IV ROSENGARTEN— ALBERT HENRY SMITH. 



[May 17 



cal and economical, of his satires and bagatelles and of his multi- 

 farious correspondence. With all his zeal and admiration for Frank- 

 lin, and his ability in so many directions, scientific, economic, poli- 

 tical, diplomatic, financial and social. Professor Smyth put a proper 

 limit and restriction upon the reproduction of some of Franklin's 

 writings, as unfitted for the public of today, and of some public 

 papers wrongly attributed to Franklin or that have lost their 

 value and interest. What he gives shows Franklin at his best, and 

 justifies that admiration of him as a man and a philosopher, as a 

 statesman and a diplomatist, which has made Franklin's fame world 

 v/ide. 



Smyth's Franklin is a work of great and lasting value, it is the 

 definitive edition of his writings, for the editor gave to it the best 

 results of modern literary canons as to the right way to edit the 

 writings of so marked and individual a man as Franklin. In these 

 days of sound historical methods, and in absolute adhesion to the 

 fixed rule to give the words of the original text of letters and other 

 writings. Professor Smyth edited Franklin's Writings, with a 

 fidelity that commends his edition to all students. The Index, that 

 trying test for all editors, is so complete and exhaustive that an 

 inquirer can easily find every item of Franklin's multifarious writ- 

 ings under subject, place, correspondent or other proper heading. 

 Professor Smyth unburied the earliest of Franklin's writings, the 

 newspaper articles which first revealed his remarkable ability, fol- 

 lowed his many notable publications, illuminated his widely scattered 

 correspondence by judicious notes, compressing in many of them in 

 a few lines, the result of many and far reaching investigations. 

 He showed critical care alike in exclusion, inclusion and explana- 

 tion. 



His '' Life of Franklin " was all too short, and he had planned 

 to use his large knowledge in the preparation of a Life of Franklin, 

 free from the restraint of space prescribed by the publishers of his 

 *' Franklin's Writings," and in it he would have used that intimate 

 knowledge of Franklin which he showed in frequent addresses, in 

 some magazine articles, and in lectures, and particularly in his 

 masterly and eloquent oration on the unveiling of the statue of 

 Franklin in Paris, the work of a Philadelphia artist, Boyle, the 



