128 EOSENGAETEN — FEANKLI2TS BAGATELLES. [May 17, 



the property of any European letter founder, manufactuier or mer- 

 chant whatsoever." Bigelow also gives at the same place a trans- 

 lation of a letter from Mine. Helvetius to Franklin, dated July, 

 1787, and the original from the Franklin Papers in the American 

 Philosophical Society. In the collection in Washington, the 

 remains of that of William Temple Franklin, rescued by Stevens 

 from oblivion, are the two manuscript "Bagatelles" on Per- 

 fumes and on Marriage ; these were reprinted by Stevens in 

 handsome style in London in 1881, copies on vellum were also 

 produced. Henry Stevens fondly imagined that his copy of the 

 supplement to the Boston Chronicle was unique, but the collection 

 of the Philosophical Society shows that both Stevens and Ford 

 were ignorant of the extent of the Franklin papers preserved here, 

 now in process of careful examination, and likely to add to the 

 material for a better knowledge of Franklin's literary activity. 



Even Mr. Ford's exhaustive Bibliography, as the author admits, 

 does not give us all that Franklin wrote and printed, nor all of the 

 numerous republications. Franklin himself, it is said, corrected 

 the proofs of Vaughan's edition of his works, printed in London in 

 1779, but after that date he wrote and printed many of his cleverest 

 skits. In a book published in Paris in 1818, Correspondence 

 Secrete, Franklin, in a letter to Mrs. Thompson, dated Paris, 

 February 8, 1777, speaks of " Ces Bagatelles," so it must have 

 been even then a favorite word with him. In the same volume 

 there is a note to the "Bagatelle," Visite aux Cha?nps Ely see, 

 addressed to Mme. Helvetius: " Cette lettrea ete ecrite en francais 

 par Franklin. >' 



The extent of Franklin's knowledge of how to speak and 

 write French accurately has frequently been discussed, and he 

 certainly availed himself of a good deal of license in his pretended 

 Letter from the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, although of course 

 the joke was a good deal heightened by pretending that that German 

 Prince was no better master of the French language than Franklin. 

 It is of this skit that Franklin wrote, on May 1, 1777, to John 

 Winthrop (the Professor of Natural History in Harvard): "I 

 send enclosed one of the many satires that have appeared on 

 this occasion " — i. e., the conduct of those Princes of Germany 

 who have sold the blood of their people to Great Britain to 

 be used in opposing the Americans in their effort to achieve 

 their independence. It is a curious coincidence that in this 



