Horace Walpole has said that Queen Caroline's patronage of Stephen Duck, the thresher poet, ruined twenty men, who all turned poets. It was not so with the early success of Hugh Miller. "There is no more fatal error," he says, "into which a working man of a literary turn can fall, than the mistake of deeming himself too good for his humble employments; and yet it is a mistake as common as it is fatal. I had already seen several poor wrecked mechanics, who, believing themselves to be poets, and regarding the manual occupation by which they could alone live in independence as beneath them, and become in consequence little better than mendicants,--too good to work for their bread, but not too good virtually to beg it; and looking upon them as beacons of warning, I determined that, with God's help, I should give their error a wide offing, and never associate the idea of meanness with an honest calling, or deem myself too good to be independent." At the same time, a man who feels that he has some good work in him, which study and labour might yet bring out, is fully justified in denying himself, and in applying his energies to the culture of his intellect. And it is astonishing how much carefulness, thrift, the reading of books, and diligent application, will help such men onward. The author in his boyhood knew three men who worked in an agricultural implement maker's shop. They worked in wood and iron, and made carts, ploughs, harrows, drilling-machines, and such-like articles. Somehow or other, the idea got into their heads that they might be able to do something better than making carts and harrows. They did not despise the lot of hand-labour, but they desired to use it as a step towards something better. Their wages at that time could not have exceeded from eighteen to twenty shillings a week. Two of the young men, who worked at the same bench, contrived to save enough money to enable them to attend college during the winter. At the end of each session they went back to their hand-labour, and earned enough wages during the summer to enable them to return to their classes during the winter. The third did not adopt this course. He joined a mechanics' institute which had just been started in the town in which he lived. By attending the lectures and reading the books in the library, he acquired some knowledge of chemistry, of the principles of mechanics, and of natural philosophy. He applied himself closely, studied hard in his evening hours, and became an accomplished man. It is not necessary to trace their history; but what they eventually arrived at, may be mentioned. Of the first two, one became the teacher and proprietor of a large public school; the other became a well-known dissenting minister; while the third, working his way strenuously and bravely, became the principal engineer and manager of the largest steamship company in the world.