their sufferings, he was at heart miserable enough. But he neither despaired, nor suffered his friends to know what he felt; preserving, in the midst of all his misery, a gay demeanour, and losing no opportunity of renewing his pursuit of the discovery which he all the while felt confident he should one day achieve. And at last, after sixteen years of persevering exertion, his efforts were crowned with complete success, and his fortune was made. Palissy was, in all respects, one of the most extraordinary men of his time; in his moral character displaying a highmindedness and commanding energy altogether in harmony with the reach and originality of conception by which his understanding was distinguished. Although a Protestant, he had escaped, through the royal favour, from the massacre of St. Bartholomew; but, having been soon after shut up in the Bastille, he was visited in his prison by the king, who told him, that, if he did not comply with the established religion, he should be forced, however unwillingly, to leave him in the hands of his enemies. "Forced!" replied Palissy, "this is not to speak like a king; but they who force you cannot force me; I can die !" He never regained his liberty, but ended his life in the Bastille in the ninetieth year of his age.* THE name we are now to mention is perhaps the most distinguished to be found in the annals of self-education. Of all those, at least, who, by their own efforts, and without any usurpation of the rights of others, have raised themselves to a high social position, there is no one, as has been remarked, the close of whose history presents so great a contrast to its commencement as that of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. It fortunately happens, too, in his case, that we are in possession of abundant information as to the methods by which he contrived to surmount the many disadvantages of his original condition; to raise himself from the lowest poverty and obscurity to affluence and distinction; and above all, in the absence of instructors, and of the ordinary helps to the acquisition of knowledge, to enrich himself so plentifully with the treasures of literature and science, as not only to be enabled to derive from that source the chief happiness of his life, but to succeed in placing himself high among the most famous writers and philosophers of his time. * A much more complete account of this remarkable person than previously existed has now been given to the world in "The It Life of Bernard Palissy, of Saintes; his La- is in this latter point of view, chiefly, that at present we propose to consider him; and we shall avail ourselves, as liberally as our limits will permit, of the ample details, respecting the early part of his life especially, that have been given to the public, in order to present to the reader a full and distinct account of the successive steps of a progress so eminently worthy of being recorded, both from the interesting nature of the narrative, and from its value as an example and lesson, perhaps the most instructive to be anywhere found, for all who have to be either the architects of their own fortunes, or their own guides in the pursuit of knowledge. Franklin has himself told us the story of his early life inimitably well. His account is given in the form of a letter to his eldest son, and does not appear to have been written originally with any view to publication. "From the poverty and obscurity," he says, "in which I was born, and in which I passed my earliest years, I have raised myself to a state of affluence, and some degree of celebrity in the world. As constant good fortune has accompanied me, even to an advanced period of life, my posterity will perhaps be desirous of learning the means which I employed, and which, thanks to Providence, so well succeeded with me. They may also deem them fit to be imitated, should any of them find themselves in similar circumstances." It is not many years since this letter was, for the first time, given to the world by the grandson of the illustrious writer, only a small portion of it having previously appeared, and that merely a re-translation into English from a French version of the original manuscript which had been published at Paris. Franklin was born at Boston, in North America, on the 17th of January, 1706; the fifteenth child of his parents, and perhaps expected to prove the last (whence probably his Christian name), although, as it happened, there were still two daughters to come. His father, who had emigrated from England about twenty-four years before, followed the occupation of a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, a business to which he had not been bred, and by which he seems with difficulty to have been able to support his numerous family. At first it was proposed to make Benjamin a clergyman; and he was accordingly, having before learned to read, put to the grammar-school at eight years of age;—an uncle, whose namesake he was, and who appears to have been an ingenious man, encouraging the project by offering to give him several volumes of sermons to set up with, which he had taken down, in a short-hand of his own invention, from the different preachers he had been in the habit of hearing. This person, who was now advanced in life, had been only a common silk-dyer, but had been both a great reader and writer in his day, having filled two quarto volumes with his own manuscript poetry. What he was most proud of, however, was his short-hand, which he was very anxious that his nephew should learn. But young Franklin had not been quite a year at the grammar-school, when his father began to reflect that the expense of a college education for him was what he could not very well afford; and that, besides, the Church in America was a poor profession after all. He was accordingly removed, and placed for another year under a teacher of writing and arithmetic; after which his father took him home, when he was no more than ten years old, to assist him in his own business. He was now, therefore, employed, he tells us, in cutting wicks for the candles, filling the moulds for cast candles, attending the shop, going errands, and other drudgery of the same kind. He showed so much dislike, however, to this business, that his father, afraid he would break loose and go to sea, as one of his elder brothers had done, found it advisable, after a trial of two years, to look about for another occupation for him; and after he had been taken round to see a great many different sorts of tradesmen at their work, it was agreed upon that he should be bound apprentice to a cousin of his own, who was a cutler. But he had been only for some days on trial at this business when, his father thinking the apprentice-fee which his cousin asked too high, he was again taken home. In this state of things it was finally resolved to place him with his brother James, who had been bred a printer, and had just returned from England, and set up on his own account at Boston. To him, therefore, Benjamin was bound |