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le Docteur Franklin, le Contrôleur-Général de la France, Mr. Campomanes, le Duc de Braganza, et le Lord North sont tous encore

en vie.

ray n'est p us: mais bonheur pour l'humanité, To pursue the thought of this elegant writer, let us suppose one of the most robust of these Hypanians, so famed in history, was in a manner coeval with time itself; that he began to exist at the break of day, and that from the uncommon strength of his constitution, he has been able to show himself active in life, through the numberless minutes of ten or twelve hours. Through so long a series of seconds, he must have acquired vast wisdom in his way, from observation and experience.

C'est le Roy d'Espagne et le Comte de Florida Blanca qui peuvent mettre tous les cinq en mouvement. Pour moi je n'ai nulle autorité des ministres Anglois à présenter ce projet, mais vivant en amitié avec la plupart d'eux et avec les amis des autres, je suis sûr qu'il y a des sentiments dans ce mémoire qui sont les leurs. J'avoue que je reçu une lettre en Portugal, quatorze jours avant que je partisse pour l'Espagne, de Milord Rocheford, qui n'est pas à cette heure dans le ministère, mais qui entêté d'un projet qui lui fait tant d'honneur, me conseilloit de tâter le poux sur la possibilité de le faire réussir :

Et que j'ai une lettre sur le même sujet, du Duc de Braganza qui entroit dans les vues de projet de Milord Rocheford, non pas en politique, mais en ami de l'humanité.

Encouragé par de tels hommes et encore plus par mon propre cœur, j'écris à un des ministres du Roy d'Angleterre que si je ne trouvois pas les esprits trop échauffés et si je ne trouvois pas que je ne donnois pas offense, j'avois intention de faire justice au projet de Milord Rocheford et en Espagne et en France, et je le prie de m'envoyer une réponse à Paris, si le ministère d'Angleterre approuvoit ou désapprouvoit ce que j'allois faire. Je n'ai qu'à ajouter que mes vues étant à unir et non à séparer les nations, je n'ai nulle objection les ministres de la France et le Docteur Franklin ayent chacun un exemplaire de ce

que

mémoire.

A true Copy from the Original.
Attest. WM. CARMICHAEL,
Secretary of the American Legation
at Madrid.

On Human Vanity.-From the Pennsylvania
Gazette. Dec. 4, 1735.

He looks upon his fellow-creatures, who died about noon, to be happily delivered from the many inconveniencies of old age; and can perhaps recount to his great grandson, a surprising tradition of actions, before any records of their nation were extant. The young swarm of Hypanians, who may be advanced one hour in life; approach his person with respect, and listen to his improving discourse. Every thing he says will seem wonderful to their short-lived generation. The compass of a day will be esteemed the whole duration of time; and the first dawn of light will, in their chronology, be styled the great era of their creation.

Let us now suppose this venerable insect, this Nestor of Hypania should, a little before his death, and about sun-set, send for all his descendants, his friends, and his acquaintances out of the desire he may have to impart his last thoughts to them, and to admonish them, with his departing breath. They meet, perhaps, under the spacious shelter of a mushroom; and the dying sage addresses himself to them after the following manner.

"Friends and fellow-citizens! I perceive the longest life must however end: the period of mine is now at hand: neither do I repine at my fate, since my great age is become a burden to me; and there is nothing new to me under the sun: the changes and revolutions I have seen, in my country; the maniliable; the fatal diseases incident to our race, fold private misfortunes to which we are all have abundantly taught me this lesson: that MR. FRANKLIN,-Meeting with the follow-no happiness can be secure or lasting which ing curious little piece, the other day, I send it to you to republish, as it is now in very few hands. There is something so elegant in the imagination, conveyed in so delicate a style, and accompanied with a moral so just and elevated, that it must yield great pleasure and instruction to every mind of real taste and virtue.

Cicero, in the first of his Tusculan questions, finely exposes the vain judgment we are apt to form, of the duration of human life compared with eternity. In illustrating this argument, he quotes a passage of natural history from Aristotle, concerning a species of insects on the banks of the river Hypanis, that never outlive the day in which they are born.

is placed in things that are out of our powerGreat is the uncertainty of life!—A whole brood of our infants have perished in a moment, by a keen blast!—Shoals of our strag gling youth, have been swept into the ocean by an unexpected breeze!What wasteful desolation have we not suffered from the deluge of a sudden shower!-Our strongest holds are not proof against a storm of hail, and even a dark cloud damps the very stoutest heart.

"I have lived in the first ages, and conversed with insects of a larger size and stronger make, and I must add, of greater virtue than any can boast of in the present generation. I must conjure you to give yet further credit to my latest words when I assure you, that yonder sun, which now appears westward, be

yond the water, and seems not to be far distant from the earth, in my remembrance stood in the middle of the sky, and shot his beams directly down upon us. The world was much more enlightened in those ages, and the air much warmer. Think it not dotage in me, if I affirm, that glorious being moves: I saw his first setting out in the east, and I began my race of life, near the time when he began his immense career. He has for several ages advanced along the sky with vast heat and unparalleled brightness, but now by his declination and a sensible decay, more especially of late, in his vigour, I foresee, that all nature must fall in a little time, and that the creation will lie buried in darkness, in less than a century of minutes.

"Alas! my friends, how did I once flatter myself with the hopes of abiding here for ever; how magnificent are the cells which I hollowed out for myself: what confidence did I repose in the firmness and spring of my joints, and in the strength of my pinions! But I have lived enough to nature, and even to glory. Neither will any of you, whom I leave behind, have equal satisfaction in life, in the dark declining age which I see is already began."

that silver rivulet the Thames, may not show a specious mole-hill, covered with inhabitants of the like dignity and importance. The busy race of being attached to these fleeting enjoyments are indeed all of them engaged in the pursuit of happiness: and it is owing to their imperfect notions of it, that they stop so far short in their pursuit. The present prospect of pleasure seems to bound their views, and the more distant scenes of happiness, when what they now propose shall be attained, do not strike their imagination. It is a great stupidity, or thoughtlessness, not to perceive, that the happiness of rational natures is inseparably connected with immortality. Creatures only endowed with sensation, may in a low sense, be reputed happy, so long as their sensations are pleasing; and if these pleasing sensations are commensurate with the time of their existence, this measure of happiness is complete. But such beings as are endowed with thought and reflection, cannot be made happy by any limited term of happiness, how great soever its duration may be. The more exquisite and more valuable their enjoyments are, the more painful must be the thought that they are to have an end; and this pain of expectation must be continually increasing the Thus far this agreeable unknown writer, nearer the end approaches. And if these betoo agreeable we may hope, to remain always ings are themselves immortal, and yet inseconcealed; the fine allusion to the character cure of the continuance of their happiness, the of Julius Cæsar, whose words he has put case is far worse, since an eternal void of deinto the mouth of this illustrious son of Hypa- light, if not to say a state of misery, must sucnis, is perfectly just and beautiful, and aptly ceed. It would here be of no moment, whepoints out the moral of this inimitable piece, ther the time of their happiness were meathe design of which would have been quite sured by days or hours, by months or years, perverted, had a virtuous character, a Cato or by periods of the most immeasurable length: or a Cicero, been made choice of, to have these swiftly flowing streams bear no probeen turned into ridicule. Had this life of a portion to that ocean of infinity, where they day been represented as employed in the ex- must finish their course. The longest duraercise of virtue, it would have had equal dig-tion of finite happiness avails nothing, when nity with a life of any limited duration; and it is past: nor can the memory of it have any according to the exalted sentiments of Tully, other effect than to renew a perpetual pining would have been preferable to an immortali-after pleasures never to return, and since virty filled with all the pleasures of sense, if void of those of a higher kind: but as the views of this vain-glorious insect were confined within the narrow circle of his own existence, as he only boasts the magnificent cells he had built, and the length of happiness he had enjoyed, he is the proper emblem of all such insects of the human race, whose ambition does not extend beyond the like narrow limits; and notwithstanding the splendour they appear in at present, they will no more deserve the regard of posterity than the butterflies of the last spring. In vain has history been taken up in describing the numerous swarms of this mischievous species which has infested the earth in the successive ages: now it is worth the inquiry of the virtuous, whether the Rhine or the Adige may not perhaps swarm with them at present, as much as the banks of Hypanis; or whether

tue is the only pledge and security of a happy immortality, the folly of sacrificing it to any temporal advantages, how important soever they may appear, must be infinitely great, and cannot but leave behind it an eternal regret.

Note. The reader familiar with the happy views of moral good which distinguishes the writings of Dr. Franklin above all the writers of his age, cannot fail to perceive in this beautiful production, the first concep tions, which were amplified and digested into the allegory of the Ephemeron, which is to be found in another part of this edition; addressed to Madam Brillon.Editor.

On True Happiness.- From the Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov: 20, 1735.

THE desire of happiness is in general so natural, that all the world are in pursuit of it; all have this one end solely in view, though they take such different methods to attain it, and are so much divided in their notions of what it consists of.

As evil can never be preferred, and though evil is often the effect of our own choice, yet we never desire it, but under the appearance of an imaginary good.

Many things we indulge ourselves in, may be considered by us as evils; and yet be desirable: but then, they are only considered as evils in their effects and consequences, not as evils at present, and attended with immediate misery.

on it: health of body, though so far necessary that we cannot be perfectly happy without it, is not sufficient to make us happy of itself.— Happiness springs immediately from the mind: health is but to be considered as a condition or circumstance, without which this happiness cannot be tasted pure and unabated.

Virtue is the best preservative of health, as it prescribes temperance, and such a regulation of our passions as is most conducive to Reason represents things to us, not only as the well being of the animal economy. So they are at present, but as they are in their that it is at the same time the only true hapwhole nature and tendency: passion only re-piness of the mind, and the best means of pregards them in the former light; when this go- serving the health of the body. verns us, we are regardless of the future, and are only affected by the present.

It is impossible for us ever to enjoy ourselves rightly, if our conduct be not such as to preserve the harmony and order of our faculties, and the original frame and constitution of our minds: all true happiness, as all that is truly beautiful, can only result from order.

Whilst there is a conflict betwixt the two principles of passion and reason, we must be miserable, in proportion to the ardour of the struggle, and when the victory is gained, and reason is so far subdued, as seldom to trouble us with its remonstrances, the happiness we have then attained, is not the happiness of our rational nature, but the happiness only of the inferior and sensual part of us; and consequently a very low and imperfect happiness, compared with that which the other would have afforded us.

If our desires are for the things of this world, they are never to be satisfied. If our great view is upon those of the next, the expectation of them is an infinitely higher satisfaction than the enjoyment of those of the present.

There is no true happiness then but in a virtuous and self-approving conduct; unless our actions will bear the test of our sober judgments and reflections upon them, they are not the actions, and consequently not the happiness of a rational being.

On

Self-Denial.-From the Pennsylvania
Gazette, Feb. 18, 1734.

It is commonly asserted, that without selfdenial there is no virtue, and that the greater the self-denial is, the greater is the virtue.

If it were said, that he who cannot deny himself any thing he inclines to, though he If we reflect upon any one passion and dis- knows it will be to his hurt, has not the virposition of mind abstracted from virtue, we tue of resolution or fortitude, it would be inshall soon see the disconnexion between that telligible enough; but as it stands, the propeand true solid happiness; it is of the very es-sition seems obscure or erroneous. sence, for instance, of envy to be uneasy and disquieted: pride meets with provocations and disturbances upon almost every occasion: covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety: ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us; its appetite grows the keener by indulgence, and all we can gratify it with at present, serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.

The passions, by being too much conversant with earthly objects, can never fix in us a proper composure, and acquiescence of mind. Nothing but an indifference to the things of this world, an entire submission to the will of Providence here, and a well-grounded expectation of happiness hereafter, can give us a true satisfactory enjoyment of ourselves. Virtue is the best guard against the many unavoidable evils incident to us; nothing better alleviates the weight of the afflictions, or gives a truer relish of the blessings of human life. What is without us has not the least connexion with happiness, only so far as the preservation of our lives and health depends up

Let us consider some of the virtues singly. If a a man has no inclination to wrong people in his dealings; if he feels no temptation to it, and therefore never does it, can it be said, that he is not a just man? if he is a just man, has he not the virtue of justice?

If to a certain man, idle diversions have nothing in them that is tempting, and therefore he never relaxes his application to business for their sake, is he not an industrious man; or has he not the virtue of industry?

I might in like manner instance in all the rest of the virtues; but to make the thing short, as it is certain, that the more we strive against the temptation to any vice, and practise the contrary virtue, the weaker will that temptation be, and the stronger will be that habit; till at length the temptation hath no force, or entirely vanishes: does it follow from thence, that in our endeavours to overcome vice, we grow continually less and less virtuous, till at length we have no virtue at all?

If self-denial be the essence of virtue, then it follows, that the man who is naturally tem

perate, just, &c., is not virtuous, but that in order to be virtuous, he must, in spite of his natural inclinations, wrong his neighbours, and eat and drink, &c., to excess.

But, perhaps it may be said, that by the word virtue, in the above assertion, is meant merit, and so it should stand; thus without self-denial there is no merit; and the greater the self-denial the greater the merit.

The self-denial here meant must be, when our inclinations are towards vice, or else it would still be nonsense.

By merit is understood desert; and when we say a man merits, we mean that he deserves praise or reward.

We do not pretend to merit any thing of God, for he is above our services, and the benefits he confers on us are the effects of his goodness and bounty.

All our merit then is with regard to one another, and from one to another.

Taking then the proposition as it stands If a man does me a service, from a natural benevolent inclination, does he deserve less of me than another, who does me the like kindness against his inclination?

If I have two journeymen, one naturally industrious, the other idle, but both perform a day's work equally good, ought I to give the latter the most wages?

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lution; but the most perfect virtue is above
all temptation; such as the virtue of the saints
in heaven: and he who does any foolish, in-
decent, or wicked thing, merely because it is
contrary to his inclination, like some mad en-
thusiasts I have read of, who ran about in pub-
lic naked, under the notion of taking up the
cross, is not practising the reasonable science
of virtue, but is lunatic.
Newcastle, Feb. 5.

Rivalship in Almanac making.-From Poor
Richard's Almanac, 1742.

COURTEOUS READER,-This is the ninth year of my endeavours to serve thee in the capacity of a calendar-writer. The encouragement I have met with must be ascribed, in a great measure, to your charity, excited by the open, honest declaration I made of my poverty at my first appearance. This my brother Philomaths could, without being conjurers discover; and Poor Richard's success, has produced ye a Poor Will, and a Poor Robin; and no doubt, Poor John, &c., will follow, and we shall all be, in name, what some folks say we are already in fact, a parcel of poor almanac makers. During the course of these nine years, what buffetings have I not sustained! The fraternity have been all in arms. Honest Titan, deceased, was raised, and made to abuse his old friend. Both authors and printers were angry. Hard names, and many, were bestowed on me. They denied me to be the author of my own works; declared there never was any such person; asserted that I was dead sixty years ago; prognosticated my death to happen within a twelvemonth: with many other malicious inconsistencies, the effects of blind passion, envy at m success; and a vain hope of depriving me, dea reader, of thy wonted countenance and favour. -Who knows him? they cry: Where does he live?-But what is that to them? If I delight in a private life, have they any right to drag me out of my retirement? I have good reasons for concealing the place of my abode. It is time for an old man, as I am, to think of preparing for his great remove. The perpetual teasing of both neighbours and strangers, to calculate nativities, give judgments on schemes, and erect figures, discover thieves, detect horse-stealers, describe the route of Nor in my opinion has any man less merit runaways and strayed cattle; the crowd of for having in general naturally virtuous in- visiters with a thousand trifling questions; clinations. Will my ship return safe? Will my mare The truth is, that temperance, justice, cha-win the race? Will her next colt be a pacer? rity, &c., are virtues whether practised with or against our inclinations; and the man who practises them, merits our love and esteem and self-denial is neither good nor bad, but as it is applied. He that denies a vicious inclination, is virtuous in proportion to his reso

Indeed lazy workmen are commonly observed to be more extravagant in their demands than the industrious; for if they have not more for their work, they cannot live as well as the industrious. But though it be true to a proverb, that lazy folks take the most pains, does it follow that they deserve the most money? If you were to employ servants in affairs of trust, would you pay more wages to one you knew was naturally honest, than for one naturally roguish, but who had lately acted honestly: for currents whose natural channels are dammed up, till a new course is by time worn sufficiently deep, and become natural, are apt to break their banks. If one servant is more valuable than another, has he not more merit than the other, and yet this is not on account of superior self-denial.

Is a patriot not praiseworthy, if public spirit is natural to him?

Is a pacing horse less valuable for being a natural pacer?

When will my wife die? Who shall be my husband? and HOW LONG first? When is the best time to cut hair, trim cocks, or sow salad? These and the like impertinences I have now neither taste nor leisure for. I have had enough of them. All that these

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to tell them where I live-I would eat my nails first.

angry folks can say, will never provoke meings had been made a sacrifice to support his carcase, and how much corn and wine had been mingled with those offerings. He had not quite lost all the arithmetic that he learned when he was a boy, and he set himself to compute what he had devoured since he came to the age of man.

My last adversary is J. J -n, philomat. who declares and protests (in his preface, 1741) that the false prophecy put in my almanac, concerning him, the year before, is altogether false and untrue: and that I am one of Baal's false prophets. This false, false prophecy he speaks of, related to his reconciliation with the church of Rome; which, notwithstanding his declaring and protesting, is, I fear, too true. Two things in his elegiac verses confirm me in this suspicion. He calls the first of November All-Hallows day. Reader, does not this smell of popery? Does it in the least savour of the pure language of Friends? But the plainest thing is, his adoration of saints, which he confesses to be his practice, in these words, page 4.

When any trouble did me befall,

To my dear Mary then I would call :

Did he think the whole world were so stupid as not to take notice of this? So ignorant as not to know, that all catholics pay the highest regard to the Virgin Mary? Ah! friend John, we must allow you to be a poet, but you are certainly no protestant. I could heartily wish your religion were as good as your verses. RICHARD SAUNDERS.

The Waste of Life.

ANERGUS was a gentleman of a good estate, he was bred to no business, and could not contrive how to waste his hours agreeably; he had no relish for any of the proper works of life, nor any taste at all for the improvements of the mind; he spent generally ten hours of the four-and-twenty in his bed; he dozed away two or three more on his couch, and as many were dissolved in good liquor every evening, if he met with company of his own humour. Five or six of the rest he sauntered away with much indolence: the chief business of them was to contrive his meals, and to feed his fancy before-hand, with the promise of a dinner and supper; not that he was so very a glutton, or so entirely devoted to appetite; but chiefly because he knew not how to employ his thoughts better, he let them rove about the sustenance of his body. Thus he had made a shift to wear off ten years since the paternal estate fell into his hands and yet according to the abuse of words in our day, he was called a man of virtue, because he was scarce ever known to be quite drunk, nor was his nature much inclined to lewdness.

One evening as he was musing along, his thoughts happened to take a most unusual turn, for they cast a glance backward, and began to reflect on his manner of life. He bethought himself what a number of living be

"About a dozen feathered creatures, small and great, have one week with another (said he) given up their lives to prolong mine, which in ten years amounts to at least six thousand.

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Fifty sheep have been sacrificed in a year, with half a hecatomb of black cattle, that I might have the choicest part offered weekly upon my table. Thus a thousand beasts out of the flock and the herd have been slain in ten years time to feed me, besides what the forest has supplied me with. Many hundreds of fishes have in all their varieties, been robbed of life for my repast, and of the smaller fry as many thousands.

"A measure of corn would hardly afford fine flour enough for a month's provision, and this arises to above six score bushels; and many hogsheads of ale and wine, and other liquors, have passed through this body of mine, this wretched strainer of meat and drink.

"And what have I done all this time for God or man? What a vast profusion of good things upon an useless life, and a worthless liver? There is not the meanest creature among all these which I have devoured, but hath answered the end of its creation better than I. It was made to support human nature, and it hath done so. Every crab and oyster I have eat, and every grain of corn I have devoured, hath filled up its place in the rank of beings with more propriety and honour than I have done: O shameful waste of life and time!"

In short, he carried on his moral reflections with so just and severe a force of reason, as constrained him to change his whole course of life, to break off his follies at once, and to apply himself to gain some useful knowledge, when he was more than thirty years of age; he lived many following years, with the character of a worthy man, and an excellent Christian; he performed the kind offices of a good neighbour at home, and made a shining figure as a patriot in the senate-house, he died with a peaceful conscience, and the tears of his country were dropped upon his tomb.

The world, that knew the whole series of his life, stood amazed at the mighty change. They beheld him as a wonder of reformation, while he himself confessed and adored the divine power and mercy, which had transformed him from a brute to a man.

But this was a single instance; and we may almost venture to write MIRACLE upon it. Are there not numbers of both sexes among

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