Franklin died April 17, 1790. In his will, dated July 17, 1788, he simply expressed his wish to have his body buried with as little expense or ceremony as might be. But in the codicil, dated June 23, 1789, but a few months before his death, we find this clause:—
“I wish to be buried by the side of my wife, if it may be, and that a marble stone, to be made by Chambers, six feet long, four feet wide, plain, with only a small moulding round the upper ledge, and this inscription:—
| BENJAMIN ANDxxxxxx DEBORAH | } | FRANKLIN. |
| 178-. |
to be placed over us both.”
In the graveyard belonging to Christ Church in this city, situated at the southeast corner of Arch and Fifth Streets, this plain slab, with the above inscription, is still to be seen.
The man to whose memory it is dedicated, in immediate expectation of death (as is shown by the fact that the codicil was made in June, 1789, and the figures 178-are so arranged by him that unless he died in that very year they would be useless), had calmly and deliberately selected the spot where he wished his corpse to repose. There rest the remains of one whose name, though simply recorded on a piece of marble, lives in memory while reason holds its throne in the immortal mind.
There is in the simple gray stone which now covers the breasts of “Benjamin Franklin and Deborah his wife” more attraction and genuine respectability than could be found in the loftiest pillar ever reared to gratify mere ambition.
“Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,