132 ROSENGARTEN — FRANKLIN'S BAGATELLES. [May 17, 



and Mme. Brillon ; these were apparently carefully studied by 

 Franklin, who noted the variances and chose carefully the version 

 printed at his own press, and afterwards by his grandson, Temple 

 Franklin, in what may be called the authoritative edition of his 

 works. Some of them were printed in Vaughan's London edition 

 of his writings, of which he is said to have corrected the proofs. 

 Some of them were printed in the editions of his writings issued 

 in Paris soon after his death. All of them (with the exception of 

 the two still preserved in manuscript in Washington, and printed 

 by Stevens in London and reprinted in Paris) are in Sparks and 

 Bigelow's editions, and a long list of reproductions fills a good 

 many entries in Ford's Franklin Bibliography. 



In his True Benjamin Franklin, p. 155, Mr. Fisher says : " He has 

 himself told us of the source of one of his best short essays, The 

 Ephemera, a beautiful little allegory, which he wrote to please Mme. 

 Brillon in Paris. In a letter to William Carmichael, of June 1 7, 1 780 

 (Bigelow's Life of Franklin, Vol. 2, p. 509), he describes the circum- 

 stances under which it was written, and says that " the thought was 

 partly taken from a little piece of some unknown writer, which I met 

 with fifty years since in a newspaper." And at p. 327 Mr. Fisher 

 says : " For Mme. Brillon Franklin wrote some of his most famous 

 essays, The Morals of Chess, The Dialogue between Franklin and 

 the Gout, The Story of the Whistle, The Handsome and De- 

 formed Leg, and the Petition of the Left Hand," and he again 

 refers to the letter to Carmichael, in which Franklin writes : " En- 

 closed I send you the little piece you desire [The Ephemera]. To 

 understand it rightly, you should be acquainted with some few 

 circumstances. The person to whom it was addressed is Madame 

 Brillon, a lady of most respectable character and pleasing conver- 

 sation, mistress of an amiable family in this neighborhood, with 

 which I spend an evening twice in every week. She has, among 

 other elegant accomplishments, that of an excellent musician, and 

 with her daughter, who sings prettily, and some friends who play, 

 she kindly entertains me and my grandson with little concerts, a 

 cup of tea, and a game of chess. I call this my opera ; fori rarely 

 go to the opera in Paris. The Moulin Joli is a little island in the 

 Seine, about two leagues hence, part of the country seat of another 

 friend, where we visit every summer, and spend a day in the 

 pleasing society of the ingenious, learned and very polite persons 

 who inhabit it. At the time when the letter was written, all con- 



