Note 22 — § 1. PARENTAGE AND BOYHOOD.
Reading edition
[4] A village near Winchester, Hampshire, England, where Dr. Jonathan Shipley had his country house. Dr. Shipley was Bishop of St. Asaph's in Wales, and Franklin's friend.
[5] Franklin's only living son, William, who in 1762 had been made royal governor of New Jersey, with the hope of detaching Franklin from the cause of the colonists.
[6] A franklin was a freeman, or freeholder, or owner of the land on which he dwelt. The franklins were by their possessions fitted for becoming sheriffs, knights, etc. After the Norman Conquest, men in England took, in addition to the first name, another which was suggested by their condition in life, their trade, or some personal peculiarity. See Note, p. 203.
[7] A title given in England in Franklin's time to the descendants of knights and noblemen.
[8] A writer whose duties were similar to those of our notary.
[9] "Old style," i.e., the method of reckoning time which formerly prevailed and which had caused an error of eleven days. The new style of reckoning was adopted in England in 1752.
[10] The passage of the soul into another body; one might have supposed that the soul of the uncle had taken up abode in Franklin's body.
[11] Franklin omitted the verses.
[12] Who was queen from 1553 to 1558.
[13] "Joint stool," i.e., a stool made of parts fitted together.
[14] "Outed for nonconformity," i.e., turned out of the church for not conforming to the usages of the Church of England and for holding meetings of dissenters for public worship.
[15] Franklin was born Sunday, Jan. 17, 1706 (Jan. 6, old style). The family then lived in a small house on Milk Street, near the Old South Church, where the Boston Post building now stands.
[16] The persecution which the first settlers practiced against all who differed with them in religious doctrines.
[17] Sherburne is now called Nantucket.
[18] The lines which Dr. Franklin had forgotten are these:
"I am for peace and not for war, And that's the reason why I write more plain than some men do, That used to daub and lie. But I shall cease, and set my name To what I here insert, Because to be a libeler I hate it with my heart."
[19] In Franklin's time the grammar school was a school for teaching Latin, which was begun by committing the grammar to memory.
[20] Characters, or method of writing shorthand.
[21] Candles were made by dipping wicks in the fat a number of times, and also by setting the wicks in a mold and pouring the fat round them.
[22] Ants.
[23] The marble having crumbled, a larger stone was placed over the grave in 1827, and Franklin's inscription repeated. It stands in the Granary Burying Ground.
[24] Aged.
[25] A joiner is a mechanic who does the woodwork of houses, etc.; a turner, one who works with a lathe; a brasier, a worker in brass.
[26] A chapman was a peddler.
[27] Agreements written upon sheets, the edges of which were cut or indented to match each other, for security and identification.
[28] A street in London in which many writers of small ability or reputation, or of unhappy fortune, had lodgings. "Grub Street style," therefore, means poor or worthless in literary value. The term, which always implied a sneer, was made current by Pope and Swift and their coterie.
[29] A paper published in London every week day from the 1st of March, 1711, to the 6th of December, 1712, and made up for the most part of essays by Addison, Steele, and their friends. It held aloof from politics, and dealt with the manners of the time and with literature.
[30] These gentlemen of Port Royal lived in the old convent of Port Royal des Champs, near Paris. They were learned men who, with other works, prepared schoolbooks, among which was the "Art of Thinking," a logic.
[31] "The Socratic method," i.e., the method of modest questioning, which Socrates used with pupils and opponents alike, and by which he led them to concessions and unforeseen conclusions.
[32] These lines are not Pope's, but Lord Roscommon's, slightly modified.
[33] "The New England Courant was the fourth newspaper that appeared in America. The first number of the Boston News-Letter was published April 24, 1704. This was the first newspaper in America. The Boston Gazette commenced Dec. 21, 1719; the American Weekly Mercury, at Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1719; the New England Courant, Aug. 21, 1721. Dr. Franklin's error of memory probably originated in the circumstance of his brother having been the printer of the Boston Gazette when it was first established. This was the second newspaper published in America."—Sparks.
[34] Told.
[35] Lowered; put down. [n]
[36] The legislature.
[37] Errors; mistakes.