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with only fifty subscribers, became in course of 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 his celebrated Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders, but which was commonly known by the name of Poor Richard's Almanack. He continued this publication annually for twenty-five years. The proverbs and pithy sentences scattered up and down in the different numbers of it, 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 shall quote, in his own words, the account he gives us 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 tasks 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

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pains-taking, acquired as much of the Spanish as to read their books also. I have already mentioned that I had 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 deputypostmaster 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 suggested and promoted the establishment of a fire-insurance company; and afterwards 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 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 any thing 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 XV.

Account of Franklin's Electrical Discoveries.

IT is time, however, that we should introduce this extraordinary man to our readers 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 electrical discoveries. Of these discoveries we cannot, of course, here attempt to give any thing more than a very general account. But we shall endeavour to make our statement as intelligible as possible, even to those to whom the subject is new; referring them, for more particular information in regard to it, to the treatise on Electricity in the Library of Useful Knowledge, and the other works in which the principles of the science are formally expounded.

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 any thing 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, was 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 elèctric 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

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