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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. to a high place in society, there is no one, as has been remarked, the close of whose history presents so great a contrast to its commencement as that of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. It fortunately happens, too, in his case, that we are in possession of abundant information as to the methods by which he contrived to surmount the many disadvantages of his original condition; to raise himself from the lowest poverty and obscurity to affluence and distinction; and, above all, in the absence of instructors, and of the ordinary helps to the acquisition of knowledge, to enrich himself so plentifully with the treasures of literature and science, as not only to be enabled to derive from that source the chief

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.

Franklin has himself told us the story of his early life inimitably well. The narrative is given in the form of a letter to his son, and does not appear to have been written originally with any view to publication. 'From the poverty and obscurity,' he says, 'in which I was born, and in which I passed my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence, and some degree of celebrity in the world. As constant good fortune has accompanied me, even to an advanced period of life, my posterity will perhaps be desirous of learning the means which I employed, and which, thanks to Providence, so well succeeded with me. They may also deem them fit to be imitated, should any of 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

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 nume-wicks rous 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 reat reader and writer in his

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

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,

his father thinking the appren-books, by frequently borrowing tice fee which his cousin asked a volume in the evening, which too high, he was again taken he sat up reading the greater home. In this state of things part of the night, in order that it was finally resolved to place he might return it in the mornhim with his brother James, ing, lest it should be missed. who had been bred a printer, But these solitary studies did and had just returned from not prevent him from soon England and set up on his own acquiring a great proficiency in account at Boston. To him, his business, in which he was therefore, Benjamin was bound every day becoming more useapprentice, when he was yet ful to his brother. After some only in his twelfth year, on an time, too, his access to books agreement that he should rewas greatly facilitated by the main with him in that capacity kindness of a liberal-minded till he reached the age of twenty-merchant, who was in the habit

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. tunately 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

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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.

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 composi tion is at all, independently of such measured cadences and

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