This fluid may possibly be the same with that which being attracted by, and entering into other more solid matter, dilates the substance, by separating the constituent particles, and so rendering some solids fluid, and maintaining the fluidity of others: of which fluid when our bodies are totally deprived, they are said to be frozen; when they have a proper quantity, they are in health, and fit to perform all their functions; it is then called natural heat: when too much, it is called fever; and when forced into the body in too great a quantity from without, it gives pain by separating and destroying the flesh, and is then called burning; and the fluid so entering and acting is called fire.

While organized bodies, animal or vegetable, are augmenting in growth, or are supplying their continual waste, is not this done by attracting and consolidating this fluid called fire, so as to form of it a part of their substance; and is it not a separation of the parts of such substance, which, dissolving its solid state, sets that subtile fluid at liberty, when it again makes its appearance as fire?

For the power of man relative to matter seems limited to the dividing it, or mixing the various kinds of it, or changing its form and appearance by different compositions of it; but does not extend to the making or creating of new matter, or annihilating the old: Thus if fire be an original element, or kind of matter, its quantity is fixed and permanent in the world. We cannot destroy any part of it, or make addition to it; we can only separate it from that which confines it, and so set it at liberty, as when we put wood in a situation to be burnt; or transfer it from one solid to another, as when we make lime by burning stone, a part of the fire dislodged from the wood being left in the stone. May not this fluid when at liberty be capable of penetrating and entering into all bodies organized or not, quitting easily in totality those not organized; and quitting easily in part those which are; the part assumed and fixed remaining till the body is dissolved?

Is it not this fluid which keeps asunder the particles of air, permitting them to approach, or separating them more, in proportion as its quantity is diminished or augmented? Is it not the greater gravity of the particles of air, which forces the particles of this fluid to mount with the matters to which it is at tached, as smoke or vapour?

Does it not seem to have a great affinity with water, since it will quit a solid to unite with that fluid, and go off with it in vapour, leaving the solid cold to the touch, and the degree measurable by the thermometer?

The vapour rises attached to this fluid, but at a certain height they separate, and the vapour descends in rain, retaining but little of it, in snow or hail less. What becomes of that fluid? Does it rise above our atmosphere, and mix equally with the universal mass of the same kind? Or does a spherical stratum of it, denser, or less mixed with air, attracted by this globe, and repelled or pushed up only to a certain height from its surface, by the greater weight of air, remain there surrounding the globe, and proceeding with it round the sun.

In such case, as there may be a continuity or communication of this fluid through the air quite down to the earth, is it not by the vibrations given to it by the sun that light appears to us; and may it not be, that every one of the infinitely small vibrations, striking common matter with a certain force, enter its substance, are held there by attraction, and augmented by succeeding vibrations, till the matter has received as much as their force can drive into it?

Is it not thus that the surface of this globe is continually heated by such repeated vibrations in the day, and cooled by the escape of the heat when those vibrations are discontinued in the night, or intercepted and reflected by clouds?

Is it not thus that fire is amassed, and makes the greatest part of the substance of combustible bodies?

Perhaps when this globe was first formed, and its original particles took their place at certain distances from the centre, in proportion to their greater or less gravity, the fluid fire, attracted towards that centre, might in great part be obliged, as lightest, to take place above the rest, and thus form the sphere of fire above supposed, which would afterwards be continually diminishing by the substance it afforded to organized bodies, and the quantity restored to it again by the burning or other separating of the parts of those bodies?

Is not the natural heat of animals thus produced, by separating in digestion the parts of food, and setting their fire at liberty?

Is it not this sphere of fire which kindles the wandering globes that sometimes pass through it in our course round the sun, have their surface kindled by it, and burst when their included air is greatly rarified by the heat on their burning surfaces?

IN the foregoing work, a paper is mentioned in which Dr. FRANKLIN, among his other conjectures and imaginations (as he modestly stiles them) supposes it possible, by attentive observations made during the summer, to foretel the mildness or severity of the following winter.

"When in summer (says he) the sun is high, and long every ❝day above the horizon, his rays strike the earth more directly, "and with longer continuance than in the winter: hence the "surface is more heated and to a greater depth, by the effect "of these rays. When rain falls on the heated earth and sinks "down into it, it carries down with it a great part of the heat "which by that means descends still deeper.-The mass of "earth, to the depth of perhaps 3 feet, being thus heated to a "certain degree, continues to retain its heat for some time. "Thus the first snows that fall in the beginning of winter, sel"dom lie long on the surface. Afterwards, the winds that blow "over the country, on which the snows had fallen, are not ren❝dered so cold as they would have been, had these snows re"mained; and thus the approach of the severity of the winter "is retarded.

"During several of the summer months of 1783, when the "efforts of the sun's rays to heat these northern regions would "have been great, there existed a constant fog over all Europe, "and great part of North America. This fog was of a peculiar "nature: it was dry, and the rays of the sun seemed to have "little effect towards dissipating it, as they dissolve a moist fog " arising from water. They were indeed rendered so faint in "passing through it, that when collected in the focus of a burn"ing glass, they would scarce kindle brown paper. Of course "their summer effect in heating the earth was exceedingly di"minished: Hence the surface was early frozen: Hence the "first snows remained on it, and received continual additions: "Hence the air was more chilled, and the winter more severely M 4

VOL. I.

"cold: And hence the winter of 1783-4 was more severe than "any that had happened for many years."

IN the philosophical and political career of this great man, numerous are the instances which might be given to confirm the truth of an observation already made, that one ruling passion formed the motive of every action-" a desire to do good and to communicate." His address, in this, was great, adapting himself to subjects and persons, with the most winning affection and familiarity, as occasion required from the earliest to the latest period of his life.

In a letter, which he wrote to his sister in 1738, he conveys the first great lesson of religion, by a pleasant criticism on some verses written by his uncle, one line of which was

"Raise faith and hope three stories higher."

"The meaning of three stories higher," (he said)" 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 of the Christian edifice. Thus improvement in religion " is called building up, or edification. Faith is then the ground "floor, and Hope is up one pair of stairs. My dearly beloved "Jenny, do not delight so much to dwell in these lower rooms, "but get as fast as you can into the garret, for in truth the "best room in the house is Charity.”

IN a letter, written when in France to Dr. MATHER of Boston, he attributes his disposition of doing good, to the early impression of a book which attracted his notice when he was a boy, called Essays to do Good, written by Dr. Mather's father. —“It had been, says he, so little regarded by a former posses"sor, that several leaves of it were torn out, but the remainder 66 gave me such a turn of thinking, as to have great influence on "my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value "on the character of a doer of good, than on any other kind of "reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful "citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book.

He proceeds." The last time I saw your father was in the "beginning of 1724. He received me in his library, and on my

"taking leave, shewed me a shorter way out of the house, "through a narrow passage, which was crossed by a beam over "head. We were still talking as I withdrew, he accompanying "me behind, and I turning partly towards him, when he said "hastily, Stoop! stoop! I did not understand him, till I felt my "head hit against the beam. He was a man that never missed "an occasion of giving instruction, and upon this he said to me "—You are young, and have the world before you; stoop as you go "through it, and you will miss many hard thumps. This advice, "thus beaten into my head, has often been of use to me through "life, and I often think of it when I see pride mortified, and mis"fortunes brought upon people by carrying their heads too "high."

POSTSCRIPT.

May 1st, 1802.

WHILE this Eulogium was originally in the press, the following verses, beautifully poetical and descriptive of the character of DR. FRANKLIN, were found on the writing-desk of my study; but whether dropped there by some one of the nine muses, or by what mortal favorite of theirs, I could not then learn. They were accompanied with a request, that they might be annexed to the Eulogium; but apprehending that the publisher, Mr. Bache, who was Dr. Franklin's grandson might think it indecent in him to give circulation to the two last stanzas, however much he might approbate the three first; they were suppressed at that time, and from a persuasion also, that, at a future day, they might more easily be endured by the warmest of Dr. Franklin's surviving friends.

The verses were found in the hand-writing of my dear deceased wife, and not recollecting, at that time ever to have seen or read them, and asking from what original she had copied them, she laughed, as I thought, at the scantiness of my reading on a subject so recent as the death of Dr. Franklin, whose panegyrist I had been appointed, by a grave society of philosophers. I replied, with a mixture of a little raillery in my turn, that if she would not satisfy me respecting the author of the verses, or from what source she had copied them, I should consider myself as happily yoked to a very good poetess, and ascribe the composition