History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 63

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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1 The following is a brief history of the paper till it fell into his handa

" I wrote several places of entertainment for Bradford's paper, under the title of 'The Busybody,' which Breintnal continued some months. By this means the attention of the publi was fixed on that paper, and Keimer's proposals, which we burlesqned and ridiculed, were disre- garded. Ile began his paper, however, and after carrying it on three- quarters of n year with at most only ninety subscribers, he offered it to me for a trifle; and I, having been ready for some time to go on with it, turk it in hand directly, and it proved in a few years extremely pro- Stable tu me."

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AUTHORS AND LITERATURE OF PHILADELPHIA.

those proverbs, " It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright."

To our minds it would not be easy to find in the sayings of wise men one less fit to be believed and acted upon than this sentence. That virtue is to be secured by wealth was never, as we believe, the opinion of any other philosopher. Franklin, how- ever, felt a pride in his presentation of proverbs, and to the almanac of 1757 he prefixed the greater part in a sort of discourse of an aged seer before crowds assem- bled in a public street. Nothing that had ever ap- peared in the form of a book was more popular, not only in this country but in England, and even in France, where two translations were made, and the editor in his old age was fond to believe that his work "had its share of influence in producing that growing plenty of money, which was observable for several years after its publication."

A man with the imperturbable confidence in his own powers that Franklin had, with such as he really possessed, could not fail to make a notable career. In the same year of his founding the library, he con- ceived what he styled " a great and extensive project," namely, that of founding a new religious sect, to be called the Society of the Free and Easy. "Their narrow circumstances and the necessity of sticking close to my business" hindered then, and other en- grossments afterward, but even when he was past threescore and ten he believed that the plan might have accomplished "great affairs among mankind." It was well for his contemporaries that his mind was diverted from this to other projects that were really useful. The levity with which he was wont to speak of matters generally held sacred by all classes of Christians must have been very painful to them.1 His founding the Union Fire Company, the Philo- sophical Society, the city watch, the academy, the Pennsylvania Hospital, and the illustrious part he enacted in politics, science, and the useful arts are known to all. In the fields wherein he worked he might be compared with the greatest men of all times. In none of these departments did literature, as such, obtain his most devoted influence and at- tention. The praise dne to him, abundant as it may be, comes not from the gentle Muses, who teach other doctrine than that wealth is the only road to virtue. Yet the Muses must have their share in the blessings of wealth, as well as of liberty and enhanced enlight- enment, which the energies of Franklin were the most powerful of all in producing. As a wise man, in the sense of purely earthly wisdom, it is probable

that the world never has produced a superior to Franklin; certainly none ever exerted so great an influence upon his generation. "He was," says Lord Jeffrey, "the most rational, perhaps, of all philoso- phers. No individual, perhaps, ever possessed a juster understanding, or was so seldom obstructed in the use of it by indolence, enthusiasm, or authority."

James Logan, who is further mentioned in the chapter on the Bench and Bar, with allusiou to his literary attainments, was a man that, during any period of the history of the United States, would have been among the most prominent. Besides the works men- tioned in the chapter referred to, he wrote and had pub- lished in Leyden, in 1747, " Canonum pro inveniendis refractionam tum simplicium tum in lentibus duplicium focis demonstrationis geometric." His deportment to- ward the elder Godfrey was very different from what we are led to suspect was that of Franklin, from the manner in which this scientist is spoken of in the autobiography ; for he generously exerted himself in establishing his claim for the invention of the quadrant, of which he had been deprived by Hadley. Logan was one of the best classical and oriental scholars that ever existed in this country. That was a most munificent gift he made of his library to the city, ever since known as the Loganian Library. The following extract, in which a list of the works is given, will surprise those who have read it for the first time, and have not otherwise been made acquainted with the collection. " In my library which I have left to the city of Philadelphia, for the advancement and facilitating of classical learning, are above one hundred volumes of authors, in folio, all in Greek, with mostly their versions; all the Roman classics withont exception ; all the Greek mathema- ticians, viz., Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, both his Geography and Almagest, which I had in Greek (with Timon's Commentary, in folio, about seven hundred pages) from my learned friend Fabricius, who published fourteen volumes of his Bibliothèque Grecque, in quarto, in which, after he had finished his account of Ptolemy, on my inquiring from him, at Hamburg, how I should find it, having long sought for it in vain in England, he sent it to me out of his own library, telling me it was so scarce that neither price nor prayers could purchase it; besides there are many of the most valuable Latin anthors, and a great number of modern and ancient mathematicians, with all three editions of Newton, Dr. Watts, Halley, etc." 2

It is not generally known, at least outside of Penn- sylvania, that that State gave birth to a man whom the celebrated Linnæus pronounced the greatest nat- ural botanist in the world. This was John Bartram, a native of Delaware County, where he was born in

1 An instance of this he gives when George Whitefield, who was an Intimate friend, wrote to him expressing thanks for the offer of his hos- pitality, and concluded with saying, "That if I made that kind offer for Christ a sake, I should not miss of a reward. And I returned, ' Don't let me be mistaken : it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake.' One of our common acquaintance jocosely remarks, that knowe it to be the custom of the saints, when they received any favor, to shift the burden of the obligation from off their own shoulders, and place it in heaven, I had contrived to fix it on earth."

2 An Interesting brief account of this celebrated collection may be found in vol. viii. of the ancient Register of Pennsylvania. Ita location, when Logan had a building constructed to contain it, was at the north- west corner of Sixth and Walnut Streete.

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

the year 1701. His family were then residents of the village of Marple, whither they had emigrated in 1682 from Derbyshire. From childhood ever onward he was devoted to the study of plants, transmitting both his talents and tastes to his son William, and their joint labors during a period of nearly a hundred years were the most valuable contributions that this country has made to the science in whose behalf they were devoted. The father was a pious Quaker, admired and loved by his acquaintance. Following a fancy to have no other than his own hands in the construction of a new abode in his old age, he got out the timber and stone and built it without assistance. He engraved upon its front these lines :

" To God alone: the Almighty Lord . The Holy One by me adored. "JOHN BARTRAM, 1770."

In 1751 he published his work, "Observations on the Inhabitants, Climate, Soil, Divers Productions, Animals, etc., made in his Travels from Pennsylvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and the Lake Ontario." In 1766 appeared "An Account of East Florida, by William Stork, with a Journal kept by John Bartram, of Philadelphia, upon a Journey from St. Augustine, Fla., np the River St. John's." Besides, he contributed numerous papers to the Philosophical Transactions from 1740 to 1763. Hle was the first in this country to found a botanic garden. His researches and pub- fications made him known to the most distinguished scientists and friends of science in Great Britain and Europe, among them Peter Collinson and Sir Hans Sloane. His son William, at the instance of the dis- tingnished Quaker physician, Dr. John Fothergill, of London, spent five years in the study of the natu- ral productions of the Southern States. The results of these investigations were published by Dr. Fother- gill.1

In the Bench and Bar chapter will be found a quotation from a letter of Franeis Daniel Pastorius, who was undergoing trouble from the operation of a fictio juris, which the "four known lawyers of the province" were employing against him. Notwith- standing his scholarly attainments, he could not com. prehend all the meaning and possibilities of this phrase, so long celebrated in the annals of judicial proceedings, and was too poor to send and bring law- yers from New York to compete with the learned quartet of Philadelphia. How his petition to the Governor and Council resulted we do not know. He lived, however, to own and transmit to his descend- ants a good property in Germantown, where he had gardens and vineyards, and left his name as a gifted Latin and French scholar, and n by no means con-

Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East ninl West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the 3Ins- cogees, ur Creek Confederacy and the Country of the Choctaws; con- talning an Account of the Sol and Natural Productions of those Re- gine, together with Observations on the Banners of the Indians. Embellished with copper.plates. svo. Map and sixtren plates. Phila- deiphia, 1731.

temptible rhymster in English. He had emigrated to Pennsylvania in the same ship with William Penn and Thomas Lloyd, then past forty years old. He was a native of Limburg, Germany. About the year 1700 he had published in that country bis book, "A Description of Germany." A warm friendship ex- isted between him and Thomas Lloyd. In honor of the latter's daughters,-Rachel Preston, Hannah Hill, and Mary Norris,-he wrote several compli- mentary short poems, which fifty years ago were, and now may be, in the possession of some of their descendants. We believe they were never printed.

Another German, John Kelpins, styled "the Her- mit," became somewhat notable in the early settle- ment of Germantown. He was a native of Sieben- bürgen, or Transylvania, and thought to be of noble family. With others of similar fanatical sentiments, he emigrated to Pennsylvania. The principal element of the faith of him and his sect was devotion, for the sake of religion, to a single and solitary life. The name adopted by the sect was in striking contrast with their principles,-"The Society of the Woman of the Desert." They settled first at Germantown, then in the place known as "the Ridge." Kelpius was the leader, being a man of much eulture. After his death the seet rapidly declined, its few members deserting the woman in the wilderness, preferring the society of those who dwelt in less cheerless and com- fortless neighborhoods. Kelpius wrote a collection of hymns. John F. Watson, in "Notes of the Early History of Germantown" ( Register of Pennsylvania, 1828), gives an interesting account of the hermit, in which he praises his writings in Latin, Greek, He- brew, aud English. His " Ilymn-Books" were trans- lated into English by Christopher Witt. Watson thus speaks of the location of the hermitage: "Kelpius' hut or house stood on the hill where the Widow Phoebe Riter now (1828) lives. Her log house has now stood more than forty years on the cellar founda- tion which was his. It is on a steep, descending, grassy hill, well exposed to the sun for warmtb in winter, and has a spring of the hermit's making balf- way down the hill, shaded by a very stout cedar-tree. After Kelpius' hut went down the hares used to bur- row in his cellar. He called the place the 'Burrow of Rocks, or Rocksburrow' (now Roxborongh)."

From the " Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania" we learn, through Mr. Joshua Francis Fisher (1829), that early in the century the French language was taught in Philadelphia, a fact which he then thought should "excite astonishment when the period and the condition of our province are con- sidered, and must elevate our opinion of the learning and refinement of our ancestors." He mentioned, especially, one John Solomon, who published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Ang. 2, 1736, a sonnet, and in that of August 12th, same year, an elegy on the death of Governor Gordon.

Among those who wrote verses in Latin we have

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AUTHORS AND LITERATURE OF PHILADELPHIA.

not yet mentioned the most noted, because he came on somewhat later than Makin and Loury. This was John Beveridge, a Scotchman, at one time teacher of a grammar-school in Edinburgh under the lead of Rud- diman, celebrated as one of the founders of the earli- est literary society in Scotland, whose "Rudiments of the Latin Tongue" was long used as a text-book in schools. Leaving his native country, he came first to New England, and afterward to Philadelphia, where he was employed in the academy. The life of a school- master who does not like his vocation, and is there- fore not suited for it, is not to be envied. Especially is this the case if he be a man of ardent temper, schol- arly, and not knowing how to rule his little govern- ment. Somehow it has always been that there is less sympathy for a school-master's sorrows than for those of any other class of men. The scufflings with rude and dull boys, the tricks and their practical jokes upon a man sensitive to the ridicule they create and make publicly known, are generally considered necessary attendants to that relation, like the shell of the tortoise or the dromedary's hump, and the pain inflicted is considered small in comparison with the pettiness of the things that are its occasion. Yet there is some sadness in contemplating a man highly gifted as was John Beveridge spending a long life amidst such wor- ryings which, if petty, were continual, and because of their pettiness the more exhausting of manhood. The school-master, for the want of a better means of earn- ing a living, continued, for years and years, to alter- nate between flogging his subjects and being tricked and bull-baited by them, employing some of the leisure that was not given to reflection upon the low- ness of his lot, in writing verses in the tongue he un- derstood nearly as his vernacular,-his " Epistola et alia quedam Miscellanea." These consisted of lyrics addressed to various friends he had known in Scot- land and New England, of what he styled Carmina Gratularice, in honor of several of the Governors of the province, and of a few pastorals. Some of the lyrics in this collection are very fine; but the gratulatory pieces are ridiculously extravagant, and seem as if they were meant to compensate for the smallness of their subjects by the magnitude of the praise bestowed upon them. In the one to John Penn the poet broadly hints that he might receive as reward for his enco- miums upon him and his family a reasonable number of acres of good land from the many thousands he possessed. But the proprietor either did not under- stand the hint or thus appreciate praise, and the poet, though living to old age, died with the birch in his hand. We scarcely need speculate upon what opin- ions our only philosopher indulged concerning this aged, learned, always poor school-master. As he neither had wealth nor knew how to get it, he must, by the standard of Richard Saunders, have been neither happy nor virtuous, but a mere " empty sack," incapable, from want, to fill and lift himself up, and therefore properly left to be worn out.

Contemporary with Beveridge was another school- master, misnamed Dove, bolder, more fiery, and combative, who in English rhymes lampooned whom he pleased. He was an Englishman, and in his native country had gotten some notoriety by figuring in a work called " Life and Adventures of the Chevalier Taylor," referred to in Boswell's " Life of Dr. John- son." He was first employed in Philadelphia as Eng- lish teacher in the academy, but, upon some dispute with the trustees, left, and took charge of the academy of Germantown. Another similar disagreement there led to his setting up an independent school, which soon came to nothing. Graydon tells some amusing anecdotes of this school-master, having been a pupil of his when the school was in Videll's Alley, that opened into Second a little below Chestnut Street.1 He was of the jocular sort of pedagogues, and reserved the most of his ire for his own and his party's ene- mies. His rhymes were greatly applauded, but, being personal or political, lost their interest in a short time. The most noted of them was "Washing the Black-a-Moore White," written upon William Moore, of Moore Hall, on the occasion of his arrest by the Assembly.

The misfortunes as well as the genius of the inven- tor of the quadrant were inherited by his son, Thomas Godfrey. His father, who was a glazier, died when he was a child, pressed down by poverty, which would have been turned at least to competent means if his claim had not been disputed and for a time usurped by Hadley.2 He was able to obtain at school only a tolerable English education, which he supplemented by private studies while working at his father's trade. Unfit for mechanical employment, he tried soldier- ing, seafaring, trade, speculation in North Carolina, in which last-mentioned region he contracted malaria

1 " It was his practice in school to substitute disgrace for corporeal punishment. His birch was rarely used in the canonical method, but was generally stuck into the back part of the collar of the unfortunate culprit, who, with this badge of disgrace towering from his nape like a broom at the mast-head of a vessel for sale, was compelled to take his stand upon the top of the form, for such a period of time as his offense was thought to deserve. He had another contrivance for boys who were late in their morning attendance. This was to dispatch a committee of five or six scholars for them, with a bell and lighted lantern, and in this " odd equipage" in broad daylight, the bell all the wbile tingling, were they escorted through the streets to school. As Dove affected & strict regard to justice in huie dispensations of punishment, and always pro- fessed a willingness to have an equal measure of it meted ont to himself in case of his transgreseing, the boys took him at his word, and one moroing, when he had overstayed his time, either through laziness, inat- tention, or design, he found himself waited on in the usual form. He immediately admitted the justice of the procedure, and putting himself behind the lantern and the bell, marched with great solemnity to school, to the no small gratification of the boys and entertainment of the spec- tatore."

2 Barlow pays a bandsome tribute to the elder Godfrey in bie " Colnm- biad," while noticing American men of science:

"To guide the sailor in his wandering way, See Godfrey's glass reverse the beams of day. His lifted quadrant to the eye displays From adverse skies the counteracting rnys; And marks, as devions salls bewildered roll, Each nice gradation from the steadfast pole."

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HISTORY OF PHILADELPHIA.

from exposure, and died at twenty-six. That this young man possessed genius of high order plainly appears from several of his productions, written from time to time in his ever-restless career. Dr. Smith, the distinguished head of the Philadelphia Academy, wrote a review of them for the volume that was pub- lished after his death, in 1765, and bestowed the praise that was well deserved. When only twenty-one years of age he wrote "The Prince of Parthia," a tragedy, which he in vain attempted to have produced upon the stage in his native town. This was the first dramatic work ever written in America. It is a play of very considerable merit, notwithstanding the marks of hasty composition and an imagination whose too great exuberance, due to extreme youth, would have been subdued to a becoming tone if he had lived longer. "The Court of Fancy" was modeled on "The House of Fame," of Chaucer. Besides these were several other minor poems, on current topics, some pastorals, and a version, in modern style, of Chaucer's " Assembly of Fowls." The following song is a fair specimen of his powers in the idyl, a species of poetry in which it is so rare to find anything more than passable :

" Young Thyrsis, with sighs, often tells me his tale, And artfully strives o'er my heart to prevail; He sings nie love-songs as we trace through the grove, And on each fair poplar hangs sonnets of love. Though I often smile on him to soften his pain ( For wit I would have to embellish my train), I still put him off, for I have him so fast, I know he with joy will accept me at last.

" Among the gay tribe that still flatter my pride There's Cloddy is handsome and wealthy beside; With such a gay partner more joys I can prove Than to live in a cottage with Thyrsis on love. Though the shepherd is gentle, yet blame me who can, Since wealth and not manners 'tis now makes the man. But should I fall here, and my hopes be all past, Fond Thyrsis, I know, will accept me at last.

" Thus Delia enliven'd the grove with her strain, When Thyrsis, the shepherd, came over the plain ; Bright Chloris he led, whom he'd just made his bride, Joy shone in their eyes as they walk'd side by side; She scorn'd each low cunning, nor wish'd to deceive, But ull her delight was sweet pleasure to give. In wedlock she chose to lie the swain fast, For shepherds will change if put off to the last."

Godfrey became quite a favorite among those who hoped for a higher standard of literature in Phila- delphia, and, considering his youth and his restless disposition, the work he did is very remarkable.

His fellow-townsman and friend, Nathaniel Evans, wrote an interesting sketch of his life, that was pre- fixed to his poems. He, too, was an author and a classical scholar. At the time of the completion of his education the academy hecame a college, and he was one of the first to take the degree of Master of Arts. He entered, on graduating, upon work in the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and went abrond for the purpose of qualifying for ordination. When this was necomplished he returned and was stationed in tiloucester County, N. J., where

he died in 1767. A warm friendship sprang up, on the voyage home, between him and Miss Eliza- beth Graeme, who has been generally regarded as the most gifted and accomplished woman of Philadelphia during provincial times and for some time after the Revolution. Several poems were addressed to this lady by the young religionist, who, imitating Petrarch, gave to her the name of Laura. One of these, called "Ode written at Graeme Park," shows that he was sometimes a guest at that country-seat, once 80 famous. After his death, Dr. Smith, with the assist- ance of his fair friend, published his poems. The volume contains poetical correspondence between him and Laura, several poems on contemporary sub- jects, an ode to the memory of Gen. Wolfe, one on the Peace, an imitation of Horace, addressed to Thomas Godfrey.1 His friend Miss Graeme was well known in literary as well as social circles. This accomplished lady was as unfortunate as she was gifted. She was the daughter of Councilor Graeme, mentioned more fully in the chapter on the Bench and Bar. Her mother was a daughter, by her first marriage, of the wife of Sir William Keith, Governor, who made his son-in-law a master in chancery, and afterward second to Chief Justice Langhorne, judge of the Supreme Court of the province.

A matrimonial engagement, contracted when she was seventeen years old with a young man who was going abroad for the purpose of studying law, was broken off' from some cause, but the event was said to have been a sore disappointment to her. The suffering she felt has been assigned as the cause of her study of literature and occasionally printing her writings. She translated Fénelon's " Télémaque" into English verse. Besides she wrote a paraphrase of the book of Psalms.

1 The following Ail Gulielmum Lauderum, P. P., in Latin, after the Sapphic metre, shows the degree of care with which the classics were then taught in the college .

" Caseus pingois, pyra, mala, nectar Te manent mecum, Gulielme, sextam Occidens quam Sol properabit horam Axe fugacl.

" Diligit pullos nitidumque nidum Uxor, nt tecumi gradiatur audax ; Fille quiequam nec erit venusto Gratior umbra.

" Rieus et muse cemilentur almæ, Innocens et te jocus et lepores : Linque sed curas, et amara vitæ Linque severse.

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History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Part 63

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