Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/175

 set of The Portfolio, the fullest collection of Vorschrifften, representing the art of the Germans of the state, the best collection of the literature of the Mennonites and the Schwenkfelders, an Aitken Bible, the first American Bible in English, a set of original war maps of the battles of the Revolution, the autobiography in manuscript of Benjamin West, his original study of the Death of Wolfe, an autograph portrait of West and a portrait of Franklin by West. These are sufficient to indicate its importance.

After I had been separated from my books for over two years, and since they prevented any other use of the house and were subject to the danger of fire and thieves, I selected about two thousand volumes, including the large mass of family literature, the local books and those relating to the Mennonites and Schwenkfelders, and sold the rest. Those sold were described in eight catalogues making four large octavo volumes which form a full record of original sources for the history of Pennsylvania. My collection of Frankliniana has been called by Tregaskis of London “unrivalled.” Certainly it was more comprehensive than that of Henry Stevens, for which the Government of the United States paid $35,000. The ownership of these books gave me the opportunity to understand Franklin in one phase of his work, with the result that my estimate of his achievement is far from the conventional standard. He was a job printer. He printed solely for gain and nothing that can be regarded as a contribution to learning or literature came from his press. He printed the Votes of Assembly and the Sessions Laws, the opportunity for doing which he secured through political influence, and when Benjamin Lay paid him for printing one of the earliest books against slave-keepers, it appeared without his imprint because it was an unpopular effort. His most important work in the way of his art was the part he took in publishing Sewell's History of the Quakers, but that was given to him by Keimer, the generous old 11