AMONG the earliest books Franklin is known to have read were several volumes of the Spectator and “Locke on the Human Understanding.” His first essay “On Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain,” written when he was very young, owed its inspiration no doubt to Locke rather than to Addison. Of this essay Franklin was far from being proud in later life. He is at his best in short essays in the style of the Spectator and Rambler. In some of his friendly letters he uses the same style admirably, but his masterpiece is unquestionably the “Preliminary Address” he prefixed to Poor Richard’s Almanac for 1758. This characteristic production had a wide influence in Franklin’s lifetime, and although the national character out of which it grew and with which it harmonized, has wholly changed, its interest is perennial and undiminished. It cannot be truly said that Franklin is a model of style; but in everything he has written, he shows the genius which made him one of the greatest men of modern times.