his virtues, your favorite, he should not go, like common skuggs, without an elegy or an epitaph. Let us give him one in the monumental style and measure, which, being neither prose nor verse, is perhaps the properest for grief; since to use common language would look as if we were not affected, and to make rhymes would seem trifling in sorrow.

EPITAPH,

ON THE LOSS OF AN AMERICAN SQUIRREL, WHO, ESCAPING FROM HIS CAGE, WAS KILLED BY A SHEPHERD'S DOG.

Alas! poor MUNGO!
Happy wert thou, hadst thou known
Thy own felicity.

Remote from the fierce bald eagle,
Tyrant of thy native woods,

Thou hadst nought to fear from his piercing talons,
Nor from the murdering gun

Of the thoughtless sportsman.
Safe in thy wired castle,

GRIMALKIN never could annoy thee.
Daily wert thou fed with the choicest viands,
By the fair hand of an indulgent mistress;
But, discontented,

Thou wouldst have more freedom.

Too soon, alas! didst thou obtain it;
And wandering,

Thou art fallen by the fangs of wanton, cruel RANGER!
Learn hence,

Ye who blindly seek more liberty,

Whether subjects, sons, squirrels, or daughters,
That apparent restraint may be real protection,
Yielding peace and plenty
With security.

You see, my dear Miss, how much more decent and proper this broken style is, than if we were to say, by way of epitaph,

Here SKUGG

Lies snug,

As a bug

In a rug.

And yet, perhaps, there are people in the world of so little. feeling as to think that this would be a good-enough epitaph for poor Mungo.

If you wish it, I shall procure another to succeed him; but perhaps you will now choose some other amusement. Remember me affectionately to all the good family, and believe me ever your affectionate friend.*

* Franklin had a remarkable affinity for superior people; for people whose friendship was both valuable and enduring, the surest test of superiority. Not to speak of those celebrities who might have yielded to the attraction of his fame, it is pleasant to follow the growth and loyalty of his friendship for Miss Ray, afterwards Mrs. Green, for Mrs. and Miss Stevenson, with whom he lived during the whole of his eighteen years' residence in London, and in whose fortunes through life he took a parental interest; for De Chaumont, one of whose houses he occupied during his entire sojourn of eight years in France; for Mr. Le Veillard, the mayor of Passy, and Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, at whose joint solicitation he wrote his autobiography; for D. Collinson, for Mr. Strahan, for Lord Kames, and, primus inter pares, the Bishop of St. Asaph, and his gifted family.

The

The village of Twyford lies about two miles from Winchester. Beside the old church, and close behind it, stands Twyford House, a substantial red brick dwelling of the last century, three stories in height. Below the house and the churchyard, a green bank studded with elm-trees slopes down to the river Itchen, which is here crossed by a wooden bridge. high road passes close to the house, and a little beyond the road is a fine avenue of chestnuts, called the "Grove." In the early part of the last century Twyford House was inhabited by a family of the name of Davies, whose heiress married Jonathan Shipley, a London merchant. Their only son, Jonathan, was educated for the church; in 1749 he was made canon of Christ Church, and in 1760 Dean of Winchester. He was afterwards promoted to the bishopric of Llandaff, and thence, in 1769, to the see of St. Asaph. It was at Twyford House, and while the guest of the "good bishop," as Franklin habitually styled him, that he commenced his autobiography, and it was in the "Grove" that they used to walk for hours

Το Thomas Cushing, dated London, 4 Nov., 1772.

Lord Dartmouth, our American minister, came to town last week, and held his first levee on Wednesday, when I paid my respects to him, acquainting him at the same time, that I should in a few days wait upon him, on business from Boston; which

together, discussing the crazy policy which was gradually alienating from England her choicest colonies.

Bishop Shipley married Anna Maria, daughter of the Honorable George Mordaunt, and niece of the famous Earl of Peterborough. In her youth she was celebrated for her beauty, and was maid of honor to Queen Caroline. They had five children, of whom four were daughters. Of these, the eldest, Anna Maria, lived principally with her cousin, Lady Spencer, at Althorpe, where she attracted the attention of, and finally married, their handsome young tutor, afterwards the celebrated Sir William Jones. Her sister Georgiana rivalled in beauty her distinguished namesake, Georgiana, "the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire;" but surpassed her, and perhaps all the women of her time, in her mental accomplishments. Not only was she thoroughly versed in all the modern European languages, but she was specially familiar with the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, which she studied with her father. She married Francis Hare Naylor, a young man of no fortune, and they spent most of their married life at Bologna, in Italy, where they reared their three sons, Augustus, Francis, and Julius Charles, whom premature death even did not deprive of a position among the most eminent of English scholars. Mrs. Naylor was painted with her children and her dog Smut in a family group, by Flaxman; it was for her that Flaxman made his famous illustrations of Homer; and it was in deference to her somewhat eccentric passion for pet animals that Franklin wrote this caricature epitaph upon an American squirrel, called Mungo, which he had given her.

Amelia Shipley, the youngest daughter of the bishop, married Reginald Heber, afterwards the celebrated bishop of Calcutta; it was for another member of the Hare family, Maria Leycester, that he wrote those popular verses which commence with, "I see them on their winding way." It was within the hallowed precincts of a family circle so pure, so refined, so gifted, and so harmonious that Franklin had the distinguished privilege of being received upon terms of exceptional intimacy soon after his arrival in London, in 1759, and occupying the place of honor in it to the close of his life. When he returned from France, in 1785, his ship touched at Southampton, and the bishop and two of his daughters came down to the coast to visit and take leave of him.-ED.

I have accordingly since done, and have put your petition. to the King into his Lordship's hands, that being the regular course.

He received me very obligingly, made no objection to my acting as agent without an appointment assented to by the governor, as his predecessor had done, so that I hope business is getting into a better train. I shall use my best endeavours in supporting the petition, and write you more fully by the next ship to Boston.

11*

CHAPTER IV.

The Dancer pays the Piper-Troubles of the India Company-Franklin's Sixty-seventh Birthday-Hutchinson Letters-Censures of the Assembly -Arthur Lee-Who discovered America?- Painting on China.

Το Joseph Galloway, dated London,

1772.

Two circumstances have diverted me lately.

One was, that, being at the court of exchequer 2 Dec., 1772. on some business of my own, I there met with one of the commissioners of the stamp office, who told me he attended with a memorial from that board, to be allowed in their accounts the difference between their expense in endeavouring to establish those offices in America, and the amount of what they received, which from Canada and the West India Islands was but about fifteen hundred pounds, while the expense, if I remember right, was above twelve thousand pounds, being for stamps and stamping, with paper and parchment returned upon their hands, freight, &c. The other is the present difficulties of the India Company, and of government on their account. The Company have accepted bills, which they find themselves unable to pay, though they have the value of two millions in tea and other India goods in their stores, perishing under a want of