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CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN.

TO DOCTOR WILLIAM SMITH, PROVOST OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADEL

PHIA.

I feel both the wish and the duty to communicate, in compliance with your request, whatever, within my knowledge, might render justice to the memory of our great countryman, Dr. Franklin, in whom philosophy has to deplore one of its principal luminaries extinguished. But my opportunities of knowing the interesting facts of his life have not been equal to my desire of making them known.

I can only, therefore, testify, in general, that there appeared to me more respect and veneration attached to the character of Dr. Franklin in France than to that of any other person in the same country, foreign or native. I had opportunities of knowing particularly how far these sentiments were felt by the foreign ambassadors and ministers at the court of Versailles. The fable of his capture by the Algerines, propagated by the English newspapers, excited no uneasiness, as it was seen at once to be a dish cooked up to please certain readers; but nothing could exceed the anxiety of his diplomatic brethren on a subsequent report of his death, which, although premature, bore some marks of authenticity.

I found the ministers of France equally impressed with his talents and integrity. The Count de Vergennes, particularly, gave me repeated and unequivocal demonstrations of his entire confidence in him.

When he left Passy it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch. On taking leave of the court, which he did by letter, the king ordered him to be handsomely complimented, and furnished him with a litter and mules of his own, the only kind of conveyance the state of his health could bear.

The succession to Dr. Franklin at the court of France was an excellent school of humility to me. On being presented to any one, as the minister of America, the commonplace question was, "C'est vous, monsieur, qui remplacez le Docteur Franklin?" Is it you, sir, who replace Dr. Franklin? I generally answered, "No one can replace him, sir; I am only his successor."

I could here relate a number of those bon mots with which he was wont to charm every society as having heard many of them; but these are not your object. Particulars of greater dignity happened not to occur during his stay of nine months after my rival in France.

thus brought into contact with the air, within as well as without. Dr. Franklin had been on the point of the same discovery. The idea had occurred to him: but he had tried a bulrush as a wick, which did not succeed. His occupations did not permit him to repeat and extend his trials to the introduction of a larger column of air than could pass through the stem of a bulrush.

About that time, also, the king of France gave him a signal testimony of respect, by joining him with some of the most illus trious men of the nation, to examine that ignis-fatuus of philosophy, the animal magnetism of the maniac Mesiner; the pretended effects of which had astonished all Paris. From Dr. Franklin's hand, in conjunction with his brethren of the learned committee, that compound of fraud and folly was unveiled, and received its death-wound. After this nothing very interesting was before the public, either in philosophy or politics, during his stay ; and he was principally occupied in winding up his affairs, and preparing for his return to America.

These small offerings to the memory of our great and dear friend (whom time will be making still greater, while it is sponging us from its records) must be accepted by you, sir, in that spirit of love and veneration for him in which they are made; and not according to their insignificancy in the eyes of a world which did not want this mite to fill up the measure of his worth.

His death was an affliction which was to happen to us at some time or other. We have reason to be thankful he was so long spared; that the most useful life should be the longest also; that it was protracted so far beyond the ordinary space allotted to humanity, as to avail us of his wisdom and virtue in the establishment of our freedom in the west; and to bless him with a view of its dawn in the east, where men seemed till now to have learned everything-but how to be free.

WILLIAM PALEY, D.D.,

born 1743, Senior Wrangler, Fellow, and tutor of Christ's College, Cambridge, Prebendary of Carlisle, 1780, Archdeacon of Carlisle, 1782, Chancellor of Carlisle, 1785, Prebendary of St. Paul's, 1793, and rector of Bishop Wearmouth from 1795 until his death, 1805, gained great reputation by The Principles of Moral and Political Philoso ar-phy, Lond., 1785, 4to, Horæ Paulinæ, Lond., 1790, 8vo, A View of the Evidences of Chris tianity, Lond., 1794, 3 vols. 12mo, and Natural Theology, Lond., 1802, 8vo, with Notes by Lord Brougham and Sir Charles Bell,

A little before that time, Argand had invented his celebrated lamp, in which the flame is spread into a hollow cylinder, and

WILLIAM PALEY.

Lond., 1835-39, 5 vols. p. 8vo. Paley's Entire Works, with an Account of his Life and Writings, by his son, Lond., 1825, 7 vols. 8vo.

"All the theological works of all the numerous bishops whom he [Pitt] made and translated are not, when put together, worth fifty pages of the Hora Paulinæ, of the Natural Philosophy, or of the View of the Evidences of Christianity. But on Paley this all-powerful minister never bestowed the smallest benetice."-LORD MACAULAY: Life of Pitt, in Encyc. Brit., 8th edit., xvii., 1859.

THE DIVINE BENEVOLENCE.

When God created the human species, either he wished their happiness, or he wished their misery, or he was indifferent and unconcerned about both.

If he had wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment, or by placing us amidst objects so ill suited to our perceptions as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for example, every thing we tasted bitter; every thing we saw loathsome; every thing we touched a sting; every smell a stench; and every sound a discord.

If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute to our good fortune (as all design is by this supposition excluded) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to produce it. But either of these (and still more both of them) being too much to be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first supposition, that God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness; and made for them the provision which he has made, with that view, and for that purpose.

The same argument may be proposed in different terms, thus: Contrivance proves design and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances; and all the contrivances which we are acquainted with are directed to beneficial purposes. Evil, no doubt, exists; but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache: their aching now and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; or even, if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it. This is a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In describing instruments of husbandry you would hardly say of the sickle that it is made to cut the reaper's fingers, though,

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from the construction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mischief often happens.

But if you had occasion to describe instruments of torture or execution, This engine, you would say, is to extend the sinews; this to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this to scorch the soles of the feet, Here, pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease; or, in explaining the parts of the human body, ever said: This is to irritate, this to inflame; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout: if by chance he come at a part of which he knows not the use, the most that he can say is, that it is useless: no one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment. Since then God hath called forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, and the world appears to have been constituted with this design at first; so long as this constitution is upholden by him, we must in reason suppose the same design to continue.

The contemplation of universal nature rather bewilders the nind than affects it. There is always a bright spot in the prospect upon which the eye rests; a single example, perhaps, by which each man finds himself more convinced than by all others put together. I seem, for my own part, to see the benevolence of the Deity more clearly in the pleasures of very young children than in any thing in the world. The pleasures of grown persons may be reckoned partly of their own procuring; especially if there has been any industry or contrivance, or pursuit, to come at them; or if they are founded, like music, painting, &c., upon any qualification of their own acquiring. But the pleasures of a healthy infant are so manifestly provided for it by another, and the benevolence of the provision is so unquestionable, that every child I see at its sports affords to my mind a kind of sensible evidence of the finger of God, and of the disposition which directs it.

But the example which strikes each man most strongly is the true example for him: and hardly two minds hit upon the same: which shows the abundance of such examples about us.

We conclude, therefore, that God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures. And this conclusion being once established, we are at liberty to go on with the rule

built upon it, namely, "that the method of coming at the will of God, concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into the tendency of that action to promote or diminish the general happiness." Moral and Polit. Philos., Chap. v.

HENRY MACKENZIE, born in Edinburgh, 1745, Comptroller of Taxes for Scotland from 1804 until his death, in 1831, was author of The Man of Feeling, a Novel, 1771, 8vo, anonymous, and claimed by Mr. Eccles, of Bath; The Man of the World, a Novel, 1773, 2 vols. 12mo; The Prince of Tunis, a Tragedy, 1773, 8vo; Julia de Roubigné, a Tale, 1777, 2 vols. 8vo; Translations from the German of Lessing's Set of Horses, and some other dramatic pieces, 1791, 12mo; also, minor publications. Works, Edin., 1808, 8 vols. crown 8vo.

"The principal object of Mackenzie, in all his novels, has been to reach and sustain a tone of moral pathos, by representing the effect of incidents, whether important or trifling, upon the human mind, and especially on those which are not only just, honourable, and intelligent, but so framed as to be responsive to those finer feelings to which ordinary hearts are callous."-SIR WALTER SCOTT: Life of Mackenzie.

THE DEATH OF HARLEY.

"There are some remembrances," said Harley, "which rise involuntarily on my heart, and make me almost wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends who redeem my opinion of mankind. I recollect with the tenderest emotion the scenes of pleasure I have passed among them; but we shall meet again, my friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the world. The world is in general selfish, interested, and unthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its own. I cannot think but in those regions which I contemplate, if there is anything of mortality left about us, that these feelings will subsist; they are called-perhaps they are-weaknesses here; but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues." He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them when the door opened, and his aunt appeared, leading in Miss Walton. "My dear," says she, "here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself." I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat. If to know Miss Walton's goodness," said he, "be a title to deserve it, I have some

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claim." She begged him to resume his sent, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs. Margery accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. "I believe," said he, "from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery." She started as he spoke; but recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. "I know," said he, "that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes which your kindness suggests, but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man is a privilege be stowed on few. I would endeavour to make it mine; nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now: it is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach." "Those sentiments," an swered Miss Walton, "are just; but your good sense, Mr. Harley, will own that life has its proper value. As the province of virtue, life is ennobled; as such, it is to be desired. To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards enough even here to fix its attachment."

The subject began to overpower her. Harley lifted his eyes from the ground: "There are," said he, in a very low voice, "there are attachments, Miss Walton." His glance met hers. They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn. He paused some moments: "I am in such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it, it is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections." He paused again. "Let it not offend you to know their power over one so unworthy. It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest. To love Miss Walton could not be a crime; if to declare it is one, the expiation will be made." Her tears were now flowing without control. "Let me entreat you," said she, "to have better hopes. Let not life be so indifferent to you, if my wishes can put any value on it. I will not pretend to misunderstand you,-I know your worth, -I have known it long,-I have esteemed it. What would you have me say? I have loved it as it deserved." He seized her hand, a languid colour reddened his cheek, a smile brightened faintly in his eye. he gazed on her it grew dim, it fixed, it closed. He sighed, and fell back on his seat. Miss Walton screamed at the sight.

As

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

His aunt and the servants rushed into the room. They found them lying motionless together. His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them. With Miss Walton they succeeded, but Harley was gone forever! The Man of Feeling.

SIR WILLIAM JONES,

born in 1746, was admitted to the bar in 1774, and appointed a Commissioner of Bankrupts, 1776; Judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal from 1783 (when he was knighted) until his death at Calcutta, April 27, 1794. He was more or less familiar with twenty-eight languages. A collective edition of his Works-philological, legal, poetical, translations, etc. was published, London, 1799, 6 vols. 4to, Supplement, 1801, 2 vols. 4to, Life by Lord Teignmouth, 1804, 4to: in all 9 vols. 4to: reprinted (without the Supplement, which were not written by Sir William, but are the contributions of others to the Asiatic Researches), Lond., 1807, 13 vols. 8vo.

"William Jones has as yet had no rivals in the department which he selected; no one appears to have comprehended as he did the antiquities of Asia, and, above all, of India, with the acuteness of a philosopher, or to have seen the mode of reconciling every thing with the doctrine and history of the Scriptures."-FRED. VON SCHLEGEL: Lects. on the Hist, of Lit., Ancient and Modern, Lect. xiv. See also Lect. v.

Of the inspired volume this great master of Oriental learning thus writes:

"I have regularly and attentively read the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that this volume, independent of its divine origin, contains more sublimity and beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language or age they may have been composed."

To which we may appropriately add the following:

"I find more sure marks of the authenticity of the Bible than in any profane history whatever." -SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

and both of these great men illustrated by their lives the beneficial influence of the religion in which they thus placed their trust.

MILTON'S COUNTRY RETREAT.

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Thamas-Kouli-Kan, traduit d'un MS. Persan, avec un Traité sur la Poésie Orientale, Londres, 1770, 2 vols. in 1, large 4to, in English, Lond., 1773, 8vo] prevented me to-day from paying a proper respect to the memory of Shakspeare, by attending his jubilee. But I was resolved to do all the honour in my power to as great a poet, and set out in the morning, in company with a friend, to visit a place where Milton spent some part of his life, and where, in all probproductions. It is a small village, situated ability, he composed several of his earliest on a pleasant hill, about three miles from Oxford, and called Forest Hill, because it formerly lay contiguous to a forest, which has since been cut down. The poet chose this place of retirement after his first marriage, and he describes the beauties of his retreat in that fine passage of his L'Allegro,—"Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms, or hillocks green

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While the ploughman near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrow'd land;
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe;
And ev'ry shepherd tells his tale,
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows grey,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The lab'ring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide;
Towers and battlements it sees,
Bosom'd high in tufted trees.

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Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks," &c.

It was neither the proper season of the year, nor time of the day, to hear all the rural sounds, and see all the objects mentioned in this description; but by a pleasing concurrence of circumstances, we were saluted, on our approach to the village, with the music of the mower and his scythe; we saw the ploughman intent upon his labour, and the milkmaid returning from her country employment.

As we ascended the hill, the variety of beautiful objects, the agreeable stillness and us the highest pleasure. natural simplicity of the whole scene, gave We at length reached the spot whence Milton undoubtedly took most of his images: it is on the top of the hill, from which there is a most extensive prospect on all sides: the distant mountains, that seemed to support the clouds, the villages and turrets, partly shaded with trees of the finest verdure, and partly raised above the groves that surrounded them, the dark plains and meadows of a greyish colour,

where the sheep were feeding at large: invidual, an honour which heretofore has only short, the view of the streams and rivers, convinced us that there was not a single useless or idle word in the above-mentioned description, but that it was a most exact and lively representation of nature. Thus will this fine passage, which has always been admired for its elegance, receive an additional beauty from its exactness. After we had walked, with a kind of poetical enthusiasm, over this enchanted ground, we returned to the village.

The poet's house was close to the church; the greatest part of it has been pulled down, and what remains belongs to an adjacent farm. I am informed that several papers in Milton's own hand were found by the gentleman who was last in possession of the estate. The tradition of his having lived there is current among the villagers: one of them showed us a ruinous wall that made part of his chamber; and I was much pleased with another, who had forgotten the name of Milton, but recollected him by the title of The Poet.

It must not be omitted, that the groves near this village are famous for nightingales, which are so elegantly described in the Penseroso. Most of the cottage windows are overgrown with sweet-briars, vines, and honeysuckles; and that Milton's habitation had the same rustic ornament, we may conclude from his description of the lark bidding him good-morrow,

"Thro' the sweet-briar, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine:

for it is evident that he meant a sort of

honeysuckle by the eglantine, though that word is commonly used for the sweet-briar, which he could not mention twice in the same couplet.

If I ever pass a month or six weeks at Oxford in the summer, I shall be inclined to hire and repair this venerable mansion, and to make a festival for a circle of friends, in honour of Milton, the most perfect scholar, as well as the sublimest poet, that our country ever produced. Such an honour will be less splendid, but more sincere and respectful, than all the pomp and ceremony on the banks of the Avon. I have, &c.

ON SALLUST AND CICERO.

Oct. 4, 1774.

To F. P. BAYER, PRECEPTOR TO DON GABRIEL, INFANT OF SPAIN.

I can scarcely find words to express my thanks for your obliging present of a most beautiful and splendid copy of Sallust, with an elegant Spanish translation. You have bestowed upon me, a private, untitled indi

been conferred upon great monarchs and illustrious universities. I really was at loss to decide whether I should begin my letter by congratulating you on having so excellent a translator, or by thanking you for this agreeable proof of your remembrance. I look forward to the increasing splendour which the arts and sciences must attain in a country where the son of the king possesses genius and erudition capable of translating and illustrating with learned notes the first of the Roman historians. How few youths amongst the nobility in other countries pos sess the requisite ability or inclination for such a task! The history of Sallust is a performance of great depth, wisdom, and dignity to understand it well is no small praise; to explain it properly is still more commendable; but to translate it elegantly, excites admiration. If all this had been accomplished by a private individual, he would have merited applause; if by a youth, he would have had a claim to literary honours; but when to the title of youth that of Prince [Don Gabriel, Madrid, 1772, fol.] is added, we cannot too highly extol, or too highly applaud, his distinguished merit.

Many years are elapsed since I applied myself to the study of your learned language, but I well remember to have read in it, with great delight, the heroic poem of Alonzo, the odes of Garcilasso, and the humorous stories of Cervantes: but I most sincerely declare that I never perused a more elegant or polished composit on than the translation of Sallust; and I readily subscribe to the opinion of the learned author in his preface, that the Spanish language approaches very nearly to the dignity of the Latin.

May the accomplished youth continue to deserve well of his country and mankind, and establish his claim to distinction above all the princes of his age! If I may be allowed to offer my sentiments, I would advise him to study most diligently the divine works of Cicero, which no man, in my opinion, ever perused without improving in eloquence and wisdom. The epistle which he wrote to his brother Quintus, on the gor ernment of a province, deserves to be daily repeated by every sovereign in the world; his books on offices, on moral ends, and the Tusculan question, merit a hundred perusals; and his orations, nearly sixty in number, deserve to be translated into every European language; nor do I scruple to affirm that his sixteen books of letters to Atticus are superior to almost all histories, that of Sallust excepted. With respect to your own compositions, I have read with great attention, and will again read, your most agree

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