the eagerness with which such information is sought by them, and the extent of your reputation, I do not know of a more efficacious advertisement than your biography would give. "All that has happened to you, is also connected with the detail of the manners and situation of a rising people; and in this respect I do not think that the writings of Cæsar and Tacitus can be more interesting to a true judge of human nature and society. But these, sir, are small reasons, in my opinion, compared with the chance which your life will give for the forming of future great men; and, in conjunction with your Art of Virtue, (which you design to publish,) of improving the features of private character, and, consequently, of aiding all happiness, both public and domestic.

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"The two works I allude to, sir, will, in particular, give a noble rule and example of self-education. School and other education constantly proceed upon false principles, and show a clumsy apparatus pointed at a false mark; but your apparatus is simple, and the mark a true one; and while parents and young persons are left destitute of other just means of estimating and becoming prepared for a reasonable course in life, your discovery that the thing is in many a man's private power, will be invaluable!

"Influence upon the private character, late in life, is not only an influence late in life, but a weak influence. It is in youth that we plant our chief habits and prejudices; it is in youth that we take our party as to profession, pursuits, and matrimony. In youth, there fore, the turn is given; in youth the education even of the next generation is given; in youth the private and public character is determined; and the term of life extending but from youth to age, life ought to begin well from youth; and more especially before we take our party as to our principal objects.

"But your biography will not merely teach self-education, but the education of a wise man; and the wisest man will receive.lights and improve his progress, by seeing detailed the conduct of another wise man. And why are weaker men to be deprived of such helps, when we see our race has been blundering on in the dark, almost without a guide in this particular, from the farthest trace of time. Show then, sir, how much is to be done, both to sons and fathers; and invite all wise men to become like yourself; and other men to become wise.

"When we see how cruel statesmen and warriors can be to the human race, and how absurd distinguished men can be to their acquaintance, it will be instructive to observe the instances multiply of pacific acquiescing manners; and to find how compatible it is to be great and domestic; enviable and yet good humoured.

"The little private incidents which you will also have to relate, will have considerable use, as we want above all things, rules of prudence in ordinary affairs; and it will be curious to see how you have acted in these. It will be so far a sort of key to life, and explain many things that all men ought to have once explained to them, to give them a chance of becoming wise by foresight.

"The nearest thing to having experience of one's own, is to have other people's affairs brought before us in a shape that is interesting; this is sure to happen from your pen. Your affairs and management will have an air of simplicity or importance that will not fail to strike; and I am convinced you have conducted them with as much originality as if you had been conducting discussions in politics or philosophy; and what more worthy of experiments and system, (its importance and its errors considered) than human life!

"Some men have been virtuous blindly, others have speculated fantastically, and others have been shrewd to bad purposes; but you, sir, I am sure, will give under your hand, nothing but what is at the same moment, wise, practical, and good.

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Your account of yourself (for I suppose the parallel I am drawing for Dr. Franklin, will hold not only in point of character but of private history) will show that you are ashamed of no origin; a thing the more important, as you prove how little necessary all origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness.

"As no end likewise happens without a means, so we shall find, sir, that even you yourself framed a plan by which you became considerable; but at the same time we may see, that though the event is flattering, the means are as simple as wisdom could make them; that is depending upon nature, virtue, thought, and habit.

"Another thing demonstrated will be the propriety of every man's waiting for his time for appearing upon the stage of the world. Our sensations being very much fixed to the moment, we are apt to forget that more moments are to follow the first, and consequently that man should arrange his conduct so as to suit the whole of a life. Your attribution appears to have been applied to your life, and the passing moments of it have been enlivened with content and enjoyment, instead of being tormented with foolish impatience or regrets. Such a conduct is easy for those who make virtue and themselves their standard, and who try to keep themselves in countenance by examples of other truly great men, of whom patience is so often the characteristic.

"Your Quaker correspondent, sir, (for here again I will suppose the subject of my letter resembling Dr. Franklin,) praised your frugality, diligence, and temperance, which he

that man is not even at present a vicious and detestable animal; and still more to prove that good management may greatly amend him; and it is for much the same reason, that I am anxious to see the opinion established, that there are fair characters existing among the individuals of the race; for the moment that all men, without exception, shall be con

considered as a pattern for all youth: but it is singular that he should have forgotten your modesty, and your disinterestedness, without which you never could have waited for your advancement, or found your situation in the mean time comfortable; which is a strong lesson to show the poverty of glory, and the importance of regulating our minds. "If this correspondent had known the na-ceived abandoned, good people will cease efture of your reputation as well as I do, he would have said; your former writings and measures would secure attention to your Biography, and Art of Virtue; and your Biography and Art of Virtue, in return, would secure attention to them. This is an advantage attendant upon a various character, and which brings all that belongs to it into greater play; and it is the more useful, as perhaps more persons are at a loss for the means of improving their minds and characters, than they are for the time or the inclination to do it.

"But there is one concluding reflection, sir, that will show the use of your life as a mere piece of biography. This style of writing seems a little gone out of vogue, and yet it is a very useful one; and your specimen of it may be particularly serviceable, as it will make a subject of comparison with the lives of various public cut-throats and intriguers, and with absurd monastic self-tormentors, or vain literary triflers. If it encourages more writings of the same kind with your own, and induces more men to spend lives fit to be written; it will be worth all Plutarch's Lives put together.

"But being tired of figuring to myself a character of which every feature suits only one man in the world, without giving him the praise of it; I shall end my letter, my dear Dr. Franklin, with a personal application to your proper self.

"I am earnestly desirous then, my dear sir, that you should let the world into the traits of your genuine character, as civil broils may otherwise tend to disguise or traduce it. Considering your great age, the caution of your character, and your peculiar style of thinking, it is not likely that any one besides yourself can be sufficiently master of the facts of your life, or the intentions of your mind.

forts deemed to be hopeless, and perhaps think of taking their share in the scramble of life, or at least of making it comfortable principally for themselves.

"Take then, my dear sir, this work most speedily into hand: show yourself good as you are good; temperate as you are temperate; and above all things, prove yourself as one who from your infancy have loved justice, liberty, and concord, in a way that has made it natural and consistent for you to have acted, as we have seen you act in the last seventeen years of your life. Let Englishmen be made not only to respect, but even to love you. When they think well of individuals in your native country, they will go nearer to thinking weil of your country; and when your countrymen see themselves well thought of by Englishmen, they will go nearer to thinking well of England. Extend your views even further; do not stop at those who speak the English tongue, but after having settled so many points in nature and politics, think of bettering the whole race of men.

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'As I have not read any part of the life in question, but know only the character that lived it, I write somewhat at hazard. I am, sure however, that the life, and the treatise I allude to (on the Art of Virtue,) will neces sarily fulfil the chief of my expectations; and still more so if you take up the measure of suiting these performances to the several views above stated. Should they even prove unsuccessful in all that a sanguine admirer of yours hopes from them, you will at least have framed pieces to interest the human mind; and whoever gives a feeling of pleasure that is innocent to man, has added so much to the fair side of a life otherwise too much darkened by anxiety, and too much injured by pain.

BENJ. VAUGHAN.”

"In the hope therefore that you will listen "Besides all this, the immense revolution to the prayer addressed to you in this letter, of the present period, will necessarily turn I beg to subscribe myself, my dearest sir, &c. our attention towards the author of it; and &c. when virtuous principles have been pretended in it, it will be highly important to show that such have really influenced; and, as your own character will be the principal one to receive a scrutiny, it is proper (even for its effects upon your vast and rising country, as well as upon England and upon Europe,) that it should stand respectable and eternal. For the furtherance of human happiness, I have always maintained that it is necessary to prove

CONTINUATION,

Begun at Passy near Paris, 1784.

Ir is some time since I received the above letters, but I have been too busy till now to think of complying with the request they contain. It might too be much better done if I

were at home among my papers, which would aid my memory, and help to ascertain dates; but my return being uncertain, and having just now a little leisure, I will endeavour to recollect and write what I can: if I live to get home, it may there be corrected and improved.

Not having any copy here of what is already written, I know not whether an account is given of the means I used to establish the Philadelphia public library; which from a small beginning is now become so considerable. Though I remember to have come down near the time of that transaction, (1730.) I will therefore begin here with an account of it, which may be struck out if found to have been already given.

ed by strangers to be better instructed, and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.

When we were about to sign the abovementioned articles, which were to be binding on us, our heirs, &c. for fifty years; Mr. Brogden, the scrivener, said to us, “You are young men, but it is scarce probable that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term fixed in the instrument." A number of us however are yet living: but the instrument was after a few years rendered null, by a charter that incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company.

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting oneself as the proposer of any useful project, that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbours, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after practised it on such occasions; and from my frequent successes can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed tc do you justice, by plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right

At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia, the printers were indeed stationers, but they sold only paper, &c. almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England: the members of the junto had each a few. We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room; where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us: finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render the benefit from the books more common, by commencing a pub-owner. lic subscription library. I drew a sketch of This library afforded me the means of imthe plan and rules that would be necessary, provement by constant study, for which I set and got a skilful conveyancer, Mr. Charles apart an hour or two each day; and thus reBrogden, to put the whole in form of articles paired in some degree the loss of the learned of agreement to be subscribed; by which each education my father once intended for me. subscriber engaged to pay a certain sum down Reading was the only amusement I allowed for the first purchase of the books, and an myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, annual contribution for increasing them. So or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my few were the readers at that time in Phila- business continued as indefatigable as it was delphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I necessary. I was indebted for my printing was not able with great industry to find more house, I had a young family coming on to be than fifty persons, (mostly young tradesmen,) educated, and I had two competitors to conwilling to pay down for this purpose forty tend with for business, who were established shillings each, and ten shillings per annum, in the place before me. My circumstances with this little fund we began. The books however grew daily easier. My original were imported; the library was open one day habits of frugality continuing, and my father in the week for lending them to subscribers, having among his instructions to me when a on their promissory notes to pay double the boy, frequently repeated a Proverb of Solovalue if not duly returned. The institution mon, "seest thou a man diligent in his callsoon manifested its utility, was imitated by ing, he shall stand before kings, he shall other towns, and in other provinces. The not stand before mean men." I thence conlibraries were augmented by donations; read-sidered industry as a means of obtaining ing became fashionable; and our people having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books; and in a few years were observ

wealth and distinction, which encouraged me; though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which however has since happened; for I have stood before

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conviction, that it was our interest to be com- trifles, nor at accidents common or unavoidpletely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent able. our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependance on a steady uniform rectitude of con duct. For this purpose I therefore tried the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking; while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appotite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues, all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable; and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning. These names of virtues, with their precepts,

were,

12. CHASTITY.-Rarely use venery, but for health or offspring; never to dulness or weakness, or the injury of your own or anpeace or reputation.

other's

13. HUMILITY.-Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another; and so on till I should have gone through the thirteen: and as the previous acquisition of some, might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and a guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and established, Silence would be more easy; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue; and

1. TEMPERANCE.-Eat not to dulness: considering that in conversation it was ob drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE.-Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling con

versation.

3. ORDER.-Let all your things have their places: let each part of your business have

its time.

4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought: perform without fail what you resolve.

5. FRUGALITY.-Make no expense, but to do good to others or yourself: i. e. waste nothing.

6. INDUSTRY.-Lose no time: be always employed in something useful: cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. SINCERITY.-Use no hurtful deceit: think innocently and justly: and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. MODERATION.-Avoid extremes: forbear

resenting injuries so much as you think they

deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS.-Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

tained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and jesting, (which only made me acceptable to trifling company,) I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution once become habitual, would keep me firm in my endeavours to obtain all the subsequent virtues. Frugality and Industry relieving me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the practice of Sincerity and Justice, &c. &c. Conceiving then, that agreeably to the advice of Pythagoras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary; I contrived the following method for conducting that examination.

I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue, upon that day.*

*This little book is dated Sunday, 1st July, 1733, and is in the possession of Mr. W. T. Franklin: a copy 11. TRANQUILLITY.-Be not disturbed at was also in the possession of the late B. F. Bache.