180 



ever he wrote seems to have been conceived upon a scale which 

 embraced the whole human race, as well as the individual or 

 class to whom it was specifically addressed, the one evidence of 

 true greatness which never deceives nor misleads. If he wrote 

 to his wife, it was, more or less, a letter from every husband to 

 his wife ; if to his daughter, it was a letter that any daughter 

 would be pleased to receive from her father ; if to a philoso- 

 pher or statesman, there was always that in the manner or 

 matter of it which time cannot stale, and which will be read 

 by every statesman and philosopher with the sort of interest 

 they would have felt had it been addressed personally to 

 them." * 



The gathering of "Frankliniana" has become of late years 

 a favorite pursuit of book lovers, and there are many excellent 

 private collections besides the magnificent assemblages of his 

 printed books, manuscripts and imprints in the public libraries 

 of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. The 

 pioneer in this movement was Prof. Justin Winsor, who, in 

 1869, established a Franklin Alcove in the Boston Public 

 Library, for the reason, as he said at the time, " that Franklin 

 is to Boston what Shakespeare is to England." 



A complete library of Frankliniana, including not only the 

 books by him and about him, but also the products of his 

 press, would embrace nearly two thousand separate units. Such 

 a collection would possess a very great value in money, f 



Several bibliographies of Franklin have been printed. One 



* Bigelow's Preface to Franklin's Works. 



tOne of his imprints, the translation of Cicero's " Cato Major," in good condition, has 

 sold for $200. A complete series of " Poor Richard " would he almost priceless. Of the 

 ty-six numbers, the Pennsylvania Historical Society had, when Ford's hook was 

 printed, only sixteen ; the Lenox Library, seventeen ; the Library Company of Philadel- 

 phia, twenty-one; the Congressional Library, thirteen ; and the American Philosophical 

 • one, which, however, is the first. Of the issues of 1734 and 1735 none are in the 

 possession of any of these libraries. 



