Part 85 (2/2)
But, though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend, but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things,
A GOOD CONSCIENCE.
_NOTES_
References are to Franklin's _Writings_, edited by A. H. Smyth, 10 vols., 1905-1907.
[Footnote 1: In addition to John Bigelow's ”Historical Sketch of the Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Autograph Ma.n.u.script of Franklin's Memoirs of His Own Life,” see Franklin's references to the _Autobiography_, in _Writings_, IX, 550-51, 559, 665, 675, 688; X, 50.]
[Footnote 2: The _New England Courant_, begun Aug. 21, 1721 (fourth American newspaper), was preceded by _Boston News-Letter_, April 24, 1704, _Boston Gazette_, Dec. 21, 1719, _American Weekly Mercury_, Dec.
22, 1719 (Philadelphia).]
[Footnote 3: Sir Wm. Keith (1680-1749), governor of Pennsylvania 1717-1726. He was dismissed by the Proprietaries in 1726; after casting his lot with the provincial a.s.sembly, he became ”a tribune of the people” (_Dictionary of American Biography_, X, 292-3). It is not improbable that Franklin's antipathy for the Proprietaries was quickened by his contacts with Keith (even though he was the victim of the governor's gulling). See note 65 for ”James Ralph.”]
[Footnote 4: Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753), botanist and physician, friend of Sydenham, Newton, Ray, and Boyle, made President of the Royal Society in 1727 (until 1741). See _Dictionary of National Biography_, LII, 379-80, and Franklin's letter to Sir Hans Sloane (London, June 2, 1725) in _Writings_, II, 52-3.]
[Footnote 5: Sir Hans Sloane contributed curiosities to Don Saltero's place, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Steele dedicated a _Tatler_ to this collector of gimcracks who wrote of his oddities:
”Monsters of all sorts here are seen Strange things in nature as they grew so; Some relicks of the Sheba queen, And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe.”
[Footnote 6: See note 22.]
[Footnote 7: For an account of this st.u.r.dy colonial who learned Latin in order to read Newton's _Principia_, see E. P. Oberholtzer's _A Literary History of Philadelphia_, 57 ff.]
[Footnote 8: James Parton's _Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin_, I, 154-67 (chap. XIII) contains a good account of this junto of friends.]
[Footnote 9: See C. E. Jorgenson's ”A Brand Flung at Colonial Orthodoxy”
(in Bibliography, p. clxv above), for the deistic patterns of thought found in Keimer's newspaper.]
[Footnote 10: Consult C. H. Hart, ”Who Was the Mother of Franklin's Son?
An Inquiry Demonstrating that She Was Deborah Read, Wife of Benjamin Franklin.” (See Bibliography, p. clxiv above.) Also see _Who Was the Mother of Franklin's Son? An Historical Conundrum, hitherto given up, now partly answered by Paul Leicester Ford_. With an afterword by John Clyde Oswald (New Roch.e.l.le, N. Y.: 1932).]
[Footnote 11: End of reprint of the original MS in the Henry E.
Huntington Library. The selections that follow are from _Writings_, in which A. H. Smyth reprints the Bigelow transcript with indifferent accuracy. ”Continuation of the Account of my Life, begun at Pa.s.sy, near Paris, 1784.” Abel James and Benjamin Vaughan urge Franklin to continue his life beyond 1730 (see _Writings_, I, 313-20). Vaughan promises that when finished ”it will be worth all Plutarch's Lives put together” (p.
318).]
[Footnote 12: Dated July 1, 1733.]
[Footnote 13: ”Thus far written at Pa.s.sy, 1784.” He continues his _Autobiography_ in Philadelphia in August, 1788.]
[Footnote 14: Consult C. E. Jorgenson's ”The New Science in the Almanacs of Ames and Franklin” (see Bibliography, p. clxv, above).]
[Footnote 15: ”Self-Denial Not the Essence of Virtue,” _Pennsylvania Gazette_, No. 324, Feb. 18, 1735; printed in W. T. Franklin's edition, III, 233-5. ”On True Happiness,” _Pennsylvania Gazette_, No. 363, Nov.
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