BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Birth.-Intended for the church.-Attends a common school.-Assists his father in the tallow chandlery.-Dislikes the business.-Tries the cutler's trade.--Becomes an apprentice in his brother's printing-office.-Evinces great fondness for books.-Is allowed access to a gentleman's library.-Turns poet, and hawks his productions through the streets.-Rising vanity checked.-His friend Collins, and their discussions.-Meets with an odd volume of the Spectator.-Improvement in composition.-Economy, and new system of diet.Masters arithmetic, and studies navigation.-Secretly contributes to his brother's newspaper -A discovery-Is viewed as a person of some consequence. Quarrels with his brother.-First error in life.-Privately leaves for New York.-Destitute condition.-Proceeds to Philadelphia.-Graphic description. -Enters into the printing-office of Keimer.-Makes a distinguished acquaint ance.-Dines with Governor Keith.-Informs his parents of his situation.Goes out to England under the supposed patronage of the governor.-Disappointment and imposition.-Thrown upon his own resources, and works in London as a journeyman printer.-Writes a pamphlet.-Attracts the attention of literary men.-Frugality and temperance.-Sets an example.-A friend re turning to Philadelphia, is engaged as his clerk.-Voyage.-Forms a plan for future conduct.-Arrival at Philadelphia.-Death of his friend.-Once more thrown upon the world.--Enters again into Keimer's service.-Franklin and Meredith set up a printing-office.-Industry.-Rising credit.-Thinks of establishing a new paper.-Treachery.-Its defeat.-Purchases Keimer's paper.Growing popularity.-Buys out his partner.-Opens a stationer's shop.-Mar ries. Establishes the first American circulating library.-Publishes "Poor Richard's Almanac."-Studies languages.-Chosen clerk of the general assembly.-Appointed deputy postmaster.-Becomes interested in public affairs -Suggests various public improvements.-Made an alderman.-Elected burgess to the general assembly.-Interesting electrical discoveries.--Draws down lightning from the clouds.-Increasing honors.-Becomes an eminent statesman.-Signs the declaration of independence.-Sent ambassador to the court of France.-Chosen president of the supreme executive council.-Character.Death.-Anecdotes. 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 ab. sence 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. We shall avail ourselves, as liberally as our limits will permit, of the ample details, respecting the early part of his life especially, that have been given to the public, in order to present to the reader as full and distinct an account as possible of the suc cessive steps of a progress so eminently worthy of being recorded, both from the interesting nature of the story, and from its value as an example and lesson, perhaps the most instructive to be any. where found, for all who have to be either the architects of their own fortunes, or their own guides in the pursuit of knowledge. 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 circumstances.' It is not 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 re-translation into English from a French version of the original manuscript which had been published at Paris. Franklin was born at Boston, 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 short-hand of his own invention, from the different preachers he had been in the habit of hearing. This person, who was now advanced in life, had been only a common silk-dyer, but had been both a great reader and writer in his day, having filled two quarto volumes with his own manuscript poetry. What he was most proud of, however, was his short-hand, 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. He was 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 upon that he should be bound 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 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-one. One of the principal reasons which induced his father to deter mine 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 fa ther's small collection consisted principally of works in controver sial 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 books, by frequently borrewing a volume in the evening, which he sat up reading the greater part of the night, in order that he might return |