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HISTORICAL SERIES No. 14

THE LIFE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

BY M. L. WEEMS

STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

THE LIFE OF

Benjamin Franklin

WITH MANY

CHOICE ANECDOTES AND ADMIRABLE SAYINGS OF THIS GREAT MAN

NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED BY ANY OF HIS BIOGRAPHERS

M. L. WEEMS

"Sage Franklin next arose in cheerful mien, And smil'd, unruffled, o'er the solemn scene; High on his locks of age a wreath was brac'd, Palm of all arts that e'er a mortal grac'd; Beneath him lay the sceptre kings had borne, And crowns and laurels from their temples torn."

NEW YORK STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS

We trust that you will be thoroughly satisfied with this book. During the long period of time that the publications of Street & Smith have been familiar to the reading classes it has always been our aim to give to the public the very best literary products, regardless of the expenditure involved. Our books and periodicals are today read and re-read in a majority of the homes of America, while but few of our original competitors are even known by name to the present generation. No special credit is due for antiquity, but we hold it to be a self-evident fact that long experience, coupled with enterprise and the ability to maintain the front rank for so many years, proves our right to the title of leaders. We solicit your further valued patronage.

STREET & SMITH.

LIFE OF FRANKLIN.

DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH, LONDON AND PARIS; GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA; AND MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY FROM THE UNITED STATES TO THE COURT OF FRANCE, was the son of an obscure tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, of Boston, where he was born on the 17th day of January, 1706.

Some men carry letters of recommendation in their looks, and some in their names. 'Tis the lot but of few to inherit both of these advantages. The hero of this work was one of that favoured number. As to his physiognomy, there was in it such an air of wisdom and philanthropy, and consequently such an expression of majesty and sweetness, as charms, even in the commonest pictures of him. And for his name, every one acquainted with the old English history, must know, that Franklin stands for what we now mean by "Gentleman," or "CLEVER FELLOW."

"This worthy Franklin wore a purse of silk Fix'd to his girdle, pure as morning milk; Knight of the shire; first justice of th' assize, To help the poor, the doubtful to advise. In all employments, gen'rous just he prov'd; Renown'd for courtesy; by all belov'd."

"Were I so tall to reach the pole, And grasp the ocean in my span, I must be measur'd by my soul; For 'tis the MIND that makes the man."

From the best accounts which I have been able to pick up, it would appear that a passion for learning had a long run in the family of the Franklins. Of the doctor's three uncles, the elder, whose name was Thomas, though conscientiously brought up a blacksmith, and subsisting his family by the din and sweat of his anvil, was still a great reader. Instead of wasting his leisure hours, as too many of the trade do, in tippling and tobacco, he acquired enough of the law to render himself a very useful and leading man among the people of Northampton, where his forefathers had lived in great comfort for three hundred years, on thirty acres of land.

To this the maiden queen, equal famed for fat and fun, rising in her carriage, and waving her lily white hand, made this prompt reply--"Our royal highness is glad to see you men of Coventry--Lord what FOOLS you be!"

This his rapid progress in learning he ascribed very much to an amiable teacher who used gentle means only, to encourage his scholars, and make them fond of their books.

But in the midst of this gay career in his learning, when in the course of the first year only, he had risen from the middle of his class to the head of it; thence to the class immediately above it; and was rapidly overtaking the third class, he was taken from school! His father, having a large family, with but a small income, and thinking himself unable consistently with what he owed the rest of his children, to give him a collegiate education, took Ben home to assist him in his own humble occupation, which was that of a SOAP-BOILER and TALLOW-CHANDLER; a trade he had taken up of his own head after settling in Boston; his original one of a DYER being in too little request to maintain his family.

The reader must already have discovered that Ben was uncommonly blest in a father. Indeed from the portrait of him drawn by this grateful son, full fifty years afterwards, he must have been an enviable old man.

But though he delighted in hospitality as a great virtue, yet he always made choice of such friends at his table as were fond of rational conversation. And he took great care to introduce such topics as would, in a pleasant manner, lead to ideas useful to his family, both in temporal and eternal things. As to the dishes that were served up, he never talked of them; never discussed whether they were well or ill dressed; of a good or bad flavour, high seasoned or otherwise.

And here I beg leave to wind up this chapter with the following beautiful lines from Dryden, which I trust my young reader will commit to memory. They may save him many a sick stomach and headache, besides many a good dollar in doctor's fees.

Ben continued with his father, assisting him in his humble toils, till his twelfth year; and had he possessed a mind less active might have remained a candle-maker all the days of his life. But born to diffuse a light beyond that of tallow or spermaceti, he could never reconcile himself to this inferior employment, and in spite of his wishes to conceal it from his father, discontent would still lower on his brow, and the half-suppressed sigh steal in secret from his bosom.

With equal grief his father beheld the deep-seated disquietude of his son. He loved all his children; but he loved this young one above all the rest. Ben was the child of his old age. The smile that dimpled his tender cheeks reminded him of his mother when he first saw her, lovely in the rosy freshness of youth. And then his intellect was so far beyond his years; his questions so shrewd; so strong in reasoning; so witty in remark, that his father would often forget his violin of nights for the higher pleasure of holding an argument with him. This was a great trial to his sisters, who would often intreat their mother to make Ben hold his tongue, that their father might take down his fiddle, and play and sing hymns with them: for they took after him in his passion for music, and sung divinely. No wonder that such a child should be dear to such a father. Indeed old Josias' affection for Ben was so intimately interwoven with every fibre of his heart, that he could not bear the idea of separation from him; and various were the stratagems which he employed to keep this dear child at home. One while, to frighten his youthful fancy from the sea, for that was the old man's dread, he would paint the horrors of the watery world, where the maddening billows, lashed into mountains by the storm, would lift the trembling ship to the skies; then hurl her down, headlong plunging into the yawning gulphs, never to rise again. At another time he would describe the wearisomeness of beating the gloomy wave for joyless months, pent up in a small ship, with no prospects but barren sea and skies--no smells but tar and bilge water--no society but men of uncultivated minds, and their constant conversation nothing but ribaldry and oaths. And then again he would take him to visit the masons, coopers, joiners, and other mechanics, at work: in hopes that his genius might be caught, and a stop put to his passion for wandering. But greatly to his sorrow, none of these things held out the attractions that his son seemed to want. His visits among these tradesmen were not, however, without their advantage. He caught from them, as he somewhere says, such an insight into mechanic arts and the use of tools, as enabled him afterwards when there was no artist at hand, to make for himself suitable machines for the illustration of his philosophical experiments.

Good old Josias listened very devoutly to his wife, while she uttered this oration on his youngest son. Then with looks as of a heart suddenly relieved from a heavy burden, and his eyes lifted to heaven, he fervently exclaimed--"O that my son, even my little son Benjamin, may live before God, and that the days of his usefulness and glory may be many!"

How far the effectual fervent prayer of this righteous father found acceptance in heaven, the reader will find perhaps by the time he has gone through our little book.

You never find presbyterians without books.

Such an extraordinary passion for learning soon commended him to the notice of his neighbours, among whom was an ingenious young man, a tradesman, named Matthew Adams, who invited him to his house, showed him all his books, and offered to lend him any that he wished to read.

"Choice Poetry! Choice Po-e-try! Come BUY my choice Po-e-try!"

The people of Boston having never heard any such cry as that before, were prodigiously at a loss to know what he was selling. But still Ben went on singing out as before,

"Choice Poetry! Choice Poetry! Come, buy my choice Poetry!"

O no, I guess not, said a second.

At length Ben was called up and interrogated.

Ben told them it was poetry.

I have never been able to get a sight of the ballad of the Light-house Tragedy, which must no doubt have been a great curiosity: but the sailor's song on Blackbeard runs thus--

"Come all you jolly Sailors, You all so stout and brave; Come hearken and I'll tell you What happen'd on the wave. Oh! 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard I'm going now for to tell; And as how by gallant Maynard He soon was sent to hell-- With a down, down, down derry down."

The reader will, I suppose, agree with Ben in his criticism, many years afterwards, on this poetry, that it was "wretched stuff; mere blind men's ditties." But fortunately for Ben, the poor people of Boston were at that time no judges of poetry. The silver-tongued Watts had not, as yet, snatched the harp of Zion, and poured his divine songs over New-England. And having never been accustomed to any thing better than an old version of David's Psalms, running in this way--

"Ye monsters of the bubbling deep, Your Maker's praises spout! Up from your sands ye codlings peep, And wag your tails about."--

But I cannot let fall the curtain on this curious chapter, without once more feasting my eyes on Ben, as, with a little basket on his arm, he trudged along the streets of Boston crying his poetry.

O you time-wasting, brain-starving young men, who can never be at ease unless you have a cigar or a plug of tobacco in your mouths, go on with your puffing and champing--go on with your filthy smoking, and your still more filthy spitting, keeping the cleanly house-wives in constant terror for their nicely waxed floors, and their shining carpets--go on I say; but remember it was not in this way that our little Ben became the GREAT DR. FRANKLIN.

One night, Adams being absent, and only himself and Collins together in the old school-house, Ben observed that he thought it a great pity that the young ladies were not more attended to, as to the improvement of their minds by education. He said, that with their advantages of sweet voices and beautiful faces, they could give tenfold charms to wit and sensible conversation, making heavenly truths to appear, as he had somewhere read in his father's old Bible, "like apples of gold set in pictures of silver."

"Substance too soft a lasting mind to bear, And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair."

Never more so in all my life, replied Ben, rather nettled.

What, that the women are as capable of studying the sciences as the men?

Yes, that the women are as capable of studying the sciences as the men.

And pray, sir, answered Ben, do you know any young man of your acquaintance that would? But these are no arguments, sir,--because it is not every young man or woman that can carry the science of astronomy so high as Newton, it does not follow that they are incapable of the science altogether. God sees fit in every age to appoint certain persons to kindle new lights among men.--And Newton was appointed greatly to enlarge our views of celestial objects. But we are not thence to infer that he was in all respects superior to other men, for we are told that in some instances he was far inferior to other men. Collins denied that Newton had ever shown himself, in any point of wit inferior to other men.

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