On leaving the Ministry, Turgot devoted himself to literature, science, and charity, translating Odes of Horace and Eclogues of Virgil, studying geometry with Bossut, chemistry with Lavoisier, and astronomy with Rochon, and interesting himself in every thing by which human welfare could be advanced.  Such a character, with such an experience of government, and the prophet of American independence, was naturally prepared to welcome Franklin, not only as philosopher, but as statesman also.

But the classical welcome of Turgot was partially anticipated,—­at least in an unsuccessful attempt.  Baron Grimm, in that interesting and instructive “Correspondance,” prepared originally for the advantage of distant courts, but now constituting one of the literary and social monuments of the period, mentions, under date of October, 1777, that the following French verses were made for a portrait of Franklin by Cochin, engraved by St. Aubin:—­

    “C’est l’honneur et l’appui du nouvel hemisphere;
    Les flots de l’Ocean s’abaissent a sa voix;
    Il reprime ou dirige a son gre le tonnerre;
    Qui desarme les dieux, peut-il craindre les rois?”

These verses seem to contain the very idea in the verse of Turgot.  But they were suppressed at the time by the censor on the ground that they were “blasphemous,”—­although it is added in a note that “they concerned only the King of England.”  Was it that the negotiations with Franklin were not yet sufficiently advanced?  And here mark the dates.

It was only after the communication to Great Britain of the Treaty of Alliance and the reception of Franklin at Versailles, that the seal seems to have been broken.  Baron Grimm, in his “Correspondance,"[27] under date of April, 1778, makes the following entry:—­

“A very beautiful Latin verse has been made for the portrait of Dr. Franklin,—­

    ‘Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis.’

It is a happy imitation of a verse of the ’Anti-Lucretius,’—­

    ‘Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phoeboque sagittas.’”

Here is the earliest notice of this verse, authenticating its origin.  Nothing further is said of the “Anti-Lucretius”; for in that day it was familiar to every lettered person.  But I shall speak of it before I close.

Only a few days later the verse appears in the correspondence of Madame D’Epinay, whose intimate relations with Baron Grimm—­the subject of curiosity and scandal—­will explain her early knowledge of it.  She records it in a letter to the very remarkable Italian Abbe Galiani, under date of May 3d, 1778.[28] And she proceeds to give a translation in French verse, which she says “D’Alembert made the other day between sleeping and waking.”  Galiani, who was himself a master of Latin versification, and followed closely the fortunes of America, must have enjoyed the tribute.  In a letter written shortly afterwards, he enters into all the grandeur of the occasion.  “You have,” says he, “at this hour decided the greatest question of the globe,—­that is, if it is America which shall reign over Europe, or Europe which shall continue to reign over America.  I would wager in favor of America."[29] In these words the Neapolitan said as much as Turgot.