Benjamin Franklin was alike eminent as a printer and
bookseller--an author, a philosopher and a statesman.
Coming down to our own time, we find Ebenezer Elliott successfully
carrying on the business of a bar-iron merchant in Sheffield,
during which time he wrote and published the greater number of his
poems; and his success in business was such as to enable him to
retire into the country and build a house of his own, in which he
spent the remainder of his days. Isaac Taylor, the author of the
'Natural History of Enthusiasm,' was an engraver of patterns for
Manchester calico-printers; and other members of this gifted
family were followers of the same branch of art.
The principal early works of John Stuart Mill were written in the
intervals of official work, while he held the office of principal
examiner in the East India House,--in which Charles Lamb, Peacock
the author of 'Headlong Hall,' and Edwin Norris the philologist,
were also clerks. Macaulay wrote his 'Lays of Ancient Rome' in
the War Office, while holding the post of Secretary of War. It is
well known that the thoughtful writings of Mr. Helps are literally
"Essays written in the Intervals of Business." Many of our best
living authors are men holding important public offices--such as
Sir Henry Taylor, Sir John Kaye, Anthony Trollope, Tom Taylor,
Matthew Arnold, and Samuel Warren.
Mr. Proctor the poet, better known as "Barry Cornwall," was a
barrister and commissioner in lunacy.
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