THE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF If any one should dispute the claim of this work to a place in cotemporary literature, the answer is at hand in the facts of which Mr. Bigelow presents a lucid statement, and in the admirable manner in which he has carried its plan into execution. The Autobiography of Dr. Franklin closes with his mission to England in 1757, as agent for the colony of Pennsylvania. At that time, he was fifty-one years old, and just entering upon the most brilliant part of his public career. He resided abroad during the long period of twenty-eight years, either as agent of the colonies or minister of the United States, and of course conducted an extensive official and private correspondence. After his return from Europe in 1785, five years previous to his death, he also carried on an active correspondence with his numerous friends in the Old World, including many public characters of eminent position, among whom he had passed the most exciting and effective years of his singularly fruitful life. There is scarely an important incident in Franklin's career which is not described by himself in his memoirs or in his correspondence. No other eminent man appears to have left so complete a record of his own life. The artless history of his youth and early manhood has been familiar to almost every American household for at least three generations. From the close life, when he was that imperfect fragment until his death, we the country house have a connected, almost a daily, record of his life from of renty-three sheets, his own pen, written when all the incidents possessed began to write an the freshness of present experience. The data thus fur-, his son, the Govnished form the materials of the present volumes. With consummate skill, they have been gathered by the edior from the scattered memorials of many bulky vol- f his marriage, in umes, and wrought up into a continuous and fascinating was drawn again narrative. Every thing in his writings of an autobiographical character is presented in a strictly chronossed before he was logical order. The text of the original remains un- the independence changed, while whatever was necessary for the com-ed by friends who plete elucidation of the narrative has been supplied by the editor in the form of foot-notes, of which hy, to go on with the conciseness 19 no less praiseworthy than ning the narrative, the clearness. Mr. Bigelow has thus turned to it to his fifty-first excellent account the opportunities afforded by the leisure of his diplomatic mission in Paris. Familiar in for Pennsylvania. his daily routine with the places and events connected e work, but, as he with Franklin's illustrious career, it was natural that his attention should be turned to the incidents of his is public life, his life, and that he should thus be inspired with the zeal til upon himself to essential to the successful accomplishment of his ardu- ruly, would oblige important public ous labors. His task has been performed with equal diligence, discretion, and good taste. The narrative is no less remarkable for its abstinence from unnecessary elated his entrance is old and valued details, than for the completeness of its record of all important facts. The personality of the editor is kept entirely out of sight. He has not presumed to touch the pure, limpid, and sparkling English" of the original WO after the death language. The charm of the early memoir has thus, be translated into in a great measure, been preserved, while it has been retranslated into brought to a legitimate conclusion in keeping with the ed back into Engcharacter of the commencement.-In perusing these vol- and continued to umes, the reader will meet with no surprises by any new for twenty years. light in regard to the person or the services of Benjamin Franklin. They only confirm the traditional impressions of his remarkable nature and singularly happy temperament. They present him in the most favorable light as a philosopher, a statesman, and a patriot, a man of incomparable serenity of disposition, of wonderful Bagacity of judgment, and in seasons of emergency, of rare practical wisdom. A plain, homespun, matter-offact genius, firm in purpose and resolute in action, free, almost to a fault, from the illusions of fancy and sentiment, but of unerring accuracy of perception, of unusual versatility in the application of his powers, with great shrewdness and mother-wit from the earliest age, and in after life profoundly versed in the subtleties of diplomacy and the wiles of politics. But with all his experience of the secrets of cabinets and courts, his honor as a statesman can no more be questioned than his integrity as a man. His gift of adaptation to circumstances was marvelous; but it was never at the expense of principle or self-respect; and even to extreme old age, he preserved his fidelity to conscience, no less than his vigor of intellect. During his protracted career, he { doubtless gave evidence that he was not born with NEW-ORLEANS, Oct. 12.-Flour dull; Double Extra, $4 do.. $5@$5 75; Choice do., $6@$6 50; Family, $7. Co $1 07@$1 10. Oats scarce and firmer at 64@65e.. B $1 0218@$1 024. Hay dull: Prime, $25; Choice, $26 No demand; held at $22. Dry Salted Meats-Market bar No demand; held at 74c. for Shoulders, 1431c. for Clea Clear Sides, 15c. Hams dull at 122@1412c. Lard scar 1534c.; Keg, 1614c. Sugar-Sales, 37 hhds. New at 91 mon; 912c. for Fair; 1118@114c. for Yellow Ciarified. None received to-day; New Sirup dull at 75c. for Fa scarce at $1 04 for Louisiana: $1 04@$1 08 for West quiet; Common to Prime, 16@2012c. Corn Meal quiet at $ change-New-York Sight, par; Sterling, 5.312 Gold, 1 THE CHEESE MANUFACTURE. UTICA. N. Y., Oct. 12.-The Utica Herald will print morning tables containing special reports from 350 cheese New-York State, giving the number of boxes manufactured and last up to Oct. 1. The summaries show that these fac last year 416,083 boxes, and this year 434.900 boxes-a per cent this year. All the cheese was sold Oct. 1 on. throughout the State, down to the make of Aug. 28. CATTLE MARKET. CHICAGO, Oct. 12.-Cattle quiet and steady; Commo Through Texans, $2@$3 50; Corn-fed do.. $4@$4 81 Choice Natives, $5 75@$6 10; receipts, $5.500; shipments HOGS-Live steady and moderately active; Fair to Goo $5 90; Poor to Choice, $6@$6 70; Extra, $6 80@$6 90; 6,000. SHEEP quiet and unchanged; receipts. $1,000. LATEST SHIP NEWS. [For other Ship News see Second Page. ARRIVED. Bark Teresa (Ital.). Colcutano, Patras 62 days, with wool Bark Satama (Russ.). Hogman, Belast 41 days, in ball chored at Sandy Hook for orders. Brig Virginia, Johnstone, Point-a-Pitre 20 days, with suga Steamship Albemarle, for Lewes; barks Rosina Bruno, DOMESTIC PORTS. LEWES, Del., Oct. 12.-The steamship Indiana, from Livert in at 9:20 p. m. to-night. NEW-ORLEANS, Oct. 12.-Arrived at the Passes, steams man, from Liverpool; ship D. W. Chapman, from Savannah. GALVESTON, Oct. 12.-Sailed, steamship Clyde, for New-Y SAVANNAH. Oct. 12.-Arrived, steamships Gen. Earnes, 1 York; Saragossa, from Baltimore; Oriental, from Boston: souri, from Liverpool; schr. Louise H. Mallory, from New-Y BOSTON. Oct. 12.-Arrived, steamship Linda, from Yarmo Carroll, from Halifax; bark Regina (Br.), from Cape Tow Cleared, steamships Samaria (br.). for Liverpool; Charleston; barks Bounding Billow, for Gibraltar; (Br.), for Surinam. FOREIGN PORTS. Mer Johr LONDON, Oct. 12.-Sailed for the United States: Ocean. A man, Berlin, Johanna, Protector, Chiton, Aukathor, Luisa BGratia, New World, John Rutherford, Etna, Frances Bourne Saxe, Orvar Odd, Carmela, and Monitor. Arrived out on the Agur, Knudsvig. Magellan, and T. K. Weldon. Arrived out o inst.: Leopoldine Bauer, Perseverance. Lana Nueva, Virg Amigas, Hawthorn, Gerolama, Figari, Emilia, Trino Lussea thilde Bellagamba. Also arrived out: A. V., Eva Parke Chanita, and Horace Scudder. DISASTERS. NORFOLK, Va., Oct. 12.-The schr. W. Simmons, Willi Georgetown for Port Royal, with a cargo of coal, put in f having collided with the schr. Shilob in Chesapeake Bay night. Her mainboom is broken, and mainsail badly torn. The PORTLAND, Me.. Oct. 12.-The brig Achates, of Prince Island, from Pictou for Pembroke with coal, went ashore on S Ram Island, near Jonesport. She is full of water and will bre HALIFAX, N. S., Oct. 12.-The steamship Falmouth, from and Alhambra, from Boston, arrived this morning. sailed at noon for Charlottetown. The brig Wave, Fades, wi from New-York on the 1st of Aug. for Para, put into Berm 10th of the same month with a loss of sails, aud left there of for her destination, has been wrecked on the coast of Bra reaching Fara. The brig is a total loss. EASTPORT, Mo.. Oct. 12.-the schr. Nelson, from Hillsb for Boston, with 1,800 barrels of plaster, went ashore at ( nan, and was towed here to-day. Her keel is ont, and is other is insured. PREFACE. In the year 1771, the sixty-fifth of Franklin's life, when he was spending some pleasant weeks of the summer at the country house of his friend, the good Bishop of St. Asaphs, he began to write an account of his early life, in the form of a letter to his son, the Governor of New Jersey. When he had written twenty-three sheets, which brought down the narrative to the time of his marriage, in his twenty-sixth year, his holiday ended, and he was drawn again into the whirlpool of politics. Thirteen years passed before he was able to continue the work. At Passy, in 1784, the independence of his country having been secured, he was urged by friends who had read or heard of the unfinished Autobiography, to go on with it. He wrote one more chapter at Passy. Resuming the narrative, four years later, at Philadelphia, he continued it to his fifty-first year, when he had arrived in England as agent for Pennsylvania. He had both leisure and strength to complete the work, but, as he approached the time of his more conspicuous public life, his modesty took the alarm, and he could not prevail upon himself to relate occurrences which, if they were related truly, would oblige him to present himself as the central figure in important public scenes. He ceased to write when he had just related his entrance upon the European part of his career. He sent a copy of what he had written to his old and valued friend, M. Le Veillard, of Passy, who, a year or two after the death of Franklin, permitted part of the manuscript to be translated into French and published in Paris. It was translated back into English, and published in London in the year 1793, and continued to circulate in this form, in England and America, for twenty years. This portion of the Autobiography was even retranslated into |