In 1732, Franklin began to publish POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC. The eloquent Charles Fox used to say, that had Doctor Franklin written nothing else, his "Poor Richard's Almanac" were alone sufficient to immortalize him. Instead of being taken up, as too many Almanacs are, with trifling stories and fool-born jests, it abounds with the finest maxims on Industry, Temperance, and Frugality, thrown together with astonishing conciseness, and written with that happy mixture _of gravity_ and gaiety that captivates every body, and never tires. It took a wonderful run. From 10 to 15,000 a year were generally sold in Pennsylvania. And to this Almanac, in a considerable measure, may be ascribed that wonderful start which Pennsylvania has taken of the middle and southern states in all the REPUBLICAN VIRTUES, of INDUSTRY and ECONOMY, which point the WAY to WEALTH. Even the finest girls there, worth their thousands, don't think it beneath them, to "_lay hold on the distaff_," like Solomon's accomplished daughter, to swell the riches of the family _wardrobe_ and to improve the _savoury dishes_ of their parents. A foppish young fortune-hunter from the south, ventured sometime ago to pay his respects to the beautiful Miss Dickenson, one of the first fortunes in the state. Instead of finding her, as he had expected, idly lolling in a room of state, and bedizened in ribbands and laces, like a fairy queen, he found her attired in that simple dress of exquisite neatness which best sets off the rosy freshness of youthful beauty; and he found her, too, busied in some piece of domestic industry. He blushed to find her "_at work_!" After a world of compliments, all tending to make her out far too _divine a creature_ for such disparaging employments, he gave her to understand that she should not thus demean herself if she were in Carolina. "_What!_" replied she, with sarcastic pleasantry, "_don't the young ladies with you, read_ POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC?" Thus was this little annual visitor of Doctor Franklin's, a general blessing to the Pennsylvanians, making them all fond of industry. And Jacob did not more naturally beget Joseph and his twelve brethren than does industry beget INNOCENCE, and HEALTH, and WEALTH, and CHEERFULNESS, and all that lovely train of virtues, which tend to make men happy by driving away their vices. For who, for example, will ever get drunk who has no _debts_ nor _duns_ nor vices of any sort to make him _uneasy_? And who will ever _sell his birthright_ of an _honest vote_ for an electioneering dinner and a drink of grog, when he has fatted calves and wine of his own at home? This is Pennsylvania all over.