[59] eight and five years older than the Philadelphia almanac; and they have much of the varied humor and wisdom which, touched with the subtle charm of personality that belonged to everything Franklin wrote, made Poor Richard so famous. The incidents of the last twenty-five years of Franklin's life cannot be more than touched upon here. His diplomatic career in England and France kept him away from America during almost the whole of the Revolutionary period; yet his influence both at home and abroad was incalculably great. He did a great deal of writing, with entire indifference to literary fame; for he had always a practical end to gain. During those years of absence he was continually flinging off pamphlets in the American cause, written with imperturbable good-humor and telling irony. From the very beginning of the Revolution he turned to the advantage of his country the pungency, directness, and humor of his style. On the 16th of May, 1775, he wrote to Priestley this condensed sketch of the battle of Lexington, in which each sentence is an epigram--
You will have heard, before this reaches you, of a march stolen by the regulars into the country by night,
