Addison, whose essays he had rewritten so often for practice.

Sir Roger was so much of a gentleman, there were so many delicate touches in him, that he never became the favorite of the common people. But "Poor Richard" was the Sir Roger of the masses; he won the hearts of high and low. In that first number for the year 1733 he introduces himself very much after the manner of Addison.

"COURTEOUS READER,

"I might in this place attempt to gain thy favor by declaring that I write almanacks with no other view than that of the public good, but in this I should not be sincere; and men are now-a-days too wise to be deceived by pretences, how specious soever. The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her shift of tow, while I do nothing but gaze at the stars; and has threatened more than once to burn all my books and rattling traps (as she calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offered me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus begun to comply with my dame's desire."

There was a rival almanac, of which the philomath was Titan Leeds. "Poor Richard" affects great friendship for him, and says that he would have written almanacs long ago had he not been unwilling to interfere with the business of Titan. But this obstacle was soon to be removed.

""made at his

"He dies by my calculation," says "Poor Richard, request, on Oct. 17, 1733, 3 ho, 29 m., P. M., at the very instant of the dof and . By his own calculation he will survive till the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past; but at length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment. Which of us is most exact, a little time will now determine."

In the next issue "Poor Richard" announces that his circumstances are now much easier. His wife has

a pot of her own and is no longer obliged to borrow one of a neighbor; and, best of all, they have something to put in it, which has made her temper more pacific. Then he begins to tease Titan Leeds. He recalls his prediction of his death, but is not quite sure whether it occurred; for he has been prevented by domestic affairs from being at the bedside and closing the eyes of his old friend. The stars have foretold the death with their usual exactitude; but sometimes Providence interferes in these matters, which makes the astrologer's art a little uncertain. But on the whole he thinks Titan must be dead, "for there appears in his name, as I am assured, an Almanack for the year 1734 in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome manner; in which I am called a false predicter, an ignorant, a conceited scribbler, a fool, and a lyar;" and he goes on to show that his good friend Titan would never have treated him in this way.

The next year he is still making sport of Titan, the deceased Titan, and the ghost of Titan, "who pretends to be still living, and to write Almanacks in spight of me," and he proves again by means of the funniest arguments that he must be dead. Another year he devotes several pages of nonsense to disproving the charge that "Poor Richard" is not a real person. He ridicules astrology and weather forecasting by pretending to be very serious over it. At any rate, he says, "we always hit the day of the month, and that I suppose is esteemed one of the

most useful things in an Almanack." He and his good old wife are getting on now better than ever ; and the almanac for 1738 is prepared by Mistress Saunders herself, who rails at her husband and makes queer work with eclipses and forecasting. Then in the number for 1740 Titan writes a letter to "Poor Richard" from the other world.

Besides the formal essays or prefaces which appeared in each number, there were numerous verses, paragraphs of admirable satire on the events of the day or the weaknesses of human nature, and those prudential maxims which in the end became the most famous of all. As we look through a collection of these almanacs for an hour or so we seem to have lived among the colonists, who were not then Americans, but merry Englishmen, heavy eaters and drinkers, full of broad jokes, whimsical, humorous ways, and forever gossiping with hearty good nature over the ludicrous accidents of life, the love-affairs, the married infelicities, and the cuckolds. It is the freshness, the sap, and the rollicking happiness of old English life.

"Old Batchelor would have a wife that's wise,

Fair, rich and young a maiden for his bed;
Not proud, nor churlish, but of faultless size,
A country housewife in the city bred.

He's a nice fool and long in vain hath staid;

He should bespeak her, there's none ready made.”

"Never spare the parson's wine, nor the baker's pudding."

"Ne'er take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in."

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"My love and I for kisses play'd,

She would keep stakes, I was content,
But when I won, she would be paid,
This made me ask her what she meant :

Quoth she, since you are in the wrangling vein
Here take your kisses, give me mine again."

"Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?"

"There is no little enemy."

"Of the Eclipses this year.

During the first visible eclipse Saturn is retrograde: For which reason the crabs will go sidelong and the ropemakers backward. The belly will wag before, and the will sit down first. When a New Yorker thinks to say THIS he shall say DISS, and the People in New England and Cape May will not be able to say Cow for their Lives, but will be forc'd to say KEOW by a certain involuntary Twist in the Root of their Tongues. . .

"Many dishes many diseases."

"Let thy maid servant be faithful, strong and homely."

"Here I sit naked, like some fairy elf;

My seat a pumpkin; I grudge no man's pelf,
Though I've no bread nor cheese upon my shelf,
I'll tell thee gratis, when it safe is

To purge, to bleed, or cut thy cattle or―thyself.”

Necessity never made a good bargain."

"A little house well filled, a little field well till'd and a little wife well will'd are great riches."

"This Year the Stone-blind shall see but very little; the Deaf shall hear but poorly; and the Dumb shan't speak very plain. And it's much, if my Dame Bridget talks at all this Year. Whole Flocks, Herds and Droves of Sheep, Swine and Oxen, Cocks and Hens, Ducks and Drakes, Geese and Ganders shall go to Pot; but the Mortality will not be altogether so great among Cats, Dogs and Horses. . . .”