dissensions." Miss Adams states that "He told me he preferred an English lady who had acquired the graces of French manners; which, he added, were to be gained no where but at Paris-that was the centre, and there they were all collected and resided. I believe he was here right; there is a something not to be defined, that the French women possess, which, when it ornaments and adorns an English lady, forms something irresistibly charming." Perhaps these views account for Poor Richard's groan: "Ist not enough plagues, wars and famines rise To lash our crimes, but must our wives be wise?" Monfieur & Madame BRILLON DE JOUY FRANKLIN'S INVITATION TO THE MARRIAGE OF MLLE. MARRY HIS GRANDSON. (The indorsement is in Franklin's handwriting.) From an original sketch in the possession of the Historical Society TH VIII JACK OF ALL TRADES HE career of Franklin teaches very strongly that general ability, rather than special aptitude, is the quality most potent in winning success; for it is impossible not to conclude that he possessed elements which would have raised him, even had his lot been other than what it was. Several times in his life he charged his vocation or interests, but never with apparent loss, and the main impression that his life leaves on the student is that he was not merely multidexterous, but multiminded. Franklin came of a working family, and "my elder brothers," he states, "were all put apprentices to different trades." He himself, when ten years old, was taken from school "to assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler, a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc." The lad did not take kindly to the work, and “had a strong inclination for the sea, but my father declared against it"; so Benjamin worked on for two years, "destined," he feared, to become a tallow-chandler. "But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehension that if he did not find one more agreeable I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation." The desire for a sailor's life was short-lived, for when, at sixteen, he ran off, he states that "my inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I might now have gratify'd them." Nor did a longing for it ever recur. his first visit to England he found, so he chronicles, the voyage "not a pleasant one, as we had a good deal of bad weather," and on the return trip he saw cause for congratulation at "having happily completed so tedious and dangerous a voyage." On Once convinced that his son would not contentedly accept his own handicraft, Josiah Franklin set to work to find out one more suited to his predilection. "He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. . . . My father at last fixed 1799 fob The Town of Boston for for Candes, � for the watch. fs6 23. To & dor don Candles fib23 3 dodato 001103 11 0 Lad to thombony 00 103 11:01 2 Add to Cormant Jofink franklin A BILL OF JOSIAH FRANKLIN FOR CANDLES. In the Boston Public Library. upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home again." Eventually, as already recorded, the boy of twelve was apprenticed to printing. Yet, though he considered it from henceforth his special calling, and was ever proud of it, he was at moments easily led away to other vocations, and as soon as he was able he retired from all active plying of the "art and mystery," save as an occasional pastime, giving his time and attention to other occupations. The first inclination to change was during his early London visit. He relates that in the printing-office he was jocosely called the "Water-American," because he preferred that beverage to beer; but the title might more appropriately have been given him because of his extreme liking for aquatics. "I learned early to swim well," he declared, "ever delighted with this exercise," and as a child "practis'd all Thevenot's motions and positions, added some of my own, aiming at the graceful and easy as well as at the useful." Late in life he wrote: "When I was a boy I made two oval palettes, each about ten inches long and six broad, with a hole for the thumb, in order to retain it fast in the palm of my hand. They much resembled a painter's palettes. In swimming I pushed the edges of these forward, and I struck the water with their flat surfaces as I drew them back. I remember I swam faster by means of these palettes, but they fatigued my wrists." In another reminiscence he tells of a second boyish device: |