Benjamin Franklin | Page 8

to have become
sufficiently interested in what was likely to follow his decease, in this
world at least, to compose an epitaph which has become
world-renowned, and has been often imitated:--
THE BODY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (LIKE THE COVER OF
AN OLD BOOK, ITS CONTENTS TORN OUT, AND STRIPT OF
ITS LETTERING AND GILDING,) LIES HERE, FOOD FOR
WORMS, YET THE WORK ITSELF SHALL NOT BE LOST, FOR
IT WILL, AS HE BELIEVED, APPEAR ONCE MORE, IN A NEW
AND MORE BEAUTIFUL EDITION, CORRECTED AND
AMENDED BY THE AUTHOR.
But there was no use for this graveyard literature; Franklin got well,
and recurred again to his proper trade. Being expert with the
composing-stick, he was readily engaged at good wages by his old
employer, Keimer. Franklin, however, soon suspected that this man's
purpose was only to use him temporarily for instructing some green
hands, and for organizing the printing-office. Naturally a quarrel soon
occurred. But Franklin had proved his capacity, and forthwith the father
of one Meredith, a fellow journeyman under Keimer, advanced
sufficient money to set up the two as partners in the printing business.
Franklin managed the office, showing admirable enterprise, skill, and
industry. Meredith drank. This allotment of functions soon produced its
natural result. Two friends of Franklin lent him what capital he needed;
he bought out Meredith and had the whole business for himself. His
zeal increased; he won good friends, gave general satisfaction, and
absorbed all the best business in the province.
At the time of the formation of the partnership the only newspaper of
Pennsylvania was published by Bradford, a rival of Keimer in the
printing business. It was "a paltry thing, wretchedly managed, no way
entertaining, and yet was profitable to him." Franklin and Meredith
resolved to start a competing sheet; but Keimer got wind of their plan,
and at once "published proposals for printing one himself." He had got
ahead of them, and they had to desist. But he was ignorant, shiftless,

and incompetent, and after carrying on his enterprise for "three quarters
of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers," he sold out his failure
to Franklin and Meredith "for a trifle." To them, or rather to Franklin,
"it prov'd in a few years extremely profitable." Its original name, "The
Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania
Gazette," was reduced by the amputation of the first clause, and,
relieved from the burden of its trailing title, it circulated actively
throughout the province, and further. Number 40, Franklin's first
number, appeared October 2, 1729. Bradford, who was postmaster,
refused to allow his post-riders to carry any save his own newspaper.
But Franklin, whose morality was nothing if not practical, fought the
devil with fire, and bribed the riders so judiciously that his newspaper
penetrated whithersoever they went. He says of it: "Our first papers
made a quite different appearance from any before in the Province; a
better type, and better printed; but some spirited remarks of my writing,
on the dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the
Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, occasioned the
paper and the manager of it to be much talked of, and in a few weeks
brought them all to be our subscribers." Later his articles in favor of the
issue of a sum of paper currency were so largely instrumental in
carrying that measure that the profitable job of printing the money
became his reward. Thus advancing in prestige and prosperity, he was
able to discharge by installments his indebtedness. "In order to secure,"
he says, "my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care to be not
only in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to
the contrary." A characteristic remark. With Franklin every virtue had
its market value, and to neglect to get that value out of it was the part of
folly.
About this time the wife of a glazier, who occupied part of Franklin's
house, began match-making in behalf of a "very deserving" girl; and
Franklin, nothing loath, responded with "serious courtship." He
intimated his willingness to accept the maiden's hand, provided that its
fellow hand held a dowry, and he named an hundred pounds sterling as
his lowest figure. The parents, on the other part, said that they had not
so much ready money. Franklin civilly suggested that they could get it
by mortgaging their house; they firmly declined. The negotiation

thereupon was abandoned. "This affair," Franklin continues, "having
turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round me and made overtures
of acquaintance in other places; but soon found that, the business of a
printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect money
with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think
agreeable." Finding such