Franklin), praised your frugality, diligence and temperance,
which he considered as a pattern for all youth; but it is singular
that he should have forgotten your modesty and your disinterestedness,
without which you never could have waited for your advancement,
or found your situation in the mean time comfortable; which is
a strong lesson to show the poverty of glory and the importance
of regulating our minds. If this correspondent had known the nature
of your reputation as well as I do, he would have said, Your former
writings and measures would secure attention to your Biography,
and Art of Virtue; and your Biography and Art of Virtue, in return,
would secure attention to them. This is an advantage attendant upon
a various character, and which brings all that belongs to it into
greater play; and it is the more useful, as perhaps more persons
are at a loss for the means of improving their minds and characters,
than they are for the time or the inclination to do it. But there
is one concluding reflection, sir, that will shew the use of your life
as a mere piece of biography. This style of writing seems a little
gone out of vogue, and yet it is a very useful one; and your specimen
of it may be particularly serviceable, as it will make a subject of
comparison with the lives of various public cutthroats and intriguers,
and with absurd monastic self-tormentors or vain literary triflers.
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