ray n'est p us: mais bonheur pour l'humanité, le Docteur Franklin, le Contrôleur-Général de la France, Mr. Campomanes, le Duc de Braganza, et le Lord North sont tous encore en vie.

C'est le Roy d'Espagne et le Comte de Florida Blanca qui peuvent mettre tous les cinq en mouvement. Pour moi je n'ai nulle autorité des ministres Anglois à présenter ce projet, mais vivant en amitié avec la plupart d'eux et avec les amis des autres, je suis sûr qu'il y a des sentiments dans ce mémoire qui sont les leurs. J'avoue que je reçu une lettre en Portugal, quatorze jours avant que je partîsse pour l'Espagne, de Milord Rocheford, qui n'est pas à cette heure dans le ministère, mais qui entêté d'un projet qui lui fait tant d'honneur, me conseilloit de tâter le poux sur la possibilité de le faire réussir :

Et que j'ai une lettre sur le même sujet, du Duc de Braganza qui entroit dans les vues de projet de Milord Rocheford, non pas en politique, mais en ami de l'humanité.

Encouragé par de tels hommes et encore plus par mon propre cœur, j'écris à un des ministres du Roy d'Angleterre que si je ne trouvois pas les esprits trop échauffés et si je ne trouvois pas que je ne donnois pas offense, j'avois intention de faire justice au projet de Milord Rocheford et en Espagne et en France, et je le prie de m'envoyer une réponse à Paris, si le ministère d'Angleterre approuvoit ou désapprouvoit ce que j'allois faire. Je n'ai qu'à ajouter que mes vues étant à unir et non à séparer les nations, je n'ai nulle objection que les ministres de la France et le Docteur Franklin ayent chacun un exemplaire de ce

mémoire.

A true Copy from the Original.
Attest. WM. CARMICHAEL,
Secretary of the American Legation
at Madrid.

On Human Vanity.-From the Pennsylvania Gazette. Dec. 4, 1735.

MR. FRANKLIN,-Meeting with the following curious little piece, the other day, I send it to you to republish, as it is now in very few hands. There is something so elegant in the imagination, conveyed in so delicate a style, and accompanied with a moral so just and elevated, that it must yield great pleasure and instruction to every mind of real taste and virtue.

Cicero, in the first of his Tusculan questions, finely exposes the vain judgment we are apt to form, of the duration of human life compared with eternity. In illustrating this argument, he quotes a passage of natural history from Aristotle, concerning a species of insects on the banks of the river Hypanis, that never outlive the day in which they are

born.

To pursue the thought of this elegant writer, let us suppose one of the most robust of these Hypanians, so famed in history, was in a manner coeval with time itself; that he began to exist at the break of day, and that from the uncommon strength of his constitution, he has been able to show himself active in life, through the numberless minutes of ten or twelve hours. Through so long a series of seconds, he must have acquired vast wisdom in his way, from observation and experience.

He looks upon his fellow-creatures, who died about noon, to be happily delivered from the many inconveniencies of old age; and can perhaps recount to his great grandson, a surprising tradition of actions, before any records of their nation were extant. The young swarm of Hypanians, who may be advanced one hour in life; approach his person with respect, and listen to his improving discourse. Every thing he says will seem wonderful to their short-lived generation. The compass of a day will be esteemed the whole duration of time; and the first dawn of light will, in their chronology, be styled the great era of their creation.

Let us now suppose this venerable insect, this Nestor of Hypania should, a little before his death, and about sun-set, send for all his descendants, his friends, and his acquaintances out of the desire he may have to impart his last thoughts to them, and to admonish them, with his departing breath. They meet, perhaps, under the spacious shelter of a mushroom; and the dying sage addresses himself to them after the following manner.

"Friends and fellow-citizens! I perceive the longest life must however end: the period of mine is now at hand: neither do I repine at my fate, since my great age is become a burden to me; and there is nothing new to me under the sun: the changes and revolutions I have seen, in my country; the maniliable; the fatal diseases incident to our race, fold private misfortunes to which we are all have abundantly taught me this lesson: that no happiness can be secure or lasting which is placed in things that are out of our powerGreat is the uncertainty of life!-A whole brood of our infants have perished in a moment, by a keen blast!-Shoals of our strag gling youth, have been swept into the ocean by an unexpected breeze!- -What wasteful desolation have we not suffered from the deluge of a sudden shower!-Our strongest holds are not proof against a storm of hail, and even a dark cloud damps the very stoutest heart.

"I have lived in the first ages, and convers ed with insects of a larger size and stronger make, and I must add, of greater virtue than any can boast of in the present generation. I must conjure you to give yet further credit to my latest words when I assure you, that yonder sun, which now appears westward, be

yond the water, and seems not to be far distant from the earth, in my remembrance stood in the middle of the sky, and shot his beams directly down upon us. The world was much more enlightened in those ages, and the air much warmer. Think it not dotage in me, if I affirm, that glorious being moves: I saw his first setting out in the east, and I began my race of life, near the time when he began his immense career. He has for several ages advanced along the sky with vast heat and unparalleled brightness, but now by his declination and a sensible decay, more especially of late, in his vigour, I foresee, that all nature must fall in a little time, and that the creation will lie buried in darkness, in less than a century of minutes.

"Alas! my friends, how did I once flatter myself with the hopes of abiding here for ever; how magnificent are the cells which I hollowed out for myself: what confidence did I repose in the firmness and spring of my joints, and in the strength of my pinions! But I have lived enough to nature, and even to glory. Neither will any of you, whom I leave behind, have equal satisfaction in life, in the dark declining age which I see is already began."

Thus far this agreeable unknown writer, too agreeable we may hope, to remain always concealed; the fine allusion to the character of Julius Cæsar, whose words he has put into the mouth of this illustrious son of Hypanis, is perfectly just and beautiful, and aptly points out the moral of this inimitable piece, the design of which would have been quite perverted, had a virtuous character, a Cato or a Cicero, been made choice of, to have been turned into ridicule. Had this life of a day been represented as employed in the exercise of virtue, it would have had equal dignity with a life of any limited duration; and according to the exalted sentiments of Tully, would have been preferable to an immortality filled with all the pleasures of sense, if void of those of a higher kind: but as the views of this vain-glorious insect were confined within the narrow circle of his own existence, as he only boasts the magnificent cells he had built, and the length of happiness he had enjoyed, he is the proper emblem of all such insects of the human race, whose ambition does not extend beyond the like narrow limits; and notwithstanding the splendour they appear in at present, they will no more deserve the regard of posterity than the butterflies of the last spring. In vain has history been taken up in describing the numerous swarms of this mischievous species which has infested the earth in the successive ages: now it is worth the inquiry of the virtuous, whether the Rhine or the Adige may not perhaps swarm with them at present, as much as the banks of Hypanis ; or whether

that silver rivulet the Thames, may not show a specious mole-hill, covered with inhabitants of the like dignity and importance. The busy race of being attached to these fleeting enjoyments are indeed all of them engaged in the pursuit of happiness and it is owing to their imperfect notions of it, that they stop so far short in their pursuit. The present prospect of pleasure seems to bound their views, and the more distant scenes of happiness, when what they now propose shall be attained, do not strike their imagination. It is a great stupidity, or thoughtlessness, not to perceive, that the happiness of rational natures is insepa. rably connected with immortality. Creatures only endowed with sensation, may in a low sense, be reputed happy, so long as their sensations are pleasing; and if these pleasing sensations are commensurate with the time of their existence, this measure of happiness is complete. But such beings as are endowed with thought and reflection, cannot be made happy by any limited term of happiness, how great soever its duration may be. The more exquisite and more valuable their enjoyments are, the more painful must be the thought that they are to have an end; and this pain of expectation must be continually increasing the nearer the end approaches. And if these beings are themselves immortal, and yet insecure of the continuance of their happiness, the case is far worse, since an eternal void of delight, if not to say a state of misery, must succeed. It would here be of no moment, whether the time of their happiness were measured by days or hours, by months or years, or by periods of the most immeasurable length: these swiftly flowing streams bear no proportion to that ocean of infinity, where they must finish their course. The longest duration of finite happiness avails nothing, when it is past: nor can the memory of it have any other effect than to renew a perpetual pining after pleasures never to return, and since virtue is the only pledge and security of a happy immortality, the folly of sacrificing it to any temporal advantages, how important soever they may appear, must be infinitely great, and cannot but leave behind it an eternal regret.

Note The reader familiar with the happy views of

moral good which distinguishes the writings of Dr. Franklin above all the writers of his age, cannot fail to perceive in this beautiful production, the first concep tions, which were amplified and digested into the allegory of the Ephemeron, which is to be found in another part of this edition; addressed to Madam Brillon Editor.

On True Happiness.- From the Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov: 20, 1735.

THE desire of happiness is in general so natural, that all the world are in pursuit of it; all have this one end solely in view, though they take such different methods to attain it, and are so much divided in their notions of what it consists of.

on it: health of body, though so far necessary that we cannot be perfectly happy without it, is not sufficient to make us happy of itself.Happiness springs immediately from the mind: health is but to be considered as a condition or circumstance, without which this happiness cannot be tasted pure and unabated.

Virtue is the best preservative of health, as it prescribes temperance, and such a regu→ lation of our passions as is most conducive to the well being of the animal economy. So that it is at the same time the only true happiness of the mind, and the best means of preserving the health of the body.

If our desires are for the things of this world, they are never to be satisfied. If our great view is upon those of the next, the expectation of them is an infinitely higher satisfaction than the enjoyment of those of the present.

There is no true happiness then but in a virtuous and self-approving conduct; unless our actions will bear the test of our sober judgments and reflections upon them, they are not the actions, and consequently not the happiness of a rational being.

On Self-Denial.-From the Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 18, 1734.

If we reflect upon any one passion and disposition of mind abstracted from virtue, we shall soon see the disconnexion between that and true solid happiness; it is of the very essence, for instance, of envy to be uneasy and disquieted: pride meets with provocations and disturbances upon almost every occasion: covetousness is ever attended with solicitude and anxiety ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us; its appetite grows the keener by indulgence, and all we can gratify it with at present, serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.

The passions, by being too much conversant with earthly objects, can never fix in us a proper composure, and acquiescence of mind. Nothing but an indifference to the things of this world, an entire submission to the will of Providence here, and a well-grounded expectation of happiness hereafter, can give us a true satisfactory enjoyment of ourselves. Virtue is the best guard against the many unavoidable evils incident to us; nothing better alleviates the weight of the afflictions, or gives a truer relish of the blessings of human life. What is without us has not the least connexion with happiness, only so far as the preservation of our lives and health depends up

the self-denial is, the greater is the virtue.

If it were said, that he who cannot deny himself any thing he inclines to, though he knows it will be to his hurt, has not the vir tue of resolution or fortitude, it would be intelligible enough; but as it stands, the proposition seems obscure or erroneous.

Let us consider some of the virtues singly. If a man has no inclination to wrong people in his dealings; if he feels no temptation to it, and therefore never does it, can it be said, that he is not a just man? if he is a just man, has he not the virtue of justice?

If to a certain man, idle diversions have nothing in them that is tempting, and therefore he never relaxes his application to business for their sake, is he not an industrious man; or has he not the virtue of industry?

I might in like manner instance in all the rest of the virtues; but to make the thing short, as it is certain, that the more we strive against the temptation to any vice, and practise the contrary virtue, the weaker will that temptation be, and the stronger will be that habit; till at length the temptation hath no force, or entirely vanishes: does it follow from thence, that in our endeavours to overcome vice, we grow continually less and less virtuous, till at length we have no virtue at all?

If self-denial be the essence of virtue, then it follows, that the man who is naturally tem

But, perhaps it may be said, that by the word virtue, in the above assertion, is meant merit, and so it should stand; thus without self-denial there is no merit; and the greater the self-denial the greater the merit.

The self-denial here meant must be, when our inclinations are towards vice, or else it would still be nonsense.

By merit is understood desert; and when we say a man merits, we mean that he deserves praise or reward.

decent, or wicked thing, merely because it is contrary to his inclination, like some mad enthusiasts I have read of, who ran about in public naked, under the notion of taking up the cross, is not practising the reasonable science of virtue, but is lunatic. Newcastle, Feb. 5.

Rivalship in Almanac making.-From Poor Richard's Almanac, 1742.

COURTEOUS READER,-This is the ninth year of my endeavours to serve thee in the ca

All our merit then is with regard to one another, and from one to another.

Taking then the proposition as it stands If a man does me a service, from a natural benevolent inclination, does he deserve less of me than another, who does me the like kindness against his inclination?

If I have two journeymen, one naturally industrious, the other idle, but both perform a day's work equally good, ought I to give the latter the most wages?

Indeed lazy workmen are commonly observed to be more extravagant in their demands than the industrious; for if they have not more for their work, they cannot live as well as the industrious. But though it be true to a proverb, that lazy folks take the most pains, does it follow that they deserve the most money? If you were to employ servants in affairs of trust, would you pay more wages to one you knew was naturally honest, than for one naturally roguish, but who had lately acted honestly: for currents whose natural channels are dammed up, till a new course is by time worn sufficiently deep, and become natural, are apt to break their banks. If one servant is more valuable than another, has he not more merit than the other, and yet this is not on account of superior self-denial.

Is a patriot not praiseworthy, if public spirit is natural to him?

Is a pacing horse less valuable for being a natural pacer?

Nor in my opinion has any man less merit for having in general naturally virtuous inclinations.

The truth is, that temperance, justice, charity, &c., are virtues whether practised with or against our inclinations; and the man who practises them, merits our love and esteem and self-denial is neither good nor bad, but as it is applied. He that denies a vicious inclination, is virtuous in proportion to his reso

ment I have met with must be ascribed, in a great measure, to your charity, excited by the open, honest declaration I made of my poverty at my first appearance. This my brother Philomaths could, without being conjurers discover; and Poor Richard's success, has produced ye a Poor Will, and a Poor Robin; and no doubt, Poor John, &c., will follow, and we shall all be, in name, what some folks say we are already in fact, a parcel of poor almanac makers. During the course of these nine years, what buffetings have I not sustained! The fraternity have been all in arms. Honest Titan, deceased, was raised, and made to abuse his old friend. Both authors and printers were angry. Hard names, and many, were bestowed on me. They denied me to be the author of my own works; declared there never was any such person; asserted that I was dead sixty years ago; prognosticated my death to happen within a twelvemonth: with many other malicious inconsistencies, the effects of blind passion, envy at my success; and a vain hope of depriving me, dear reader, of thy wonted countenance and favour. -Who knows him? they cry: Where does he live?-But what is that to them? If I delight in a private life, have they any right to drag me out of my retirement? I have good reasons for concealing the place of my abode. It is time for an old man, as I am, to think of preparing for his great remove. The perpetual teasing of both neighbours and strangers, to calculate nativities, give judgments on schemes, and erect figures, discover thieves, detect horse-stealers, describe the route of runaways and strayed cattle; the crowd of visiters with a thousand trifling questions; Will my ship return safe? Will my mare win the race? Will her next colt be a pacer? When will my wife die? Who shall be my husband? and HOW LONG first? When is the best time to cut hair, trim cocks, or sow salad? These and the like impertinences I have now neither taste nor leisure for. I have had enough of them. All that these