Thomas, D.D. chaplain in ordinary to his majesty, was born in London in the year 1721, and was the son of Richard Franklin, well known as the printer of an anti-ministerial paper called The Craftsman; in conducting which he received great assistance from Lord Bolingbroke, Mr Pulteney, and other writers, who then opposed Sir Robert Walpole's measures. By the advice of the second of these gentlemen, young Franklin was devoted to the church, with a promise of being provided for by the patriot, who, however, forgot his undertaking, and entirely neglected him. He was educated at Westminster School, whence he removed to the university of Cambridge, where he became a fellow of Trinity College, and in 1750 was chosen Greek professor. In 1757 he was instituted vicar of Ware and Thundridge, which, with the lectureship of St Paul, Covent Garden, and a chapel in Queen Street, were all the preferments he held till he obtained the rectory of Brasted in Surrey, which he held till his death. He first appeared as an author in a translation of The Epistles of Phalaris in 1759, and of Cicero's tract De Natura Deorum. About this period he is said to have published An Inquiry into the Astronomy and Anatomy of the Ancients, reprinted in 1775, in 8vo. In 1759 appeared his translation of Sophocles, in 2 vols. 4to. This work is allowed to be a fair and forcible version of that great tragic poet. It was followed by A Dissertation on Ancient Tragedy. In 1765 Dr Franklin published a volume of Sermons on the Relative Duties, which met with considerable attention. In the year following he produced the Earl of Warwick, a tragedy, borrowed without acknowledgment from the French of Laharpe. Notwithstanding his clerical preferments and duties, he continued to write for the stage, and on one occasion descended so low as to bring out a farce. In 1780 appeared his excellent translation of Lucian, in 2 vols. 4to. Dr Franklin died on the 15th of March 1784, leaving behind him the character of a learned, able, but jealous and peculiar man. Besides the works above enumerated, he was the author of a humorous piece entitled A Letter on Lectureships, An Ode on the Institution of the Royal Academy, three volumes of posthumous sermons; and he is also supposed to have aided Smollett in the Critical Review, and in the translation of the works of Voltaire.