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At the latter end of 1788 arose the regency question, on which Burke, with all his party, maintained the opinion that any apparently irreparable incapacity in the sovereign caused a demise of the crown, because, the prerogatives of royalty being given for public benefit, it would be highly dangerous to suspend them for an indefinite period. Burke, however, did some injury to his party by the intemperate and imprudent language he adopted on this occasion, speaking of the King's situation in the tone of triumph rather than pity, and even using the expression "God has hurled him from his throne." These constitutional questions, however important, were soon forgotten in a new absorbing interest, which began to occupy the minds of all men. The French Revolution had taken place. That astonishing event was at first hailed with general sympathy and admiration in this country. The supporters of Pitt either joined in the vehement delight of the Fox party, or took no pains to restrain it. Here and there some may have murmured dislike: but in general it was thought unworthy of Englishmen not to rejoice in the acquisition of liberty by a neighbouring people; and not a few looked to this great change as the harbinger of political regeneration to Europe and the world. In this general acclamation one voice was wanting. Burke, from the very first meeting of the States General, did not conceal his aversion to their proceedings and his apprehension of the results. Gradually, as the excesses of popular violence in Paris became more frequent, an Anti-Gallican party began to gather round him. On the 9th of February, 1790, during a debate on the army estimates, Burke took advantage of some expressions which Fox let fall in praise of the French Revolution to open an attack against it, denying that there was any similarity between our revolution of 1688 and the "strange thing" called by the same name in France. Fox in his reply spoke in memorable terms of his obligations to his friend, declaring that all he had ever learnt from other sources was little in comparison with what he had gained from him. Sheridan attacked the speech just made by Burke in no measured terms, describing it as perfectly irreconcilable with the principles hitherto professed by that gentleman. On this, Burke again rose, and in a few words declared that Sheridan and himself were thenceforth "separated in politics." Before the end of this year came out the celebrated 'Reflections,' which at once showed how irreparable was the schism between the author and his former associates. It roused an immediate war of opinion, which gave birth to a war of force throughout Europe. Innumerable pamphlets soon followed upon its publication, some denouncing the work as a specious apology for despotism, others advocating the opinions contained in it with a vehemence which the authors had not dared to show, till they were encouraged by the support of so eloquent and so distinguished a partizan. The most remarkable attempts of the former description were the 'Rights of Man,' by Thomas Paine, which soon became the manual of the democratic party; and the 'Vindiciae Gallicae,' by Mr., afterwards Sir James Mackintosh, the most illustrious, if not the only successor of Burke himself in his peculiar line of philosophical politics. Fox was loud in condemning the book, and although no formal breach of friendship had hitherto taken place, such an event was obviously to be expected. On the 6th May, 1791, during a discussion on a plan for settling the constitution of Canada, this separation actually occurred, with a solemnity worthy of the men and the event. From that hour, during the six remaining years of his life, one idea swayed with exclusive dominion the mind of Burke. Utterly separated from Fox's party, aloof from the ministry, retired, after a few sessions, from Parliament, he continued to wage unceasing war by speech and writing against the principles and practice of Jacobinism. Soon he was pointed out as a prophet, and the verification of his predictions in characters of blood was much more powerful, because much more palpable, than the vague anticipations of future advantage put forward by his opponents. In 1794, after his retirement from Parliament, he received the grant of a considerable pension for himself and his wife. The democratic party did not scruple to stigmatize his motives, and in answer to an accusation of this sort was written the 'Letter to a Noble Lord,' perhaps the most astonishing specimen of his peculiar capacities of style. In this year the death of his son overwhelmed him with affliction. Still he continued his exertions. His views of the war differed widely from those of the ministry; he ceased not to urge that it was a war not against France but Jacobinism, and that it would be a degradation to Britain to treat with any of the Regicides. On this subject are written the two 'Letters on a Regicide Peace,' published in 1796, and the others published since his death. On the 8th of July, 1797, this event took place, in the 68th year of his age, at his own house at Beaconsfield, whither, after seeking medical aid elsewhere in vain, he had returned to die.

The mind of this great man may, perhaps, be considered as a fair representative of the general characteristics of English intellect. Its groundwork was solid, practical, and conversant with the details of business, but upon this, and secured by this, arose a superstructure of imagination and moral sentiment. He saw little, because it was painful to him to see any thing, beyond the limits of the national character; with that, and with the constitution which he considered its appropriate expression, all his sympathies were bound up. But he loved them with an intelligent and discriminating love, making it his pains to comprehend thoroughly what it was his delight to serve diligently. His political opinions, springing out of these dispositions, were early fixed in favour of the Whig system of governing by great party connexions. These opinions, however, were swayed in their application by strong impulses of personal feeling. A temper impatient of control, an imagination prone to magnify those classes of facts which impressed him with alarm or hope, a command of language almost unlimited, and a copiousness of imagery misleading nearly as much as it illustrated or enforced; these were qualities which laid him open to many serious accusations. But his admirers have started a philosophic doubt, whether less of passion and prejudice would have been compatible with the peculiar station he was destined to occupy. In an age of revolution, it might be plausibly maintained, his genius was the counteracting force: alone he stood against the impulses communicated to European society by the philosophers of France; their enthusiasm could only be met by enthusiasm; their influence on the imaginations and hearts of men was capable of overbearing either a blind prejudice or a dispassionate logic. But Burke was an orator in all his thoughts, and a sage in all his eloquence; he held the principles of Conservation with the zeal of a Leveller, and tempered lofty ideas of Improvement with the scrupulousness of official routine. As a debater in the House of Commons he was inferior to some otherwise inferior men. Pitt and Fox will be neglected while the speeches of Burke shall still be read. It has been said of Fox by a philosophical panegyrist that he was the most Demosthenean speaker since Demosthenes. Perhaps, of all great orators Burke might be called the least Demosthenean. Probably a hearer of the great Athenian would have felt as extemporaneous and intuitive the slowly-wrought perfections of rhetorical art, while the listeners to Burke may have often set down to elaborate preparation what was really the inspiration of the moment. His conversation, however, seems to have been uniformly delightful. It is a true maxim in one sense, although in another it would often need reversal, that great men are always greater than their works. Much as we possess of Edmund Burke, very much is lost to us of that which formed the admiration of his contemporaries. "The mind of that man," said Dr. Johnson, "is a perennial stream: no one grudges Burke the first place." He was acquainted with most subjects of literature, and possessed some knowledge of science. The philosophy of mind owes him one contribution of no inconsiderable value: but the indirect results of his metaphysical studies as seen in the tenor of his practical philosophy are much more extensive. For in all things, while he deeply reverenced principles, he chose to deal with the concrete more than with abstractions: he studied men rather than man. In private life the character of Burke was unsullied even by reproach. A good father, a good husband, a good friend, he was sincerely attached to the Protestant religion of the English church, "not from indifference," as he said himself of the nation at large, "but from zeal; not because he thought there was less religion in it, but because he knew there was more." But his attachment was without bigotry; the principles of toleration ever found in him a powerful advocate; and he was ever zealous to remove imperfections, and correct abuses, in the establishment, as the best means of securing its permanent existence.

The works of Burke are collected in sixteen volumes octavo. His speeches are separately published in four volumes octavo. A small volume appeared in 1827, containing the correspondence, hitherto unpublished, between this great statesman and his friend Dr. Laurence. His life has been written soon after his death by Mr. Bisset; and more recently by Mr. Prior. Several other biographical accounts were published about the time of his death, both in the periodical publications and as independent works: we are not aware that any of these are entitled to particular notice.

The battle of Arques was fought in the year of his accession. In the following year, 1590, he gained a splendid victory at Ivri, over the Leaguers, commanded by Mayenne, and a Spanish army superior in numbers. On this occasion he made that celebrated speech to his soldiers before the battle: "If you lose sight of your standards, rally round my white plume: you will always find it in the path of honour and glory." Nor is his exclamation to his victorious troops less worthy of record: "Spare the French!"

The approach of the Duke of Parma with a Spanish army obliged Henry to raise the siege of Paris. It was not the policy of the Spanish court to render the Leaguers independent of its assistance, and the Duke, satisfied with having relieved the metropolis, avoided an engagement, and returned to his government in the Low Countries, followed by Henry as far as the frontiers of Picardy. In 1591 Henry received succours from England and Germany, and laid siege to Rouen; but his prey was again snatched from him by the Duke of Parma. Again battle was offered and declined; and the retiring army passed the Seine in the night on a bridge of boats: a retreat the more glorious, as Henry believed it to be impossible. The Duke once said of his adversary, that other generals made war like lions, or wild boars; but that Henry hovered over it like an eagle.

During the siege of Paris, some conferences had been held between the chiefs of the two parties, which ended in a kind of accommodation. The Catholics of the King's party began to complain of his perseverance in Calvinism; and some influential men who were of the latter persuasion, especially his confidential friend and minister Rosny, represented to him the necessity of a change. Even some of the reformed ministers softened the difficulty, by acknowledging salvation to be possible in the Roman church. In 1593 the ceremony of abjuration was performed at St. Denys, in presence of a multitude of the Parisians. If, as we cannot but suppose, the monarch's conversion was owing to political motives, the apostacy must be answered for at a higher than any human tribunal: politically viewed, it was perhaps one of the most beneficial steps ever taken towards the pacification and renewal of prosperity of a great kingdom. In the same year he was crowned at Chartres, and in 1594 Paris opened her gates to him. He had but just been received into the capital, where he was conspicuously manifesting his beneficence and zeal for the public good, when he was wounded in the throat by John Ch?tel, a young fanatic. When the assassin was questioned, he avowed the doctrine of tyrannicide, and quoted the sermons of the Jesuits in his justification. That society therefore was banished by the Parliament, and their librarian was executed on account of some libels against the King, found in his own hand-writing among his papers.

While France was flourishing under a vigilant and paternal administration, while her strength was beginning to keep pace with her internal happiness, new conspiracies were incessantly formed against the King. D'Entragues could not be his wife, but continued to be his mistress. She not only exasperated the Queen's peevish humour against him, but was ungrateful enough to combine with her father, the Count d'Auvergne, and the Spanish Court, in a plot which was timely discovered. The criminals were arrested and condemned, but received a pardon. The Duke de Bouillon afterwards stirred up the Calvinists to take Sedan, but it was immediately restored. Spite of the many virtues and conciliatory manners of Henry, the fanatics could never pardon his former attachment to the Protestant cause. He was continually surrounded with traitors and assassins: almost every year produced some attempt on his life, and he fell at last by the weapon of a misguided enthusiast. Meanwhile, from misplaced complaisance to the Pope, he recalled the Jesuits, contrary to the advice of Sully and the Parliament.

Shortly before his untimely end, Henry is said by some historians, to have disclosed a project for forming a Christian republic. The proposal is stated to have been, to divide Europe into fifteen fixed powers, none of which should be allowed to make any new acquisition, but should together form an association for maintaining a mutual balance, and preserving peace. This political reverie, impossible to be realized, is not likely ever to have been actually divulged, even if meditated by Henry, nor is there any trace of it to be found in the history, or among the state papers of England, Venice, or Holland, the supposed co-operators in the scheme. His more rational design in arming went no further than to set bounds to the ambition and power of the house of Austria, both in Germany and Italy. His warlike preparations have, however, been ascribed to his prevailing weakness, in an infatuated passion for the Princess of Cond?. Whatever may have been the motive, his means of success were imposing. He was to march into Germany at the head of forty thousand excellent troops. The army, provisions, and every other necessary were in readiness. Money no longer failed; Sully had laid up forty millions of livres in the treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to forebode such a storm, as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of Spain under the dominion of the inquisition. Henry was impatient to join his army; but his mind had become harassed with sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation from his faithful minister. He was in his way to pay a visit of reconciliation to Sully, when his coach was entangled as it passed along a street. His attendants left the carriage to remove the obstruction, and during the delay thus caused he was stabbed to the heart by Francis Ravaillac, a native of Angoul?me. This calamitous event took place on May 14, 1610, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. The Spaniards, who had the strongest interest in the catastrophe, were supposed to have been the instigators; but the fear of implicating other powers, and plunging France into greater evils than those from which their hero had rescued them, deterred not only statesmen, but even the judges on Ravaillac's trial, from pressing for the names of accomplices. Hardouin de Perefixe, in his History of Henry the Great, says, "If it be asked who inspired the monster with the thought? History answers that she does not know; and that in so mysterious an affair, it is not allowable to vent suspicions and conjectures as assured truths; that even the judges who conducted the examinations opened not their mouths, and spoke only with their shoulders." There were seven courtiers in the coach when the murder took place; and the Marshal d'Estr?es, in his History of the Regency of Mary de Medicis, says that the Duke d'Epernon and the Marquis de Verneuil were accused by a female servant of the latter, of having been privy to the design; but that, having failed to verify her charge before the Parliament, she was condemned to perpetual imprisonment between four walls. The circumstance that Ravaillac was of Angoul?me, which was the Duke's government, gave some plausibility to the suspicion. It was further whispered, that the first blow was not mortal; but that the Duke stooped to give facility to the assassin, and that he aimed a second which reached the King's heart. But these rumours passed off, without fixing any well-grounded and lasting imputation on that eminent person's character.

The assertions of Ravaillac, as far as they have any weight, discountenance the belief of an extended political conspiracy. The house of Austria, Mary de Medicis his wife, Henrietta d'Entragues his mistress, as well as the Duke d'Epernon, have been subjected to the hateful conjectures of Mazarin and other historians; but he who actually struck the blow invariably affirmed that he had no accomplice, and that he was carried forward by an uncontrollable instinct. If his mind were at all acted on from without, it was probably by the epidemic fanaticism of the times, rather than by personal influence.

Henry left three sons and three daughters by Mary de Medicis.

BENTLEY.

Richard Bentley was the son, not of a low mechanic, as the earlier narratives of his life assert, but of a respectable yeoman, possessed of a small estate. That fact has been established by his latest and most accurate, as well as most copious biographer, Dr. Monk, now Bishop of Gloucester. Bentley was born in Yorkshire, January 27, 1661-2, at Oulton, near Wakefield; and educated at Wakefield school, and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he pursued his studies with unwearied industry. No fellowship to which he was eligible having fallen vacant, he was appointed Master of Spalding school, in 1682; over which he had presided only one year, when his critical learning recommended him to Dr. Stillingfleet, then Dean of St. Paul's, as a private tutor for his son. In 1689 he attended his pupil to Wadham College in Oxford, where he was incorporated Master of Arts on the 4th of July in that year, having previously taken that degree in his own university. Soon after the promotion of Stillingfleet to the see of Worcester, Bentley was made domestic chaplain to that learned prelate, with whom he continued on the terms of confidential intimacy incident to that connexion, till his Lordship's death. Dr. William Lloyd, at that time Bishop of Lichfield, was equally alive to the uncommon merit of this rising scholar; and his two patrons concurrently recommended him as a fit person to open the lectures founded by the celebrated Robert Boyle, in defence of natural and revealed religion. Bentley had before this time embarked largely in literary pursuits. Among these we can only stop to mention his criticisms on the historiographer Malelas, contained in a letter appended to Dr. Mill's edition of that author, which stamped his reputation as a first-rate scholar, especially among the learned men of the Continent.

The delivery of the first course of Boyle's Lectures, in 1692, gave Bentley an admirable opportunity of establishing his reputation as a divine; and he taxed his abilities to the utmost to ensure success. Sir Isaac Newton's Principia had not been published more than six years: the sublime discoveries of the author were little known, and less understood, from the general prejudice against any new theory, and the difficulty of comprehending the deep reasonings on which this one rested. Bentley determined to spare no pains in laying open this new philosophy of the solar system in a popular form, and in displaying to the best advantage the cogent arguments in behalf of the existence of a Deity, furnished by that masterly work. That nothing might be wanting to his design, he applied to the author, and received from him the solution of some difficulties. This gave rise to a curious and important correspondence; and there is a manuscript in Newton's own hand preserved among Bentley's papers, containing directions respecting the books to be read as a preparation for the perusal of his Principia. Newton's four letters on this subject are preserved in Trinity College Library, and have been given to the public in the form of a pamphlet. The lecturer did not neglect, in addition to the popular illustration of the Principia, to corroborate his argument by considerations drawn from Locke's doctrine, that the notion of a Deity is not innate. The sermons were received with loud and universal applause, and the highest opinion of the preacher's abilities was entertained by the learned world. Bentley soon reaped the fruits of his high reputation, being appointed to a stall at Worcester in October, 1692, and made Keeper of the King's Library in the following year. In 1694 he was again appointed to preach Boyle's lecture. His subject was a defence of Christianity against the objections of infidels. These sermons have never been published; nor have Dr. Monk's researches enabled him to ascertain where they are now deposited.

Bentley was scarcely settled in his office of librarian, when he became involved in a quarrel with the Hon. Charles Boyle, brother to the Earl of Ossory, who was then in the course of his education at Christ Church in Oxford, and had carried thither a more than ordinary share of classical knowledge, and a decided taste for literary pursuits. Mr. Boyle had been selected by his college to edit a new edition of the Epistles of Phalaris; and for that purpose, not by direct application, but through the medium of a blundering and ill-mannered bookseller, he had procured the use of a manuscript copy of the Epistles from the Library at St. James's. The responsibility attendant on the custody of manuscripts, and perhaps some disgust at the channel through which the loan was negotiated, occasioned the librarian to demand restitution before the collation was finished. A notion was entertained at Christ Church, that an affront was intended both to the Epistles, which Bentley had already pronounced to be a clumsy forgery of later times, and to the advocates of their genuineness. Tory politics had probably some share in exasperating a quarrel with a scholar in the opposite interest. Be this as it may, the preface to Phalaris contained an offensive sentence, which the editor would not, or perhaps could not cancel, as the copies seem to have been delivered before the real state of the case was explained; and this gave rise to the once celebrated controversy between Boyle and Bentley. It produced a number of pieces written with learning, wit, and spirit, on both sides; but Bentley fought single-handed, while the tracts on the side of Boyle were clubbed by the wits of Christ Church; for the reputed author was attending his parliamentary duty in Ireland, while those enlisted under his colours were sustaining his cause in the English republic of letters. Of the numerous attacks on Bentley published at this period, Swift's Battle of the Books is the only one which continues to be known by the merit of the writing. The controversy was prolonged to the year 1699, when Bentley's enlarged dissertation upon Phalaris appeared, and obtained so complete a victory over his opponents, as to constitute an epoch not only in the writer's life, but in the history of literature. It is avowedly controversial; but it contains a matchless treasure of knowledge, in history, chronology, antiquities, philosophy, and criticism. The preface contains his defence against the charges made on his personal character, his vindication of which is satisfactory and triumphant. So strong, however, are the prejudices of party and fashion, that many persons looked upon the controversy as a field for a grand tournament of wit and learning, exhibiting the prowess of the combatants without deciding the cause in dispute; but all those whose judgment on such questions could be of any value held the triumph of Dr. Bentley to be complete, both as to the sterling merits of the case, and his able management of its discussion. It was not long before the impression created in his favour became manifest; for, in the course of the next year, 1700, Bentley was appointed by the crown to the Mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge. On that high advancement he resigned his stall at Worcester. He was afterwards collated to the Archdeaconry of Ely, in 1781, which, besides conferring rank in the church, was endowed with two livings; and he was appointed Chaplain both to King William and Queen Anne. There is a tradition in Bentley's family, that Bishop Stillingfleet said, "We must send Bentley to rule the turbulent Fellows of Trinity College: if any one can do it, he is the person; for he has ruled my family ever since he entered it."

Having thus attained to affluence and honour, he married a lady to whom he had been long attached. The union was eminently happy. Mrs. Bentley's mind was highly cultivated; she was amiable and pious; and the benevolence of her disposition availed to soften the animosity of opponents at several critical periods of her husband's life. His new station was calculated to increase rather than to lessen the Master's taste for critical studies. As he occasionally gave the results of his inquiries to the public, his labours, abounding in erudition and sagacity, by degrees raised him to the reputation of being the first critic of his age. Among the most remarkable of his numerous pieces, we may mention a collection of the Fragments of Callimachus, with notes and emendations, transmitted to Graevius, in whose edition of that poet's works they appeared in 1697; and three letters on the Plutus and the Clouds of Aristophanes, written to Kuster, and by him dissected into the form of notes, and published in his edition of that author. Copies of two of the original epistles have fortunately been preserved, and given to the world in the Museum Criticum, after more than a century. Kuster had in a great measure destroyed their interest by omissions, and by curtailing their amusing and digressive playfulness. But as they fell from Bentley's own pen, few of his writings exhibit more acuteness, or more lively perception of the elegancies of the Greek tongue. About the same time he produced one of the ablest and most perfect of his works, his Emendations on the Fragments of Menander and Philemon. That piece indicates rather intimate acquaintance with his subject, and a feeling of security in his positions, than direct and immediate labour or research. He wrote under the assumed name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, and sent the work to be printed and published on the Continent. Under the same signature he appeared again in 1713, in his Reply to Collins's Discourse of Freethinking. His exposure of the sophistry and fallacies pervading that book was judicious and highly effective; and for the eminent service done to the Christian religion, and the clergy of England in this work, by refuting the objections and exposing the ignorance of the writers calling themselves Freethinkers, Dr. Bentley received the public thanks of the University of Cambridge assembled in senate, January 4, 1715. But his edition of Horace is the capital work, which through good and evil report will associate his name with the Latin language so long as it endures. He completed it in 1711. The tone of the preface is arrogant and invidious: the presumption, which is the great blot in his character, both as a man and a critic, is more conspicuous in those few pages than in all his other productions. With respect to the work itself, between seven and eight hundred changes in the common readings were introduced into the text, contrary to the established practice of classical editors. The language of the notes is that of absolute dictatorship, not however without an award of fair credit to some other commentators. His Latinity, although easy and flowing, has been censured as by no means pure. Many of his readings have been confirmed and adopted by the latest and best editors; others are considered as either unnecessary, harsh, or prosaic: but, with all its faults, Bentley's Horace is a monument of inexhaustible learning; the reader, whether convinced or not, adds to his stock of knowledge; and the very errors of such a critic are instructive.

But Bentley's haughty temper, thus displayed in his criticisms, burst forth much more injuriously in the government of his college; where he carried himself so loftily, and gave such serious and repeated offence, that several of the Fellows exhibited a complaint against him before the Bishop of Ely, as visitor. Their object was his removal from the headship, in furtherance of which they charged him with embezzlement, in having improperly applied large sums of money to his own use; and with having adopted other unworthy and violent proceedings, to the interruption of peace and harmony in the society. In answer to these imputations he states his own case in a letter to the Bishop, which was published in octavo in 1710, under the title of the Present State of Trinity College. Such was the beginning of a long, inveterate, and mischievous quarrel; which, after a continuance of more than twenty years, ended in the Master's favour. The Biographia Britannica, and the Life of Bentley by the present Bishop of Gloucester, necessarily give a detailed narrative of this dispute, during the progress of which several books were written, with the most determined animosity on both sides. We cannot in this instance regret the confined space, which prevents our dilating on a quarrel, unfortunate in its origin, virulent in its progress, and, in our opinion, especially discreditable to the Master.

We must pass quickly over the ten remaining years of Bentley's life. They were embittered by a fresh contest for character and station before the supreme tribunal of the kingdom. The case between the Bishop of Ely and Dr. Bentley, respecting the visitatorial jurisdiction over Trinity College in general, and over the Master in particular, was argued first in the Court of King's Bench, and then carried by appeal to the House of Lords, where it was finally affirmed that the Bishop of Ely was visitor. In his seventy-second year Bentley underwent a second trial at Ely House, and was sentenced to be deprived of his mastership; but he eluded the execution of the sentence, and continued to perform the duties of the office which he held. At length a compromise was effected between him and some of his most active prosecutors, many of whom, as well as himself, were septuagenarians. On his proposed edition of Homer, distinguished by the restoration of the Digamma, we need not enlarge. It appears to have been broken off by a paralytic attack, in the course of 1739. In the following year he sustained the severest loss, by the death of his wife in the fortieth year of their union. His own death took place July 14, 1742, when he had completed his eightieth year. He was buried in the chapel; to which he had been a benefactor by giving ?200 towards its repairs, soon after he was appointed to the mastership.

Bentley's literary character is known in all parts of Europe where learning is known. In his private character he was what Johnson liked, a good hater: there was much of arrogance, and no little obstinacy in his composition; but it must be admitted on the other hand, that he had many high and amiable qualities. Though too prone to encounter hostility by oppression, he was warm and sincere in friendship, an affectionate husband, and a good father. In the exercise of hospitality at his lodge he maintained the dignity of the college, and rivalled the munificence even of the papal priesthood. His benefactions to the college were also liberal: but he exacted from it far more than it was willing to pay, or than any former master had received; and his name would stand fairer if his generosity had been less distinguished, provided that, at the same time, his conduct had been less grasping. We shall only add that the severity of his temper as a critic and controversial writer was exchanged in conversation for a strain of vivacity and pleasantry peculiar to himself.

Bentley had three children: a son called by his own name, and two daughters. The son was bred under his own tuition at Trinity College, where he obtained a fellowship. His contemporaries acknowledge his genius, but lament that his pursuits were so desultory and various as to exclude him from that substantial fame which his talents might have ensured. Dr. Bentley's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married Mr. Humphry Ridge, a gentleman of good family in Hampshire, but was left a widow in less than a year, and returned to reside with her father. The youngest, Joanna, married Mr. Denison Cumberland, grandson to the learned Bishop of Peterborough. The first issue of this marriage was the late Richard Cumberland, well known in the republic of letters, and especially as a dramatic writer. In his memoir of his own life Mr. Cumberland gives some amusing anecdotes of his grandfather in his old age. His object seems to have been to paint the domestic character of Bentley in a pleasing light, and to counteract the prevalent opinion of his stern and overbearing manners. The old man's personal kindness towards himself seems to have produced a deep and well merited feeling of gratitude. His communications however are of little value, for he neglected his opportunities of obtaining accurate and more important information from his mother and other relatives of the great critic.

KEPLER.

The matter contained in this sketch of Kepler's history, is exclusively derived from the Life published in the Library of Useful Knowledge. To that work we refer all readers who wish to make themselves acquainted with the contents of Kepler's writings, and with the singular methods by which he was led to his great discoveries: it will be evident, on inspection, that it would be useless to attempt farther compression of the scientific matter therein contained. Our object therefore will be to select such portions as may best illustrate his singular and enthusiastic mind, and to give a short account of his not uneventful life.

John Kepler was born December 21, 1571, Long. 29? 7?, Lat. 48? 54?, as we are carefully informed by his earliest biographer Hantsch. It is well to add that on the spot thus astronomically designated as our astronomer's birth-place, stands the city of Weil, in the Duchy of Wirtemberg. Kepler was first sent to school at Elmendingen, where his father, a soldier of honourable family, but indigent circumstances, kept a tavern: his education was completed at the monastic school of Maulbronn, and the college of Tubingen, where he took his Master's degree in 1591. About the same time he was offered the astronomical lectureship at Gratz, in Styria: and he accepted the post by advice, and almost by compulsion, of his tutors, "better furnished," he says, "with talent than knowledge, and with many protestations that I was not abandoning my claim to be provided for in some other more brilliant profession." Though well skilled in mathematics, and devoted to the study of philosophy, he had felt hitherto no especial vocation to astronomy, although he had become strongly impressed with the truth of the Copernican system, and had defended it publicly in the schools of Tubingen. He was much engrossed by inquiries of a very different character: and it is fortunate for his fame that circumstances withdrew him from the mystical pursuits to which through life he was more or less addicted; from such profitless toil as the "examination of the nature of heaven, of souls, of genii, of the elements, of the essence of fire, of the cause of fountains, of the ebb and flow of the tide, the shape of the continents and inland seas, and things of this sort," to which, he says, he had devoted much time. The sort of spirit in which he was likely to enter on the more occult of these inquiries, and the sort of agency to which he was likely to ascribe the natural phenomena of which he speaks, may be estimated from an opinion which he gravely advanced in mature years and established fame, that the earth is an enormous living animal, with passions and affections analogous to those of the creatures which live on its surface. "The earth is not an animal like a dog, ready at every nod; but more like a bull or an elephant, slow to become angry, and so much the more furious when incensed." "If any one who has climbed the peaks of the highest mountains throw a stone down their very deep clefts, a sound is heard from them; or if he throw it into one of the mountain lakes, which beyond doubt are bottomless, a storm will immediately arise, just as when you thrust a straw into the ear or nose of a ticklish animal, it shakes its head, and runs shuddering away. What so like breathing, especially of those fish who draw water into their mouths, and spout it out again through their gills, as that wonderful tide! For although it is so regulated according to the course of the moon, that in the preface to my 'Commentaries on Mars' I have mentioned it as probable that the waters are attracted by the moon, as iron is by the loadstone, yet if any one uphold that the earth regulates its breathing according to the motion of the sun and moon, as animals have daily and nightly alternations of sleep and waking, I shall not think his philosophy unworthy of being listened to; especially if any flexible parts should be discovered in the depths of the earth to supply the functions of lungs or gills."

The first fruit of Kepler's astronomical researches was entitled 'Prodromus Dissertationis Cosmographicae,' the first part of a work to be called 'Mysterium Cosmographicum,' of which, however, the sequel was never written. The most remarkable part of the book is a fanciful attempt to show that the orbits of the planets may be represented by spheres circumscribed and inscribed in the five regular solids. Kepler lived to be convinced of the total baselessness of this supposed discovery, in which, however, at the time, he expressed high exultation. In the same work are contained his first inquiries into the proportion between the distances of the planets from the sun and their periods of revolution. He also attempted to account for the motion of the planets, by supposing a moving influence emitted like light from the sun, which swept round those bodies, as the sails of a windmill would carry any thing attached to them: of a genuine central force he had no knowledge, though he had speculated on the existence of an attractive force in the centre of motion, and rejected it on account of difficulties which he could not explain. The 'Prodromus' was published in 1596, and the genius and industry displayed in it gained praise from the best astronomers of the age.

the sphere With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.

His inquiries are remarkable for the patience with which he continued to devise hypotheses, one after another, and the scrupulous fidelity with which he rejected them in succession, as they proved irreconcileable with the unerring test of observation. Not less remarkable is the singular good fortune by which, while groping in the dark among erroneous principles and erroneous assumptions, he was led, by careful observation of Mars, to discover the true form of its orbit, and the true law of its motion, and the motion of all planets, round the sun. These are enunciated in two of the three celebrated theorems known by the name of Kepler's Laws, beyond comparison the most important discoveries made in astronomy from the time of Copernicus to that of Newton, of which the first is, that the planets move in ellipses, in one of the foci of which the sun is placed the second, that the time of describing any arc is proportional, in the same orbit, to the area comprised by the arc itself, and lines drawn from the sun to the beginning and end of it.

About the year 1613 Kepler quitted Prague, after a residence of eleven years, to assume a professorship in the University of Linz. The year preceding his departure saw him involved in great domestic distress. Want of money, sickness, the occupation of the city by a turbulent army, the death of his wife and of the son whom he best loved, these, he says to a correspondent, "were reasons enough why I should have overlooked not only your letter, but even astronomy itself." His first marriage, contracted early in life, had not been a happy one: but he resolved on a second venture, and no less than eleven ladies were successively the objects of his thoughts. After rejecting, or being rejected, by the whole number, he at last settled on her who stood fifth in the list; a woman of humble station, but, according to his own account, possessed of qualities likely to wear well in a poor man's house. He employed the judgment and the mediation of his friends largely in this delicate matter: and in a letter to the Baron Strahlendorf, he has given a full and amusing account of the process of his courtships, and the qualifications of the ladies among whom his judgment wavered. He proposed to one lady whom he had not seen for six years, and was rejected: on paying her a visit soon after, he found, to his great relief, that she had not a single pleasing point about her. Another was too proud of her birth; another too old; another married a more ardent lover, while Kepler was speculating whether he would take her or not; and a fifth punished the indecision which he had shown towards others by alternations of consent and denial, until after a three months' courtship, the longest in the list, he gave her up in despair.

In 1620, Kepler was strongly urged by Sir Henry Wotton, then ambassador to Venice, to take refuge in England from the difficulties which beset him. This invitation was not open to the objections which had deterred him from accepting an appointment in Italy: but love of his native land prevailed to make him decline it also. He continued to weary the Imperial Government with solicitations for money to defray the expense of the Rudolphine Tables, which were not printed until 1627. These were the first calculated on the supposition of elliptic orbits, and contain, besides tables of the sun and planets, logarithmic and other tables to facilitate calculation, the places of one thousand stars as determined by Tycho, and a table of refractions. Similar tables of the planetary motions had been constructed by Ptolemy, and reproduced with alterations in the thirteenth century under the direction of Alphonso, King of Castile. Others, called the Prussian Tables, had been calculated after the discoveries of Copernicus, by two of that great astronomer's pupils. All these, however, were superseded in consequence of the observations of Tycho Brahe, observations far more accurate than had ever before been made: and for the publication of the Rudolphine Tables alone, which for a long time continued unsurpassed in exactness, the name of Kepler would deserve honourable remembrance.

Kepler was the first of the Germans to appreciate and use Napier's invention of logarithms: and he himself calculated and published a series, under the title 'Chilias Logarithmorum,' in 1624. Not long after the Rudolphine Tables were printed, he received permission from the Emperor Ferdinand to attach himself to the celebrated Wallenstein, a firm believer in the science of divination by the stars. In him Kepler found a more munificent patron than he had yet enjoyed; and by his influence he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Rostock, in the Duchy of Mecklenburgh. But the niggardliness of the Imperial Court, which kept him starving through life, was in some sense the cause of his death. He had claims on it to the amount of eight thousand crowns, which he took a journey to Ratisbon to enforce, but without success. Fatigue or disappointment brought on a fever which put an end to his life in November, 1630, in his 59th year. A plain stone, with a simple inscription, marked his grave in St. Peter's church-yard, in that city. Within seventy paces of it, a marble monument has been erected to him in the Botanic Garden, by a late Bishop of Constance. He left a wife and numerous family ill provided for. His voluminous manuscripts are now deposited in the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg. Only one volume of letters, in folio, has been published from them; and out of these the chief materials for his biography have been extracted.

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

Matthew Hale was born on the 1st of November, 1609, at Alderley, a small village situated in Gloucestershire, about two miles from Wotton-under-Edge. His father, Robert Hale, was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and his mother, whose maiden name was Poyntz, belonged to an ancient and respectable family which had resided for several generations at Iron Acton. Hale's father is represented to have been a man of such scrupulous delicacy of conscience, that he abandoned his profession, because he thought that some things, of ordinary practice in the law, were inconsistent with that literal and precise observance of truth which he conceived to be the duty of a Christian. "He gave over his practice," says Burnet, in his Life of Hale, "because he could not understand the reason of giving colour in pleadings, which, as he thought, was to tell a lie."

Hale had the misfortune to lose both his parents very early in life, his mother dying before he was three years old, and his father before he had attained his fifth year. Under the direction of his father's will he was committed to the care of a near relation, Anthony Kingscote, Esq., of Kingscote in Gloucestershire. This gentleman, being inclined to the religious doctrines and discipline of the Puritans, placed him in a school belonging to that party; and, intending to educate him for a clergyman, entered him in 1626, at Magdalen Hall in Oxford. The strictness and formality of his early education seem to have inclined him to run into the opposite extreme at the university, when he became to a certain extent his own master. He is said to have been very fond at this time of theatrical amusements, and of fencing, and other martial exercises; and giving up the design of becoming a divine, he at one time determined to pass over into the Netherlands, and to enlist as a volunteer in the army of the Prince of Orange. An accidental circumstance diverted him from this resolution. He became involved in a lawsuit with a gentleman in Gloucestershire, who laid claim to part of his paternal estate; and his guardian, being a man of retired habits, was unwilling to undertake the task of personally superintending the proceedings on his behalf. It became necessary therefore that Hale, though then only twenty years old, should leave the university and repair to London for the purpose of arranging his defence. His professional adviser on this occasion was Serjeant Glanville, a learned and distinguished lawyer; who, being struck by the clearness of his young client's understanding, and by his peculiar aptitude of mind for the study of the law, prevailed upon him to abandon his military project, and to enter himself at one of the Inns of Court with the view of being called to the bar. He accordingly became a member of the society of Lincoln's Inn in Michaelmas term 1629, and immediately applied himself with unusual assiduity to professional studies. At this period of his life, he is said to have read for several years at the rate of sixteen hours a day.

His rapid proficiency in legal studies not only justified and confirmed the good opinion which had been formed of him by his early friend and patron, Serjeant Glanville, but also introduced him to the favourable notice of several of the most distinguished lawyers of that day. Noy, the Attorney-General, who some years afterwards devised the odious scheme of ship-money, and who, while he is called by Lord Clarendon "a morose and proud man," is also represented by him as an "able and learned lawyer," took particular notice of Hale, and advised and assisted him in his studies. At this time also he became intimate with Selden, who, though much older than himself, honoured him with his patronage and friendship. He was induced by the advice and example of this great man to extend his reading beyond the contracted sphere of his professional studies, to enlarge and strengthen his reasoning powers by philosophical inquiries, and to store his mind with a variety of general knowledge. The variety of his pursuits at this period of life was remarkable: anatomy, physiology, and divinity formed part only of his extensive course of reading; and by his subsequent writings it is made manifest that his knowledge of these subjects was by no means superficial.

Soon after he became a judge he was returned to Cromwell's first Parliament of five months, as one of the knights of the shire for the county of Gloucester, but he does not appear to have taken a very active part in the proceedings of that assembly. Burnet says that "he, with a great many others, came to parliaments, more out of a design to hinder mischief than to do much good." On one occasion, however, he did a service to his country, for which all subsequent generations have reason to be grateful, by opposing the proposition of a party of frantic enthusiasts to destroy the records in the Tower and other depositories, as remnants of feudality and barbarism. Hale displayed the folly, injustice, and mischief of this proposition with such authority and clearness of argument, that he carried the opinions of all reasonable members with him; and in the end those who had introduced the measure were well satisfied to withdraw it. That his political opinions at this time were not republican, is evident from a motion introduced by him, that the legislative authority should be affirmed to be in the Parliament, and an individual with powers limited by the Parliament; but that the military power should for the present remain with the Protector. He had no seat in the second Parliament of the Protectorate, called in 1656; but when a new Parliament was summoned upon the death of Cromwell in January, 1658-9, he represented the University of Oxford.

His judicial conduct during the Commonwealth is represented by contemporaries of all parties as scrupulously just, and nobly independent. Several instances are related of his resolute refusal to submit the free administration of the law to the arbitrary dictation of the Protector. On one occasion of this kind, which occurred on the circuit, a jury had been packed by express directions from Cromwell. Hale discharged the jury on discovering this circumstance, and refused to try the cause. When he returned to London, the Protector severely reprimanded him, telling him that "he was not fit to be a judge;" to which Hale only replied that "it was very true."

It appears that at this period, he, in common with several other judges, had strong objections to being employed by Cromwell as commissioners on the trial of persons taken in open resistance to his authority. After the suppression of the feeble and ineffectual rebellion in 1655, in which the unfortunate Colonel Penruddock, with many other gentlemen of rank and distinction, appeared in arms for the King in the western counties, a special commission issued for the trial of the offenders at Exeter, in which Hale's name was inserted. He happened to be spending the Lent vacation at his house at Alderley, to which place an express was sent to require his attendance; but he plainly refused to go, excusing himself on the ground that four terms and two circuits in the year were a sufficient devotion of his time to his judicial duties, and that the intervals were already too small for the arrangement of his private affairs; "but," says Burnet, "if he had been urged to it, he would not have been afraid of speaking more clearly."

He continued to occupy his place as a judge of the Common Pleas until the death of the Protector; but when a new commission from Richard Cromwell was offered to him, he declined to receive it: and though strongly urged by other judges, as well as his personal friends, to accept the office on patriotic grounds, he firmly adhered to his first resolution, saying that "he could act no longer under such authority."

Immediately after the restoration of the King in May, 1668, Lord Clarendon, being appointed Lord Chancellor, sought to give strength and stability to the new government, by carefully providing for the due administration of justice. With this view, he placed men distinguished for their learning and high judicial character upon the benches of the different courts. Amongst other eminent lawyers, who had forsaken their profession during the latter period of the Commonwealth, he determined to recall Hale from his retirement, and offered him the appointment of Lord Chief Baron. But it was not without great difficulty that Hale was induced to return to the labours of public life. A curious original paper containing his "reasons why he desired to be spared from any place of public employment," was published some years ago by Mr. Hargrave, in the preface to his collection of law tracts. Amongst these reasons, which were stated with the characteristic simplicity of this great man, he urged "the smallness of his estate, being not above ?500 per annum, six children unprovided for, and a debt of ?1000 lying upon him; that he was not so well able to endure travel and pains as formerly; that his constitution of body required some ease and relaxation; and that he had of late time declined the study of the law, and principally applied himself to other studies, now more easy, grateful, and seasonable for him." He alludes also to two "infirmities, which make him unfit for that employment, first, an aversion to the pomp and grandeur necessarily incident to it; and secondly, too much pity, clemency, and tenderness in cases of life, which might prove an unserviceable temper." "But if," he concludes, "after all this, there must be a necessity of undertaking an employment, I desire that it may be in such a court and way as may be most suitable to my course of studies and education, and that it may be the lowest place that may be, to avoid envy. One of his Majesty's counsel in ordinary, or at most, the place of a puisne judge in the Common Pleas, would suit me best." His scruples were however eventually overcome, and on the 7th of November, 1660, he accepted the appointment of Lord Chief Baron: Lord Clarendon saying as he delivered his commission to him that "if the King could have found an honester and fitter man for that employment he would not have advanced him to it; and that he had therefore preferred him, because he knew no other who deserved it so well." Shortly afterwards he reluctantly received the honour of knighthood.

The trials of the regicides took place in the October immediately preceding his appointment, and his name appears among the commissioners on that occasion. There is however no reason to suppose that he was actually present; his name is not mentioned in any of the reports, either as interfering in the proceedings themselves, or assisting at the previous consultations of the judges; and it can hardly be doubted but that, if he had taken a part in the trials, he would have been included with Sir Orlando Bridgeman and several others in the bitter remarks made by Ludlow on their conduct in this respect. It has been the invariable practice from very early times to the present day, to include the twelve judges in all commissions of Oyer and Terminer, for London and Middlesex; and as, at the time of the trials in question, only eight judges had been appointed, it is probable that Hale and the other three judges elect were named in the commission, though their patents were not made out till the following term, in order to preserve as nearly as possible the ancient form.

Sir Matthew Hale held the office of Lord Chief Baron till the year 1671; and during that period greatly raised the character of the court in which he presided, by his unwearied patience and industry, the mildness of his manners, and the inflexible integrity of his judicial conduct. His impartiality in deciding cases in the Exchequer where the interests of the Crown were concerned, is admitted even by Roger North, who elsewhere charges him with holding "demagogical principles," and with the "foible of leaning towards the popular." "I have heard Lord Guilford say," says this agreeable but partial writer, "that while Hale was Chief Baron of the Exchequer, by means of his great learning, even against his inclination, he did the Crown more justice in that court, than any others in his place had done with all their good-will and less knowledge."

Whilst he was Chief Baron he was called upon to preside at the trial of two unhappy women who were indicted at the Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds, in the year 1665, for the crime of witchcraft. The Chief Baron is reported to have told the jury that, "he made no doubt at all that there were such creatures as witches," and the women were found guilty and afterwards executed. The conduct of Hale on this occasion has been the subject of much sarcastic animadversion. It might be said in reply, that the report of the case in the State Trials is of no authority whatever; but supposing it to be accurate, it would be unjust and unreasonable to impute to Sir Matthew Hale as personal superstition or prejudice, a mere participation in the prevailing and almost universal belief of the times in which he lived. The majority of his contemporaries, even among persons of education and refinement, were firm believers in witchcraft; and though Lord Guilford rejected this belief, Roger North admits that he dared not to avow his infidelity in this respect in public, as it would have exposed him to the imputation of irreligion. Numerous instances might be given to show the general prevalence at that time of this stupid and ignorant superstition; and therefore the opinion of Hale on this subject does not appear to be a proof of peculiar weakness or credulity.

In the year 1671, upon the death of Sir John Kelyng, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, Sir Matthew Hale was removed from the Exchequer to succeed him. The particular circumstances which caused his elevation to this laborious and responsible situation at a time when his growing infirmities induced him to seek a total retirement from public life, are not recorded by any of his biographers. For four years after he became Chief Justice he regularly attended to the duties of his court, and his name appears in all the reported cases in the Court of King's Bench, until the close of the year 1675. About that time he was attacked by an inflammation of the diaphragm, a painful and languishing disease, from which he constantly predicted that he should not recover. It produced so entire a prostration of strength, that he was unable to walk up Westminster Hall to his court without being supported by his servants. "He resolved," says Baxter, "that the place should not be a burden to him, nor he to it," and therefore made an earnest application to the Lord Keeper Finch for his dismission. This being delayed for some time, and finding himself totally unequal to the toil of business, he at length, in February 1676, tendered the surrender of his patent personally to the King, who received it graciously and kindly, and promised to continue his pension during his life.

On his retirement from office, he occupied at first a house at Acton which he had taken from Richard Baxter, who says "it was one of the meanest houses he had ever lived in; in that house," he adds, "he liveth contentedly, without any pomp, and without costly or troublesome retinue of visitors, but not without charity to the poor; he continueth the study of mathematics and physics still as his great delight. It is not the least of my pleasure that I have lived some years in his more than ordinary love and friendship, and that we are now waiting which shall be first in heaven; whither he saith he is going with full content and acquiescence in the will of a gracious God, and doubts not but we shall shortly live together." Not long before his death he removed from Acton to his own house at Alderley, intending to die there; and having a few days before gone to the parish church-yard and chosen his grave, he sunk under a united attack of asthma and dropsy, on Christmas-day, 1676.

The judicial character of Sir Matthew Hale was without reproach. His profound knowledge of the law rendered him an object of universal respect to the profession; whilst his patience, conciliatory manners, and rigid impartiality engaged the good opinion of all classes of men. As a proof of this, it is said that as he successively removed from the Court of Common Pleas to the Exchequer, and from thence to the King's Bench, the mass of business always followed him; so that the court in which he presided was constantly the favourite one with counsel, attorneys, and parties. Perhaps indeed no judge has ever been so generally and unobjectionably popular. His address was copious and impressive, but at times slow and embarrassed: Baxter says "he was a man of no quick utterance, and often hesitant; but spake with great reason." This account of his mode of speaking is confirmed by Roger North, who adds, however, that "his stop for a word by the produce always paid for the delay; and on some occasions he would utter sentences heroic." His reputation as a legal and constitutional writer is in no degree inferior to his character as a judge. From the time it was published to the present day, his history of the Pleas of the Crown has always been considered as a book of the highest authority, and is referred to in courts of justice with as great confidence and respect as the formal records of judicial opinions. His Treatises on the Jurisdiction of the Lords' House of Parliament, and on Maritime Law, which were first published by Mr. Hargrave more than a century after Sir Matthew Hale's death, are works of first-rate excellence as legal arguments, and are invaluable as repositories of the learning of centuries, which the industry and research of the author had collected.

After his retirement from public life, he wrote his great work called 'The primitive Origination of Mankind, considered and examined according to the light of nature.' Various opinions have been formed upon the merits of this treatise. Roger North depreciates the substance of the book, but commends its style; while Bishop Burnet and Dr. Birch greatly praise its learning and force of reasoning.

The published biographies of Hale are extremely imperfect, none of them containing a particular account of his personal history and character. Bishop Burnet's Life is the most generally known, and, though far too panegyrical and partial, is perhaps the most complete; it has been closely followed by most of his subsequent biographers. In Baxter's Appendix to the Life of Hale, and in his account of his own Life, the reader will find some interesting details respecting his domestic and personal habits; and Roger North's Life of Lord Guilford contains many amusing, though ill-natured and sarcastic anecdotes of this admirable judge.

FRANKLIN.

Benjamin Franklin was born at Boston in New England, January 6, 1706. His father was a non-conformist, who had emigrated in 1682, and followed the trade of a tallow-chandler. Benjamin was one of the youngest of fourteen children, and, being intended for the ministry, was sent for a year to the Boston Grammar School; after which, poverty compelled his father to remove him, at ten years old, to assist in his business. The boy disliked this occupation so much, that he was bound apprentice to an elder brother, who was just established at Boston as a printer. Though but twelve years of age, he soon learnt all his brother could teach him; but the harsh treatment he met with, which he says first inspired him with a hatred for tyranny, made him resolve to emancipate himself on the first opportunity. All his leisure time was spent in reading; and having exhausted his small stock of books, he resorted to a singular expedient to supply himself with more. Having been attracted by a treatise on the advantages of a vegetable diet, he determined to adopt it, and offered to provide for himself, on condition of receiving half the weekly sum expended on his board. His brother willingly consented; and by living entirely on vegetables he contrived to save half his pittance to gratify his voracious appetite for reading. He continued the practice for several years, and attributes to it his habitual temperance and indifference to the delicacies of the table.

During his voyage he attracted the notice of a merchant named Denham, who, again meeting him in London, became fond of him, and engaged his services as a clerk. After remaining a year and a half in London, he returned with Mr. Denham to Philadelphia. During this voyage he drew up a scheme for self-examination, and several prudent rules for the guidance of his future conduct, to which he steadily adhered through life. Indeed the remarkable success of most of his undertakings may be traced in a great measure to this faculty of profiting early by the lessons of experience, and abiding rigorously by a resolution once made.

He had scarcely returned half a year when his patron died, leaving him again on the world at the age of twenty-one. But he had now acquired so much skill in his business, that he was gladly received at advanced wages into Keimer's printing-house.

In 1732 he began to publish 'Poor Richard's Almanack.' It was interspersed with many prudential maxims, which were printed with additions, in a collected form, in 1757, and have been translated into many languages. The annual sale of this Almanack reached 10,000 copies, and, as it was continued for twenty-five years, was very profitable to the author.

In 1736 he was appointed Clerk to the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and obtained their printing. The next year he was made Deputy Postmaster, and introduced so many judicious reforms into his department, that it began to bring in a considerable revenue, though up to that time it had before barely paid its own expenses. He also carried into effect many improvements at Philadelphia, as his credit with his fellow-townsmen increased; invariably taking care to introduce them as "the idea of a few friends," or "the plan of some public spirited persons," thus avoiding the odium which attaches to the corrector of abuses, and eventually securing the credit of having made useful suggestions. In these schemes he was well seconded by the "Junto." Some of them were--Institutions for watching, paving, and lighting the city; the Union Fire Company, still, we believe, in useful operation; a Philosophical Society; an Academy for Education, now grown up into the University of Pennsylvania; and the City Hospital. But many of these improvements were brought forward at a later period; for until 1748, when he took a partner, his time was almost exclusively occupied in his printing-office.

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