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194 have written. I shall take care to forward your letter to Mr. Miller by a vessel that sails next week. I proposed to have sent one of the books to Mr. Cave, but as it may possibly be a disappointment to Mr. Miller if Cave should print it, I shall forbear, and only send two or three to some particular friends. I thank you for your information concerning the author of the dialogues. I had been misinformed; but saw with concern in the public papers last year, an article of news relating that one Mr. Fordyce, 21 the ingenious author of Dialogues on Education, perished by shipwreck on the coast of Holland, on returning home from his tour to Italy. The sermon on the "Eloquence of the Pulpit" is ascribed in the Review si August, 1752, to Mr. James Fordyce, Minister at Brechin. I am, with great esteem, Sir, your most humble servant B. Franklin. By the first of June, Smith was in Philadelphia with his young pupils whom he placed at the Academy. His satisfaction on this occasion in witnessing the fruits of the faithful work of the Trustees and Masters found expression in A POEM on visiting the ACADEMY of Philadelphia, June, 1753, [of two hundred and seventy lines, bearing on the title page Virgil's lines as the legend:] Inventas qui Vitam excoluere per Artes; Quique fui memores alios fecere merendo; Omnibus bis nivea cinguntur Jempora Vitia. His letter of Dedication bears date 5 June, and addresses the Trustees: Gentlemen. Having receiv'd the intensest Satisfaction in visiting your Academy, and examining some of its higher Classes, I cou' d not be easy 'till I had testify' d that Satisfaction in the most public Manner. The undeserv'd Notice many of you were pleas' d to take of Me during my Short Stay in your City, and the Honor the Academy (when I first went into it) did me in making one of the Youth Speak a Copy of Verses, which I lately wrote to promote the Interest of Science in a neighboring Province, might claim my most grateful Acknowledgments. But what I now offer is a Tribute paid to Merit of a more public Nature. A few private Gentlemen of this City have, in the Space of two or three Years, projected, begun, and carried to surprizing Perfection, a very noble Institution; and an Institution of that Kind too, which, in other Countries, has scarce made such a 21 David Fordyce lost at sea, 1751, brother of James. As natives of Aberdeen, these brothers may have been personally known to William Smith; hence the present reference. Both received their education at the University of Aberdeen, and David was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy in Marischall College in 1 742, the year subsequently to William Smith's matriculating at Kings College. Allibone.