BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS A MAN OF LETTERS.*-From the title of this volume the reader will learn that he is not to expect anything of the nature of a complete Life of Franklin, but only a sketch of so much of it as relates to him as a man of letters. We will add that the sketch is somewhat brief, and there is little told that is not already generally known. Yet so true is it that every part of the career of this wonderful man is like a romance, that, well known as the facts are, most persons who begin to read this book will feel like going through it at a single sitting.

The story at the very start is invested with a kind of fascination. Who can avoid a smile as he has the old picture held up once more of the boy Franklin-of all boys in the world-forming a taste for letters, and trying to satisfy his youthful appetite, on Willard's "Body of Divinity," Mather's "Essay to do Good," and the polemical discussions of Increase Mather, and Solomon Stoddard on the theological questions of the day? What more interesting picture than that of the young printer's devil-in that age when boys early learned the lesson that they were to be only seen and not heard-writing by the light of a tallow dip, in his garret, the "Dogood Papers," and modestly thrusting them under the office door, and then, as they became the town talk, listening to the discussions which went on within his hearing about their probable authorship! What other man of letters ever had such an apprenticeship in the art of writing as this boy of all work in the newspaper offices and job offices of Boston and Philadelphia? But it was just the experiences of such an apprenticeship that made Franklin what he was, with all his peculiarities and all his unfortunate limitations. There is a striking unity in his whole literary career. The relation of cause and effect is very manifest. Never was it more true than in his case that the boy is the father of the man. All this is made very clear in the book before us, but the space at our command will admit of but a single brief illustration.

Here was a boy whose life was as far removed from the life of a student of the schools as possible. He had to study man, and

* Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters. By JOHN BACH MCMASTER. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1887. 16mo. pp. 293. Series of American Men of Letters. Edited by CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.

As admirers of the Puritans, however, we cannot but beg of the Boston pubishers to correct at once, in the plates, the erroneous spelling, twice repeated, of the name of this ancient New England theologian, still a familiar and honored name in Massachusetts.

the ways of men, the motives which influence them, and the means by which they achieve success. All this he learned so well that few have ever excelled him. He learned besides the important lesson that it is best to be industrious, temperate, and honest. He learned that, in the long run, idleness, knavery, wastefulness, lying, fraud, do not pay. But could it be expected that his conception of literature would be a very high one? Could literature be anything else to him than something very practical-something to help him in making money, in getting rich? His position in a newspaper office kept him informed with regard to all the questions which interested the public, and tempted him to express his own views upon them. As the way to learn to swim is to swim, so Franklin learned to write by writing. He wrote on the practical subjects that men were most interested in, and always wrote with the knowledge that whatever he said would be sure to be read in a few hours by those who were full of interest in that particular subject. He had the advantage of writing anonymously. If he failed in any way to-day, no one knew it, and seeing where he had failed he had the opportunity of trying to write better the next day on the same subject. He always wrote to meet an immediate emergency, never to make a name for himself. No man ever lived more truly in the present. He never thought of the morrow or of posterity. No one ever took so little care of his reputation as a writer. His aim in writing was simply to convince and persuade the men about him. To this end, he used the plainest, the most familiar, and the most direct language. He used short words and wrote in short sentences. What he wrote abounded in wit and playfulness, but he never used a metaphor or a simile. His style was that of plain statement and hard argument; and, when these were insufficient, he tried banter and ridicule. This was all he ever thought of doing when he began to write in the printing office of his brother in Boston, and, with the exception of that remarkable book, his "Autobiography," this was all he ever thought of doing during his whole career. What more could be expected of a mere printing office education? As the years went on, his sphere became immensely enlarged. At forty-two, he had made what was then considered a fortune, and retired from his printing office. He became a scientist, a politician, a statesman. He was employed in the public service in the highest stations. He wrote on all sorts of subjects. He held of a ready writer. His collected "Works" fill ten solid

the

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octavo volumes. But in all that he ever wrote, the marks of the lack of breadth of his early education are plainly to be seen. For instance, when Washington assumed command of the army in the Revolutionary War, Franklin was put on a Congressional Committee to draw up a "Declaration" to be issued by him. Mr. McMaster says: "In place of a grave and dignified document, he produced a paper that began with idle charges and ended with a jest." For such work he was wholly unfit. There is certainly much to admire in Franklin's style. His Autobiography, though it has been so tampered with, ranks as a classic in English litera ture. Yet we cannot say that he had a refined literary taste. He had not even refinement of character. He was a coarse man. From the beginning to the end of his career he was of the earth, earthy. True, he found out the way to wealth and distinction, how to get on in the world. He became the very personification of his own shrewd maxims. But it is a question whether he ever conceived a higher motive for observing them than that honesty is the best policy. Perhaps there is some excuse for all this in the fact that the age was a coarse one. But he was conspicuously coarse. Mr. McMaster says that "long after middle life, he continued to write pieces so filthy that no editor has ever had the hardihood to print them."

Mr. McMaster gives the reader also abundant opportunity to see how great was Franklin's lack of method. He took no sort of care of what he wrote, even of state papers. Speaking of his mission to France, Mr. McMaster says: "Business might drag, contractors might grow impatient, letters might accumulate, his papers might lie around in hideous confusion, but he must have his afternoon at Moulin Joly, or his evening chat with Morellet at Auteuil. Strangers who came to see him were amazed to behold papers of the greatest importance scattered in the most careless way over the table and floor. A few went so far as to remonstrate. They reminded him that spies surrounded him on every hand, and suggested that half an hour a day given to the business would enable his grandson to put the papers out of the reach of prying eyes. To each his invariable answer was, that he made it a rule never to be engaged in any business that he would not gladly have generally known, and kept his papers as carelessly as before."

Yet what American has ever been more successful, as Franklin counted success, than this printer's boy? The story of his recep

tion in Paris when he was sent by Congress to make a treaty in 1776 with the French king will ever read like a chapter from the Arabian Nights. Mr. McMaster says: "Princes and nobles, statesmen and warriors, women of rank, men of fashion, philosophers, doctors, men of all sorts, welcomed him with a welcome such as had never yet fallen to the lot of man. To his house came Turgot, now free from the cares of state, and Vergennes, who still kept his portfolio; Buffon, first among naturalists, and Cabanis, first among physicians; D'Alembert and La Rochefoucauld, Raynal, Morellet, Mably, and Malesherbes, for the fame of Franklin was great in France. Philosophers ranked him with Newton and Leibnitz. Diplomatists studied his answers in the examination before the commons of England. The people knew him as Bonhomme Richard. Men of letters pronounced "The Way to Wealth'un très-petit livre pour des grandes choses,' and, translated and annotated, it was used in the schools. Limners spent their ingenuity in portraying his features. His face was to be seen on rings, on bracelets, on the covers of snuff-boxes, on the prints that hung in the shop-windows. His bust was set up in the royal library. Medallions of him appeared at Versailles. If he made a jest, or said a good thing, the whole of France knew it. To one who asked him if a statement of Lord Stormont, the English ambassador, were true, he replied, No, sir; it is not truth, it is a Stormont. And immediately a Stormont became another name for a lie. To another who came to lament with him over the retreat through the Jerseys and the misery at Valley Forge, he replied, Ça ira, Ça ira;' (it will all come right in the end). Frenchmen took up the words, remembered them, and in a time yet more terrible made them a revolutionary cry. To the people he was the personification of the rights of man. It was seldom that he entered Paris. But when he did so, his dress, his wigless. head, his spectacles, his walking stick, and his great fur cap marked him out as the American. If he went on foot, a crowd was sure to follow at his heels. If he entered the theatre, a court of justice, a public resort of any kind, the people were sure to burst forth into shouts of applause. Their hats, coats, canes, snuff-boxes, were all à la Franklin. To sit at table with him was an honor greatly sought. Poets wrote him wretched sonnets. Noble dames addressed him in detestable verse. Women crowned his head with flowers. Grave Academicians shouted with ecstacy to see him give Voltaire a kiss. No house was quite in fashion

that did not have a Franklin portrait over the chimney-piece, a Franklin stove in one of the chambers, and in the garden a liberty tree planted by his hand. The "Gazette" of Amiens undertook

to prove that his ancestors had been French."

Mr. McMaster inserts in his book an amusing letter from the wife of John Adams-afterwards President Adams-in which she describes one of the French admirers of Franklin, at this time, Madame Helvetius, who was then a favorite in the literary society of Paris. Mrs. Adams had gone with her husband to dine with Franklin on Sunday afternoon, and it was not till after the rest of the company were assembled that Madame Helvetius made her appearance.

"She entered the room with a careless, jaunty air. Upon seeing the ladies who were strangers to her, she bawled out, Ah, mon Dieu? where is Franklin? Why did you not tell me there were ladies here! How I look!' she said, taking hold of a chemise made of tiffany, which she had on over a blue lutestring, and which looked as much upon the decay as her beauty, for she was once a handsome woman. Her hair was frizzled. Over it she had a small straw hat, with a dirty guaze half-handkerchief round it, and a bit of dirtier gauze scarf thrown over her shoulders. She ran out of the room. When she returned the doctor entered at one door, she at the other; upon which she ran forward to him, caught him by the hand; Hélas Franklin!' then gave him a double kiss, one upon each cheek, and another upon his forehead. When we went into the room to dine she was placed between the doctor and Mr. Adams. She carried on the chief conversation at dinner, frequently locking her hand into the doctor's, and sometimes spreading her arms upon the backs of both gentlemen's chairs, then throwing her arm carelessly upon the doctor's neck. I own I was highly disgusted, and never wish for an acquaintance with any ladies of this cast. After dinner she threw herself upon a settee, where she showed more than her feet. She had a little lap-dog, who was, next to the doctor, her favorite. This she kissed, and when he wet the floor she wiped it up with her chemise. This is one of the doctor's most intimate friends, with whom he dines once every week, and she with him."

Mr. McMaster suggests that Franklin probably did not notice her fashionable follies, and saw only her mental qualities.

The most remarkable proof of the indifference which Franklin always showed with regard to what he wrote is to be found in the story of the manuscript of his Autobiography, which was brought to light, after being lost for years, by Mr. John Bigelow. It had been with the greatest difficulty that the friends of Franklin had been able to persuade him to begin to write his Autobiography. At last, in 1771, a few chapters were written; but in 1776, it was