His reputation was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton,
Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed
than any or all of them. Newton had astonished perhaps forty or fifty
men in Europe, for not more than that number probably at any one time
had read him and understood him, by his discoveries and
demonstrations. And these being held in admiration in their respective
countries, as at the head of the philosophers, had spread among
scientific people a mysterious wonder at the genius of this, perhaps,
the greatest man that ever lived. But this fame was confined to men of
letters. The common people knew little and cared nothing about such a
recluse philosopher. Leibnitz's name was more confined still.
Frederick was hated by more than half of Europe as much as Louis XIV
was and Napoleon is. Voltaire, whose name was more universal than any
of these before mentioned, was considered as a vain, profligate wit,
and not much esteemed or beloved by anybody, tho admired by all who
knew his works. But Franklin's fame was universal. His name was
familiar to governments and people, to kings, courtiers, nobility,
clergy and philosophers, as well as plebeians, to such a degree that
there was scarcely a peasant or citizen, a valet de chambre, coachman,
or footman, a lady's maid, or a scullion in a kitchen, who was not
familiar with it, and who did not consider him a friend to human kind.
When they spoke of him they seemed to think he was to restore the
Golden Age....
[Footnote 30: From a letter to the Boston _Patriot_ of May 15, 1811,
now given as an appendix to the "Works of John Adams." The differences
of Adams and Franklin form a striking incident in the biographies of
the two men. Colaborers as they were in a common cause, they had
constant disagreements as to methods while serving their country in
Europe. That they never openly quarreled Adams's biographer, John T.
Morse, attributes to "their sense of propriety and dignity, and to the
age and position of Dr. Franklin." The radical cause lay in the fact
that "they were utterly incompatible, both mentally and morally."]
Nothing perhaps that ever occurred upon this earth was so well
calculated to give any man an extensive and universal celebrity as the
discovery of the efficacy of iron points and the invention of
lightning-rods. The idea was one of the most sublime that ever entered
a human imagination that a mortal should disarm the clouds of heaven
and almost "snatch from his hand the scepter and the rod." The
ancients would have enrolled him with Bacchus and Ceres, Hercules and
Minerva....
Franklin had a great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive,
capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the
fine arts and the mechanic arts. He had a vast imagination, equal to
the comprehension of the greatest objects, and capable of a steady and
cool comprehension of them. He had wit at will. He had humor that,
when he pleased, was delicate and delightful. He had a satire that was
good-natured or caustic, Horace or Juvenal, Swift or Rabelais, at his
pleasure. He had talents for irony, allegory, and fable, that he
could adapt with great skill to the promotion of moral and political
truth. He was master of that infantine simplicity which the French
call _naivete_, which never fails to charm, in Phaedrus and La
Fontaine, from the cradle to the grave.
Had he been blest with the same advantages of scholastic education in
his early youth, and pursued a course of studies as unembarrassed with
occupations of public and private life, as Sir Isaac Newton, he might
have emulated the first philosopher. Altho I am not ignorant that most
of his positions and hypotheses have been controverted, I can not but
think he has added much to the mass of natural knowledge, and
contributed largely to the progress of the human mind, both by his own
writings and by the controversies and experiments he has excited in
all parts of Europe. He had abilities for investigating statistical
questions, and in some parts of his life has written pamphlets and
essays upon public topics with great ingenuity and success; but after
my acquaintance with him, which commenced in Congress in 1775, his
excellence as a legislator, a politician, or a negotiator most
certainly never appeared. No sentiments more weak and superficial were
ever avowed by the most absurd philosopher than some of his,
particularly one that he procured to be inserted in the first
constitution of Pennsylvania, and for which he had such a fondness as
to insert it in his will. I call it weak, for so it must have been, or
hypocritical; unless he meant by one satiric touch to ridicule his own
republic, or throw it into everlasting contempt.
I must acknowledge, after all, that nothing in life has mortified or
grieved me more than the necessity which compelled me to oppose him so
often as I have. He was a man with whom I always wished to live in
friendship, and for that purpose omitted no demonstration of respect,
esteem, and veneration in my power, until I had unequivocal proofs of
his hatred, for no other reason under the sun, but because I gave my
judgment in opposition to his, in many points which materially
affected the interests of our country, and in many more which
essentially concerned our happiness, safety, and well-being. I could
not and would not sacrifice the clearest dictates of my understanding
and the purest principles of morals and policy in compliance to Dr.
Franklin.