Note 18 — Front matter

Is it generally known that among the accomplishments of his after years was that of music and an instrumental performer? Leigh Hunt says that "Dr. Franklin offered to teach my mother the guitar, but she was too bashful to become his pupil. She regretted this afterwards, possibly from having missed so illustrious a master. Her first child, who died, was named after him."

In his Autobiography Franklin says: "At ten years of age I was called home to assist my father in his occupation, which was that of a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler, a business to which he had served no apprenticeship, but which he embraced on his arrival in New England, because he found his own, that of a dyer, in too little request. I was accordingly employed in cutting the wicks, filling the moulds," etc.