Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2] / With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader

by Benjamin Franklin

THIS STATUE
OF
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
WAS PRESENTED BY
WILLIAM BINGHAM, Esq.,
1792.

"Franklin's life," says the anonymous writer of the foregoing, "affords one of the finest moral lessons that can be offered up to the admiration, the applause, or the imitation of mankind.

"As a man, we have beheld him practising and inculcating the virtues of frugality, temperance, and industry.

"As a citizen, we have seen him repelling the efforts of tyranny, and ascertaining the liberty of his countrymen.

"As a legislator, he affords a bright example of a genius soaring above corruption, and continually aiming at the happiness of his constituents.

"As a politician, we survey him, on one hand, acquiring the aid of a powerful nation, by means of his skilful negotiations; and on the other, calling forth the common strength of a congress of republics, by fixing a central point to which they could all look up, and concentrating their common force for the purposes of union, harmony, legislation, and defence.

"As a philosopher, his labours and his discoveries are calculated to advance the interests of humanity: he might, indeed, have been justly termed the friend of man, the benefactor of the universe!

"The pursuits and occupations of his early youth afford a most excellent and instructive example to the young; his middle life, to the adult; his advanced years, to the aged. From him the poor may learn to acquire wealth, and the rich to adapt it to the purposes of beneficence.

"In regard to his character, he was rather sententious than fluent; more disposed to listen than to talk; a judicious rather than an imposing companion. He was what, perhaps, every able man is, impatient of interruption; for he used to mention the custom of the Indians with great applause, who, after listening with a profound attention to the observations of each other, preserve a respectful silence for some minutes before they begin their own reply.

"He was polite in his manners, and never gave a pointed contradiction to the assertions of his friends or his antagonists, but treated every argument with great calmness, and conquered his adversaries rather by the force of reason than assertion."