Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

The young printers had scarce got their types in the cases and the press in order, before one of Franklin’s friends, a certain George House, came in and introduced a countryman whom he had found in the street, inquiring for a printer. They did the work which he brought, and were paid five shillings for it. – Franklin says that this five shillings, the first that he earned as an independent man, afforded him a very high degree of pleasure. He was very grateful too to House, for having taken such an interest in bringing him a customer, and recollecting his own experience on this occasion, he always afterward felt a strong desire to help new beginners, whenever it was in his power.

A certain other gentleman evinced his regard for the young printers in a much more equivocal way. He was a person of some note in Philadelphia, an elderly man, with a wise look, and a very grave and oracular manner of speaking. This gentleman, who was a stranger to Franklin stopped one day at the door and asked Franklin if he was the young man who had lately opened a printing house. Being answered in the affirmative he told Franklin that he was very sorry for him, as he certainly could not succeed. Philadelphia, he said, was a sinking place. The people were already half of them bankrupts, or nearly so, to his certain knowledge. He then proceeded to present such a gloomy detail of the difficulties and dangers which Philadelphia was laboring under, and of the evils which were coming, that finally he brought Franklin into a very melancholy frame of mind.

The young printers went steadily on, notwithstanding these predictions, and gradually began to find employment for their press. They obtained considerable business through the influence of the members of a sort of debating club which Franklin had established some time before. This club was called the Junto, and was accustomed to meet on Friday evenings for conversation and mutual improvement. The rules which Franklin drew up for the government of this club required that each member should, in his turn, propose subjects or queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discussed by the company; and once in three months to produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject that he pleased. The members of the club were all enjoined to conduct their discussion in a sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, and not from love of dispute or desire of victory. Every thing like a positive and dogmatical manner of speaking, and all direct contradiction of each other, was strictly forbidden. Violations of these rules were punished by fines and other similar penalties.

The members of this club having become much interested in Franklin’s character from what they had seen of him at the meetings, were strongly disposed to aid him in obtaining business now that he had opened an office of his own. They were mostly mechanics, being engaged in different trades, in the city. One of them was the means of procuring quite a large job for the young printers – the printing of a book in folio. While they were upon this job, Franklin employed himself in setting the type, his task being one sheet each day, while Meredith worked the press. It required great exertion to carry the work on at the rate of one sheet per day, especially as there were frequent interruptions, on account of small jobs which were brought in from time to time. Franklin was, however, very resolutely determined to print a sheet a day, though it required him sometimes to work very late, and always to begin very early. So determined was he to continue doing a sheet a day of the work, that one night when he had imposed his forms and thought his day’s work was done, and by some accident one of the forms was broken, and two pages thrown into pi, he immediately went to work, distributed the letter, and set up the two pages anew before he went to bed.

This indefatigable industry was soon observed by the neighbors, and it began to attract considerable attention; so that at length, when certain people were talking of the three printing-offices that there were now in Philadelphia, and predicting that they could not all be sustained, some one said that whatever might happen to the other two, Franklin’s office must succeed, “For the industry of that Franklin,” said he, “is superior to any thing I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work every night when I go home, and he is at work again in the morning before his neighbors are out of bed.” As the character of Franklin’s office in this respect became generally known, the custom that came to it rapidly increased. There were still, however, some difficulties to be encountered.

Franklin was very unfortunate in respect to his partner, so far as the work of the office was concerned, for Meredith was a poor printer, and his habits were not good. In fact the sole reason why Franklin had consented to associate himself with Meredith was that Meredith’s father was willing to furnish the necessary capital for commencing business. His father was persuaded to do this in hopes that Franklin’s influence over his son might be the means of inducing him to leave off his habits of drinking. Instead of this, however, he grew gradually worse. He neglected his work, and was in fact often wholly incapacitated from attending to it, by the effects of his drinking. Franklin’s friends regretted his connection with such a man, but there seemed to be now no present help for it.

It happened, however, that things took such a turn, a short time after this, as to enable Franklin to close his partnership with Meredith in a very satisfactory manner. In the first place Meredith himself began to be tired of an occupation which he was every day more and more convinced that he was unfitted for. His father too found it inconvenient to meet the obligations which he had incurred for the press and types, as they matured; for he had bought them partly on credit. Two gentlemen, moreover, friends of Franklin, came forward of their own accord, and offered to advance him what money he would require to take the whole business into his own hands. The result of all this was that the partnership was terminated, by mutual consent, and Meredith went away. Franklin assumed the debts, and borrowed money of his two friends to meet the payments as they came due; and thenceforward he managed the business in his own name.

After this change, the business of the office went on more prosperously than ever. There was much interest felt at that time on the question of paper money, one party in the state being in favor of it and the other against it. Franklin wrote and printed a pamphlet on the subject. The title of it was The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. This pamphlet was very well received, and had an important influence in deciding the question in favor of such a currency. In consequence of this Franklin was employed to print the bills, which was very profitable work. He also obtained the printing of the laws, and of the proceedings of the government, which was of great advantage to him.

About this time Franklin enlarged his business by opening a stationery store in connection with his printing office. He employed one or two additional workmen too. In order, however, to show that he was not above his business, he used to bring home the paper which he purchased at the stores, through the streets on a wheelbarrow.

The engagement which Franklin had formed with Miss Read before he went to London had been broken off. This was his fault and not hers; as the rupture was occasioned by his indifference and neglect. When her friends found that Franklin had forsaken her, they persuaded her to marry another man. This man, however, proved to be a dissolute and worthless fellow, having already a wife in England, when he married Miss Read. She accordingly refused to live with him, and he went away to the West Indies, leaving Miss Read at home, disconsolate and wretched.

Franklin pitied her very much, and attributed her misfortunes in a great measure to his unfaithfulness to the promises which he had made her. He renewed his acquaintance with her, and finally married her. The wedding took place on the 1st of September, 1730; Franklin was at this time about twenty-five years of age. It was reported that the man who had married her was dead. At all events her marriage with him was wholly invalid.

At the time when Franklin commenced his business in Philadelphia there was no bookstore in any place south of Boston. The towns on the sea coast which have since grown to be large and flourishing cities, were then very small, and comparatively insignificant; and they afforded to the inhabitants very few facilities of any kind. Those who wished to buy books had no means of doing it except to send to England for them.

In order to remedy in some measure the difficulty which was experienced on this account, Franklin proposed to the members of the debating society which has already been named, that they should form a library, by bringing all their books together and depositing them in the room where the society was accustomed to hold its meetings. This was accordingly done. The members brought their books, and a foundation was thus laid for what afterward became a great public library. The books were arranged on shelves which were prepared for them in the club-room, and suitable rules and regulations were made in respect to the use of them by the members.

With the exception that he appropriated one or two hours each day to the reading of books from the library, Franklin devoted his time wholly to his business. He took care, he said, not only to be, in reality, industrious and frugal, but to appear so. He dressed plainly; he never went to any places of diversion; he never went out a-hunting or shooting, and he spent no time in taverns, or in games or frolics of any kind. The people about him observed his diligence, and the consequence was that he soon acquired the confidence and esteem of all who knew him. Business came in, and his affairs went on more and more smoothly every day.

It was very fortunate for him that his wife was as much disposed to industry and frugality as himself. She assisted her husband in his work by folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing paper, rags, and other similar services. They kept no servants, and lived in the plainest and most simple manner. Thus all the money which was earned in the printing office, or made by the profits of the stationery store, was applied to paying back the money which Franklin had borrowed of his friends, to enable him to settle with Meredith. He was ambitious to pay this debt as soon as possible, so that the establishment might be wholly his own. His wife shared in this desire, and thus, while they deprived themselves of no necessary comfort, they expended nothing for luxury or show. Their dress, their domestic arrangements, and their whole style of living, were perfectly plain.

Franklin’s breakfast, for example, for a long time, consisted only of a bowl of bread and milk, which was eaten from a two-penny earthen porringer and with a pewter spoon. At length, however, one morning when called to his breakfast he found a new china bowl upon the table, with a silver spoon in it. They had been bought for him by his wife without his knowledge, who justified herself for the expenditure by saying that she thought that her husband was as much entitled to a china bowl and silver spoon as any of her neighbors.

About this time Franklin adopted a very systematic and formal plan for the improvement of his moral character. He made out a list of the principal moral virtues, thirteen in all, and then made a book of a proper number of pages, and wrote the name of one virtue on each page. He then, on each page, ruled a table which was formed of thirteen lines and seven columns. The lines were for the names of the thirteen virtues, and the columns for the days of the week. Each page therefore represented one week, and Franklin was accustomed every night to examine himself, and mark down in the proper column, and opposite to the names of the several virtues, all violations of duty in respect to each one respectively, which he could recollect that he had been guilty of during that day. He paid most particular attention each week to one particular virtue, namely, the one which was written on the top of the page for that week, without however neglecting the others – following in this respect, as he said, the example of the gardener who weeds one bed in his garden at a time.

He had several mottos prefixed to this little book, and also two short prayers, imploring divine assistance to enable him to keep his resolution. One of these prayers was from Thomson:

“Father of light and life, thou Good Supreme!O teach me what is good; teach me Thyself!Save me from folly, vanity, and vice;From every low pursuit; and feed my soulWith knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,Sacred, substantial, never fading bliss.”

The other was composed by himself, and was as follows.

“O Powerful Goodness! Bountiful Father! Merciful Guide! Increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for thy continual favors to me.”

Franklin persevered in his efforts to improve himself in moral excellence, by means of this record, for a long time. He thought he made great progress, and that his plan was of lasting benefit to him. He found, however, that he could not, as at first he fondly hoped, make himself perfect. He consoled himself at last, he said, by the idea that it was not best, after all, for any one to be absolutely perfect. He used to say that this willingness on his part to be satisfied with retaining some of his faults, when he had become wearied and discouraged with the toil and labor of removing them, reminded him of the case of one of his neighbors, who went to buy an ax of a smith. The ax, as is usual with this tool, was ground bright near the edge, while the remainder of the surface of the iron was left black, just as it had come from the forge. The man wished to have his ax bright all over, and the smith said that he would grind it bright if the man would turn the grindstone.

So the man went to the wheel by which it seems the grindstone was turned, through the intervention of a band, and began his labor. The smith held the ax upon the stone, broad side down, leaning hard and heavily. The man came now and then to see how the work went on. The brightening he found went on slowly. At last, wearied with the labor, he said that he would take the ax as it then was, without grinding it any more. “Oh, no,” said the smith, “turn on, turn on; we shall have it bright by-and-by. All that we have done yet has only made it speckled.” “Yes,” said the man, “but I think I like a speckled ax best.” So he took it away.

In the same manner Franklin said that he himself seemed to be contented with a character somewhat speckled, when he found how discouraging was the labor and toil required to make it perfectly bright.

During all this time Franklin went on more and more prosperously in business, and was continually enlarging and extending his plans. He printed a newspaper which soon acquired an extensive circulation. He commenced the publication of an almanac, which was continued afterward for twenty-five years, and became very celebrated under the name of Poor Richard’s Almanac. At length the spirit of enterprise which he possessed went so far as to lead him to send one of his journeymen to establish a branch printing-office in Charleston, South Carolina. This branch, however, did not succeed very well at first, though, after a time, the journeyman who had been sent out died, and then his wife, who was an energetic and capable woman, took charge of the business, and sent Franklin accounts of the state of it promptly and regularly. Franklin accordingly left the business in her hands, and it went on very prosperously for several years: until at last the woman’s son grew up, and she purchased the office for him, with what she had earned and saved.

Notwithstanding the increasing cares of business, and the many engagements which occupied his time and attention, Franklin did not, during all this time, in any degree remit his efforts to advance in the acquisition of knowledge. He studied French, and soon made himself master of that language so far as to read it with ease. Then he undertook the Italian. A friend of his, who was also studying Italian, was fond of playing chess, and often wished Franklin to play with him. Franklin consented on condition that the penalty for being beaten should be to have some extra task to perform in the Italian grammar – such as the committing to memory of some useful portion of the grammar, or the writing of exercises. They were accordingly accustomed to play in this way, and the one who was beaten, had a lesson assigned him to learn, or a task to perform, and he was bound upon his honor to fulfill this duty before the next meeting.

After having acquired some proficiency in the Italian language Franklin took up the Latin. He had studied Latin a little when a boy at school, at the time when his father contemplated educating him for the church. He had almost entirely forgotten what he had learned of the language at school, but he found, on looking into a Latin Testament, that it would be very easy for him to learn the language now, on account of the knowledge which he had acquired of French and Italian. His experience in this respect led him to think that the common mode of learning languages was not a judicious one. “We are told,” says he, “that it is proper to begin first with the Latin, and having acquired that, it will be more easy to attain those modern languages which are derived from it; and yet we do not begin with the Greek in order more easily to acquire the Latin.” He then compares the series of languages to a staircase. It is true that if we contrive some way to clamber to the upper stair, by the railings or by some other method, without using the steps, we can then easily reach any particular stair by coming down, but still the simplest and the wisest course would seem to be to walk up directly from the lower to the higher in regular gradation.

“I would therefore,” he adds, “offer it to the consideration of those who superintend the education of our youth, whether, since many of those who begin with the Latin quit the same after spending some years, without having made any great proficiency, and what they have learned becomes almost useless, so that their time has been lost, it would not have been better to have begun with the French, proceeding to the Italian and Latin; for though after spending the same time they should quit the study of languages, and never arrive at the Latin, they would, however, have acquired another tongue or two that, being in modern use, might be serviceable to them in common life.”

It was now ten years since Franklin had been at Boston, and as he was getting well established in business, and easy in his circumstances, he concluded to go there and visit his relations. His brother, Mr. James Franklin, the printer to whom he had been apprenticed when a boy, was not in Boston at this time. He had removed to Newport. On his return from Boston, Franklin went to Newport to see him. He was received by his brother in a very cordial and affectionate manner, all former differences between the two brothers being forgotten by mutual consent. He found his brother in feeble health, and fast declining – and apprehending that his death was near at hand. He had one son, then ten years of age, and he requested that in case of his death Benjamin would take this child and bring him up to the printing business. Benjamin promised to do so. A short time after this his brother died, and Franklin took the boy, sent him to school for a few years, and then took him into his office, and brought him up to the business of printing. His mother carried on the business at Newport until the boy had grown up, and then Franklin established him there, with an assortment of new types and other facilities. Thus he made his brother ample amends for the injury which he had done him by running away from his service when he was a boy.

On his return from Boston, Franklin found all his affairs in Philadelphia in a very prosperous condition. His business was constantly increasing, his income was growing large, and he was beginning to be very widely known and highly esteemed, throughout the community. He began to be occasionally called upon to take some part in general questions relating to the welfare of the community at large. He was appointed postmaster for Philadelphia. Soon after this he was made clerk of the General Assembly, the colonial legislature of Pennsylvania. He began, too, to pay some attention to municipal affairs, with a view to the better regulation of the public business of the city. He proposed a reform in the system adopted for the city watch. The plan which had been pursued was for a public officer to designate every night a certain number of householders, taken from the several wards in succession, who were to perform the duty of watchmen. This plan was, however, found to be very inefficient, as the more respectable people, instead of serving themselves, would pay a fine to the constable to enable him to hire substitutes; and these substitutes were generally worthless men who spent the night in drinking, instead of faithfully attending to their duties.

Franklin proposed that the whole plan should be changed; he recommended that a tax should be levied upon the people, and a regular body of competent watchmen employed and held to a strict responsibility in the performance of their duty. This plan was adopted, and proved to be a very great improvement on the old system.

It was also much more just; for people were taxed to pay the watchmen in proportion to their property, and thus they who had most to be protected paid most.

Franklin took a great interest, too, about this time, in promoting a plan for building a large public edifice in the heart of the city, to accommodate the immense audiences that were accustomed to assemble to hear the discourses of the celebrated Mr. Whitefield. The house was built by public contribution. When finished, it was vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion, who might desire to address the people of Philadelphia. In fact, Franklin was becoming more and more a public man, and soon after this time, he withdrew almost altogether from his private pursuits, and entered fully upon his public career. The history of his adventures in that wider sphere must be postponed to some future Number.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 1

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT

Napoleon’s Expedition to Egypt was one of the most magnificent enterprises which human ambition ever conceived. When Napoleon was a schoolboy at Brienne, his vivid imagination became enamored of the heroes of antiquity, and ever dwelt in the society of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome. Indulging in solitary walks and pensive musings, at that early age he formed vague and shadowy, but magnificent conceptions of founding an Empire in the East, which should outvie in grandeur all that had yet been told in ancient or in modern story. His eye wandered along the shores of the Persian Gulf, and the Caspian Sea, as traced upon the map, and followed the path of the majestic floods of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Ganges, rolling through tribes and nations, whose myriad population, dwelling in barbaric pomp and pagan darkness, invited a conqueror. “The Persians,” exclaimed this strange boy, “have blocked up the route of Tamerlane, but I will open another.” He, in those early dreams, imagined himself a conqueror, with Alexander’s strength, but without Alexander’s vice or weakness, spreading the energies of civilization, and of a just and equitable government, over the wild and boundless regions which were lost to European eyes in the obscurity of distance.

When struggling against the armies of Austria, upon the plains of Italy, visions of Egypt and of the East blended with the smoke and the din of the conflict. In the retreat of the Austrians before his impetuous charges, in the shout of victory which incessantly filled his ear, swelling ever above the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying, Napoleon saw but increasing indications that destiny was pointing out his path toward an Oriental throne.