Charlotte Brontë's chance discovery of a manuscript volume of verses in her sister Emily's handwriting led, from a mutual confession of the _furor poeticus_, to the joint publication of their poems, which though adding little to their subsequent fame, at least gives us another instance of how much of what is called chance has often to do with the carrying out of literary projects. It was the burning of Drury Lane Theatre that led to the production of _The Rejected Addresses_, the success of which, says one of the authors, 'decided him to embark in that literary career, which the favour of the novel-reading world rendered both pleasant and profitable to him.' Most of us know how that famous fairy tale _Alice in Wonderland_ came to be written. The characters in _Oliver Twist_ of Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy were suggested by some sketches of Cruikshank, who long had a design to shew the life of a London thief by a series of drawings. Dickens, while paying Cruikshank a visit, happened to turn over some sketches in a portfolio. When he came to that one which represents Fagin in the condemned cell, he studied it for half an hour, and told his friend that he was tempted to change the whole plot of his story, not to carry Oliver through adventures in the country, but to take him up into the thieves' den in London, shew what this life was, and bring Oliver through it without sin or shame. Cruikshank consented to let Dickens write up to as many of the drawings as he thought would suit his purpose. So the story as it now runs resulted in a great measure from that chance inspection of the artist's portfolio. The remarkable picture of the Jew malefactor in the condemned cell biting his nails in the torture of remorse, is associated with a happy accident. The artist had been labouring at the subject for several days, and thought the task hopeless; when sitting up in his bed one morning with his hand on his chin and his fingers in his mouth, the whole attitude expressive of despair, he saw his face in the cheval glass. 'That's it!' he exclaimed; 'that's the expression I want.' And he soon finished the picture.
The sudden prosperity of many a famous painter has resulted from some fortunate accident. Anthony Watteau, when a nameless struggling artist, timidly offered a painting to a rich picture-dealer for six francs, and was on the eve of being scornfully rejected, had not a stranger, who happened to be in the shop, come forward, and seeing some talent in the work, spoke encouragingly to the youth, and offered him one hundred and fifty francs for the picture; nor was this all, for he became Watteau's patron and instructor.--One day a little shepherd-boy was seated near the road-side on the way from Vespignano to Florence drawing upon a polished stone, his only pencil another polished stone which he held in his tiny fingers. A richly dressed stranger, who had descended from a conveyance that was following him, chanced to pass, and looking over the boy's shoulder, saw that he had just sketched with wonderful truth and correctness a sheep and its twin lambs. Surprised and pleased, he examined the face of the young artist. Certainly it was not its beauty that attracted him. The child looked up, but with such a marvellous light in his dark eyes, that the stranger exclaimed: 'My child, you must come with me; I will be your master and your father: it is some good angel that has led me here.' The stranger was Cimabue, the most celebrated painter of that day; and his pupil and protégé became the famous painter, sculptor, and architect Giotto, the friend and admiration of Dante and Petrarch.