Book of Ages (51 page)
Authors: Jill Lepore
———.
A True State of the Proceedings in the Parliament of Great Britain
. London, 1774.
Van Doren supposed Lee’s
True State
to have been also among the pamphlets Franklin sent his sister in 1774.
15
Lelyveld, Frans van.
“Of the Stilling of Waves by means of Oil. Extracted from Sundry Letters between Benjamin Franklin, LL. D. F. R. S. William Brownrigg, M. D. F. R. S. and the Reverend Mr. Farish,”
Philosophical Transactions
64 (1774): 445–60.
On November 3, 1774, Jane wrote to her brother, “I thank you for the Pamphlits you then sent & another I have Just recved concerning the stilling the wavs with oyl.”
Letter to the People of Pennsylvania: Occasioned by the Assembly’s passing that important Act for constituting the Judges of the Supreme Court and Common Pleas, during Good Behaviour.
Philadelphia: William Dunlap, 1760.
Jane asked Deborah for a copy of this tract in a letter dated March 17, 1760: “I have a favour to Ask which is that you would send me won of them Leters to the People of Pensylvania Advertised in yr Paper to be sould by Mr Dunlap.” An advertisement had appeared in the
Pennsylvania Gazette
on March 6, 1760.
The Life of the Late Earl of Chesterfield; or, The Man of the World.
Philadelphia: John Sparhawk, 1775.
In a letter to Franklin dated January 6, 1786, Jane wrote, “I want much to know how you are and have been since you have been at home but fear to be two often Inquisitive Least I should Provoke you to Return me such an Ansure as chesterfeild did to his sons widdow on such an Ocation.” After this she wrote, then crossed out: “which would brake my hart I remember you wonce bad me not be fussy.” The remark to which Jane alludes is in an October 27, 1771, letter from Chesterfield to his son’s widow; Chesterfield wrote: “Upon my word, madam, you interest yourself in the state of my existence more than I do myself; for it is worth the care of neither of us.” Franklin wrote back, on January 24, that he found this reference obtuse: “I don’t know what the Answer was which Chesterfield gave to his Son’s widow.”
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Massachusetts Gazette.
Jane referred to reading this newspaper in a letter from 1765, writing to Deborah on April 6, “We have Grat Joy with you at the News of our Brothers arival in England tho we know it no other way than by that smal line in the News Paper.” The only Massachusetts newspaper to report Franklin’s arrival was the
Massachusetts Gazette,
which, on March 21, 1765, noted, under a London byline, “On Monday evening last the ingenious Dr. Benjamin Franklin arrived here from Philadelphia.”
Miscellaneous.
There are references in the Franklin-Mecom correspondence to other works Jane read that I have not been able to identify.
1. A
sermon Jane believed her brother wrote, ca. 1769: “The Sermon which you call mine, I know nothing of,” he wrote to her on September 29, 1769, in reply to a letter of hers dated June 13, 1769, now lost. “I have only heard of it: I never saw it. It was wrong to give me as the Author of it. Whether it be good or bad, I have no Right to the Reputation or the Censures it may deserve.”
2. An unspecified pamphlet, ca. 1770: “I am Desiered by a Lady of my Acquaintanc to send for the Pamphlit Discribed by this note,” Jane wrote to her brother on September 25, 1770. The enclosed note does not survive. Jane added that this lady “says if I will send for two she will make me a Present of won, she is won I should be Glad to oblige & think it may be Agreable to have won.” Franklin obliged in a letter dated December 30, 1770: “I send you by this opportunity the two books you wrote for.”
3. An unidentified book by Franklin, ca. 1786: “the Book I recd and sent it to cousen Jonathan,” Jane wrote Franklin on August 25, 1786, “who tells me he has a nother & will Return it to me for my Son Collas, to whom it may be of Grat Service, I Read it my self before I sent it and found a grat deal of Pleasure in it as I do in all you write as far as my capasety Enables me to under stand it, and farther too.”
New-England Courant,
1721–25.
I believe Jane must have read the newspaper her brother James printed.
New-England Magazine,
1758–59.
I believe Jane must have read this magazine during its very brief run, when it was printed in Boston by her son Benjamin. She also read at least one Philadelphia magazine, in 1765, as she writes to Deborah on April 6 of that year, “Rec the magizeen for which I thank you.”
Odell, Jonathan.
“Inscription for a Curious Chamber-Stove, in the Form of an Urn, so contrived as to make the Flame descend, instead of rise, from the Fire: Invented by Doctor Franklin.” 1776.
This poem appeared in various newspapers and magazines. Jane refers to it in a letter to Franklin dated June 13, 1781: “Parson Odell has been Exersiseing His Poetical Talant on yr Invention of the Chamber Fireplace it came to me throw the hands of Crasey Harry Badcock & I have half a mind to send it to you as I think it would make you Laugh.” Crazy Harry Badcock—Jane’s misspelling of his name may well have been intentional—was
Henry Babcock, who was discharged from the Second Rhode Island Regiment for mental unfitness in May 1776.
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Paine, Thomas.
Common Sense
. Philadelphia, 1776.
Jane never mentioned reading
Common Sense,
but she was living in Franklin’s house in Philadelphia in January 1776 when it was published. She could scarcely have avoided it.
Pennsylvania Gazette.
Jane referred to reading the
Pennsylvania Gazette
of March 6, 1760, in a letter to Deborah Franklin dated March 24, 1760 (see the
Letter to the People of Pennsylvania,
above), which suggets that she may have received the paper regularly, and within weeks of its publication.
Pennsylvania Packet.
In a letter to her brother dated June 23, 1779, Jane quoted from an article about him that had appeared in the
Pennsylvania Packet
on October 27, 1778. The
Packet
reported, “A gentleman just returned from Paris informs us, that Dr. Franklin has shaken off entirely the mechanical rust, and commenced the compleat courtier.” Jane wrote to Franklin (and this is one of the only occasions, in all of her correspondence, where she uses quotation marks), “I now & then hear of yr helth & Glorious Achievments in the political way, as well as in the favour of the Ladys (‘Since you have rubd off the Mechanic Rust and commenced compleat courtier’) who Jonathan Williams writes me clame from you the Tribute of an Embrace & it seemes you do not complane of the Tax as a very grat penance.” It is unclear where Jane read this remark, or from what source she copied it. She might have read the
Pennsylvania Packet
. She might have seen this phrase reported in another newspaper. It appeared originally in the
London Chronicle
in the summer of 1778 and was also picked up by several American papers, including the
New Hampshire Gazette
(December 22, 1788). Or, as is I think most likely, Williams might have quoted it in a letter to her. Franklin was abashed to learn that she had seen it (“The Story you allude to, which was in the News Papers, mentioning ‘mechanic Rust,’ &ca is totally without Foundation”), but she wrote back to him on her sixty-eighth birthday with this reassurance: “I seldom meet with any thing in the Newspapers but what is to yr honour, that of the mechanice Rust served only to make me Laugh.”
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Perkins, John.
Thoughts on Agency
. New Haven: B. Mecom, 1765.
It seems likely that Jane would have taken an interest in this philosophical treatise, written by her doctor and printed by her son.
Plutarch’s
Lives.
This work was in Jane’s father’s
library when she was growing up. Franklin mentions it in his autobiography.
Pope, Alexander.
An Essay on Man.
1734.
“I do my Endeavour to adopt the Gra Popes Doctrin with Regard to the Providence of God whatever is is Right,” Jane wrote to Deborah on September 28, 1765. This is a reference to Epistle I of Pope’s
Esssay on Man:
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
And in a letter to her brother dated November 7, 1785, she referred to Epistle IV of Pope’s
Essay on Man:
“I am of Popes mind that Health, Peace, and Competance, come as near to Happynes as in Atainable in this Life.” Jane might have known Pope well without ever having read the
Essay;
it was much spoken about, and preached about, and referred to.
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Price, Richard.
Four Dissertations on Providence
. London, 1777.
Jane referred to this book in a letter to her grandson
Josiah Flagg dated July 21, 1786 (“I would advise you to Read The first Sec. of Dr. Price’s Dessertations on Providence, my Brothers Liberary will firnish you with it”), and she quoted from it, at length, in a letter to her brother with the same date. She had probably come across it in the catalog of the Franklin town library.
Priestley, Joseph.
An Address to the Protestant Dissenters of all Denominations.
London, 1774.
Van Doren supposed Priestley’s
Address
to have been among the pamphlets Franklin sent Jane in 1774.
20
Romilly, Samuel.
Observations on “Thoughts on Executive Justice.”
London, 1786.
Van Doren believes that this is the “Pamphlit” to which Jane refers in a letter to Franklin dated May 22, 1787.
21
Sharp, Granville.
A Declaration of the People’s Natural Right to Share in the Legislature
. London: B. White, 1774.
Jane’s copy is in the Thayer Memorial Library. It is inscribed “Jane Mecoms.”
Shipley, Jonathan.
A Speech intended to have been spoken on the Bill
. London, 1774.
Van Doren supposed Shipley’s
Speech
to have been among the pamphlets Franklin sent Jane in 1774.
22
Stennett, Samuel.
Discourses on Personal Religion
. 2 vols. London, 1769.
Jane recommended this book to her brother, for inclusion in the library for the town of Franklin, in a letter dated October 21, 1784: “I cant doubt but such a Library will consist of some Authers on Divine Subjects I therefor hope you will not think it too Presuming in me to Propose won, Viz Discourses on Personal Religion in two Volumes by Samuel Stnnett D D Printed in London by R Hett in 1769 I borrowed them and Read them with a grat deal of Pleasure and I think you yourself would if you could find time tho there may be many things in them not altogether Agreable to your Sentiments, which I sopose may be the case with Every Volume you Read on any Subject.”
Stillman, Samuel.
A Sermon Preached before the Honorable Council
. Boston, 1779.
Jane sent a copy of this sermon to her brother on October 29, 1781: “I have at length found the Sermon you were desierous to see among Mr Stillmans & now send it.”
Swift, Jonathan.
Unidentified work.
Jane referred to Swift in her letters on various occasions. For instance: “I am often Afflected with grat Dizenes & Expect or fear if I live much Longer to be in such Circumstances as Dean Swift was.”
23
These references don’t prove that she read Swift’s work, only that she was aware of him. But she mentioned him often enough that I suspect she knew him in the way a reader knows an author.
Trenck, Friedrich.
The Life of Baron Frederic Trenck.
Philadelphia, 1789.
Jane referred to this book in a letter to her brother in 1789, to which he replied in a letter dated December 17, 1789. She might well have borrowed Trenck’s life from
John Lathrop; it is listed in the catalog of Lathrop’s library, printed after his death in 1816.
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Weld, Ezra
. A Sermon on Sacred Musick
. Springfield, 1789.
In a letter dated November 24, 1789, Jane wondered about whether or not to send her brother a copy of this sermon: “I have a strong Inclination to send you a Sermon on Sacred musick tho my Friend Dr Lathrop & his wife tell me the Dr has been ust to Read composition on the subject so much beter it may not appear to him as I Expect, it Pleasd me & I know you will give it a Reading & tell me if it is not a Pritty Discorse from a country minester who has Every circumstance to Depres him.” She did eventually send him the sermon. Franklin replied, in a letter dated December 17, 1789, “I thank you for the Sermon on sacred Music; I have read it with Pleasure—I think it a very ingenious Composition.”
Willard, Samuel.
The Complete Body of Divinity
. Boston, 1726.
This work was in Jane’s father’s library when she was growing up. Franklin mentions it in his autobiography.
Wollstonecraft, Mary.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
1792.
It seems not altogether likely that Jane read Wollstonecraft’s treatise, but it is listed in Lathrop’s catalog.
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Works printed by Benjamin Mecom in Boston, 1757–62.
Because it seems likely that Jane had a chance to read books printed by her son during his years in Boston, below is a list of Benjamin Mecom’s Boston output.
1757
C
OTTON
M
ATHER
.
God’s Call to His People.