One of these productions might certainly have been suggested by the other. But Franklin's grandson, William Temple Franklin, who professed to have the original in his possession, in his grandfather's handwriting, said that it was dated 1728, and it is printed with that date in one of the editions of Franklin's works. If this date is correct, it would be too early for the epitaph to have been copied from the one in the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1736. It might be said that possibly the Eton boy knew of Franklin's epitaph; but I cannot find that it was printed or in any way made public before 1736. There is no reason why both should not be original, for everybody wrote epitaphs in that century. Franklin has been credited by one of his biographers with the invention of the comic epitaph, and Smollett's famous inscription on Commodore Trunnion's tomb in "Peregrine Pickle" is described as a mere imitation of Franklin's epitaph on himself. But there is no evidence that Smollett had seen Franklin's production before "Peregrine Pickle" was published in 1750, and it was not necessary that he should. There were plenty of similar productions long before that time. Franklin's own Gazette, January 6 to January 15, 1735/6, gives a very witty inscription on a dead greyhound, which is described as cut on the walls of Lord Cobham's gardens at Stow. In writing comic epitaphs Franklin was merely following the fashion of his time, and he was hardly as good at it as Smollett. He has himself told us the source of one of his best short essays, "The Ephemera," a beautiful little allegory which he wrote to please Madame Brillon in Paris. In a letter to William Carmichael, of June 17, 1780, he describes the circumstances under which it was written, and says that "the thought was partly taken from a little piece of some unknown writer, which I met with fifty years since in a newspaper." * It was in this way that he worked over old material for "Poor Richard." Everything he had read seemed capable of supplying suggestions, and it must be said that he usually improved on the work of other men. He was very fond of paraphrasing the Bible as a humorous task and also to show what he conceived to be the meaning of certain passages. He altered the wording of the Book of Job so as to make it a satire on English politics. He did it cleverly, and it was amusing; but it was a very cheap sort of humor. His most famous joke of this kind was his "Parable against Persecution." He had learned it by heart, and when he was in England, and the discussion turned on religious liberty, he would open the Bible and read his parable as the last chapter in Genesis. The imitation of the language of Scripture was perfect, and the parable itself was so interesting and striking that every one was delighted with it. His guests would wonder and say that they had never known there was such a chapter in Genesis. The parable was published and universally admired, but when it appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine some one very quickly discovered that it had been taken from Jeremy Taylor's Polemical Dis * Bigelow's Franklin from His Own Writings, vol. ii. p. 511. courses, and there was a great discussion over it. Franklin afterwards said, in a letter to Mr. Vaughan, that he had taken it from Taylor; and John Adams said that he never pretended that it was original.* It is interesting to see how cleverly he improved on Taylor's language: TAYLOR. "When Abraham sat at his tent door according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his staff; weary with age and travel, coming towards him, who was an hundred years old. He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, and caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man ate and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven? The old man told him, that he worshipped the fire only and acknowledged no other god. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was? He replied, I thrust him away, because he did not worship thee. God answered FRANKLIN. 2 "And it came to pass after these things, that Abraham sat in the door of his tent, about the going down of the sun. ¶ And behold a man, bent with age, coming from the way of the wilderness leaning on his staff. ¶3 And Abraham rose and met him, and said unto him: Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night; and thou shalt arise early in the morning and go on thy way. ¶ But the man said, Nay, for I will abide under this tree. ¶ 5 And Abraham pressed him greatly: so he turned and they went into the tent, and Abraham baked unleavened bread, and they did eat. ¶ And when Abraham saw that the man blessed not God he said unto him, wherefore dost thou not worship the Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth? And the man answered, and said, I do not worship thy God, neither do I call upon his name; for I have made to myself a god, which abideth in my * Bigelow's Works of Franklin, vol. v. p. 376; also vol. x. p. 78; Adams's Works, vol. i. p. 659. The parable was, indeed, older than Taylor for Taylor said he had found it in "The Jews' Book," and at length it was discovered in a Latin dedication of a rabbinical work, called "The Rod of Judah," published at Amsterdam in 1651, which ascribed the parable to the Persian poet Saadi. None of them, however, had thought of introducing it into the Old Testament, nor had they told it so well as Franklin, who gave it a new currency, and it was reprinted as a half-penny tract and also in Lord Kames's "Sketches of the History of Man." While on this question of plagiarism it may be said that Franklin's admirable style was in part modelled on that of the famous Massachusetts divine, Cotton Mather, whom he had known and whose books he had read in his boyhood. The similarity is, indeed, quite striking, and for vigorous English he could hardly have had a better model. But he improved so much on Mather that his style is entirely his own. It is the most effective literary style ever used by an American. Nearly one hundred and fifty years have passed since his Autobiography was written, yet it is still read with delight by all classes of people, has been called for at some public libraries four hundred times a year, and shows as much promise of immortality as the poems of Longfellow or the romances of Hawthorne. Besides his almanac and newspaper, Franklin extended his business by publishing books, consisting mostly of religious tracts and controversies. He also imported books from England, and sold them along with the lamp-black, soap, and groceries contained in |
