7. We cannot identify the writer, but for other translations of Turgot’s epigram written around this time, see Nogaret’s one-line offering of March 2, and the French verse translation we discuss in annotation to that letter.

Another letter, undated, unsigned, in English, and in a hand we do not recognize, offers yet a different interpretation. Addressed “To Doctor Franklin at his Hotel,” it reads:

“Sir

Reading your celebrated Motto I conceived the presumptuous thought of attempting to translate it. I was not so stupid as to think I could render it Justice; it is too pithy; whether I have succeeded, in anywise, tolerably, I leave totally to your Judgment.
Eripuit Fulmen Cœlo, Sceptrumque Tyrannis.
From Heav’n the Thunder, his Great Genius bore;
And usurp’d Sceptre, from proud Tyrants tore.”

This document is filed at the APS along with two small pages of poetry copied by L’Air de Lamotte: Turgot’s epigram (“Vers latin d’un auteur inconnu, pour être mis au bas du portrait de M. franklin”), the two verse translations by d’Alembert (XXVI, 670n), and the opening two stanzas of Morellet’s drinking song (XXX, 48–50).