popular and odious. This had a good effect: and afterwards when a great body of them with arms marched towards the capital, in defiance of the government, with an avowed resolution to put to death one hundred and forty Indian converts then under its protection, I formed an association at the governor's request, for his and their defence, we having no militia. Near 1000 of the citizens accordingly took arms; governor Penn made my house for some time his head-quarters, and did every thing by my advice; so that for about forty-eight hours, I was a very great man; as I had been once some years before, in a time of public danger. But the fighting-face we put on, and the reasonings we used with the insurgents, (for I went at the request of the governor and council, with three others, to meet and discourse them) having turned them back and restored quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever: for I had by this transaction made myself many enemies among the populace; and the governor (with whose family our public disputes had long placed me in an unfriendly light, and the services I had lately rendered him not being of the kind that make a man acceptable) thinking it a favourable opportunity, joined the whole weight of the proprietary interest to get me out of the assembly; which was accordingly effected at the last election, by a majority of about twenty-five in 4000 voters. The house however, when they met in October, approved of the resolutions taken, while I was speaker, of petitioning the crown for a change of government, and requested me to return to England, to prosecute that petition; which service I accordingly undertook, and embarked the beginning of November last, being accompanied to the ship, sixteen miles, by a cavalcade of three hundred of my friends, who filled our sails with their good wishes, and I arrived in thirty days at London. Here I have been ever since, engaged in that and other public affairs relating to America, which are like to continue some time longer upon my hands; but I promise you that when I am quit of these, I will engage in no other; and that as soon as I have recovered the ease and leisure I hope for,

the task you require of me, of finishing my Art of Virtué, shall be performed. In the mean time, I must request you would excuse me on tl:is consideration, that the powers of the mind, are possessed by different men in different degrees, and that every one cannot, like lord Kames, intermix literary pursuits and important business without prejudice to either.

I send you herewith two or three other pamphlets of my writing on our political affairs, during my short residence in America; but I do not insist on your reading them; for I know you employ all your time to some useful purpose.

In my passage to America, I read your excellent work The Elements of Criticism, in which I found great entertainment: much to admire and nothing to reprove. I only wished you had examined more fully the subject of music, and demonstrated, that the pleasure which artists feel, in hearing much of that compiled in the modern taste, is not the natural pleasure arising from melody or harmony of sounds, but of the same kind with the pleasure we feel on seeing the surprising feats of tumblers and rope-dancers who execute difficult things. For my part, I take this to be really the case, and suppose it the reason why those, who being unpractised in music, and therefore unacquaiated with those difficulties, have little or no pleasure in hearing this music. Many pieces of it are mere compositions of tricks. I have sometimes at a concert, attended by a common audience, placed myself so as to see all their faces, and observed no signs of pleasure during the performance of much that was admired by the performers themselves; while a plain old Scottish tune, which they disdained, and could scarcely be prevailed upon to play, gave manifest and general delight. Give me leave on this occasion to extend a little the sense of your position, that “Melody and harmony are separately agreeable, and in union delightful," and to give it as my opinion that the reason why the Scottish tunes have lived so long, and will probably live forever (if they escape being stifled in modern affected ornament,) is merely this, that they are really compsitions of meVOL. VI.

I

lody, and harmony united, or rather that their melody is har mony, I mean the simple tunes, sung by a single voice. As this will appear paradoxical, I must explain my meaning, In common acceptation indeed, only an agreeable succession of sounds is called melody; and only the co-existence of agreeing sounds, harmony. But since the memory is capable of retaining for some moments a perfect idea of the pitch of a past sound, so as to compare with it the pitch of a preceding sound, and judge truly of their agreement or disagreement, there may and does from thence arise a sense of harmony between present and past sounds, equally pleasing with that between two present sounds. Now the construction of the old Scotch tunes is this, that almost every preceding emphatical note, is a third, a fifth, an octave, or in short some note that is in concord with the preceding note. Thirds are chiefly used, which are very pleasing concords. I use the word emphatical, to distinguish those notes, which have a stress laid on them in singing the tune, from the lighter connecting notes, that serve merely like grammar articles to tack the others together. That we have a most perfect idea of sounds just past, I might appeal to all unacquainted with music, who know how easy it is to repeat a sound in the same pitch with one just heard. In tuning an instrument, a good ear can as easily determine that two strings are in unison, by sounding them separately, as by sounding them together; their disagreement is also as easily perceived. I believe I may say, more easily and better distinguished when sounded separately: for when sounded together, though you know by the beating, that one is higher than the other, you cannot tell which it is. Farther, when we consider by whom these ancient tunes were composed, and how they were first performed, we shall see that such harmonical succession of sounds was natural and even necessary in their construction. They were composed by the minstrels of those days, to be played on the harp accompanied by the voice. The harp was strung with wi had no contrivance, like that in the modern hich the sound of a preceding note could a succeeding note began; to avoid actual

harr

be

discord, it was therefore necessary, that the preceding emphatic note, should be a chord with the preceding, as those sounds must exist at the same time. Hence arose that beauty in those tunes that has so long pleased, and will please for ever, though men scarce know why. That they were originally composed for the harp, and of the most simple kind,— I mean a harp without any half notes, but those in the ǹatural scale, and with no more than two octaves of strings from C to C, I conjecture, from another circumstance, which is, that not one of those tunes really ancient has a single artificial half note in it; and that in tunes, where it was most convenient for the voice to use the middle note of the harp, and place the key in F, there the B, which, if used should be a B flat, is always omitted by passing over it with a third. The connoisseurs in modern music, will say,--I have no taste; but I cannot help adding, that I believe our ancestors in hearing a good song distinctly articulated, sung to one of those tunes, and accompanied by the harp, felt more real pleasure than is communicated by the generality of modern operas, exclusive of that arising from the scenery and dancing. Most tunes of late composition, not having the natural harmony united with their melody, have recourse to the artificial harmony of a bass, and other accompanying parts. This support, in my opinion, the old tunes do not need, and are rather confused than aided by it. Whoever has heard James Oswald play them on his violincello, will be less inclined to dispute this with me. I have more than once seen tears of pleasure in the eyes of his auditors; and yet I think, even his playing those tunes would please more, if he gave them less modern ornament.

My son, when we parted, desired me to present his affectionate respects to you, lady Kames, and your amiable children; be so good, with those, to accept mine, and believe me with the sincerest esteem, my dear lord, &c.

B. FRANKLIN. PS. I promise myself the pleasure of seeing you and my other friends in Scotland before I return to America.

MY DEAR LORD,

To the same.s

London, April 11, 1767.

I RECEIVED your obliging favour of January the 19th. You have kindly relieved me from the pain I had long been under. You are goodness itself. I ought to have answered yours of December 25, 1765. I never received a letter that contained sentiments more suitable to my own. It found me under much agitation of mind on the very important subject it treated. It fortified me greatly in the judgment I was inclined to form (though contrary to the general vogue) on the then delicate and critical situation of affairs between Great Britain and the colonies, and on that weighty point, their union. You guessed aright in supposing that I would not be a mute in that play. I was extremely busy, attending members of both houses, informing, explaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning to night, till the affair was happily ended. During the course of its being called before the house of commons, I spoke my mind pretty freely. Inclosed, I send you the imperfect account that was taken of that examination: you will there see how entirely we agree, except in a point of fact, of which you could not but be misinformed; the papers at that time being full of mistaken assertions, that the colonies had been the cause of the war, and had ungratefully refused to bear any part of the expense of it. I send it you now, because I apprehend some late accidents are likely to revive the contest between the two countries. I fear it will be a mischievous one. It becomes a matter of great importance, that clear ideas should be formed on solid principles, both in Britain and America, of the true political relation between them, and the mutual duties belong

* Lord Kames had written to Dr. Franklin as early as 1765, when the first advices reached England of the disorders occasioned by the attempts to carry the stamp act into execution; and he had written a second letter to him on the same subject in the beginning of 1767. This is a copy of Dr. Franklin's answer to these letters.