He said to his friend
Sir Francis Baring: "I have tried it every way--extempore, from
notes, and committing all to memory--and I can't do it. I don't
know why it is, but I am afraid I shall never succeed." Yet, by
dint of perseverance, Graham, like Disraeli, lived to become one
of the most effective and impressive of parliamentary speakers.
Failures in one direction have sometimes had the effect of forcing
the farseeing student to apply himself in another. Thus
Prideaux's failure as a candidate for the post of parish-clerk of
Ugboro, in Devon, led to his applying himself to learning, and to
his eventual elevation to the bishopric of Worcester. When
Boileau, educated for the bar, pleaded his first cause, he broke
down amidst shouts of laughter. He next tried the pulpit, and
failed there too. And then he tried poetry, and succeeded.
Fontenelle and Voltaire both failed at the bar. So Cowper,
through his diffidence and shyness, broke down when pleading his
first cause, though he lived to revive the poetic art in England.
Montesquieu and Bentham both failed as lawyers, and forsook the
bar for more congenial pursuits--the latter leaving behind him a
treasury of legislative procedure for all time. Goldsmith failed
in passing as a surgeon; but he wrote the 'Deserted Village' and
the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' whilst Addison failed as a speaker, but
succeeded in writing 'Sir Roger de Coverley,' and his many famous
papers in the 'Spectator.
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