If it encourages more writings of the same kind with your own,
and induces more men to spend lives fit to be written, it will be
worth all Plutarch's Lives put together. But being tired of figuring
to myself a character of which every feature suits only one man in
the world, without giving him the praise of it, I shall end my letter,
my dear Dr. Franklin, with a personal application to your proper self.
I am earnestly desirous, then, my dear sir, that you should let the
world into the traits of your genuine character, as civil broils nay
otherwise tend to disguise or traduce it. Considering your great age,
the caution of your character, and your peculiar style of thinking,
it is not likely that any one besides yourself can be sufficiently
master of the facts of your life, or the intentions of your mind.
Besides all this, the immense revolution of the present period,
will necessarily turn our attention towards the author of it,
and when virtuous principles have been pretended in it, it will be
highly important to shew that such have really influenced; and, as your
own character will be the principal one to receive a scrutiny,
it is proper (even for its effects upon your vast and rising country,
as well as upon England and upon Europe) that it should stand
respectable and eternal.
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