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warm clothes. The air within our rooms has generally two or three degrees more of heat in it than the air without doors.

Crassus is an old lethargic valetudinarian. For these twenty years last past he has been clothed in frieze of the same colour, and of the same piece. He fancies he should catch his death in any other kind of manufacture; and though his avarice would incline him to wear it until it was threadbare, he dares not do it lest he should take cold when the nap is off. He could no more live without his frieze coat, than without his skin. It is not indeed so properly his coat, as what the anatomists call one of the integuments of the body.

How different an old man is Crassus from myself! It is indeed the particular distinction of the Ironsides to be robust and hardy, to defy the cold and rain, and let the weather do its worst. My father lived until a hundred without a cough; and we have a tradition in the family, that my grandfather used to throw off his hat, and go openbreasted, after fourscore. As for myself, they used to souse me over head and ears in water when I was a boy, so that I am now looked upon as one of the most case-hardened of the whole family of the Ironsides. In short, I have been so plunged in water and inured to the cold, that I regard myself as a piece of true-tempered steel, and can say with the above-mentioned Scythian, that I am face, or, if my enemies please, forehead all over. Addison.

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END OF BOOK XI.

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ELEGANT EXTRACTS,

FROM THE MOST

EMINENT PROSE WRITERS.

BOOK XII.

DETACHED SENTENCES, THOUGHTS, MAXIMS, AND PROVERBS.

THE WAY TO WEALTH, AS CLEARLY SHOWN IN THE PREFACE OF AN OLD PENNSYLVANIAN ALMANACK, ENTITLED, POOR RICHARD IMPROVED. COURTEOUS READER,

I HAVE heard, that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge, then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to relate to you. I stopped my horse lately, where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchant's goods. The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man, with white locks, 'Pray, father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will not those heavy taxes quite ruin the

VOL. VI.

country? How shall we be ever able to pay them? What would you advise us to?' Father Abraham stood up, and replied, 'If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; "for a word to the wise is enough," as Poor Richard says.' They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him, he proceeded as follows':

'Friends,' says he, the taxes are, indeed, very heavy; and if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we may have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; Gold helps them that help themselves," as Poor Richard says.

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I. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. "Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears, while the used key is always bright," as Poor Richard says. "But dost thou love life, then do not squander

1 Dr. Franklin, wishing to collect into one piece all his sayings upon the following subjects, which he had dropped in the course of publishing the almanacks called Poor Richard, introduces father Abraham for this purpose. Hence it is, that Poor Richard is so often quoted, and that, in the present title, he is said to be improved.

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