The Argosy — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Benjanun Franklin. 129 address. Knowing all this, and comprehending well that an old American, nearly eighty years of age, and ‘‘of the people,” could not compete with nobles and princes in the most cultivated metropolis of Christendom, on landing in France he laid aside his respectable wig and customary clothes, and adopted a style of his own, from which he never varied, and which made him truly the most remark- able man in the country. He wore his own white locks, and over them a round brimmed hat. He was dressed in brown, carried a white stick, and was never seen without spectacles. His years, his simplicity, his dignity, were his only ornaments, and they became him well. He was detained long in Paris; so long that his noble old figure became a familiar one in the streets; so long that he pined for home, and entreated to be recalled. But at length he accomplished what, perhaps, none other could have done—the object of his journey. The enthusiasm of his reception, on his return, was unequalled. Salutes thundered a welcome, bells rang him home, loving hearts throbbed to meet him, proud arms carried him through the streets, every voice blessed him, and every hand longed to clasp his. A few more scenes, and then came the last of all, and with it the use for his epitaph, written more than sixty years before by himself, and found amongst his papers :—‘‘ The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here, food for worms; yet the work itself shall not be lost, but it will (as he believed) appear once more, In a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by the AUTHOR.” —picp 2a SER OT VOL. XXXII | K GOMIIGDOOks (S©)