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                            HARPER'S

                     NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

               NO. XX--JANUARY, 1852--VOL. IV.




[Illustration]

EARLY AND PRIVATE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

BY JACOB ABBOTT.


It is generally true in respect to great statesmen that they owe their
celebrity almost entirely to their public and official career. They
promote the welfare of mankind by directing legislation, founding
institutions, negotiating treaties of peace or of commerce between rival
states, and guiding, in various other ways, the course of public and
national affairs, while their individual and personal influence attracts
very little regard. With Benjamin Franklin, however, the reverse of this
is true. He did indeed, while he lived, take a very active part, with
other leading men of his time, in the performance of great public
functions; but his claim to the extraordinary degree of respect and
veneration which is so freely awarded to his name and memory by the
American people, rests not chiefly upon this, but upon the extended
influence which he has exerted, and which he still continues to exert
upon the national mind, through the power of his private and