Part 11 (1/2)
Parton also says that Franklin ”invented the plan of distinguis.h.i.+ng advertis.e.m.e.nts by means of little pictures which he cut with his own hands.” If he really was the inventor of this plan, it is strange that he allowed his rival Bradford to use it in the _Mercury_ before it was adopted by the _Gazette_. No cuts appear in the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the _Gazette_ until May 30, 1734; but the _Mercury's_ advertis.e.m.e.nts have them in the year 1733.
Franklin made no sudden or startling changes in the methods of journalism; he merely used them effectively. His reputation and fortune were increased by his newspaper, but his greatest success came from his almanac, the immortal ”Poor Richard.”
In those days almanacs were the literature of the ma.s.ses, very much as newspapers are now. Everybody read them, and they supplied the place of books to those who would not or could not buy these means of knowledge.
Every farm-house and hunter's cabin had one hanging by the fireplace, and the rich were also eager to read afresh every year the weather forecasts, receipts, sc.r.a.ps of history, and advice mingled with jokes and verses.
Every printer issued an almanac as a matter of course, for it was the one publication which was sure to sell, and there was always more or less money to be made by it. While Franklin and Meredith were in business they published their almanac annually, and it was prepared by Thomas G.o.dfrey, the mathematician, who with his wife lived in part of Franklin's house. But, as has been related, Mrs. G.o.dfrey tried to make a match between Franklin and one of her relatives, and when that failed the G.o.dfreys and Franklin separated, and Thomas G.o.dfrey devoted his mathematical talents to the preparation of Bradford's almanac.
This was in the year 1732, and the following year Franklin had no philomath, as such people were called, to prepare his almanac. A great deal depended on having a popular philomath. Some of them could achieve large sales for their employer, while others could scarcely catch the public attention at all. Franklin's literary instinct at once suggested the plan of creating a philomath out of his own imagination, an ideal one who would achieve the highest possibilities of the art. So he wrote his own almanac, and announced that it was prepared by one Richard Saunders, who for short was called ”Poor Richard,” and he proved to be the most wonderful philomath that ever lived.
As Shakespeare took the suggestions and plots of his plays from old tales and romances, endowing his spoils by the touch of genius with a life that the originals never possessed, so Franklin plundered right and left to obtain material for the wise sayings of ”Poor Richard.” There was, we are told, a Richard Saunders who was the philomath of a popular English almanac called ”The Apollo Anglica.n.u.s,” and another popular almanac had been called ”Poor Robin;” but ”Poor Richard” was a real creation, a new human character introduced to the world like Sir Roger de Coverley.
Novel-writing was in its infancy in those days, and Bunyan's ”Pilgrim's Progress,” Addison's character of Sir Roger, and the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were the only examples of this new literature. That beautiful sentiment that prompts children to say, ”Tell us a story,” and which is now fed to repletion by trash, was then primitive, fresh, and simple. Franklin could have written a novel in the manner of Fielding, but he had no inclination for such a task. He took more naturally and easily to creating a single character somewhat in the way Sir Roger de Coverley was created by Addison, whose essays he had rewritten so often for practice.
[Ill.u.s.tration: t.i.tLE-PAGE OF POOR RICHARD'S ALMANAC FOR 1733]
Sir Roger was so much of a gentleman, there were so many delicate touches in him, that he never became the favorite of the common people.
But ”Poor Richard” was the Sir Roger of the ma.s.ses; he won the hearts of high and low. In that first number for the year 1733 he introduces himself very much after the manner of Addison.
”Courteous Reader,
”I might in this place attempt to gain thy favor by declaring that I write almanacks with no other view than that of the public good, but in this I should not be sincere; and men are now-a-days too wise to be deceived by pretences, how specious soever. The plain truth of the matter is, I am excessive poor, and my wife, good woman, is, I tell her, excessive proud; she cannot bear, she says, to sit spinning in her s.h.i.+ft of tow, while I do nothing but gaze at the stars; and has threatened more than once to burn all my books and rattling traps (as she calls my instruments) if I do not make some profitable use of them for the good of my family. The printer has offered me some considerable share of the profits, and I have thus begun to comply with my dame's desire.”
There was a rival almanac, of which the philomath was t.i.tan Leeds. ”Poor Richard” affects great friends.h.i.+p for him, and says that he would have written almanacs long ago had he not been unwilling to interfere with the business of t.i.tan. But this obstacle was soon to be removed.
”He dies by my calculation,” says ”Poor Richard,” ”made at his request, on Oct. 17, 1733, 3 ho., 29 m., P. M., at the very instant of the ? of ? and ?. By his own calculation he will survive till the 26th of the same month. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we have met these nine years past; but at length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment.
Which of us is most exact, a little time will now determine.”
In the next issue ”Poor Richard” announces that his circ.u.mstances are now much easier. His wife has a pot of her own and is no longer obliged to borrow one of a neighbor; and, best of all, they have something to put in it, which has made her temper more pacific. Then he begins to tease t.i.tan Leeds. He recalls his prediction of his death, but is not quite sure whether it occurred; for he has been prevented by domestic affairs from being at the bedside and closing the eyes of his old friend. The stars have foretold the death with their usual exact.i.tude; but sometimes Providence interferes in these matters, which makes the astrologer's art a little uncertain. But on the whole he thinks t.i.tan must be dead, ”for there appears in his name, as I am a.s.sured, an Almanack for the year 1734 in which I am treated in a very gross and unhandsome manner; in which I am called a false predicter, an ignorant, a conceited scribbler, a fool, and a lyar;” and he goes on to show that his good friend t.i.tan would never have treated him in this way.
The next year he is still making sport of t.i.tan, the deceased t.i.tan, and the ghost of t.i.tan, ”who pretends to be still living, and to write Almanacks in spight of me;” and he proves again by means of the funniest arguments that he must be dead. Another year he devotes several pages of nonsense to disproving the charge that ”Poor Richard” is not a real person. He ridicules astrology and weather forecasting by pretending to be very serious over it. At any rate, he says, ”we always. .h.i.t the day of the month, and that I suppose is esteemed one of the most useful things in an Almanack.” He and his good old wife are getting on now better than ever; and the almanac for 1738 is prepared by Mistress Saunders herself, who rails at her husband and makes queer work with eclipses and forecasting. Then in the number for 1740 t.i.tan writes a letter to ”Poor Richard” from the other world.
Besides the formal essays or prefaces which appeared in each number, there were numerous verses, paragraphs of admirable satire on the events of the day or the weaknesses of human nature, and those prudential maxims which in the end became the most famous of all. As we look through a collection of these almanacs for an hour or so we seem to have lived among the colonists, who were not then Americans, but merry Englishmen, heavy eaters and drinkers, full of broad jokes, whimsical, humorous ways, and forever gossiping with hearty good nature over the ludicrous accidents of life, the love-affairs, the married infelicities, and the cuckolds. It is the freshness, the sap, and the rollicking happiness of old English life.
”Old Batchelor would have a wife that's wise, Fair, rich and young a maiden for his bed; Not proud, nor churlish, but of faultless size, A country housewife in the city bred.
He's a nice fool and long in vain hath staid; He should bespeak her, there's none ready made.”
”Never spare the parson's wine, nor the baker's pudding.”
”Ne'er take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in.”
”My love and I for kisses play'd, She would keep stakes, I was content, But when I won, she would be paid, This made me ask her what she meant: Quoth she, since you are in the wrangling vein Here take your kisses, give me mine again.”
”Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?”
”There is no little enemy.”