USA > New York > Old New York : or, Reminiscences of the past sixty years > Part 7
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The experience, disposition, and peculiar traits of Dr. Francis, united with his patriotism to make him an enthu- siast in his admiration of Franklin. Having won his own early success in life by self-culture, cherishing the strict- est principles in regard to fiscal integrity, with a love for
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simple enjoyments, an ardent thirst for knowledge, popu- lar instincts, republican convictions, and a singular appre- ciation of self-reliant and original character, he found in this philosopher and practical economist, and in the seien- tific genius and unartificial manners, the probity and the publie spirit of Franklin, his ideal of the American eitizen and savant. His earliest associations made the individ- uality of the Boston printer among the most vivid of his reminiscences ; for he had heard his mother speak of Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Dr. Rush, when they passed the house in company, as " Reason, Common Sense, and the Doctor;" the autobiography of the latter was the favorite book of his childhood, and his youthful aspiration was to imitate the career of ono who had become the idol of his heart. To this end, when obliged to decide at a tender age upon a pursuit in life, ho had chosen the pro- fession of a printer; it was his pride, in later years, to boast of having set up, in Mr. Long's office, " The Lay of the Last Minstrel" from an early English copy ; and ho ever cherished the kindest relations with and proved a rare benefactor to the eraft; twiee invited to address the New York Typographical Society, he improved each oeca- sion to celebrate the illustrious memories and important social funetions connected therewith ; and devoted the last to an elaborate and glowing eulogy of Franklin's character and achievements. He delighted to seek out and authenticate the localities identified with his elec- trieal experiments in New York ; regarded as one of his most precious trophies, a set of China plates that had belonged to and been used by Franklin ; and was proud of the resemblance so often observed between himself and the sage who drew lightning from heaven, wrote "Poor Richard," outwitted parliamentary inquisitors, and won the hearts of Parisian belles. The traditions in regard to the latter, indeed, were sometimes turned against the
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Doctor by his humorous friends, who, aware of his sensi- tive admiration of Franklin, would excite him to the most indignant protests by affecting to have heard of the dis- covery of documentary cvidence of amorous intrigues, whereby the lofty fame of Franklin would be seriously compromised. A Philadelphia friend has often related the amusing circumstances attending the Doctor's visit to Franklin's grave ; in him hero-worship was carried to an extent seldom witnessed in this utilitarian age and coun- try, and his first object in Philadelphia was to seek that "Mecca of the mind" to him-the last resting-place of the American Philosopher; accordingly, he sallied forth with the zeal of a pilgrim approaching a shrine long and patiently sought. Upon arriving at the cemetery, he was disconcerted to find the gates locked, and the wall too high for him to scale ; borrowing a ladder from one of the neighboring shops, he soon reached the spot, so hallowed to his fancy and dear to his heart, and, kneeling thereon, spent an hour in exalted meditation upon the virtues, the services, and the genius, of Benjamin Franklin. Mean- time, the ladder had been taken away by the impatient owner, and when the Doctor, awaking from his revery, sought to retrace his steps, he found it easy to mount the wall from the inside, but, on account of its greater height without, hazardous to descend. He, therefore, remained astride on the top, hoping some chance passenger would release him from the predicament. His short legs, robust form, gray hair, and broad, expressive face, with his half- clerical costume, made him, thus mounted at mid-day on a graveyard fence, in the heart of a metropolis noted for devotion to social propriety, an object of curiosity and reproach, rather than of sympathy. To add to the awk- wardness of the situation, a procession of Friends from the adjacent meeting-house, filed in full procession along the street below, the old men and fair matrons casting glances
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of grave disapprobation upon so venerable and respectably clad an offender, as they evidently considered him, against the sacredness of the time and place. Although provoked by his uncomfortable and involuntary dilemma, and some remarks questioning his sanity by a scandalized Quaker, he vouchsafed an explanation, and improved the occasion to dilate upon the public indifference to the memory of Franklin, in the city where he lived and died, as mani- fested in the neglect of the people to crect a monument over his remains, and make the place of their repose accessible to strangers like himself. The terms and the tonc of this impromptu address, from so unique a rostrum, added not a little to the originality of the scene, to which only the pen and pencil of Hood could do justice; and so aroused were the Doctor's feelings and rhetoric, that it might have been indefinitely prolonged, had not the con- siderate friend to whom we are indebted for the anecdote, lastened to the rescue, and conveyed the Doctor from his ominous perch, amid the hearty plaudits of the more than reconciled spectators.
Although sometimes exhibited in this comic manner, tlie Doctor's love of genius was serious and full of humanity. He was jealous for the respectability of the guild of let- ters and of wit; advocated earnestly, and on all occasions, their prominent claims, and manifested a sincere respect for and sympathy with their votaries. A friend, whose sense of the ridiculous was keen, was infinitely amused at the début of a gentleman well known in literature and polite society, and who had remarkable elocutionary talent- upon the strength of which he ventured to appear on the stage of the Park Theatre, associated with a celebrated actress. Unfortunately, he had taken no lessons in his- trionic art, and was wholly inexperienced in the technical business of the profession ; relying upon his beautiful readings of Shakspeare, he forgot how essential to effect-
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ive representation is the manner of exit and entrance, the attitude, movement, and adaptation to the part; the con- sequence was, a ludicrous unconsciousness of awkward behaviour in this regard, which was the more laughable from the self-possession and complacency with which the recitation was given; the Doctor's friend was convulsed with laughter, but the Doctor himself felt too much sym- pathy with the amateur not to see more that was pitiable than funny in the spectacle, and reproved his companion in a way that made a lasting impression, and led him to respect the benevolence implied in the reproach, which the whole audience might have justly shared, as, notwith- standing the tragic subject, they were nearly all in a broad grin. "For God's sake, sir," exclaimed the kind-hearted Doctor, " don't laugh to see a gentleman, and the son of a gentleman, make a fool of himself !" This reminds us of an anecdote related of Sir Richard Steele, who pleaded for a worthy and humble aspirant for comic success with his critical friends who gravely sneered at his attempts, saying, " Do laugh, 'tis humanity to laugh." Yet the Doctor's literary championship was often amusing in its zeal. The son of one of his neighbors had written a book of travels, and he warmly congratulated the father, who, being a practical and prosaic man, was annoyed at what he deemed a waste of time, and, regarding authors as a visionary and unprofitable race, did not respond to the compliment. "Sir," said the impatient Doctor, with Johnsonian emphasis, "you have no appreciation of the glory of literature, and the true worth of brains and of fame. I had rather be a corn on Byron's toe than possess your fortune, if I had to take your soul with it." Observ- ing one day the name of a celebrated writer upon the sign of a leading firm in one of the large business thorough- fares, he entered, and inquired for the owner of the illus- trious title, who happened to be a very matter-of-fact
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tradesman. " Are you any relation, sir," asked the Doc- tor, "to the celebrated author whose name you bear ?" " He was my uncle, and my son owns his Christian as well as surname," " And where is that son, sir ?" " Hc has just gone out ; he inherits some of liis kinsman's tal- ent, but I am bringing him up to this lucrative business." " Your son, sir, had better be dead!" replied the Doctor, leaving the stranger dumb with astonishment, as he could not perceive the bearing of this remarkable opinion from his unknown visitor. Some ono inquired of the Doctor what kind of a person a young lady was. "Why, sir," he replied, "you can judge, when I tell you she never heard of Hannah More."
X.
To a mind thus liberalized by varied knowledge, and a heart so freely and habitually exercising generous sympa- thies, religion naturally presented itself more under the aspect of a sentiment modified by special associations, thian as a system amenable exclusively to ecclesiastical stand- ards. Accordingly, while the ethics of Christian doctrine, especially truth, love, and forgiveness, were earnestly recognized both in principle and practice by Dr. Francis, he never professcd absolute allegiance to any scct. One was often reminded, in conversation with him, of the remark of James Martineau, that it is the instinct of the " soul's natural piety to alight on whatever is beautiful and touch- ing in every sect, and draw thence its secret inspiration ;" for he expressed intelligent and genuine sympathy with every form in which true religious feeling manifested itself; and had a peculiar conviction, derived from a wide and remarkable experience of life, of the superior value of positive results in action and sentiment over technical belief. He had known so many ostensible Christians vio-
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late what he cherished as the great objeet and meaning of religion-so many serupulous in ereed, and unjust and inhuman in conduet-that he never lost sight of the line which separates theology from religion: the former he considered a speculative, the latter a vital element. In his youth and early manhood occurred that memorable revolution, initiated by Methodism, which made apparent and emphatie the difference between formal assent and ceremonial, and personal experience in matters of faith, which Southey traced in his life of Wesley, which the preaching of Whitefield introduced in America, and which subsequently became such an efficient ageney in our Western civilization. Some of the results of this move- ment, and not a little of its process, Dr. Franeis had wit- nessed, and thereby eame to appreciate its adaptation to certain stages of national development and certain elasses of society. On the other hand, his personal relations made him intimate with the history, the representatives and the influence, of the Episcopal Church. Among its leading clergy were his warmest friends ; and to hear him diseuss the character of American bishops, the elaims of the liturgy, and the sermons of English divines, a stranger might have inferred that, with that communion, he was alone identified. While abroad, he associated with that exemplary cirele of English Unitarians, of which Gilbert Wakefield and Dr. Priestley were prominent members; and the elevated tone, active benevolence, and gracious intelli- genee, he there encountered, gave him a prepossession for the spirit they were of, which the inveterate prejudice that existed against the same seet in his native eity, could not dispel. This partiality was confirmed by his acquaint- ance with the simplieity of manners and integrity of life, the kindliness and the eandor of several of the New- England liberal Christian ministers; and when, forty years ago, every publie hall in New York was refused to these
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preachers, it was through the exertions of Dr. Francis that the lecture-room of the medical college, wherein he was a professor, was at last obtained for this proscribed denomination. This bold advocacy of toleration, as it was then considered, is a curious illustration of the narrow bigotry of that day, and the brave humanity of the medical, compared with the exclusiveness of the clerical profession ; and the details of the controversy which Dr. Francis car- ried on almost single-handed to secure a decent apartment for Dr. Channing to preach in, forcibly contrasts with the European fame of that eminent divine, and the subsequent popularity of Ware, Dewey, and their successors, in the beautiful temples now dedicated in the same city to this identical faith. Dr. Francis was a great favorite with the clergy, and could give admirable portraits of the most dis- tinguished of those who flourished during the last half cen- tury in New York. "Early instruction and reading while a boy," he remarks, "gave me something of a bias towards matters pertaining to churches and their pastors ; my re- peated visits to my father's grave, in Ann street, when I was not yet seven years old, led me to churchyards and to epitaphs, and I had collected, when scarcely able to pen an intelligible hand, quite a volume of those expressive memorials of saddest bereavement. I state these facts, lest in what I have to say, in a brief notice of a few of the earlier clerical worthies of this city, you might apprehend, from my personal reminiscences, that I was half a century older than I actually am." His anecdotes of Bishop Hobart, John Murray, Dr. Mason, and others, evidenced the same catholic sympathy which bound him, in later years, in ties of genuine friendship with clerical represent- atives of all the leading sects. Few laymen delight in Hymns as he did. Dr. Watts and Charles Wesley, Cow- per and Toplady, were familiar to him, in their devout lyrics, as household words ; and one of his last requests
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was to have read Newton's " Hymn of the Great Physi- cian." There was one cminent Christian quality which belonged to Dr. Francis : his forbearance and patience under a sense of injury. To witness his kindliness of manner towards persons who had proved ungrateful and dishonest, who had abused his confidence and been recreant to their obligations, pecuniary and social, no one would imagine that he had suffered wrong, so little did the spirit of revenge enter into his nature ; indeed, were it not for his vivid remembrance of Kean's " Zanga," it might be inferred that he had no conception of the feeling.
Theology had been made familiar to Dr. Francis, not only by his free and frequent intercourse with prominent clergymen of different denominations, but through his brother, who was a Hebrew scholar, and remarkably well versed in the history of creeds and ecclesiastical and po- lemic lore. There was in his mind a native repugnance to mysticism, partly exhibited in a tenacious allegiance to that large portion of English literature which appeals to common sense and the facts of life and science, and partly in his antipathy to ideas not strictly logical and based on experience. His sense of the actual was prevailing, his perception of the involved and imaginative, limited ; he loved history more than speculation, truths demonstrated by life and law, better than those evolved from intuition. His reading, his profession, and his habits of thought, pre- cluded devotion to abstract, and fostered his adherence to practical ideas; the application of the latter to conduct he fully recognized ; and, therefore, works rather than faith impressed lis consciousness; it followed, as a natural con- sequence, that much of what is regarded as important doc- trine seemed to him vague and inexplicable. "My cook and chimney-sweep," he observed to a friend, " understand these things, but I cannot." Yet the ethical part of Chris- tianity commended itself to his heart, and was endeared
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thereto. ' What speculative idcas he may have enter- tained in regard to divine truth," observes Dr. Mott, " or what peculiar views he may have had of abstract doctrines, is of little consequence, so long as his whole life was a continual exemplification of the cardinal maxims of the Christian religion, love towards God, and charity to man." And when the singular interest in, and attachment to life, which his physical, intellectual, and moral constitution bred, were gradually weakened by suffering, he became in this respect, as he declared to Dr. Hawks, " an altered man," or, as that affectionate and excellent friend re- marked, " like a little child."
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The vigorous constitution and freshness of heart, which had so distinguished Dr. Francis, seemed to warrant the continuance of health and usefulness to far more than the allotted days of man. He considered his vulnerable point the throat and bronchial organs, having suffered re- peated attacks of laryngitis-a disease comparatively rare, always alarming, and familiar to every reader of Washington's life, as that which so rapidly closed his mortal career. The report of one of several cases of laryngitis, of which Dr. Francis is the subject, is referred to in that popular manual, Watson's "Practice of Physic." The extreme and sudden changes of our climate, and the exposure and fatigue inseparable from the life of a physi- cian, might suggest an unusual liability to fatal illness to a man thus constituted and employed ; but great caution was exercised by his family to guard him from exposure to cold; and the earliest symptoms of inflammation or obstruction of the laryux were alleviated by every means that experience had proved useful. It therefore appeared reasonable to anticipate a prolonged as well as green old
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age for one whose habits and constitution were so favor- able to longevity ; especially as his eldest son - prepared himself to assume the more laborious duties of the profes- sion, and relieve his father from the necessity of over-exer- tion and habitual exposure. The sympathy of taste, and the mutual affection that existed between them, made this prospect full of hope and satisfaction. Already " the young doctor" had given proof of rarc energy, and an independence and vigor of character beyond his years. Surrounded from infancy with the kindly and intellectual atmosphere of the home we have inadequately described, he had imbibed the love of letters, the social aptitudes, and the professional enthusiasm of his father, and was, at the age of manhood, in aspect, character, and disposition, that father's adequate and loyal representative, destined, in tlie fond visions of the parental heart, to perpetuate his pro- fessional name and fame, inherit the invaluable results of his experience, share the labors and triumphs of his later years, and be at once his filial support, intel- lectual companion, and endeared successor. The abrupt severance of this precious tie, the sudden destruction of these vital hopes, were the signal of that great change which ushers in the decline of human life, enjoyment, and self-reliance, to Dr. Francis. His eldest son died of typhoid fever, on the 20th of January, 1855. " As I led him away from the death-bed, when all was over," writes Dr. Mott, "he uttercd a passionate exclamation of grief that he, who had saved the lives of so many less worthy, should have lost his own son. The shaft had sunk deep into his heart, and for two years he brooded over his wound, and refused to be comforted." Unrelieved as he had trusted to be from the immediate burden of his pro- fessional toil, the sweetest dream of his life bitterly dis- pelled, that elasticity of mind which had heretofore sus- tained him, only appeared at fitful intervals ; he grew old
om. W.Francis pr
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visibly ; a little exertion fatigued him, a slight perplexity created nervous disturbance ; and that apprehensiveness, so foreign to his days of health and hope, which seems to grow with years, dampened his native ardor; a sudden conviction of the precarious in life seemed to weigh upon his heart. He had known few bereavements, and this bewildered while it made him desolate; comforted, at times, by the assiduities of domestic love, cheered into geniality by friendly companionship, regular as ever in professional duty, faithful as before to the various public claims upon his time and thoughts, he was, as those who knew him best continually felt and remarked, " never again the same man ;" more pensive, less confident ; sometimes im- patient of, but oftener subdued by his peculiar sorrow, he found still in literature* the chief means of distraction. and sought to lose himself in the past and future, when the present failed to absorb his consciousness. His atti- tude of quiet musing, his spasmodic efforts at hilarity, his more frequent recurrence to the vicissitudes of Life, and the mysteries of Eternity, indieated how his strong nature had been wrenched by grief from familiar and tenacious relations, and drifted on the infinite sea towards that " undiscovered country" whence no traveller returns. He would inquire of his friends if they did not perceive ' he was " breaking up," and if they thought he " would live a year." He would pensively call the roll of the few survivors of his youth, and greet, with peculiar tender- ness, the three or four contemporary intimates who yet ral- lied about his bereaved age. The encroachments of trade upon the upper part of the city made it, as before stated, necessary for him, in the spring of 1860, to remove from a dwelling associated with the happiest years of his life. What the phrenologists call adhesiveness was a marked characteristic of Dr. Francis; and it was like him to men-
* Note, Appendix VIII.
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tion, among his objections to a change of residence, that he loved the corner of the sofa in his own familiar baek parlor, beside the window, where, in winter, he had felt the sunshine, and in summer watched the trees so long ; and that he had always imagined his coffin would rest on a table in the familiar hall. Two or three months' expe- rience of migratory life, during the ensuing summer, which was divided between Staten Island, West Point, brief excursions, and a hotel in the city, made the transi- tion delightful, when, early in the autumn, he was once more established in a home of his own, with his family, friends, and books, and household gods about him; the last he had found, with Lamb, " plant a terribly fixed foot, and are not removed without blood." During the six months prior to his being settled in his new dwelling, he had suffered from insomnia to such an extent that he felt confident, unless more sleep could be secured, Nature must yield. The consequence of this deprivation was, a state of nervous excitement, physical exhaustion, and mental de- spondency, which created the most serious anxiety in his behalf; he would not resort to auodynes, and his medical friends were completely baffled in their attempts to relieve what appeared independent of any functional or organic derangement, and to result from a purely nervous affection. But, as we have said, with the approach of cold weather, and the resumption of his usual domestic comforts, this trouble was much lessened ; the Doctor's health and spirits improved, and his friends congratulated him and each other upon what they fondly trusted was a new lease of life for him, and a new period of happy intercourse for them. These hopes proved fallacious. The long-contin- ued nervous derangement so far invaded his vital functions as to interfere with the assimilation of nourishment; and the poverty of blood hence resulting occasioned carbuncu- lar disease, at first appearing in small degrees upon the
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back, and gradually enlarging to a mass unparalleled in the experience of any of his medical friends ; " his mouth became aphthous, and his digestion failed." Day after day, and night after night, for eight weeks, he either lay upon his bed in extreme pain and great debility, or knelt beside it to undergo the dressing of the extensive wound ; the slough might not, indeed, "of necessity prove fatal," but his previous exhaustion and period of life made the result doubtful. Still, a remarkable degree of reeuperative power became manifest; the natural strength of his con- stitution, the most careful nursing, the best regimen, the watchfulness of his physicians, and the devotion of his family, seemed destined to be rewarded at last; but when "an extensive induration of the popliteal space" oceurred, followed by periods of collapse, he began to lose all confidence in the possibility of recovery. From time to time, he rallied; and at last the natural expression of the eyes, relish of food, and somewhat of the old interest in the events of the day and the pursuits to which he was at- tached, renewed the hopes of those he loved, and who so faithfully and fondly ministered to his wants. Perhaps no kind of illness could have so weaned him from the strong love of life native to such a constitution ; the long interval wherein he was eut off from habitual exeitement and re- sources, the prostration, the seelusion, and the pain, inei - dent to the disease, gradually but surely lessened his instinctive attachment to and interest in existenee. His mind was, for the most part, elear; his eonseiousness rarely lapsed ; he had a perfect conception of his state ; - unable to make any effort, and indisposed for conversation, all his strength seemed eoneentrated in patient endurance. When able to see the very few whose presence he craved, his words were brief but significant. He inquired earnest- ly for those whose welfare interested him, and desired to be informed, in general terms, as to publie affairs,-then
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