I907.1 ROSENGARTEN— ALBERT HENRY SMITH. vii 



was, quite as much as admiration for his gifts and talents and the 

 good use he made of them, that made him hosts of friends and en- 

 deared him to them. 



Mr. John Bigelow, the leading authority on Franklin and the man 

 who rescued the original MS. of the famous Autobiography from 

 oblivion, wrote of Professor Smyth's Franklin, " The develop- 

 ment of the scientific side of Franklin will be new to the general 

 reader, and the lack of it was perhaps the most conspicuous de- 

 ficiency of all previous collections," and again on the completion 

 of the work, '' Your collection of the literary remains of Franklin 

 constitutes in my judgment one of the most faithful, conscientious 

 and thorough pieces of editorial work with which our literature has 

 been enriched. It places . the crown of glory upon the fame of 

 Franklin which no one will ever dare or desire to displace." Such 

 praise from such a man as John Bigelow, himself the foremost 

 exponent of Franklin literature, was indeed grateful. 



Of all the many and touching obituary notices of Professor 

 Smyth, the most eloquent was that of William Winter, in the New 

 York Tribune of May fifth, the day after Professor Smyth's death. 

 Winter himself is a Shakespearian scholar, a poet and a man of 

 letters, — he had great sympathy with his younger brother in litera- 

 ture, and it is admirably shown in his biographical and critical 

 sketch. I am sure it will be welcomed by all who knew Professor 

 Smyth and admired his gifts. 



" Albert Henry Smyth.^ 



" One of the noblest minds, one of the gentlest spirits, one of the 

 most auspicious lives in American literature, passes from this world, 

 in the death of Albert Henry Smyth, which befell yesterday morn- 

 ing in Philadelphia. To those who intimately knew him the news 

 of this sudden bereavement brings with it a shock so dreadful as 

 almost to paralyze thought and make any sort of commemorative 

 word impossible. He was in the prime of life : he was in the 

 affluence of enjoyment and hope : he had just completed and pub- 

 lished his superb edition of the works of Franklin, together with 

 his Life of that statesman : the echoes of his oratorical triumph at 

 Paris, where he spoke, at the international unveiling of the statue 

 of the great philosopher, had not died away : he had gained an un- 



^ New York Daily Tribune, Sunday, May 5, 1907. 2nd Edition. 



