Claude Lorraine, the glorious colorist, whose very name has become a synonym in art, was in youth employed as a pastry-cook. Molière, the great French dramatist and actor, who presents one of the most remarkable instances of literary success known to history, was the son of a tapestry-maker, and was himself at one time apprenticed to a tailor, and afterwards became a _valet-de-chambre_. When Molière was valet to Louis XIII., he had already appeared upon the stage, and was rather sneered at by the other members of the king's household. The generous monarch observed this, and determined to put a stop to it: "I am told you have short commons here, Molière, and some of my people decline to serve you," said Louis, as he rose from his breakfast one day. "Sit down here at my table. I warrant you are hungry." And the king cut him a portion of chicken and put it upon his plate just at the moment when a distinguished member of the royal household entered. "You see me," said the king, "giving Molière his breakfast, as some of my people do not think him good enough company for themselves." From that hour the royal valet was treated with due consideration. William Cobbett, the English author and vigorous political writer, was a poor farmer's boy and entirely self-educated. Izaak Walton, the delightful biographist and miscellaneous author, whose "Complete Angler" would make any man's name justly famous, was for years a linen-draper in London. Pope and Southey were the sons of linen-drapers. How rapidly instances of the triumphs of genius over circumstances multiply upon us when the mind is permitted to roam at will through the long vista of the past! Cervantes, the Spanish Shakespeare, whose "Don Quixote" is as much a classic[14] as "Hamlet," was a common foot-soldier in the army of Castile. In 1575 he was captured by an Algerine corsair and carried as a slave to Algiers, where he endured the most terrible sufferings. He was finally ransomed and returned to Spain. Alexandre Dumas's grandmother was an African slave. Hugh Miller, author, editor, poet, distinguished naturalist, whose clear, choice Saxon-English caused the Edinburgh "Review" to ask, "Where could this man have acquired his style?" was a stone-mason, and his only college was a stone-quarry.[15]