Mason Locke Weems - The Life of Benjamin Franklin

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DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, president of the american philosophical society; fellow of the royal society of edinburgh, london and paris; governor of the state of pennsylvania; and minister plenipotentiary from the united states to the court of france, was the son of an obscure tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, of Boston, where he was born on the 17th day of January, 1706.

Some men carry letters of recommendation in their looks, and some in their names. 'Tis the lot but of few to inherit both of these advantages. The hero of this work was one of that favoured number. As to his physiognomy, there was in it such an air of wisdom and philanthropy, and consequently such an expression of majesty and sweetness, as charms, even in the commonest pictures of him. And for his name, every one acquainted with the old English history, must know, that Franklin stands for what we now mean by "Gentleman," or "clever fellow."

In the days of Auld Lang Syne, their neighbours from the continent made a descent " on the fast anchored isle ," and compelled the hardy, red-ochred natives to buckle to their yoke. Among the victors were some regiments of Franks, who distinguished themselves by their valor, and still more by their politeness to the vanquished, and especially to the females. By this amiable gallantry the Franks acquired such glory among the brave islanders, that whenever any of their own people achieved any thing uncommonly handsome, he was called, by way of compliment, Franklin, i.e. a little Frank. As the living flame does not more naturally tend upwards than does every virtue to exalt its possessors, these little Franks were soon promoted to be great men, such as justices of the peace, knights of the shire, and other such names of high renown. Hence those pretty lines of the old poet Chaucer—

But though, according to Dr. Franklin's own account of his family, whose pedigree he looked into with great diligence while he was in England, it appears that they were all of the " well born ," or gentlemen in the best sense of the word; yet they did not deem it beneath them to continue the same useful courses which had at first conferred their titles. On the contrary, the doctor owns, and indeed glories in it, that for three hundred years the eldest son, or heir apparent in this family of old British gentlemen, was invariably brought up a blacksmith. Moreover, it appears from the same indubitable authority, that the blacksmith succession was most religiously continued in the family down to the days of the doctor's father. How it has gone on since that time I have never heard; but considering the salutary effects of such a fashion on the prosperity of a young republic, it were most devoutly to be wished that it is kept up: and that the family of one of the greatest men who ever lived in this or any other country, still display in their coat of arms, not the barren gules and garters of European folly, but those better ensigns of American wisdom—the sledge-hammer and anvil.

From the best accounts which I have been able to pick up, it would appear that a passion for learning had a long run in the family of the Franklins. Of the doctor's three uncles, the elder, whose name was Thomas, though conscientiously brought up a blacksmith, and subsisting his family by the din and sweat of his anvil, was still a great reader. Instead of wasting his leisure hours, as too many of the trade do, in tippling and tobacco, he acquired enough of the law to render himself a very useful and leading man among the people of Northampton, where his forefathers had lived in great comfort for three hundred years, on thirty acres of land.

His uncle Benjamin, too, another old English gentleman of the right stamp, though a very hard-working man at the silk-dying trade, was equally devoted to the pleasures of the mind. He made it a rule whenever he lighted on a copy of verses that pleased him, to transcribe them into a large blank book which he kept for the purpose. In this way he collected two quarto volumes of poems, written in short hand of his own inventing. And, being a man of great piety, and fond of attending the best preachers, whose sermons he always took down, he collected in the course of his life, eight volumes of sermons in folio , besides near thirty in quarto and octavo, and all in the aforesaid short hand! Astonishing proof, what a banquet of elegant pleasures even a poor mechanic may enjoy, who begins early to read and think! 'Tis true, he was a long time about it. His piety afforded him a constant cheerfulness. And deriving from the same source a regular temperance, he attained to a great age. In his seventy-third year, still fresh and strong, he left his native country, and came over to America, to see his younger brother Josias, between whom and himself there had always subsisted a more than ordinary friendship. On his arrival in Boston, he was received with unbounded joy by Josias, who pressed him to spend the residue of his days in his family. To this proposition the old gentleman readily consented; and the more so as he was then a widower, and his children, all married off, had left him. He had the honor to give his name, and to stand godfather to our little hero, for whom, on account of his vivacity and fondness for learning, he conceived an extraordinary affection. And Ben always took a great delight in talking of this uncle. Nor was it to be wondered at; for he was an old man who wore his religion very much to win young people—a pleasant countenance—a sweet speech—and a fund of anecdotes always entertaining, and generally carrying some good moral in the tail of them. His grandfather before him must have been a man of rare humour, as appears from a world of droll stories which uncle Benjamin used to tell after him, and which his New England descendants to this day are wont to repeat with great glee. I must let the reader hear one or two of them. They will amuse him, by showing what strange things were done in days of yore by kings and priests in the land of our venerable forefathers.