Volume Ii Part 22 (1/2)

It was probably, Franklin thought, different relations between the earth and its axis in the past that caused much of Europe, including the mountains of Pa.s.sy, on which he lived, and which were composed of limestone rock and sea sh.e.l.ls, to be abandoned by the sea, and to change its ancient climate, which seemed, he said, to have been a hot one.

The physical convulsions to which the earth had been subject in the past were, however, in his opinion beneficent.

Had [he said in a letter to Sir John Pringle] the different strata of clay, gravel, marble, coals, limestone, sand, minerals, &c., continued to lie level, one under the other, as they may be supposed to have done before these convulsions, we should have had the use only of a few of the uppermost of the strata, the others lying too deep and too difficult to be come at; but the sh.e.l.l of the earth being broke, and the fragments thrown into this oblique position, the disjointed ends of a great number of strata of different kinds are brought up to-day, and a great variety of useful materials put into our power, which would otherwise have remained eternally concealed from us. So that what has been usually looked upon as a _ruin_ suffered by this part of the universe, was, in reality, only a preparation or means of rendering the earth more fit for use, more capable of being to mankind a convenient and comfortable habitation.

The scientific conjectures of Franklin may not always have been sound, but they are invariably so readable that we experience no difficulty in understanding why the Abbe Raynal should have preferred his fictions to other men's truths.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] The lightning rod in its origin encountered the same religious misgivings as inoculation and insurance and many other ideas which have promoted human progress and happiness. The Rev. Thomas Prince at the time of the Lisbon earthquake thought that the more lightning rods there were the greater was the danger that the earth might become perilously surcharged with electricity. ”In Boston,” he said, ”are more erected than anywhere else in New England; and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the Mighty Hand of G.o.d! If we think to avoid it in the Air we can not in the Earth. Yea, it may grow more fatal.”

[52] The lines under the portrait of Franklin by Cochin do not hesitate to exalt him above the most powerful forces of Nature and the authority of the G.o.ds:

”C'est l'honneur et l'appui du nouvel hemisphere, Les flots de l'Ocean s'abaissent a sa voix; Il reprime ou dirige a son gre le tonnerre.

Qui desarme les dieux peut-il craindre les rois?”

[53] ”With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing,” is a line in Thomas Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope_. In his _Age of Bronze_, Byron asks in one place why the Atlantic should ”gird a tyrant's grave”

”While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven, Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven.”

And in another place in the same poem he speaks of

”Stoic Franklin's energetic shade, Robed in the lightnings which his hand allayed.”

Crabbe in his tribute to ”Divine Philosophy” in the _Library_ exclaims,

”'Tis hers the lightning from the clouds to call, And teach the fiery mischief where to fall.”

[54] The inductive process by which Franklin arrived at the ident.i.ty of lightning and electricity was set forth in one of his letters to John Lining, of Charleston, dated March 18, 1755. The minutes kept by him of his experiments and observations, contained, he said, the following entry:

”November 7, 1749. Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars. 1. Giving light. 2. Colour of the light. 3. Crooked direction.

4. Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it pa.s.ses through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals. 11. Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphureous smell. The electric fluid is attracted by points. We do not know whether this property is in lightning. But since they agree in all particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the Experiment be made.”

[55] The standing of Franklin as an inventor would be better established if he had not been so resolute in his unwillingness to take out patents upon his inventions. Besides the various inventions mentioned by us in the text, he was the father of other valuable mechanical conceptions. The first hint of the art of engraving upon earthenware appears to have originated with him. Moved by his constant desire to inculcate moral truths, he suggested about 1753 to a correspondent the idea of engraving from copper plates on square chimney tiles ”moral prints”; ”which,” to use his words, ”being about our Chimneys, and constantly in the Eyes of Children when by the Fireside, might give Parents an Opportunity, in explaining them, to impress moral Sentiments.”

He also appears to have antic.i.p.ated the Argand burner. A description has come down to us of a lamp devised by him which, with only three small wicks, had a l.u.s.tre equal to six candles. It was fitted with a pipe that supplied fresh and cool air to its lights. If Franklin did not invent, he was the first to communicate to his friend, Mr. Viny, the wheel manufacturer at Tenderden, Kent, the art of flexing timber used in making wheels for vehicles. But of few things did Franklin take a gloomier view than the fate of the inventor as his observations in a letter to John Lining, dated March 18, 1755, demonstrate. ”One would not,” he said, ”of all faculties or qualities of the mind, wish, for a friend, or a child, that he should have that of invention. For his attempts to benefit mankind in that way, however well imagined, if they do not succeed, expose him, though very unjustly, to general ridicule and contempt; and, if they do succeed, to envy, robbery, and abuse.”

CHAPTER V

Franklin as a Writer

Franklin, as Hume truly said, was the first great man of letters, for whom Great Britain was beholden to America, and, among his writings, are some that will always remain cla.s.sics. But it is a mistake to think of him as in any sense a professional author. He was entirely accurate when he declared in the _Autobiography_ that prose-writing had been of great use to him in the course of his life and a princ.i.p.al means of his advancement; but always to him a pen was but an implement of action. When it had accomplished its purpose, he threw it aside as a farmer discards a worn-out plowshare, or a horse casts a shoe.[56] There is nothing in his writings or his utterances to show that he ever regarded himself as a literary man, or ever harbored a thought of permanent literary fame. The only productions of his pen, which suggest the sandpaper and varnish of a professional writer, are his Bagatelles, such as _The Craven Street Gazette_ and _The Ephemera_, composed for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his friends; and, in writing them, the idea of permanency was as completely absent from his mind as it was from that of the Duke of Crillon, when he sent up his balloon in honor of the two Spanish princes. The greater part of his writings were composed in haste, and published anonymously, and without revision. And, when once published, if they did not remain dispersed and neglected, it was only because their merits were too great for them not to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the ”abhorred abyss of blank oblivion” by some disciple or friend of his, who had more regard for posterity than he had. So far as we are aware, no edition of his scientific essays or other writings was ever in the slightest degree prompted by any personal concern or request of his. As soon as the didactic purpose of the earlier chapters of the _Autobiography_ had been gratified by the composition of those chapters, it was only by incessant proddings and importunities that he could be induced to bring his narrative down to as late a period as he did. When Lord Kames expressed a desire to have all his publications, the only ones on which he could lay his hands were the _Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind_, _Peopling of Countries, etc._, the _Account of the New-invented Pennsylvanian Fireplaces_, and some little magazine sketches. He had had, he wrote Lord Kames, daily expectations of procuring some of his performances from a friend to whom he had formerly sent them, when the author was in America, but this friend had at length told him that he could not find them. ”Very mortifying this to an author,” said Franklin, ”that his works should so soon be lost!” When Jefferson called upon him, during his last days, he placed in the former's hands the valuable ma.n.u.script of his negotiations with Lord Howe, and it was not until he had twice told Jefferson to keep it, in reply to statements by Jefferson that he would return it, after reading it, that the recipient could realize that the intention was to turn over the ma.n.u.script to him absolutely. In a letter to Vaughan, he mentions that, after writing a parable, probably that on Brotherly Love, he laid it aside and had not seen it for thirty years, when a lady, a few days before, furnished him with a copy that she had preserved.

The indifference of Franklin to literary reputation is all the more remarkable in view of the clearness with which he foresaw the increased patronage that the future had in store for English authors. ”I a.s.sure you,”

he wrote on one occasion to Hume, ”it often gives me pleasure to reflect, how greatly the _audience_ (if I may so term it) of a good English writer will, in another century or two, be increased by the increase of English people in our colonies.” Twenty-four years later, he had already lived long enough to see his prescience in this respect to no little extent verified.

By the way [he wrote to William Strahan], the rapid Growth and extension of the English language in America, must become greatly Advantageous to the book-sellers, and holders of Copy-Rights in England. A vast audience is a.s.sembling there for English Authors ancient, present, and future, our People doubling every twenty Years; and this will demand large and of course profitable Impressions of your most valuable Books. I would, therefore, if I possessed such rights, entail them, if such a thing be practicable, upon my Posterity; for their Worth will be continually augmenting.