These two friends were William Coleman and Robert Grace, members of the Junto, and extremely dear to Franklin as long as they lived. He told them he felt grateful to the Merediths for what they had done, and he could not propose a separation as long as there was any prospect of their fulfilling their agreement. If, however, they should finally fail to do so, the partnership would be dissolved of course, and then he should think himself at liberty to accept the proffered assistance. Soon after, Franklin said to his partner: "Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is unwilling to advance for you and me, what he would for you. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the whole to you, and go about my business."

To this Meredith replied: "No; my father has really been disappointed, and is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him further. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was bred a farmer, and it was folly in me to come to town, and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. I am inclined to go with them, and follow my old employment; you may find friends to assist you. If you will take the debts of the company upon you, return to my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership and leave the whole in your hands."

Franklin accepted the proposal on the instant, borrowed a hundred pounds from each of his two generous friends, paid off both the Merediths, and went on with the business alone. The partnership was dissolved July 14th, 1730, but was not announced in the newspaper until May 11th, 1732, which was about the time when he had paid all his debts, and felt himself a free man.

From this time his progress was uninterrupted, though not yet rapid. His powerful patron, Andrew Hamilton, procured for. him, soon after, the printing of the paper money and laws of Delaware, which he retained as long as he continued in business. He opened a small stationer's shop, as the custom of printers then was, in which he sold blanks of all kinds, corrected with great care by Joseph Breintnal, paper, parchment, ink, lamp-black, and peddlers' books. He now engaged a journeyman, one whom he had known in London, and took an apprentice, the son of the poet

Aquila Rose. At this period he says he not only was industrious, but took care to let his neighbors see that he was so. He dressed plainly, attended no places of public diversion, never went fishing or shooting; and to show that he was not above his business, sometimes brought home the paper he had purchased through the streets in a wheelbarrow. His credit constantly improved, and his business steadily increased.

*

Nevertheless, he did not yet feel himself quite safe. David Harry, formerly an apprentice of Keimer's, had bought the business of that unfortunate person on his removal to Barbadoes, and now threatened to become a powerful rival to Franklin. Harry had rich friends who could influence a great amount of business. Franklin proposed a partnership to him, which the young gentleman rejected with scorn. Soon he, too, went the way of fools. He dressed and lived expensively, neglected his business, got into debt. lost his customers, and, at last, was obliged to follow his old master to Barbadoes." The coast was then clear for Franklin, Andrew Bradford being old, rich, careless, and in no way formidable. Bradford, however, had one great advantage in being postmaster, since the postmaster had it in his power to prevent the post-riders from carrying all newspapers but his own. Franklin did, indeed, both send and receive newspapers by the post, but it was only by bri bing the riders; and the public, not being aware of the fact, long supposed that Bradford's Mercury was a better sheet for advertising than Franklin's Gazette, and gave their patronage accordingly. Bradford's conduct in forbidding the riders to carry the Gazette excited the disgust of Franklin. "I thought so meanly of the practice," he says, "that when I afterwards came into his situation, I took care never to imitate it,”—a golden sentence, a magnificent revenge.

*We have a trace of David Harry in a curious advertisement of a book in the Pennsylvania Gazette, for February 3d, 1780: “An Elegy on the Death of that Ancient, Renowned and Useful Matron and Midwife, Mrs. Mary Broadwell, who rested from her Labors, Jan. 2d, 1780, aged one hundred years and one day. Sold by David Harry, Printer, in Philadelphia."

CHAPTER II.

HE FOUNDS THE LIBRARY.

SEEING his way clear to the gradual formation of a safe and profitable business, it was natural his thoughts should be turned to marriage. It must be confessed that Franklin's relation of the events which led to his marriage is calculated to shock a novelreading generation; and I approach it myself with a slight shudder. Similar things occur, perhaps, in these days, but they are not told in such a blunt, unconscious way.

Mrs. Godfrey, with whom he still boarded, projected a match for him with a Miss Godfrey, the daughter of one of her relations. "She took opportunities," says Franklin, "of bringing us often together, till a serious courtship on my part ensued, the girl being in herself very deserving. The old folks encouraged me by continual invitations to supper, and by leaving us together, till at length it was time to explain. Mrs. Godfrey managed our little treaty. I let her know that I expected as much money with their daughter as would pay off my reinaining debt for the printinghouse; which I believe was not then above a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to spare: I said they might mortgage their house in the loan office. The answer to this after some days was, that they did not approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been informed the printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out, and more wanted; that Keimer and David Harry had failed one after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up. Whether this was a real change of sentiment, or only artifice on a supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold what they pleased, I know not. But I suspected the motive, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. Godírey brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was resented by the Godfreys; we differed, and

they removed, leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates."

Cool, for a swain of twenty-four. Rather exacting, too, considering that the swain had a little incumbrance somewhere in Philadelphia, not many months old. We must fall back upon the indisputable fact, that all marriages, at that day, partook of the nature of a business compact. It does not appear that marriages were less happy because the excessive prudence of parents was permitted to check the excessive ardor of youth. Let us consider, also, that, before modern commerce, emigration, and the steam-engine had given such amazing extension to the business of the world, and had created so many opportunities of rapid gain, and had given the prize of success to brains rather than to plodding, property was accumulated with exceeding slowness, and carried with it a weight which it does not now possess. Frugality and industry were the only ways to wealth known to our forefathers; and a man did well who by the exercise of those virtues during a long life gained a decent provision for his old age. A hundred pounds was a hundred pounds when poor Richard went courting. It actually represented a thousand acts of self-denial, and placed the man who had it a very long way in advance of one who had it not. We must read Franklin's account of his courtship, as well as the prudential maxims of poor Richard, by "the light of other days."

Deborah Read, meanwhile, was dejected and solitary. It was believed, but was not known, that the runaway potter whom she had married, had had a wife living at the time. It was rumored, but not ascertained, that the potter had since died in the West Indies. Franklin was still intimate in the family, who often consulted him upon their affairs. He lamented the lady's unhappy state, and attributed it to his own "giddiness and inconstancy when in London." The mother, however, blamed herself, because she had urged on the unfortunate marriage in the absence of Franklin, who, if he had found the young lady unmarried on his return from London, would doubtless have renewed his suit. Pitying her forlorn condition and reproaching himself as its cause, his fondness for her revived; and, at length, he proposed that they should risk the possible consequences of marriage. The match was not unequal, since his child was an ample set off against the disadvantages under which she labored. He would, perhaps, have mentioned the

equalizing circumstance in his Autobiography, but that his Autobiography was addressed to the only individual in the world who could never be spoken to upon the subject.* September 1st, 1730, Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read were married.

Rogers, the potter, never appeared to disturb their tranquillity, for he was really dead; nor was Franklin ever sued for his numerous debts, as he had feared he might be. The child was taken home, and reared as if he had been born to them in wedlock. Of its mother nothing whatever is known.

Mrs. Franklin was an industrious, thrifty, capable, kind woman. She attended her husband's little shop, bought the rags for the new paper-mill, stitched pamphlets, folded newspapers, taught her husband to be economical, tenderly nurtured his child, and proved herself, in all ways, a generous and faithful helpmeet. Long afterwards, he wrote to her, when far away: "It was a comfort to me to recollect that I had once been clothed from head to foot in woolen and linen of my wife's manufacture, and that I never was prouder of any dress in my life." She was a cheerful, tolerant soul, freely allowing for the foibles and faults of human nature. A remark of hers which Franklin quotes in one of his letters, about people who are punctilious and exacting in trifles, does her much honor: "If people can be pleased with small matters, it is a pity but they should have them." To say that she was an illiterate woman, is only to say that she lived in the last century. Her letters are as full of bad spelling as they are of homely sense and loving kindness. She was a finely formed, handsome woman, with a fair and pleasant countenance. Her children and even her grandchildren were celebrated for their beauty throughout the colonies.

And let us say of him, that though he had not been an ardent lover, like the lovers we like to read of in fiction, he was a faithful, tender, and considerate husband; of whom his wife was proud, in whom his wife was happy. "We throve together," says Franklin, "and ever endeavored to make each other happy." It were well if all lovers of the ardent description could say the same after a married life of forty years. Their home, at first, was plain and frugal in the extreme. "We kept no idle servants," says Franklin; our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheap

The first part of the Autobiography was addressed to this son, Gov. William Franklin, of New Jersey.