The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 2. Бенджамин Франклин

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Titan Leeds. ‘But this obstacle (I am far from speaking it with pleasure) is soon to be removed, since inexorable death, who was never known to respect merit, has already prepared the mortal dart, the fatal sister has already extended her destroying shears, and that ingenious man must soon be taken from us. He dies, by my calculation, made at his request, on October 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 inclined to agree with my judgment. Which of us is most exact a little time will now determine. As, therefore, these Provinces may not longer expect to see any of his performances after this year, I think myself free to take up the task.’

      The next year he joyfully acknowledged the success of his almanac, through which his wife had been able to buy a pot of her own instead of being obliged to borrow one; and they had got something to put into it. ‘She has also got a pair of shoes, two new shifts, and a new warm petticoat; and for my part I have bought a second-hand coat, so good that I am not now ashamed to go to town or be seen there. These things have render’d her temper so much more pacifick than it us’d to be, that I may say I have slept more, and more quietly, within this last year than in the three foregoing years put together.’ Returning to Titan Leeds, he says he cannot positively say whether he is dead or alive, since he was unable to be present at the closing scene. ‘The stars,’ he observes, ‘only show to the skilful what will happen in the natural and universal chain of causes and effects; but ’t is well known that the events which would otherwise certainly happen at certain times in the course of nature, are sometimes set aside or postpon’d, for wise and good reasons, by the immediate particular dispositions of Providence; which particular dispositions the stars can by no means discover or foreshow. There is, however (and I cannot speak it without sorrow), there is the strongest probability that my dear friend is no more; for there appears in his name, as I am assured, 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. Mr. Leeds was too well bred to use any man so indecently and so scurrilously, and, moreover, his esteem and affection for me was extraordinary; so that it is to be feared that pamphlet may be only a contrivance of somebody or other who hopes, perhaps, to sell two or three years’ Almanacks still by the sole force and virtue of Mr. Leeds’s name.’

      In next year’s preface the fooling is still more exquisite: ‘Having received much abuse from Titan Leeds deceased (Titan Leeds, when living, would not have used me so); I say, having received much abuse from the ghost of Titan Leeds, who pretends to be still living, and to write almanacks in spight of me and my predictions, I cannot help saying that tho’ I take it patiently, I take it very unkindly. And whatever he may pretend, ’t is undoubtedly true that he is really defunct and dead. First, because the stars are seldom disappointed; never but in the case of wise men, sapiens dominabitur astris, and they foreshowed his death at the time I predicted it. Secondly, ’t was requisite and necessary he should die punctually at that time for the honor of astrology, the art professed both by him and his father before him. Thirdly, ’t is plain to every one that reads his two last almanacks (for 1734 and ’35) that they are not written with that life his performances used to be written with: the wit is low and flat; the little hints dull and spiritless; nothing smart in them but Hudibras’s verses against astrology at the heads of the months in the last, which no astrologer but a dead one would have inserted, and no man living would or could write such stuff as the rest.’

      Titan Leeds retorted by saying that there was not and never had been such a person as Richard Saunders; to which, next year, Franklin humourously replied. One preface purported to be written by Bridget Saunders, the wife of Poor Richard, and another contained a long letter from the departed spirit of Titan Leeds, assuring his old friend that he did die at the time predicted by him.

      From the numbers of Poor Richard that are accessible, I select, as specimens of its proverbial philosophy, the following:

      ‘Love well, whip well.’

      ‘The proof of gold is fire; the proof of a woman, gold; the proof of a man, a woman.’

      ‘There is no little enemy.’

      ‘A new truth is a truth; an old error is an error.’

      ‘Drink water; put the money in your pocket, and leave the dry belly-ache in the punch-bowl.’

      ‘Necessity never made a good bargain.’

      ‘Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.’

      ‘Deny self for self’s sake.’

      ‘Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep thee.’

      ‘Opportunity is the great bawd.’

      ‘Here comes the orator with his flood of words and his drop of reason.’

      ‘Sal laughs at every thing you say; why? because she has fine teeth.’

      ‘An old young man will be a young old man.’

      ‘He is no clown that drives the plough, but he that does clownish things.’

      ‘Forewarned, forearmed.’

      ‘Fish and visitors smell in three days.’

      ‘Diligence is the mother of good luck.’

      ‘Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.’

      ‘Let thy maid-servant be faithful, strong, and homely.’

      ‘He that can have patience can have what he will.’

      ‘Don’t throw stones at your neighbors, if your own windows are glass.’

      ‘Good wives and good plantations are made by good husbands.’

      ‘God heals, the doctor takes the fee.’

      ‘The noblest question in the world is, what good may I do in it?’

      ‘There are three faithful friends, an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.’

      ‘Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?’

      ‘Fly pleasures, and they ’ll follow you.’

      ‘Hast thou virtue? acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.’

      ‘He that would have a short Lent, let him borrow money to be repaid at Easter.’

      ‘Keep your eyes wide open before marriage; half shut afterwards.’

      ‘As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.’

      ‘Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.’

      ‘Grace thou thy house, and let not that grace thee.’

      ‘Let thy child’s first lesson be obedience, and the second will be what thou wilt.’

      ‘Let thy discontents be thy secrets.’

      ‘Industry need not wish.’

      ‘Happy СКАЧАТЬ