tants of Boston and the government of Massachusetts.-It is my desire that this institution should take place and begin to operate within one year after my decease, for which purpose due notice should be publicly given previous to the expiration of that year, that those for whose benefit this establishment is intended, may make their respective applications ; and I hereby direct my executors, the survivors or survivor of them, within six months after my decease, to pay over the said sum of two thousand pounds sterling to such persons as shall be duly appointed by the selectmen of Boston and the corporation of Philadelphia to receive and take charge of their respective sums of one thousand pounds each, for the purposes aforesaid.-Considering the accidents to which all human affairs and projects are subject in such a length of time, I have perhaps too much flattered myself with a vain fancy, that these dispositions, if carried into execution, will be continued without interruption, and have the effects proposed; I hope, however, that if the inhabitants of the two cities should not think fit to undertake the execution, they will at least accept the offer of these donations as a mark of my good will, a token of my gratitude, and a testimony of my earnest desire to be useful to them, even after my departure. I wish indeed that they may both undertake to endeavor the execution of the project; because I think that though unforeseen difficulties may arise, expedients will be found to remove them, and the scheme be found practicable. If one of them accepts the money with the conditions, and the other refuses, my will then is that both sums be given to the inhabitants of the city accepting the whole, to be applied to the same purpose and under the same regulations directed for the separate parts, and if both refuse, the money of course remains in the mass of my estate, and it.is to be disposed of therewith according to my will, made the seventeenth day of July, 1788.-I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain with only a small moulding round the upper edge, and this inscription, 178. be placed over us both. 519 "My fine crabtree walking-stick, with a gold head, curiously wrought in the form of the cap of liberty, I give to my friend and the friend of mankind, general Washington.-If it were a sceptre, he has merited it and would become it.-It was a present to me from that excellent woman Madame de Forbach, the Dowager Duchess of Deux Ponts, connected with some verses which should go with it." ** Philadelphia, 23d June, 1789. The following epitaph was written by Dr. Franklin for himself, when he was only twenty three years of age, as appears by the original (with various corrections) found among his papers, and from which this is a faithful copy. [Epitaph written 1728.] of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, (Like the cover of an old book, But the work shall not be lost, For it will (as he believed) appear once more, by THE AUTHOR. END OF MEMOIRS. |