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FEANKLIN 437 lin, whom Mr. Tuckerman calls the incarnated common sense of his time, did not forget that he might be called upon to pay his predeces- sor's debts. "We ventured, however," he adds, " over all the difficulties, and I took her to wife on the 1st of September, 1730." She proved a good and faithful helpmate. Some time before his marriage he suffered a serious illness ; a similar illness carried off his em- ployer; and Franklin, forming a connection shortly afterward with a person who had money, established the "Pennsylvania Ga- zette," which was managed with great ability. He had already written the "Busybody," a se- ries of amusing papers, for another journal, and was the leading member of a club called the Junto, in which questions of morals, poli- tics, and philosophy were discussed. He very soon became a man of mark ; his great intelli- gence and industry, his ingenuity in devising better systems of economy, education, and improvement, now establishing a subscription and circulating library, now publishing a popu- lar pamphlet on the necessity of paper cur- rency (having previously invented a copper- plate press, and engraved and printed the New Jersey paper money), and presently also his valuable municipal services, rapidly won for him the respect and admiration of the colonies. In 1732 he first published his almanac, under the name of Eichard Saunders. It took the name of "Poor Eichard's Almanac," and was continued profitably about 25 years. The wise saws, the aphorisms, and encouragement to virtue and prosperity through the excellent proverbial sentences with which he filled the corners and spaces, became very popular, and they were at length spread over England and France in reprint and translations. In 1733, at the age of 27, he began to study the French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin languages; and after ten years' absence from Boston, he re- visited the scenes of his childhood, healing family differences, and consoling the deathbed of his brother with promises of provision for his son. Eeturning to Philadelphia, he was elected clerk to the assembly. Soon afterward he was appointed postmaster, and turning his mind upon municipal affairs, wrote papers and effected improvements in the city watch, and established a tire company. He became the founder of the university of Pennsylvania and of the American philosophical society (1744), took an active part in providing for defence against a threatened Spanish and French inva- sion, and invented the economical stove which bears his name; he declined to profit pecu- niarily from this invention, although invited to do so by the offer of a patent. While in Boston in 1746, he witnessed some imperfect experiments in electricity; and having now means sufficient to withdraw from private busi- ness, he purchased philosophical apparatus and began his investigations (for an account of which see ELECTRO-MAGNETISM, and LIGHT- NING). The invention of the lightning rod was a practical application of discoveries the most brilliant which had yet been made in natural philosophy. But he was not allowed to pro- ceed immediately with his scientific pursuits. He was elected to the assembly in 1750; was appointed commissioner for making an Indian treaty, and in 1753 deputy postmaster general for America; and was presented with the de- gree of master of arts by Harvard and Yale colleges. In 1754, the French war impending, he was named a deputy to the general con- gress at Albany. He proposed a plan of union for the colonies, which was unanimously adopt- ed by the convention, but rejected by the board of trade in England as too democratic. He was ever afterward actively and zealously engaged in national affairs. We find him in Boston in 1754; and the French war having begun, he assisted Mr. Quincy in procuring a loan in Philadelphia for New England. He visited Braddock in Maryland, and modestly remon- strated against that general's expedition which resulted so disastrously. As postmaster gen- eral he was called upon to facilitate the march of the army, and labored faithfully, and even to his own pecuniary disadvantage, in the ser- vice. After the defeat of Braddock, he was the means of establishing a volunteer militia, and took the field as military commander. Af- ter a laborious campaign it was proposed to commission Franklin as general in command of a distant expedition ; but he distrusted his military capacities and waived the proposal. He resumed his electrical researches, and wrote accounts of experiments, which were read be- fore the royal society of London, and procured for him the honor of membership and the Cop- ley gold medal, and were published in England and France. Sir Humphry Davy says of these papers that their style and manner are almost as admirable as the doctrine they advance. Franklin, he said subsequently, seeks rather to make philosophy a useful inmate and servant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an object of admiration in temples and palaces. Though it has been said of him by English historians that he had usually a keen eye to his own interests, they are forced to add that he had ever a benevo- lent concern for the public good. While an active member of the Pennsylvania assembly, he was indefatigable with his pen. The pro- prietary persisted in measures conflicting with the privileges of the inhabitants and with the public good; in consequence of which the deputies resolved to petition the home gov- ernment for redress, and appointed Franklin their commissioner for the purpose. He pub- lished afterward (1759) the "Historical Ee- view," which contained his papers in aid of the cause of his constituents, and had mean- while obtained so much reputation that Mas- sachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia intrusted him with the agency of their affairs also, making the English coast, the ship in which he had embarked narrowly escaped the rocks.