The Life of Benjamin Franklin With Many Choice Anecdotes and admirable sayings of this great man never before published by any of his biographers

"_When poverty comes in at the door_," said a shrewd observer, "_love flies out at the window_." When foolish families, "_wasting their substance in riotous living_," have fairl...

Of the three days which Ben, as we have seen above, had consented to stay at home, he spent the chiefest part with his father, in his old candle manufactory. 'Tis true, this hap...

The life of Dr. Franklin appears to have been one continued exemplification of this most animating promise; for scarcely had he finished that noble work just mentioned, before h...

The time is now at hand that Franklin must die. When that time approaches, or when only the chilling thought of it strikes the heart, how happy is he who in looking on the withe...

Having now got the printing-office in his own hands, Ben began to find the unspeakable advantage of his past labours to acquire ideas, and to convey them handsomely by his pen....

Had the fatal sisters, even now, put forth their shears and clipped his thread, yet would not the friend of man "_have fallen without his fame_." Admiring posterity would still...

When we see some peerless _Childers_, (whose figure almost proves the divinity of matter, and who in matchless speed leaves the stormy winds behind him,) bending under the weigh...

Doctor Franklin now began to find his situation in London extremely unpleasant. For twelve years, like heaven's own minister of peace, he had pressed the olive-branch on the Bri...

_Ben getting into trouble--finds out his old friend governor Keith to be a black sheep--and learns that a good trade and virtuous habits are the best wealth that a father can gi...

Ben was naturally comic in a high degree, and this pleasant vein, greatly improved by his present golden prospects, betrayed him into many a frolic with Keimer, to whom he had p...

But we have said nothing yet about the main object of Ben's sudden return to Boston, _i.e._ governor Keith's letter to his father, on the grand project of setting him up as a pr...

About this time, which was somewhere in his sixteenth year, Ben lighted on a very curious work, by one _Tryon_, recommending vegetable diet altogether, and condemning "_animal f...

The next day, when they came to settle with the tavern-keeper, and Ben with his usual alacrity had paraded his dollars for payment, poor Collins hung back, pale and dumb-founded...

On the arrival of the vessel at New-York, Ben went up to a tavern, and lo! who should he first cast his eyes on there, but his old friend Collins, of Boston!

The latter end of doctor Franklin affords glorious proof that nothing so softens the bed of sickness, and brightens the gloom of the grave, as a life spent in works of love to m...

'Tis the character of a great mind never to despair. Though glory may not be gained in one way, it may in another. As a river, if it meet a mountain in its course, does not halt...

Ben now sat himself down to stay with this good old woman till the following Tuesday; but still Philadelphia was constantly before him, and happening, in the impatience of his m...

Finding that to live with James in the pleasant relations of a brother and a freeman was a lost hope, Ben made up his mind to quit him and go on journey-work with some of the Bo...

Ben, as we have seen, was never without a knot of choice spirits, like satellites, constantly revolving around him, and both receiving and reflecting light. By these satellites...

The shades of midnight had parted our young combatants, and silent and alone, Ben had trotted home to his printing-office; but still in his restless thoughts the combat raged in...

As Keimer is to make a considerable figure in the early part of Ben's life, it may gratify the reader to be made acquainted with him. From the account given of him by Ben, who h...

The rest of the acts of doctor Franklin while he resided in France, and the many pleasures he enjoyed there, were first, the great pleasure of announcing to the French court, in...

"Were I so tall to reach the pole, And grasp the ocean in my span, I must be measur'd by my soul; For 'tis the MIND that makes the man."

Ben is now happy. He is placed by the side of the press, the very mint and coining place of his beloved _books_; and animated by that delight which he takes in his business, he...

Some people there are who tell us that every man is born for a particular walk in life, and that whether he will or not, in that walk he must go; and can no more quit it than th...

Dr. Franklin's father married early in his own country, and would probably have lived and died there, but for the persecutions against his friends the Presbyterians, which so di...

"Yes, 'pon honour, my lord, beyond the great sir Isaac. 'Tis true his ATTRACTIONS and GRAVITATIONS and all that, are well enough; very clever things to be sure, my lord; but sti...

So late as 1720, there was but one newspaper in all North America, and even this by some was thought one too many so little reading was there among the people in those days. But...

Imagination can hardly conceive a succession of pleasures more elegant and refined than those which Dr. Franklin, now on the shady side of threescore and ten, continued daily to...

Having finished printing the New-Jersey money, Ben, accompanied by Keimer, set out for Philadelphia, where he had scarcely arrived before in came Meredith, with a face of joy, a...

As nothing is so repellant of base minds as poverty, soon as Ralph found that Ben's pistoles were all gone, and his finances reduced to the beggarly ebb of living _from hand to...

The reader must already have discovered that Ben was uncommonly blest in a father. Indeed from the portrait of him drawn by this grateful son, full fifty years afterwards, he mu...

Except the ADMIRABLE CRICHTON, I have never heard of a genius that was fitted to shine in every art and science. Even Newton was dull in languages; and Pope used to say of himse...

But brightly as shone the day, yet in this, as in all the past, he found a canker. If the season served his ambition, it crossed his love. The reader will please be reminded tha...

The three days of Ben's promised stay with his father being expired, the next morning he embraced his parents and embarked a second time for Philadelphia, but with a much lighte...

Keimer presently obtained what he so ardently wished, the printing of the New-Jersey paper-money, and flew into the office with the news to Ben, who immediately set about constr...

A curious demonstration of Dr. Franklin's philosophy of lightning. About thirty-four years after this date, when Doctor Franklin, by his opposition to Lord North's measures, had...

As every thing is interesting that relates to one who made such a figure in the world, it may gratify our readers to be told what were the books that first regaled the youthful...

Ben continued with his father, assisting him in his humble toils, till his twelfth year; and had he possessed a mind less active might have remained a candle-maker all the days...

On returning to the tavern, he hastened into his chamber, where he found his drunken comrade, poor Collins, in a fine perspiration, and considerably sobered, owing to the refrig...

Ben used, with singular pleasure, to relate the following story of his Quaker friend Denham. This excellent man had formerly been in business as a Bristol merchant; but failing,...

Soon as Ben reached Philadelphia, as aforesaid, he waited on the governor, who received him with joy, eagerly calling out, "_Well my dear boy, what success? What success?_" Ben,...

On the 23d of July, 1726, Ben, with his friend Denham, took leave of their London acquaintance, and embarked for America. As the ebbing current gently bore the vessel along down...

I have been told that Dr. Franklin on his death bed often returned thanks to God for having so kindly cast his lot of life in the very time when of all others he would have chos...

DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, LONDON AND PARIS; GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA; AND MI...