126 EOSENGAETEN — FEANKLIN'S BAGATELLES. [May 17, 



In that collection there are the original manuscripts of two of the 

 "Bagatelles;" there are others in the American Philosophical 

 Society, reproduced in the earlier pages of this paper. With these 

 exceptions, nothing is known of the fate of the original manuscripts 

 of the others of this interesting series of Franklin's papers. 



Sparks prints in the second volume of his works of Franklin seven- 

 teen of them, the first of them, The Levee, with a note by William 

 Temple Franklin: "This was one of several articles written by 

 Franklin for the amusement of his friends, and found in a port- 

 folio endorsed ' Bagatelles.' " 



Bigelow prints, in Vol. 6 of his works of Franklin, The Ephemera, 

 an Emblem of Human Life, addressed to Mme. Brillon ; The 

 Whistle, addressed to Mme. Brillon, and others of these " Baga- 

 telles." There is an original draft of part of the second, in Frank- 

 lin's handwriting, in Vol. 50 of the Franklin Papers in the Philo- 

 sophical Society's collection. 



Ford, in his Bibliography, says: "Of the ' Bagatelles ' printed 

 by Franklin on the press which he set up in his house at Passy, only 

 one, so far as I can learn, No. 345 [the fictitious supplement to the 

 Boston Chronicle~], has been preserved, and so my authority for 

 giving such editions of The Ephemera, The Whistle, the Dialogue 

 between Franklin and the Gout, and Advice to Those Who Would 

 Remove to America, is derived from the statement of the editor of 

 The Way to Wealth, Paris, 1795." 



Mr. Ford's best contribution is his long list of reproductions 

 of these "Bagatelles," e. g., The Whistle, in Burlington in 

 1792, at Paris in 1795, Newcastle, 1810 and 1818 ; Paris, 1831. 

 As to his statement that only one original copy of any of the 

 "Bagatelles" is known, it may be said that the large and little 

 known collection of the Philosophical Society has the printed 

 originals of La Belle et la Mauvaise Jambe, Passy, 1779, one °f 

 the "Bagatelles," and of the supplement to the Boston Chron- 

 icle, in two editions, one with, the other without the John Paul 

 Jones letter. This is the famous skit in which there is a pre- 

 tended proclamation by the British offering rewards for scalps 

 of whites; it is an answer to a similar production issued in 

 England, only with the parts reversed ; it had a great vogue, 

 and was reproduced throughout Europe and America, just as 

 was Franklin's pretended letter of the Elector of Hesse-Cassel. 

 "Undoubtedly these were both prepared with a view of influ- 



