History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 62

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992

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It is often amusing to contemplate the ideas of persons of ordinary or little culture, especially in new communities like Pennsylvania, regarding those who propose to devote themselves entirely or mainly to literature, especially light literature, most especi- ally poetry. It is perhaps well for incipient poets that it is expensive to build and maintain madhouses, or many more of those unfortunates would have been sent therein. For down to these times, they are re- garded by a great majority of mankind as promising to become lunatics if not vagabonds. William Brad- ford's printing-press Penn foresaw to be useful for the spread of such intelligence as needed diffusion for all practical business purposes among the colouists of his province, and no other. We have seen into what straits both Bradford and his son were driven when they undertook to travel outside of the small circle within which the government thought fit to limit them. In such a society the earliest literary men must be of about the quality, intellectually and mor- ally, of those we have mentioned, poor pedagogues, or reckless rakes, living from hand to mouth, the latter generally defying public opinion, and sometimes

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getting from an ignorant hut vain and ambitious Governor or magistrate a few pence with which to buy a week's board and a jug of rum. Among such conditions it is most surprising that literature was not more tardy of development in Philadelphia, and that its early status was not much lower. The truth is that Philadelphians themselves have for the great- est part been used to rate the earliest literature of their city at far too low a value, and, what is more remarkable, to assign to Benjamin Franklin, a for- eigner, the chief merit of its development, as if, like the traditionary Manco of Peru, he had brought to a barbarous or semi-civilized people the arts with which, but for his coming, they must have forever continued to be unacquainted. Much as is the praise due to that one of the most illustrious of all ages, this is not a part of it. Literature-that is, literature of the sort that lives longest in fame-arose in Philadelphia not by means of, but in spite of, his influence. “I approved the amusing oneself with poetry now and then, so as to improve one's language, but no further." This he said in advanced age, when the world was filled with his fame. Sufficiently "amusing" to others were his own essays of courtship to the muses. His jobbs1 of poetry were to the extream1 of common. It was not that writers were universally discouraged, otherwise they must have perished or gone entirely away. Among some of the older men, as Chief Jus- tice Langhorne, and especially among the younger, who were enjoying advantages their fathers had not had, there was such encouragement as allowed to writers means sufficient with what they could pick up in other ways to obtain such living as they had. Of the writings of those whom we have mentioned, there was much that was quite above being common, showing that with fair auspices some of these authors might have taken a comparatively high rank. Some of the very best of the poetry of these times, however, was produced by anonymous writers. This fact is sufficient to show that the first settlers of Philadelphia set the smallest possible value upon this art when the men of wealth and culture and family connections disguised their authorship in the matter of such pieces as " A Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis," " Verses on the Art of Printing," " A Fable, the Dog and the Fox," and others of similar merit.

In one kind of writing especially some of these writers were of a rank that it would not be easy to find anywhere in this country now; that is, Latin poetry. We have already mentioned Thomas Makin, who succeeded George Keith as head-master of the Friends' Public School. After him came William Loury, who wrote Latin odes, and whose name would have been unknown except for the fact of his having written and signed his name to an elegy on the death of Andrew Hamilton, in 1741. The career of this great lawyer had been so distinguished that the

author of some tributary Latin verses might be allowed to be named among the mourners at its close.2 The poetry of this kind, inelegant as it is, falling short of the classic models it was intended to imitate, yet is incomparably superior to what might be supposed to have existed at that early day.

We have thus briefly sketched the history of the literature of Philadelphia to the period of the com- ing of Benjamin Franklin. We have seen that it was frequently crude, but containing occasional pas- sages indicative of genius above ordinary, that in auspicious conditions could have accomplished far more abundant and successful results. It has been usual with most of those who have written of Frank- lin to regard him as the beginner of almost every- thing important that Philadelphia has produced since his advent there in 1723. To a man pre-eminently great mankind has ever been wont to ascribe more than his due of what was done both before and after the period of his endeavors. Yet there were heroes before Agamemnon, and bards before Homer, and Pericles could not have been Pericles except in Athens, wherein he lived in childhood. When Franklin came to Philadelphia he was a boy of sev- enteen, with little knowledge except of printing, to which he had been apprenticed in the shop of a brother, from whose brutal treatment he ran away. Within those previous forty years from the begin. ning of William Penn's proprietorship, Philadelphia had already grown to be a city destined soon to be known as the largest and most important in America. Its bench and bar were already on the eve of attaining the celebrity which in a few years was far to outrank all others, and its merchants were establishing a name for prudence, integrity, and success equal to the best. Its literary men were such as we have seen. He came to that town at a period most suited both to such a community and to himself. Having a genius whose quality was not dreamed of by his family or any others in his native place, he attained his freedom in boyhood, and went to a community that of all others in the country was the ripest for development of its various elements and resources. Here, unfettered by restraints of any sort except those imposed by the laws, no human being at his age ever indulged a larger freedom of action and opinion. It was a char- acter unique, considering the variety of elements of which it was aggregated.

His autobiography is a curious and most interesting book. Parts of it read almost as if they were meant for a satire upon his youth, if not for the purpose of magnifying yet more the opinions of his greatness by contrasting his youth with his advanced manhood. He tells of the lowliness of his origin, his owu little

1 He always spelled these words thue.

3 " De morte luctuosa celeberrimi Andreae Hamiltonis Armigeri, qui obiit IV. Augusti, MDCCXLI." Printed in the Pennsylvania Gazelle Feb. 17, 1742.

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dishonest pranks in boyhood, the meanness and cruelty of his elder brother, his own complicity with the latter in a trick to evade the execution of the laws, his boorish appearance and manners when he first walked up and down Market Street, his own dis- regard of the constraints of the Christian religion, and imparting that disregard to Ralph, Collins, and others of his companions, his courtship of Miss Read, and his subsequent neglect of her, his low debaucheries, and among all these his continual contemplation of his actions of every kind with one view, and one alone, that of ascertaining which of them would and which would not pay. The account of his marriage with Miss Read is the most remarkable of all the sayings of great men, at least in modern times, con- verning a matter that among even the most un- cultured has some delicacy that forbids it to be wholly uncovered. Husbands, of whatever degree of culture, for the most part forbear, except when in anger, to speak of their wives in such terms as may wound them, and disgust other persons to hear re- peated. This, which may be termed an instinct of the conjugal relation, seems to have been wanting to Franklin. The coarse avowal of his controlling motive to marriage was painful enough. But what other husband would have written as follows? " I pitied poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company." Her situation was one to be pitied indeed. After his neglect of her while abroad, they had per- suaded her to marry a potter, " one Rogers," whom she forsook on hearing that he had a wife in England. He had run away, and the rumor of his subsequent death was uncertain. But the old lover pitied " poor Miss Read," and, rather than do much worse, married her, and " none of the inconveniences1 happened that we had apprehended. She proved a good and faithful helpmate ; assisted me much by attending the shop. We strove together, and have ever mutually endeav- ored to make each other happy. Thus I corrected that great erratum as well as I could." The " erratum" of writing thus about the wife of his bosom was fully as gross as any that he has recorded, the more so as, notwithstanding their mutual affection, she must be presumed as having no more delicacy than himself, of whom he could thus write. This is the more sur- prising when we know that during forty years of married life they bore each other a faithful affection, and after all it is touching to read how in old age he writes about her to a young lady friend, using such expressions as " I hope she will live these hundred years, for we have grown okl together, and if she has nny faults I am so used to them that I don't perceive them," and " let us join in wishing the old lady a long life and a happy," etc., quoting from one of his own songs, written for the Junto :

I'reminent ating the e, we learn from the following of Rogers: ' Il: had left many del ta which his au cen i might be called on to pay."

" Some faults have we all, and so has my Joan, But then there exceedingly small ; And now Ive grown used to them, so like my own, I scarcely can see them at all, My dear friends, I scarcely can see them at all."

If ever there was a great man whose character, con- versation, and opinions were unfavorable to the rapid development of literature in itself in a new society, it surely was Franklin. The literary talent that he found at Philadelphia, over which he had influence, he discouraged, unless it was to be exerted for the advancement of the practical standard which he bad set up for his own pursuit. The literature of Phila- delphia, therefore, we repeat, was not due to Franklin, but to its own inherent native strength, that developed in spite of his sentiments and his example. So much was due to be said in answer to those who have gen- erally spoken as if they regarded everything important that has been accomplished by Philadelphia as having received its greatest impulsion from him.

Yet when we speak of the literature which Franklin, as we claim, discouraged rather than stimulated, we mean literature purely, specially as it is distinguished from science, political economy, and every other branch of intellectual expression except that which proceeds from the imagination or is expended in re- cording, with running comments thereon, the history of mankind. This is what we intend by literature purely, and this is the literature that by the consent of all mankind imparts the greatest amount of fame to those who have the genius to produce it. Further, this is the literature that owes nothing to Franklin, except as coming in along with the rest of his bene- ficiaries for its share of the blessings of those great institutions that he established. Franklin even when a young boy was a philosopher. At the age of ten years we find him discussing with his father, who held the rod over his back, the utility of a wharf which he, at the head of some comrades, had constructed on a salt marsh, with stones stolen from a pile be- longing to a builder near by. "Several of us were corrected by our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful that was not honest." From that time forth utility was his standard. It is amusing to notice how he kept his eye upon that standard in his poetic essays when in the employment of his brother. "I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces ; my brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called ' The Light-House Tragedy,' and contained an account of the drowning of Capt. Worthilnke with his two daughters. The other was a sailor's song on the taking of Teach \or Blackbeard), the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub- Street ballad style, and when they were printed he sent me about the town 2 to sell them. The first sold

" Boston, where he then resided,

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wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity, but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very had one, but as prose writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I had in that way."

Thus the parental argument, though this time with- out the assistance of the rod, regarding the utility of actions prevailed, and he "escaped being a poet." With this standard before him, being yet in early boyhood, on a calculation of the comparative utility of attendance upon public worship on Sundays, and spending the time to be spent thereat in reading at the printing-office, he decided against the former, "which, indeed, I thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practice it." So, when arrived at sixteen years, he found that by adopting a vegetable diet, and learning to prepare his own meals, he managed to save half the sum paid for his board. So, after faithful experience of the two methods of argument, the dogmatical and the persua- sive, modestly diffident, he gave the palm to the latter and ever afterward adopted it. So the same method of calculation led him to take advantage of the stress to which his brother had been subjected by the offense that his paper, The New England Courant, had given the Massachusetts Assembly and break his inden- tures. It approximates the marvelous, his careful account of the matters that led to the adoption of his religious faith after his quasi-departure from that of the Deists. Referring to his having read Boyle's " Lectures," he writes, "It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them, for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations ; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph ; but each of them having afterward wronged me greatly without the least compunction,1 and recollecting Keith's. condnet towards me (who was another free- thinker2), and my own towards Vernon3 and Miss Read, which, at times, gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. My London pamphlet, which had for its motto these lines of Dryden,-

" Whatever is, is right; though purblind man Sees bnt a part o' the chain, the nearest link, His eyes not carrying to the equal beam That poises all above,'-

and from the attributes of God, His infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, concluded that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world, and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things exist- ing, appeared now not so clever a performance as I once thought it; and I doubted whether some error had not insinuated itself unperceived into my argu- ment, so as to infect all that follows, as is common in metaphysical reasonings." From these reflections he deduced his conclusion, "I grew convinced that truth, sincerity, and integrity in dealings between man and man were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life." The account closed with allusion to vices not to be mentioned, although they "had something of necessity in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others." The sum of all is, "I had, therefore, a tolerable character to begin the world with. I valued it properly, and determined to preserve it."

The establishment of the " Junto" by Frauklin was the first organized effort to bring about co-operation among those who had talents for writing, and habits of reading and inquiry. This club began in 1727. The artful founder knew the value of secrecy, and this was made one of its elements, yet only to the de- gree of keeping its discussions from the public, allow- ing just enough to appear to stimulate interest among those who were admitted and lead outsiders to con- jecture that it was of much importance. It existed until the war of the Revolution, and in it were dis- cussed from time to time as great a variety of subjects as arose in any other ever instituted. Morals, pol- ities, and natural philosophy, these were its themes, though any member might read a thesis on whatever subject he should please when discharging the obli- gation imposed by the rules upon every one to bring in something original once in every three mouths. The founder was fond to the last of this institution of his youth, which he styled a "school of philos- ophy, morality, and politics." Literature was not among its aims; but in such a club every one seri- ously devoted to its success must in time find his vo- cation, and thus the literary talent that was therein put itself forward in the individual efforts of its pos- sessors. If Ralph had been there he doubtless would have been ridiculed, as before in the Sunday walks by the Schuylkill, for the compositions that did not pay except in the matter of "amusing one's self;" hut his quarterly contributions must be tolerated according even to the letter of the rules. He doubt- less would have discovered, sooner than in England, his genius as a political pamphleteer, as politics were to be a sharer iu the general discussions. How his specially literary endeavors would have resulted we can imagine from the fate of Thomas Godfrey, whose claim to invention of the quadrant is now almost universally acknowledged, as long ago it ought to have been. Of this great man the founder of the Junto thus speaks : "Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught

1 In borrowing from him and not returning.

? Governor Keith, while Franklin was with Keimer, had grossly deceived him with promisee of assistance in the voyage to England, which had been undertaken at his suggestion.

3 A person whose agent he had been in the collection of a debt which he withheld for a considerable period, at last correcting, "in some degres, that erratum," with payment nf principal and interest.

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mathematician, great in his way, and afterward in- ventor of what is now called Hadley's quadrant ; but he knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion ; as, like most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was forever denying or distin- guishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all con- versation. He soon left us."

Some of the discussions upon morals in this young association, doubtless, would be entertaining if they could be reproduced. As it is, we read with curious interest how, in his old age, the phil- osopher set to work to break down the poor un- practical Keimer in his hard endeavors to maintain The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences and Pennsylvania Gazette, by assisting with his own and Breintnal's " Busybody" contributions to The Mercury of Bradford, to exalt the latter beyond all hope of rivalry from the other, and how in due time he sue- ceeded and got the paper into his own hands, to be known henceforward as The Pennsylvania Gazette,1 Equally interesting is the account he gives of the value of appearances to a young tradesman bent upon obtaining and maintaining his credit :

" I began now" (after purchasing the Gazette) " gradually to pay off the debt I was under for the printing-house. In order to secure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be in reality indus- trions and frugal, but to avoid all appearances to the contrary. I dreat plainly ; I was seen at no idle places of diversion ; I never went out a fish- Ing or shooting ; a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me from my work, but that was seldom ; snug, and gave no scandal ; and to show that I was not above my business, I sometimes brought home the paper I purchased at the stores thro' the streets on a wheelbarrow. Thus being esteemed an industrious, thriving young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the merchanta who imported stationery solicited my custom ; others pro- posed supplying me with books, and I went on awimmingly. In the mean time Keimer's credit and business declining daily, he was at last forced to sell his printing-house to satisfy his creditors. He went to Barbudoes, and there lived some years in poor circumstances."

The Junto soon led to another institution, the first of its kind in America, which was destined to be the most prolific of all others in the diffusion of knowl- edge among all classes, the subseription library. This and other actions of Franklin in his special line of business is entitled to greater praise when we consider that at the time of his being established in Philadelphia "there was," as he says, "not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the south- ward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the printers were indeed stationers ; they sold only papers, ete., almanacs, ballnds, and a few common school-

books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England ; the members of the Junto had cach a few." When, therefore, they had left the tavern where the meetings were first held, and had hired a room, each member bronght to it the books he possessed, and this arrangement, proving so beneficial, suggested to the founder the plan of en- larging the collection by subscriptions. The project, after great delays and hindrances, succeeded through the determined energy of Franklin, and became eminently successful. It soon was imitated in other cities and in other provinces, with results that are well known to all. This notable enterprise had its beginning in 1731. The Philadelphia Library, the oldest in the country, founded in 1731, incorporated in 1742, enlarged by the Loganian Library, and by annual purchases, is now one of the largest and most valuable in the United States.

We have spoken of the prominence of the almanac as a medium for the publication of matters of various sorts by which fame and money were hoped for from the notoriety thus given them. It was reserved for the publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette to put forth the Almanac of Almanacs in the year 1732. The first of this work, destined to be continned for twenty- five years and be a source of handsome income, was unique in its announcement and its contents. "Jnst published, for 1733, an Almanac, containing the luna- tions, eelipses, planets, motions, and aspects, weather, sun and moon's rising and setting, high water, etc .; besides many pleasant and witty verses, jests, and sayings; Author's Motive of Writing; Prediction of the Death of his Friend, Mr. Titan Leeds; Moon no Cuckold; Bachelor's Folly ; Parson's Wine, and Ba- ker's Pudding ; Short Visits ; Kings and Bears; New Fashions ; Game for Kisses ; Katherine's Love; Dif- ferent Sentiments ; Signs of a Tempest ; Death of a Fisherman ; Conjugal Debate; Men and Melons ; The Prodigal ; Breakfast in Bed; Oyster Lawsuit, etc. By Richard Saunders, Philomat. Printed and sold by B. Franklin." Nothing in this line eould now be compared with the Poor Richard that has become im- mortal. The great author, adhering to his maxim that wealth was the road to felicity, and even to virtue, reached forth his hand to get for himself and point out to the rest of mankind the means of similar success. It is simply wonderful, the story of its immense circu- lation, and the influence it exerted in the direction of its author's favorite thoughts. Finding it to have become so popular as to be read in every neighbor- hood, he says, " I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people who bought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sen- tences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and fru- gality as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing virtue ; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly, as, to use here one of

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 62

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 992

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898. cn; Westcott, Thompson, 1820-1888, joint author
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : L. H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 992