not meet again till the 7th of January. Mr. Peters took care of the Latin and Greek School after Mr. Martin' s death till the breaking up. And Mr. Allison, a dissenting minister, has promised to continue that care for a month after their next meeting. Is it impossible for you to make us a visit in that time? I hope by the next post to know something of your sentiments, that I may be able to speak more positively to the Trustees concerning the probability of your being prevailed with to remove hither.
The English master is Mr. Dove, a gentleman about your age, who formerly taught grammar sixteen years at Chichester in England. He is an excellent master, and his scholars have made a surprising progress.
I shall send some of the "Œconomies" to Mr. Havens per next post. If you have a spare one of your "Essays on the Method of Study," the English edition, please to send it me.
My wife joins in the compliments of the season to you and Mrs. Johnson, with, dear Sir,
Your affectionate humble servant,
B. FRANKLIN.
DR. JOHNSON TO MR. FRANKLIN.
(From Dr. Johnson's Draft.)
DEAR SIR, I now write my most thankful acknowledgments for your two kind letters of December 24 and January 8, and have received your most obliging letters of the summer before last, to which you refer me. There was one of August 23, to which I did not make a particular reply by reason of my illness at that time. In that you reasoned, I own, in a very forcible manner upon the head of duty. You argued that ability, with opportunity, manifestly pointed out duty, as though it were a voice from Heaven. This, Sir, I agree to, and therefore have always endeavored to use what little ability I have that way in the best manner I could, having never been without pupils of one sort or other half year at a time, and seldom that, for thirty-eight years. And, thank God, I have the great satisfaction to see some of them in the first pulpits, not only in Connecticut, but also in Boston and New York, and others in some of the first places in the land. But I am now plainly in the decline of life, both as to activity of body and vigor of mind, and must, therefore, consider myself as being an Emeritus, and unfit for any new situation in the world or to enter on any new business, especially at such a distance from my hitherto sphere of action and my present situation, where I have as much duty on my hands as I am capable of and where my removal would make too great a breach to be countervailed by any good I am capable of doing elsewhere, for which I have but a small chance left for much opportunity. So that I must beg my good friends at Philadelphia to excuse me, and I pray God they may be directed to a better choice . And as Providence has so unexpectedly provided so
