the coolest, and the same night found myself at supper with a dozen French ladies and gentlemen, who could not utter a word of English, and with whom I drank copious libations of that porter which my host had enlarged upon with such elegance of declamation.

My first visit was to the library. A bust of Doctor Franklin stands over the door, whose head it is to be lamented the librarian cannot place on his own shoulders. Of the two rooms the Franklinian Library is confined to books in the English language, but the Loganian Library comprehends every classical work in the ancient and modern languages. I contemplated with reverence the portrait of James Logan, which graces the room.

magnum et venerabile nomen.

As I

I could not repress my exclamations. am only a stranger, said I, in this country, I affect no enthusiasm on beholding the statues of her Generals and Statesmen. I have left a

church filled with them on the shore of Albion that have a prior claim to such feeling. But I here behold the portrait of a man whom I consider so great a benefactor to Literature, that he is scarcely less illustrious than its munificent patrons of Italy; his soul has certainly been admitted to the company of the congenial spirits of a Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis. The Greek and

Roman authors forgotten on their native banks of the Ilyssus and Tiber, delight by the kindness of a Logan the votaries to learning on those of the Delaware.

It has been observed, I believe, by Horace, that there have lived many herocs not inferior in prowess to those of the Iliad, but that for want of a bard to sing their feats, they might as well have not achieved them. But how many characters are now unknown, who susceptible only of the social enèrgies, deserve to be remembered more than an Agamemnon, or an Achilles. What man ever rose from the Iliad with an accession of benevolence? but who would not be better for reading the life of a Kyrle,* of whom nothing can be now known but what is furnished by an episode in a poem.

Of the readers of this volume there are few who have ever heard mention made of James Logan of Philadelphia; a man whose benevolent actions aspire far higher than any Greek or Roman fame. James Logan was born in Scotland, about the year 1674. He was one of the people called Quakers, and accompanied William Penn in his last voyage to Pennsylvania. For many years of his life he was employed in public business, and rose to the offices of Chief Justice and Governor of the Province; but he felt always an ardour of study, and by husbanding his leisure, found time

D

* The Man of Ress.

to write several treatises in Latin, of which one on the Generation of Plants, was translated into English by Dr. Fothergill.

Being declined in the vale of years, Mr. Logan withdrew from the tumult of public business to the solitude of his country-seat, near Germantown, where he found tranquillity among his books, and corresponded with the most distinguished literary characters of Europe. He also made a version of Cicero de Senectute, which was published with notes by the late Dr. Franklin. Whether Franklin was qualified to write annotations on Tully's noble treatise, will admit of some doubt; for the genius of Franklin was rather scientific than classical.

Mr. Logan died in 1751, at the venerable age of seventy-seven; leaving his library, which he had been fifty years collecting, to the people of Pennsylvania; a monument of his ardour for the promotion of literature.*

* The following extract from Mr. Logan's will cannot fail to interest the curious in literature.

"In my library, which I have left to the city of Philadelphia, for the advancement and facilitating of classical learn66 ing, are above 100 volumes of authors in folio, all in Greek, "with mostly their versions. All the Roman Classics without

66

exception. All the whole Greek Mathematicians, viz. Archi"medes, Euclid, Ptolemy, both his Geography and Almagest, "which I had in Greek (with Theon's Commentary in folio, "above 700 pages) from my learned friend Fabricius, who "published 14 volumes of his Bibliotheque Grecque in quarto, "in which, after he had finished his account of Ptolemy, on

It was at this library that during three successive afternoons I enjoyed that calm and pure delight which books afford. But on the fourth I found access denied, and that the librarian had fled from the yellow fever, which spread consternation through the city.

Of the fever I may say that it momentarily became more destructive. Sorrow sat on every brow, and nothing was to be seen but coffins carried through the streets unattended by mourners. Indeed it was not a time to practise modes of sorrow, or adjust the funeral rites; but the multitude thought only of escaping from the pestilence that wasted at noon-day, and walked in darkness.

This was a period to reflect on the vanity of human life, and the mutability of human affairs. Philadelphia, which in the spring was a scene of mirth and riot, was in the summer converted to a sepulchre for the inhabitants. The courts of law were shut, and no subtile lawyer could obtain a client; the door of the tavern was closed, and the drunkard was without strength to lift the bowł

my inquiring of him at Hamburgh in 1772, how I should “find it, having long sought for it in vain in England; he "sent it me out of his own library, telling me it was so that neither prayers nor price could purchase it: “Besides, there are many of the most valuable Latin authors, " and a great number of modern mathematicians, with all the "three editions of Newton, Dr. Wallis, Halley, &c.

scarce,

"JAMES LOGAN."

to his lips no theatre invited the idle to behold the mimic monarch strut his hour upon the stage; the dice lay neglected on the gaming-table, nor did the dancing-room re-echo with the steps of the dancer: man was now humbled! Death was whetting his arrows, and the graves were open. All jollity was fled. The hospital-cart moved slowly on where the chariot before had rolled its rapid wheels; and the coffin-makers were either nailing up the coffins of the dead, or giving dreadful note of preparation by framing others for the dying, where lately the mind at ease had poured forth its tranquillity in songs; where the loud laugh had reverberated, and where the animating sound of music had stolen on the ear.-In this scene of consternation, the negroes were the only people who could be prevailed on to assist the dying, and inter those who were no more. Their motive was obvious; they plundered the dead of their effects, and adorned themselves in the spoils of the camp of the King of Terrors. It was remarked to me by a lady of Philadelphia, that the negroes were never so well clad as after the yellow fever.

I had been a week at Philadelphia, without hearing any tidings of my friend the Doctor, when walking one evening past the Franklin'sHead, I recognised him conversing with a stranger in the front room. The physician had arrived only that evening. He had staid six days at Trenton, leading a pleasant, convalescent life