Volume 1 — CHAPTER VI

Franklin's British Friends

In Great Britain, Franklin had almost as many friends as in America. During his missions to England, he resided at No. 7 Craven Street, London, the home of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, a widow, and the mother of "Polly," whose filial relations to him constituted an idyll in his life. Into all the interests and feelings of this home, he entered almost as fully and sympathetically as he did into those of his own home in Philadelphia; as is charmingly attested by his Craven Street Gazette. Mrs. Stevenson looked after his clothing, attended to him when he was sick, and made the purchases from time to time that the commissions of Deborah and Jane Mecom called for. In one of his letters to Temple, written after his return from his second mission to England, Franklin mentions a long letter that he had received from her in the form of "a kind of Journal for a Month after our Departure, written on different Days, & of different Dates, acquainting me who has call'd, and what is done, with all the small News. In four or five Places, she sends her Love to her dear Boy, hopes he was not very sick at Sea, &c., &c." This journal doubtless set forth in a matter-of-fact way the daily life of the Craven Street household, which Franklin idealized with such captivating vivacity in the humorous pages of the Craven Street Gazette. At the Craven Street house, he and his son lived in great comfort, occupying four rooms, and waited upon by his man-servant, and Billy's negro attendant; and, when he moved about the streets of London, it was in a modest chariot of his own. Franklin's letters to Deborah frequently conveyed affectionate messages from Mrs. Stevenson and Polly to Deborah and her daughter Sally. Occasionally, too, presents of one kind or another from Mrs. Stevenson found their way across the Atlantic to Deborah and Sally. Altogether, the Craven Street house, if not a true home to Franklin in every sense of the word, was a cheerful semblance of one. A letter from Dr. Priestley to him, which he received shortly after his return from Canada, during the American Revolution, bears witness to the impression left by his amiable traits upon the memory of the good woman with whom he had resided so long. After telling Franklin that Franklin's old servant Fevre often mentioned him with affection and respect, Dr. Priestley added, "Mrs. Stevenson is much as usual. She can talk about nothing but you." The feeling was fully returned.

It is always with great Pleasure [he wrote to her from Passy], when I think of our long continu'd Friendship, which had not the least Interruption in the Course of Twenty Years (some of the happiest of my Life), that I spent under your Roof and in your Company. If I do not write to you as often as I us'd to do, when I happen'd to be absent from you, it is owing partly to the present Difficulty of sure Communication, and partly to an Apprehension of some possible Inconvenience, that my Correspondence might occasion you. Be assured, my dear Friend, that my Regard, Esteem, and Affection for you, are not in the least impair'd or diminish'd; and that, if Circumstances would permit, nothing would afford me so much Satisfaction, as to be with you in the same House, and to experience again your faithful, tender Care, and Attention to my Interests, Health, and Comfortable Living, which so long and steadily attach'd me to you, and which I shall ever remember with Gratitude.

And, when the news of Mrs. Stevenson's death was communicated to Franklin by her daughter, the retrospect of the last twenty-five years that it opened up to him framed itself into these tender words in his reply.

During the greatest Part of the Time, I lived in the same House with my dear deceased Friend, your Mother; of course you and I saw and convers'd with each other much and often. It is to all our Honours, that in all that time we never had among us the smallest Misunderstanding. Our Friendship has been all clear Sunshine, without the least Cloud in its Hemisphere. Let me conclude by saying to you, what I have had too frequent Occasions to say to my other remaining old Friends, "The fewer we become, the more let us love one another."

On the back of the last letter, dated July 24, 1782, that he received from Mrs. Stevenson, he indorsed this memorandum: "This good woman, my dear Friend, died the first of January following. She was about my Age."

But the closest friendship that Franklin formed in England was with Mary, or Polly, Stevenson. To her, perhaps, the most delightful of all his familiar letters were written—letters so full of love and watchful interest as to suggest a father rather than a friend. It is not too much to say that they are distinguished by a purity and tenderness of feeling almost perfect, and by a combination of delicate humor and instructive wisdom to which it would be hard to find a parallel. The first of them bears date May 4, 1759, and the last bears date May 30, 1786. That the letters, some forty-six in number, are not more numerous even than they are is due to the fact that, during the period of their intercourse, the two friends were often under the same roof, or, when they were not, saw each other frequently.

In his first letter, addressed to "My Dear Chil^d," Franklin tells Polly, who was then about twenty years of age, that he had hoped for the pleasure of seeing her the day before at the Oratorio in the Foundling Hospital, but that, though he looked with all the eyes he had, not excepting even those he carried in his pocket, he could not find her. He had, however, he said, fixed that day se'nnight for a little journey into Essex, and would take Mrs. Stevenson with him as far as the home of Mrs. Tickell, Polly's aunt, at Wanstead, where Polly then was, and would call for Mrs. Stevenson there on his return. "Will," he says in a postscript, "did not see you in the Park." Will, of course, was his son. In the succeeding year, he writes to Polly that he embraces most gladly his dear friend's proposal of a subject for their future correspondence, though he fears that his necessary business and journeys, with the natural indolence of an old man, will make him too unpunctual a correspondent.

But why will you [he asks], by the Cultivation of your Mind, make yourself still more amiable, and a more desirable Companion for a Man of Understanding, when you are determin'd, as I hear, to live single? If we enter, as you propose, into moral as well as natural Philosophy, I fancy, when I have fully establish'd my Authority as a Tutor, I shall take upon me to lecture you a little on that Chapter of Duty.

He then maps out a course of reading for her, to be conducted in such a manner as to furnish them with material for their letters. "Believe me ever, my dear good Girl," he concludes, "your affectionate Friend and Servant."

With his next letter, he sends her a gift of books, and begs her to accept it, as a small mark of his esteem and friendship, and the gift is accompanied with more specific advice as to the manner in which she was to prosecute her studies, and obtain the benefit of his knowledge and counsel. When he writes again, his letter discloses the fact that a brisk interchange of ideas had been actually established between them. "'Tis a very sensible Question you ask," he says, "how the Air can affect the Barometer, when its Opening appears covered with Wood?" And her observation on what she had lately read concerning insects is very just and solid too, he remarks. The question he has no difficulty in answering, and the observation on insects leads to some agreeable statements about the silk-worm, the bee, the cochineal and the Spanish fly, and finally to an interesting account of the way in which the great Swedish naturalist, Linnæus had been successfully called in by his King to suggest some means of checking the ravages of the worm that was doing such injury to the Swedish ships. Nor was all this mellifluous information imparted without a timely caution.

There is, however [he concluded], a prudent Moderation to be used in Studies of this kind. The Knowledge of Nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful; but if, to attain an Eminence in that, we neglect the Knowledge and Practice of essential Duties, we deserve Reprehension. For there is no Rank in Natural Knowledge of equal Dignity and Importance with that of being a good Parent, a good Child, a good Husband or Wife, a good Neighbour or Friend, a good Subject or Citizen, that is, in short, a good Christian. Nicholas Gimcrack, therefore, who neglected the Care of his Family, to Pursue Butterflies, was a just Object of Ridicule, and we must give him up as fair Game to the satyrist.

A later letter is an amusing illustration of the manner in which he occasionally reminded his pupil that she must not take herself and Philosophy too seriously. Polly was at the time at the famous Wells of Bristol about which so much of the social pageantry of the eighteenth century centred.

Your first Question, What is the Reason the Water at this place, tho' cold at the Spring, becomes warm by Pumping? it will be most prudent in me to forbear attempting to answer [he said], till, by a more circumstantial account, you assure me of the Fact. I own I should expect that Operation to warm, not so much the Water pump'd, as the Person pumping. The Rubbing of dry Solids together has been long observ'd to produce Heat; but the like Effect has never yet, that I have heard, been produc'd by the mere Agitation of Fluids, or Friction of Fluids with Solids.

He might have let the matter rest there but he did not. The occasion was too opportune a one to impress upon Polly the importance of not jumping at conclusions too quickly for him to refrain from borrowing an apt story from Selden about a young woman who, finding herself in the presence of some gentlemen, when they were examining what they called a Chinese shoe, and carrying on a dispute about it, put in her word, and said modestly, "Gentlemen, are you sure it is a Shoe? Should not that be settled first?"

Then he passes to a highly edifying explanation of tidal movements in rivers, so simple that even a child, to say nothing of a bright-witted girl, could experience no difficulty in understanding it, and ends with the question:

After writing 6 Folio Pages of Philosophy to a young Girl, is it necessary to finish such a Letter with a Compliment? Is not such a Letter of itself a Compliment? Does it not say, she has a Mind thirsty after Knowledge, and capable of receiving it; and that the most agreeable Things one can write to her are those that tend to the Improvement of her Understanding?

With his next letter, he enclosed a paper containing his views on several points relating to the air and the evaporation of water, and informed Polly that he would shortly accompany her good mother again to Wanstead, when they could take a walk to some of Lord Tilney's ponds, and make a few experiments there that would explain the nature of tides more fully.

"Adieu, my dear little Philosopher," he exclaims in another letter, after suggesting that thirsty unfortunates at sea might be greatly relieved by sitting in sea water, and declaring that wet clothes do not create colds, whatever damp may do. No one catches cold by bathing, he said, and no clothes can be wetter than water itself.

In another letter, he makes some most readable observations upon the evaporation of rivers and the relations of colors to heat. The ignorant, he declared, suppose in some cases that a river loses itself by running underground, whereas in truth it has run up into the air. And, with reference to the interdependence of heat and color, he pursued this fresh train of ideas:

What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? That Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should, in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white? That Summer Hats, for Men or Women, should be white, as repelling that Heat which gives Headaches to many, and to some the fatal Stroke that the French call the Coup de Soleil? That the Ladies' Summer Hats, however, should be lined with Black, as not reverberating on their Faces those Rays which are reflected upwards from the Earth or Water? That the putting a white Cap of Paper or Linnen within the Crown of a black Hat, as some do, will not keep out the Heat, tho' it would if placed without? That Fruit-Walls being black'd may receive so much Heat from the Sun in the Daytime, as to continue warm in some degree thro' the Night, and thereby preserve the Fruit from Frosts, or forward its Growth?—with sundry other particulars of less or greater Importance, that will occur from time to time to attentive Minds?

Sometimes he exchanges language like this for such bantering questions as these: "Have you finish'd your Course of Philosophy? No more Doubts to be resolv'd? No more Questions to ask? If so, you may now be at full Leisure to improve yourself in Cards."

Another letter, dated June 7, 1762, was written in contemplation of the fact that he was about to leave the Old World for the New.

I fancy I feel a little like dying Saints [he said], who, in parting with those they love in this World, are only comforted with the Hope of more perfect Happiness in the next. I have, in America, Connections of the most engaging kind; and, happy as I have been in the Friendships here contracted, those promise me greater and more lasting Felicity. But God only knows whether these Promises shall be fulfilled.

Then came the letter written to her from a "wretched inn" at Portsmouth when he was on the point of embarking for America. It is none the less noteworthy because it reveals the fact that the thought of a marriage between Polly and his son had been a familiar one to him and her.

It (the paper on which he wrote) [he said] 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, join'd to so perfect an Esteem; who he once flatter'd 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 can not.

Adieu, my dearest Child. I will call you so. Why should I not call you so, since I love you with all the Tenderness, All the Fondness 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 could have made you.

No wonder that the fatherless girl should have felt from the day that she received this letter until the day that she helped to assuage the pain of Franklin's last hours by her loving ministrations that the heart in which she was so deeply cherished was one of these blessings. A few months later, Franklin writes to her from America a long, communicative letter, valuable among other reasons for the evidence that it affords of the ready sympathy with which he had entered into her circle of youthful friendships. He tells her that he shares her grief over her separation from her old friend Miss Pitt; "Pitty," he calls her in another place in this letter when he sends his love to her. He congratulates her upon the recovery of her "dear Dolly's" health. This was Dorothea Blount to whom he repeatedly refers in his letters to her. "I love that dear good Girl myself, and I love her other Friends," he said. Polly's statement in the letter, to which his letter was a reply, that she had lately had the pleasure of spending three days with Doctor and Mrs. Hawkesworth at the house of John Stanley, all warm friends of his, elicits from him the exclamation, "It was a sweet Society!"

These are but a few of the many details that make up this letter. Polly was one of the stimulating correspondents who brought out all that was best in Franklin's own intellectual resources, and the next time that he wrote to her from America he used this appreciative and grateful language. "The Ease, the Smoothness, the Purity of Diction, and Delicacy of Sentiment, that always appear in your Letters, never fail to delight me; but the tender filial Regard you constantly express for your old Friend is particularly engaging."

In later letters to Polly, written after his return to England in 1764, there are other lively passages like those that animated his letters to her before his return to America. On one occasion he answers a letter from her in verse.

A Muse, you must know, visited me this Morning! I see you are surpriz'd, as I was. I never saw one before. And shall never see another. So I took the Opportunity of her Help to put the Answer into Verse, because I was some Verse in your Debt ever since you sent me the last Pair of Garters.

This letter is succeeded by a highly vivacious one from Paris where he enjoyed the honor of conversing with the King and Queen while they sat at meat. The latter letter is so full of sparkling fun that we cannot but regret that Franklin did not leave behind him equally detailed narratives of his travels in Germany and Holland, and over the face of Great Britain. All the way to Dover, he said, he was engaged in perpetual disputes with innkeepers, hostlers and postilions because he was prevented from seeing the country by the forward tilt of the hoods of the post-chaises in which he was driven; "they insisting that the Chaise leaning forward was an Ease to the Horses, and that the contrary would kill them." "I suppose the chaise leaning forward," he surmised, "looks to them like a Willingness to go forward, and that its hanging back shows a Reluctance." He concludes a humorous description of the seasickness of a number of green passengers between Dover and Calais, who made a hearty breakfast in the morning, before embarking, for fear that, if the wind should fail, they might not get over till supper time, with the remark, "So it seems there are Uncertainties, even beyond those between the Cup and the Lip." Impositions suffered by Franklin on the journey, the smooth highways of France, the contrast between the natural brunettes of Calais and Boulogne and the natural blondes of Abbéville, the Parisian complexions to which nature in every form was a total stranger, the Grand Couvert where the Royal Family supped in public, the magnificence of Versailles and Paris, to which nothing was wanting but cleanliness and tidiness, the pure water and fine streets of Paris, French politeness, the paintings, the plays and operas of the gayest capital in the world all furnished topics for this delightful letter, composed in the high spirits born of rapid movement from one novel experience to another, and doubtless endued, when read, with the never failing charm that belongs to foreign scenes, scanned by the eyes of those we love. Franklin did not know which were the most rapacious, the English or the French boatmen or porters, but the latter had with their knavery, he thought, the most politeness. The only drawback about the roads in France, paved with smooth stone-like streets for many miles together, and flanked on each side with trees, was the labor which the peasants complained that they had to expend upon them for full two months in the year without pay. Whether this was truth, or whether, like Englishmen, they grumbled, cause or no cause, Franklin had not yet been able to fully inform himself.

Passing over his speculations as to the origin of the fair complexions of the women of Abbéville, where wheels and looms were going in every house, we stop for a moment to reproduce this unsparing description of the manner in which the women of Paris exercised the art which has never been known to excite any form of approval except feminine self-approval.

As to Rouge, they don't pretend to imitate Nature in laying it on. There is no gradual Diminution of the Colour, from the full Bloom in the Middle of the Cheek to the faint Tint near the Sides, nor does it show itself differently in different Faces. I have not had the Honour of being at any Lady's Toylette to see how it is laid on, but I fancy I can tell you how it is or may be done. Cut a hole of 3 Inches Diameter in a Piece of Paper; place it on the Side of your Face in such a Manner as that the Top of the Hole may be just under your Eye; then with a Brush dipt in the Colour, paint Face and Paper together; so when the Paper is taken off there will remain a round Patch of Red exactly the Form of the Hole. This is the Mode, from the Actresses on the Stage upwards thro' all Ranks of Ladies to the Princesses of the Blood, but it stops there, the Queen not using it, having in the Serenity, Complacence, and Benignity that shine so eminently in, or rather through her Countenance, sufficient Beauty, tho' now an old Woman, to do extreamly well without it.

In picturing the royal supper, with its gold service and its À boire pour le Roy and its À boire pour la Reine, Franklin even draws a sketch of the table so that Polly can see just where the King and Queen and Mesdames Adelaide, Victoria, Louise and Sophie sat, and just where Sir John Pringle and himself stood, when they were brought by an officer of the court to be talked to by the royal personages. This letter also contains what is perhaps the handsomest compliment ever paid to French politeness: "It seems to be a Point settled here universally, that Strangers are to be treated with Respect; and one has just the same Deference shewn one here by being a Stranger, as in England by being a Lady."

The grave statement in this letter that travelling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance, is made the starting-point for the laughing statement that the writer himself had perhaps suffered a greater change in his own person than he could have done in six years at home.

I had not been here Six Days [he declared] before my Taylor and Perruquier had transform'd me into a Frenchman. Only think what a Figure I make in a little Bag-Wig and naked Ears! They told me I was become 20 Years younger, and look'd very galante; So being in Paris where the Mode is to be sacredly follow'd I was once very near making Love to my Friend's Wife.

The next words in the letter are also full of effervescing gaiety: "This Letter shall cost you a Shilling, and you may consider it cheap, when you reflect, that it has cost me at least 50 Guineas to get into the Situation, that enables me to write it. Besides, I might, if I had staied at home, have won perhaps two Shillings of you at Cribbidge."

Among the best of his subsequent letters is the one—instinct with his usual wisdom and good feeling—in which he advises Polly to return to her aunt, Mrs. Tickell, as soon as a temporary separation was at an end, and continue by every means in her power, no matter how sorely tried by her aunt's infirmities, to make the remainder of the latter's days as comfortable as possible. Polly adopted the advice of this letter, and reaped her reward not only in the gratified sense of duty, upon which the letter laid such emphasis, but also in the fortune which she received upon the death of Mrs. Tickell.

In 1770, she was married to Dr. William Hewson, a brilliant physician, who was prematurely cut off by surgical infection, leaving her the mother of three young children. It was probably of him that she wrote to Franklin from Margate in the year preceding her marriage with him that she had met with a very sensible physician the day before and would not have Franklin or her mother surprised if she should run off with this young man. To be sure, this would be an imprudent step at the discreet age of thirty; but there was no saying what one should do, if solicited by a man of an insinuating address and good person, though he might be too young for one, and not yet established in his profession. The letter began with a welcome to Franklin, who had just returned from the Continent, and he was quick to respond with a pleasantry to her communication about the young physician.

There are certain circumstances in Life, sometimes [he said], wherein 'tis perhaps best not to hearken to Reason. For instance; possibly, if the Truth were known, I have Reason to be jealous of this same insinuating, handsome young Physician; but as it flatters more my Vanity, and therefore gives me more Pleasure, to suppose you were in Spirits on acc^t of my safe Return, I shall turn a deaf Ear to Reason in this Case, as I have done with Success in twenty others.

In a subsequent letter, Franklin tells Polly that her mother has been complaining of her head more than ever before.

If she stoops, or looks, or bends her Neck downwards, on any occasion, it is with great Pain and Difficulty, that she gets her Head up again. She has, therefore, borrowed a Breast and Neck Collar of Mrs. Wilkes, such as Misses wear, and now uses it to keep her Head up. Mr. Strahan has invited us all to dine there to-morrow, but she has excused herself. Will you come, and go with me? If you cannot well do that, you will at least be with us on Friday to go to Lady Strachans.

His own head, he says, is better, owing, he is fully persuaded, to his extreme abstemiousness for some days past at home, but he is not without apprehensions that, being to dine abroad that day, the next day, and the day after, he may inadvertently bring it on again, if he does not think of his little monitor and guardian angel, and make use of the proper and very pertinent clause she proposes in his grace. This clause was doubtless suggested by his previous letter about the insinuating, handsome physician in which he had written to his little monitor that he had just come home from a venison feast, where he had drunk more than a philosopher ought. His next letter warily refrains from giving his flat approval to Dr. Hewson's proposal. His attitude towards Mrs. Greene's marriage had been equally cautious. He was probably of the opinion that, along with the other good advice, that finds its way to the moon, is not a little relating to nuptial engagements. The whole letter is stamped with the good sense and wholesome feeling which such situations never failed to evoke from him.

I assure you [he said] that no Objection has occurr'd to me. His Person you see; his Temper and his Understanding you can judge of; his Character, for anything I have ever heard, is unblemished; his Profession, with the Skill in it he is suppos'd to have, will be sufficient to support a Family, and, therefore, considering the Fortune you have in your Hands (tho' any future Expectation from your Aunt should be disappointed) I do not see but that the Agreement may be a rational one on both sides.

I see your Delicacy, and your Humility too; for you fancy that if you do not prove a great Fortune, you will not be lov'd; but I am sure that were I in his situation in every respect, knowing you so well as I do, and esteeming you so highly, I should think you a Fortune sufficient for me without a Shilling.

Having thus expressed his concern, equal to any father's, he said, for her happiness, and dispelled the idea on her part that he did not favor the proposal, because he did not immediately advise its acceptance, he left, he concluded, the rest to her sound judgment, of which no one had a greater share, and would not be too inquisitive as to her particular reasons, doubts and fears.

They were married only to share the bright vision of unclouded married happiness for some four years, and then to be separated by that tragic agency which few but Franklin have ever been able to invest with the peaceful radiance of declining day. A letter from Franklin to Mrs. Hewson, written shortly after the marriage, laughs as it were through its tears over the mournful plight in which Dolly and he have been left by her desertion, but it shows that he is beginning to get into touch with all the changes brought about by the new connection. We have already seen how fully his heart went out to his godson who sprang from the union. He has a word to say about him in another letter to Mrs. Hewson after a jest at the expense of Mrs. Stevenson's Jacobite prejudices.

I thank you [he said] for your intelligence about my Godson. I believe you are sincere, when you say you think him as fine a Child as you wish to see. He had cut two Teeth, and three, in another Letter, make five; for I know you never write Tautologies. If I have over-reckoned, the Number will be right by this Time. His being like me in so many Particulars pleases me prodigiously; and I am persuaded there is another, which you have omitted, tho' it must have occurr'd to you while you were putting them down. Pray let him have everything he likes; I think it of great Consequence while the Features of the Countenance are forming; it gives them a pleasant Air, and, that being once become natural and fix'd by Habit, the Face is ever after the handsomer for it, and on that much of a Person's good Fortune and Success in Life may depend. Had I been cross'd as much in my Infant Likings and Inclinations as you know I have been of late Years, I should have been, I was going to say, not near so handsome; but as the Vanity of that Expression would offend other Folk's Vanity, I change it out of regard to them, and say, a great deal more homely.

His next letter is written to Mrs. Hewson, then a widow, from Philadelphia, after his return from his second mission to England, and tells her that the times are not propitious for the emigration to America, which she was contemplating, but expresses the hope that they might all be happy together in Philadelphia a little later on.

When he next writes, it is from Paris on January 12, 1777. "My Dear, Dear Polly," he begins, "Figure to yourself an old Man, with grey Hair Appearing under a Martin Fur Cap, among the Powder'd Heads of Paris. It is this odd Figure that salutes you, with handfuls of Blessings on you and your dear little ones." He had failed to bring about a union between Polly and his son, but, inveterate matchmaker that he was, this letter shows that he still had, as a grandfather, the designs on Eliza, Polly's daughter, that he had disclosed in his previous letter to Polly, when he expressed the hope that he might be alive to dance with Mrs. Stevenson at the wedding of Ben and this child. "I give him (Ben)," it said, with a French grimace between its lines, "a little French Language and Address, and then send him over to pay his Respects to Miss Hewson." In another letter, he tells Polly that, if she would take Ben under her care, as she had offered to do, he would set no bad example to her other children. Two or three years later, he wrote to her from Philadelphia that Ben was finishing his studies at college, and would, he thought, make her a good son. Indeed a few days later he referred to Ben in another letter as "your son Ben."

"Does my Godson," he asked in a letter from France to Mrs. Hewson, along with many affectionate inquiries about his "dear old Friend," Mrs. Stevenson, and other English friends of theirs, "remember anything of his Doctor Papa? I suppose not. Kiss the dear little Fellow for me; not forgetting the others. I long to see them and you." Then in a postscript he tells Mrs. Hewson that, at the ball in Nantes, Temple took notice that there were no heads less than five, and that there were a few seven lengths of the face above the forehead. "You know," he observes with the old sportive humor, "that those who have practis'd Drawing, as he has, attend more to Proportions, than People in common do." In another letter from Passy, he asks Mrs. Hewson whether Jacob Viny, who was in the wheel business, could not make up a coach with the latest useful improvements and bring them all over in it. In the same letter, he inserts a word to relieve Mrs. Stevenson of her anxiety about her swelled ankles which she attributed to the dropsy; and the paragraph ends with the words, "My tender Love to her."

As Polly's children grew older, the references to them in Franklin's letters to the mother became more and more frequent and affectionate.

You cannot be more pleas'd [he wrote to her from Passy], in talking about your Children, your Methods of Instructing them, and the Progress they make, than I am in hearing it, and in finding, that, instead of following the idle Amusements, which both your Fortune and the Custom of the Age might have led you into, your Delight and your Duty go together, by employing your Time in the Education of your Offspring. This is following Nature and Reason, instead of Fashion; than which nothing is more becoming the Character of a Woman of Sense and Virtue.

Repeatedly Franklin sends little books to Mrs. Hewson's children, and on one occasion he sends two different French grammars, one of which, after the French master of her children had taken his choice, was to be given to his godson, as his New Year's gift, together with the two volumes of Synonymes Françaises. At one time before he left France, he thought of visiting Mrs. Hewson in England and asked her advice about doing so in the existing state of the British temper. When she counselled him against the journey, he wrote to her, "Come, my dear Friend, live with me while I stay here, and go with me, if I do go, to America." As the result of this invitation, Mrs. Hewson and her children spent the winter of 1784-85 with him at Passy, and his first letter to her, after she returned to England, bears indications in every line of the regret inspired by his loss of her society, after, to use his own words, he had passed a long winter in a manner that made it appear the shortest of any he ever spent. One of his peculiarities was to make a point of telling a friend anything of a pleasant nature that he had heard about him. Since her departure, M. LeVeillard in particular, he said, had told him at different times what indeed he knew long since, "C'est une bien digne Femme, cette Madame Hewson, une très amable Femme." The letter then terminates with the request that, when she prayed at church for all that travelled by land or sea, she would think of her ever affectionate friend, but starts up again in a postscript, in which he sends his love to William, Thomas and Eliza, Mrs. Hewson's children, and asks their mother to tell them that he missed their cheerful prattle. Temple being sick, and Benjamin at Paris, he had found it very triste breakfasting alone, and sitting alone, and without any tea in the evening. "My love to every one of the Children," is his postscript to his next letter, in which, when he was on the eve of leaving France, he told Mrs. Hewson that he said nothing to persuade her to go with him or to follow him, because he knew that she did not usually act from persuasion, but judgment. In nothing was he wiser than in his reserve about giving advice when the persons to be advised were themselves in possession of all the facts of the case essential to a proper decision. When he touched at Southampton, Mrs. Hewson was not yet resolved to sever the ties that connected her with England, but subsequently she did come over with her children to Philadelphia, and made it her home for the rest of her life. The last letter but one that Franklin wrote to her before she sailed is among the most readable letters in the correspondence. Referring to three letters of hers, that had not reached him until nearly ten years after they were written, he said:

This pacquet had been received by Mr. Bache, after my departure for France, lay dormant among his papers during all my absence, and has just now broke out upon me, like words, that had been, as somebody says, congealed in northern air. Therein I find all the pleasing little family history of your children; how William had begun to spell, overcoming, by strength of memory, all the difficulty occasioned by the common wretched alphabet, while you were convinced of the utility of our new one; how Tom, genius-like, struck out new paths, and, relinquishing the old names of the letters, called U bell and P bottle; how Eliza began to grow jolly, that is, fat and handsome, resembling Aunt Rooke, whom I used to call my lovely. Together with all the then news of Lady Blount's having produced at length a boy; of Dolly's being well, and of poor good Catherine's decease; of your affairs with Muir and Atkinson, and of their contract for feeding the fish in the channel; of the Vinys and their jaunt to Cambridge in the long carriage; of Dolly's journey to Wales with Mrs. Scott; of the Wilkeses, the Pearces, Elphinstones, &c.;—concluding with a kind of promise, that, as soon as the ministry and Congress agreed to make peace, I should have you with me in America. That peace has been some time made; but, alas! the promise is not yet fulfilled.

Rarely, indeed, we imagine has one person, even though a father, or a husband, ever enveloped the life of another with such an atmosphere of pure, caressing, intimate sympathy and affection as surrounds these letters. Perhaps, our review of them would be incomplete, if we did not also recall the comments made by Franklin to Polly upon the death of her mother, and Polly's own comments upon the close of his life.

The Departure of my dearest Friend [he wrote to Polly from Passy], which I learn from your last Letter, greatly affects me. To meet with her once more in this Life was one of the principal Motives of my proposing to visit England again, before my Return to America. The last Year carried off my Friends Dr. Pringle, and Dr. Fothergill, Lord Kaims, and Lord le Despencer. This has begun to take away the rest, and strikes the hardest. Thus the Ties I had to that Country, and indeed to the World in general, are loosened one by one, and I shall soon have no Attachment left to make me unwilling to follow.

This is the description given by Mrs. Hewson of his last years after stating that during the two years that preceded his death he did not experience so much as two months of exemption from pain, yet never uttered one repining or peevish word.

When the pain was not too violent to be amused, he employed himself with his books, his pen, or in conversation with his friends; and upon every occasion displayed the clearness of his intellect, and the cheerfulness of his temper. Even when the intervals from pain were so short, that his words were frequently interrupted, I have known him to hold a discourse in a sublime strain of piety. I never shall forget one day that I passed with our friend last summer (1789). I found him in bed in great agony; but, when that agony abated a little, I asked him if I should read to him. He said, "Yes," and the first book I met with was "Johnson's Lives of the Poets." I read the "Life of Watts," who was a favorite author with Dr. Franklin; and instead of lulling him to sleep, it roused him to a display of the powers of his memory and his reason. He repeated several of Watts's "Lyric Poems," and descanted upon their sublimity in a strain worthy of them and of their pious author.

Sublime or not, it cannot be denied that the poems of Dr. Watts have been a staff of comfort and support to many a pilgrim on his way to the "fields of endless light where the saints and angels walk."

Another very dear English friend of Franklin was William Strahan, King's Printer, the partner at one time of Thomas Cadell the Elder, and the publisher of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The frequent references in Franklin's letters to him to Madeira wine would seem to indicate that, if it had been possible for such a temperate man as Franklin to have what is known as a boon companion, Strahan would have been he. On one occasion, Franklin writes to him that he has a great opinion of his wisdom (Madeira apart), on another, after twitting him good-humoredly with the restless condition of England, he observes: "You will say my Advice 'smells of Madeira.' You are right. This foolish Letter is mere chitchat between ourselves over the second bottle."

The friendship between the two began before they had even seen each other. From writing to each other from time to time, in the course of business, about books and stationery, they finally came to feel as if they really knew each other, and to exchange familiar messages on that footing. In his earliest letter to Strahan, Franklin signs himself, "Your humble servant unknown," but, before he has even carried into execution the floating intention of going over to England, which, again and again, manifests itself in his letters to Strahan, his spouse is corresponding with Mrs. Strahan, and he has arranged a match between Sally and Master Billy, one of Strahan's sons. "My compliments to Mrs. Strahan, and to your promising son, perhaps one day mine," he wrote to Strahan several years before his first mission to England, "God send our children good and suitable matches, for I begin to feel a parents' cares in that respect, and fondly wish to see them well settled before I leave them." A little later, he has arranged the match so entirely to his satisfaction, and, as the event proved, to that of Strahan too, that he writes glibly to Strahan of William Strahan as "our son Billy" and of Sally as "our daughter Sally." The same letter foreshadows the mission to England that brought the two friends for the first time face to face. "Our Assembly," it said, "talk of sending me to England speedily. Then look out sharp, and if a fat old fellow should come to your printing-house and request a little smouting, depend upon it 'tis your affectionate friend and humble servant."

The earlier cis-Atlantic letters of Franklin to Strahan are mainly letters of business over which we need not linger here; but they contain some paragraphs of general interest besides those relating to Sally and Master Billy. In one place, Franklin declares that he is glad that the Polybius, which he had ordered from Strahan, did not come; it was intended for his son, who was, when the order was given, in the army, and apparently bent on a military life, but that, as peace had cut off the prospect of advancement in that way, his son would apply himself to other business. In any event, Polybius would appear to have been a rather pedantic authority for the military operations of the American backwoods. The other business to which William Franklin had decided to apply himself was that of the profession, which, in the opinion of the general public, approximates most nearly to a state of warfare—the law, and, in the letters from Franklin to Strahan, William's altered plans are brought home to us in the form of orders for law books and the request that Strahan would have William entered as a student at the Inns of Court.

These earlier letters also contain some piquant comments on colonial conditions. Such are the remarks prompted by Pope's sneer in the Dunciad at the supposed popularity of the poetaster, Ward, in "ape-and-monkey climes."

That Poet has many Admirers here, and the Reflection he somewhere casts on the Plantations as if they had a Relish for such Writers as Ward only, is injurious. Your Authors know but little of the Fame they have on this side of the Ocean. We are a kind of Posterity in respect to them. We read their Works with perfect impartiality, being at too great distance to be byassed by the Factions, Parties and Prejudices that prevail among you. We know nothing of their Personal Failings; the Blemishes in their Character never reaches (sic) us, and therefore the bright and amiable part strikes us with its full Force. They have never offended us or any of our Friends, and we have no competitions with them, therefore we praise and admire them without Restraint. Whatever Thomson writes send me a dozen copies of. I had read no poetry for several years, and almost lost the Relish of it, till I met with his Seasons. That charming Poet has brought more Tears of Pleasure into my Eyes than all I ever read before. I wish it were in my Power to return him any Part of the Joy he has given me.

Many years later, some appreciative observations of the same critic on the poetry of Cowper were to make even that unhappy poet little less proud than the girl in the Tatler with the new pair of garters.

The friendship, initiated by the early letters of Franklin to Strahan, ripened fast into the fullest and freest intimacy when Franklin went over to England in 1757. They were both printers, to begin with, and were both very social in their tastes. Strahan was besides no mean political quid nunc, and Franklin was all his life an active politician. So interesting were the reports that he made to Franklin at the latter's request on political conditions in England, after Franklin returned to America from his first mission to that country, that Franklin acknowledged his debt in these flattering terms:

Your accounts are so clear, circumstantial, and complete, that tho' there is nothing too much, nothing is wanting to give us, as I imagine, a more perfect knowledge of your publick affairs than most people have that live among you. The characters of your speakers and actors are so admirably sketch'd, and their views so plainly opened, that we see and know everybody; they all become of our acquaintance. So excellent a manner of writing seems to me a superfluous gift to a mere printer. If you do not commence author for the benefit of mankind, you will certainly be found guilty hereafter of burying your talent. It is true that it will puzzle the Devil himself to find anything else to accuse you of, but remember he may make a great deal of that. If I were king (which may God in mercy to us all prevent) I should certainly make you the historiographer of my reign. There could be but one objection—I suspect you might be a little partial in my favor.

"Straney" was the affectionate nickname by which Franklin addressed Strahan after he came into personal contact with him, and, as usual, the friendship that he formed for the head of the family drew all the other members of the family within its folds. His friendship was rarely, we believe, confined to one member of a family. That was the reason why, in one of his last letters to Mrs. Hewson, he could picture his condition in Philadelphia in these terms: "The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed, but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren." And so, in Franklin's relations with the Strahans, we find his affection taking in all the members of the household. "My dear Love to Mrs. Strahan," he says in a letter to Strahan from Philadelphia in 1762, "and bid her be well for all our sakes. Remember me affectionately to Rachey and my little Wife and to your promising Sons my young Friends Billy, George and Andrew." A similar message in another letter to Strahan is followed by the statement, "I hope to live to see George a Bishop," and, a few days afterwards, Franklin recurs to the subject in these terms: "Tell me whether George is to be a Church or Presbyterian parson. I know you are a Presbyterian yourself; but then I think you have more sense than to stick him into a priesthood that admits of no promotion. If he was a dull lad it might not be amiss, but George has parts, and ought to aim at a mitre."

There are other repeated references in Franklin's letters to Strahan's daughter whom Franklin called his wife. "I rejoice to hear," he says in one of them, "that Mrs. Strahan is recovering; that your family in general is well, and that my little woman in particular is so, and has not forgot our tender connection." In a letter, which we have already quoted, after charging Strahan with not being as good-natured as he ought to be, he says, "I am glad, however that you have this fault; for a man without faults is a hateful creature. He puts all his friends out of countenance; but I love you exceedingly."

As for Strahan, he loved Franklin so exceedingly that in his effort to bring Deborah over to England he did not stop short, as we have seen, of letting her know that, when she arrived, there would be a ready-made son-in-law to greet her. Indeed the idea of fixing Franklin in England appears to have been the darling project of his heart if we are to judge by the frequency with which Franklin had to oppose Deborah's fear of the sea to his importunity. More than once it must have appeared to him as if the eloquence on which he prided himself so greatly would bear down all difficulties. After Franklin in 1762 had been for two nights on board of the ship at Portsmouth which was to take him to America, but was kept in port by adverse winds, he wrote to Strahan:

The Attraction of Reason is at present for the other side of the Water, but that of Inclination will be for this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall probably make but this one Vibration, and settle here forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me.

That, he said in a subsequent letter, would be the great difficulty. The next year, he even wrote to Strahan from America, after his journey of eleven hundred and forty miles on the American continent that year, that no friend could wish him more in England than he did himself, though, before he went, everything, in which he was concerned, must be so settled in America as to make another return to it unnecessary. But, in the course of his life, Franklin, with his sensibility to social attentions and freedom from provincial restrictions, professed his preference for so many parts of the world as a place of residence that statements of this kind should not be accepted too literally.

In one of his letters to Strahan, before his return to England, on his second mission, there is a sly stroke that gives us additional insight into the intimate relations which the two men had contracted with each other.

You tell me [Franklin said] that the value I set on your political letters is a strong proof that my judgment is on the decline. People seldom have friends kind enough to tell them that disagreeable truth, however useful it might be to know it; and indeed I learn more from what you say than you intended I should; for it convinces me that you had observed the decline for some time past in other instances, as 'tis very unlikely you should see it first in my good opinion of your writings.

With Franklin's return to England on his second mission, the old friendly intercourse between Strahan and himself was resumed, but it came wholly to an end during the American Revolution; for Strahan was the King's Printer, an inveterate Tory, and one of the ministerial phalanx, which followed George III. blindly. When the dragon's teeth sown by the King began to spring up in serried ranks, Franklin wrote, but did not send, to Strahan the letter, which is so well known as to almost make transcription unnecessary.

Mr. Strahan,

You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction.—You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People.—Look upon your Hands! They are stained with the Blood of your Relations!—You and I were long Friends:—You are now my Enemy,—and I am

Yours, B. Franklin.

In this instance, also, Franklin was but true to his practice of sometimes inserting a quip or a quirk into even the gravest contexts.

Not until December 4, 1781, does the silence between the two friends, produced by the Revolution, appear to have been really broken. On that date, Franklin wrote to Strahan a formal letter, addressing him no longer as "Dear Straney," but as "Dear Sir," and concluding with none of the former affectionate terminations, but in the stiffest terms of obsequious eighteenth century courtesy. The ostensible occasion for the letter was a package of letters which he asked Strahan to forward to Mrs. Strange, the wife of Robert Strange, the celebrated engraver, whose address he did not remember. He also asked Strahan for a copy of the Tully on Old Age, which Franklin had printed in Philadelphia many years before, and had endeavored to sell in part in London through Strahan. Well maintained as the reserve of this letter is, it is plainly enough that of a man, who is feeling his way a little cautiously, because he does not know just how his approaches will be received. Between the lines, we can see that the real object of the requests about the package of letters and the Latin classic was to find out whether Franklin's treason had killed all desire on Straney's part to open a second bottle with him. There is a by-reference to Didot le Jeune, who was bidding fair to carry the art of fine printing to a high pitch of perfection, and an expression of pleasure that Strahan had married his daughter happily, and that his prosperity continued. "I hope," Franklin said, "it may never meet with any Interruption having still, tho' at present divided by public Circumstances, a Remembrance of our ancient private Friendship." Nor did he fail to present his affectionate respects to Mrs. Strahan and his love to Strahan's children. The olive branch was distinctly held out, but, just about the time that this letter reached Strahan, the ministry, of which he was such an unfaltering adherent, suffered a defeat on the American question, and the Tully was transmitted by Mrs. Strange's husband with the statement that he really believed that Strahan himself would have written to Franklin but for the smart of the Parliamentary disaster of that morning. Several years later, there came to Franklin an acknowledgment by Strahan of the very friendly and effectual patronage which had been afforded to a distant kinswoman of his at Philadelphia by Franklin's family. The letter also eagerly urged Franklin to come to England once more, and with Franklin's reply, signed "yours ever most affectionately," the old entente was fully re-established. In the high animal spirits, aroused by the renewal of the former relationship, he fell back upon the technical terms of the printing house, so familiar to the two friends, for the purpose of illustrating his pet proposition that England would never be at rest until all the enormous salaries, emoluments and patronage of her great offices were abolished, and these offices were made, instead of places of profit, places of expense and burthen.

Ambition and avarice [he said] are each of them strong Passions, and when they are united in the same Persons, and have the same Objects in view for their Gratification, they are too strong for Public Spirit and Love of Country, and are apt to produce the most violent Factions and Contentions. They should therefore be separated, and made to act one against the other. Those Places, to speak in our old stile (Brother Type) may be for the good of the Chapel, but they are bad for the Master, as they create constant Quarrels that hinder the Business. For example, here are near two Months that your Government has been employed in getting its form to press; which is not yet fit to work on, every Page of it being squabbled, and the whole ready to fall into pye. The Founts too must be very scanty, or strangely out of sorts, since your Compositors cannot find either upper or lower case Letters sufficient to set the word administration, but are forc'd to be continually turning for them. However, to return to common (tho' perhaps too saucy) Language, don't despair; you have still one resource left, and that not a bad one, since it may reunite the Empire. We have some Remains of Affection for you, and shall always be ready to receive and take care of you in Case of Distress. So if you have not Sense and Virtue enough to govern yourselves, e'en dissolve your present old crazy Constitution, and send members to Congress.

This is the letter that Franklin said was mere chitchat between themselves over the second bottle. Where America was concerned, Strahan was almost credulous enough to have even swallowed the statement in Franklin's humorous letter "To the Editor of a Newspaper," written about the time of the Stamp Act in ridicule of English ignorance respecting America, that the grand leap of the whale in his chase of the cod up the Fall of Niagara was esteemed by all who had seen it as one of the finest spectacles in Nature. In 1783, Captain Nathaniel Falconer, another faithful friend of Franklin, wrote to him with the true disregard of an old sea-dog for spelling and syntax: "I have been over to your old friends Mr. Strawns and find him just the same man, believes every Ly he hears against the United States, the French Army and our Army have been killing each other, and that we shall be glad to come to this country again." In reply, Franklin said: "I have still a regard for M^r. Strahan in remembrance of our ancient Friendship, tho' he has as a Member of Parliament dipt his Hands in our Blood. He was always as credulous as you find him." And, if what Franklin further says in this letter is true, Strahan was not only credulous himself but not above publishing mendacious letters about America as written from New York, which in point of fact were fabricated in London. A little over a year later, when the broken bones of the ancient friendship had reknit, Franklin had his chance to remind Strahan of the extent to which he and those of the same mind with him had been deceived by their gross misconceptions of America. His opportunity came in the form of a reply to a letter from Strahan withholding his assent from the idea of Franklin, so utterly repugnant to the working principles of Strahan's party associates, that public service should be rendered gratuitously. "There are, I make no doubt," said Franklin "many wise and able Men, who would take as much Pleasure in governing for nothing, as they do in playing Chess for nothing. It would be one of the noblest of Amusements." Then, when he has fortified the proposition by some real or fancied illustrations, drawn from French usages, he proceeds to unburden his mind to Strahan with a degree of candor that must have made the latter wince a little at times.

I allow you [he said] all the Force of your Joke upon the Vagrancy of our Congress. They have a right to sit where they please, of which perhaps they have made too much Use by shifting too often. But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together.

You "fairly acknowledge, that the late War terminated quite contrary to your Expectation." Your expectation was ill founded; for you would not believe your old Friend, who told you repeatedly, that by those Measures England would lose her Colonies, as Epictetus warned in vain his Master that he would break his Leg. You believ'd rather the Tales you heard of our Poltroonery and Impotence of Body and Mind. Do you not remember the Story you told me of the Scotch sergeant, who met with a Party of Forty American Soldiers, and, tho' alone, disarm'd them all, and brought them in Prisoners? A Story almost as Improbable as that of the Irishman, who pretended to have alone taken and brought in Five of the Enemy by surrounding them. And yet, my Friend, sensible and Judicious as you are, but partaking of the general Infatuation, you seemed to believe it.

The Word general puts me in mind of a General, your General Clarke, who had the Folly to say in my hearing at Sir John Pringle's, that, with a Thousand British grenadiers, he would undertake to go from one end of America to the other, and geld all the Males, partly by force and partly by a little Coaxing. It is plain he took us for a species of Animals, very little superior to Brutes. The Parliament too believ'd the stories of another foolish General, I forget his Name, that the Yankeys never felt bold. Yankey was understood to be a sort of Yahoo, and the Parliament did not think the Petitions of such Creatures were fit to be received and read in so wise an Assembly. What was the consequence of this monstrous Pride and Insolence? You first sent small Armies to subdue us, believing them more than sufficient, but soon found yourselves obliged to send greater; these, whenever they ventured to penetrate our Country beyond the Protection of their Ships, were either repulsed and obliged to scamper out, or were surrounded, beaten and taken Prisoners. An America Planter, who had never seen Europe, was chosen by us to Command our Troops, and continued during the whole War. This Man sent home to you, one after another, five of your best Generals baffled, their Heads bare of Laurels, disgraced even in the opinion of their Employers.

Your contempt of our Understandings, in Comparison with your own, appeared to be not much better founded than that of our Courage, if we may judge by this Circumstance, that, in whatever Court of Europe a Yankey negociator appeared, the wise British Minister was routed, put in a passion, pick'd a quarrel with your Friends, and was sent home with a Flea in his Ear.

But after all, my dear Friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to ascribe our Success to any superiority in any of those Points. I am too well acquainted with all the Springs and Levers of our Machine, not to see, that our human means were unequal to our undertaking, and that, if it had not been for the Justice of our Cause, and the consequent Interposition of Providence, in which we had Faith, we must have been ruined. If I had ever before been an Atheist, I should now have been convinced of the Being and Government of a Deity! It is he who abases the Proud and favours the Humble. May we never forget his Goodness to us, and may our future Conduct manifest our Gratitude.

It was characteristic of Franklin to open his heart to a friend in this candid way even upon sensitive topics, and there can be no better proof of the instinctive confidence of his friends in the essential good feeling that underlay such candor than the fact that they never took offence at utterances of this sort. They knew too well the constancy of affection and placability of temper which caused him to justly say of himself in a letter to Strahan, "I like immortal friendships, but not immortal enmities."

The retrospective letter from which we have just quoted had its genial afterglow as all Franklin's letters had, when he had reason to think that he had written something at which a relative or a friend might take umbrage.

But let us leave these serious Reflections [he went on], and converse with our usual Pleasantry. I remember your observing once to me as we sat together in the House of Commons, that no two Journeymen Printers, within your Knowledge, had met with such Success in the World as ourselves. You were then at the head of your Profession, and soon afterwards became a Member of Parliament. I was an Agent for a few Provinces, and now act for them all. But we have risen by different Modes. I, as a Republican Printer, always liked a Form well plain'd down; being averse to those overbearing Letters that hold their Heads so high, as to hinder their Neighbours from appearing. You, as a Monarchist, chose to work upon Crown Paper, and found it profitable; while I work'd upon pro patria (often call'd Fools Cap) with no less advantage. Both our Heaps hold out very well, and we seem likely to make a pretty good day's Work of it. With regard to Public Affairs (to continue in the same stile) it seems to me that the Compositors in your Chapel do not cast off their Copy well, nor perfectly understand Imposing; their Forms, too, are continually pester'd by the Outs and Doubles, that are not easy to be corrected. And I think they were wrong in laying aside some Faces, and particularly certain Headpieces, that would have been both useful and ornamental. But, Courage! The Business may still flourish with good Management; and the Master become as rich as any of the Company.

Less than two years after these merry words were penned, Franklin wrote to Andrew Strahan, Strahan's son, saying, "I condole with you most sincerely on the Departure of your good Father and Mother, my old and beloved Friends."

Equally dear to Franklin, though in a different way, was Jonathan Shipley, the Bishop of St. Asaph's, whom he termed in a letter to Georgiana, one of the Bishop's daughters, "that most honoured and ever beloved Friend." In this same letter, Franklin speaks of the Bishop as the "good Bishop," and then, perhaps, not unmindful of the unflinching servility with which the Bench of Bishops had supported the American policy of George III., exclaims, "Strange, that so simple a Character should sufficiently distinguish one of that sacred Body!"

During the dispute with the Colonies, the Bishop was one of the wise Englishmen, who could have settled the questions at issue between England and America, to the ultimate satisfaction of both countries, with little difficulty, if they had been given a carte blanche to agree with Franklin on the terms upon which the future dependence of America was to be based. Two productions of his, the "Sermon before the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts" and his "Speech intended to have been spoken on the Bill for Altering the Charters of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay," were among the compositions which really influenced the course of the events that preceded the American Revolution. We know from Franklin's pen that the sermon was for a time "universally approved and applauded," and, in letters to Thomas Cushing, he said that the speech was admired in England as a "Masterpiece of Eloquence and Wisdom," and "had an extraordinary Effect, in changing the Sentiments of Multitudes with regard to America." For both sermon and speech the Bishop was all the more to be honored by Americans, because, as Franklin observed to Galloway of the sermon, the Bishop's censure of the mother country's treatment of the Colonies, however tenderly expressed, could not recommend him at court or conduce in the least to his promotion. On the contrary, it probably cost him the most splendid temporal reward that could be conferred upon a Churchman, the Archbishopric of Canterbury; for, when Charles James Fox was desirous of elevating him to that exalted office, the King defeated his intentions by hastily appointing another person to it.

At Chilbolton, by Twyford, the country seat of the Bishop, some of the most pleasant days that Franklin spent in England were passed. So fond of Franklin were the Bishop and his wife that the latter carried in her memory even the ages of all Franklin's children and grandchildren. As he was on the point of leaving Twyford, at the end of the three weeks' visit, during which he began the Autobiography, she insisted on his remaining that day, so that they might all celebrate the anniversary of Benjamin Bache's birth together. Accordingly, at dinner there was among other things a floating island, such as the hosts always had on the several birthdays of their own six children; all of whom, with one exception, were present as well as a clergyman's widow upwards of one hundred years old. The story is thus told by Franklin to his wife:

The chief Toast of the Day was Master Benjamin Bache, which the venerable old Lady began in a Bumper of Mountain. The Bishop's Lady politely added, and that he may be as good a Man as his Grandfather. I said I hop'd he would be much better. The Bishop, still more complaisant than his Lady, said, "We will compound the Matter, and be contented, if he should not prove quite so good." This Chitchat is to yourself only, in return for some of yours about your Grandson, and must only be read to Sally, and not spoken of to anybody else; for you know how People add and alter Silly stories that they hear, and make them appear ten times more silly.

The room at the Bishop's home, in which the Autobiography was begun, was ever subsequently known as Franklin's room. After his return to America from France, Catherine Louisa Shipley, one of the Bishop's daughters, wrote to him, "We never walk in the garden without seeing Dr. Franklin's room and thinking of the work that was begun in it." In a letter to the Bishop in 1771, Franklin says:

I regret my having been oblig'd to leave that most agreeable Retirement which good Mrs. Shipley put me so kindly in possession of. I now breathe with Reluctance the Smoke of London, when I think of the sweet Air of Twyford. And by the Time your Races are over, or about the Middle of next Month (if it should then not be unsuitable to your Engagements or other Purposes) I promise myself the Happiness of spending another Week or two where I so pleasantly spent the last.

Close behind this letter, went also one of his "books," which he hoped that Miss Georgiana, another daughter of the Bishop, would be good enough to accept as a small mark of his "Regard for her philosophic Genius," and a quantity of American dried apples for Mrs. Shipley. A month later, he writes to the Bishop that he had been prevented from coming to Twyford by business, but that he purposed to set out on the succeeding Tuesday for "that sweet Retreat." How truly sweet it was to him a letter that he subsequently wrote to Georgiana from Passy enables us in some measure to realize. Among other things, it contained these winning and affecting words:

Accept my Thanks for your Friendly Verses and good Wishes. How many Talents you possess! Painting, Poetry, Languages, etc., etc. All valuable, but your good Heart is worth the whole.

Your mention of the Summer House brings fresh to my mind all the Pleasures I enjoyed in the sweet Retreat at Twyford: the Hours of agreeable and instructive Conversation with the amiable Family at Table; with its Father alone; the delightful Walks in the Gardens and neighbouring Grounds. Pleasures past and gone forever! Since I have had your Father's Picture I am grown more covetous of the rest; every time I look at your second Drawing I have regretted that you have not given to your Juno the Face of Anna Maria, to Venus that of Emily or Betsey, and to Cupid that of Emily's Child, as it would have cost you but little more Trouble. I must, however, beg that you will make me up a compleat Set of your little Profiles, which are more easily done. You formerly obliged me with that of the Father, an excellent one. Let me also have that of the good Mother, and of all the Children. It will help me to fancy myself among you, and to enjoy more perfectly in Idea, the Pleasure of your Society. My little Fellow-Traveller, the sprightly Hetty, with whose sensible Prattle I was so much entertained, why does she not write to me? If Paris affords anything that any of you wish to have, mention it. You will oblige me. It affords everything but Peace! Ah! When shall we again enjoy that Blessing.

Previously he had written to Thomas Digges that the portrait of the Bishop mentioned by him had not come to hand; nor had he heard anything of it, and that he was anxious to see it, "having no hope of living to see again the much lov'd and respected original." His request for the little profiles of the Shipleys was complied with, we know, because in a letter to the Bishop some two years afterwards he said: "Your Shades are all plac'd in a Row over my Fireplace, so that I not only have you always in my Mind, but constantly before my Eyes." This letter was written in reply to a letter from the Bishop which was the first to break the long silence that the war between Great Britain and America had imposed upon the two friends. "After so long a Silence, and the long Continuance of its unfortunate Causes," Franklin began, "a Line from you was a Prognostic of happier Times approaching, when we may converse and communicate freely, without Danger from the Malevolence of Men enrag'd by the ill success of their distracted Projects."

Among the entries in the desultory Journal that Franklin kept of his return from France to America, are these relating to the visit paid him at Southampton by the Bishop: "Wrote a letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph, acquainting him with my arrival, and he came with his lady and daughter, Miss Kitty, after dinner, to see us; they talk of staying here as long as we do. Our meeting was very affectionate." For two or three days, the reunited friends all lodged at the Star, at Southampton, and took their meals together. The day before his ship sailed, Franklin invited the Bishop and his wife and daughter to accompany him on board, and, when he retired, it was with the expectation that they would spend the night on the ship, but, when he awoke the next morning, he found that they had thoughtfully left the ship, after he retired, to relieve the poignancy of the farewell, and that he was off on his westward course.

In his last letter to the Bishop, Franklin expresses his regret that conversation between them at Southampton had been cut short so frequently by third persons, and thanks him for the pleasure that he derived from the copy of Paley's Moral Philosophy, given to him by the Bishop there. Along with the usual contradiction of the English and Loyalist view at this time of our national condition, and the usual picture of himself encircled by his grandchildren, he indulges in these striking reflections about the chequered fate of parental expectations:

He that raises a large Family does, indeed, while he lives to observe them, stand, as Watts says, a broader Mark for Sorrow; but then he stands a broader Mark for Pleasure too. When we launch our little Fleet of Barques into the Ocean, bound to different Ports, we hope for each a prosperous Voyage; but contrary Winds, hidden Shoals, Storms, and Enemies come in for a Share in the Disposition of Events; and though these occasion a Mixture of Disappointment, yet, considering the Risque where we can make no Insurance, we should think ourselves happy if some return with Success.

Timed as they were, the force of these reflections were not likely to be lost upon the Bishop. Some years before, Georgiana had married with his bitter disapproval Francis Hare-Naylor, the writer of plays and novels, and author of the History of the Helvetic Republics, who was so unfortunate as to be arrested for debt during his courtship, while in the episcopal coach of the Bishop with Georgiana and her parents. After the Bishop refused to recognize the husband, the Duchess of Devonshire settled an annuity of three hundred pounds a year upon the couple, and among the wise, weighty letters of Franklin is one that he wrote from France to Georgiana, after her marriage, in which he replies to her inquiries about the opening that America would afford to a young married couple, and refers to this annuity. The concluding portion of this letter also has its value as another illustration of the calm manner in which Franklin looked forward to his end. He tells Georgiana that, if he should be in America, when they were there, his best counsels and services would not be wanting, and that to see her happily settled and prosperous there would give him infinite pleasure, but that, of course, if he ever arrived there, his stay could be but short.

Franklin survived the Bishop, and his letter to Catherine, in reply to hers, announcing the death of her father, is in his best vein.

That excellent man has then left us! His departure is a loss, not to his family and friends only, but to his nation, and to the world; for he was intent on doing good, had wisdom to devise the means, and talents to promote them. His "Sermon before the Society for Propagating the Gospel," and his "Speech intended to have been spoken," are proofs of his ability as well as his humanity. Had his counsels in those pieces been attended to by the ministers, how much bloodshed might have been prevented, and how much expense and disgrace to the nation avoided!

Your reflections on the constant calmness and composure attending his death are very sensible. Such instances seem to show, that the good sometimes enjoy in dying a foretaste of the happy state they are about to enter.

According to the course of years, I should have quitted this world long before him. I shall however not be long in following. I am now in my eighty-fourth year, and the last year has considerably enfeebled me; so that I hardly expect to remain another. You will then, my dear friend, consider this as probably the last line to be received from me, and as a taking leave. Present my best and most sincere respects to your good mother, and love to the rest of the family, to whom I wish all happiness; and believe me to be, while I do live, yours most affectionately.

His friendship in this instance, as usual, embraced the whole family. In a letter in 1783 to Sir William Jones, the accomplished lawyer and Oriental scholar, who married Anna Maria, one of the Bishop's daughters, he said that he flattered himself that he might in the ensuing summer be able to undertake a trip to England for the pleasure of seeing once more his dear friends there, among whom the Bishop and his family stood foremost in his estimation and affection.

To the Bishop himself he wrote from Passy in the letter which mentioned the shades of the Shipleys above his fireplace: "Four daughters! how rich! I have but one, and she, necessarily detain'd from me at 1000 leagues distance. I feel the Want of that tender Care of me, which might be expected from a Daughter, and would give the World for one."

And later in this letter he says with the bountiful affection, which made him little less than a member of the families of some of his friends, "Please to make my best Respects acceptable to Mrs. Shipley, and embrace for me tenderly all our dear Children."

At the request of Catherine, he wrote the Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams in which hygiene and the importance of preserving a good conscience are so gracefully blended, and received from her a reply, in which, after declaring that it flattered her exceedingly that he should employ so much of his precious time in complying with her request, she put to him the question, "But where do you read that Methusaleh slept in the open air? I have searched the Bible in vain to find it."

When Sir William Jones was on the eve of being married to Anna Maria, and of sailing away to India, where he was to win so much distinction, Franklin wrote to him the letter already mentioned, joining his blessing on the union with that of the good Bishop, and expressing the hope that the prospective bridegroom might return from that corrupting country with a great deal of money honestly acquired, and with full as much virtue as he carried out.

The affection that he felt for Catherine and Georgiana, his letters to them, from which we have already quoted, sufficiently reveal. Of the four daughters, Georgiana was, perhaps, his favorite, and she is an example with Mary Stevenson of the subtle magnetism that his intellect and nature had for feminine affinities of mind and temperament. It was to Georgiana, when a child, that he wrote his well-known letter containing an epitaph on her squirrel, which had been dispatched by a dog. The letter and epitaph are good enough specimens of his humor to be quoted in full:

Dear Miss,

I lament with you most sincerely the unfortunate end of poor Mungo. Few squirrels were better accomplished; for he had had a good education, had travelled far, and seen much of the world. As he had the honor of being, for his virtues, your favourite, he should not go, like common skuggs, without an elegy or an epitaph. Let us give him one in the monumental style and measure, which, being neither prose nor verse, is perhaps the properest for grief; since to use common language would look as if we were not affected, and to make rhymes would seem trifling in sorrow.

EPITAPH

You see, my dear Miss, how much more decent and proper this broken style is, than if we were to say, by way of epitaph,

and yet, perhaps, there are people in the world of so little feeling as to think that this would be a good-enough epitaph for poor Mungo.

If you wish it, I shall procure another to succeed him; but perhaps you will now choose some other amusement.

Two of Georgiana's letters to Franklin, after his arrival in France, are very interesting, and one of them especially could not have been written by any but a highly gifted and accomplished woman. In this letter, the first of the two, she begins by expressing her joy at unexpectedly receiving a letter from him.

How good you were [she exclaimed] to send me your direction, but I fear I must not make use of it as often as I could wish, since my father says it will be prudent not to write in the present situation of affairs. I am not of an age to be so very prudent, and the only thought that occurred to me was your suspecting that my silence proceeded from other motives. I could not support the idea of your believing that I love and esteem you less than I did some few years ago. I therefore write this once without my father's knowledge. You are the first man that ever received a private letter from me, and in this instance I feel that my intentions justify my conduct; but I must entreat that you will take no notice of my writing, when next I have the happiness of hearing from you.

She then proceeds to tell Franklin all about her father, her mother, her sister Emily and Emily's daughter, "a charming little girl, near fifteen months old, whom her aunts reckon a prodigy of sense and beauty." The rest of her sisters, she said, continued in statu quo. Whether that proceeded from the men being difficult or from their being difficult, she left him to determine.

His friends all loved him almost as much as she did; as much she would not admit to be possible. Dr. Pringle had made her extremely happy the preceding winter by giving her a print of her excellent friend, which, was certainly very like him, although it wanted the addition of his own hair to make it complete; but, as it was, she prized it infinitely, now that the dear original was absent. She then has a word to say about Smith's Wealth of Nations, Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the Economics, which she had read with great attention, as indeed everything else she could meet with relative to Socrates; for she fancied she could discover in each trait of that admirable man's character a strong resemblance between him and her much-loved friend—the same clearness of judgment, the same uprightness of intention and the same superior understanding. Other words are bestowed on the account which Sir William Hamilton had lately given her of a new electrical machine invented in Italy, the happiness that she would enjoy, if Franklin were in England to explain it to her, and the envy excited in her by the opportunities that his grandson had for showing him kindness and attention. "Did my family," she further declares, "know of my writing, my letter would scarce contain the very many things they would desire me to say for them. They continue to admire and love you as much as they did formerly, nor can any time or event in the least change their sentiments."

She then concludes partly in French and partly in English in these words:

Adieu, mon cher Socrate; conservez-vous pour l'amour de moi, et pour mille autres raisons plus importants. Je ne vous en dirai pas d'advantage pour aujourd'hui, mais je veux esperer de vous entretenir plus á mon aise, avant que soit longue. Pray write whenever a safe conveyance opens, since the receiving letters is reckoned very different from answering them. I must once more repeat nobody knows of this scroll; "a word to the wise,"—as Poor Richard says.

In her second letter, Georgiana speaks of the difficulty she experienced in having her letters conveyed safely to Passy. "Strange," she declared, "that I should be under the necessity of concealing from the world a correspondence which it is the pride and glory of my heart to maintain." His Dialogue with the Gout, she said, was written with his own cheerful pleasantry, and La belle et la mauvaise Jambe recalled to her mind those happy hours they once passed in his society, where they were never amused without learning some useful truth, and where she first acquired a taste pour la conversation badinante and réfléchie. Her father grew every year fonder of the peace of Twyford; having found his endeavors to serve his country ineffectual, he had yielded to a torrent which it was no longer in his power to control. Sir John Pringle (Franklin's friend) had left London and gone to reside in Scotland; she feared that he was much straitened in his circumstances; he looked ill and was vastly changed from what he remembered him; Dr. Priestley (another friend of Franklin) was then on a short visit to his friends in town; good Dr. Price (another friend of Franklin) called on them often, and gave them hopes of a visit to Twyford.

The letter also informed Franklin that the first opportunity that they had of sending a parcel to Paris he might expect all their shades; and expressed her gratitude to Mr. Jones for undertaking the care of her letter, and giving her an opportunity of assuring Franklin how much she did and ever should continue to love him.

Catherine Ray was not far wrong when she spoke of Franklin as a conjurer. Catherine Shipley's letter to him, after she had parted with him at Southampton, though without the romantic flush of these two letters, spoke the same general language of deep-seated affection. She was quite provoked with herself, she said, when she got to Southampton that she had not thought of something, such as a pincushion, to leave with him, that might have been useful to him during the voyage to remind him of her. "Did you ever taste the ginger cake," she asked, "and think it had belonged to your fellow-traveller? In short, I want some excuse for asking whether you ever think about me." And from this letter it appears that he had a place in the hearts of Emily and Betsey too. She had had a letter from Emily, Catherine further said, the night after she got home, to inquire whether his stay at Southampton would allow time for her coming to see him. Betsey regretted much that she had lost that happiness, and the writer had written to dear Georgiana a long account of him, for she knew every circumstance would be interesting to her. "Indeed, my dear sir," the letter ended, "from my father and mother down to their youngest child, we all respect and love you."[34]

When Franklin was told by Georgiana that Sir John Pringle was pinched by poverty, and looked ill, he must have been sorely distressed; for Sir John he once described as his "steady, good friend." A pupil of Boerhaave, a high authority upon the application of sanitary science to the prevention of dysentery and hospital fevers, physician to the Queen, and President of the Royal Society, Dr. Pringle was one of the distinguished men of his time. What churchmen were to the preservation of classical learning, before teaching became a special calling, physicians were to general scientific knowledge before science became such; and, among these physicians, he occupied an honorable position.[35] "His speech in giving the last medal, (of the Royal Society) on the subject of the discoveries relating to the air," Franklin wrote to Jan Ingenhousz, "did him great honour." He was quite unlike the courtiers who sought to convince King Canute that he could stay the incoming tide by his command, as George III. found out when he asked him, after the outbreak of the American Revolution, to pronounce an opinion in favor of the substitution of blunt for pointed lightning rods on Kew Palace. The laws of nature, Sir John hinted, were not changeable at royal pleasure, but positions of honor and profit he soon learnt, if he did not know it before, were; for he fell into such disfavor with the King that he had to resign as President of the Royal Society, and was deprived of his post as physician to the Queen. The circumstances in which his disgrace originated leave us at but little loss to understand why the King should have become such a dogged partisan of blunt conductors. Prior to the Revolution, Franklin had been consulted by the British Board of Ordnance as to the best means of protecting the arsenals at Purfleet from lightning, and, after he had visited the powder magazine there, the Royal Society, too, was asked by the Board for its opinion. The Society accordingly appointed a committee of learned men, including Cavendish and Franklin, to make a report on the subject. All of the committee except Benjamin Wilson, who dissented, reported in favor of pointed conductors as against blunt ones, and Franklin, the inventor of pointed lightning rods, drew up the report. The scientific controversy that followed soon assumed a political character, when Franklin dropped the philosophical task of snatching the lightning from the skies for the rebellious task of snatching the sceptre from a tyrant. When he heard that George III. was, like Ajax, obstinate enough to defy even the lightning, he wrote to an unknown correspondent: