183 



this fact, that there is scarcely an important incident in Frank- 

 lin's life which is not described by himself in his memoirs, or 

 in his correspondence ; and it is to this vast treasury of ster- 

 ling English, which seems to have been almost miraculously 

 preserved from incalculable perils by sea and by land, that the 

 legion of his biographers have been indebted for what has 

 most contributed to render their writing attractive. 



" I am not aware that any other eminent man has left so 

 complete a record of his own life. The part of which, from 

 the nature of things, could not be preserved in correspondence 

 his youth and early manhood ; his years of discipline and 

 preparation has been made as familiar as household words to 

 at least three generations, in those imperishable pages which, 

 in the full maturity of his faculties and experiences he pre- 

 pared at the special in-tance of his friends, Le Yeillard, Koche- 

 foucault, and Vaughan. From the period when that fragment 

 closes until his .death, we have a continuous, I might almost 

 say, a daily record of his life, his labors, his anxieties, and his 

 triumphs, from his own pen, and written when all the incidents 

 and emotions they awakened were most fresh and distinct in 

 his mind.* 



THE ALMANAC. 



Franklin's Almanac is interesting in itself, but far more so 

 in its effects on the history of American letters and American 

 life. It was the beginning of our American periodical litera- 

 ture, the first successful serial, the pioneer of the great army 

 of magazines and reviews which, even now, stand in the place 

 of public libraries to the great majority of our people. 



Franklin's was not a monthly, or even a quarterly ; it was 

 an annual magazine of instructive and entertaining literature. 



*" Life," p. 6. 



