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der word,) which is manifest in others,-compose, all together, an account, which, we think, none but an anonymous Editor would run the hazzard of being charged with. When a man gives to the world a part of an author's works, which were 'never before published,' he is bound to satisfy his reader, as to their authenticity, by telling him fairly, how they came into his possession,-and what were the circumstances, which led to their publication. No such thing is done, however, by our Philadelphia Editor.' The only information we have, concerning the authenticity of the most important part of his supplemental matter-the Doctor's Diplomatic Correspondence-is contained in a vague and shuffling note, thrust into the middle of the fifth volume; where we are told, that the letters from page 202 to 303, have been derived from two different sources,' and that those, which follow, are derived from a third source, NO LESS OBVIOUSLY AUTHENTIC.' Now we see nothing obvious' in any of this; and, before we have done with our Editor, we expect to make it appear, that his three different sources' are by no means so authentic' as he seems to imagine. By the publication of the Private Correspondence,' Mr. William Temple Franklin has happily put us in possession of the Originals,' from which these same' sources' must have been derived; so that when we have shown our readers how many deviations there are in the copy before us, they well know how to etsimate the assertion in Vol. V. p. 293, that the different copies (from which this is taken) compared word for word with each other.' It is impossible that two different copiers, from the same original, should commit precisely the same blunders; and we shall show in due season, we think, either that such an impossibility did in fact occur,—or that the assertion abovementioned is nothing more than an assertion. We must first attend, however, to the manner in which our Editor has republished what had been before sent into the world.

The second volume-which contains 431 pages-is almost entirely made up of An Historical Review of Pennsylvania; a treatise, which, even granting it to be Dr. Franklin's, was of too temporary a purpose to need republication, but which has certainly no business among that Philosopher's works, as long as we have no cogent authority for believing it to be his. No such authority was to have been expected from the Philadelphia Editor; who, while he should be searching after some fact in proof of what he says, goes about the demonstration of its truth, in the following very intelligible laconium:-' At

tempts have been made (says he, p. ii. Vol. II.) to deny the venerable patriot the merit of this like most of his more important works, because it was not claimed and avowed; but it was enough that its object was accomplished; (enough, must we understand, to prove that the work is his?) and it was not requisite to court that persecution which no men are so apt to resort to, as those who are defeated in their injustice, against men by whom their evil designs are frustrated.' Our capacities are too humble for the comprehension of such high matter as this; and we can only tell our readers, that what we have here transcribed is the only reason the Editor seems able to give, for imposing a dead weight, of 431 octavo pages, upon the circulation of Dr. Franklin's works.

The third volume contains the Doctor's philosophical writings; of which his Letters on Electricity are, by mere chance, we suppose, inserted in their proper place at the head of the series. In the Edition of 1769, the various papers are arranged according to the order in which they were read in the Royal Society: so that the different articles, upon the same subject, are frequently separated to a considerable distance from each other. The principle of arrangement was a very shallow one; and we believe the Philadelphia Editor did, for the first time, undertake a laudable work, by endeavouring to assort the several articles according to the subject of which they treat. We were going to praise him considerably for this; but our design was completely marred, when, on a second view, we observed the series of electrical papers completely interrupted at p. 97, in order to introduce those which relate to the effects of oil on water! When these are finished, the electrical correspondence is resumed (p. 110); and the Editor goes on again, as if all the letters concerned the same subject. Some of the papers, too, are greatly dislocated;-as, for instance, the one on the Electrical Kite, which is now in p. 110, should have been placed in p. 86; while the one in p. 88 should have come into p. 124. Indeed there is no accounting for the capriciousness with which the several articles are arranged. Our Editor seems to have no idea of dates; and we suspect he adopted the very comfortable method of sending to the printer, as he called for copy, the very first paper he could lay his hand upon.

In the fourth volume we have all the Doctor's political works, one or two very voluminous ones, which are not his, and a number of smaller ones, which, though his, have no more relation to politics than the papers respecting the

effects of oil on water. The Editor is of opinion, that it may require some explanation why' articles of the latter sort 'should be comprehended in a volume which professes to give political papers' merely: And we think he sufficiently explains the anomaly, by telling us that, perhaps it arose from his own idea of politics, which he deems inseperable from morals.' He must have his own ideas,' too, about morals; for we presume no other person ever opined, that observations on Discoveries, p. 374-on the usefulness of the Mathematics, p. 377-and on the causes of Earthquakes, p. 380 were legitimately referable to that department of human knowledge. We were glad he revealed this clue to his ' own ideas;' for, as we found them to be almost uniformly an inversion of the common run of ideas, we were greatly at a loss, before, to know what stuff they could be made of. In future, therefore, we must hold it constantly in our minds, that the Philadelphia Editor thinks as nobody else ever thought, and that, if he is ever detected in doing what ordinary people would have done, it is to be considered as an apostacy from his usual principles of conduct. Of such apostacies, indeed, we must do him the justice to say, he is but very seldom guilty:-never perhaps was a man more consistent with his own ideas' on every possible subject.

About two thirds of the volume we are now examining, is a mere republication of that which was printed in 1779; and the only merit of our Philadelphia Editor seems to be that of having omitted a few valuable papers-of having thrown the rest into confusion, and of having assumed, as his own, the notes which were composed by his predecessor. The Political Fragments-the Remarks on Indian Affairs in 1762on the Impress of Seamen-with many other such papersare very properly left out: the remainder are located, as they should be, wherever it suited our Editor's convenience; and the notes of the original edition are meritoriously altered in a very few places; released from the brackets in which they were formerly confined; deprived of the letter E, with which they were at first subscribed; and sent into the world as if they had never been there before. To give a fair specimen of the manner in which this metamorphosis is effected, we take the prefatory observations to the Account of Governor Hutchinson's Letters: And the Examination of Dr. Franklin before a Committe of the British Council. These transactions (says our Editor, p. 142, Vol. IV.) are inseparable in their origin, and arise out of, and are again blended with each other, in their progress; and they require to be so plac

VOL. IX.

46

ed in connexion, which they never yet have been, as to illustrate the events to which they belong. For this purpose the transactions are here narrated, in the order in which they arose, the narration of the editor will be easily discriminated from the correspondence,' &c. We shall now give the beginning of what our Editor assumes as his narration;' and, when we have placed by its side the corresponding part of the note in the original edition, our readers will need to be informed that, his conduct in such cases arises perhaps out of his own ideas of' editorial duty.

'Governor Hutchinson, lieutenant governor Andrew Oliver, Charles Paxton, Esq. Nathaniel Rogers, Esq. and Mr. G. Roome, having sent from Boston certain representations and informations to Thomas Wheatly, Esq. member of parliament, private secretary to that Mr. George Grenville, who when in office was the father of the stamp act, and afterwards one of the lords of trade; these letters were placed by some friend to the interests of Ame rica, in the hands of Dr. Franklin, who as an agent for the colonies, in discharge of his duty, had them conveyed back to Boston. The assembly of Massachusetts were so exasperated, that they returned home attested copies of the letters to England accompanied by a petition and remonstrance, for the removal of governor Hutchinson, and lieutenant governor Andrew Oliver, from the posts.' Phil. Edit., p. 142.

With a few immaterial substitutions and typographical differences, this is almost an exact copy of Mr. Vaughan's note on the same subject.

'Governor Hutchinson, Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver, Charles Paxton, Esq.; and Mr. G. Roome, having sent from Boston certain representations, and informations to Thomas Wheatly, Esq.; member of parliament, private Secretary to Mr. George Grenville (the father of the stamp-act) when in office,* and afterwards one of the Lords of Trade; these were by a particular channel, conveyed back to Boston. The assembly of the province were so exasperated, that they returned home attested copies of the letters, accompanied with a petition and remonstrance, for the removal of Governor Hutchinson, and Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver from their posts.' Orig. Edit. p. 329, note.

In justness to our Editor, we ought to state, that, in this passage, he has made more changes of phraseology than in any other, and that, for the most part, he copies the notes

*This is the only passage which our Philadelphia Editor seems to have thoroughly understood; for, as our readers will remark, the phrase when in office' refers, in his copy, to the institution of the stamp-act,-and not, as we have it here, to the Secretaryship of Mr. Wheatly. Perhaps this arose from the Editor's own ideas.'

of his predecessor with a great deal of faithfulness and attention. Indeed this is so scrupulously done in many cases, that even those parts which we find among the Corrigenda, at the end of the London edition, are repeated, word for word, and letter for letter, in that of Philadelphia.

In the connected account, also, which he has attempted to give of the Hutchinson letters, we have found many very applaudable things. The general inaccuracy with which he makes a quotation, in places where he professes to quote,—and the silence he observes, respecting the authenticity of particular parts, which have never appeared in former collections, are both demonstrations of his systemism and consistency. When we saw, for instance, the quotation from Lieutenant Governor Oliver's letter (p. 150. vol. IVth)—' that some method should be devised to take off the original incendiaries, whose writings supplied the fuel of sedition through the Boston Gazette,'-as there could be no conceivable motive for altering the last clause of the sentence, we had suspected him of copying it correctly: But when we came to compare it with the original, we soon discovered our suspicions to be groundless; the passage in that place, being in these words, That if there be no way to take off the original incendiaries, they will still continue to instil their poison into the minds of the people, through the vehicle of the BOSTON GAZETTE.'*—When we read, too, the extracts from Governor Hutchinson's letters in p. 151, and could find no letters of the tenor or of the date, there given, we could not but admire the prudence of our Editor, in neglecting to tell us how they came into his possession and where they are to be found.t

*P. 30-31, of The Letters of Governor HUTCHINSON and Lieut. Governor OLIVER, etc. Printed at Boston. And Remarks thereon. With the assembly's Address, And the Proceedings of the Lord's Committee of Council. Together with the Substance of Mr. WEDDERBURN's Speech relating to those Letters. And the Report of the Lords' Committee to his Majesty in Council. The Second Edition. London. MDCCLXXIV. Printed for J. WILKIE, at Number 71, in St. Paul's Church-yard. This is the only copy of these letters that we have seen.

The extracts are as follow:

Boston, June 22, 1772.

'The union of the colonies is pretty well broke; I hope I never shall see it renewed. Indeed our sons of liberty are hated and despised by their former brethren in New York and Pennsylvania; and it must be very extraordinary ever to reconcile them.'

Boston, December 8, 1772. 'You see no difference between the case of the colonies and that of Ireland. I care not in how favourable a light you look upon the colonies,