Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

far either in time or distance. At present I enjoy that pleasure for you, as I frequently hear the old generals of this martial country (who study the maps of America, and mark upon them all your operations) speak with sincere approbation and great applause of your conduct, and join in giving you the character of one of the greatest captains of the age.

"I must soon quit the scene, but you may live to see our country flourish, as it will amazingly and rapidly after the war is over. Like a field of young Indian corn, which long fair weather and sunshine had enfeebled and discoloured, and which in that weak state, by a thunder-gust of violent wind, hail, and rain, seemed to be threatened with absolute destruction; yet the storm being past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots up with double vigour, and delights the eye not of its owner only, but of every observing traveller.

"The best wishes that can be formed for your health, honour, and happiness, ever attend you, from yours, &c., B. FRANKLIN."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

"I am glad the little bookt proved acceptable. It does not appear to me intended for a grammar to teach the language. It is rather what we call in English a spelling-book, in which the only method observed is to arrange the words according to their number of syllables, placing those of one syllable together, and those of two syllables, and so on. And it is to be observed that Sa ki ma, for instance, is not three words, but one word of three syllables; and the reason that hyphens are not placed between the syllables is, that the printer had not enough of them.

"As the Indians had no letters, they had no orthography. The Delaware language being differently spelt from the Virginian, may not always arise from a difference in the languages; for strangers who learn the language of an Indian nation, finding no orthography, are at liberty, in writing the language, to use such compositions of letters as they think will best produce the sounds of the words. I have observed that our Europeans of different nations, who learn the same Indian language, form

* Antoine Court de Gebelin, born at Nismes in 1725, became a minister of a Protestant communion in the Cevennes, then at Lausanne: he quitted the clerical function for literature, at Paris, where he acquired so great a reputation as an antiquary and philosopher that he was appointed to attend one of the museums. His reputation suffered by his zeal in favour of animal magnetism. He died at Paris, May 13, 1784. His great work is entitled, "Monde Primitif, analysé et comparé avec le Monde Moderne," 9 tom. 4to. The excellence of his character may be appreciated from the fact, that, on quitting Switzerland, he voluntarily gave to his sister the principal part of his patrimony, reserving but little for himself, and relying for a maintenance upon the exercise of his talents.

A Vocabulary of the Language of one of the Indian Tribes in North America.

each his own orthography according to the usual sounds given to the letters in his own language. Thus the same words of the Mohock language written by an English, a French, and a German interpreter, often differ very much in the spelling; and without knowing the usual powers of the letters in the language of the interpreter, one cannot come at the pronunciation of the Indian words. The spelling-book in question was, I think, written by a German.

66

You mention a Virginian Bible. Is it not the Bible of the Massachusetts language, translated by Elliot, and printed in New-England about the middle of the last century? I know this Bible, but have never heard of one in the Virginian language. Your observation of the similitude between many of the words and those of the ancient world, are indeed very curious.

"This inscription, which you find to be Phenician, is, I think, near Taunton (not Jannston, as you write it). There is some account of it in the old Philosophical Transactions; I have never been at the place, but shall be glad to see your remarks on it.

"The compass appears to have been long known in China before it was known in Europe; unless we suppose it known to Homer, who makes the prince that lent ships to Ulysses boast that they had a spirit in them, by whose directions they could find their way in a cloudy day or the darkest night. If any Phoenicians arrived in America, I should rather think it was not by the accident of a storm, but in the course of their long and adventurous voyages; and that they coasted from Denmark and Norway, over to Greenland, and down southward by Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, &c., to New-England, as the Danes themselves certainly did some ages before Columbus.

"Our new American society will be happy in the correspondence you mention; and when it is posVOL. II.-14

sible for me, I shall be glad to attend the meetings of your society,* which I am sure must be very instructive.

"B. FRANKLIN.”

"To Francis Hopkinson, Philadelphia.

"DEAR SIR,

"Passy, September 13, 1781.

"I have received your kind letter of July 17, with its duplicate, enclosing those for Messrs. Brandlight and Sons, which I have forwarded. I am sorry for the loss of the squibs. Everything of yours gives me pleasure.

"As to the friends and enemies you just mention, I have hitherto, thanks to God, had plenty of the former kind; they have been my treasure; and it has, perhaps, been of no disadvantage to me that I have had a few of the latter. They serve to put us upon correcting the faults we have, and avoiding those we are in danger of having. They counteract the mischief flattery might do us, and their malicious attacks make our friends more zealous in serving us and promoting our interest. At present

I do not know of more than two such enemies that I enjoy, viz., *** and ***. I deserved the enmity of the latter, because I might have avoided it by paying him a compliment, which I neglected. That to the former I owe to the people of France, who happened to respect me too much and him too little; which I could bear, and he could not. They are unhappy that they cannot make everybody hate me as much as they do; and I should be so if my friends did not love me much more than those gentlemen can possibly love one another.

66 Enough of this subject. Let me know if you

* L'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Letters.

are in possession of my gimcrack instruments, and if you have made any new experiments. I lent, many years ago, a large glass globe, mounted, to Mr. Coombe, and an electric battery of bottles, which I remember; perhaps there were some other things. He may have had them so long as to think them his own. Pray ask him for them, and keep them for me, together with the rest.

"You have a new crop of prose writers. I see in your papers many of their fictitious names, but nobody tells me the real. You will oblige me by a little of your literary history. Adieu, my dear friend, and believe me ever, yours affectionately, "B. FRANKLIN.”

66

"To Francis Hopkinson.

"Paris, Dec 24, 1782. "I thank you for your ingenious paper in favour of the trees. I own I now wish we had two rows of them in every one of our streets. The comfortable shelter they would afford us when walking from our burning summer suns, and the greater coolness of our walls and pavements, would, I conceive, in the improved health of the inhabitants, amply compensate the loss of a house now and then by fire, if such should be the consequence; but a tree is soon felled, and, as axes are near at hand in every neighbourhood, may be down before the engines arrive.

"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,

« ZurückWeiter »