"History of Witchcraft," a copy of the "Test and Corporation Acts," a pocket "Latin Dictionary," and a well-thumbed "Concordance;" while arranged along the top of the drawers beneath was a series of huge volumes labeled "Biblical Commentaries," and secretly stowed away on one of the shelves of the cupboard in the wall, beside the fireplace, was a small regiment of octavos in the shape of Bayle's "Philosophical Dictionary," and the folio edition of Hobbes' "Leviathan," as well as his "Analysis of the Human Intellect and Affections."

Again, the few prints about the room were each illustrative of the true character of little Ben's godfather, and told the observer that Uncle Benjamin was something more than a strict Puritan in his tastes, for pinned against the wall was Holbein's "Dance of Death," as well as a few of Rembrandt's etchings that he had picked up from his Dutch friends in the town; then, besides these, there was a grand steel engraving of Thomas Franklin, his elder brother, in his barrister's wig and gown (this was dedicated to Squire Palmer, of Northampton), together with a small watercolor painting of the old smithy at Ecton, in Northamptonshire, as it appeared after the heavy snow-storm of 1642, with " Benjamin Franklin, Pinxit," scribbled in one corner. Farther, above the mantel-piece was pinned one of the pictorial conceits that were so popular at the period, consisting of a full-length portrait of Uncle Ben himself, drawn half "in his habit as he lived," and half skeleton, and evidently painted by the same hand as sketched the family forge, while on the other side of this was a simple curl of flaxen hair, framed and glazed, with the signature of a letter in a female hand pasted below it, saying merely, "Thine till death, Mary."

The only evidence of the religious temperament of the man was the following Bible text, written out large, in Uncle Ben's own hand, and pasted up between the lock of hair and the deadly-lively portrait of Uncle Ben himself:

"When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly."-Matt., vi., 5, 6.

The underscoring of the words "seen of men," and "when thou hast shut thy door," was Uncle Ben's own.

On the table, however, stood the old family relic, the "joint-stool," which Uncle Ben had begged as an heir-loom of his elder brother Thomas, the barrister, before leaving Ecton for New England, and by means of which the forefathers of the Franklin family used to read their Bible in secret (at a time when it was "felony" to do so), with the book fastened under the lid, so that the volume might be hidden the instant the approach of the dreaded "apparitor" was announced by the boy stationed at the door. The book was still kept conscientiously hidden as before; for, though the government apparitor was no longer feared, Uncle Ben dreaded the social spy (who will not allow us still to worship as we please) catching him at his devotions. Indeed, the honest-natured old fellow hated in his heart any thing that might even seem like the parade of what he knew to be,

when deeply felt, a purely secret emotion; for he did not scruple to declare that as love is always mute in its profundity, and grief chatters only when dumb despair is passing into whining melancholy, so true religious reverence is silent and solemn as the woods which are ever congenial to it.

Within this joint-stool also was kept the printed list, that was regularly sent to Uncle Ben every year, of the subscriptions and donations to the principal hospital of the town during the past twelvemonth. The eye might have looked up and down the grand names and the rich array of figures till Doomsday, and never have found there even so much as a B. F. 21s., though in turning over the pages it might have detected written at the end of the long list, in the same clear hand as that which had penned the text over the mantlepiece, the following quotation:

"Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."

These, with the addition of the ever-memorable two volumes of manuscript sermons that he had taken down himself from the most celebrated preachers of his time, and a dumpy ear-trumpet, that was not unlike a cow's crumpled horn, and which of late years he had used in church, so as not to lose a word of the discourse he wanted to transcribe-these, we say, with occasionally one flower in a tumbler of water, and a Dutch oven for the cooking of "Welsh rarebits"-for which the old man frankly confessed an overweening weakness of the flesh-made up our broker's inventory of Uncle Ben's worldly goods.