192 



His scientific papers are written in a style peculiar to their 

 author — lucid, convincing, never wearisome. "A singular feli- 

 city of induction guided all his researches, and by very small 

 means he established very grand truths. The style and manner 

 of his publications on electricity are almost as worthy of admi- 

 ration as the doctrine they contain. He has endeavored to re- 

 move all mystery and obscurity from the subject. He has 

 written equally for the uninitiated and for the philosopher ; and 

 be has rendered his details amusing and perspicuous, elegant as 

 well as simple. Science appears, in his language, in a dress 

 wonderfully decorous, best adapted to display her native love- 

 liness. He has in no instance exhibited that false dignity by 

 which philosophy is kept aloof from common applications; 

 and he has sought rather to make her a useful inmate and ser- 

 vant in the common habitations of man, than to preserve her 

 merely as an object of admiration in temples and palaces." * 



Perhaps the most judicious estimate of Franklin's qualities 

 as a man of letters is that by John Foster in the Eclectic 

 Review for 1818. 



" It is unnecessary to remark," he writes, " that Franklin 

 was not so much a man of books as of affairs ; but he was not 

 the less for that a speculative man. Every concern became an 

 intellectual subject to a mind so acutely and perpetually atten- 

 tive to the relation of cause and effect. For enlargement of 

 his sphere of speculation, his deficiency of literature, in the 

 usual sense of the term, was excellently compensated by so 

 wide an acquaintance with the world and with distinguished 

 individuals of all ranks, professions and attainments. It 

 may be, however, that a more bookish and contemplative 

 employment of some portion of his life would have left one 

 deficiency of his mental character less palpable. There appears 



* Sir Humphrey Davy. 



