A SKETCH OF FRANKLIN'S LIFE.

FROM THE POINT AT WHICH HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY ENDS, CHIEFLY DRAWN FROM HIS LETTERS.

FRANKLIN went to England in 1757 as agent for the colony of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of settling a controversy which the colony had with the Penn family. He was detained on this business three years, but was able to carry his main point, which was the right of the Assembly to tax the proprietary estates. He went without his wife and daughter, but was attended by his son William. At the end of the three years he did not return immediately to America. His public business had made him acquainted with many members of the government, and he was very desirous of securing the best terms for America in the treaty which was pending between England and France. The fall of Quebec had put an end to the French power in Canada, but Franklin thought, and thought truly, that England did not understand how important Canada was to her. By his familiarity with American affairs he was able to give advice to the government in this matter, and at the same time could inform English people generally about his native country through the public journals. He found there was dense ignorance about America, and saw clearly that it was of the utmost importance that Englishmen

should understand Americans if there was to be good feeling between the two parts of the British empire. He was greatly interested also in his philosophical experiments.

While he was in London he made his home with Mrs. Margaret Stevenson in Craven Street, Strand, and became greatly attached to her and to her daughter Mary, then a girl of eighteen, whom he hoped his son William would marry. These ladies were very civil to him; and when he wrote home to his wife he frequently showed her how much they did to make his stay agreeable. Almost everything of the better sort in the way of clothing and household stuff which the Americans of that day used came from England, and Franklin pleased himself and his wife by sending goods to her from time to time.

"I send you," he writes, "by Captain Budden a large case and a small box. In the large case is another small box, containing some English china, viz., melons and leaves for a dessert of fruit and cream, or the like; a bowl remarkable for the neatness of the figures, made at Bow, near this city; some coffee-cups of the same; a Worcester bowl, ordinary. To show the difference of workmanship, there is something from all the china works in England; and one old true china basin mended, of an odd color. The same box contains four silver salt-ladles, newest but ugliest fashion; a little instrument to core apples; another to make little turnips out of great ones; six coarse diaper breakfast-cloths; they are to spread on the tea-table, for nobody breakfasts here on the naked table, but on the cloth they set a large tea-board with the cups. . . . In the great case, besides the little box, is contained some carpeting for a best-room floor. There

is enough for one large or two small ones; it is to be sewed together, the edges being first felled down, and care taken to make the figures meet exactly; there is bordering for the same. This was my fancy. Also two large, fine Flanders bed-ticks, and two pair of large superfine blankets, two fine damask table-cloths and napkins, and forty-three ells of Ghentish sheeting, Holland. These you ordered. There are also fifty-six yards of cotton printed curiously from copper plates, a new invention, to make bed and window curtains; and seven yards of chair-bottoms, printed in the same way, very neat. These were my fancy; but Mrs. Stevenson tells me I did wrong not to buy both of the same color. Also seven yards of printed cotton, blue ground, to make you a gown. I bought it by candlelight, and liked it then, but not so well afterwards. If you do not fancy it, send it as a present from me to sister Jenny. There is a better gown for you of flowered tissue, sixteen yards, of Mrs. Stevenson's fancy, cost nine guineas; and I think it a great beauty. There was no more of the sort, or you should have had enough for a negligée or suit.

"There are also snuffers, a snuff-stand, and extinguisher, of steel, which I send for the beauty of the work. The extinguisher is for spermaceti candles only, and is of a new contrivance, to preserve the snuff upon the candle. There is some music Billy bought for his sister, and some pamphlets for the Speaker and for Susy Wright. A mahogany and a little shagreen box, with microscopes, and other optical instruments loose, are for Mr. Alison, if he likes them; if not, put them in my room till I return. I send the invoice of them, and I wrote to him formerly the reason of my exceeding his orders. There are

also two sets of books, a present from me to Sally, The World, and The Connoisseur. My love to her. "I forgot to mention another of my fancyings, viz., a pair of silk blankets, very fine. They are of a new kind, were just taken in a French prize, and such were never seen in England before. They are called blankets, but I think they will be very neat to cover a summer bed, instead of a quilt or counterpane. I had no choice, so you will excuse the soil on some of the folds; your neighbor Foster can get it off. I also forgot, among the china, to mention a large, fine jug for beer, to stand in the cooler. I fell in love with it at first sight; for I thought it looked like a fat, jolly dame, clean and tidy, with a neat blue and white calico gown on, good-natured and lovely, and put me in mind of somebody. It has the coffee-cups in it, packed in best crystal salt, of a peculiar nice flavor, for the table, not to be powdered.

"I hope Sally applies herself closely to her French and music, and that I shall find she has made great proficiency. The harpsichord I was about, and which was to have cost me forty guineas, Mr. Stanley advises me not to buy; and we are looking out for another, one that has been some time in use, and is a tried good one, there being not so much dependence on a new one, though made by the best hands. Sally's last letter to her brother is the best wrote that of late I have seen of hers. I only wish she was a little more careful of her spelling. I hope she continues to love going to church, and would have her read over and over again the Whole Duty of Man, and the Lady's Library.

"Look at the figures on the china bowl and coffee. cups with your spectacles on; they will bear exam ining.

"I have made your compliments to Mrs. Stevenson. She is indeed very obliging, takes great care of my health, and is very diligent when I am any way indisposed; but yet I have a thousand times wished you with me, and my little Sally with her ready hands and feet to do, and go, and come, and get what I wanted."

Franklin's experiments in electricity and his several inventions had made him well known in England, and his attention to public business brought him into connection with many of the members of government, as well as with other persons of consequence. He made friends with every one, and was interested in everything. He went to Cambridge, and was received by the principal people at the university there with great civility. He made a trip to Northamptonshire and looked up the graves of his ancestors and gathered stories about them. His father was born at Ecton, as he mentions in the Autobiography, and his father's brother, Thomas Franklin, had lived and died in Ecton. Thomas Franklin's daughter was living there, and entertained her cousin with stories about her father. "He was a conveyancer,'" Franklin writes to his wife," something of a lawyer, clerk of the county courts, and clerk to the archdeacon in his visitations; a very leading man in all county affairs, and much employed in public business. He set on foot a subscription for erecting chimes in their steeple, and completed it, and we heard them play. He found out an easy method of saving their village meadows from being drowned, as they used to be sometimes by the river, which method is still in being; but, when first proposed, nobody could conceive how it could be: ⚫ but however,' they said, 'if Franklin says he knows