaine read by chance a volume of Malherbe's poems,--he who was called "the poet of princes and the prince of poets,"--whereby he became so impressed, that ever after his mind sought expression through the same medium. Rousseau's eccentric genius was first aroused by an advertisement offering a prize for the best essay on a certain theme, which brought out his "Declamation against the Arts and Sciences" (winning the prize thereby), and determined his future career. The husband and father of the woman who nursed Michael Angelo were stone-masons, and the chisel thus became the first and most common plaything put into the child's hands; hence his earliest efforts were made to apply the hammer and chisel to marble, and the seed was planted which blossomed into art. It was the accidental observation of steam, lifting by its expansive power the heavy iron cover of a boiling pot, that suggested to the mind of James Watt thoughts which led to the invention of the steam-engine. The "Pickwick Papers," Dickens's earliest and best literary work, owes its origin to the publisher of a magazine upon which he was doing job-work desiring him to write a serial story to fit some comic pictures which were in the publisher's possession. The genius was in Dickens, but it slept. The sight of Virgil's tomb, just above the Grotto of Posilippo, at Naples, determined Giovanni's literary vocation for life. So Gibbon was struck with the idea of writing his "Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," as he sat dreaming amid the ruins of the Forum.[177] When Scott was a mere boy he chanced upon a copy of Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry," which he read with eagerness again and again. As soon as he could get the necessary sum of money, he purchased a copy; and thus the taste for poetry was early instilled into his soul and found after expression in his charming poems. Scott's first literary effort was the translation of "Götz von Berlichengen," to which Carlyle ascribes large influence on the great novelist's future career. He says this translation was "the prime cause of 'Marmion' and the 'Lady of the Lake,' with all that has followed from the same creative hand. Truly a grain of seed that had lighted in the right soil. For if not firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and broader than any other tree; and all nations of the earth are still yearly gathering of its fruit."