While on this question of plagiarism it may be said that Franklin's admirable style was in part modelled on that of the famous Massachusetts divine, Cotton Mather, whom he had known and whose books he had read in his boyhood. The similarity is, indeed, quite striking, and for vigorous English he could hardly have had a better model. But he improved so much on Mather that his style is entirely his own. It is the most effective literary style ever used by an American. Nearly one hundred and fifty years have passed since his Autobiography was written, yet it is still read with delight by all classes of people, has been called for at some public libraries four hundred times a year, and shows as much promise of immortality as the poems of Longfellow or the romances of Hawthorne.
Besides his almanac and newspaper, Franklin extended his business by publishing books, consisting mostly of religious tracts and controversies. He also imported books from England, and sold them along with the lamp-black, soap, and groceries contained in that strange little store and printing-office on Market Street. He sent one of his journeymen to Charleston to establish a branch printing-office, of which Franklin was to pay one-third of the expense and receive one-third of the profits. After continuing in this manner some five years, the Legislature of the province in 1736 elected him clerk of that body, which enabled him to retain the printing of the notes, laws, paper money, and other public jobs, which he tells us were very profitable.
The next year Colonel Spotswood, Postmaster-General of the colonies, made him deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. This appointment reinforced his other occupations. He could collect news for his _Gazette_ more easily, and also had greater facilities for distributing it to his subscribers. In those days the postmaster of a town usually owned a newspaper, because he could have the post-riders distribute copies of it without cost, and he did not allow them to carry any newspaper but his own. Franklin had been injured by the refusal of his predecessor to distribute his _Gazette_; but when he became postmaster, finding his subscriptions and advertisements much increased and his competitor's newspaper declining, he magnanimously refused to retaliate, and allowed his riders to carry the rival journal.