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daughter of our uncle

that it may never be given up again, which you then forgot. Billy is well, but in the country. I left him at Tunbridge Wells, where we spent a fortnight, and he is now gone with some company to see Portsmouth. We have been together over a great part of England this summer, and, among other places, visited the town our father was born in, and found some relations in that part of the country still living. Our cousin Jane Franklin, John, died about a year ago. Robert Page, who gave us wife from uncle Benjamin. In one of them, dated Boston, July 4th, 1723, he writes that your uncle Josiah has a daughter Jane, about twelve years old, a goodhumored child. So keep up to your character, and don't be angry when you have no letters. In a little book he sent her, called "None but Christ," he wrote an acrostic on her name, which for namesake's sake, as well as the good advice it contains, I transcribe and send you, viz.

We saw her husband, some old letters to his

"Illuminated from on high,

And shining brightly in your sphere,
Ne'er faint, but keep a steady eye,
Expecting endless pleasures there.

"Flee vice as you'd a serpent flec;
Raise faith and hope three stories higher,
And let Christ's endless love to thee
Ne'er cease to make thy love aspire.
Kindness of heart by words express,
Let your obedience be sincere,
In prayer and praise your God address,
Nor cease, till he can cease to hear."

After professing truly that I had a great esteem and veneration for the pious author, permit me a little to play the commentator and critic on these lines. The meaning of three stories higher seems somewhat obscure. You are to understand, then, that faith, hope,.

and charity have been called the three steps of Jacob's ladder, reaching from earth to heaven; our author calls them stories, likening religion to a building, and these are the three stories of the Christian edifice. Thus improvement in religion is called building up and edification. Faith is then the ground floor, hope is up one pair of stairs. My dear beloved Jenny, don't delight so much to dwell in those lower rooms, but get as fast as you can into the garret, for in truth the best room in the house is charity. For my part, I wish the house was turned upside down; it is so difficult (when one is fat) to go up stairs; and not only so, but I imagine hope and faith may be more firmly built upon charity, than charity upon faith and hope. However that may be, I think it the better reading to

say

"Raise faith and hope one story higher."

Correct it boldly, and I'll support the alteration; for, when you are up two stories already, if you raise your building three stories higher you will make five in all, which is two more than there should be, you expose your upper rooms more to the winds and storms; and, besides, I am afraid the foundation will hardly bear them, unless indeed you build with such light stuff as straw and stubble, and that, you know, won't stand fire. Again, where the author says,

"Kindness of heart by words express," strike out words, and put in deeds. The world is too full of compliments already. They are the rank growth, of every soil, and choke the good plants of benevolence and beneficence; nor do I pretend to be the first in this comparison of words and actions to plants; you may remember an ancient poet, whose works we have all studied and copied at school long ago.

"A man of words and not of deeds

Is like a garden full of weeds."

It is pity that good works, among some sorts of people, are so little valued, and good words admired in their stead; I mean seemingly pious discourses, instead of humane benevolent actions. Those they almost put out of countenance, by calling morality rotten morality, righteousness ragged righteousness, and even filthy rags. So much by way of commentary.

My wife will let you see my letter, containing an account of our travels, which I would have you read to sister Dowse, and give my love to her. I have no thoughts of returning till next year, and then may possibly have the pleasure of seeing you and yours; taking Boston in my way home. My love to brother and all your children, concludes at this time from, dear Jenny, your affectionate brother,

B. FRANKLIN.

TO MISS MARY STEVENSON.

MY DEAR CHILD,

Craven Street, 4 May, 1759.

Hearing that you were in the Park last Sunday, I hoped for the pleasure of seeing you yesterday at the oratorio in the Foundling Hospital; but, though I looked with all the eyes I had, not excepting even those I carry in my pocket, I could not find you; and this morning your good mamma has received a line from you, by which we learn that you are returned to Wanstead.

It is long since you heard from me, though not a day passes in which I do not think of you with the same affectionate regard and esteem I ever had for you. My not writing is partly owing to an inexcusable indolence, which I find grows upon me as I grow in years, and partly to an expectation I have had,

from week to week, of making a little journey into Essex, in which I intended to call at Wanstead, and promised to myself the pleasure of seeing you there. I have now fixed this day se'nnight for that journey, and purpose to take Mrs. Stevenson out with me, leave her with you till the next day, and call for her on Saturday in my return. Let me know by a line if you think any thing may make such a visit from us at that time improper or inconvenient. Present my sincere respects to Mrs. Tickell, and believe me ever, dear Polly, your truly affectionate friend and humble B. FRANKLIN.

servant,

P. S. We have company that dine with us today, and your careful mamma, being busied about many things, cannot write. Will did not see you in the Park. Mr. Hunter and his sister are both gone. God prosper their voyage. My compliments to Miss Pitt.*

Much of Franklin's time during the year 1759 was devoted to electricity, as in fact it had been from his first arrival in England. The fame of his discoveries in that science had preceded him, and made him known to the learned throughout Europe. It was the occa sion of a large correspondence, which has nearly all been lost in the wreck of his papers. The following letter from the celebrated Musschenbroek was accompanied by a list of all the principal treatises on electricity, which had at that time been published in the Latin, German, French, and English languages.

"VIRO NOBILISSIMO AMPLISSIMOQUE, BENJAMINI FRANKLIN, s. p. D.

P. V. MussCHENBROEK.

"Vir reverendus, qui se ministerio Evangelico fungi profitebatur, me tuo nomine rogavit, ut indicarem autores, qui de Electricitate scripserunt, mihique erant cogniti. Votis tuis lubenter annui; ita addisces quid alii in Europâ præstiterunt eruditi, sed simul videbis neminem magis recondita mysteria Electricitatis detexisse Franklino.

"Utinam modo pergas proprio Marte capere experimenta, et aliâ incedere via, quam Europæi incesserunt, nam tum plura et alia deteges, quæ seculorum spatio laterent philosophos. Aer Pensylvanicus videtur esse electricitatis plenissimus; sed attende an per totum anni curricu

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Political Remarks and Predictions in Regard to America. William Penn's Portrait. - Recollections of his Visit to Scotland.

MY DEAR LORD,

London, 3 January, 1760.

You have been pleased kindly to desire to have all my publications. I had daily expectations of procuring some of them from a friend to whom I formerly sent them when I was in America, and postponed writing to you, till I should obtain them; but at length he tells me he cannot find them; very mortifying this

lum, an interdum pauperior sit; quibus anni diebus, quo flante vento, quâ cœli constitutione; distingue nubes electricitatis plenas aut expertes, uti volante in altum serico incepisti detegere omnium primus. Opto similia perpulcra inventa legere Pensylvanica, ac scripsisti in litteris ad expertissimum virum Collinsonum; sique mecum quædam communicare digneris, tecum alia communicabo, nam meus scopus est scientiam physicam et naturalem promovere quamdiu vivam.

"Tu sis, amicissime, salutatus a tu benevolentissimo cultore, et vale. "Leyda, 15° Aprilis, 1759."

* Henry Home, better known by his title of Lord Kames, which he assumed, according to the custom of Scotland, on being appointed in 1752 a judge of the Court of Session. He was born in Berwick county in 1696, and was educated to the profession of the law, in which he became distinguished as an advocate and a judge. But his greatest eminence was derived from his literary productions, which were numerous, and some of them very celebrated, particularly his "Elements of Criticism," published in 1762; his "Sketches of the History of Man," in 1773; and a small work published in 1761, entitled "An Introduction to the Art of Thinking," which was originally compiled for the use of his own children. It is in two parts, the first a series of moral maxims, the second illustrations by little apologues, invented for the purpose; and anecdotes of different kinds, many of them, however, but little adapted to the end. Dr. Franklin, in a visit to Scotland in 1759, with his son William, passed some time with Lord Kames, and a friendship grew out of their intimacy which lasted during their lives. Lord Kames died December 27th, 1782, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.-W. T. F.

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