Excerpt from The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, Vol. 2 Although guilty of some excesses while' in London, he afterwards became a model Of temperance and industry, and even reformed his brother printers by his example and exhortation. While in London, he continued to devote his leisure hours to books and study, and in 1726, after a stay of eighteen months, he returned to America, with Mr. Denham, a merchant Of Philadelphia, as his clerk, on a salary of 50 a year. On his arrival, he found that his old sweetheart, Miss Read, had been induced by her parents, in con sequence Of his neglect, which franklin justly regarded as one of the great errors of his life, to marry another man. Extraordinary circumstances, however, prevented that couple from ever living together; and, at a subsequent period, franklin married the lady, who proved an excellent and invaluable wife. His truly worthy master, Mr. Denham, died in the course of the ensuing year, when franklin returned to his original business, first under Keimer his former master, then with a young man of the name Of Meredith; they printed a newspaper, which was conducted with much ability, and acquired franklin some reputation; the project Was very profitable, and afforded him an Opportunity of distinguishing himself as a political writer. He also Opened a shop for the sale of books and stationery. In 1732, having had leisure for both reading and writing, he began to publish Poor Richard's Almanac, which he continued with great success for many years. 64 The Way to Wealth, extracted from that publication, and consisting Of numerous and valuable concise maxims, has been translated into various languages, and inserted in almost every newspaper and magazine in England and America. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.