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[Delivered in the Manchester Mechanics' Institution.]

IT seems a fitting time to reconsider some of the incidents in the life of this marvellous man, as we now learn that the people of Boston have recently erected a statue to his memory. If we might suggest an inscription for its base, it would be: "The greatest master of common sense," -for he was that, preeminently. To this day he is a type, clear and distinct, fusing with no other historical character-the high priest, the representative of utility. In his earliest years this characteristic developed itself. He would write no more "light-house tragedy" ballads, or "songs about Blackbeard the pirate," when he learned that verse makers were generally beggars. He had an eye to solid results; "the honour of the thing" had little attraction for him at any period of his life. We must not conclude, however, that he was insensible to praise, but duty was ever paramount to every other consideration. The little incident, mentioned by his biographer, in the "Encyclopædia Britannica," illustrates his early love for utility. When he was quite a boy, the old puritan fashion of saying long graces at each meal caused him much weariness. On the occasion of salting the winter store of provisions, he took occasion to suggest to his father that it would be

better to say grace over the cask once for all,—“it would be a great saving of time." We are not to imagine that this spirit of "what will it bring and fetch," as Carlyle calls it, came upon him as an inspiration; no doubt he had to learn his lessons of experience, like the best and the worst of us. One of these lessons is recorded in the famous incident of "the whistle." Every boy knows, or ought to know, this story how Benjamin, meeting a boy with a whistle, gave him all his money-four times its value -and his vexation when he learned the bad bargain he had made; and how, in his after life, this incident was of value to him, acting as a sort of talisman,—for when he at any time was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, he said to himself, "Don't give too much for your whistle," and so saved his money.

That Franklin must have paid early attention to the cultivation of his mental powers, is evidenced in the fact that when he was barely sixteen he became, for a season at least, the editor of his brother's paper, the New England Courant, with a capability equal to the task of wielding the editorial pen. We are not surprised at his unwillingness to be under the somewhat severe direction of his brother; and so, making such prudent arrangements as the circumstances would permit, he slips away from home, and when we next hear of him, he has fairly commenced "the battle of life" three or four hundred miles away from kith or kin. To his honour be it said, that he never attempted to defend this desertion of his brother, to whom he was apprenticed. In his quaint way he writes: "I reckon this one of the first errata of my life." Franklin used frequently to review the several actions of his life, keeping a sort of "debtor" and "creditor" account with himself-never failing to pass a severe and harsh verdict for any wrong done to himself or others. The great and good Seneca imposed upon himself a similar task. "So soon," says he, "as the candle is taken away, my wife, that knows my custom, lies still, with

out a word speaking, and then do I recollect all that I have said or done that day, and take myself to shrift. And why should I conceal, or reserve anything, or make any scruple of inquiring into my errors, when I can say to myself, Do so no more, and for this once I will forgive thee."

Franklin commenced life as a printer, and as a printer he delighted to be known. Two years previous to his death-his life extended to his 82nd year-he made his will, commencing thus: "I, Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, printer, late minister plenipotentiary from the United States of America to the court of France, now president of the State of Pennsylvania, do make and declare my last will and testament as follows." Printer must be first; he never forgot, in the midst of the proud distinctions to which he afterwards attained, that he was a printer. In the last year but one of his active life, he writes to his sister: "I am too old to follow printing again myself, but loving the business, I have brought up my grandson Benjamin to it, and have built and furnished a printing-house for him, which he now manages under my own eye." There is nothing here of the modern desire to escape from the imputation of ever having been in business. The printing business, however, did not elevate him-he elevated the business; he knew it to be a useful and an honourable business, and therefore was he justly proud of it. His intense love for it could not have been greater had he foreseen the almost universal diffusion of literature and news, through the medium of cheap books and newspapers.

It is by no means an unhealthy sign of the times, that the book upon which Franklin was employed in printing, at Palmer's, in Bartholomew Close, when he first visited England (Wollaston's "Religion of Nature"), is now bought up at a high price, not on account of its intrinsic value, but as a memento of the great journeyman printer. While working at Palmer's, he originated much the best argument of the teetotaler

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