Franklin, son of William Franklin. This young man had for some time aided his grandfather in his literary work, and in 1789 had at his direction made a copy of the first three sections of the Autobiography for a French gentleman, M. le Veillard. What other copies besides Franklin's own were in existence cannot be ascertained; but shortly after the author's death there appeared in Paris an unauthorized French translation from an unknown original. The work attracted such attention that it was at once re-translated into English for two separate English publishers. One of these re-translations was many times reprinted in both England and America, and was for a long time the only form in which the work was available to readers of English.

Meanwhile, William Temple Franklin had gone to England with his grandfather's manuscripts, and, for reasons that have caused much discussion and that can never be fully known, refrained from publishing them until 1817. Before he issued the Autobiography he decided that the Le Veillard copy would be easier for the printer to follow than the original, and so exchanged manuscripts with the widow of M. le Veillard. This version was received without question until 1867, when the autograph manuscript passed from the descendants of the Le Veillard family into the hands of Mr. John Bigelow. On examination he found that it differed in many minor particulars from the published version, and accordingly reprinted it in 1868. There have thus been in this country three separate versions of the first three sections the translation of the French version, the reprint of the Le Veillard copy, and the Bigelow reprint of Franklin's autograph original. The brief fourth part was evidently written after the Le Veillard copy was made, and is found only in the Bigelow text.

Some of the changes introduced in the Le Veillard copy involve the loss of picturesque and forceful idioms; many others are unquestionable improvements in the rather careless style of the original. It would be interesting to know how great a part, if any, Franklin had in suggesting or directing these changes. In the absence of such information it seems safest to follow the copy which is in the author's handwriting. The text given in this volume is that of the Bigelow edition, except that "ed" is used instead of the apostrophe and "d" in spelling past participles, and the use of italics in titles, etc., has been made uniform.

4. Franklin's Other Writings

Franklin's collected works in ten volumes include a great variety of titles on all sorts of subjects. The political and scientific essays are of value to special students. The author's fame as a man of letters rests chiefly on the Autobiography and two other works, the Poor Richard Sayings, and the Bagatelles. The Poor Richard Sayings are referred to in the Autobiography, page 102. They were aphorisms in prose and rhyme, most of them intended to teach the prudential virtues. Not all of them were strictly original with Franklin. Some he borrowed, and many he adapted and improved in form. He deserves credit, however, for putting all of them into circulation. Before the days of the patent medicine pamphlet the almanac was a serious though an humble form of literature. It was purchased by every family, and as it often furnished the chief secular reading for the year its sayings were sure to be committed to memory. Poor Richard's Almanac had a general circulation throughout the colonies; and the Speech of Father Abraham, in which the best of the sayings were included,

became known throughout Europe as well. It is safe to say that no other wise saws are so generally known, or have exerted so great an influence, as those of Poor Richard. The Bagatelles were a series of light sketches written while Franklin was in France to amuse some of his friends. The best of them are the Story of the Whistle, and the Dialogue between Dr. Franklin and the Gout, which were once in all the school readers, and still deserve to be remembered.

5. Literary Style

Franklin's prose style was modelled, as we are told in the Autobiography (page 14) on that of the Spectator; but it is not a mere imitation of Addison and Steele. The disciple adopted from his masters only those characteristics which were the natural expression of his own personality. The most notable of these are clearness and naturalness. There is hardly an obscure or an ambiguous phrase in his writings. The prose runs on, too, in an informal manner that suggests unstudied conversation. The naturalness seems wholly natural, and not, as is sometimes the case in the work of Addison, studied. There is no attempt at literary embellishment, and there are no artificial devices to give force. Force is secured, however, by the use of simple, colloquial words, and apt turns of phrase that have about them a suggestion of simple, energetic life, sometimes even a touch of vulgarity. Expressions like "outed," page 5, "Keimer stared like a pig poisoned," page 31, carry us back to a time when people relied less on the latest slang to make their language effective. They are characteristic of Franklin and of the class to which he belonged.

In many passages of the Autobiography, however, the style, while it shows many of the author's best character

istics, cannot be called his best. The first part was written only for the members of his own family, and none of the work seems to have been revised. It has all the informality and inaccuracy of a hurried personal letter. Spelling and punctuation lack uniformity, sentences are broken and incomplete, and there are even violations of simple grammatical rules. In these respects the Le Veillard copy, printed by William Temple Franklin, is far superior; but it is interesting to notice how much of raciness and charm was lost in gaining greater conventionality.

After all, the only comment worth making on the style of the Autobiography is that it is wholly representative of the author. It is true that it could not, as it stands, serve as a model; but there are few writers who would not improve their own style by gaining more of its naturalness and directness. It has the charm that always goes with simple, honest, naive utterance; and this charm, even more than the substance, has made it one of our few American prose classics.

There are several reasons why Franklin's Autobiog raphy should prove valuable for study in schools. It has unusual literary merit. Its manner and matter unite to give it a fascination for persons of almost all ages and temperaments. It presents the life of a man who was intimately concerned with many lines of activity in America during the most interesting part of the colonial period. Moreover, it is the only American work of the time which is likely to be read by younger students. It may, therefore, be studied like any other important work of literature, and also to give a background to the pupil's studies in American history.

The excellences and defects of the Autobiography as a work of literature are such as are readily seen, and yet the former are those which the pupil's own writing is most likely to lack. The best methods of discussing these literary qualities will of course depend on the qualifications of the pupil and the personality of the teacher. Pupils will usually be quick to discover inaccuracies and crudenesses of expression due to haste and carelessness. Sometimes it may be profitable to consider how Franklin happened to make a certain slip, or what he really intended to write in a certain passage. In general, however, the tendency to spend much time on these faults should be resisted. Inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation may be used to emphasize the fact that many usages were unsettled so recently as the latter

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