It is not impossible that the grandson, after residing a while in London, succumbed to a similar weakness.

In the very year that the edition of William Temple Franklin made its appearance, a collection of Franklin's correspondence was compiled and published in Paris, in 2 vols., by M. Charles Malo.* The Preface of this book was made the vehicle of a ruthless attack upon William Temple Franklin and upon his editorial enterprise, which, coming as it did from a writer of some reputation, measures the marvelous change which must have taken place in the feelings of the French people toward him since he left Paris, to have rendered such an introduction of his grandfather's works acceptable to them. M. Malo accuses him of selecting from, abridging and belittling the works of the Doctor, and concludes with the question: Ought we to inherit from one we have assassinated?Ӡ A feeling seems to have prevailed among the French editors of Franklin's writings that he was ashamed of his grandfather's humble origin and early employments.

66

* Correspondence Inédite et Secrète de Docteur B. Franklin, Ministre Plenipotentiaire des Etats-Unis d'Amérique prés la Cour de France depuis l'année 1753 jusque en 1790 offrant, en trois parties completes et bien distinctes.

1o. Les Memoires de sa Vie privée ;

2o. Les causes premières de la Revolution d'Amèrique;

3°. L'Histoire des diverses negotiations entre l'Angleterre, la France et des Etats-Unis, publiée pour la première fois en France, avec des notes, additions, &c. Paris, Janet père, Libraire Editeur, Rue Saint-Jacques, No. 59. MDCCCXVII.

For a translation of this diatribe, see the Appendix, No. 8. The author of it, M. Charles Malo, was a voluminous writer, something of poet, and a warm republican. The list of his works alone fills nearly two pages of Quèrard. It is not strange that one who published so much should make some ludicrous blunders, of which several specimens may be found among the notes with which he endeavored to illumine

III.

The autograph Memoirs fill 220 pages of foolscap, written both sides of the page. A margin of half its width was left on each page for such additions and corrections as the autobiographer might have occasion to make at a future day. Of this margin the Doctor took frequent advantage. He had such a clear and distinct

the writings of Franklin. In one of his letters Franklin remarks: "They thought a Yankee was a sort of Yahoo." Upon this M. Malo remarks:

"Yahoo. This must be an animal. They pretend it is an opossum ; but I have not found the word 'Yahoo' in any dictionary of natural history."

Again, in a letter to Buffon, Franklin wrote that he had escaped obesity by eating moderately, drinking neither wine nor cider, and in exercising himself daily with dumb-bells. M. Malo instructs his countrymen that "this term dumb-bell expresses among the English the motion a person seated makes in moving back and forth only the upper part of his body."

In one instance M. Malo presumed to act as a censor upon Dr. Franklin himself. In a letter of the Doctor's, he had quoted with a sort of humorous approval the following lines from an old song :

"With a courage undaunted may I face my last day,

And when I am gone may the better sort say,

In the morning when sober, in the evening when mellow :
He is gone, and has not left behind him his fellow;

For he governed his passions."

M. Malo remarks upon this couplet: "I have not translated the third line literally, for it did not seem to me in very good taste to desire to be praised by honest people, who are sober in the morning and drunk in the evening." So he translated the verse as follows:

"Puissé je avec courage voir arriver mon dernier jour; et quand je ne serai plus, puissent les gens vertueux repeter souvent, 'il est mort, et n'a pas laissé son pareil au monde ! Car il avait sur ses passions un pouvoir absolu.'"

chirography that all the MS. is legible, though abounding with interlineations and erasures. The last eight pages only, betray what Cicero terms the vacillantibus litterulis of age and infirmity, though they also are perfectly legible. They must have been written in the Doctor's eighty-fourth year, and in the intervals of those intense pains with which the latter days of his life were tortured.

The MS. came into my possession half bound in red morocco, with a memorandum, which has already been cited, inscribed on fly-leaves in French and in English, in the handwriting, I presume, of M. le Veillard.

As a part of the history of this manuscript, it is proper that I should add the following memorandum, furnished me in French by M. de Senarmont himself:

"Note on the autograph manuscript of the Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.

"The manuscript of the Memoirs of Franklin is a folio of 220 pages, written with a half page margin on paper not of uniform size.

"M. le Veillard, gentleman in ordinary of the king, and Mayor of Passy, was an intimate friend of Dr. Franklin. He had lived in daily intercourse with him at Passy, near Paris, during the Doctor's residence in France, at the epoch of the American War of Independence. At the departure of his friend, he accompanied him to the ship on which Franklin embarked for America, and it was from his own country that the Doctor sent him, as a token of his friendship, the copy of his Memoirs, subsequently exchanged for the original.

"The original manuscript is unique. Mr. William

Temple Franklin, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, received it at the death of his grandfather, who had left him all his writings. When William Temple returned to France to prepare the edition which he published, he requested of Madame le Veillard her copy to print from, because it appeared more convenient for the printer, on account of its neatness. He gave to Mad. le Veillard in exchange the original manuscript entirely written by the hand of Franklin.

"The original was, however, more complete than the copy, which Mr. Temple had not verified. Proof of this may be found in the second volume of the small edition of the Memoirs, in two volumes in 18mo., published by Jules Renouard, at Paris, in 1828. One may there read, at the commencement of a continuation which then appeared for the first time, a note, page 1, where the editor states that this continuation was communicated to them by the Le Veillard family.*

"The simple inspection demonstrates the authenticity of the manuscript, in support of which may be furnished other positive proofs, drawn from the different pieces accompanying it, such as

* The note here referred to, translated, reads as follows: "We publish for the first time this piece, which had never been published in English or French. It is translated from the original manuscript which served for the English edition which William Temple Franklin published in 1818, of the Memoirs of his grandfather. This manuscript belongs to the family of M. le Veillard, an intimate friend of Franklin, and we owe the communication of it to M. de S., one of the members of this honorable family."

The M. de S. here referred to, we presume, was the father of the M. P. de Senarmont from whom I received the Memoirs and the memorandum now under the reader's eye.

"The three letters of Dr. Franklin to M. le Veillard; three letters from Mr. William Temple to the same; and various letters from Benjamin Franklin Bache, Sarah Bache, his wife, and from a bookseller who wished to purchase the manuscript of M. le Veillard in 1791.*

"M. le Veillard, who is the author of the French translation of the Memoirs of Franklin,† has preserved the autograph manuscript, with a sentiment corresponding with that which determined his friend to send him the MS. copy.

66

"After the death of M. le Veillard, who perished on the Revolutionary scaffold in 1794, the MS. went to his

* The bookseller here referred to is Buisson, who published the first edition of the Memoirs, in French, in 1791. His note reads as follows:

SIR-I learn that you have manuscripts relating to the life of Dr. Franklin. If it is your intention to dispose of them, I offer to become their purchaser.

I have the honor to be, sir,

Your humble and obedient servant,

BUISSON,

Bookseller, Rue Hautefeuille, No. 2.

I want a word of reply, if you please.

PARIS, 26 June, 1791.

What reply was made to this application will probably never be known. That the MS. was not sold is certain, for we know it was afterward exchanged for the autograph.

On the other hand, M. le Veillard, in his note to the Journal du Paris, quoted above, distinctly says that he not only had nothing to do with the translation, but did not know how the translator had been able to procure the manuscript from which to make it.

† M. de Senarmont is evidently in error in attributing the French translation that was printed in 1791 to M. le Veillard. M. le Veillard made a translation; but it must have been printed subsequently, if at all.