happiness of his life, but to succeed in placing himself high among the most famous writers and philosophers of his time. It is in this latter point of view, chiefly, that at present we purpose to consider him.

THE name we are now to mention is perhaps the most distinguished to be found in the annals of self-education. Of all those, at least, who by their own efforts, and without any usurpation of the rights of others, have raised themselves Franklin has himself told us to a high place in society, there the story of his early life inimiis no one, as has been remarked, tably well. The narrative is the close of whose history pre- given in the form of a letter to sents so great a contrast to its his son, and does not appear commencement as that of BEN- to have been written originally JAMIN FRANKLIN. It fortun- with any view to publication. ately happens, too, in his case, From the poverty and obscurthat we are in possession of ity,' he says, 'in which I was abundant information as to the born, and in which I passed methods by which he contrived my earliest years, I have raised to surmount the many disad- myself to a state of affluence, vantages of his original condi- and some degree of celebrity in tion; to raise himself from the the world. As constant good lowest poverty and obscurity to fortune has accompanied me, affluence and distinction; and, even to an advanced period of above all, in the absence of in- life, my posterity will perhaps structors, and of the ordinary be desirous of learning the helps to the acquisition of know- means which I employed, and ledge, to enrich himself so which, thanks to Providence, plentifully with the treasures of so well succeeded with me. literature and science, as not They may also deem them fit only to be enabled to derive to be imitated, should any of from that source the chief them find themselves in similar

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circumstances.' It is now many years since this letter was for the first time given to the world by the grandson of the illustrious writer, only a small portion of it having previously appeared, and that merely a retranslation into English from a French version of the original manuscript which had been published at Paris.

day, having filled two quarto volumes with his own manuscript poetry. What he was most proud of, however, was his shorthand, which he was very anxious that his nephew should learn. But young Franklin had not been quite a year at the grammar-school, when his father began to reflect that the expense of a college education for him was what he could not very well afford; and that, besides, the church in America was a poor profession after all. He was accordingly removed, and placed for another year under a teacher of writing and arithmetic; after which his father took him home, when he was no more than ten years old, to assist him in his own business. Accordingly, he was employed, he tells us, in cutting wicks for the candles, filling the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going errands, and other drudgery of the same kind. He showed so much dislike, however, to this business, that his father, afraid he would break loose and go to sea, as one of his elder brothers had done, found it advisable, after a trial of two years, to look about for another occupation for him; and taking him round to see a great many different sorts of tradesmen at their work, it was at last agreed

Franklin was born at Boston, in North America, on the 17th of January 1706-the youngest, with the exception of two daughters, of a family of seventeen children. His father, who had emigrated from England about twenty-four years before, followed the occupation of a soapboiler and tallow-chandler, a business to which he had not been bred, and by which he seems with difficulty to have been able to support his numerous family. At first it was proposed to make Benjamin a clergyman, and he was accordingly, having before learned to read, put to the grammar-school at eight years of age; an uncle, whose namesake he was, and who appears to have been an ingenious man, encouraging the project, by offering to give him several volumes of sermons to set up with, which he had taken down, in a shorthand of his own invention, from the different preachers he had been in the habit of hearing. This per-upon that he should be bound son, who was now advanced in life, had been only a common silk-dyer, but had been both a great reader and writer in his

apprentice to a cousin of his own, who was a cutler. But he had been only for some days on trial at this business, when,

books, by frequently borrowing a volume in the evening, which he sat up reading the greater part of the night, in order that he might return it in the morning, lest it should be missed. But these solitary studies did not prevent him from soon acquiring a great proficiency in his business, in which he was every day becoming more useful to his brother. After some time, too, his access to books was greatly facilitated by the kindness of a liberal-minded

his father thinking the apprentice fee which his cousin asked too high, he was again taken home. In this state of things it was finally resolved to place him with his brother James, who had been bred a printer, and had just returned from England and set up on his own account at Boston. To him, therefore, Benjamin was bound apprentice, when he was yet only in his twelfth year, on an agreement that he should remain with him in that capacity till he reached the age of twenty-merchant, who was in the habit of frequenting the printing office, and, being possessed of a tolerable library, invited young Franklin, whose industry and intelligence had attracted his attention, to come to see it; after which he allowed him to borrow from it such volumes as he wished to read.

one.

One of the principal reasons which induced his father to determine upon this profession for him was the fondness he had from his infancy shown for reading. All the money he could get hold of used to be eagerly laid out in the purchase of books. His father's small collection consisted principally of works in controversial divinity, a subject of little interest to a reader of his age; but, such as they were, he went through most of them. Fortunately there was also a copy of Plutarch's Lives, which, he says, he read abundantly. This, and a book by Daniel Defoe, called An Essay on Projects, he seems to think were the two works from which he derived the most advantage. His new profession of a printer, by procuring him the acquaintance of some booksellers' apprentices, enabled him considerably to extend his acquaintance with

Our young student was now to distinguish himself in a new character. The perusal of the works of others suggested to him the idea of trying his own talent at composition, and his first attempts in this way were a few pieces of poetry. Verse, it may be observed, is generally the earliest sort of composition. attempted either by nations or individuals, and for the same reasons in both cases—namely, first, because poetry has peculiar charms for the unripe understanding; and, secondly, because people at first find it difficult to conceive what composition is at all, independently of such measured cadences and