Kitabı oku: «The True Benjamin Franklin», sayfa 7
“As to the second question, I must confess (but don’t you be jealous), that many more people love me now than ever did before; for since I saw you, I have been able to do some general services to the country and to the army, for which both have thanked and praised me, and say they love me. They say so, as you used to do; and if I were to ask any favors of them, they would, perhaps, as readily refuse me; so that I find little real advantage in being beloved, but it pleases my humor.”
On another occasion he wrote to her, —
“Persons subject to the hyp complain of the northeast wind as increasing their malady. But since you promised to send me kisses in that wind, and I find you as good as your word, it is to me the gayest wind that blows, and gives me the best spirits. I write this during a northeast storm of snow, the greatest we have had this winter. Your favors come mixed with the snowy fleeces, which are pure as your virgin innocence, white as your lovely bosom, and – as cold. But let it warm towards some worthy young man, and may Heaven bless you both with every kind of happiness.”
He had another young friend to whom he wrote pretty letters, Miss Mary Stevenson, daughter of the Mrs. Stevenson in whose house he lived in London when on his diplomatic missions to England. He encouraged her in scientific study, and some of his most famous explanations of the operations of nature are to be found in letters written to her. He had hoped that she would marry his son William, but William’s fancy strayed elsewhere.
“Portsmouth, 11 August, 1762.
My Dear Polly
“This is the best paper I can get at this wretched inn, but it will convey what is intrusted to it as faithfully as the finest. It will tell my Polly how much her friend is afflicted that he must perhaps never again see one for whom he has so sincere an affection, joined to so perfect an esteem; who he once flattered himself might become his own, in the tender relation of a child, but can now entertain such pleasing hopes no more. Will it tell how much he is afflicted? No, it cannot.
“Adieu, my dearest child. I will call you so. Why should I not call you so, since I love you with all the tenderness of a father? Adieu. May the God of all goodness shower down his choicest blessings upon you, and make you infinitely happier than that event would have made you…”
(Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. iii. p. 209.)
This correspondence with Miss Stevenson continued for a great many years, and there are beautiful letters to her scattered all through his published works. The letters both to her and to Miss Ray became more serious as the two young women grew older and married. Miss Stevenson sought his advice on the question of her marriage, and his reply was as wise and affectionate as anything he ever wrote. She married Dr. Hewson, of London, and they migrated to Philadelphia, where she became the mother of a numerous family.
Franklin had a younger sister, Jane, a pretty girl, afterwards Mrs. Mecom, of whom he was very fond, and he kept up a correspondence with her all his life, sending presents to her at Boston, helping her son to earn a livelihood, and giving her assistance in her old age. Their letters to each other were most homely and loving, and she took the greatest pride in his increasing fame.
His correspondence with his parents was also pleasant and familiar. In one of his letters to his mother he amuses her by accounts of her grandchildren, and at the same time pays a compliment to his sister Jane.
“As to your grandchildren, Will is now nineteen years of age, a tall, proper youth, and much of a beau. He acquired a habit of idleness on the Expedition, but begins of late to apply himself to business, and I hope will become an industrious man. He imagined his father had got enough for him, but I have assured him that I intend to spend what little I have myself, if it pleases God that I live long enough; and, as he by no means wants acuteness, he can see by my going on that I mean to be as good as my word.
“Sally grows a fine girl, and is extremely industrious with her needle, and delights in her work. She is of a most affectionate temper, and perfectly dutiful and obliging to her parents, and to all. Perhaps I flatter myself too much, but I have hopes that she will prove an ingenious, sensible, notable and worthy woman like her aunt Jenny.”
(Bigelow’s Works of Franklin, vol. ii. p. 154.)
Over the grave of his parents in the Granary Burial-Ground in Boston he placed a stone, and prepared for it one of those epitaphs in which he was so skilful and which were almost poems:
Josiah Franklin and Abiah his wife lie here interred
They lived together in wedlock fifty-five years;
and without an estate or any gainful employment, by constant labour, and honest industry,
(with God’s blessing,)
maintained a large family comfortably;
and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably
From this instance, reader, be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, and distrust not Providence
He was a pious and prudent man, she a discreet and virtuous woman
Their youngest son, in filial regard to their memory, places this stone
J. F. born 1655 – died 1744, – Æ. 89
A. F. born 1667 – died 1752, – Æ. 85
IV
BUSINESS AND LITERATURE
Franklin’s ancestors in both America and England had not been remarkable for their success in worldly affairs. Most of them did little more than earn a living, and, being of contented dispositions, had no ambition to advance beyond it. Some of them were entirely contented with poverty. All of them, however, were inclined to be economical and industrious. They had no extended views of business enterprise, and we find none of them among the great merchants or commercial classes who were reaching out for the foreign trade of that age. Either from lack of foresight or lack of desire, they seldom selected very profitable callings. They took what was nearest at hand – making candles or shoeing horses – and clung to it persistently.
Franklin advanced beyond them only because all their qualities of economy, thrift, industry, and serene contentedness were intensified in him. His choice of a calling was no better than theirs, for printing was not a very profitable business in colonial times, and was made so in his case only by his unusual sagacity.
I have already described his adventures as a young printer, and how he was sent on a wild-goose chase to London by Governor Keith, of Pennsylvania. I have also told how on his return to Philadelphia he gave up printing and became the clerk of Mr. Denham. He liked Mr. Denham and the clerkship, and never expected to return to his old calling. If Mr. Denham had lived, Franklin might have become a renowned Philadelphia merchant and financier, like Robert Morris, an owner of ships and cargoes, a trader to India and China, and an outfitter of privateers. But this sudden change from the long line of his ancestry was not to be. Nature, as if indignant at the attempt, struck down both Denham and himself with pleurisy within six months of their association in business. Denham perished, and Franklin, after a narrow escape from death, went back reluctantly to set type for Keimer.
He was now twenty-one, a good workman, with experience on two continents, and Keimer made him foreman of his printing-office. Within six months, however, his connection with Keimer was ended by a quarrel, and one of the workmen, Hugh Meredith, suggested that he and Franklin should set up in the printing business for themselves, Meredith to furnish the money through his father, and Franklin to furnish the skill. This offer was eagerly accepted; but as some months would be required to obtain type and materials from London, Franklin’s quarrel with Keimer was patched up and he went back to work for him.
In the spring of 1728 the type arrived. Franklin parted from Keimer in peace, and then with Meredith sprung upon him the surprise of a rival printing establishment. They rented a house for twenty-four pounds a year, and to help pay it took in Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Godfrey as lodgers. But their money was all spent in getting started, and they had a hard struggle. Their first work was a translation of a Dutch history of the Quakers. Franklin worked late and early. People saw him still employed as they went home from their clubs late at night, and he was at it again in the morning before his neighbors were out of bed.
There were already two other printing-offices, Keimer’s and Bradford’s, and hardly enough work for them. The town prophesied failure for the firm of Franklin & Meredith; and, indeed, their only hope of success seemed to be in destroying one or both of their rivals, a serious undertaking for two young men working on borrowed capital. There was so little to be made in printing at that time that most of the printers were obliged to branch out into journalism and to keep stationery stores. Franklin resolved to start a newspaper, but, unfortunately, told his secret to one of Keimer’s workmen, and Keimer, to be beforehand, immediately started a newspaper of his own, called The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and the Pennsylvania Gazette.
Franklin was much disgusted, and in resentment, as he tells us, and to counteract Keimer, began writing amusing letters for the other newspaper of the town, Bradford’s Mercury. His idea was to crush Keimer’s paper by building up Bradford’s until he could have one of his own. His articles, which were signed “Busy Body,” show the same talent for humor that he had displayed in Boston a few years before, when he wrote for his brother’s newspaper over the name “Silence Dogood;” but there is a great difference in their tone. No ridicule of the prevailing religion or hatred of those in authority appears in them. The young man evidently found Philadelphia more to his taste than Boston, and was not at war with his surroundings. The “Busy Body” papers are merely pleasant raillery at the failings of human nature in general, interspersed with good advice, something like that which he soon afterwards gave in “Poor Richard.”
Keimer tried to keep his journal going by publishing long extracts from an encyclopædia which had recently appeared, beginning with the letter A, and he tried to imitate the wit of the “Busy Body.” But he merely laid himself open to the “Busy Body’s” attacks, who burlesqued and ridiculed his attempts, and Franklin in his Autobiography gives himself the credit of having drawn public attention so strongly to Bradford’s Mercury that Keimer, after keeping his Universal Instructor going on only ninety subscribers for about nine months, gave it up. Franklin & Meredith bought it in and thus disposed of one of their rivals. That rival, being incompetent and ignorant, soon disposed of himself by bankruptcy and removal to the Barbadoes. Franklin continued the publication of the newspaper under the title of the Pennsylvania Gazette; but it was vastly improved in every way, – better type, better paper, more news, and intelligent, well-reasoned articles on public affairs instead of Keimer’s stupid prolixity.
An article written by Franklin on that great question of colonial times, whether the Legislature of each colony should give the governor a fixed salary or pay him only at the end of each year, according as he had pleased them, attracted much attention. It was written with considerable astuteness, and, while upholding the necessity of the governor’s dependence on the Legislature, was careful not to give offence to those who were of a different opinion. The young printers also won favor by reprinting neatly and correctly an address of the Assembly to the governor, which Bradford had previously printed in a blundering way. The members of the Assembly were so pleased with it that they voted their printing to Franklin & Meredith for the ensuing year. These politicians, finding that Franklin knew how to handle a pen, thought it well, as a matter of self-interest, to encourage him.
The two young men were kept busily employed, yet found it very difficult to make both ends meet, although they did everything themselves, not having even a boy to assist them. Meredith’s father, having suffered some losses, could lend them but half of the sum they had expected from him. The merchant who had furnished them their materials grew impatient and sued them. They succeeded in staying judgment and execution for a time, but fully expected to be eventually sold out by the sheriff and ruined.
At this juncture two friends of Franklin came to him and offered sufficient money to tide over his difficulties if he would get rid of Meredith, who was intemperate, and take all the business on himself. This he succeeded in doing, and with the money supplied by his friends paid off his debts and added a stationery shop, where he sold paper, parchment, legal blanks, ink, books, and, in time, soap, goose-feathers, liquors, and groceries; he also secured the printing of the laws of Delaware, and, as he says, went on swimmingly. Soon after this he married Miss Read, and he has left us an account of how they lived together:
“We kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a progress in spite of principle: being called one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver! They had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost her the enormous sum of three and twenty shillings, for which she had no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his neighbors.”
A story is told on the Eastern Shore of Maryland of a young man who called one evening on an old farmer to ask him how it was that he had become rich.
“It is a long story,” said the old man, “and while I am telling it we might as well save the candle,” and he put it out.
“You need not tell it,” said the youth. “I see.”
Franklin’s method was the one that had always been practised by his ancestors, and with his wider intelligence and great literary ability it was sure to succeed. The silver spoons slowly increased until in the course of years, as he tells us, the plate in his house was “augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value.”
His newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, was the best in the colonies. Besides the ordinary news and advertisements, together with little anecdotes and squibs which he was always so clever in telling, he printed in it extracts from The Spectator and various moral writers, articles from English newspapers, as well as articles of his own which had been previously read to the Junto. He also published long poems by Stephen Duck, now utterly forgotten; but he was then the poet laureate and wrote passable verse. He carefully excluded all libelling and personal abuse; but what would now be considered indelicate jests were not infrequent. These broad jokes, together with witticisms at the expense of ecclesiastics, constituted the stock amusements of the time, as the English literature of that period abundantly shows.
Opening one of the old volumes of his Gazette at random, we find for September 5, 1734, a humorous account of a lottery in England, by which, to encourage the propagation of the species, all the old maids of the country are to be raffled for. Turning over the leaves, we find the humorous will of a fellow who, among other queer bequests, leaves his body “as a very wholesome feast to the worms of his family vault.” In another number an account is given of some excesses of the Pope, with a Latin verse and its translation which had been pasted on Pasquin’s statue:
“Omnia Venduntur imo
Dogmata Christi
Et ne me vendunt, evolo
Roma Vale.”
“Rome all things sells, even doctrines old and new
I’ll fly for fear of sale; so Rome adieu.”
In the number for November 7, 1734, we are given “The Genealogy of a Jacobite.”
“The Devil begat Sin, Sin begat Error, Error begat Pride, Pride begat Hatred, Hatred begat Ignorance, Ignorance begat Blind Zeal, Blind Zeal begat Superstition, Superstition begat Priestcraft, Priestcraft begat Lineal Succession, Lineal Succession begat Indelible Character, Indelible Character begat Blind Obedience, Blind Obedience begat Infallibility, Infallibility begat the Pope and his Brethren in the time of Egyptian Darkness, the Pope begat Purgatory, Purgatory begat Auricular Confession, Auricular Confession begat Renouncing of Reason, Renouncing of Reason begat Contempt of Scriptures, Contempt of the Scriptures begat Implicit Faith, Implicit Faith begat Carnal Policy, Carnal Policy begat Unlimited Passive Obedience, Unlimited Passive Obedience begat Non-Resistance, Non-Resistance begat Oppression, Oppression begat Faction, Faction begat Patriotism, Patriotism begat Opposition to all the Measures of the Ministry, Opposition begat Disaffection, Disaffection begat Discontent, Discontent begat a Tory, and a Tory begat a Jacobite, with Craftsman and Fog and their Brethren on the Body of the Whore of Babylon when she was deemed past child bearing.”
Franklin’s famous “Speech of Polly Baker” is supposed to have first appeared in the Gazette. This is a mistake, but it was reprinted again and again in American newspapers for half a century.
“The Speech of Miss Polly Baker before a Court of Judicatory, in New England, where she was prosecuted for a fifth time, for having a Bastard Child; which influenced the Court to dispense with her punishment, and which induced one of her judges to marry her the next day – by whom she had fifteen children.
“May it please the honourable bench to indulge me in a few words: I am a poor, unhappy woman, who have no money to fee lawyers to plead for me, being hard put to it to get a living… Abstracted from the law, I cannot conceive (may it please your honours) what the nature of my offence is. I have brought five children into the world, at the risque of my life; I have maintained them well by my own industry, without burthening the township, and would have done it better, if it had not been for the heavy charges and fines I have paid. Can it be a crime (in the nature of things, I mean) to add to the King’s subjects, in a new country that really needs people? I own it, I should think it rather a praiseworthy than a punishable action. I have debauched no other woman’s husband, nor enticed any youth; these things I never was charged with; nor has any one the least cause of complaint against me, unless, perhaps, the ministers of justice, because I have had children without being married, by which they have missed a wedding fee. But can this be a fault of mine? I appeal to your honours. You are pleased to allow I don’t want sense; but I must be stupefied to the last degree, not to prefer the honourable state of wedlock to the condition I have lived in. I always was, and still am willing to enter into it; and doubt not my behaving well in it; having all the industry, frugality, fertility, and skill in economy appertaining to a good wife’s character. I defy any one to say I ever refused an offer of that sort; on the contrary, I readily consented to the only proposal of marriage that ever was made me, which was when I was a virgin, but too easily confiding in the person’s sincerity that made it, I unhappily lost my honour by trusting to his; for he got me with child, and then forsook me.
“That very person, you all know; he is now become a magistrate of this country; and I had hopes he would have appeared this day on the bench, and have endeavoured to moderate the Court in my favour; then I should have scorned to have mentioned it, but I must now complain of it as unjust and unequal, that my betrayer, and undoer, the first cause of all my faults and miscarriages (if they must be deemed such), should be advanced to honour and power in the government that punishes my misfortunes with stripes and infamy… But how can it be believed that Heaven is angry at my having children, when to the little done by me towards it, God has been pleased to add his divine skill and admirable workmanship in the formation of their bodies, and crowned the whole by furnishing them with rational and immortal souls? Forgive me, gentlemen, if I talk a little extravagantly on these matters: I am no divine, but if you, gentlemen, must be making laws, do not turn natural and useful actions into crimes by your prohibitions. But take into your wise consideration the great and growing number of bachelors in the country, many of whom, from the mean fear of the expense of a family, have never sincerely and honestly courted a woman in their lives; and by their manner of living leave unproduced (which is little better than murder) hundreds of their posterity to the thousandth generation. Is not this a greater offence against the public good than mine? Compel them, then, by law, either to marriage, or to pay double the fine of fornication every year. What must poor young women do, whom customs and nature forbid to solicit the men, and who cannot force themselves upon husbands, when the laws take no care to provide them any, and yet severely punish them if they do their duty without them; the duty of the first and great command of nature and nature’s God, increase and multiply; a duty, from the steady performance of which nothing has been able to deter me, but for its sake I have hazarded the loss of the public esteem, and have frequently endured public disgrace and punishment; and therefore ought, in my humble opinion, instead of a whipping, to have a statue erected to my memory.”
A newspaper furnishing the people with so much information and sound advice, mingled with broad stories, bright and witty, and appealing to all the human passions, – in other words, so thoroughly like Franklin, – was necessarily a success. It was, however, a small affair, – a single sheet which, when folded, was about twelve by eighteen inches, – and it appeared only twice a week.
It differed from other colonial newspapers chiefly in its greater brightness and in the literary skill shown in its preparation. But attempts have been made to exaggerate its merits, and Parton declares that in it Franklin “originated the modern system of business advertising” and that “he was the first man who used this mighty engine of publicity as we now use it.” A careful examination of the Gazette and the other journals of the time fails to disclose any evidence in support of this extravagant statement. The advertisements in the Gazette are like those in the other papers, – runaway servants and slaves, ships and merchandise for sale, articles lost or stolen. On the whole, perhaps more advertisements appear in the Gazette than in any of the others, though a comparison of the Gazette with Bradford’s Mercury shows days when the latter has the greater number.
Franklin advertised rather extensively his own publications, and the lamp-black, soap, and “ready money for old rags” which were to be had at his shop, for the reason, doubtless, that, being owner of both the newspaper and the shop, the advertisements cost him nothing. This is the only foundation for the tale of his having originated modern advertising. His advertisements are of the same sort that appeared in other papers, and there is not the slightest suggestion of modern methods in them.
Parton also says that Franklin “invented the plan of distinguishing advertisements by means of little pictures which he cut with his own hands.” If he really was the inventor of this plan, it is strange that he allowed his rival Bradford to use it in the Mercury before it was adopted by the Gazette. No cuts appear in the advertisements in the Gazette until May 30, 1734; but the Mercury’s advertisements have them in the year 1733.
Franklin made no sudden or startling changes in the methods of journalism; he merely used them effectively. His reputation and fortune were increased by his newspaper, but his greatest success came from his almanac, the immortal “Poor Richard.”
In those days almanacs were the literature of the masses, very much as newspapers are now. Everybody read them, and they supplied the place of books to those who would not or could not buy these means of knowledge. Every farm-house and hunter’s cabin had one hanging by the fireplace, and the rich were also eager to read afresh every year the weather forecasts, receipts, scraps of history, and advice mingled with jokes and verses.
Every printer issued an almanac as a matter of course, for it was the one publication which was sure to sell, and there was always more or less money to be made by it. While Franklin and Meredith were in business they published their almanac annually, and it was prepared by Thomas Godfrey, the mathematician, who with his wife lived in part of Franklin’s house. But, as has been related, Mrs. Godfrey tried to make a match between Franklin and one of her relatives, and when that failed the Godfreys and Franklin separated, and Thomas Godfrey devoted his mathematical talents to the preparation of Bradford’s almanac.
This was in the year 1732, and the following year Franklin had no philomath, as such people were called, to prepare his almanac. A great deal depended on having a popular philomath. Some of them could achieve large sales for their employer, while others could scarcely catch the public attention at all. Franklin’s literary instinct at once suggested the plan of creating a philomath out of his own imagination, an ideal one who would achieve the highest possibilities of the art. So he wrote his own almanac, and announced that it was prepared by one Richard Saunders, who for short was called “Poor Richard,” and he proved to be the most wonderful philomath that ever lived.
As Shakespeare took the suggestions and plots of his plays from old tales and romances, endowing his spoils by the touch of genius with a life that the originals never possessed, so Franklin plundered right and left to obtain material for the wise sayings of “Poor Richard.” There was, we are told, a Richard Saunders who was the philomath of a popular English almanac called “The Apollo Anglicanus,” and another popular almanac had been called “Poor Robin;” but “Poor Richard” was a real creation, a new human character introduced to the world like Sir Roger de Coverley.
Novel-writing was in its infancy in those days, and Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” Addison’s character of Sir Roger, and the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were the only examples of this new literature. That beautiful sentiment that prompts children to say, “Tell us a story,” and which is now fed to repletion by trash, was then primitive, fresh, and simple. Franklin could have written a novel in the manner of Fielding, but he had no inclination for such a task. He took more naturally and easily to creating a single character somewhat in the way Sir Roger de Coverley was created by Addison, whose essays he had rewritten so often for practice.
Sir Roger was so much of a gentleman, there were so many delicate touches in him, that he never became the favorite of the common people. But “Poor Richard” was the Sir Roger of the masses; he won the hearts of high and low. In that first number for the year 1733 he introduces himself very much after the manner of Addison.
“Courteous Reader,
“I might in this place attempt to gain thy favor by declaring that I write almanacks with no other view than that of the public good, but in this I should not be sincere; and men are now-a-days too wise to be deceived by pretences, how specious soever. The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her shift of tow, while I do nothing but gaze at the stars; and has threatened more than once to burn all my books and rattling traps (as she calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offered me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus begun to comply with my dame’s desire.”
There was a rival almanac, of which the philomath was Titan Leeds. “Poor Richard” affects great friendship for him, and says that he would have written almanacs long ago had he not been unwilling to interfere with the business of Titan. But this obstacle was soon to be removed.
“He dies by my calculation,” says “Poor Richard,” “made at his request, on Oct. 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 m., P. M., at the very instant of the ☌ of ☉ and ☿. By his own calculation he will survive till the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past; but at length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment. Which of us is most exact, a little time will now determine.”
In the next issue “Poor Richard” announces that his circumstances are now much easier. His wife has a pot of her own and is no longer obliged to borrow one of a neighbor; and, best of all, they have something to put in it, which has made her temper more pacific. Then he begins to tease Titan Leeds. He recalls his prediction of his death, but is not quite sure whether it occurred; for he has been prevented by domestic affairs from being at the bedside and closing the eyes of his old friend. The stars have foretold the death with their usual exactitude; but sometimes Providence interferes in these matters, which makes the astrologer’s art a little uncertain. But on the whole he thinks Titan must be dead, “for there appears in his name, as I am assured, an Almanack for the year 1734 in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome manner; in which I am called a false predicter, an ignorant, a conceited scribbler, a fool, and a lyar;” and he goes on to show that his good friend Titan would never have treated him in this way.
