Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/184

174

WITH THE SOLILOQUY OF ONE ADVANCED IN AGE.

TO MADAME BRILLIANT.

OU may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately ſpent that happy day, in the delightful garden and ſweet ſociety of the Moulin Joly, I ſtopt a little in one of our walks, and ſtaid ſome time behind the company. We had been ſhewn numberleſs ſkeletons of a kind of little fly, called an Ephemera, whoſe ſucceſſive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to ſee a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in converſation. You know I underſtand all the inferior animal tongues: my too great application to the ſtudy of them, is the beſt excuſe I can give for the little progreſs I have made in your charming language. I liſtened through curioſity to the diſcourſe of theſe little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, ſpoke three or four together, I could make but little of their converſation. I found, however, by ſome expreſſions that I heard now and then, they were diſputing warmly on the merit of two foreign muſicians, one a couſin,