first in 1732. It is filled with pithy proverbial sayings, and useful information. The work, however, by which he is now best known as a writer, was not intended at first for publication. It is his "Autobiography," written for his son. This has been published a great many times and very widely read. It gives an account of his early life, down to the year 1757, when he went to England as a commissioner for the colony of Pennsylvania. John Bigelow prepared an edition of this with a selection of Franklin's letters and other papers, giving almost his whole life in his own words. Of the two selections given below the first describes his arrival in Philadelphia, and the second gives us a hint as to how he secured his excellent English style.

I was in my working dress, my best cloathes being to come around by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with travelling, rowing and want of rest, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar, and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in Second-street, and asked for bisket, intending such as we had in Boston; but they,

it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bad him give me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surpriz'd at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market-street as far as Fourth-street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut-street and part of Walnut-street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market-street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

The great excellence of this little bit of narrative is in its clearness. There is not a word wasted; and neither is there a word wanting to make the picture perfectly clear. We can see the queer figure with the pockets stuffed out, a roll under each arm, and we can see Miss Read smile as she catches her first glimpse of the grotesque form which was to be so honored by her and many others in the years to come. This vividness is gained by selecting the details which make the picture clear, and omitting a hundred others which an unskilful writer would have given. A good deal of the effect is due to the simplicity of the style. There are very few long words

or words of Latin origin. The passage is largely composed of short, homely Saxon words, suited to the subject. The following extract will illustrate the same qualities, and will help us to see how they are secured. It is from an earlier part of the "Autobiography," referring to the time when he was working in his brother's printing office in Boston.

tator.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the SpecIt was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With that view, I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them

into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extreamly ambitious.

A good exercise for any one who has Franklin's ambition in this respect, would be to take Franklin's Autobiography" and use it as he used the "Spec

66

tator."

man.

His

John

Woolman,

born in New

Jersey, 1720; died in

1772.

A very different autobiography, but one as excellent in its way as Franklin's, is that of John WoolWoolman was a New Jersey Friend, or Quaker, who, in 1742, was impressed with the wrong of human slavery, and devoted his life to the work England, of persuading the "Society of Friends" to make slave-holding inconsistent with membership. journal is a beautiful example of autobiography. It is a simple and clear expression of one of the finest spirits that ever lived. Charles Lamb wrote once, "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart." And John G. Whittier prepared an edition of the journal with an introduction by himself which was published in 1871. I give a brief extract from this edition, page 224:

1 By Fields, Osgood & Co., now Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Eleventh of sixth month, 1769.—There have been sundry cases of late years within the limits of our Monthly Meeting, respecting the exercising of pure righteousness towards the negroes, in which I have lived under a labor of heart that equity might be steadily preserved. On this account I have had some close exercises among Friends, in which, I may thankfully say, I find peace. And as my meditations have been on universal love, my own conduct in time past became of late very grievous to me. As persons setting negroes free in our province are bound by law to maintain them in case they have need of relief, some in the time of my youth who scrupled to keep slaves for term of life were wont to detain their young negroes in their service without wages till they were thirty years of age. With this custom I so far agreed that being joined with another Friend in executing the will of a deceased Friend, I once sold a negro lad till he might attain the age of thirty years, and applied the money to the use of the estate.

With abasement of heart I may now say that sometimes as I have sat in a meeting with my heart exercised towards that awful Being who respecteth not persons nor colors, and have thought upon this lad, I have felt that all was not clear in my mind respecting him; and as I have attended to this exercise and fervently sought the Lord, it hath appeared to me that I should make some restitution; but in what way I saw not till lately, when being under some concern that I might be resigned to go on a visit to some part of the West Indies, and under close engagement of spirit seeking to the Lord for counsel herein, the aforesaid transaction came heavily upon me, and my mind for a time was covered with darkness and sorrow. Under this sore affliction my mind was softened to receive instruction, and I now first perceived that as I had been one of the two executors who had sold this lad for nine years longer than is common for our own children to serve, so I should now offer part of my substance