'You do well to avoid being concerned in the pieces of personal abuse, so scandalously common in our newspapers, that I am afraid to lend any of them here, 'till I have examined and laid aside such as would disgrace us; and subject us among strangers to a reflection like that used by a gentleman in a Coffee-house to two quarrellers, who after a mutually free use of the words rogue, villain, rascal, scoundrel, &c. seemed as if they would refer their dispute to him: I know nothing of you, or your affairs, said he; I only perceive that you know one another.

The conductor of a newspaper, should, methinks, consider himself as in some degree the guardian of his country's reputation, and refuse to insert such writings as may hurt it. If people will print their abuses of one another, let them do it in little pamphlets, and distribute them where they think proper. It is absurd to trouble all the world with them; and unjust to subscribers in distant places, to stuff their paper with matters so unprofitable and so disagreeable.'

Equally unseasonable are his observations on bookselling arts-made in 1785.

Of all the complainants, perhaps these booksellers are least worthy of consideration. The catalogue you last sent me amazes me by the high prices (said to be the lowest) affixed to each article. And one can scarce see a new book, without observing the excessive artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and an octavo into a quarto, with scab-boarding, white-lines, sparse titles of chapters, and exorbitant margins, to such a degree, that the selling of paper seems now the object, and printing on it only the pretence. I inclose the copy of a page in a late comedy. Between every two lines there is a white space equal to another line. You have a law, I think, against butchers blowing of veal to make it look fatter; why not one against booksellers' blowing of books to make them look bigger. All this to yourself; you can easily guess the reason.'

On the improvement of spectacles:

By Mr. Dollond's saying that my double spectacles can only serve particular eyes, I doubt he has not been rightly informed of their construction. I imagine it will be found pretty generally true that the same convexity of glass through which a man sees clearest and best at the distance proper for reading, is not the best for greater distances. I therefore had formerly two pair of specta cles, which I shifted occasionally, as in travelling I sometimes read and often wanted to regard the prospects. Finding this change troublesome, and not always sufficiently ready, I had the glasses cut, and half of each kind associated in the same circle,' with the least convex at the top for distant objects, and the most convex at the bottom for reading.

'By this means, as I wear my spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down as I want to see distinctly far or

near, the proper glasses being always ready. This I find more particularly convenient since my being in France, the glasses that serve me best at table to see what I eat not being the best to see the faces of those on the other side of the table who speak to me; and when one's ears are not well accustomed to the sounds of a language, a sight of the movements in the features of him that speaks helps to explain; so that I understand French better by the help of my spectacles.'

On the improvement of ears:-To Mr. Small.

The deafness you complain of gives me concern, as if great it must diminish considerably your pleasure in conversation. If moderate you may remedy it easily and readily, by putting your thumb and fingers behind your ear, pressing it outwards, and enlarging it as it were, with the hollow of your hand. By an exact experiment I found that I could hear the tick of a watch at forty five feet distance by this means, which was barely audible at twenty feet without it. The experiment was made at midnight when the house was still.'

While he was engaged in trying to bring about a peace between England and her revolted colonies, he was so much absorbed in the enterprise, that every thing he touched was turned into politics. His dexterity on these occasions has afforded us a great deal of amusement; but we cannot make room for more than one or two examples. In a letter to Mrs. Thompson, Paris, Feb. 8, 1777,

'Figure me in your mind (says he) as jolly as formerly, and as strong and hearty, only a few years older; very plainly dressed, wearing my thin gray straight hair, that peeps out under my only coiffure, a fine fur cap; which comes down my forehead almost to my spectacles. Think how this must appear among the powdered heads of Paris! I wish every lady and gentlemen in France would only be so obliging as to follow my fashion, comb their own heads as I do mine, dismiss their friseurs, and pay me half the money they paid to them. You see the gentry might well afford this, and I could then enlist these friseurs, (who are at least 100,000) and with the money I would maintain them, make a visit with them to England, and dress the heads of your ministers and pri vy counsellors; which I conceive at present to be un peu dèrangées. Adieu! madcap; and believe me ever, your affectionate friend, and humble servant. B. FRANKLIN.

'P. S. Don't be proud of this long letter. A fit of the gout which has confined me five days, and made me refuse to see company, has given me a little time to trifle; otherwise it would have been very short, visitors and business would have interrupted: and perhaps, with Mrs. Barrow, you wish they had.'

To David Heartly, Esq. M. P.

'MY DEAR FRIEND,-I received your favour of September 26, containing your very judicious proposition of securing the

spectators in the opera and play-houses from the danger of fire. I communicated it where I thought it might be useful. You will see by the inclosed that the subject has been under consideration here. Your concern for the security of life, even the lives of your enemies, does honour to your heart and your humanity. But what are the lives of a few idle haunters of play-houses compared with the many thousands of worthy men and honest industrious families butchered and destroyed by this devilish war! O! that we could find some happy invention to stop the spreading of the flames, and put an end to so horrid a conflagration! Adieu, I am ever, yours most affectionately.'

But what, in our opinion, did the most honour to Dr. Franklin's character, was his strenuous endeavours, during the whole course of his political life, to prevent the occurrence of wars, and to ameliorate their horrors, when they should occur. For this purpose, he proposed to have an article in all treaties, forbidding the molestation of every class of persons, who were engaged in any employment, which strictly belonged to a state of peace;-cultivators of the earth, merchants and traders, in unarmed ships, artists and mechanics working in open towns. Nothing is clearer than that such a prohibition would not only abstract a great many of the motives to war, but lessen, also, no small part of the evils which customarily attended its prosecution. By getting it inserted in the treaties between all nations, Dr. Franklin was in hopes of making it, ultimately, an international law; but he never succeeded in his enterprise-except in the treaty between Ourselves and the King of Prussia. His argument against privateering has been long before the world; but, as the fact does not seem to be known, we shall venture to lay it before them again. If there is any weight in Dr. Smith's argument against lotteries, we think our readers must acknowledge the force of Dr. Franklin's analogous reasoning about privateers.

The practice of robbing merchants on the high seas, a remnant of the ancient piracy, though it may be accidentally beneficial to particular persons, is far from being profitable to all engaged in it, or to the nation that authorizes it. In the beginning of a war some rich ships not upon their guard are surprised and taken. This encourages the first adventurers to fit out more armed vessels, and many others to do the same. But the enemy at the same time become more careful, arm their merchant ships better, and render them not so easy to be taken; they go also more under protection of convoys: thus while the privateers to take them are multiplied, the vessels subject to be taken and the chances of profit are diminished, so that many cruizes are made wherein the expenses overgo the gains; and as is the case in other

lotteries, though particulars have got prizes, the mass of adventurers are losers, the whole expense of fitting out all the privateers during a war, being much greater than the whole amount of goods taken. Then there is the national loss of all the labour of so many men during the time they have been employed in robbing; who besides spend what they get in riot, drunkenness, and debauchery, lose their habits of industry, are rarely fit for any sober business after a peace, and serve only to increase the number of highwaymen and housebreakers. Even the undertakers who have been fortunate, are by sudden wealth led into expensive living, the habit of which continues when the means of supporting it ceases, and finally ruins them. A just punishment for their having wantonly and unfeelingly ruined many honest innocent traders and their families, whose subsistence was employed in serving the common interests of mankind.'

There are some pieces of information in the first Part of this volume, which we shall extract, for the sake of those, whom they may concern. In the ' P. S.' of a letter to Dr. Ingenhauz, dated from Philadelphia, October 24, 1788, we find the following sentence:

'We have no philosophical news here at present, except that a boat moved by a steam engine, rows itself against tide in our river, and it is apprehended the construction may be so simplified and improved as to become generally useful.'

In a letter to Mr. Wright,-London-dated from Philadelphia, Nov. 4, 1789, we have the following paragraph:'I wish success to your endeavours for obtaining an abolition of the slave trade. The epistle from your yearly meeting for the year 1758, was not the first sowing of the good seed you men tion; for I find by an old pamphlet in my possession, that GEORGE KEITH near an hundred years since wrote a paper against the practice, said to be given forth by the appointment of the meeting held by him, at Philip James's house in the city of Philadelphia, about the year 1693; wherein a strict charge was given to friends, that they should set their negroes at liberty after some reasonable time of service, &c. &c.' And about the year 1728, or 29, I myself printed a book for Ralph Sandyford, another of your friends of this city, against keeping negroes in slayery; two editions of which he distributed gratis. And about the year 1736 I printed another book on the same subject for Benjamin Lay, who also professed being one of your friends, and he distributed the books chiefly among them. By these instances it appears that the seed was indeed sown in the good ground of your profession, (though much earlier than the time you mention) and its springing up to effect at last, though so late, is some confirmation of lord Bacon's observation, that a good motion never dies; and may encourage us in making such; though hopeless of their taking immediate effect.'

He writes to Mrs. Mecom, his sister, at Boston,-Phil. Dec. 17, 1789

You tell me you are desired by an acquaintance to ask my opinion whether the general circumstances mentioned in the history of Baron Trenck are founded in fact; to which I can only answer, that of the greatest part of those circumstances, the scene being laid in Germany, I must consequently be very ignorant; but of what he says, as having passed in France, between the ministers of that country, himself, and me, I can speak positively that it is founded in falsehood, and that the fact can only serve to confound, as I never saw him in that country, nor ever knew or heard of him any where, till I met with the above mentioned history in print, in the German language, in which he ventured to relate it as a fact, that I had with those ministers, solicited him to enter into the American service. A translation of that book into French has since been printed, but the translator has omitted that pretended fact, probably from an apprehension that its being in that country known not to be true, might hurt the credit and sale of the translation.'

Dr. Stiles, President of Yale College, wrote to him, Jan. 28, 1790-in order to ask his picture for the Library, and 'to know the opinion of his venerable friend concerning JESus of Nazareth. The Doctor thus answered the latter part

of the letter:

'You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavour in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed: I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to b's other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them. As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm however in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss by distinguishing the believers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure. I shall only