To Benjamin Franklin from James Logan, 6 March 1747
From James Logan
Transcript: Harvard College Library (Sparks)
Stenton March 6. 1747
My friend B. Franklin,
I utterly forgot to send thee the N York Paper by my Son who was here this Morning but I now do it with my hearty thanks. I ordered him further to see thee to day and to beg thy Excuse for my desiring thee to send me a List of your Addition of Books to your Library which I did not the least apprehend would be sufficient to fill so much as one Quarter of a sheet of common paper, and indeed I am surpriz’d to hear the number is so considerable since the year 1742 as to require the Press.5 But for my justification thou may’st remember I had from thee about two years since (I think it was) a written List from thy own hand of the last Addition before. But I own I am grown very forgetful notwithstanding Cicero’s expression (de Senectute) Omnia quae curant senes meminerint.6 Tho I shall scarce forget that I am thy obliged friend
J. Logan
5. Books added to the Library since the Year 1741, a 28-page supplement to The Charter of the Library Company, which BF printed, 1746.
6. Cicero, De Senectute, vii. Logan inserted “senes” and changed the tense of the verb. His own translation (in Cato Major, p. 43) reads: “The Oldest will remember what engages their Thoughts and Care.”