FOOTNOTES:

Franklin’s pleasantries with this parable led Lord Kames to ask it of him. The fertile Scotchman at once incorporated it in his “Sketches of the History of Man,” and published it in 1774, accrediting it to Franklin. “The charge of plagiarism has, on this account,” says Bishop Heber, in his life of Jeremy Taylor, “been raised against Franklin; though he cannot be proved to have given it to Lord Kames as his own composition. With all Franklin’s abilities and amiable qualities,” continues the clear-eyed bishop, “there was a degree of quackery in his character which ... has made the imputation of such a theft more readily received against him thanit would have been against most other men of equal eminence.”

In more finely sensitive writers who have treated Franklin there is a feeling that he “borrowed.” The words of the missionary bishop show the sentiment was common in England a century and a quarter ago. In our country the conviction was expressed with more spirit in a colloquy9between a New England man and a Virginian, preserved in John Davis’s manuscript, “Travels in America during 1798-99, 1800, 1801, 1802.”

“I obtained,” wrote Davis of his visit to Washington, “accommodations at the Washington Tavern, which stands opposite the Treasury. At this tavern I took my meals at the public table, where there was every day to be found a numberof clerks, employed at the different offices under government, together with about half-a-dozen Virginians and a few New England men. There was a perpetual conflict between these Southern and Northern men, and one night I was present at a vehement dispute, which terminated in the loss of a horse, a saddle, and bridle. The dispute was about Dr. Franklin; the man from New England, enthusiastic in what related to Franklin, asserted that the Doctor, being self-taught, was original in everything that he had ever published.

“The Virginian maintained that he was a downright plagiarist.

“New England Man.—Have you a horse here, my friend?

“Virginian.—Sir, I hope you do not suppose that I came hither on foot from Virginia. I have him in Mr. White’s stable, the prettiest Chickasaw that ever trod upon four pasterns.

“New England Man.—And I have abay mare that I bought for ninety dollars in hard cash. Now I, my friend, will lay my bay mare against your Chickasaw that Dr. Franklin is not a plagiarist.

“Virginian.—Done! Go it! Waiter! You, waiter!

“The waiter obeyed the summons, and, at the order of the Virginian, brought down a portmanteau containing both Franklin’s ‘Miscellanies’ and Taylor’s ‘Discourses.’

“The New England man then read from the former the celebrated parable against persecution.... And after he had finished he exclaimed that the ‘writer appeared inspired.’

“But the Virginian maintained that it all came to Franklin from Bishop Taylor’s book, printed more than a century ago. And the New England man read from Taylor.... When he had done reading, a laugh ensued; and the Virginian, leaping from his seat, called toAtticus, the waiter, to put the bay mare in the next stall to the Chickasaw and to give her half a gallon of oats more, upon the strength of her having a new master!

“The New England man exhibited strong symptoms of chagrin, but wagered ‘a brand-new saddle’ that this celebrated epitaph of Franklin’s undergoing a new edition was original. The epitaph was then read:

‘The BodyofBenjamin Franklin, Printer(Like the cover of an old book,Its contents torn out,And stript of its lettering and gilding),Lies here, food for worms.Yet the work itself shall not be lost,For it will (as he believ’d) appear once more,In a newAnd more beautiful Edition,Corrected and AmendedByThe Author.’

“The Virginian then said that Franklin robbed a little boy of it. ‘The very words, sir, are taken from a Latin epitaph written on a bookseller, by an Eton scholar.

‘VitævolumineperactoHicFinis Jacobi Tonson10Perpoliti Sociorum Principis:Qui velut Obstretrix MusarumIn Lucem EdiditFelices Ingenii Partus.Lugete Scriptorum Chorus,Et Frangite Calamos!Ille vesterMargine Erasus deletur,Sed hæc postrema InscriptioHuicPrimæMortisPaginæImprimatur,NePrælo SepulchricommissusIpseEditor careat Titulo:Hic JacetBibliopolaFoliovitæ delapsoExpectansnovam EditionemAuctoriem et Emendatiorem.’

“And then, says Mr. Davis, the bet was awarded the Virginian. He referred to the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for February, 1736, where the Latin inscription accredited to the Eton scholar, with a translation by a Mr. P——, was to be found.

“After this second decision the Virginian declared that he would lay his boots against the New Englander’s that Franklin’s pretended discovery of calming troubled waters by pouring upon them oil might be found in the third book of Bede’s ‘History of the Church;’ or that his facetious essay on the air-bath is produced, word for word, from Aubrey’s ‘Miscellanies.’ But the New Englander, who had lost horse, saddle, and bridle, declined to run the risk on Dr. Franklin of going home without his boots.”

There are other instances of the philosopher’s palpable taking. To one,Franklin’s editor, Mr. Bigelow, adverts when he notes in Franklin’s letter of November 5, 1789, to Alexander Smith: “I find by your letter that every man has patience enough to hear calmly and coolly the injuries done to other people.” The marvellous precision and terseness of Swift—that keen, incisive melancholy wit of his from which great writers have taken ideas and phrases as gold-seekers have picked nuggets from California earth—Swift had more finely said what Franklin stumbled after when he wrote that he “never knew a man who could not bear the misfortunes of another like a Christian.”

Franklin had originality. His many devices are evidence. But careful study of that which brought him much public attention—bagatelles by which he attached himself to popular affection—show all-round appropriation. He loved to stand in public light—to hear applause of himself. He loved to quizhis listeners, to bamboozle his readers. If his buying and applauding public believed Poor Richard’s proverbs sprang from his active mind instead of having been industriously gathered from old English and other folk proverbs and dyed with his practical humor—“the wisdom of many ages and nations,” as Franklin afterwards put it—that was their blunder by which he would gain gold as well as glory. Even “Richard Saunders” was not original with Franklin. It was the pen-name of a compiler of English almanacs. The young printer busily working his press doubtless chuckled at his deceptions—in spite of his filched maxim about honesty being the best policy.

And it went with him all through life. His love of public applause, his desire to accumulate and his gleaming, quizzical humor led him on. His wonderful ease at adopting others’ products and making them his own one may admireif he turn his eyes from the moral significance, the downright turpitude of not acknowledging the source. Franklin’s practice would certainly not stand the test of universal application which his great contemporary, Kant, demanded of all acts.

There has been of late endeavor to rehabilitate Franklin’s industrious common sense and praise its circumstance. So late as last year our American ambassador to St. James addressed students of the Workingmen’s College in London upon the energy, self-help, and sense of reality of this early American, and found the leading features of his character to be honesty (!) and respect for facts.

It is, after all, a certain grace inherent in Franklin, a human feeling, a genial simplicity and candor, a directness of utterance and natural unfolding of his matter which are his perennialvalue in a literary way, and which warrant the estimate of an English critic who calls him the most readable writer yet known on the western side of the Atlantic.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:1I include “women” because Lucy Stone once told me she draughted some of the Kansas laws for married women while sitting in the nursery with her baby on her knee. Other women worked with her, she said. Their labor was in the fifties of the nineteenth century—at the height of the movement to ameliorate the legal condition of married women.2Other societies also have vitality. The sortie of a handful of students one November night following election, a dinner each year celebrates. Grangers supposedly inimical to the interests of the University had won at the polls. The moon shone through a white, frosty air; the earth was hard and resonant. What the skulkers accomplished and the merry and hortative sequent to their furtive feast were told at the time by the beloved professor of Latin, the “professoris alicujus.”“T. C.’S” HORRIBILES.Jam noctis media hora. In cœlo nubila spissaStellas abstulerant. Umbrarum tempus erat quoHorrenda ignavis monstra apparent. Pueri tumParvi matribus intus adhærent. Non gratioremNoctem fur unquam invenit. Sed qui veniunt postHanc ædem veterem? Celebrantne aliqua horrida sacraMercurio furum patrono? Discipuline?Non possunt! Tuti in lectis omnes requiescunt!Estne sodalicium studiosorum relevans seMagnis a curis? Sed cur huc conveniunt tamFurtivi? In manibus quidnam est vel sub tegumentis?O pudor! Et pullos et turkey non bene raptos!Vina etiam subrepta professoris alicujus(Horresco referens) e cella! Dedecus! Est nilTutum a furibus? En pullos nunc faucibus illisSorbent! Nunc sunt in terra, tum in ictu oculi nonApparebunt omne in æternum! Miseros pullos,Infelices O pueros! Illi male captiA pueris, sed hi capientur mox male (O! O!!)A Plutone atro!Forsan lapsis quinque diebus, cum sapiens virOmnes hos juvenes ad cenam magnificenterInvitavit. Tempore sane adsunt. Bene laetiJudex accipiunt et filia pulchra sodalesHos furtivos. Ad mensam veniunt. Juvenes curTam agitantur? Quid portentum conspiciunt nunc?Protrudunt oculi quasi ranarum! Nihil est inMensa præter turkeys! Unus quoque catino!Solum hoc, præterea nil!3The translation is that of C. D. Yonge.4The ancient classic and early English writers afforded many instances of their people’s culinaria, and only when their content became familiar did I find that the Rev. Richard Warner had, in the last part of the eighteenth century, gone over the ground and chosen like examples—perhaps because they were the best. This quotation, and another one or two following, are solely found in our libraries in his admirable book here cited. Master Warner, writing nearer the old sources, had the advantage of original manuscripts and collections.5“Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe could’st never thrive.”6The printers, William and Andrew Bradford.7John Jerman.8“The Jews’ book” is, according to various researches, believed to be “The Rod of Judah,” a rabbinical work presented to the Senate of Hamburg in the seventeenth century, and carrying the legend in its Latin dedication. But the tale really dates back to the “Bostan,” or “Tree Garden,” of the Persian poet Saadi, who says, in another work, that he was a prisoner to the Crusaders, and labored in company with fellow-captives who were Jews in the trenches before Tripoli.9Used through the courtesy of the editor of “The William and Mary College Quarterly.”10This Jacob Tonson will be recalled as the chief bookseller (publisher) in London for some years prior to his death, 2 April, 1736.

1I include “women” because Lucy Stone once told me she draughted some of the Kansas laws for married women while sitting in the nursery with her baby on her knee. Other women worked with her, she said. Their labor was in the fifties of the nineteenth century—at the height of the movement to ameliorate the legal condition of married women.

2Other societies also have vitality. The sortie of a handful of students one November night following election, a dinner each year celebrates. Grangers supposedly inimical to the interests of the University had won at the polls. The moon shone through a white, frosty air; the earth was hard and resonant. What the skulkers accomplished and the merry and hortative sequent to their furtive feast were told at the time by the beloved professor of Latin, the “professoris alicujus.”“T. C.’S” HORRIBILES.Jam noctis media hora. In cœlo nubila spissaStellas abstulerant. Umbrarum tempus erat quoHorrenda ignavis monstra apparent. Pueri tumParvi matribus intus adhærent. Non gratioremNoctem fur unquam invenit. Sed qui veniunt postHanc ædem veterem? Celebrantne aliqua horrida sacraMercurio furum patrono? Discipuline?Non possunt! Tuti in lectis omnes requiescunt!Estne sodalicium studiosorum relevans seMagnis a curis? Sed cur huc conveniunt tamFurtivi? In manibus quidnam est vel sub tegumentis?O pudor! Et pullos et turkey non bene raptos!Vina etiam subrepta professoris alicujus(Horresco referens) e cella! Dedecus! Est nilTutum a furibus? En pullos nunc faucibus illisSorbent! Nunc sunt in terra, tum in ictu oculi nonApparebunt omne in æternum! Miseros pullos,Infelices O pueros! Illi male captiA pueris, sed hi capientur mox male (O! O!!)A Plutone atro!Forsan lapsis quinque diebus, cum sapiens virOmnes hos juvenes ad cenam magnificenterInvitavit. Tempore sane adsunt. Bene laetiJudex accipiunt et filia pulchra sodalesHos furtivos. Ad mensam veniunt. Juvenes curTam agitantur? Quid portentum conspiciunt nunc?Protrudunt oculi quasi ranarum! Nihil est inMensa præter turkeys! Unus quoque catino!Solum hoc, præterea nil!

“T. C.’S” HORRIBILES.

Jam noctis media hora. In cœlo nubila spissaStellas abstulerant. Umbrarum tempus erat quoHorrenda ignavis monstra apparent. Pueri tumParvi matribus intus adhærent. Non gratioremNoctem fur unquam invenit. Sed qui veniunt postHanc ædem veterem? Celebrantne aliqua horrida sacraMercurio furum patrono? Discipuline?Non possunt! Tuti in lectis omnes requiescunt!Estne sodalicium studiosorum relevans seMagnis a curis? Sed cur huc conveniunt tamFurtivi? In manibus quidnam est vel sub tegumentis?O pudor! Et pullos et turkey non bene raptos!Vina etiam subrepta professoris alicujus(Horresco referens) e cella! Dedecus! Est nilTutum a furibus? En pullos nunc faucibus illisSorbent! Nunc sunt in terra, tum in ictu oculi nonApparebunt omne in æternum! Miseros pullos,Infelices O pueros! Illi male captiA pueris, sed hi capientur mox male (O! O!!)A Plutone atro!Forsan lapsis quinque diebus, cum sapiens virOmnes hos juvenes ad cenam magnificenterInvitavit. Tempore sane adsunt. Bene laetiJudex accipiunt et filia pulchra sodalesHos furtivos. Ad mensam veniunt. Juvenes curTam agitantur? Quid portentum conspiciunt nunc?Protrudunt oculi quasi ranarum! Nihil est inMensa præter turkeys! Unus quoque catino!Solum hoc, præterea nil!

3The translation is that of C. D. Yonge.

4The ancient classic and early English writers afforded many instances of their people’s culinaria, and only when their content became familiar did I find that the Rev. Richard Warner had, in the last part of the eighteenth century, gone over the ground and chosen like examples—perhaps because they were the best. This quotation, and another one or two following, are solely found in our libraries in his admirable book here cited. Master Warner, writing nearer the old sources, had the advantage of original manuscripts and collections.

5“Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe could’st never thrive.”

“Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe could’st never thrive.”

6The printers, William and Andrew Bradford.

7John Jerman.

8“The Jews’ book” is, according to various researches, believed to be “The Rod of Judah,” a rabbinical work presented to the Senate of Hamburg in the seventeenth century, and carrying the legend in its Latin dedication. But the tale really dates back to the “Bostan,” or “Tree Garden,” of the Persian poet Saadi, who says, in another work, that he was a prisoner to the Crusaders, and labored in company with fellow-captives who were Jews in the trenches before Tripoli.

9Used through the courtesy of the editor of “The William and Mary College Quarterly.”

10This Jacob Tonson will be recalled as the chief bookseller (publisher) in London for some years prior to his death, 2 April, 1736.

Transcriber’s Note:Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

Back to Index Next