of Excellency His Fortune was not however impaired | For he piously withheld from her | Manes | The pitiful stipend of Ten pounds per Annum On which he had cruelly suffered her | To starve Then stole her to the Grave in Silence | Without a Pall, the covering due to her dignity! Without a tomb or even A Monumental Inscription.-WILLIAMSON, HUGH, 1764, What is Sauce for the Goose is also Sauce for the Gander.

There is a general union among the colonies, which no artifices of a mininstry will be able to break. Dr. Franklin is a very popular character in every part of America. He will be received, and carried in triumph to his house, when he arrives amongst us. It is to be hoped he will not consent to hold any more offices under government. No step but this can prevent his being handed down to posterity among the first and greatest characters in the world.-RUSH, BENJAMIN, 1774, Letter to Arthur Lee, May 4.

A man who makes a figure in the learned world.-KAMES, HENRY HOME LORD, 1774, Sketches of the History of Man, vol. III, p. 435.

After dinner we went to the Academy of Sciences, and heard M. d'Alembert, as perpetual secretary, pronounce eulogies on several of their members, lately deceased. Voltaire and Franklin were both present, and there presently arose a general cry that M. Voltaire and M. Franklin should be introduced to each other. This was done, and they bowed and spoke to each other. This was no satisfaction; there must be something more. Neither of our philosophers seemed to divine what was wished or expected; they, however, took each other by the hand. But this was not enough; the clamor continued, until the explanations came out. "Il faut s' embrasser, à la Françoise." The two aged actors upon this great theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each other, by hugging one another in their arms, and kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. And the cry immediately spread through the whole kingdom, and, I suppose, over all Europe-"Qu' il était charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocle!"-ADAMS, JOHN, 1778, Diary, Paris, Apr. 29.

Mr. Fragonard, the king's painter at

Paris, has lately displayed the utmost efforts of his genius in an elegant picture dedicated to the genius of Franklin. Mr. Franklin is represented in it opposing with one hand the ægis of Minerva to the thunderbolt, which he first knew how to fix by his conductors, and with the other commanding the god of war to fight against avarice and tyranny whilst America, nobly reclining upon him, and holding in her hand the fasces, a true emblem of the union of the American States, looks down with tranquility on her defeated enemies. The painter, in this picture, most beautifully expressed the idea of the Latin verse, which has been so justly applied to Mr. Franklin:

Eripuit cœlo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. (He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven and the scepter from the hands of tyrants). —GAZETTE OF AMIENS, 1779, on the Painting of Franklin.

In a gallery of paintings in the Louvre, I was much gratified in perceiving the portrait of Franklin, near those of the king and queen, placed there as a mark of distinguished respect, and, as was understood, in conformity with royal directions. Few foreigners have been presented to the court of St. Cloud who have acquired so much popularity as Dr. Franklin. I have seen the populace attend his carriage, in the manner they followed the king's. His venerable figure, the ease of his manners, formed in an intercourse of fifty years with the world, his benevolent countenance, and his fame as a philosopher, all tended to excite love, and to command influence and respect. He had attained, by the exercise of these qualities, a powerful interest in the feelings of the beautiful queen of France. She held at that time a powerful political influence. The exercise of that influence, adroitly directed by Franklin, tended to produce the acknowledgment of our independence, and the subsequent efficient measures pursued by France in its support.-WATSON, ELKANAH, 1779, Memoirs, p. 106. What diff'rence then can virtue claim From vice, if it oblivious lie? While I can sing your spotless name, Your worthy deeds shall never die. Nor shall oblivion's livid power

Your patriotic toils conceal: Alike in good, or adverse hour, A patron of the common-weal. Forever faithful and sincere,

Your hands from gilded baits are free: The public villain stands in fear

You should perpetual counsel be. The knave possest of shining pelf,

Can never sway your honest choice: For justice, emblem of yourself,

Exalts above the rabble's voice. -PARKE, JOHN, 1781, To Lollius.

Of all the celebrated persons whom in my life I have chanced to see, Dr. Franklin, both from his appearance and his conversation, seemed to me the most remarkable. His venerable patriarchal appearance, the simplicity of his manner and language, and the novelty of his observations, at least the novelty of them at that time to me, impressed me with an opinion of him as of one of the most extraordinary men that ever existed.-ROM

ILLY, SIR SAMUEL, 1783, Journal, Life by his Sons, vol. I, p. 69.

A new town in the state of Massachusetts having done me the honor of naming itself after me, and proposing to build a steeple to their meeting-house, if I would give them a bell, I have advised the sparing themselves the expense of steeple for the present, and that they would accept of books instead of a bell, sense being preferable to sound. These are therefore intended as a commencement of a little parochial library for the use of a society of intelligent, respectable farmers, such as our country people generally consists of.-FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, 1785, Letter to Richard Price.

DEAR SIR: Amid the public gratulation on your safe return to America, after a long absence, and the many eminent services you had rendered it--for which as a benefited person I feel the obligation -permit an individual to join the public voice in expressing his sense of them; and to assure you, that as no one entertains more respect for your character, so none can salute you with more sincerity or with greater pleasure than I do on this occasion. I am dear sir, Your most obt. and most Hble. Servt.-WASHINGTON, GEORGE, 1785, Letter to Benjamin Franklin, Sep. 25.

Dr. Franklin lives in Market street. His house stands up a court, at some distance from the street. We found him in his garden, sitting upon a grass-plot, under a very large mulberry tree, with several other gentlemen and two or three

ladies. When Mr. Gerry introduced me, he rose from his chair, took me by the hand, expressed his joy at seeing me, welcomed me to the city, and begged me to seat myself close to him. His voice was low, but his countenance open, frank, and pleasing. . . He seemed exceedingly fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling on philosophical subjects and particularly that of Natural History; while the other gentlemen were swallowed up with politics. This was a favorable circumstance for me; for almost the whole of his conversation was addressed to me, and I was highly delighted with the extensive knowledge he appeared to have of every subject, the brightness of his memory, and clearness and vivacity of all his mental

His

faculties, notwithstanding his age. manners are perfectly easy, and everything about him seems to diffuse an unrestrained freedom and happiness. He has an incessant vein of humor, accompanied with an uncommon vivacity, which seems as natural and involuntary as his breathing.-CUTLER, MANASSEH, 1787, Journal, July 13; Sparks' Life of Franklin, vol. I, pp. 520, 523.

Be it remembered
In honor of the Philadelphia Youth,
(then chiefly artificers)

that in MDCCXXXI.,
they cheerfully,

at the instances of Benjamin Franklin,
one of their number,

instituted the Philadelphia Library,
which, though small at first,

is become highly valuable and extensively useful

and which the walls of this edifice are now destined to contain and preserve, the first stone of whose foundation was here placed,

the thirty-first day of August, 1789. -CORNER STONE, PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY, 1789.

About sixteen days before his death he was seized with a feverish indisposition, without any particular symptoms attending it, till the third or fourth day, when he complained of a pain in the left breast, which increased till it became extremely acute, attended with a cough and laborious breathing. During this state when the severity of his pains drew forth a groan of complaint, he would observe-that he was afraid he did not bear them as he oughtacknowledged his grateful sense of the many blessings he had received from that

Supreme Being, who had raised him from small and low beginnings to such high rank and consideration among men and made no doubt but his present afflictions were kindly intended to wean him from a world, in which he was no longer fit to act the part assigned him. In this frame of body and mind he continued till five days before his death, when his pain and difficulty of breathing entirely left him, and his family were flattering themselves with the hopes of his recovery, when an imposthumation, (abscess) which had formed itself in his lungs suddenly burst, and discharged a great quantity of matter, which he continued to throw up while he had sufficient strength to do it; but, as that failed, the organs of respiration became gradually oppressed a calm lethargic state succeeded and, on the 17th of April, 1790, about eleven o'clock at night, he quietly expired, closing a long and useful life of eighty-four years and three months.JONES, DR. JOHN, 1790, Account of the Illness and Death of Dr. Franklin.

Mr. Speaker: As we have been informed, not only through the channel of the newspapers, but by a more direct communication, of the decease of an illustrious character, whose native genius has rendered distinguished services to the cause of science and of mankind in general; and whose patriotic exertions have contributed in a high degree to the independence and prosperity of this country in particular; the occasion seems to call upon us to pay some tribute to his memory expressive of the tender veneration his country feels for such distinguished merit. I therefore move the following resolution: "The House being informed of the decease of Benjamin Franklin, a citizen whose native genius was not more an ornament to human nature than his various exertions of it have been precious to science, to freedom, and to his country, do resolve, as a mark of the veneration due to his memory, that the members wear the customary badge of mourning for one month.". MADISON, JAMES, 1790, Resolution of Congress, April 22.

Franklin is dead! The genius that freed America and poured a flood of light over Europe has returned to the bosom of the Divinity. The sage whom two worlds claim as their own, the man for whom the history of science and the history of

empires contend with each other, held, without doubt, a high rank in the human race. Too long have political cabinets. taken formal note of the death of those who were great only in their funeral panegyrics. Too long has the etiquette of courts prescribed hypocritical mourning. Nations should wear mourning only for their benefactors. The representatives of nations should recommend to their homage none but the heroes of humanity. The Congress has ordained, throughout the United States, a mourning of one month for the death of Franklin, and at this moment America is paying this tribute of veneration and gratitude to one of the fathers of her Constitution. Would it not become us, gentlemen, to join in this religious act, to bear a part in this homage, rendered, in the face of the world, both to the rights of man and to the philosopher who has most contributed to extend their sway over the whole earth? Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty genius, who, to the advantage of mankind, compassing in his mind the heavens and earth, was able to restrain alike thunderbolts and tyrants. Europe, enlightened and free, owes at least a token of remembrance and regret to one of the greatest men who has ever been engaged in the service of philosophy and liberty. I propose that it be decreed that the National Assembly, during three days shall wear mourning for Benjamin Franklin. MIRABEAU, HONORÉ GABRIEL RIQUETI COMTE DE, 1790, Speech Before the National Legislature of France, June 11.

As soon as his country was so well established that she had no need of seeking for partisans, his life became more retired and peaceable. In his retreat at Passy, there formed around him a circle, not large, of a few friends; and their company, with simple pursuits, occupied the close of a noble life. The course of it was broken by a painful illness, however, and from this moment his mind turned toward his own country. He left France, giving her, as the reward of her service, a great example, and lessons which could not long remain without profit. He sailed from an English port, to which he was accompanied by M. Le Veillard, who, while he lived at Passy, had lavished all the cares of filial tenderness upon him, and wished to postpone to the last moment

what was to be an eternal separation. Franklin only stopped on the shores of England. He was so generous that he spared his humiliated enemies the spectacle of his glory. The French were his friends; the English were relatives, whose faults one is glad to forget, -with regard to whom we still respect the bonds of nature, though they have broken them by their injustice.-CONDORCET, MARIE JEAN MARQUIS DE, 1799, Address before the French Academy, Nov. 13.

On Wednesday, King the American King the American minister, Eliot, Montagu, and Henry Thornton dined with me, Rational day. . . Franklin seems, from King, not to be in good estimation in America. Thought a dishonest, tricking, hypocritical character; a free-thinker really, yet pretending to believe in the authority of Scripture. -WILBERFORCE, WILLIAM, 1796, Table Talk, Life by his Sons, vol. II, p. 179.

no

This self-taught American is the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers. He never loses sight of common sense in any of his speculations. . . . No individual, perhaps, ever possessed a juster understanding, or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence, enthusiasm, or authority. Dr. Franklin received regular education; and he spent the greater part of his life in a society where there was no relish and no encouragement for literature. On an ordinary mind, these circumstances would have produced their usual effects, of repressing all sorts of intellectural ambition or activity, and perpetuating a generation of incurious mechanics; but to an understanding like Franklin's, we cannot help considering them as peculiarly propitious, and imagine that we can trace back to them distinctly almost all the peculiarities of his intellectual character. JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1806, The Works of Dr. Franklin, Edinburgh Review, vol. 8, p.328.

His reputation was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them. . . His name was familiar to government and people, to kings and courtiers, nobility, clergy and philosophers, as well as plebeians, to such a degree that there was scarcely a peasant or a citizen, a valet de chambre: a coachman or footman, a lady's chambermaid or a scullion in the kitchen

who was not familiar with it, and who did not consider him as a friend to human kind. . . Nothing, perhaps, that ever occurred upon the earth was so well calculated to give any man an extensive and universal celebrity as the discovery of the efficacy of iron points and the invention of lightning-rods. The idea was one of the most sublime that ever entered a human imagination, that a mortal should disarm the clouds of heaven, and almost "snatch from his hand the sceptre and the rod." The ancients would have enrolled him with Bacchus and Ceres, Hercules and Minerva. His Paratonnères erected their heads in all parts of the world, on temples and palaces no less than on cottages of peasants and the habitations of ordinary citizens. These visible objects reminded all men of the name and character of their inventor; and, in the course of time, have not only tranquilized the minds; and dissipated the fears of the tender sex and their timorous children, but have almost annihilated that panic terror and superstitious horror which was once almost universal in violent storms of thunder and lightning.—ADAMS, JOHN, 1811, Works, vol. 1, Appendix, pp. 660, 661.

An independence of thought, a constant and direct reference to utility, a consequent abstinence from whatever is merely curious and ornamental, or even remotely useful, a talent for ingeniously betraying vice and prejudice into an admission of reason, and for exhibiting their sophisms. in that state of undisguised absurdity in which they are ludicrous, and with a singular power of striking illustration from homely objects, would justify us in calling Franklin The American Socrates. -MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1812, Life by Mackintosh, vol. II, p. 203.

Benjamin Franklyn, who, by bringing a spark from heaven, fulfilled the prophecies he pretended to disbelieve; Franklyn, who wrote a profane addition to the Book of Genesis, who hissed on the colonies against their parent country, who taught men to despise their Sovereign and insult their Redeemer; who did all the mischief in his power while living, and at last died, I think, in America; was beside all the rest, a plagiarist, as it appears; and the curious epitaph made on himself, and as we long believed, by himself, was, I am informed, borrowed without acknowledgment, from