ing of Franklyn, who (he said) the Ministers had wantonly and foolishly made their enemy. An enemy so inveterate, said he, so merciless, and so implacable, that he resembles Zanga the Moor, in Young's tragedy of the “Revenge,” who at length ends his hellish plot by saying:

"I forg'd the letter, and dispos'd the picture,

I hated, I despis'd, and I destroy."

The quotation struck everyone.*

Benjamin Franklyn, who, by bringing a spark from Heaven, fulfilled the prophecies he pretended to disbelieve; Franklyn, who wrote a profane addition to the Book of Genesis, who hissed on the colonies against their parent country, who taught men to despise their Sovereign and insult their Redeemer, who did all the mischief in his power while living, and at last died, I think, in America; was beside all the rest, a plagiarist, as it appears; and the curious epitaph made on himself, and as we long believed, by himself, was, I am informed, borrowed without acknowledgment, from one upon Jacob Tonson, to whom it was more appropriate, comparing himself to an old book eaten by worms; which on some future day, however, should be new edited, after undergoing revisal and correction by the Author.

There are some exquisitely pretty stanzas, very little known, written by one Mr. Dale, upon Franklyn's

* Franklin never forgave this speech, and by making it Wedderburne aggravated the very mischief he was deprecating.

DR. FRANKLIN.-THE DUKE OF RICHMOND.

115

invention of a lamp, in which the flame was forced downward, burning in a new discovered method, contrary to nature. I had a rough copy of the verses, and they lay loose in the second volume of "Retrospection," but I suppose they dropped out, and I lost them, or they should have been written down here. I cannot trust my memory to do them justice. The first stanzas praise his philosophical powers:

"But to covet political fame,

Was in him a degrading ambition;
'Twas a spark, that from Lucifer came,
And first kindled the blaze of sedition.

"May not Candour then write on his urn,
Here alas! lies a noted inventor;
Whose flame up to Heav'n ought to burn,
But inverted, descends to the centre.”

"Like his nephew, Mr. Fox, the Duke (of Richmond) did not spare the King, when addressing the House of Lords; and he was considered as peculiarly obnoxious at St. James's.' Wraxall.

Note. He never forgave the preference given by the King's immediate advisers, when there was question of

* It is strange that she forgot to mention Turgot's famous motto for the bust of Franklin by Houdon :

"Eripuit cœlo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis.”

Franklin's own criticism on it was that the thunder remained where he found it, and that more than a million of men cooperated with him in shaking off the monarchical rule of Great Britain.

a Consort to the English Throne, where he hoped to see his beautiful sister (Lady Sarah) seated-in vain! Lord Bute was too quick in providing a much safer partner.

"Burke exclaimed, that he (Pitt) was not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself."" Wraxall.

Note. Not quite. The old block's head was beautiful, and the eyes in it brilliant with intelligence.

Note. I have seen Sheridan (the father of R. B.) on the stage in former days, acting Horatio in Rowe's "Fair Penitent," to Garrick's Lothario; but of his powers as a lecturer, Mr. Murphy gave the most ludicrous account, taking him off with incomparable powers of mimicry - quite unequalled.

Note. He (Lord Mulgrave) was a haughty spirited man, whom I should not suspect of any possible meanness, for any possible advantage. Rough as a boatswain, proud as a strong feeling of aristocracy could make him, and fond of coarse merriment, approaching to illmanners, he was in society a dangerous converser: one never knew what he would say next. "Why Holla, Burke (I heard him crying out on one occasion) What, you are rioting in puns, now Johnson is away." Burke was indignant, and ready with a reply. But Lord Mulgrave drowned all in storms of laughter.

In reference to the "Optat Ephippia Bos piger" story

of Lord Falmouth and Pitt, told by Wraxall, she writes:

I have heard my father relate the story somewhat differently, but in substance the same. He said some wag chalked the words on his (Lord Falmouth's) door, and that, seeing them, he exclaimed, "he would give 100l. to know who wrote them." The first friend he met said, “Give me the money, Horace wrote them." Then comes the next mistake, "Horace! a dog, after all his obligations to me," &c.*

A similar story to this was related to me in Italy. Cardinal Zanelli was pasquinaded at Rome for his ingratitude to the Dauphin of France, whose influence, exerted in his favour, had procured him the dignity of Eminenza. Zanelli's coat armour was a vine; the statue exhibited these words:

"Plantavi Vineam, et fecit labruscas."

The enraged Cardinal, little skilled in Scripture learning, actually promised a reward to whoever would tell who wrote it. Next day Pasquin claimed the reward for himself, having marked under the words, 40th chapter of Isaiah.

Note. In this memorable year, 1782, the "Atlas" man-of-war was launched, a three-decker of eminent beauty. We all know that the figure at the ship's head corresponds with the name, and I was informed that

* i. e. Horace Walpole. Lord Falmouth's family name was Boscawen, and he had just been soliciting the Garter.

Hercules's substitute was a most magnificent fellow, fit to support the globe. When, however, they came to ship her bowsprit, he stood so high, that something was found necessary to be done; and the rough carpenter, waiting no orders, cut part of the globe away which stood upon the hero's shoulders. When it was examined afterwards, the part lost to our possession was observed to be America. Sailors remarked the accident as ominous, and the event has not tended to lessen their credulity.

When Montcalm was dying of his wounds in the great battle which deprived us of General Wolfe, "Well, well!" said he, "England has torn North America from us, but she will one day tear herself from the mother country. Once free from the French yoke, she will endure no other."

My father said those were his very words: my father died in the year 1762, but he always predicted American Independence.

"During his elder brother's life, when only Lord. Harry Powlett, he (the Duke of Bolton) had served in the royal navy, where, however, he acquired no laurels, and he was commonly supposed to be the Captain Whiffle' pourtrayed by Smollet, in his Roderick Random.""-Wraxall.

Note. I don't know whether this Lord Harry Powlett, or an uncle of his wearing the same name, was the person of whom my mother used to relate a ludicrous anecdote. Some lady with whom she had been well acquainted, and to whom his lordship was observed to