Note 295 — THE AGE OF BRONZE.

[Franklin published his Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, etc., from Lightning, in 1751, and in June, 1752, "the immortal kite was flown." It was in 1781, when he was minister plenipotentiary at the Court of France, that the Latin hexameter, "Eripuit cœlo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis," first applied to him by Turgot, was affixed to his portrait by Fragonard. The line, said to be an adaptation of a line in the Astronomicon of Manilius (lib. i. 104), descriptive of the Reason, "Eripuitque Jovi fulmen viresque tonandi," was turned into French by Nogaret, d'Alembert, and other wits and scholars. It appears on the reverse of a medal by F. Dupré, dated 1786. (See Works of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, 1840, viii. 537-539; Life and Times, etc., by James Parton, 1864, i. 285-291.)]