in certain achievements
they stand altogether alone. The deeds which made Washington and Lincoln
great required special gifts in mind and character--endowments found in
such full measure only in few men and at rare intervals.

Mr. Choate's Eloquent Tribute.

Joseph H. Choate, recently ambassador to Great Britain, in his inaugural
address as president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, in 1903,
paid eloquent tribute to Franklin:

His whole career has been summed up by a great French
statesman, who was one of his personal friends and
correspondents, in six words, Latin words of course:
"_Eripuit caelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis_," which,
unfortunately for our language, cannot be translated into
English in less than twelve: "He snatched the lightning from
the skies, and the scepter from tyrants."

Surely the briefest and most brilliant biography ever
written. He enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge by
discovering laws and facts of Nature unknown before, and
applying them to the use and service of man; and that
entitles him to lasting fame.

But his other service to mankind differed from this only in
kind, and was quite equal in degree. For he stands second
only to Washington in the list of heroic patriots who on
both sides of the Atlantic stood for those fundamental
principles of English liberty which culminated in the
independence of the United States, and have ever since been
shared by the English-speaking race the world over.

In view of his fifteen years' service in England and ten in
France, of the immense obstacles and difficulties which he
had to overcome, of the art and wisdom which he displayed,
and the incalculable value to the country of the treaties
which he negotiated, he still stands as by far the greatest
of American diplomats.

Though greatest in no one thing, Franklin was great in many things. He
was, in his time and place, a great statesman, a great diplomat. He was a
great scientist, a great philosopher, a great inventor, a great man of
letters, a great business man.

The Variety of His Talents.

All his qualities were made valuable by his practical sense. He was
interested in nothing unless he saw in it some use. The result was that he
found use in almost everything. It is no wonder that he is called "the
many-sided Franklin."

This practical nature makes Franklin a typical