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the popular intelligence. The newspapers furnished topics for general thought and discussion, while the closer relations and larger interests of the colonies gave a wider horizon to the intellectual life of the people.

As the writers of this second colonial period were American_by_birth and education, their works assume a more original and more distinctive character. The writings of this period, whether in philosophy, theology, history, politics, or poetry, possessed, in addition to a higher artistic excellence, a perceptible American flavor. Not many authors attained to distinction; but among the shoal of insignificant writers, there were two leviathans,

Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards, who became eminent not only in the colonies, but also in England and on the Continent.

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

No other American, excepting only the Father of his Country, is more interesting to people of every class than Benjamin Franklin. His popularity has been extraordinary. Since his death, a little more than a hundred years ago, no decade has passed without the publication of a biography or a new edition of his works. His "Autobiography," the most popular historical work of America, possesses a perennial interest. It is replete not only with interesting incident, but also with genial humor and profound practical wisdom.

The facts of his life are so well known that it is not necessary to dwell upon them. He was born in Boston, Jan. 17, 1706 — the youngest of an old-fashioned family of ten children. From his father, who was a candlemaker and soap-boiler, he inherited not only a strong physical constitution, but his "solid judgment in prudential matters." He attended the free grammar schools of Boston about a year, and gave promise of becoming a good scholar; but owing to the straitened circumstances of his father, he was taken away in order to cut wicks, mould candles, and run errands - all which he heartily disliked.

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From childhood he was passionately fond of reading, and he used the little money that came into his hands to buy books. His first purchase was Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," which after being read and re-read was sold to buy Burton's "Historical Collections a class of writings of which he was specially fond. Among the books of his early reading were Plutarch's "Lives" and Mather's "Essay to do Good," which he specially mentions as exerting a salutary influence upon his mind and character. He did not escape the common temptation of book

ish youths to attempt poetry, and wrote two ballads which, in spite of a flattering success at the time, he afterwards characterized, and no doubt justly, as "wretched stuff." From the danger of becoming a sorry poet he was timely rescued by his father, who with Philistine coldness called his attention to the fact that "verse-makers were generally beggars."

But his literary instincts were not to be quenched; and though he gave up poetry, he cultivated prose with great ardor. To increase his fluency, he was accustomed to engage in discussion with another literary lad by the name of Collins; but he had the good sense to escape the disputatious habit which this practice is in danger of developing, and which wise people, he tells us, seldom fall into. He modelled his style after Addison's Spectator, which was then a novelty in the colonies. But he had too much force of mind and character to become a mere imitator; and through a laborious apprenticeship he developed a style that is admirable for its simplicity, clearness, and force.

He was early encouraged in his literary efforts. At the age of twelve he had been apprenticed to his brother James to learn the printing business. Here he worked on the New Eng land Courant, the second newspaper that appeared in America. Some of the contributors occasionally met in the office to discuss the little essays that had appeared in the paper. Having caught the mania for appearing in print, and fearing to have his productions rejected if the authorship were known, he disguised his hand, wrote an anonymous paper, and slipped it at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found next morning, and discussed by the little company that called in as usual. "They read it," he says, "commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity." It is not strange that he continued his anonymous communications for some time.

The apprenticeship, though not till he had mastered the

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