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ployment brought him into connexion. Among these he mentions particularly, Isaac Decow, the surveyor-general. "He was," says Franklin,

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a shrewd, sagacious old man, who told me that he began for himself, when young, by wheeling clay for the brickmakers, learned to write after he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors, who taught him surveying, and he had now by his industry acquired a good estate; and, said he, I foresee that you will soon work this man (Keimer) out of his business, and make a fortune in it at Philadelphia. He had then not the least intimation of my intention to set up there or any where.”

Soon after he returned to Philadelphia, the types that had been sent for from London arrived; and, settling with Keimer, he and his partner took a house and commenced business. "We had scarce opened our letters," says he, "and put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in the street, inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and, from the gratitude I felt towards House, has made me often more ready than perhaps I otherwise should have been to assist young beginners." He had in the autumn of the preceding year, suggested to a number of his acquaintances a scheme for forming themselves into a club for mutual improvement; and they had accordingly been in the habit of meeting every Friday evening under the name of the Junto. All the members of this association exerted themselves in procuring business for him; and one of them, named Breinthal, obtained from the Quakers the printing of forty sheets of a history of that sect of religionists, then preparing at the expense of the body. "Upon these," says Franklin, we worked exceeding hard, for the price was low. It was a folio. I composed a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at press. It was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, before I had finished my distribution for the next day's work; for the little jobs sent in by our other friends, now and then, put us back. But so determined was I to continue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, when, having imposed my forms, I thought my day's work over, one of them by accident was broken, and two pages (the half of the day's work) reduced to pye, I immediately distributed and composed it over again before I went to bed; and this industry, visible to our neighbours, began to give us character and credit." The consequence was that business, and even offers of credit, came to them from all hands.

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They soon found themselves in a condition to think of establishing a newspaper; but, Franklin having inadvertently mentioned this scheme to a person who came to him wanting employment, that individual carried the secret to their old master, Keimer, with whom he, as well as

themselves, had formerly worked; and he immediately determined to anticipate them by issuing proposals for a paper of his own. The manner in which Franklin met and defeated this treachery is exceedingly characteristic. There was another paper published in the place, which had been in existence for some years; but it was altogether a wretched affair, and owed what success it had merely to the absence of all competition. For this print, however, Franklin, not being able to commence his own paper immediately, set about writing, in conjunction with a friend, a series of amusing communications under the title of the "Busy Body," which the publisher printed, of course, very gladly. "By this means,” says he, “the attention of the public was fixed on that paper; and Keimer's proposals, which we burlesqued and ridiculed, were disregarded. He began his paper, however, and before carrying it on three-quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, he offered it to me for a trifle; and I, having been ready some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly, and it proved in a few years extremely profitable to me." The paper, indeed, had no sooner got into Franklin's hands than its success equalled his most sanguine expectations. Some observations which he wrote and printed in it on a colonial subject, then much talked of, excited so much attention among the leading people of the place, that it obtained the proprietors many friends in the House of Assembly, and they were, on the first opportunity, appointed printers to the house. Fortunately, too, certain events occurred about this time which ended in the dissolution of Franklin's connection with Meredith, who was an idle, drunken fellow, and had all along been a mere incumbrance upon the concern. His father failing to advance the capital which had been agreed upon, when payment was demanded at the usual time by their paper-merchant and other creditors, he proposed to Franklin to relinquish the partnership, and leave the whole in his hands, if the latter would take upon him the debts of the company, return to his father what he had advanced on their commencing business, pay his little personal debts, and give him thirty pounds and a new saddle. By the kindness of two friends, who, unknown to each other, came forward unasked to tender their assistance, Franklin was enabled to accept of this proposal; and thus, about the year 1729, when he was yet only in the twenty-fourth year of his age, he found himself, after all his disappointments and vicissitudes, with nothing, indeed, to depend upon but his own skill and industry for gaining a livelihood, and for extricating himself from debt, but yet in one sense fairly established in life, and with at least a prospect of well-doing before him.

Having followed his course thus far with so minute an observance, we need not trace the remainder of his career with the same particularity. His subsequent efforts in the pursuit of fortune and independence were, ys is well known, eminently successful; and we find in his whole history,

even to its close, a display of the same spirit of intelligence and love of knowledge, and the same active, self-denying, and intrepid virtues, which so greatly distinguished its commencement. The publication of a pamphlet, soon after Meredith had left him, in recommendation of a paper currency, a subject then much debated in the province, obtained him such popularity, that he was employed by the government in printing the notes after it had been resolved to issue them. Other profitable business of the same kind succeeded. He then opened a stationer's shop, began gradually to pay off his debts, and soon after married. By this time his old rival, Keimer, had gone to ruin; and he was (with the exception of an old man, who was rich, and did not care about the business) the only printer in the place. We now find him taking a leading part as a citizen. He established a circulating library, the first ever known in America, which, although it commenced with only fifty subscribers, became in time a large and valuable collection, the proprietors of which were eventually incorporated by royal charter. While yet in its infancy, however, it afforded its founder facilities of improvement of which he did not fail to avail himself, setting apart, as he tells us, an hour or two every day for study, which was the only amusement he allowed himself. In 1732 he first published, under the name of "Richard Saunders," his celebrated Almanac, commonly known by the name of Poor Richard's Almanac, which he continued annually for twenty-five years, and the proverbs and pithy sentences scattered up and down in the different numbers of which, were afterwards thrown together into a connected discourse under the title of "The Way to Wealth," a production which has become so extensively popular that every one of our readers is probably familiar with it.

We will quote, in his own words, the account he gives of the manner in which he pursued one branch of his studies:

"I had begun," says he, "in 1733, to study languages. I soon made myself so much a master of the French, as to be able to read the books in that language with ease. I then undertook the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learning it, used often to tempt me to play chess with him. Finding this took up too much of the time I had to spare for study, I at length refused to play any more, unless on this condition, that the victor in every game should have a right to impose a task, either of parts of the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, &c., which task the vanquished was to perform upon honour before our next meeting. As we played pretty equally, we thus beat one another into that language. I afterwards, with a little painstaking, acquired as much of the Spanish as to read their books also. I have already mentioned that I had only one year's instruction in a Latin school, and that when very young, after which I neglected that language entirely. But when I had attained an acquaintance with the French, Italian, and

Spanish, I was surprised to find, on looking over a Latin Testament that I understood more of that language than I had imagined, which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study of it; and I met with the more success, as those preceding languages had greatly smoothed my way."

In 1736, he was chosen clerk of the General Assembly, and, being soon after appointed Deputy-postmaster for the State, he turned his thoughts to public affairs, beginning, however, as he says, with small matters. He first occupied himself in improving the city watch; then he suggested and promoted the establishment of a fire insurance company; afterwards he exerted himself in organizing a philosophical society, an academy for the education of youth, and a militia for the defence of the province. In short, every part of the civil government, as he tells us, and almost at the same time, imposed some duty upon him. "The Governor,” he says, "put me into the commission of the peace; the corporation of the city chose me one of the common council, and soon after alderman; and the citizens at large elected me a burgess to represent them in the Assembly. This latter station was the more agreeable to me, as I grew at length tired with sitting there to hear the debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were often so uninteresting that I was induced to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles, or anything to avoid weariness; and I conceived my becoming a member would enlarge my power of doing good. I would not, however, insinuate that my ambition was not flattered by all these promotions-it certainly was: for, considering my low beginning, they were great things to me; and they were still more pleasing as being so many spontaneous testimonies of the public good opinion, and by me entirely unsolicited.".

CHAPTER XIV.

FRANKLIN'S ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES.

It is time, however, that we should introduce this extraordinary man in a new character. A much more important part in civil affairs than any he had yet acted was in reserve for him. He lived to attract to himself. on the theatre of politics the eyes, not of his own countrymen only, but of the whole civilized world; and to be a principal agent in the production of events as mighty in themselves, and as pregnant with mighty consequences, as any belonging to modern history. But our immediate object is to exhibit a portrait of the diligent student, and of the acute and patient philosopher. We have now to speak of Franklin's famous

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electrical discoveries. Of these discoveries we cannot, of course, here attempt to give anything more than a very general account. But we shall endeavour to make our statement intelligible, so far as it goes, even to those of our readers to whom the subject may be new.

The term electricity is derived from electron, the Greek name for amber, which was known, even in ancient times, to be capable of acquiring, by being rubbed, the curious property of attracting very light bodies, such as small bits of paper, when brought near to them. This virtue was thought to be peculiar to the substance in question, and one or two others, down to the close of the sixteenth century, when our ingenious and philosophic countryman, William Gilbert, a physician of London, announced for the first time, in his Latin treatise on the magnet, that it belonged equally to the diamond and many other precious stones; to glass, sulphur, sealing-wax, rosin, and a variety of other substances. It is from this period that we are to date the birth of the science of Electricity, which, however, continued in its infancy for above a century, and could hardly, indeed, be said to consist of anything more than a collection of unsystematized and ill-understood facts, until it attracted the attention of Franklin.

Among the facts, however, that had been discovered in this interval, the following were the most important. In the first place, the list of the substances capable of being excited by friction to a manifestation of electric virtue had been considerably extended. It was also found that the bodies which had been attracted by the excited substance were immediately after as forcibly repelled by it, and could not be again attracted until they had touched a third body. Other phenomena, too, besides those of attraction and repulsion, were found to take place when the body excited was one of sufficient magnitude. If any other body, not capable of being excited, such as the human hand or a rod of metal, was presented to it, a slight sound would be produced, which, if the experiment was performed in a dark room, would be accompanied with a momentary light. Lastly, it was discovered that the electric virtue might be imparted to bodies not capable of being themselves excited, by making such a body, when insulated, that is to say, separated from all other bodies of the same class by the intervention of one capable of excitation, act either as the rubber of the excited body, or as the drawer of a succession of sparks from it, in the manner that has just been described. It was said, in either of these cases, to be electrified; and it was found that if it was touched, or even closely approached, when in this state, by any other body, in like manner incapable of being excited by friction, a pretty loud report would take place, accompanied, if either body were susceptible of feeling, with a slight sensation of pain at the point of contact, and this would instantly restore the electrified body to its usual and natural condition.

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