d made his correspondence eagerly sought. His political arguments
were the joy of his party and the dread of his opponents. His
scientific discoveries were explained in language at once so simple
and so clear that plow-boy and exquisite could follow his thought or
his experiment to its conclusion."[1]

[1] _The Many-Sided Franklin._ Paul L. Ford.

As far as American literature is concerned, Franklin has no
contemporaries. Before the _Autobiography_ only one literary work of
importance had been produced in this country--Cotton Mather's
_Magnalia_, a church history of New England in a ponderous, stiff
style. Franklin was the first American author to gain a wide and
permanent reputation in Europe. The _Autobiography_, _Poor Richard_,
_Father Abraham's Speech_ or _The Way to Wealth_, as well as some of
the _Bagatelles_, are as widely known abroad as any American writings.
Franklin must also be classed as the first American humorist.

English literature of the eighteenth century was characterized by the
development of prose. Periodical literature reached its perfection
early in the century in _The Tatler_ and _The Spectator_ of Addison
and Steele. Pamphleteers flourished throughout the period. The
homelier prose of Bunyan and Defoe gradually gave place to the more
elegant and artificial language of Samuel Johnson, who set the
standard for prose writing from 1745 onward. This century saw the
beginnings of the modern novel, in Fielding's _Tom Jones_,
Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_, Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_, and
Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. Gibbon wrote _The Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire_, Hume his _History of England_, and Adam Smith
the _Wealth of Nations_.

In the simplicity and vigor of his style Franklin more nearly
resembles the earlier group of writers. In his first essays he was not
an inferior imitator of Addison. In his numerous parables, moral
allegories, and apologues he showed Bunyan's influence. But Franklin
was essentially a journalist. In his swift, terse style, he is most
like Defoe, who was the first great English journalist and master of
the newspaper narrative. The style of both writers is marked by
homely, vigorous expression, satire, burlesque, repartee. Here the
comparison must end. Defoe and his contemporaries were authors. Their
vocation was writing and their success rests on the imaginative or
creative power they displayed. To authorship Franklin laid no claim.
He wrote no work