to cut candle-wicks, fill candle-molds, attend the shop, and run errands. He disliked the occupation, and, perhaps, was not too industrious, for he tells us that his father often repeated to him the maxim of Solomon: "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." Dr. Franklin used to recall these words of his father when, half a century later, he was in the habit of standing before kings. Josiah Franklin was an indulgent father, however, and Benjamin still found time to lead the sports of his comrades, and to pore over his books. A New England boy who lives near the coast takes to the water as naturally as a Newfoundland dog. Benjamin became an adept in the management of boats, and was usually allowed, he tells us, to take the command, particularly in cases of difficulty. But his great accomplishment, that in which he excelled all the boys of his time, if not of all times, was swimming. He was a wonderful swimmer; and he retained a peculiar fondness for this exercise, as well as his boyish skill in it, to old age. The swimming of the Hellespont would have been no very arduous task for Franklin at any time from his twelfth to his sixtieth year. Besides performing all the established feats, he invented two of his own, which he described in a letter to one of his philosophic friends, late in life. "When I was a boy," he wrote, "I made two oval pallets, each about ten inches long and six broad, with a hole for the thumb, in order to retain it fast in the palm of my hand. They much resembled a painter's pallets. In swimming I pushed the edges of these forward, and I struck the water with their flat surfaces as I drew them back. I remember I swam faster by means of these pallets, but they fatigued my wrists. I also fitted to the soles of my feet a kind of sandals; but I was not satisfied with them, because I observed that the stroke is partly given by the inside of the feet and ankles, and not entirely with the soles of the feet." Another experiment was more successful: "I amused myself one day with flying a paper kite; and approaching the bank of a pond, which was near a mile broad, I tied the string to a stake, and the kite ascended to a very considerable height above the pond, while I was swimming. In a little time, being desirous of amusing myself with my kite, and enjoy at the same time the pleasure of swimming, I returned; and, loosing from the stake the string with the little stick which was fastened to it, went again into the water, where I found, that, lying on my back and holding the stick in my hands, I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes round the pond, to a place which I pointed out to him on the other side, I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the least fatigue, and with the greatest pleasure imaginable. I was only obliged occasionally to halt a little in my course, and resist its progress, when it appeared that, by following too quick, I lowered the kite too much: by doing which occasionally I made it rise again. I have never since that time practiced this singular mode of swimming, though I think it not impossible to cross in this manner from Dover to Calais. The packet-boat, however, is still preferable."* This mastery of the water, together with his dislike of his father's business, gave him a hankering for the sea, of which all healthy boys in New England have one attack. His father, who had already lost one son from that cause, was earnest in dissuading him. But about this time the long-lost Josiah, from whom in nine years no tidings had been received, suddenly returned home, to the inexpressible joy of the whole family. The fatted calf was killed. Brothers and sisters, to the number of twelve, assembled at their father's house to welcome the sailor, and hear the tale of his adventures in India, and partake of the welcoming feast. Besides, another elder brother, James, had gone across the ocean recently, and was then learning the trade of a printer in Londongreat and wonderful London! A sister, too, had married the captain of a coasting sloop. If these events tended to strengthen the boy's yearning for the sea, there was now another influence at home which aided his father to dissuade him from a sailor's life. Uncle Benjamin, in 1715, had come from England to spend his last years with his brother and with his own son Samuel. He was an inmate of Josiah Franklin's house, and appears to have been one of the company assembled at the feast of welcome to the truant sailor. At least, we read in one of his volumes of rhyme, the following lines: "The Third part of the 107 psalm, Which Follows Next, I * Franklin to M. Dubourg. Sparks, vi., 291. + Thomas's "History of Printing,” p. 307. composed to sing at First meeting with my Nephew Josiah Franklin. But being unaffected with Gods Great Goodn: In his many preservations and Deliverances, It was coldly Entertain'd": part 107 ps. Those Who in Forreign Lands converse His Mighty Works They there Discern To Top of Mountaine Waves they creep They stagger Like a Drunkard Who Then when from their Distress he saves Then they Rejoyce the Tempest's past O Let men praise this mighty Lord, Whose Eyes those Works are Done, Adore. Adore this God who did us Save O Bless his kind and pow'rfull Hand. The wild sailor "coldly entertained" his uncle's simple piety; but over the younger Benjamin he would naturally have had greater He brought with him from England his volumes of poetry and his short-hand sermon books; but not, as we shall discover by and by, his collection of pamphlets, which, probably, he sold to help defray the expenses of his voyage. He brought his intelligent, inquiring, suggestive mind, his quaint humor, his guileless heart. He imparted whatever he had of knowledge and accomplishment to his young namesake; taught him his system of short-hand, strengthened in him all his tendencies toward good, and, doubtless, placed a firm and kindly veto upon the boy's sea-going scheme. Uncle Benjamin lived four years in the house of his brother Josiah; and then, his son Samuel having married and established a home, he went to live with him. He died in 1727; aged seventy-seven. In an obituary notice in a Boston newspaper, he is spoken of as "a person who was justly esteemed and beloved as a rare and exemplary Christian;" "one who loved the people and ministers of Christ;" whose "presence in the House of God, was always solemn and affecting ;" "who courted not the observation of men; yet there were many who could not but take notice of and admire the peculiar excellences that vividly adorned him.”* The poetry books of Uncle Benjamin, which are still in perfect preservation, though it is a hundred and eighty years ago since he bought the first of them, are neatly written and carefully indexed. Many of the pieces are acrostics, and several are curiously shaped on the page dwindling or expanding in various forms, according to the quaint fancy of the poet. Uncle Benjamin lies in the Granary Burial Ground in Boston, near the grave of his brother Josiah. The stone that marks his last resting-place is still legible; but perhaps some good Bostonians, mindful of what he did for his nephew, will one day renew the stone, as has been done with that which covered the remains of Franklin's parents. * Drake's "History of Boston," p. 574. CHAPTER IV. FIRST BOOKS. THE boy, as we have remarked, was a devouring reader. There are those who read from infancy to old age, and, so far as their friends can discover, learn nothing. There are those in whose fertile minds every chance seed of knowledge, or suggestion, takes root and bears fruit. Young Franklin was one of these. He had also, the knack of getting from a book the one thing to which it owes its value. His first love, as well as his first possession, was Bunyan's “Pilgrim's Progress," from which he learned the charm that is given to narrative by mingling dialogue with it; a method which, he long afterward said, is very engaging to the reader, who, in the most interesting parts, finds himself, as it were, admitted into the company and present at the conversation. Of this mode of composition, frequently practiced by Franklin, he considered Bunyan the originator-Defoe and Richardson being imitators of Bunyan. He sold his "Pilgrim's Progress" in order to buy Burton's "Historical Collections," in forty little volumes, famous in their day, and extensively sold, both in America and England, by peddlers. These books contained history, travels, adventures, fiction, natural history, biography, and every thing curious and marvelous which the compiler could discover. "He has melted down," says Dunbar, "the best of our English histories into twelve-penny books, which are filled with wonders, rarities, and curiosities." Dr. Johnson alludes to these books in one of his letters: "There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the booksellers on the bridge, and which I must entreat you to procure me. They are called Burton's Books. The title of one is 'Admirable Curiosities, Rarities and Wonders in England.' They seem very proper to allure backward readers." The library of Josiah Franklin contained few works that were not theological; but even these the boy contrived to read. Plu Allibone's "Dictionary of Authors," p. 307. |