the art of almanac-making, put in what he intended for wit and fun, and brought down upon himself the anger of the Friends. The Burlington meeting condemned his almanac and bade him print nothing he had not first shown to them. The Philadelphia meeting brought up the edition, suppressed it, and not one copy extant. Leeds in alarm humbled himself in the dust, admitted that he had sinned, promised to write more soberly in the future, soon became an Episcopalian, and thenceforth reviled and was reviled by the Friends.

is

When Bradford left Philadelphia, Leeds's almanac went with him to New York, and for six years no such work was printed in Pennsylvania. But with the revival of printing in 1699 a new crop of philomaths, students in agriculture, and philodespots sprang up and flourished exceedingly. In 1732 there were, in Philadelphia alone, the almanacs of Evans, of Birkett, of Godfrey, of Taylor, of Jerman, Der Teutsche Pilgrim, and of Titan Leeds so exquisitely ridiculed in the early issues of "Poor Richard."

The ingredients of all these books were the same. The title-page commonly did duty for a table of contents. The preface was devoted to describing the merits of what came after, to sneers at the critics of the last year's number,

and to the abuse of the works of rival philomaths. Following the preface was the naked man bestriding the globe, the calendars of the months, the days for holding courts and fairs, a chronology that always went back to Adam, a list of British rulers in which Cromwell never had a place, verses destitute of feet and sense, and a serious prognostication of events as foretold by eclipses and the planets.

In writing their almanacs, American "philomaths" without exception borrowed most freely from English contemporaries, and from this time-honored usage Franklin did not depart. Richard Saunders, who long edited the "Apollo Angelicanus," furnished the name under which he wrote. Poor Robin supplied the hint for the title, and many ideas for the general plan.

"Poor Robin was an English comic almanac defaced with the indecency and licentiousness it was then the fashion to associate with wit, with humor, and with broad fun. One number is declared to be "calculated to the meridian of all honest merry hearts; and writ in their language; and fitted to all latitudes in the temperate zone, where people are neither hot with passion nor cold with envy, and where the Pole is elevated ninety degrees above scandal and detraction." Another is suited "to all latitudes and capacities whatsoever, but more

especially those that have got sixpence to spare to buy an almanac." A third bears the title, "Poor Robin. A prognostication for the year of our Lord God 1725, wherein you have a scheme (not for a Lottery, nor the South Sea) but for the use of Astrologers, with an account of the eclipses, and a great many more than any other almanac mentions, with predictions about courtings, weddings, &c., the like not extant."

The account of the eclipses which no other almanac mentions might have been written by Poor Richard himself. Indeed it is closely paralleled in his prognostication for 1739.

With a few hints borrowed from these two sources, Franklin began the publication of "Poor Richard" in October, 1732. The success was immense. Before the month ended the first impression was exhausted. When the year closed, the third edition was offered for sale. Not a little of this popularity is, we believe, to be ascribed to the air of reality that pervades the whole book. To those who read "Poor Robin then, as to those who read him now, he was a mere name, a mask to hide another name. Poor Richard was a person, almost as real to those who read him as King George or Governor Penn, or any of the famous men of whom they were constantly hearing but

never meeting face to face. It is high praise, but not too high praise, to say, that Mr. Richard Saunders and Bridget his wife are quite as real as any characters in the whole domain of fiction.

Indeed the prefaces to the almanacs in which they appear form, collectively, a piece of prose fiction which for humor, for sprightliness, for the knowledge of human nature displayed, is well worthy of perusal. In the first of the prefaces Mr. Saunders set forth the reasons for adding one more to the long list of almanacmakers. He might, he declares, assert the sole aim he had in view was the public good. But men are not to be deceived by such pretenses, and the plain truth is, he is excessive poor, while his wife, poor woman, is excessive proud. She could no longer bear to sit spinning in her shift of tow, while he did nothing but gaze at the stars. More than once had she threatened to burn his books and rattling-traps if he did not make some use of them for the good of his family. At last he had complied with his dame's desire and given to the world an almanac, a thing he would have done long before had he not been fearful of doing harm to his old friend and fellow-student Titan Leeds. But this fear troubled him no longer, for Titan was soon to be numbered with the immortals.

Death, never known to respect merit, had already prepared the mortal dart; the fatal sister had already extended her destroying shears, and that ingenious man must surely perish on October 17, 1733, at the very moment of the 6 of and . Since, therefore, the provinces were to see no more of Leeds's performances, he felt free to take up the task.

Twenty-seven years before, Jacob Taylor, a rival philomath, described the father of Titan as" that unparalleled Plagiary and unreasonable transcriber, D. Leeds, who hath, with a very large stock of impudence, filched matter out of another man's works to furnish his spurious almanacs." The description is applicable to the whole race of philomaths, but applies with especial force to the Leeds, father and sons. But Titan was the fool positive, and as fair a butt for wit as the province produced. What a jest was he never knew. So he took the pleasantry of Poor Richard for sober earnest, and replied. He denounced Poor Richard as an ignorant and presumptuous predicter, called him a liar, a fool, a conceited scribbler, and declared that, by God's blessing, Titan Leeds should live and write long after Poor Richard Saunders and his almanac were dead and forgotten.

This reply was precisely what Franklin expected, and in the preface to Poor Richard