Chapter VI: Franklin's British Friends (1)

In Great Britain, Franklin had almost as many friends as in America. During his missions to England, he resided at No. 7 Craven Street, London, the home of Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, a widow, and the mother of "Polly," whose filial relations to him constituted an idyll in his life. Into all the interests and feelings of this home, he entered almost as fully and sympathetically as he did into those of his own home in Philadelphia; as is charmingly attested by his Craven Street _Gazette_. Mrs. Stevenson looked after his clothing, attended to him when he was sick, and made the purchases from time to time that the commissions of Deborah and Jane Mecom called for. In one of his letters to Temple, written after his return from his second mission to England, Franklin mentions a long letter that he had received from her in the form of "a kind of Journal for a Month after our Departure, written on different Days, & of different Dates, acquainting me who has call'd, and what is done, with all the small News. In four or five Places, she sends her Love to her dear Boy, hopes he was not very sick at Sea, &c., &c." This journal doubtless set forth in a matter-of-fact way the daily life of the Craven Street household, which Franklin idealized with such captivating vivacity in the humorous pages of the Craven Street _Gazette_. At the Craven Street house, he and his son lived in great comfort, occupying four rooms, and waited upon by his man-servant, and Billy's negro attendant; and, when he moved about the streets of London, it was in a modest chariot of his own. Franklin's letters to Deborah frequently conveyed affectionate messages from Mrs. Stevenson and Polly to Deborah and her daughter Sally. Occasionally, too, presents of one kind or another from Mrs. Stevenson found their way across the Atlantic to Deborah and Sally. Altogether, the Craven Street house, if not a true home to Franklin in every sense of the word, was a cheerful semblance of one. A letter from Dr. Priestley to him, which he received shortly after his return from Canada, during the American Revolution, bears witness to the impression left by his amiable traits upon the memory of the good woman with whom he had resided so long. After telling Franklin that Franklin's old servant Fevre often mentioned him with affection and respect, Dr. Priestley added, "Mrs. Stevenson is much as usual. She can talk about nothing but you." The feeling was fully returned.

It is always with great Pleasure [he wrote to her from
Passy], when I think of our long continu'd Friendship,
which had not the least Interruption in the Course of
Twenty Years (some of the happiest of my Life), that I
spent under your Roof and in your Company. If I do not
write to you as often as I us'd to do, when I happen'd
to be absent from you, it is owing partly to the
present Difficulty of sure Communication, and partly to
an Apprehension of some possible Inconvenience, that my
Correspondence might occasion you. Be assured, my dear
Friend, that my Regard, Esteem, and Affection for you,
are not in the least impair'd or diminish'd; and that,
if Circumstances would permit, nothing would afford me
so much Satisfaction, as to be with you in the same
House, and to experience again your faithful, tender
Care, and Attention to my Interests, Health, and
Comfortable Living, which so long and steadily attach'd
me to you, and which I shall ever remember with
Gratitude.

And, when the news of Mrs. Stevenson's death was communicated to Franklin by her daughter, the retrospect of the last twenty-five years that it opened up to him framed itself into these tender words in his reply.

During the greatest Part of the Time, I lived in the
same House with my dear deceased Friend, your Mother;
of course you and I saw and convers'd with each other
much and often. It is to all our Honours, that in all
that time we never had among us the smallest
Misunderstanding. Our Friendship has been all clear
Sunshine, without the least Cloud in its Hemisphere.
Let me conclude by saying to you, what I have had too
frequent Occasions to say to my other remaining old
Friends, "The fewer we become, the more let us love one
another."

On the back of the last letter, dated July 24, 1782, that he received from Mrs. Stevenson, he indorsed this memorandum: "This good woman, my dear Friend, died the first of January following. She was about my Age."

But the closest friendship that Franklin formed in England was with Mary, or Polly, Stevenson. To her, perhaps, the most delightful of all his familiar letters were written--letters so full of love and watchful interest as to suggest a father rather than a friend. It is not too much to say that they are distinguished by a purity and tenderness of feeling almost perfect, and by a combination of delicate humor and instructive wisdom to which it would be hard to find a parallel. The first of them bears date May 4, 1759, and the last bears date May 30, 1786. That the letters, some forty-six in number, are not more numerous even than they are is due to the fact that, during the period of their intercourse, the two friends were often under the same roof, or, when they were not, saw each other frequently.

In his first letter, addressed to "My Dear Child," Franklin tells Polly, who was then about twenty years of age, that he had hoped for the pleasure of seeing her the day before at the Oratorio in the Foundling Hospital, but that, though he looked with all the eyes he had, not excepting even those he carried in his pocket, he could not find her. He had, however, he said, fixed that day se'nnight for a little journey into Essex, and would take Mrs. Stevenson with him as far as the home of Mrs. Tickell, Polly's aunt, at Wanstead, where Polly then was, and would call for Mrs. Stevenson there on his return. "Will," he says in a postscript, "did not see you in the Park." Will, of course, was his son. In the succeeding year, he writes to Polly that he embraces most gladly his dear friend's proposal of a subject for their future correspondence, though he fears that his necessary business and journeys, with the natural indolence of an old man, will make him too unpunctual a correspondent.

But why will you [he asks], by the Cultivation of your
Mind, make yourself still more amiable, and a more
desirable Companion for a Man of Understanding, when
you are determin'd, as I hear, to live single? If we
enter, as you propose, into _moral_ as well as natural
Philosophy, I fancy, when I have fully establish'd my
Authority as a Tutor, I shall take upon me to lecture
you a little on that Chapter of Duty.

He then maps out a course of reading for her, to be conducted in such a manner as to furnish them with material for their letters. "Believe me ever, my dear good Girl," he concludes, "your affectionate Friend and Servant."

With his next letter, he sends her a gift of books, and begs her to accept it, as a small mark of his esteem and friendship, and the gift is accompanied with more specific advice as to the manner in which she was to prosecute her studies, and obtain the benefit of his knowledge and counsel. When he writes again, his letter discloses the fact that a brisk interchange of ideas had been actually established between them. "'Tis a very sensible Question you ask," he says, "how the Air can affect the Barometer, when its Opening appears covered with Wood?" And her observation on what she had lately read concerning insects is very just and solid too, he remarks. The question he has no difficulty in answering, and the observation on insects leads to some agreeable statements about the silk-worm, the bee, the cochineal and the Spanish fly, and finally to an interesting account of the way in which the great Swedish naturalist, Linnaeus had been successfully called in by his King to suggest some means of checking the ravages of the worm that was doing such injury to the Swedish ships. Nor was all this mellifluous information imparted without a timely caution.

There is, however [he concluded], a prudent Moderation
to be used in Studies of this kind. The Knowledge of
Nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful; but if,
to attain an Eminence in that, we neglect the Knowledge
and Practice of essential Duties, we deserve
Reprehension. For there is no Rank in Natural Knowledge
of equal Dignity and Importance with that of being a
good Parent, a good Child, a good Husband or Wife, a
good Neighbour or Friend, a good Subject or Citizen,
that is, in short, a good Christian. Nicholas Gimcrack,
therefore, who neglected the Care of his Family, to
Pursue Butterflies, was a just Object of Ridicule, and
we must give him up as fair Game to the satyrist.

A later letter is an amusing illustration of the manner in which he occasionally reminded his pupil that she must not take herself and Philosophy too seriously. Polly was at the time at the famous Wells of Bristol about which so much of the social pageantry of the eighteenth century centred.

Your first Question, _What is the Reason the Water at
this place, tho' cold at the Spring, becomes warm by
Pumping?_ it will be most prudent in me to forbear
attempting to answer [he said], till, by a more
circumstantial account, you assure me of the Fact. I
own I should expect that Operation to warm, not so much
the Water pump'd, as the Person pumping. The Rubbing of
dry Solids together has been long observ'd to produce
Heat; but the like Effect has never yet, that I have
heard, been produc'd by the mere Agitation of Fluids,
or Friction of Fluids with Solids.

He might have let the matter rest there but he did not. The occasion was too opportune a one to impress upon Polly the importance of not jumping at conclusions too quickly for him to refrain from borrowing an apt story from Selden about a young woman who, finding herself in the presence of some gentlemen, when they were examining what they called a Chinese shoe, and carrying on a dispute about it, put in her word, and said modestly, "Gentlemen, are you sure it is a Shoe? Should not that be settled first?"

Then he passes to a highly edifying explanation of tidal movements in rivers, so simple that even a child, to say nothing of a bright-witted girl, could experience no difficulty in understanding it, and ends with the question:

After writing 6 Folio Pages of Philosophy to a young
Girl, is it necessary to finish such a Letter with a
Compliment? Is not such a Letter of itself a
Compliment? Does it not say, she has a Mind thirsty
after Knowledge, and capable of receiving it; and that
the most agreeable Things one can write to her are
those that tend to the Improvement of her
Understanding?

With his next letter, he enclosed a paper containing his views on several points relating to the air and the evaporation of water, and informed Polly that he would shortly accompany her good mother again to Wanstead, when they could take a walk to some of Lord Tilney's ponds, and make a few experiments there that would explain the nature of tides more fully.

"Adieu, my dear little Philosopher," he exclaims in another letter, after suggesting that thirsty unfortunates at sea might be greatly relieved by sitting in sea water, and declaring that wet clothes do not create colds, whatever damp may do. No one catches cold by bathing, he said, and no clothes can be wetter than water itself.

In another letter, he makes some most readable observations upon the evaporation of rivers and the relations of colors to heat. The ignorant, he declared, suppose in some cases that a river loses itself by running underground, whereas in truth it has run up into the air. And, with reference to the interdependence of heat and color, he pursued this fresh train of ideas:

What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some
Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes
are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or
Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body
is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are
at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double
Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? That
Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the
Sun, should, in the East or West Indies have an Uniform
of white? That Summer Hats, for Men or Women, should be
white, as repelling that Heat which gives Headaches to
many, and to some the fatal Stroke that the French call
the _Coup de Soleil_? That the Ladies' Summer Hats,
however, should be lined with Black, as not
reverberating on their Faces those Rays which are
reflected upwards from the Earth or Water? That the
putting a white Cap of Paper or Linnen _within_ the
_Crown_ of a black Hat, as some do, will not keep out
the Heat, tho' it would if placed _without_? That
Fruit-Walls being black'd may receive so much Heat from
the Sun in the Daytime, as to continue warm in some
degree thro' the Night, and thereby preserve the Fruit
from Frosts, or forward its Growth?--with sundry other
particulars of less or greater Importance, that will
occur from time to time to attentive Minds?

Sometimes he exchanges language like this for such bantering questions as these: "Have you finish'd your Course of Philosophy? No more Doubts to be resolv'd? No more Questions to ask? If so, you may now be at full Leisure to improve yourself in Cards."

Another letter, dated June 7, 1762, was written in contemplation of the fact that he was about to leave the Old World for the New.

I fancy I feel a little like dying Saints [he said],
who, in parting with those they love in this World, are
only comforted with the Hope of more perfect Happiness
in the next. I have, in America, Connections of the
most engaging kind; and, happy as I have been in the
Friendships here contracted, _those_ promise me greater
and more lasting Felicity. But God only knows whether
these Promises shall be fulfilled.

Then came the letter written to her from a "wretched inn" at Portsmouth when he was on the point of embarking for America. It is none the less noteworthy because it reveals the fact that the thought of a marriage between Polly and his son had been a familiar one to him and her.

It (the paper on which he wrote) [he said] will tell my
Polly how much her Friend is afflicted, that he must,
perhaps, never again, see one for whom he has so
sincere an Affection, join'd to so perfect an Esteem;
who he once flatter'd himself might become his own, in
the tender Relation of a Child, but can now entertain
such pleasing Hopes no more. Will it tell _how much_ he
is afflicted? No, it can not.

Adieu, my dearest Child. I will call you so. Why should
I not call you so, since I love you with all the
Tenderness, All the Fondness of a Father? Adieu. May
the God of all Goodness shower down his choicest
Blessings upon you, and make you infinitely Happier,
than that Event could have made you.

No wonder that the fatherless girl should have felt from the day that she received this letter until the day that she helped to assuage the pain of Franklin's last hours by her loving ministrations that the heart in which she was so deeply cherished was one of these blessings. A few months later, Franklin writes to her from America a long, communicative letter, valuable among other reasons for the evidence that it affords of the ready sympathy with which he had entered into her circle of youthful friendships. He tells her that he shares her grief over her separation from her old friend Miss Pitt; "Pitty," he calls her in another place in this letter when he sends his love to her. He congratulates her upon the recovery of her "dear Dolly's" health. This was Dorothea Blount to whom he repeatedly refers in his letters to her. "I love that dear good Girl myself, and I love her other Friends," he said. Polly's statement in the letter, to which his letter was a reply, that she had lately had the pleasure of spending three days with Doctor and Mrs. Hawkesworth at the house of John Stanley, all warm friends of his, elicits from him the exclamation, "It was a sweet Society!"

These are but a few of the many details that make up this letter. Polly was one of the stimulating correspondents who brought out all that was best in Franklin's own intellectual resources, and the next time that he wrote to her from America he used this appreciative and grateful language. "The Ease, the Smoothness, the Purity of Diction, and Delicacy of Sentiment, that always appear in your Letters, never fail to delight me; but the tender filial Regard you constantly express for your old Friend is particularly engaging."

In later letters to Polly, written after his return to England in 1764, there are other lively passages like those that animated his letters to her before his return to America. On one occasion he answers a letter from her in verse.

A Muse, you must know, visited me this Morning! I see
you are surpriz'd, as I was. I never saw one before.
And shall never see another. So I took the Opportunity
of her Help to put the Answer into Verse, because I was
some Verse in your Debt ever since you sent me the last
Pair of Garters.

This letter is succeeded by a highly vivacious one from Paris where he enjoyed the honor of conversing with the King and Queen while they sat at meat. The latter letter is so full of sparkling fun that we cannot but regret that Franklin did not leave behind him equally detailed narratives of his travels in Germany and Holland, and over the face of Great Britain. All the way to Dover, he said, he was engaged in perpetual disputes with innkeepers, hostlers and postilions because he was prevented from seeing the country by the forward tilt of the hoods of the post-chaises in which he was driven; "they insisting that the Chaise leaning forward was an Ease to the Horses, and that the contrary would kill them." "I suppose the chaise leaning forward," he surmised, "looks to them like a Willingness to go forward, and that its hanging back shows a Reluctance." He concludes a humorous description of the seasickness of a number of green passengers between Dover and Calais, who made a hearty breakfast in the morning, before embarking, for fear that, if the wind should fail, they might not get over till supper time, with the remark, "So it seems there are Uncertainties, even beyond those between the Cup and the Lip." Impositions suffered by Franklin on the journey, the smooth highways of France, the contrast between the natural brunettes of Calais and Boulogne and the natural blondes of Abbeville, the Parisian complexions to which nature in every form was a total stranger, the _Grand Couvert_ where the Royal Family supped in public, the magnificence of Versailles and Paris, to which nothing was wanting but cleanliness and tidiness, the pure water and fine streets of Paris, French politeness, the paintings, the plays and operas of the gayest capital in the world all furnished topics for this delightful letter, composed in the high spirits born of rapid movement from one novel experience to another, and doubtless endued, when read, with the never failing charm that belongs to foreign scenes, scanned by the eyes of those we love. Franklin did not know which were the most rapacious, the English or the French boatmen or porters, but the latter had with their knavery, he thought, the most politeness. The only drawback about the roads in France, paved with smooth stone-like streets for many miles together, and flanked on each side with trees, was the labor which the peasants complained that they had to expend upon them for full two months in the year without pay. Whether this was truth, or whether, like Englishmen, they grumbled, cause or no cause, Franklin had not yet been able to fully inform himself.

Passing over his speculations as to the origin of the fair complexions of the women of Abbeville, where wheels and looms were going in every house, we stop for a moment to reproduce this unsparing description of the manner in which the women of Paris exercised the art which has never been known to excite any form of approval except feminine self-approval.

As to Rouge, they don't pretend to imitate Nature in
laying it on. There is no gradual Diminution of the
Colour, from the full Bloom in the Middle of the Cheek
to the faint Tint near the Sides, nor does it show
itself differently in different Faces. I have not had
the Honour of being at any Lady's Toylette to see how
it is laid on, but I fancy I can tell you how it is or
may be done. Cut a hole of 3 Inches Diameter in a Piece
of Paper; place it on the Side of your Face in such a
Manner as that the Top of the Hole may be just under
your Eye; then with a Brush dipt in the Colour, paint
Face and Paper together; so when the Paper is taken off
there will remain a round Patch of Red exactly the Form
of the Hole. This is the Mode, from the Actresses on
the Stage upwards thro' all Ranks of Ladies to the
Princesses of the Blood, but it stops there, the Queen
not using it, having in the Serenity, Complacence, and
Benignity that shine so eminently in, or rather through
her Countenance, sufficient Beauty, tho' now an old
Woman, to do extreamly well without it.

In picturing the royal supper, with its gold service and its _A boire pour le Roy_ and its _A boire pour la Reine_, Franklin even draws a sketch of the table so that Polly can see just where the King and Queen and Mesdames Adelaide, Victoria, Louise and Sophie sat, and just where Sir John Pringle and himself stood, when they were brought by an officer of the court to be talked to by the royal personages. This letter also contains what is perhaps the handsomest compliment ever paid to French politeness: "It seems to be a Point settled here universally, that Strangers are to be treated with Respect; and one has just the same Deference shewn one here by being a Stranger, as in England by being a Lady."

The grave statement in this letter that travelling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance, is made the starting-point for the laughing statement that the writer himself had perhaps suffered a greater change in his own person than he could have done in six years at home.

I had not been here Six Days [he declared] before my
Taylor and Perruquier had transform'd me into a
Frenchman. Only think what a Figure I make in a little
Bag-Wig and naked Ears! They told me I was become 20
Years younger, and look'd very _galante_; So being in
Paris where the Mode is to be sacredly follow'd I was
once very near making Love to my Friend's Wife.

The next words in the letter are also full of effervescing gaiety: "This Letter shall cost you a Shilling, and you may consider it cheap, when you reflect, that it has cost me at least 50 Guineas to get into the Situation, that enables me to write it. Besides, I might, if I had staied at home, have won perhaps two Shillings of you at Cribbidge."

Among the best of his subsequent letters is the one--instinct with his usual wisdom and good feeling--in which he advises Polly to return to her aunt, Mrs. Tickell, as soon as a temporary separation was at an end, and continue by every means in her power, no matter how sorely tried by her aunt's infirmities, to make the remainder of the latter's days as comfortable as possible. Polly adopted the advice of this letter, and reaped her reward not only in the gratified sense of duty, upon which the letter laid such emphasis, but also in the fortune which she received upon the death of Mrs. Tickell.

In 1770, she was married to Dr. William Hewson, a brilliant physician, who was prematurely cut off by surgical infection, leaving her the mother of three young children. It was probably of him that she wrote to Franklin from Margate in the year preceding her marriage with him that she had met with a very sensible physician the day before and would not have Franklin or her mother surprised if she should run off with this young man. To be sure, this would be an imprudent step at the discreet age of thirty; but there was no saying what one should do, if solicited by a man of an insinuating address and good person, though he might be too young for one, and not yet established in his profession. The letter began with a welcome to Franklin, who had just returned from the Continent, and he was quick to respond with a pleasantry to her communication about the young physician.

There are certain circumstances in Life, sometimes [he
said], wherein 'tis perhaps best not to hearken to
Reason. For instance; possibly, if the Truth were
known, I have Reason to be jealous of this same
insinuating, handsome young Physician; but as it
flatters more my Vanity, and therefore gives me more
Pleasure, to suppose you were in Spirits on acct of
my safe Return, I shall turn a deaf Ear to Reason in
this Case, as I have done with Success in twenty
others.

In a subsequent letter, Franklin tells Polly that her mother has been complaining of her head more than ever before.

If she stoops, or looks, or bends her Neck downwards,
on any occasion, it is with great Pain and Difficulty,
that she gets her Head up again. She has, therefore,
borrowed a Breast and Neck Collar of Mrs. Wilkes, such
as Misses wear, and now uses it to keep her Head up.
Mr. Strahan has invited us all to dine there to-morrow,
but she has excused herself. Will you come, and go with
me? If you cannot well do that, you will at least be
with us on Friday to go to Lady Strachans.

His own head, he says, is better, owing, he is fully persuaded, to his extreme abstemiousness for some days past at home, but he is not without apprehensions that, being to dine abroad that day, the next day, and the day after, he may inadvertently bring it on again, if he does not think of his little monitor and guardian angel, and make use of the proper and very pertinent clause she proposes in his grace. This clause was doubtless suggested by his previous letter about the insinuating, handsome physician in which he had written to his little monitor that he had just come home from a venison feast, where he had drunk more than a philosopher ought. His next letter warily refrains from giving his flat approval to Dr. Hewson's proposal. His attitude towards Mrs. Greene's marriage had been equally cautious. He was probably of the opinion that, along with the other good advice, that finds its way to the moon, is not a little relating to nuptial engagements. The whole letter is stamped with the good sense and wholesome feeling which such situations never failed to evoke from him.

I assure you [he said] that no Objection has occurr'd
to me. His Person you see; his Temper and his
Understanding you can judge of; his Character, for
anything I have ever heard, is unblemished; his
Profession, with the Skill in it he is suppos'd to
have, will be sufficient to support a Family, and,
therefore, considering the Fortune you have in your
Hands (tho' any future Expectation from your Aunt
should be disappointed) I do not see but that the
Agreement may be a rational one on both sides.

I see your Delicacy, and your Humility too; for you
fancy that if you do not prove a great Fortune, you
will not be lov'd; but I am sure that were I in his
situation in every respect, knowing you so well as I
do, and esteeming you so highly, I should think you a
Fortune sufficient for me without a Shilling.

Having thus expressed his concern, equal to any father's, he said, for her happiness, and dispelled the idea on her part that he did not favor the proposal, because he did not immediately advise its acceptance, he left, he concluded, the rest to her sound judgment, of which no one had a greater share, and would not be too inquisitive as to her particular reasons, doubts and fears.

They were married only to share the bright vision of unclouded married happiness for some four years, and then to be separated by that tragic agency which few but Franklin have ever been able to invest with the peaceful radiance of declining day. A letter from Franklin to Mrs. Hewson, written shortly after the marriage, laughs as it were through its tears over the mournful plight in which Dolly and he have been left by her desertion, but it shows that he is beginning to get into touch with all the changes brought about by the new connection. We have already seen how fully his heart went out to his godson who sprang from the union. He has a word to say about him in another letter to Mrs. Hewson after a jest at the expense of Mrs. Stevenson's Jacobite prejudices.

I thank you [he said] for your intelligence about my
Godson. I believe you are sincere, when you say you
think him as fine a Child as you wish to see. He had
cut two Teeth, and three, in another Letter, make five;
for I know you never write Tautologies. If I have
over-reckoned, the Number will be right by this Time.
His being like me in so many Particulars pleases me
prodigiously; and I am persuaded there is another,
which you have omitted, tho' it must have occurr'd to
you while you were putting them down. Pray let him have
everything he likes; I think it of great Consequence
while the Features of the Countenance are forming; it
gives them a pleasant Air, and, that being once become
natural and fix'd by Habit, the Face is ever after the
handsomer for it, and on that much of a Person's good
Fortune and Success in Life may depend. Had I been
cross'd as much in my Infant Likings and Inclinations
as you know I have been of late Years, I should have
been, I was going to say, not near so handsome; but as
the Vanity of that Expression would offend other Folk's
Vanity, I change it out of regard to them, and say, a
great deal more homely.

His next letter is written to Mrs. Hewson, then a widow, from Philadelphia, after his return from his second mission to England, and tells her that the times are not propitious for the emigration to America, which she was contemplating, but expresses the hope that they might all be happy together in Philadelphia a little later on.

When he next writes, it is from Paris on January 12, 1777. "My Dear, Dear Polly," he begins, "Figure to yourself an old Man, with grey Hair Appearing under a Martin Fur Cap, among the Powder'd Heads of Paris. It is this odd Figure that salutes you, with handfuls of Blessings on you and your dear little ones." He had failed to bring about a union between Polly and his son, but, inveterate matchmaker that he was, this letter shows that he still had, as a grandfather, the designs on Eliza, Polly's daughter, that he had disclosed in his previous letter to Polly, when he expressed the hope that he might be alive to dance with Mrs. Stevenson at the wedding of Ben and this child. "I give him (Ben)," it said, with a French grimace between its lines, "a little French Language and Address, and then send him over to pay his Respects to Miss Hewson." In another letter, he tells Polly that, if she would take Ben under her care, as she had offered to do, he would set no bad example to her _other_ children. Two or three years later, he wrote to her from Philadelphia that Ben was finishing his studies at college, and would, he thought, make her a good son. Indeed a few days later he referred to Ben in another letter as "your son Ben."

"Does my Godson," he asked in a letter from France to Mrs. Hewson, along with many affectionate inquiries about his "dear old Friend," Mrs. Stevenson, and other English friends of theirs, "remember anything of his Doctor Papa? I suppose not. Kiss the dear little Fellow for me; not forgetting the others. I long to see them and you." Then in a postscript he tells Mrs. Hewson that, at the ball in Nantes, Temple took notice that there were no heads less than five, and that there were a few seven lengths of the face above the forehead. "You know," he observes with the old sportive humor, "that those who have practis'd Drawing, as he has, attend more to Proportions, than People in common do." In another letter from Passy, he asks Mrs. Hewson whether Jacob Viny, who was in the wheel business, could not make up a coach with the latest useful improvements and bring them all over in it. In the same letter, he inserts a word to relieve Mrs. Stevenson of her anxiety about her swelled ankles which she attributed to the dropsy; and the paragraph ends with the words, "My tender Love to her."

As Polly's children grew older, the references to them in Franklin's letters to the mother became more and more frequent and affectionate.

You cannot be more pleas'd [he wrote to her from
Passy], in talking about your Children, your Methods of
Instructing them, and the Progress they make, than I am
in hearing it, and in finding, that, instead of
following the idle Amusements, which both your Fortune
and the Custom of the Age might have led you into, your
Delight and your Duty go together, by employing your
Time in the Education of your Offspring. This is
following Nature and Reason, instead of Fashion; than
which nothing is more becoming the Character of a Woman
of Sense and Virtue.

Repeatedly Franklin sends little books to Mrs. Hewson's children, and on one occasion he sends two different French grammars, one of which, after the French master of her children had taken his choice, was to be given to his godson, as his New Year's gift, together with the two volumes of _Synonymes Francaises_. At one time before he left France, he thought of visiting Mrs. Hewson in England and asked her advice about doing so in the existing state of the British temper. When she counselled him against the journey, he wrote to her, "Come, my dear Friend, live with me while I stay here, and go with me, if I do go, to America." As the result of this invitation, Mrs. Hewson and her children spent the winter of 1784-85 with him at Passy, and his first letter to her, after she returned to England, bears indications in every line of the regret inspired by his loss of her society, after, to use his own words, he had passed a long winter in a manner that made it appear the shortest of any he ever spent. One of his peculiarities was to make a point of telling a friend anything of a pleasant nature that he had heard about him. Since her departure, M. LeVeillard in particular, he said, had told him at different times what indeed he knew long since, "_C'est une bien digne Femme, cette Madame Hewson, une tres amable Femme._" The letter then terminates with the request that, when she prayed at church for all that travelled by land or sea, she would think of her ever affectionate friend, but starts up again in a postscript, in which he sends his love to William, Thomas and Eliza, Mrs. Hewson's children, and asks their mother to tell them that he missed their cheerful prattle. Temple being sick, and Benjamin at Paris, he had found it very _triste_ breakfasting alone, and sitting alone, and without any tea in the evening. "My love to every one of the Children," is his postscript to his next letter, in which, when he was on the eve of leaving France, he told Mrs. Hewson that he said nothing to persuade her to go with him or to follow him, because he knew that she did not usually act from persuasion, but judgment. In nothing was he wiser than in his reserve about giving advice when the persons to be advised were themselves in possession of all the facts of the case essential to a proper decision. When he touched at Southampton, Mrs. Hewson was not yet resolved to sever the ties that connected her with England, but subsequently she did come over with her children to Philadelphia, and made it her home for the rest of her life. The last letter but one that Franklin wrote to her before she sailed is among the most readable letters in the correspondence. Referring to three letters of hers, that had not reached him until nearly ten years after they were written, he said:

This pacquet had been received by Mr. Bache, after my
departure for France, lay dormant among his papers
during all my absence, and has just now broke out upon
me, _like words_, that had been, as somebody says,
_congealed in northern air_. Therein I find all the
pleasing little family history of your children; how
William had begun to spell, overcoming, by strength of
memory, all the difficulty occasioned by the common
wretched alphabet, while you were convinced of the
utility of our new one; how Tom, genius-like, struck
out new paths, and, relinquishing the old names of the
letters, called U _bell_ and P _bottle_; how Eliza
began to grow jolly, that is, fat and handsome,
resembling Aunt Rooke, whom I used to call _my lovely_.
Together with all the _then_ news of Lady Blount's
having produced at length a boy; of Dolly's being well,
and of poor good Catherine's decease; of your affairs
with Muir and Atkinson, and of their contract for
feeding the fish in the channel; of the Vinys and their
jaunt to Cambridge in the long carriage; of Dolly's
journey to Wales with Mrs. Scott; of the Wilkeses, the
Pearces, Elphinstones, &c.;--concluding with a kind of
promise, that, as soon as the ministry and Congress
agreed to make peace, I should have you with me in
America. That peace has been some time made; but, alas!
the promise is not yet fulfilled.

Rarely, indeed, we imagine has one person, even though a father, or a husband, ever enveloped the life of another with such an atmosphere of pure, caressing, intimate sympathy and affection as surrounds these letters. Perhaps, our review of them would be incomplete, if we did not also recall the comments made by Franklin to Polly upon the death of her mother, and Polly's own comments upon the close of his life.

The Departure of my dearest Friend [he wrote to Polly
from Passy], which I learn from your last Letter,
greatly affects me. To meet with her once more in this
Life was one of the principal Motives of my proposing
to visit England again, before my Return to America.
The last Year carried off my Friends Dr. Pringle, and
Dr. Fothergill, Lord Kaims, and Lord le Despencer. This
has begun to take away the rest, and strikes the
hardest. Thus the Ties I had to that Country, and
indeed to the World in general, are loosened one by
one, and I shall soon have no Attachment left to make
me unwilling to follow.

This is the description given by Mrs. Hewson of his last years after stating that during the two years that preceded his death he did not experience so much as two months of exemption from pain, yet never uttered one repining or peevish word.

When the pain was not too violent to be amused, he
employed himself with his books, his pen, or in
conversation with his friends; and upon every occasion
displayed the clearness of his intellect, and the
cheerfulness of his temper. Even when the intervals
from pain were so short, that his words were frequently
interrupted, I have known him to hold a discourse in a
sublime strain of piety. I never shall forget one day
that I passed with our friend last summer (1789). I
found him in bed in great agony; but, when that agony
abated a little, I asked him if I should read to him.
He said, "Yes," and the first book I met with was
"Johnson's Lives of the Poets." I read the "Life of
Watts," who was a favorite author with Dr. Franklin;
and instead of lulling him to sleep, it roused him to a
display of the powers of his memory and his reason. He
repeated several of Watts's "Lyric Poems," and
descanted upon their sublimity in a strain worthy of
them and of their pious author.

Sublime or not, it cannot be denied that the poems of Dr. Watts have been a staff of comfort and support to many a pilgrim on his way to the "fields of endless light where the saints and angels walk."

Another very dear English friend of Franklin was William Strahan, King's Printer, the partner at one time of Thomas Cadell the Elder, and the publisher of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. The frequent references in Franklin's letters to him to Madeira wine would seem to indicate that, if it had been possible for such a temperate man as Franklin to have what is known as a boon companion, Strahan would have been he. On one occasion, Franklin writes to him that he has a great opinion of his wisdom (Madeira apart), on another, after twitting him good-humoredly with the restless condition of England, he observes: "You will say my _Advice_ 'smells of _Madeira_.' You are right. This foolish Letter is mere chitchat _between ourselves_ over the _second bottle_."

The friendship between the two began before they had even seen each other. From writing to each other from time to time, in the course of business, about books and stationery, they finally came to feel as if they really knew each other, and to exchange familiar messages on that footing. In his earliest letter to Strahan, Franklin signs himself, "Your humble servant unknown," but, before he has even carried into execution the floating intention of going over to England, which, again and again, manifests itself in his letters to Strahan, his spouse is corresponding with Mrs. Strahan, and he has arranged a match between Sally and Master Billy, one of Strahan's sons. "My compliments to Mrs. Strahan, and to your promising son, perhaps one day mine," he wrote to Strahan several years before his first mission to England, "God send our children good and suitable matches, for I begin to feel a parents' cares in that respect, and fondly wish to see them well settled before I leave them." A little later, he has arranged the match so entirely to his satisfaction, and, as the event proved, to that of Strahan too, that he writes glibly to Strahan of William Strahan as "our son Billy" and of Sally as "our daughter Sally." The same letter foreshadows the mission to England that brought the two friends for the first time face to face. "Our Assembly," it said, "talk of sending me to England speedily. Then look out sharp, and if a fat old fellow should come to your printing-house and request a little smouting, depend upon it 'tis your affectionate friend and humble servant."

The earlier cis-Atlantic letters of Franklin to Strahan are mainly letters of business over which we need not linger here; but they contain some paragraphs of general interest besides those relating to Sally and Master Billy. In one place, Franklin declares that he is glad that the Polybius, which he had ordered from Strahan, did not come; it was intended for his son, who was, when the order was given, in the army, and apparently bent on a military life, but that, as peace had cut off the prospect of advancement in that way, his son would apply himself to other business. In any event, Polybius would appear to have been a rather pedantic authority for the military operations of the American backwoods. The other business to which William Franklin had decided to apply himself was that of the profession, which, in the opinion of the general public, approximates most nearly to a state of warfare--the law, and, in the letters from Franklin to Strahan, William's altered plans are brought home to us in the form of orders for law books and the request that Strahan would have William entered as a student at the Inns of Court.

These earlier letters also contain some piquant comments on colonial conditions. Such are the remarks prompted by Pope's sneer in the _Dunciad_ at the supposed popularity of the poetaster, Ward, in "ape-and-monkey climes."

That Poet has many Admirers here, and the Reflection he
somewhere casts on the Plantations as if they had a
Relish for such Writers as Ward only, is injurious.
Your Authors know but little of the Fame they have on
this side of the Ocean. We are a kind of Posterity in
respect to them. We read their Works with perfect
impartiality, being at too great distance to be byassed
by the Factions, Parties and Prejudices that prevail
among you. We know nothing of their Personal Failings;
the Blemishes in their Character never reaches (sic)
us, and therefore the bright and amiable part strikes
us with its full Force. They have never offended us or
any of our Friends, and we have no competitions with
them, therefore we praise and admire them without
Restraint. Whatever Thomson writes send me a dozen
copies of. I had read no poetry for several years, and
almost lost the Relish of it, till I met with his
Seasons. That charming Poet has brought more Tears of
Pleasure into my Eyes than all I ever read before. I
wish it were in my Power to return him any Part of the
Joy he has given me.

Many years later, some appreciative observations of the same critic on the poetry of Cowper were to make even that unhappy poet little less proud than the girl in the Tatler with the new pair of garters.

The friendship, initiated by the early letters of Franklin to Strahan, ripened fast into the fullest and freest intimacy when Franklin went over to England in 1757. They were both printers, to begin with, and were both very social in their tastes. Strahan was besides no mean political _quid nunc_, and Franklin was all his life an active politician. So interesting were the reports that he made to Franklin at the latter's request on political conditions in England, after Franklin returned to America from his first mission to that country, that Franklin acknowledged his debt in these flattering terms:

Your accounts are so clear, circumstantial, and
complete, that tho' there is nothing too much, nothing
is wanting to give us, as I imagine, a more perfect
knowledge of your publick affairs than most people have
that live among you. The characters of your speakers
and actors are so admirably sketch'd, and their views
so plainly opened, that we see and know everybody; they
all become of our acquaintance. So excellent a manner
of writing seems to me a superfluous gift to a mere
printer. If you do not commence author for the benefit
of mankind, you will certainly be found guilty
hereafter of burying your talent. It is true that it
will puzzle the Devil himself to find anything else to
accuse you of, but remember he may make a great deal of
that. If I were king (which may God in mercy to us all
prevent) I should certainly make you the
historiographer of my reign. There could be but one
objection--I suspect you might be a little partial in
my favor.

"Straney" was the affectionate nickname by which Franklin addressed Strahan after he came into personal contact with him, and, as usual, the friendship that he formed for the head of the family drew all the other members of the family within its folds. His friendship was rarely, we believe, confined to one member of a family. That was the reason why, in one of his last letters to Mrs. Hewson, he could picture his condition in Philadelphia in these terms: "The companions of my youth are indeed almost all departed, but I find an agreeable society among their children and grandchildren." And so, in Franklin's relations with the Strahans, we find his affection taking in all the members of the household. "My dear Love to Mrs. Strahan," he says in a letter to Strahan from Philadelphia in 1762, "and bid her be well for all our sakes. Remember me affectionately to Rachey and my little Wife and to your promising Sons my young Friends Billy, George and Andrew." A similar message in another letter to Strahan is followed by the statement, "I hope to live to see George a Bishop," and, a few days afterwards, Franklin recurs to the subject in these terms: "Tell me whether George is to be a Church or Presbyterian parson. I know you are a Presbyterian yourself; but then I think you have more sense than to stick him into a priesthood that admits of no promotion. If he was a dull lad it might not be amiss, but George has parts, and ought to aim at a mitre."

There are other repeated references in Franklin's letters to Strahan's daughter whom Franklin called his wife. "I rejoice to hear," he says in one of them, "that Mrs. Strahan is recovering; that your family in general is well, and that my little woman in particular is so, and has not forgot our tender connection." In a letter, which we have already quoted, after charging Strahan with not being as good-natured as he ought to be, he says, "I am glad, however that you have this fault; for a man without faults is a hateful creature. He puts all his friends out of countenance; but I love you exceedingly."

As for Strahan, he loved Franklin so exceedingly that in his effort to bring Deborah over to England he did not stop short, as we have seen, of letting her know that, when she arrived, there would be a ready-made son-in-law to greet her. Indeed the idea of fixing Franklin in England appears to have been the darling project of his heart if we are to judge by the frequency with which Franklin had to oppose Deborah's fear of the sea to his importunity. More than once it must have appeared to him as if the eloquence on which he prided himself so greatly would bear down all difficulties. After Franklin in 1762 had been for two nights on board of the ship at Portsmouth which was to take him to America, but was kept in port by adverse winds, he wrote to Strahan:

The Attraction of Reason is at present for the other
side of the Water, but that of Inclination will be for
this side. You know which usually prevails. I shall
probably make but this one Vibration, and settle here
forever. Nothing will prevent it, if I can, as I hope I
can, prevail with Mrs. F. to accompany me.

That, he said in a subsequent letter, would be the great difficulty. The next year, he even wrote to Strahan from America, after his journey of eleven hundred and forty miles on the American continent that year, that no friend could wish him more in England than he did himself, though, before he went, everything, in which he was concerned, must be so settled in America as to make another return to it unnecessary. But, in the course of his life, Franklin, with his sensibility to social attentions and freedom from provincial restrictions, professed his preference for so many parts of the world as a place of residence that statements of this kind should not be accepted too literally.