Shortly after these French almanacs, there appeared a famous American one—the _Poor Richard_ of Dr Franklin. He did not care to put his name upon the title-page, and therefore it was duly credited to Richard Saunders. It was published from 1733 to 1757, and was a great financial success. It is now a rare book; a correspondent in _Notes and Queries_ mentions one sold in Philadelphia for fifty-two dollars. In 1828, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge took the almanac in hand. Then the Stationers’ Company, perceiving that the day of ignorance was dying and that decency would pay, issued a really excellent one, called _The Englishman_. Yet superstition dies hard. Only sixty years ago, the popular feeling was tested by leaving out of Moore’s almanac that mysterious column showing the influence of the moon on the different parts of the body. But the editors, being prudent men, only issued one hundred thousand copies of this emendation, and the result showed their wisdom. The omission was at once detected and resented; nearly the whole issue was returned to the publishers, and they were compelled to reprint the column, in order to retain their popularity. On the Repeal of the Stamp Act in 1834, almanacs started on their course unfettered. One of the few that now deal in prognostications of a political kind is Zadkiel’s. The comic almanac is a purely modern feature of the little book—the pleasant wrinkle added by the nineteenth century. Cruikshank, and those witty clever souls who were the original staff of _Punch_, began the laugh, which America in several publications of this kind has re-echoed. And it is hard to say where this pushing, progressive, irresistible little book will not go. The divine, the lawyer, the physician, the merchant, have all their special almanacs. There are nautical, military, and literary almanacs. We cannot buy a box of note-paper but we find one in it; our perfumer sends it to us scented; our newspaper gives us one illustrated. With such a cosmopolitan temper, and such a universal adaptability, it may yet become the year-book of all nations, and the annual balance-sheet of the world’s progress. TWO DAYS IN A LIFETIME. A STORY IN EIGHT CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II.