Franklin’s letter made a great impression upon Mr. Collinson. Anxious to make it public, while persuaded that the Royal Society would give no better reception to it than to the author’s previous communications, he hastened to Mr. Edward Cave, proprietor and editor of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ and asked him to print it in his publication, the most widely read at the time. A man of quick sense, Mr. Cave, too, saw at once the vast importance of Franklin’s paper, describing his discovery, and readily offered to print it, but recommended that it should be done in pamphlet form, as likely to make the facts even more extensively known than could be the case in his own Magazine. This having been agreed to, there appeared, early in May 1751, a pamphlet with the name of Benjamin Franklin on the front page, and a preface by Dr. Fothergill, entitled, ‘New Experiments and Observations in Electricity, made at Philadelphia, in America.’ It was the most important contribution to science published since the appearance, five-and-thirty years before, of Newton’s ‘Principia.’ Like Newton’s book, that of Franklin was not immediately successful--at least not in England. Not appearing under the patronage of the Royal Society, the supposed fountain-head of all legitimate science, it was looked coldly upon by the public and the critics, and it was only after having been greeted with immense applause in France, that at last something like justice was done to it in England. The great success of Franklin’s little treatise in France was due, in the first instance, to rather accidental circumstances, but was none the less genuine. By a happy chance a copy of the pamphlet printed by Mr. Cave fell into the hands of the Count de Buffon, the greatest naturalist of the age, and whose pre-eminent position was established not only in France, but throughout the whole of Europe. Himself familiar with the English language, he yet thought that it was necessary to have the book immediately translated into French, and he employed for the purpose Professor Dubourg, a literary man of note, well versed in electrical science. Under such favourable auspices, Franklin’s pamphlet, carefully translated, was issued at Paris in the summer of 1751, three or four months after its appearance in London. Its success in France was as immediate as it was great, and the wave of it spread at once over Europe, marked by German, Italian, and Latin translations of the ‘New Experiments.’ For a considerable time nothing was talked of among the upper classes of France but the discoveries in science of the unknown Philadelphia printer, and the king, Louis XV., following the fashion of the day, ordered a course of the electrical experiments, described by Franklin, to be performed before him at St. Germain, in the presence of the whole court.