“Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyranniis.”

Franklin’s success in Europe was such as no American had yet achieved, as few Americans since him have achieved.  Hume and Voltaire were among his acquaintances and his professed admirers.  In France he was fairly idolized, and when he died Mirabeau announced, “The genius which has freed America and poured a flood of light over Europe has returned to the bosom of the Divinity.”

Franklin was a great man, but hardly a great writer, though as a writer, too, he had many admirable and some great qualities.  Among these were the crystal clearness and simplicity of his style.  His more strictly literary performances, such as his essays after the Spectator, hardly rise above mediocrity, and are neither better nor worse than other imitations of Addison.  But in some of his lighter bagatelles there are a homely wisdom and a charming playfulness which have won them enduring favor.  Such are his famous story of the Whistle, his Dialogue between Franklin and the Gout, his letters to Madame Helvetius, and his verses entitled Paper.  The greater portion of his writings consists of papers on general politics, commerce, and political economy, contributions to the public questions of his day.  These are of the nature of journalism rather than of literature, and many of them were published in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, the medium through which for many years he most strongly influenced American opinion.  The most popular of his writings were his Autobiography and Poor Richard’s Almanac.  The former of these was begun in 1771, resumed in 1788, but never completed.  It has remained the most widely current book in our colonial literature. Poor Richard’s Almanac, begun in 1732 and continued for about twenty-five years, had an annual circulation of ten thousand copies.  It was filled with proverbial sayings in prose and verse, inculcating the virtues of industry, honesty, and frugality.[1] Some of these were original with Franklin, others were selected from the proverbial wisdom of the ages, but a new force was given them by pungent turns of expression.  Poor Richard’s saws were such as these:  “Little strokes fell great oaks;” “Three removes are as bad as a fire;” “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise;” “Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day;” “What maintains one vice would bring up two children;” “It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”

Now and then there are truths of a higher kind than these in Franklin, and Sainte-Beuve, the great French critic, quotes, as an example of his occasional finer moods, the saying, “Truth and sincerity have a certain distinguishing native luster about them which cannot be counterfeited; they are like fire and flame that cannot be painted.”  But the sage who invented the Franklin stove had no disdain of small utilities; and in general the last word of his philosophy is well expressed in a passage of his Autobiography:  “Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune, that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day; thus, if you teach a poor young man to shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas.”