Hey Elsa,

I noticed that it was signed as Richard Saunders as well and initially I thought that there must be some sort of mistake in attributing it to Franklin, but in actuality ‘Richard Saunders’ is a pseudonym that Ben Franklin would write under sometimes when publishing his almanac. Wikipedia points this out as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Saunders

In my blog entry on this I wrote that “Franklin was also paying homage to the last great period of English astrology prior to his time, which had taken place in the mid-17th century, by writing under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. Richard Saunders was a well known astrologer from this period who wrote a number of important works, including a comprehensive textbook on medical astrology titled The Astrological Judgement and Practice of Physick.”

From the mailing list…. Diana of http://ye-stars.com/ writes:

I was a bit reluctant to have only Wikipedia as the source, because
many people do not entirely trust it (and I have discovered errors there
from time to time), so I googled some more and found:

http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_wit_name.html
Richard Saunders - Of all of Franklin’s noms de plume, Mr. Saunders became
the best known. Richard Saunders was the “Richard” of Poor Richard’s
Almanack. First published late in 1732, Poor Richard’s Almanack is probably
Franklin’s best-known publication. Richard Saunders’ humorous sayings and
advice filled the pages of the almanac’s twenty-six editions.