HKB
activities in science, his interest in balloons, and investigation of Mesmerism. See reviews in Dial, VIII, 7, IX, 204; Nation, XLIV, 368; Athenaeum, II, 77 [1887]; Atlantic Monthly, LX, 318.)
McMaster, J. B. Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters. American Men of Letters series. Boston: 1887. (Fullest account of this aspect of the many-minded Franklin. See also MacLaurin and Jorgenson items, pp. clxv, clxvi below.)
More, P. E. Benjamin Franklin. Riverside Biographical Series. Boston: 1900. (Suggestive of a précis of Parton's Life with judicial, if not historical, penetration. Stimulating notes, such as the following: Franklin was "a great pagan, who lapsed now and then into the pseudo-religious platitudes of the eighteenth-century deists.")
Morse, John Torrey, Jr. Benjamin Franklin. American Statesmen series. Boston: 1889. (Compact account stressing his political and diplomatic career.)
Parton, James. Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. 2 vols. New York: 1864. (Although not all works ascribed to Franklin by Parton are by his pen, and although new materials have been added to the Franklin canon, he remains the most encyclopedic and often the most penetrating of Franklin's biographers. He deserves credit for printing in an appendix Franklin's _Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. For reviews see *North American Review_ [July, 1864]; Atlantic Monthly [Sept., 1864]; London Quarterly, XXIII, 483; Littell's Living Age, LXXXIV, 289.)
Russell, Phillips. Benjamin Franklin, the First Civilised American. New York: 1926. (The esprit and readableness of this popular work do not offset its lack of precision, historical scholarship, and taste.)
Smyth, Albert H. "Life of Benjamin Franklin," in Vol. X, 141-510, of The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. (Stimulating survey.)
Swift, Lindsay. Benjamin Franklin. Beacon Biographies of Eminent Americans. Boston: 1910. (Brief series of biographical "impressions" arranged chronologically.)
Weems, Mason L. The Life of Benjamin Franklin, with many Choice Anecdotes and Admirable Sayings of this Great Man. Baltimore: 1815. (One would think it unfair to smile at a writer who had the wit to describe Franklin as one who "with such equal ease, could play the Newton or the Chesterfield, and charm alike the lightnings and the ladies." Contains some imaginative, though intuitive, remarks on Franklin's religion.)
IV. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES
Abbe, C. "Benjamin Franklin as Meteorologist," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, XLV, 117-28 (1906). ("Worthy co-laborer" with Newton, Huygens, Descartes, Boyle, and Gay-Lussac. He is "the first meteorologist of America," "pioneer of the rational long-range forecasters.")
Abbot, G. M. A Short History of the Library Company of Philadelphia: Compiled from the Minutes, together with some personal reminiscences. Philadelphia: 1913.
Amiable, L. Une loge maçonnique d'avant 1789. La R.·. L.·. Les Neuf Sœurs. Paris: 1897. (Fullest account of Franklin's activities in French Freemasonry.)
Analectic Magazine, XI, 449-84 (June, 1818). (Review of W. T. Franklin's edition of Franklin's works. Complexion of this eulogy suggested by: "His name is now exalted in Europe above any others of the eighteenth century.")
Angoff, Charles. A Literary History of the American People. New York: 1931. II, 295-310. (It would be difficult to match the debonair ignorance of this violently hostile essay.)
"A Poem on the Death of Franklin," Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society, XV, 109 (Jan., 1930). (A typical elegy based on theme suggested by Turgot's epigram on Franklin.)
Bache, R. M. "Smoky Torches in Franklin's Honor," Critic, XLVIII, 561-6 (June, 1906). (Charming in its caustic though just view that "articles on Franklin have verged on superfluity.")
Bache, R. M. "The So-Called 'Franklin Prayer-Book,'" Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XXI, 225-34 (1897). (See Rev. John Wright's account of the same in Early Prayer Books of America [St. Paul: 1896], pp. 386-99.)
Biddison, P. "The Magazine Franklin Failed to Remember," American Literature, IV, 177-80 (May, 1932). (Survey of the Franklin-Webbe altercation concerning the inauguration of Franklin's General Magazine, and Historical Chronicle ..., 1741.)
Bigelow, John. "Franklin as the Man," Independent, LX, 69-72 (Jan. 11, 1906). (Stresses his tolerance, common sense, and "constitutional unwillingness to dogmatize.")