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two or three weeks with him, at the house of a private gentleman, in the back part of Pennsylvania, and we were confined to the house during the whole of that time, by the tunintermitting constancy and depth of the snows. But confinement never could be felt where Franklin was an inmate. His cheerfulness and his colloquial powers spread around him a perpetual spring.

2. When I speak, however, of his colloquial powers, I do not mean to awaken any notion analogous to that which Boswell has given us of Johnson. The conversation of the latter, continually reminds one of the "pomp and circumstance of glorious war." It was, indeed, a perpetual contest for victory, or an arbitrary or despotic exaction of homage to his superior talents. It was strong, acute, prompt, splendid, and *vociferous; as loud, stormy, and sublime, as those winds which he represents as shaking the Hebrides, and rocking the old castle which frowned on the dark-rolling sea beneath.

3. But one gets tired of storms, however sublime they may be, and longs for the more orderly current of nature. Of Franklin, no one ever became tired. There was no ambition of eloquence, no effort to shine in any thing which came from him. There was nothing which made any demand upon either your allegiance or your admiration. His manner was as unaffected as infancy. It was nature's self. He talked like an old patriarch; and his plainness and simplicity put you at once at your ease, and gave you the full and free possession and use of your faculties. His thoughts were of a character to shine by their own light, without any adventitious aid. They only required a medium of vision like. his pure and simple style, to exhibit to the highest advantage their native radiance and beauty.

4. His cheerfulness was unremitting. It seemed to be as much the effect of a systematic and salutary exercise of the mind, as of its superior organization. His wit was of the first order. It did not show itself merely in occasional *corruscations; but without any effort or force on his part, it shed a constant stream of the purest light over the whole of his discourse. Whether in the company of commons or nobles, he was always the same plain man; always most per

fectly at his ease, with his faculties in full play, and the full orbit of his genius forever clear and unclouded.

5. And then, the stores of his mind were inexhaustible. He had commenced life with an attention so *vigilant, that nothing had escaped his observation; and a judgment so solid, that every incident was turned to advantage. His youth had not been wasted in idleness, nor overcast by intemperance. He had been, all his life, a close and deep reader, as well as thinker; and by the force of his own powers, had wrought up the raw materials which he had gathered from books, with such exquisite skill and +felicity, that he has added a hundred fold to their original value, and justly made them his own.

CXXXVII.

A CONVERSATIONAL PLEASANTRY.
FROM FRANKLIN.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in 1706. While apprenticed to the printing business, he found opportunity for self-improvement, and began to write anonymously for the New England Courant, pieces which were much admired. His history as a statesman and philosopher is familiar to every American. He died in 1790.

1. SOME wit of old-such wits of old there were,

Whose hints show'd meaning, whose tallusions, care,—

By one brave stroke, to mark all human kind,
Call'd clear, blank paper, ev'ry infant mind;
Where, still, as opening sense her dictates wrote,
Fair virtue put a seal, or vice, a blot.

The thought was happy, pertinent, and true;
Methinks a genius might the plant pursue.

2. I, (can you pardon my presumption ?) I,
No wit, no genius, yet, for once, will try.
Various the paper various wants produce;
The wants of fashion, elegance, and use.
Men are as various; and, if right I scan,
Each sort of paper represents some man.

3. Pray, note the fop, half powder, and half lace;
Nice, as a band-box were his dwelling place;
He's the gilt-paper, which, apart you store,
And lock from vulgar hands in the +scrutoir.

4. Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth,
Are copy-paper, of inferior worth;

Less priz'd, more useful, for your desk +decreed;
Free to all pens, and prompt at ev'ry need.

5. The wretch whom tavarice bids to pinch and spare,
Starve, cheat, and +pilfer, to enrich an heir,
Is coarse brown paper, such as peddlars chose
To wrap up twares, which better men will use.

6. Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys
Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys;
Will any paper match him? Yes, throughout;
He's a true sinking-paper, past all doubt.

7. The retail politician's anxious thought

Deems this side always right, and that, stark naught;
He foams with censure; with tapplause he raves;
A dupe to rumors, and a tool of knaves;
He'll want no type, his weakness to proclaim,
While such a thing as foolscap has a name.

8. The hasty gentleman, whose blood runs high,
Who picks a quarrel, if you step awry,
Who can't a jest, a hint, or look endure;
What is he? What? Touch-paper, to be sure.

9. What are our poets, take them as they fall,
Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all?
Them and their works, in the same class you'll find;
They are the mere waste-paper of mankind.

10. Observe the maiden! innocently sweet;

She's fair, white-paper, an unsullied sheet;
On which the happy man whom fate ordains,
May write his name, and take her for his pains.

11. One instance more, and only one, I'll bring; 'Tis the great man, who scorns a little thing; Whose thought, whose deeds, whose +maxims are his own, Form'd on the feelings of his heart alone. True, genuine, royal-paper, is his breast;

Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best.

CXXXVIII.

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL SCENERY.

1. WHATEVER leads the mind +habitually to the Author of the universe: whatever mingles the voice of nature with the inspiration of the Gospel; whatever teaches us to see in all the changes of the world, the varied goodness of Him, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," brings us nearer to the spirit of the Savior of mankind. But it is not only as encouraging a sincere devotion, that these reflections are favorable to Christianity; there is something, moreover, *peculiarly allied to its spirit in such observations of external

nature.

2. When our Savior prepared himself for his temptation, his agony, and death, he retired to the wilderness of Judea, to inhale, we may venture to believe, a holier spirit amid its solitary scenes, and to approach to a nearer *communion with his Father, amid the sublimest of his works. It is with similar feelings, and to worship the same Father, that the Christian is permitted to enter the temple of nature, and, by the spirit of his religion, there is a language +infused into the objects which she presents, unknown to the worshiper of former times. To all, indeed, the same objects appear, the same sun shines, the same heavens are open; but to the Christian alone it is permitted to know the Author of these things; to see his spirit "move in the breeze, and blossom in the spring;" and to read, in the changes that occur in the material world, the varied expression of eternal love. It is from the influence of Christianity, accordingly, that the key has been given to the signs of nature. It was only when the spirit of God moved on the face of the deep, that order and beauty were seen in the world.

3. It is, accordingly, peculiarly well worthy of observation, that the beauty of nature, as felt in modern times, seems to have been almost unknown to the writers of antiquity. They described, occasionally, the scenes in which they dwelt; but, if we except Virgil, whose gentle mind seems to have anticipated, in this instance, the influence of the Gospel,never with any deep feeling of their beauty. Then, as now, the citadel of Athens looked upon the evening sun, and her

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temples flamed in his setting beam; but what Athenian writer ever described the matchless glories of the scene? Then, as now, the silvery clouds of the Egean sea rolled round her +verdant isles, and sported in the azure vault of heaven; but what Grecian poet has been inspired by the sight?

4. The Italian lakes spread their waves beneath a cloudless sky, and all that is lovely in nature was gathered around them; yet, even Eustace tells us, that a few detached lines is all that is left in regard to them by the Roman poets. The Alps themselves,

"The palaces of nature, whose vast walls

Have *pinnacl❜d in clouds their snowy scalps,
And thron'd eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The tavalanche-the thunderbolt of snow,"

even these, the most glorious objects which the eye of man can behold, were regarded by the ancients with sentiments only of dismay or horror; as a barrier from hostile nations, or as the dwelling of barbarous tribes. The torch of religion had not then lightened the face of nature; they knew not the language which she spoke, nor felt that holy spirit, which, to the Christian, gives the sublimity of these scenes.

5. There is something, therefore, in religious reflections on the objects or the changes of nature, which is peculiarly fitting in a Christian teacher. No man will impress them on his heart without becoming happier and better, without feeling warmer gratitude for the beneficence of nature, and deeper thankfulness for the means of knowing the Author of this beneficence which revelation has afforded. "Behold the lilies of the field," says our Savior; "they toil not, neither do they spin yet, verily I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." In these words, we perceive the deep sense which he entertained of the beauty even of the minutest works of nature. If the admiration of external objects is not directly made the object of his *precepts, it is not, on that account, the less allied to the spirit of religion; it springs from the revelation which he has made, and grows with the spirit which he inculcates.

6. The cultivation of this feeling, we may suppose, is

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