try. Very tight knee-breeches
were worn, with silk stockings, and shoes embellished with immense
silver buckles, highly polished. Their coats were richly embroidered,
often of silk velvet, and their full flow reached below the knees.
Ruffled shirts and ruffled wrist-bands of linen, of snowy whiteness,
added to the beauty of the dress. A jewelled scabbard containing a
polished sword hung by the side. A three-cornered hat completed this
showy attire. There is not a Rocky Mountain Indian in his most
gorgeous war-dress of paint and plumes, who would attract more
attention walking down Broadway, than would Benjamin Franklin as he
was painted in 1726.

His portrait was taken when he was in London, working as a journeyman
printer. Contrary to the general impression, Franklin was then, and
through all his life, fully conscious of the advantages which dress
confers. When surrounded by the homage of the court of Versailles,
there was no courtier in those magnificent saloons more attentive to
his attire than was Benjamin Franklin. His keen sagacity taught him
the advantage of appearing in a dress entirely different from that of
the splendid assembly around him, and thus he attracted universal
observation. But never did he appear in the presence of these lords
and ladies but in a costly garb to which he had devoted much
attention.

[Illustration]

Mr. Parton, speaking of the portrait which Franklin then had painted
in London, says,

"The fair, full, smiling face of Franklin is surrounded in
this picture by a vast and stiff horse-hair wig; and his
well-developed figure shows imposingly in a voluminous and
decorated coat that reaches nearly to his heels. Under his
left arm he carries his cocked hat. His manly bosom heaves
under snowy ruffles, and his extensive wrist-bands are
exposed to view by the shortness of his coat sleeves."

Between the years 1740 and 1775, while abundance reigned in
Pennsylvania, and there was peace in all her borders, a more happy and
prosperous population could not perhaps be found on this globe. In
every home there was comfort. The people generally were highly moral,
and knowledge was extensively diffused. Americans, who visited Europe,
were deeply impressed by the contrast. In the Old World they saw
everywhere indications of poverty and suffering. Franklin wrote, after
a tour in Great Britain in 1772,

"Had I never been in the American colonies, but were to