a 
Foster, who set up the first printing-press in Boston, and was prob- 
ably the earliest engraver in New England. 
After Franklin had become fairly domiciled at his new home in 
Philadelphia, one of his chief aims was to make himself useful not 
only to his fellow-artisans, but to the community at large. In divers 
ways he strove to raise the condition of young men, and to impress 
upon them the responsibilities of life and the duty they owed to 
others. 
In the year 1732 Franklin began to publish Poor Richard’s Al- 
manack, which not only put money in his purse but made his name 
a household word throughout the land. It soon reached a wide 
circulation, and was kept up by him for twenty-five years. It was 
largely read by the people of the middle colonies and had great 
influence over the masses. From every available source he selected 
shrewd and homely maxims, and scattered them through the pages 
of the publication. So popular did these sayings become that they 
were reprinted on sheets, under the title of ‘*‘ The Way to Wealth,”’ 
and circulated in England as well as in this country, and were even 
translated into French and sold in the streets of Paris. They are 
not so highly thought of now as they once were; and the more the 
pity. The present age likes show and style better than quiet ease 
and domestic comfort, and is sometimes called the gilded age, to 
distinguish it from one that is not veneered. The pseudonym of 
authorship on the title-page of the A/manack was Richard Saunders, 
and in quoting these maxims the public often used the expression, 
**as Poor Richard says,’’ referring to the pseudonym; and in this 
way the name of Poor Richard has become inseparably connected 
with that of Franklin. During the latter part of the seventeenth 
century there had been printed in London an almanack by Rich- 
ard Saunders, and Franklin, doubtless, there found the name. In 
fact his own title-page begins, ‘‘ Poor Richard improved ;’’ show- 
ing that it had some reference to a previous publication. 
A curious circumstance, connected with the translation of these 
proverbs into French, may be worth narrating. The translator 
found a difficulty in rendering ‘‘ Poor Richard’’ into his vernac- 
ular tongue, as Azchard in French means a rich man; and to 
give a poor rich man as the author of the sayings was an absurdity 
on the face of it. So the translator compromised by rendering 
the name of the author as ‘‘ Bon-homme Richard ;’’ and Paul Jones’ 
PROC. AMER. PHILOS. SOC. XXXII. 143. G. PRINTED NOV. 27, 1893. 
