behavior to laughter and to scorn. Nothing, perhaps, so finely illustrates this tendency to be at all times the laughing philosopher, as his draught of an address to be put forth by Washington on taking command of the army.

The alliance made and the treaty signed, he once more went back to general essay writing, and to the end of his life continued to produce pieces with the old traits of brevity and wit. If the writings of his youth were Addisonian, those of his old age were thoroughly French. When his mind was racked with the " Spectator," he wrote "Silence Dogood," and the "Busybody," and "Patience Teacroft." When he had lived some years at Passy, he wrote the Bagatelles." Even among them there is a choice; yet they all have the brightness, the spirit and vivacity, of the best French writing of that day. His last piece, the speech in the "Divorce of Algiers," is not surpassed by any of the pleasantries of Arbuthnot or Swift.

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Except the Bagatelles, which he wrote in his old age for the amusement of his friends, he produced little which did not serve an immediate and practical purpose, and which was not expressed in the plainest and clearest English. A metaphor, a simile, a figure of speech of any kind, is rarely to be met with. The characteristics of his writings are, short sentences made

up of short words, great brevity, great clearness, great force, good-humor, apt stories, pointed allusions, hard common sense, and a wonderful show of knowledge of the practical art of living. Knowledge of life he had in the highest degree. He knew the world; he knew men and the ways of men as few have known them. His remarks on political economy, on general politics, on morality, are often rash and sometimes foolish. But whatever he has said on domestic economy, or thrift, is sound and striking. No other writer has left so many just and original observations on success in life. No other writer has pointed out so clearly the way to obtain the greatest amount of comfort out of life. What Solomon did for the spiritual man that did Franklin for the earthly man. Book of Proverbs is a collection of receipts for laying up treasure in heaven. "Poor Richard" is a collection of receipts for laying up treasure on earth.

The

His philosophy was the philosophy of the useful, the philosophy whose aim it is to increase the power, to ameliorate the condition, to supply the vulgar wants, of mankind. It was for them that he started libraries; that he founded schools and hospitals; that he invented stoves; that he discovered a cure for smoky chimneys; that he put up lightning-rods; that

he improved the post-office; that he introduced the basket-willow; that he first made known the merits of plaster-of-paris as a manure; that he wrote "Poor Richard"; that he drew up the Albany Plan of Union.

it.

For this it is now the fashion to reproach him as the teacher of a candle-end-saving philosophy in which morality has no place. The reproach, if it be one, is just. Morality he never taught, and he was not fit to teach Nothing in his whole career is more to be lamented than that a man of parts so great should, long after he had passed middle life, continue to write pieces so filthy that no editor has ever had the hardihood to print them. The substance of all he ever wrote is, Be honest, be truthful, be diligent in your calling; not because of the injunctions "Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor;" but because honesty is the best policy; because in the long run idleness, knavery, wastefulness, lying, and fraud do not pay. Get rich, make money, as a matter of policy, if nothing more, because, as Poor Richard says, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.

Low as such a motive may seem from a moral standpoint, it is, from a worldly standpoint, sound and good. Every man whose life

the world calls successful has been actuated by it, and Franklin is no exception. What he taught he practiced. His life is a splendid illustration of what may be done by a neverflagging adherence to the maxims of Poor Richard.

The language in which he put his thoughts was plain and vigorous English. This is all the more praiseworthy as most American writers of his day used a vicious Johnsonese. But he spelled English as if it were his, and not the king's. In all his manuscripts, "through" is "thro'," "surf" is "surff," "job" is "jobb," "extreme" is "extream." Sometimes such words as "public," "panic,' "music," end with a k and sometimes they do not. As might be expected of a man selfeducated and so practical, he firmly believed in phonetic spelling, made a system of his own, and invented a quantity of hieroglyphics that look very much like bastard type, to represent his peculiar alphabet. In it he had neither c, nor q, nor x, nor j, nor w; no letter which did not stand for a distinct sound, and no distinct sound which did not have a letter. To his reformed spelling he made but one convert, and she, by dint of much labor, learned to read it with some fluency and write it with some ease. Towards the end of his days he was himself converted to a like system of Noah Webster.

When we turn from Franklin's labored pieces to his letters, we find that they, too, are worthy of notice. They abound in worldly wisdom, in shrewd observations, in good-humor, good stories, good sense, all set forth in plain English and in an easy, flowing style. In them is displayed to perfection the independence of thought, the sagacity, the direct and simple reasoning, the happy faculty of illustration by homely objects and parallel cases; that invincible self-control which neither obstinacy, nor stupidity, nor duplicity, nor wearisome delay could ever break down; and, what is better than all, the fearless truthfulness so characteristic of the man. Where all are good, to choose is hard. But it is idle to expect that the readers of our time will peruse the stout volumes into which Mr. Sparks has gathered a part of them. It may therefore be well to name a few which may be taken as samples of all, and these few are: the letter on the habits and treatment of the aged; that on early marriages; the account of his journey to Paris; the three on the Wilkes mob in London; the moral algebra; that containing the apologue on the conduct of men toward each other; that on the art of producing pleasant dreams; that on the Cincinnati; that to Mr. Percival on dueling; to his daughter on ex