American Thumb-prints

“Mr. Leeds was not only profoundly skilful in the useful science he profess’d, 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 honour, as a prognosticate, cannot afford me so much mortification as his life, health, and safety would give me joy and satisfaction....”

Again, Leeds, in The American Almanack for 1735, returns Franklin’s jest:

“Courteous and Kind Reader: My Almanack being in its usual Method, needs no Explanation; but perhaps it may be expected by some that I shall say something concerning Poor Richard, or otherwise Richard Saunders’s Almanack, which I suppose was printed in the Year 1733 for the ensuing Year 1734, wherein he useth me with such good Manners, I can hardly find what to say to him, without it is to advise him not to be too proud because by his Prædicting my Death, and his writing an Almanack....

“But if Falsehood and Inginuity be so rewarded, What may he expect if ever he be in a capacity to publish that that is either Just or according to Art? Therefore I shall say little more about it than, as a Friend, to advise he will never take upon him to prædict or ascribe any Person’s Death, till he has learned to do it better than he did before....”

To this exhortation Franklin makes the following gay sally in Poor Richard for 1735.

“… Whatever may be the musick of the spheres, how great soever the harmony of the stars, ’tis certain there is no harmony among the star-gazers: but they are perpetually growling and snarling at one another like strange curs, or like some men at their wives. I had resolved to keep the peace on my own part, and offend none of them; and I shall persist in that resolution. But having receiv’d much abuse from Titan Leeds deceas’d (Titan Leeds when living would not have used me so): I say, having receiv’d much abuse from the ghost of Titan Leeds, who pretends to be still living, and to write Almanacks in spight of me and my predictions, I can not help saying, that tho’ I take it patiently, I take it very unkindly. And whatever he may pretend, ’tis undoubtedly true that he is really defunct and dead. First, because the stars are seldom disappointed, never but in the case of wise men, sapiens dominabitur asties, and they foreshadowed his death at the time I predicted it. Secondly, ’twas requisite and necessary he should die punctually at that time for the honor of astrology, the art professed both by him and his father before him. Thirdly, ’tis plain to every one that reads his two last Almanacks (for 1734 and ’35), that they are not written with that life his performances used to be written with; the wit is low and flat; the little hints dull and spiritless; nothing smart in them but Hudibras’s verses against astrology at the heads of the months in the last, which no astrologer but a dead one would have inserted, and no man living would or could write such stuff as the rest. But lastly, I shall convince him from his own words that he is dead (ex ore suo condemnatus est); for in his preface to his Almanack for 1734, he says: ‘Saunders adds another gross falsehood in his Almanack, viz., that by my own calculation, I shall survive until the 26th of the said month, October, 1733, which is as untrue as the former.’ Now if it be as Leeds says, untrue and a gross falsehood, that he survived till the 26th of October, 1733, then it is certainly true that he died before that time; and if he died before that time he is dead now to all intents and purposes, anything he may say to the contrary notwithstanding. And at what time before the 26th is it so likely he should die, as at the time by me predicted, viz., the 17th of October aforesaid? But if some people will walk and be troublesome after death, it may perhaps be borne with a little, because it cannot well be avoided, unless one would be at the pains and expense of laying them in the Red Sea; however, they should not presume too much upon the liberty allowed them. I know confinement must needs be mighty irksome to the free spirit of an astronomer, and I am too compassionate to proceed suddenly to extremities with it; nevertheless, tho’ I resolve with reluctance, I shall not long defer, if it does not speedily learn to treat its living friends with better manners.

“I am,

“Courteous reader,

“Your obliged friend and servant,

    “R. Saunders.”

Here for the nonce the jeu d’esprit ended. In carrying the matter further Franklin hardly showed the taste of Bickerstaff. The active, bristling, self-assertive ὕβρις which characterized his early manhood led him further on to stand over the very grave of Leeds. Before he made his Almanac for 1740 his competitor had died. But even Leeds dead he seemed to deem fair play.

    “October 7, 1739.

“Courteous Reader: You may remember that in my first Almanack, published for the year 1733, I predicted the death of my dear friend, Titan Leeds, Philomat, to happen that year on the 17th day of October, 3 h. 29 m. P.M. The good man, it seems, died accordingly. But W. B. and A. B.[6 - The printers, William and Andrew Bradford.] have continued to publish Almanacks in his name ever since; asserting for some years that he was still living. At length when the truth could no longer be concealed from the world, they confessed his death in their Almanack for 1739, but pretended that he died not till last year, and that before his departure he had furnished them with calculations for 7 years to come.—Ah, my friends, these are poor shifts and thin disguises; of which indeed I should have taken little or no notice, if you had not at the same time accused me as a false predictor; an aspersion that the more affects me as my whole livelyhood depends on a contrary character.

“But to put this matter beyond dispute, I shall acquaint the world with a fact, as strange and surprising as it is true; being as follows, viz.:

“On the 4th instant, toward midnight, as I sat in my little study writing this Preface, I fell fast asleep; and continued in that condition for some time, without dreaming any thing, to my knowledge. On awaking I found lying before me the following, viz.:

“‘Dear Friend Saunders: My respect for you continues even in this separate state; and I am griev’d to see the aspersions thrown on you by the malevolence of avaricious publishers of Almanacks, who envy your success. They say your prediction of my death in 1733 was false, and they pretend that I remained alive many years after. But I do hereby certify that I did actually die at that time, precisely at the hour you mention’d, with a variation only of 5 min. 53 sec, which must be allow’d to be no great matter in such cases. And I do further declare that I furnish’d them with no calculations of the planets’ motions, etc., seven years after my death, as they are pleased to give out: so that the stuff they publish as an Almanack in my name is no more mine than ’tis yours.

“‘You will wonder, perhaps, how this paper comes written on your table. You must know that no separate spirits are under any confinement till after the final settlement of all accounts. In the meantime we wander where we please, visit our old friends, observe their actions, enter sometimes into their imaginations, and give them hints waking or sleeping that may be of advantage to them. Finding you asleep, I enter’d your left nostril, ascended into your brain, found out where the ends of those nerves were fastened that move your right hand and fingers, by the help of which I am now writing unknown to you; but when you open your eyes you will see that the hand written is mine, tho’ wrote with yours.

“‘The people of this infidel age, perhaps, will hardly believe this story. But you may give them these three signs by which they shall be convinced of the truth of it.—About the middle of June next, J. J–n,[7 - John Jerman.] Philomat, shall be openly reconciled to the Church of Rome, and give all his goods and chattels to the chappel, being perverted by a certain country schoolmaster. On the 7th of September following my old Friend W. B–t shall be sober 9 hours, to the astonishment of all his neighbours:—And about the same time W. B. and A. B. will publish another Almanack in my name, in spight of truth and common sense.

“‘As I can see much clearer into futurity, since I got free from the dark prison of flesh, in which I was continually molested and almost blinded with fogs arising from tiff, and the smoke of burnt drams; I shall in kindness to you, frequently give you information of things to come, for the improvement of your Almanack: being, Dear Dick, Your Affectionate Friend,

    “‘T. Leeds.’

“For my own part, I am convinced that the above letter is genuine. If the reader doubts of it, let him carefully observe the three signs; and if they do not actually come to pass, believe as he pleases. I am his humble Friend,

    “R. Saunders.”

In this wise ended Poor Richard’s jest. Franklin’s style throughout is so simple and direct that one is at first inclined to scout the suggestion that the joke is not entirely original. It is impossible, however, to suppose that Franklin, with his broad reading, did not know Squire Bickerstaff’s. The development of the humor is wholly imitated. But Franklin made the method his own so thoroughly that his wit has those keener, subtler, more agile qualities which have distinguished American from the slower and sedater humor of the English. In the Bickerstaff jocularity evidences of the death of Partridge are enumerated in material surroundings of a not too prosperous London quack. Franklin, on the other hand, ironically and graphically reasons upon supposititious traits and qualities of character and breeding.

In England, Swift’s squib having given the death-blow to astrology, “Merlinus Liberatus, by John Partridge,” was published years after, but shorn of its specious and misleading pretences. Franklin’s jesting was more self-seeking.

Not one of Franklin’s biographers or editors has referred to the Bickerstaff joke. Upon the contrary, in an “Introduction to Fac-simile of Poor Richard’s Almanack for 1733,” published by The Duodecimos in 1894, it is asserted that Franklin “in a strain of delightful satire upon the already venerable pretensions of almanac-makers to foretell the future, … disposes of this difficulty by a method so novel, so ingenious, and withal of an illuminating power so far-reaching as to set the whole colony talking about it.”

It need hardly be added that none of Swift’s biographers—all being English—have hinted at Franklin’s pleasantry.

The inextinguishable laughter—the true Homeric ἄσβεστος γέλως—which is the atmosphere of both incidents, fits them to rank with the imaginary durance of Sancho Panza upon his island, or with Tartarin in Tarascon, or, to go to the first humor of literature, with the advance and retreat of Thersites in the council of Zeus-nourished kings. And in Britain and America all our heroes were real.

Upon other occasions than the Saunders-Leeds jesting Franklin loved playful feint; he had “Bagatelles” for his delight. It was a quizzical side of the character which made him the first of our notable American humorists. To amuse himself with an oriental apologue which he called “The Parable of Persecution,” he had the story bound with a Bible. From this book he would read the legend aloud, amazing his auditors that so beautiful a scriptural passage had escaped their knowledge.

The form in which Franklin cast the tale is this:

“And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun.

“And behold a man, bowed with age, came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff.

“And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him, ‘Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night, and thou shalt arise early on the morrow, and go thy way,’

“But the man said, ‘Nay, for I will abide under this tree.’

“And Abraham pressed him greatly: so he turned and they went into the tent, and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat.

“And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God, he said unto him, ‘Wherefore dost thou not worship the most high God, Creator of heaven and earth?’

“And the man answered and said, ‘I do not worship the God thou speakest of, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a god, which abideth alway in mine house, and provideth me with all things.’

“And Abraham’s zeal was kindled against the man, and he arose and fell upon him, and drove him forth with blows into the wilderness.

“And at midnight God called unto Abraham, saying, ‘Abraham, where is the stranger?’

“And Abraham answered and said, ‘Lord, he would not worship thee, neither would he call upon thy name; therefore have I driven him out from before my face into the wilderness.’

“And God said, ‘Have I borne with him these hundred and ninety and eight years, and nourished him, and clothed him, notwithstanding his rebellion against me; and couldst not thou, that art thyself a sinner, bear with him one night?’

“And Abraham said, ‘Let not the anger of the Lord wax hot against his servant; lo, I have sinned; lo, I have sinned; forgive me, I pray thee.’

“And Abraham arose, and went forth into the wilderness, and sought diligently for the man, and found him, and returned with him to the tent; and when he had treated him kindly, he sent him away on the morrow with gifts.

“And God spake again unto Abraham, saying, ‘For this thy sin shall thy seed be afflicted four hundred years in a strange land.

“‘But for thy repentance will I deliver them; and they shall come forth with power, and with gladness of heart, and with much substance.’”

Franklin’s fine literary sense and feeling would doubtless have told him that the tale was oriental, even if Jeremy Taylor, whose “Discourse on the Liberty of Prophesying” it brings to a finish, had not introduced it with the words, “I end with a story which I find in the Jews’ book.[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.]

“When Abraham sat at his tent-door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming toward him, who was a hundred years of age; he received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but, observing that the old man eat and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other god. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was. He replied, ‘I thrust him away because he did not worship thee.’ God answered him, ‘I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonoured me; and couldst not thou endure him one night, when he gave thee no trouble?’ Upon this saith the story, Abraham fetched him back again, and gave him hospitable entertainment and wise instruction. Go thou and do likewise, and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham.”

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 than it 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 colloquy[9 - Used through the courtesy of the editor of “The William and Mary College Quarterly.”] between 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 number of 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.