A Benjamin Franklin Reader (14 page)

Leeds fell into the trap, albeit with good humor, and in his own almanac for 1734 (written after the date of his predicted death) called Franklin a “conceited scribbler” who had “manifested himself a fool and a liar.” Franklin, with his own printing press, had the luxury of reading Leeds before he published his own 1734 edition. In it Poor Richard responded that all of these defamatory protestations indicate that the real Leeds must indeed be dead and his new almanac a hoax by someone else.

P
OOR
R
ICHARD
’
S
A
LMANAC FOR
1734

Courteous Readers,

Your kind and charitable assistance last year, in purchasing so large an impression of my almanacs, has made my circumstances much more easy in the world, and requires my grateful acknowledgment. My wife has been enabled to get a pot of her own, and is no longer obliged to borrow one from a neighbor; nor have we ever since been without something of our own to put in it. She has also got a pair of shoes, two new shifts, and a new warm petticoat; and for my part, I have bought a second-hand coat, so good, that I am now not ashamed to go to town or be seen there. These things have rendered her temper so much more pacific than it used to be, that I may say, I have slept more, and more quietly within this last year, than in the three foregoing years put together. Accept my hearty thanks therefore, and my sincere wishes for your health and prosperity.

In the preface to my last almanac, I foretold the death of my dear old friend and fellow-student, the learned and ingenious Mr. Titan Leeds, which was to be on the 17th of October, 1733, 3 h. 29 m. PM at the very instant of the # of # and #. By his own calculation he was to survive till the 26th of the same month, and expire in the time of the eclipse, near 11 a clock, a.m. At which of these times he died, or whether he be really yet dead, I cannot at this present writing positively assure my readers; for as much as a disorder in my own family demanded my presence, and would not permit me as I had intended, to be with him in his last moments, to receive his last embrace, to close his eyes, and do the duty of a friend in performing the last offices to the departed. Therefore it is that I cannot positively affirm whether he be dead or not; for the stars only show to the skilful, what will happen in the natural and universal chain of causes and effects; but ’tis well known, that the events which would otherwise certainly happen at certain times in the course of nature, are sometimes set aside or postponed for wise and good reasons, by the immediate particular dispositions of providence; which particular dispositions the stars can by no means discover or foreshow. There is however, (and I cannot speak it without sorrow) there is the strongest probability that my dear friend is
no more;
for there appears in his name, as I am assured, an almanac for the year 1734, in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome manner; in which I am called
a false predictor, an ignorant, a conceited scribbler, a fool, and a liar.
Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any man so indecently and so scurrilously, and moreover his esteem and affection for me was extraordinary: so that it is to be feared that pamphlet may be only a contrivance of somebody or other, who hopes perhaps to sell two or three years almanacs still, by the sole force and virtue of Mr. Leeds’s name; but certainly, to put words into the mouth of a gentleman and a man of letters, against his friend, which the meanest and most scandalous of the people might be ashamed to utter even in a drunken quarrel, is an unpardonable injury to his memory, and an imposition upon the public.

Mr. Leeds was not only profoundly skilful in the useful science he professed, but he was a man of
exemplary sobriety,
a most
sincere friend,
and an
exact performer of his word.
These valuable qualifications, with many others so much endeared him to me, that although it should be so, that, contrary to all probability, contrary to my prediction and his own, he might possibly be yet alive, yet my loss of honor as a prognosticator, cannot afford me so much mortification, as his life, health and safety would give me joy and satisfaction. I am, courteous and kind reader, your poor friend and servant,

R. Saunders

Two years into their marriage, in October of 1732, Franklin and Deborah had a son, Francis Folger Franklin, known as Franky. For the rest of his life, Franklin would marvel at the memory of how precocious, curious and special Franky was.

These were, alas, destined to be only sad memories. In one of the few searing tragedies of Franklin’s life, Franky died of smallpox just after his fourth birthday. On his grave Franklin wrote a simple epitaph: “The delight of all who knew him.”

The memory of Franky was one of the few things ever to cause Franklin painful reflections. When his sister Jane wrote to him in London years later with happy news about his grandsons, Franklin responded that it “brings often afresh to my mind the idea of my son Franky, though now dead thirty-six years, whom I have seldom since seemed equaled in everything, and whom to this day I cannot think of without a sigh.” Adding to the poignancy, Franklin had written for his paper, while Franky was still alive, an unusually deep rumination on “The Death of Infants,” which was occasioned by the death of a neighbor’s child. Drawing on his observations of the tiny Franky, he described the magical beauty of babies.

T
HE
P
ENNSYLVANIA
G
AZETTE
, J
UNE
20, 1734

It has been observed by Sir
William Petty
in his
Political Arithmetick,
that one half of mankind, which are born into this world, die, before they arrive to the age of
sixteen,
and that an half of the remaining part never measure out the short term of thirty years. That this observation is pretty just, every inquisitive person may be satisfied by comparing the several bills of mortality, published in
Europe,
for some years past; even a cursory view of any common burial place may, in a great measure evidence the truth of it.

Many arguments, to prove a
future state,
have been drawn from the unequal lot of good and bad men upon earth, but no one seems to carry a greater degree of probability in it, than the foregoing observation.—, to see virtue languish and repine, to see vice prosperous and triumphant, to see a
dives
faring deliciously every day, and rioting in all the excess of luxury and wantonness; to see a Lazarus poor, hungry, naked, and full of sores, lying at his door, and denied even the crumbs that fall from his table, the portion of his dogs, which dogs are more charitable, more human than their master: such a view, I confess, raises in us a violent presumption that there is another state of retribution, where the just and the unjust will be equally punished or rewarded by an impartial judge. On the other hand, when we reflect on the vast numbers of infants, that just struggle into life, then weep and die, and at the same time consider, that it can be in no wise consistent with the justice and wisdom of an infinite being, to create to no end, we may very reasonably conclude, that those animated machines, those
men
in miniature, who know no difference between good and evil, who are incapable of any good offices towards their fellow-creatures, or of serving their maker, were made for good and wise designs and purposes, which purposes, and designs transcend all the limits of our ideas and all our present capacities to conceive. Should an able and expert artificer employ all his time and his skill in contriving and framing an exquisite piece of
clockwork,
which, when he had brought it to the utmost perfection wit and art were capable of, and just set it a-going, he should suddenly dash it to pieces; would not every wise man naturally infer, that his intense application had disturbed his brain and impaired his reason?

Let us now contemplate the body of an infant, that curious engine of divine workmanship. What a rich and artful structure of flesh upon the solid and well compacted foundation of bones! What curious joints and hinges, on which the limbs are moved to and fro! What an inconceivable variety of nerves, veins, arteries, fibers and little invisible parts are found in every member! What various fluids, blood and juices run thro’ and agitate the innumerable slender tubes, the hollow strings and strainers of the body! What millions of folding doors are fixed within, to stop those red or transparent rivulets in their course, either to prevent their return backwards, or else as a means to swell the muscles and move the limbs! What endless contrivances to secure life, to nourish nature, and to propagate the same to future animals! Can we now imagine after such a survey, that so wise, so good and merciful a creator should produce
myriads
of such exquisite machines to no other end or purpose, but to be deposited in the dark chambers of the grave, where each of the dead lie in their cold mansions, in beds of darkness and dust. The shadows of a long evening are stretched over them, the curtains of a deep midnight are drawn around them,
the worm lies under them, and the worm covers them.
No! The notion of annihilation has in it something so shocking and absurd, reason should despise it; rather let us believe, that when they drop this earthly vehicle they assume an ethereal one, and become the inhabitants of some more glorious region. May they not help to people that infinite number of
starry
and
planetary
worlds that roll above us: may they not become our better
genii,
our guardian angels, watch round our bed and our couch, direct our wandering paths thro’ the maze and labyrinth of life, and at length conduct us safe, even us, who were the instruments of their passing thro’ this valley of sorrow and death, to a land of peace and the mountains of paradise?—but these are things that belong to the provinces of light and immortality, and lie far beyond our mortal ken.—

I was led into this train of thinking by the death of a desirable child, whose beauty is now turning a pace into corruption, and all the loveliness of its countenance fled for ever. Death sits heavy upon it, and the sprightliness and vigor of life is perished in every feature and in every limb. If the foregoing reflections should urge any one forward in the paths of virtue, or yield any consolation to those in the like circumstances, and help to divert the stream of their sorrow into a better channel, I shall hope my thoughts have been employed to good purpose. When nature gave us tears, she gave us leave to weep. A long separation from those who are so near a-kin to us in flesh and blood, will touch the heart in a painful place, and awaken the tenderest springs of sorrow. The sluices must be allowed to be held open a little;
nature
seems to demand it as a debt to
love.
When
Lazarus
died,
Jesus
groaned and wept.

I shall only add by way of conclusion an
epitaph
upon an infant: it is taken from a tombstone in a little obscure village in England, that seems to have very little title to any thing so elegantly poetical, which renders it the more remarkable.

Although Franklin loved the freedom afforded by writing under the thin disguise of Poor Richard, he occasionally poked through the veil in a humorous way. Some of his pseudononymous pieces he made sure remained anonymous, but usually it was well known that he was the writer. At the end of 1735, he made fun of this process by having Poor Richard, in his preface for 1736, pretend to protest about those who thought he was merely a fictional invention of his printer Franklin.

P
OOR
R
ICHARD
’
S
A
LMANAC FOR
1736

Loving Readers,

Your kind acceptance of my former labors, has encouraged me to continue writing, though the general approbation you have been so good as to favor me with, has excited the envy of some, and drawn upon me the malice of others. These ill-willers of mine, despited at the great reputation I gained by exactly predicting another man’s death, have endeavored to deprive me of it all at once in the most effectual manner, by reporting that I my self was never alive. They say in short,
that there is no such a man as I am;
and have spread this notion so thoroughly in the country, that I have been frequently told it to my face by those that don’t know me. This is not civil treatment, to endeavor to deprive me of my very being, and reduce me to a non-entity in the opinion of the public. But so long as I know my self to walk about, eat, drink and sleep, I am satisfied that
there is really such a man as I am,
whatever they may say to the contrary: and the world may be satisfied likewise; for if there were no such man as I am, how is it possible I should appear publicly to hundreds of people, as I have done for several years past, in print? I need not, indeed, have taken any notice of so idle a report, if it had not been for the sake of my printer, to whom my enemies are pleased to ascribe my productions; and who it seems is as unwilling to father my offspring, as I am to lose the credit of it. Therefore to clear him entirely, as well as to vindicate my own honor, I make this public and serious declaration, which I desire may be believed, to wit,
that what I have written heretofore, and do now write, neither was nor is written by any other man or men, person or persons whatsoever.
Those who are not satisfied with this, must needs be very unreasonable.

My performance for this year follows; it submits itself, kind reader, to thy censure, but hopes for thy candor, to forgive its faults. It devotes itself entirely to thy service, and will serve thee faithfully: and if it has the good fortune to please its master, ’tis gratification enough for the labor of poor

R. Saunders