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one, i. e. no synonymas should be used; but the whole be as short as possible, consistent with clearness.

"The words should be so placed as to be agreeable to the ear in reading, Summarily......it should be smooth,

"For the contrary qualities are displeasing."

clear, and
short.

The early perceptions of Franklin on nearly every subject were far in advance of his contemporaries. His memorable essay on population, and other thoughts on the subject, preceded the Congress of delegates from all the colonies in 1754. The articles agreed upon by that assembly were composed by him; he had penetrated futurity; and there was a certain harmony between the tone of his thoughts and the occurrences of the period which brought about that Congress, which may be historically considered as the first germination of that great revolution which was terminated by the peace of 1783.

Franklin has been, by writers hostile to freedom, considered as one premeditating a revolution, and labouring to fulfil his own prophecy. But persons who imagine this only prove their want of due discrimination. His mind had anticipated posterity, not with a view to augment its acceleration, but,--as he viewed the electric fluid,-among the phenomena of human society. Having sounded the depths of the generations of men, it is probable that he discerned a necessary and inevitable consequence, the future outnumbering of the people of this continent, so as to reverse the tenor of an expression which he uttered after the race of events had outstript his speculations. "A small island in the west of Europe governing the American continent, and subjecting it to a policy incompatible with human freedom, resembles a jolly boat governing the motion of an hundred gun ship;" he perhaps saw the day when the ship would "cut the painter," as it has happened. The sagacity which then outstript his contemporaries, was not a creation, but a discernment of future events; he was no stranger to history, and in the colonies of Spain he could discern enough to induce a generous desire, that his own country should not gradually sink or be sunk, by the relentlessness of power, into a similarly degrading condition.

Indeed the British politicians of 1754 appear to have taken an alarm, and in seeking to arrest the progress of events, suspended the plans then digested, and appear thenceforward to have entered upon a policy more repressive and rigorous. Among the autograph notes before referred to, is the following question proposed to be debated at the Junto.

"If the sovereign power attempts to deprive a subject of his right (or, which is the same thing, what he thinks his right), is it justifiable to resist if he is able?" This sentiment is much older than the Congress at Albany; and in poor Richard's almanac, for 1751, three years before the Albany meeting, the following article is found under the title genealogy.

"It is amusing to compute the number of men and women among the ancients who clubbed their faculties to produce a single modern. As you reckon backward the number augments, in the same ratio as the price of the coat which was sold for a halfpenny a button continually doubled. Thus,

A nobleman of the present day is the great result, who numbers 1
His father and mother

His grandfather and grandmother

His great grandfather, and great grandmother
4th degree

2

4

8

16

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"There are twenty-one generations, without taking a plurality of children in any case or intermarriage, and allowing three generations for one hundred years, we are carried back to the era of the Norman Conquest, at which time each nobleman of that race at the present day, to exclude ignoble blood from his veins, ought to have one million forty-eight thousand five hundred and seventy-six noble an

cestors.

66

Carry the reckoning three thousand years farther back, and the number amounts to five hundred millions, probably more than exists at one time on the earthproving pretensions to ancestry to be-a joke!"

In a letter to his daughter, Mrs. Sarah Bache, concerning the order of Cincinnati, there is another explication of this subject, given in a very sarcastic style. The domestic economy of Franklin, has been generally inferred to be sordid and penurious, perhaps from a misapprehension of the economical morality of Poor Richard, which has never been considered by his biographers in the spirit of its author. Those who laboured to find in this production a pretext for disparaging him, have discovered matter of reprobation even in its morality; it has been held forth as inculcating a paltry and niggard economy. Those critics never place themselves in the position he held, nor look at the state of the society to which Poor Richard addressed himself. In the centre of an assemblage of colonies, detached and varying in climates and positions; originating in incongruous elements; with interests not always harmonious, rendered dissonant by foreign policy, and restricted from the exercise of their faculties abroad and at home; forbidden to be industrious, and oppressed wherever the natural instincts in seeking happiness had bounded over unnatural restraints; he saw those instinctive powers of the human character directing enterprise with such powerful success in opposition to law, as to induce policy to relax, and to connive at

those very illicit enterprises, because they brought from the sources of the precious metals fruits more rich and ample than those of merely lawful mercantile commerce, and transferred the treasures of Mexico and Peru to the coffers of the English treasury.

The restraints of colonial policy forbade indulgence in luxury of living, or enjoyment; but the propensity to imitate European fashions was even then too prevalent for the pecuniary means of the people. An effort to restrain those propensities, to induce a community of thought in social relations, to inculcate simplicity of manners, as alone adapted to the state of society in which policy, in violation of nature, had placed them, were the objects of Poor Richard. Perhaps, indeed, he may have anticipated an event, which was to arrive at some uncertain and remote day, when the liberty of posterity might have to depend on a frugal and hardy yeomanry; and however remote such a crisis might then appear to be, that steps could not be taken too early to avert such fatal effeminacy as had marked the decline of Italy and Spain. To accomplish such provident purposes Poor Richard was happily adapted; the success was signal as the conception was original; the production was indeed more admired for its simplicity and ingenuity, than as a deep moral design; but the moral effects have been realized, and still retain their influence with the pleasure of recollection.

In his domestic economy he has been generally supposed to be penurious and niggardly, and that the household of the philosopher was regulated by sordid. maxims. No mistake could be greater; in every stage of his progress he was regulated by what he possessed, not by what he might possess. He was severe in avoiding debt, and equally so against whatever was wasteful; among his maxims at home, was "Share where it is needful, but waste nothing." Mrs. Franklin differed from those opinions of others concerning her husband, and frequently deemed it necessary to suggest lessons of prudence to the very master of prudence; she sometimes complained of unnecessary purchases and hard bargains-"Debby," said the doctor, "is not the dam full? Would you wish it to overflow and go to waste? More than enough is too much: let us share what we can spare, as Poor Richard says."

W. D.

THIS loose preface was deemed necessary, were it for no other end than to point out errors, and afford hints to some future biographer, should one arise, whose benevolence and disinterestedness of purpose may be in sympathy with the American sage.

The arrangement of the whole of former editions, with very large additions, are embraced in these two volumes.

The first volume embraces the autobiography and continuation, with political and some philosophical subjects; for the ready access to any of which, an alphabetical index of principal matters is prefixed to the first volume.

The second volume is preceded by a table of contents, which designates every separate subject contained therein.

MEMOIRS

OF

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

To William Franklin, Esq., Governor of to be to recall all the circumstances of it;

New Jersey.

TWYFORD,* 1771.

you

and to render this remembrance more durable to record them in writing. In thus employing myself I shall yield to the inclination so natural to old men, of talking of themselves and their own actions; and I shall indulge it without being tiresome to those, who, from respect to my age, might conceive themselves obliged to listen to me, since they will be always free to read me or not. And lastly, (I may as well confess it, as the denial of it would be believed by nobody,) I shall perhaps not a little gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I never heard or saw the introductory words "Without vanity I may say," &c., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves, but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action: and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd, if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.

DEAR SON,—I have ever had a pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the enquiries I made among the remains of my relations, when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to learn the circumstances of my life, many of which are unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of a few weeks' uninterrupted leisure, I sit down to write them. Besides, there are some other inducements that excite me to this undertaking. From the poverty and obscurity 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 And now I speak of thanking God, I desire deem them fit to be imitated, should any of with all humility to acknowledge that I attrithem find themselves in similar circumstances.bute the mentioned happiness of my past life -This good fortune, when I reflect on it, to his divine providence, which led me to the means I used, and gave the success. My which is frequently the case, has induced me belief of this induces me to hope, though I sometimes to say, that if it were left to my choice, I should have no objection to go over must not presume, that the same goodness the same life from its beginning to the end: will still be exercised towards me, in continurequesting only the advantage authors have, ing that happiness or enabling me to bear a faof correcting in a second edition the faults tal reverse, which I may experience as others of the first. So would I also wish to change have done; the complexion of my future some incidents of it for others more favourable. fortune being known to him only, in whose Notwithstanding, if this condition was deni-power it is to bless us, even in our afflictions. ed, I should still accept the offer of re-commencing the same life. But as this repeti-same curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) tion is not to be expected, that which resembles most living one's life over, again, seems

The seat of Dr. Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph.
VOL. I.-A

Some notes, one of my uncles (who had the

once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relative to our ancestors. From these notes I learnt that they lived in the same village, Ecton in Northamptonshire,

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