a general cry that M. Voltaire and Commissioner or Plenipotentiary, he M. Franklin should be introduced to steers the bark of his country to the each other. This was done, and they desired haven. He signs with Jay the bowed and spoke to each other. This preliminary Treaty of Peace with Great was no satisfaction; there must be Britain and its final ratification Sepsomething more. Neither of our phi- tember 3, 1783. Continuing his duties losophers seemed to divine what was for awhile, he finally, burdened with wished or expected; they, however, infirmities, left Paris in July, 1785, took each other by the hand. But passed a few days in England, and this was not enough 'Il faut s'em- reached Philadelphia in September. brasser, à la Française!' The two aged actors upon this great theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each other, by hugging one another in their arms, and kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. sentative son. He held for three And the cry immediately spread the Presidency of Pennsylvania under through the whole kingdom, and, I its old Constitution, and when, at the suppose, over all Europe, 'Qu'il était instigation of Hamilton and Madison, charmant de voir embrasser Solon et the chiefs of the nation assembled, under Sophocle!' Voltaire's light-he was the Presidency of Washington, to form now eighty-four, it was only a month the Constitution of the United States, before his death-was soon extin- Franklin was there, counselling and guished. Franklin had yet ten years suggesting as ever, and pouring oil on before him of brilliant exertion. the troubled waters of controversy.

We may not here pause over the negotiations at Paris, which belong as well to others and altogether to the general page of history, but must hasten to the final settlement. Suffice it that in the most intricate perplexities, civil, naval and military, of embarrassed finance and threatened political action, perplexed by Arthur Lee, supporting Jay at Madrid and Paul Jones on the ocean, smoothing, aiding, contriving and assisting by word and by pen, always sagacious, always to the point, whether

'John Adams' Works, III., 147.

His arrival was attended with every demonstration of respect. A grateful nation, from the highest to the lowest, honored his return. America, too, had yet other duties in store for her repreyears

On the last day of the Convention, Monday, September 17, 1787, Franklin introduced the motion to sign the instrument, with a written speech, read for him-he was too infirm to stand the requisite time-by his colleague, Mr. Wilson. Doubtless with the view to soften the asperities of debate, he drew upon his never-failing fund of anecdote for his favorite illustrations. men, indeed," said he, "as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedi

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about his home; traversing the military period of two wars, from Wolfe to Washington, from Quebec to Yorktown; privileged to partake of the new era of laws and legislation-the old sage, full of years and honors, has now at length finished his work. He has inaugurated a new period in philosophy; he has heralded new principles in politics; he has shown his countrymen how to think and write; he has embalmed the wisdom of his life in immortal compositions; he has blessed two great cities with associations of pleasure and profit clustering about his name; he has become the property of the nation and the world: there is

cation, tells the Pope, that the only difference between our churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines, is, the church of Rome is infallible, and the church of England is never in the wrong.' But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady, who, in a dispute with her sister, said, 'I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself, that is always in the right-il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison." Madison, who preserves this anecdote in his "Debates in the Federal Convention," closes his remarkable work with another story nothing further but retirement and of the sage in the following words: "While the last members were signing, Doctor Franklin, looking toward the President's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising from a setting sun. 'I have,' said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.'"1

The venerable Nestor of three generations; born in the old Puritan time, with the shades of the past hanging

'Madison Papers, III., 1596, 1624.

death. His daughter, Mrs. Bache, and his family of grandchildren were with him in his home in Market street, Philadelphia, as the inevitable day came on. He suffered much from his disor der, the stone, but was seldom without his mental employments and consolations. His homely wisdom and love of anecdote, it is pleasing to learn, kept him company to the last. He died about eleven o'clock at night, April 17, 1790.

Is it necessary to describe the person or draw the character of Franklin? His effigy is at every turn; that figure of average, height full-a little pletho ric, perhaps the broad countenance beaming benevolence from the specta cled grey eye-the whole appearance indicating calmness and confidence. Such in age, as we all choose to look upon him, was the man Franklin.

Within, who shall paint, save himself, he left America the second time, he in the small library of his writings, the enjoined church attendance upon his mingling of sense and humor, of self- daughter, reminding her that prayer denial and benevolence, the whimsical, was before preaching, and commending sagacious, benevolent mind of Frank-"the act of devotion in the Common lin, ever bent upon utility, ever con- Prayer Book." Quite in agreement ducting to something agreeable and with his practical nature, he had a well advantageous; the great inventor, the of sensibility in his breast, unsuspected, profound scientific inquirer, the far- perhaps, by the careless observer. seeing statesman; masking his worth by his modesty; falling short, perhaps, of the loftiest heights of philosophy, but firmly treading the path of common life, sheltering its nakedness, and ministering in a thousand ways to its comforts and pleasures.

Sir James Mackintosh has called Franklin the American Socrates. There are certainly many points of resem blance. Fortunately, the parallel ends before the hemlock is administered, but short of that, and, divested of the spiritual Demon-for Franklin, less of a zealot and a better politician, would have kept out of the way of the Council of Eleven-they had much in common, particularly in a democratic fondness for all grades of society and a method of extracting truth and confounding adversaries. Franklin, with his lightning rods in Athens, would have played sad pranks with Jupiter's celestial apparatus and the theories of the old cosmic philosophers; he would have sown his moralities wide spread as the son of Sophroniscus, and taught the prodigal Athenians many a "Poor Richard" lesson of counting the cost of their losing expeditions, and looking well to their sub-treasury in the Acropolis. Wise and good, he might have received a like genial adoption in the breast of Plato, and his sayings a faithful chronicle in the Memorabilia

As a man he was amiable, tolerant, useful, honest. He had not the excellences of all men, but he enjoyed his full share, according to the opportunities and allotments of fallible humanity. It might be wished that he had the soul of Plato, or the religious unction of Fenelon; it is enough to claim for him that he shared the practical philosophy of Bacon, and did good in the school of Howard. His religious views, perhaps, would hardly meet the requisitions of the most spiritual minded. But he paid something more than a decent respect to the public services of the sanctuary. He was a pew-holder in Christ Church, Philadelphia, for sixty years, from the time of his marriage to his death; his children were baptized; his money was contributed to raise the walls and hang a chime of bells in the steeple. Before of Xenophon.