but death and taxes; happiness he believed the aggregate of small satisfactions, rather than the instant realization of a great hope; and fortune he regarded as the reward of assiduity and prudence, rather than of prosperous adventure or of daring enterprise. Compared with the ephemeral impulses, the obscure theories, the visionary and uncertain principles in vogue elsewhere, and before and since his day, there was incalculable value in his maxims and example. But it would be gross injustice to the versatile and comprehensive nature of man, to the aspirations of exalted minds, to the facts of spiritual philosophy, to the needs of immortal instincts, to the faith of the soul, the annals of genius, and the possible elevation of society, to admit that he supplied more than the mate rial basis of human progress or the external conditions of individual development. What the ballast is to the ship, the trellis to the vine, health of body to activity of mind, that was Franklin's social philosophy to human welfare, -allimportant as a means, inadequate as a final provision, a method of insuring the co-operation of natural aids, and fos tering intrinsic resources, whereby the higher elements may freely do their work, and man, sustained by favorable circumstances, and unhampered by want, neglect, and improvi dence, may the more certainly enjoy, aspire, love, conceive, expand, and labor according to the noblest inspiration and the grandest scope of his nature and his destiny.

If we compare the life of Franklin, as a whole, with that of other renowned philosophers, we find that the isolated self-devotion, the egotism and vanity, which too often derogate from the interest and dignity of their characters as men, do not mar the unity of the tranquil, honest, and be nign disposition which lends a gracious charm to the American philosopher. Archimedes invented warlike machines to overthrow the invaders of his country; but his heart did not warm like Franklin's, nor did his brain work to devise the means of elevating his poor and ignorant fellow-citizens in the scale of knowledge and self-government. Newton proclaimed vast and universal laws; but there was in his temper a morbid tenacity of personal fame, beside which the disinterested zeal of Franklin is beautiful. The scope of Frank

lin's research was limited in comparison with that of Humboldt; but, unsustained, like that noble savant, by royal patronage, he sacrificed his love of science for half his lifetime to the cause of his country. Arago excelled him in the power of rhetorical eulogy of the votaries of their common pursuits; but while the French philosopher spoke eloquently to a learned Academy, the American had a people for his audience, and disseminated among them truths vital to their progress and happiness, in a diction so clear, direct, and convincing, that it won them simultaneously to the love of science and the practice of wisdom.

When he was released from official care, his mental activity, though unremitted, was singularly genial; and to this characteristic of the philosophical temperament we attribute his self-possession, rational enjoyment, and consequent longevity; for, of all pursuits, that which has for its aim general knowledge and the discovery and application of truth, while it raises the mind above casual disturbance, supplies it with an object at once unimpassioned and attractive, serene yet absorbing, a motive in social intercourse and a resource in seclusion. Just before Thierry's recent death, although he was long a martyr to disease, he remarked to a friend: "Had I to begin my life again, I would again set out in the path which has led me to where I am. Blind and suffering, without hope and without intermission, I may say, without giving testimony which can be suspected, there is something in this world better than material pleasure, better than fortune, better than health itself, and this is attachment to science." this good Franklin was a large partaker, and we cannot but imagine the delight and sympathy with which he would have followed the miraculous progress of the modern sciences and of those ideas of which he beheld but the dawn. “I have sometimes almost wished," he writes, "it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence; for inventions and improvements are prolific, and beget more of their kind." Had he lived a little more than another fifty years, he would have seen the mode of popular education initiated by the Spectator, expanded into the elaborate Review, the brilliant Magazine, the Household Words, and Scientific Journals NO. 173. 36

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of the present day; the rude hand-press upon which he arranged the miniature "form" of the New England Courant, transformed into electrotyped cylinders worked by steam and throwing off thirty thousand printed sheets an hour; the thin almanac, with its proverbs and calendar, grown to a plethoric volume, rich in astronomical lore and the statistics of a continent; the vessel dependent on the caprice of the winds and an imperfect science of navigation, self-impelled with a pre-calculated rate of speed and by the most authentic charts: and the subtile fluid that his prescience caught up and directed safely by a metallic rod, sent along leagues of wire, the silent and instant messenger of the world. With what keen interest would he have followed Davy, with his safety-lamp, into the treacherous mine; accompanied Fulton in his first steam voyage up the Hudson; watched Daguerre as he made his sun-pictures; seen the vineyards along the Ohio attest his prophetic advocacy of the Rhenish grape-culture; heard Miller discourse of the "Old Red Sandstone," Morse explain the Telegraph, or Maury the tidal laws! Chemistry — almost born since his day-would open a new and wonderful realm to his consciousness; the Cosmos of Humboldt, draw his entranced gaze down every vista of natural science, as if to reveal at a glance a programme of all the great and beautiful secrets of the universe; and the reckless enterprise and mad extravagance of his prosperous country, elicit more emphatic warnings than Poor Richard breathed of old.

There have been many writers who, in simple and forcible English, by arguments drawn from pure common-sense and enlivened by wit or eloquence, interpreted political truth, and vastly aided the education of the people. But in the case of Franklin, this practical service of authorship was immeasurably extended and enforced by the prestige of his electrical discoveries, by the dawning greatness and original principles of the country of which he was so prominent a representative, and by the extraordinary circumstances of his times, when great social and political questions were brought to new and popular tests, and made the homely scientific republican an oracle in the most luxurious and artificial of despotic courts. When the intricate tactics of rival armies have been exhaust

ed, the able general has recourse to a coup de main, and effects by simple bravery what stratagem failed to win. When a question has been discussed until its primary significance is almost forgotten in a multitude of side-issues, the true orator suddenly brings to a focus the scattered elements of the theme, and, by a clear and emphatic statement, reproduces its normal features, and, through a bold analysis, places it in the open light of day, and heralds the bewildered council to a final decision. In like manner, when vital principles of government and society have been complicated by interest, speculation, and misfortune, when men have grown impatient of formulas and ceremonies and aspire to realities, he who in his speech, dress, habits, writings, manners, and achievements or in the exponent of all these, his character represents most truly the normal instincts, average common sense, and practicable good of his race, is welcomed as an exemplar, an authority, and a representative. Such was the American philosopher at once in the eyes of a newly organized and self-dependent nation, and in those of an ancient people, in its transition from an outgrown to an experimental régime.

He took his degree in the school of humanity, before the technical honor was awarded by Oxford, Edinburgh, and the Royal Society. It was this pre-eminent distinction which led Sydney Smith to playfully threaten his daughter, "I will disinherit you if you do not admire everything written by Franklin"; and which enshrines his memory in the popular heart, makes him still the annual hero of the printer's festival, associates his name with townships and counties, inns and ships, societies and periodicals, with all the arrangements and objects of civilization that aim to promote the enlightenment and convenience of man. The press and the lightning-rod, the almanac, the postage-stamp, and the free-school medal, attest his usefulness and renown; maxims of practical wisdom more numerous than Don Quixote's garrulous squire cited, gave birth under his hand to a current proverbial philosophy; and his effigy is, therefore, the familiar symbol of independence, of popular education, and self-culture. Those shrewd and kindly features, and that patriarchal head, are as

precious to the humble as to the learned; and in every land and every language, Franklin, through the prestige of a brilliant discovery in science and the fame of a wise patriot, typifies the "greatest good of the greatest number." Mignot rightly defines him as "gifted with the spirit of observation and discovery"; Davy calls his inductive power felicitous; Paul Jones augured success in his desperate sea-fight from the "Bon Homme Richard"; and the memorable epigraph of Turgot is the acknowledged motto of his escutcheon:"Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."

ART. VII. Hand-Book for Young Painters. By C. R. LES. LIE, R. A., Author of the Life of Constable. London: John Murray. 1855.

MR. LESLIE is well entitled to speak to young painters, for he has acquired a high and solid reputation in his art. He speaks, therefore, with the assured but modest tone of one whose theories have borne the test of experience. His book, which was published last year, has not yet been reprinted in this country; but it finds a welcome among thoughtful artists, and is destined to become a standard work. As has been the case with many of the most valuable treatises on Art by English painters, the main part of the contents of this volume was prepared in lectures for the Royal Academy. We are highly indebted to this institution for such results. Without that stimulus to literary labor, we should probably have had little or nothing from the pen of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of Fuseli, Flaxman, Barry, and Opie. We have hoped that our Lowell Institute might at some time call forth the silent talent of our own country to give us full and able discourses on this fruitful and delightful subject.

Mr. Leslie's views on Art are moderate and judicious. He does not take sides with either of the extreme parties which, like Whig and Tory in politics, ever have, and we presume ever will, divide the great realm of Art. He is an idealist; but