case of success, that I would gladly contribute something to the Washington Monument, which, let us hope, will never be completed.

There was time enough between this and five o'clock to go to the Legation, but small chance of finding Mr. Dix there. So I went to the consulate and offered David to pay his passage and expenses if he would go with B. F. to London to-night. David would gladly but could not; had infrangible pre-engagements for this evening; I almost found, but missed another man, who would, it was thought, take charge of the box and surely deliver it Sunday, for 50 francs. During these entrefaites, four o'clock sounded. At one quarter past, the caisse was on the back of Legoupy's boy following your servant up the Boulevard. The very best I could do at the R. and express office was to obtain the most positive assurance, that a special messenger should take the box from Cannon Street to Cleveland Square before noon on Monday. There is no delivery at any price on Sunday. I was on the point of deciding - what I had been debating ever since morning to take a go and return ticket and carry box and baggage to London myself. But you know how I hate travelling at all times. On leaving the express office, I passed a brief telegrammatic sentence to your address,

through the window of Grand Hotel T. bureau. The gentleman who counted its letters estimated them at 6 francs, which is more, proportionately, than what you paid for B. F.'s MSS. and flattering to me. If I am ever able, I shall set up a telegraph wire, and dance on to fortune.

Although my ways along the quais and other marts where books do congregate, are not as they were when you were my fellow pilgrim, yet are they still not all without pleasantness. Thus, coming away from my annual visit to the neuvaine fête of Ste. Genevieve three weeks ago, I fell upon the rummest bronze medallion of B. Franklin (hitherto quite unheard of by this subscriber) that ever you could conceive of. And yet another day, one of those days lapsed last week from the polar circles into the more temperate society of our Paris time, I clutched with numb fingers a diminutive little 4to of pp. 48 with this title: "La Science du Bonhomme Richard par M. Franklin: suivé des dix commandements de l'Honnête Homme, par M. Fintry- - prix quatre sols. Se vend à Paris, chez Renault, Libraire, Rue de la Harpe. —1778." So, another day, was all my homeward walk a path of exceeding peace by reason of the primary, preadamite, genuine, juvenile, original Eloge de Franklin hugged under my

arm, like healing in the wing. But the half of the enjoyment of these good gifts of fortune fails me, in that I have no one now to congratulate me or hate me for their acquisition.

M. de Senarmont promises me a letter giving the historique of the triad of Franklin treasures, from the time of M. le Veillard to his possession of them. It will not amount to much, - not from lack of willingness on his part, but because the special sense is wanting in him. A dry authenticating certificate, however, I will insist on having, and will forward it to your American address, which do not forget to advertise me of from Liverpool or London.

M. de S. asks me to ask you, if you have the Duplessis photographed, to send him two or three cards; please add one other or two for me, since you will be apt to send them to my address. I shall be glad to have word from you, though in your flitting hurry it must be brief, from London, and much gladder to have news from America that you and yours are all safely and soundly arrived there.

With best regards and good wishes to all your house, I rest

Yours truly,

W. H. HUNTINGTON.

Here followeth an account of ye expenditures, outlays, and disbursements of ye Franklin Expedition.

To a chariot and ye horseman thereof. Hire of the vehicles and pourboire, as it were oats to the driver for the greater speed....

FRANCS

5

To packing B. Franklin under glass and in MSS. with extra haste and yet care. . . .

9

To the binding of B. F. on a boy his back and porterage of the same...

To studiously brief telegrammatic phrase sent to London....

6

To arduous sperrits (with water) taken for sustentation of the body thys day.....

0.50

21.50

Condamned tottle.....

The certificate given by M. de Senarmont to Mr. Bigelow accounts for the existence of the manuscript in France. And bad as the circumstances seem upon their face, they are easily explicable. William Temple Franklin, when he came to prepare the Autobiography for the press, seems to have found it none too legible. Recalling, therefore, that a fair copy, perhaps made by his own hand, had been sent to M. le Veillard, he wrote to the latter asking him to give him this fair copy for the greater convenience of the printer, and offering him in return the original autograph manuscript of Franklin. To this M. le Veillard quite naturally agreed, and so the original manu

script passed into his hands. Returning triumphantly to America with the autograph manuscript of the Autobiography, a still greater triumph awaited Mr. Bigelow when he found time to read it critically. He then discovered that the text as printed by William Temple Franklin contained twelve hundred distinct deviations from the autograph original, nearly all of them the obvious result of a painstaking but ill-advised effort to chasten Franklin's virile and picturesque prose. We have, for a single example, in the edition of 1817 the correct but drab phrase, "stared with astonishment," where Franklin had written, "stared like a pig poisoned." Mr. Bigelow also verified Mr. Huntington's statement that the autograph manuscript contained a fourth part of the Autobiography, some pages in length, which was not included in the edition of 1817. Apparently William Temple Franklin, in his concern for the ease of the printer, had traded the autograph manuscript without going to the trouble of reading it, and so was unaware that it was more complete than the one he received in return.

This is the history of the authentic text of Franklin's Autobiography so far as it is a matter of approved record. A host of provocative questions still await a convincing answer: Who was the