Franklin died placidly on the 17th of April, 1790, in the eighty-fifth
year of his age, and his body was followed to the grave by most of the
prominent citizens of Philadelphia in the presence of twenty thousand
spectators. James Madison pronounced his eulogy in Congress, and
Mirabeau in the French National Assembly, while the most eminent
literary men in both Europe and America published elaborate essays on
his deeds and fame, recognizing the extent of his knowledge, the breadth
of his wisdom, his benevolence, his patriotism, and his moral worth. He
modestly claimed to be only a printer, but who, among the great lights
of his age, with the exception of Washington, has left a nobler record?

AUTHORITIES.

Mr. James Parton has, I think, written the most interesting and
exhaustive life of Franklin, although it is not artistic and is full of
unimportant digressions. Sparks has collected most of his writings,
which are rather dull reading. The autobiography of Franklin was never
finished,--a unique writing, as frank as the "Confessions" of Rousseau.
A good biography is the one by Morse, in the series of "American
Statesmen" which he is editing. Not a very complimentary view of
Franklin is taken by McMaster, in the series of "American Men of
Letters." See also Bancroft's "United States."

GEORGE WASHINGTON

1732-1799

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

One might shrink from writing on such a subject as General Washington
were it not desirable to keep his memory and deeds perpetually fresh in
the minds of the people of this great country, of which he is called the
Father,--doubtless the most august name in our history, and one of the
grandest in the history of the world.

Washington was not, like Franklin, of humble origin; neither can he
strictly be classed with those aristocrats who inherited vast landed
estates in Virginia during the eighteenth century, and who were
ambitious of keeping up the style of living common to wealthy country
gentlemen in England at that time. And yet the biographers of Washington
trace his family to the knights and squires who held manors by grant of
kings and nobles of England, centuries ago. About the middle of the
seventeenth century John and Lawrence Washington, two brothers, of a
younger branch of the family, both Cavaliers who had adhered to the
fortunes of Charles I., emigrated to Virginia, and purchased extensive
estates in Westmoreland County, between the Potomac and the Rappahanno