William Thom was an English poet of genius, but very humbly born. He was at first a weaver and afterwards a strolling pedler, often only too glad to obtain a lodging in a country barn. The poor fellow said, "There's much good sleeping to be had in a hayloft." In one of these deplorable shelters his only child, who followed him, perished from hunger and exposure. Thom published so late as 1844 a collection of his poems entitled, "Rhymes and Recollections of a Hand-Weaver." The volume was well received, and the author was given a dinner by his London admirers. He died at the age of fifty-nine in extreme poverty. We find two admirable poems by him in Sargent's "British and American Poets." The reader who has perused these pages thus far will doubtless have come to the conclusion that even talent is not developed as a rule in calm and sunshine, but that it must encounter the tempest in some form before the fruit can ripen. Byron, in the third canto of "Childe Harold," thus gloomily declares the penalties of becoming famous:-- "He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high _above_ the sun of glory glow, And far _beneath_ the earth and ocean spread, _Round_ him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to those summits led." Longfellow's idea is true and forcible: "Time has a doomsday book, in which he is continually recording illustrious names. But as soon as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illumined characters never to be effaced." Thackeray's tender and beautiful thoughts upon this subject occur to us here: "To be rich, to be famous? do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder than yours, when you lie hidden away under ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your coffin? Only true love lives after you, follows your memory with secret blessings, or pervades you and intercedes for you. _Non omnis moriar_, if, dying, I yet live in a tender heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless, living, if a sainted departed soul still loves and prays for me." CHAPTER VI. Our familiar gossip thus far concerning those whose lives by universal consent, "rising above the deluge of years," bear the impress of genius, has led us to speak of the hardships and vicissitudes to which they have so often been subjected. At this sad yet interesting aspect of genius we will continue to glance, observing, as hitherto, no chronological order, but discussing the personalities of each character as they are unrolled before us on the panorama of memory.