M. L. Weems
The Life of Benjamin Franklin
With Many Choice Anecdotes and admirable sayings of this great man never before published by any of his biographers
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4064066100766
Table of Contents
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STREET & SMITH.
LIFE OF FRANKLIN.
CHAPTER I.
DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, president of the american philosophical society; fellow of the royal society of edinburgh, london and paris; governor of the state of pennsylvania; and minister plenipotentiary from the united states to the court of france, was the son of an obscure tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, of Boston, where he was born on the 17th day of January, 1706.
Some men carry letters of recommendation in their looks, and some in their names. 'Tis the lot but of few to inherit both of these advantages. The hero of this work was one of that favoured number. As to his physiognomy, there was in it such an air of wisdom and philanthropy, and consequently such an expression of majesty and sweetness, as charms, even in the commonest pictures of him. And for his name, every one acquainted with the old English history, must know, that Franklin stands for what we now mean by "Gentleman," or "clever fellow."
In the days of Auld Lang Syne, their neighbours from the continent made a descent "on the fast anchored isle," and compelled the hardy, red-ochred natives to buckle to their yoke. Among the victors were some regiments of Franks, who distinguished themselves by their valor, and still more by their politeness to the vanquished, and especially to the females. By this amiable gallantry the Franks acquired such glory among the brave islanders, that whenever any of their own people achieved any thing uncommonly handsome, he was called, by way of compliment, Franklin, i.e. a little Frank. As the living flame does not more naturally tend upwards than does every virtue to exalt its possessors, these little Franks were soon promoted to be great men, such as justices of the peace, knights of the shire, and other such names of high renown. Hence those pretty lines of the old poet Chaucer—
"This worthy Franklin wore a purse of silk
Fix'd to his girdle, pure as morning milk;
Knight of the shire; first justice of th' assize,
To help the poor, the doubtful to advise.
In all employments, gen'rous just he prov'd;
Renown'd for courtesy; by all belov'd."
But though, according to Dr. Franklin's own account of his family, whose pedigree he looked into with great diligence while he was in England, it appears that they were all of the "well born," or gentlemen in the best sense of the word; yet they did not deem it beneath them to continue the same useful courses which had at first conferred their titles. On the contrary, the doctor owns, and indeed glories in it, that for three hundred years the eldest son, or heir apparent in this family of old British gentlemen, was invariably brought up a blacksmith. Moreover, it appears from the same indubitable authority, that the blacksmith succession was most religiously continued in the family down to the days of the doctor's father. How it has gone on since that time I have never heard; but considering the salutary effects of such a fashion on the prosperity of a young republic, it were most devoutly to be wished that it is kept up: and that the family of one of the greatest men who ever lived in this or any other country, still display in their coat of arms, not the barren gules and garters of European folly, but those better ensigns of American wisdom—the sledge-hammer and anvil.
CHAPTER II.
"Were I so tall to reach the pole,
And grasp the ocean in my span,
I must be measur'd by my soul;
For 'tis the MIND that makes the man."
From the best accounts which I have been able to pick up, it would appear that a passion for learning had a long run in the family of the Franklins. Of the doctor's three uncles, the elder, whose name was Thomas, though conscientiously brought up a blacksmith, and subsisting his family by the din and sweat of his anvil, was still a great reader. Instead of wasting his leisure hours, as too many of the trade do, in tippling and tobacco, he acquired enough of the law to render himself a very useful and leading man among the people of Northampton, where his forefathers had lived in great comfort for three hundred years, on thirty acres of land.
His uncle Benjamin, too, another old English gentleman of the right stamp, though a very hard-working man at the silk-dying trade, was equally devoted to the pleasures of the mind. He made it a rule whenever he lighted on a copy of verses that pleased him, to transcribe them into a large blank book which he kept for the purpose. In this way he collected two quarto volumes of poems, written in short hand of his own inventing. And, being a man of great piety, and fond of attending the best preachers, whose sermons he always took down, he collected in the course of his life, eight volumes of sermons in folio, besides near thirty in quarto and octavo,