Some men, again, have owed their success to the accidents of others. A notable instance was that of Baron Ward, the well-known minister of the Duke of Parma. After working some time as a stable-boy in Howden, he went to London, where he had the good luck to come to the Duke of Parma's assistance after a fall from his horse in Rotten Row. The Duke took him back to Lucca as his groom, and ere long Ward made the ducal stud the envy of Italy. He soon rose to a higher position, and became the minister and confidential friend of the Duke of Parma, with whom he escaped in the year 1848 to Dresden, and for whom he succeeded in recovering Parma and Placenza. Indeed, Lord Palmerston once remarked, "Baron Ward was one of the most remarkable men I ever met with." It was through witnessing an accident that Sir Astley Cooper made up his final decision to take up surgery as his profession. A young man, having been run over by a cart, was in danger of dying from loss of blood, when young Cooper lost no time in tying his handkerchief about the wounded limb so as to stop the hemorrhage. It was this incident which assured him of his taste for surgery. In the same way, the story is quoted of the eminent French surgeon, Ambrose Pare. It is stated that he was acting as stable-boy to an abbe at Laval when a surgical operation was about to be performed on one of the brethren of the monastery. On being called in to assist, Ambrose Pare not only proved so useful, but was so fascinated with the operation that he made up his mind to devote his life to the study and practice of surgery. Instances of this kind might be enumerated, being of frequent occurrence in biographical literature, and showing to what unforeseen circumstances men have occasionally owed their greatness. A romance which, had it lacked corroborative evidence, would have seemed highly improbable, is told of the two Countesses of Kellie. In the latter half of the last century, Mr Gordon, the proprietor of Ardoch Castle--situated upon a high rock, overlooking the sea--was one evening aroused by the firing of a gun evidently from a vessel in distress near the shore. Hastening down to the beach, with the servants of the Castle, it was evident that the distressed vessel had gone down, as the floating spars but too clearly indicated. After looking out in vain for some time, in the hope of recovering some of the passengers--either dead or alive--he found a sort of crib, which had been washed ashore, containing a live infant. The little creature proved to be a female child, but beyond the fact that its wrappings pointed to its being the offspring of persons in no mean condition, there was no trace as to who these were.