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.

A little later the verse appears in a different scene. It had reached
the _salons_ of Madame Doublet, whence it was transferred to the
"Memoires Secrets de Bachaumont," under date of June 8th, 1778, as "a
very beautiful verse, proper to characterize M. Franklin and to serve as
an inscription for his portrait." These Memoirs, as is well known, are
the record of conversations and news gathered in the circle of that
venerable Egeria of gossip;[30] and here is evidence of the publicity
which this welcome had already obtained.

The verse was now fairly launched. War was flagrant between France and
Great Britain. There was no longer any reason why the new alliance
between France and the United States should not be placed under the
auspices of genius, and why the same hand which had snatched the
lightning from the skies should not have the fame of snatching the
sceptre from King George III. The time for free speech had come. It was
no longer "blasphemous."

But it will be observed that these records of this verse fail to mention
the immediate author. Was he unknown at the time? Or did the fact that
he was recently a cabinet-minister induce him to hide behind a mask?
Turgot was a master of epigram,--as witness the terrible lines on
Frederick of Prussia; but he was very prudent in conduct. "Nobody," s