Forty-six old boys of Westminster met between eight and nine o'clock on 17 November at the Tuns Tavern to commemorate, as was their custom, the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and Francklin was in the chair.
[2] He resigned his professorship in 1759, and that year was instituted, on the presentation of his college, to the vicarage of Ware, Hertfordshire, which he held in conjunction with the lectureship of St Paul's, Covent Garden, and a proprietary chapel in Queen Street, London.
He was appointed king's chaplain in November 1767, and was selected to preach the commencement sermon at St. Mary's, Cambridge, on the installation of Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, as chancellor of the university in 1770.
Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds were among his friends, and through their influence he became chaplain to the Royal Academy on its foundation, and on Oliver Goldsmith's death in 1774 succeeded to the professorship of ancient history.
One of his victims in the Critical Review was Arthur Murphy, who solaced his feelings of indignation in "A Poetical Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A.M." Charles Churchill, in the Rosciad, sneeringly says that 'he sicken'd at all triumphs but his own.'
His first was an anonymous rendering of Cicero's treatise, Of the Nature of the Gods; it appeared in 1741, was reissued in 1775, and, after revision by Charles Duke Yonge, formed a part of one of the volumes in Bohn's Classical Library.
Their titles were: Between 1748 and 1779 Francklin printed nine single sermons preached on special occasions, including that delivered at St George's, Bloomsbury, in May 1756, on the death of the Rev.
Francklin lent his name, in conjunction with Smollett, to a translation of Voltaire's works and letters, but the Orestes (produced at Covent Garden Theatre 13 March 1769 for the benefit of Mrs. Yates) and the Electra (brought out at Drury Lane 15 October 1774) are believed to have been his sole share in the publication.