In
short, no sort of toil went hard with him. For he was a fine, manly
youngster, cheerful and stalwart, one who never slunk from what he had
set about, nor turned his back except upon what was dishonest. He
wrought lightsomely, and even lustily, at his coarser pursuits; for,
in that sturdy household, to work had long been held a duty.
Thus improving himself, at odd hours, until he was fit for the
vocation of a printer, and looked upon by the village as a genius, our
youth went to Manchester, and applied himself to that art, not only
for itself, but as the surest means of further knowledge. Of course he
became a master in the craft. At length, returning to his own town to
exercise it, he grew, by his industry and good conduct, into a
condition to exercise it on his own account, and set up a
newspaper,--"The Sheffield Register."
Born of the people, it was natural that Joseph Gales should in his
journal side with the Reformers; and he did so: but with that
unvarying moderation which his good sense and probity of purpose
taught him, and which he ever after through life preserved. He kept
within the right limits of whatever doctrine he embraced, and held a
measure in all his political principles,--knowing that the best, in
common with the worst, tend, by a law of all party, to exaggeration
and extremes. Beyond this temperateness of mind nothing could move
him. Thus guarded, by a rare equity of the understanding, from excess
as to measures, he was equally guarded by a charity and a gentleness
of heart the most exhaustless.
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