picked up a good deal of odd knowledge. Then he shifted to another office, at the advanced wages of twenty shillings a week, still reading and studying. At twenty-eight he was able to write a book, which he published under the title of "The Enterprising Adventures of Pizarro;" and from that time until quite recently, during a period of about fifty-five years, Britton was occupied in laborious literary occupation, chiefly connected with English antiquities. The number of his published works is not fewer than eighty-seven; the most important being "The Cathedral Antiquities of England," in fourteen volumes, a truly magnificent work; itself the best monument of John Britton's indefatigable industry.

III.23

Loudon, the landscape gardener, was a man of somewhat similar character, possessed of an extraordinary working-power. The son ofa farmer near Edinburgh, he was early inured to work. His skill in drawing plans and making sketches of scenery induced his father to train him for a landscape gardener. During his apprenticeship he sat up two whole nights every week to study; yet he worked harder during the day than any laborer. During his studious hours he learned French, and before he was eighteen translated a life of Abelard for an Encyclopædia. He was so eager to make progress in life, that when only twenty, while working as a gardener in England, he wrote down in his note-book, "I am now twenty years of age, and perhaps a third part of my life has passed away, and yet what have I done to benefit my fellow-men?" an