Benjamin Franklin | A lesson in electricity, later printed in Experiments and Observations

Benjamin Franklin

INTRODUCTION TO LOTS 82–87

The Snider Collection is especially rich in materials illuminating the long friendship between Benjamin Franklin and Mary (Polly) Stevenson Hewson (1739–1795), daughter of his London landlady, Mrs. Margaret Stevenson, as the following six lots demonstrate.

The editors of The Papers of Benjamin Franklin describe Stevenson (later Mrs. Hewson) as “one of the charming, intelligent girls to whom [Franklin] gave the long and affectionate friendship for which he had such a talent. … Polly’s almost filial devotion to him was a major influence in her life. She had acquired an unusually good education and by the time [Franklin] arrived at Craven Street in 1757, she was spending most of her time as companion to an elderly aunt, a Mrs. Tickell, in Wanstead, a village about ten miles from London, apparently with the understanding that the aunt would leave her a comfortable estate. Nothing came of [Franklin’s] hope of having her as a daughter-in-law; in 1770 she married William Hewson, a brilliant young physician and anatomist, who four years later died from an infection incurred while dissecting. Polly devoted the rest of her life to the care and education of her two sons and daughter” (Papers 8: 122–123).

In 1784, Polly and her family visited Franklin in Passy, and in 1786, about a decade after Franklin had first suggested it, she and her children moved to Philadelphia; she was with Franklin at his death. Among their voluminous and eclectic correspondence, are eight letters by Franklin (including the present) that were published in later editions of his Experiments and Observations on Electricity.

Franklin reflected on their friendship in a 27 January 1783 letter to Polly: “In looking forward,—Twenty-five Years seems a long Period; but in looking back, how short!— Could you imagine that ’tis now full a Quarter of a Century since we were first acquainted!— It was in 1757. During the greatest Part of the Time I lived in the same House with my dear deceased Friend your Mother; of course you and I saw and convers’d with each other much and often. It is to all our Honours, that in all that time we never had among us the smallest Misunderstanding. Our Friendship has been all clear Sunshine, without any the least Cloud in its Hemisphere. Let me conclude by saying to you what I have had too frequent Occasions to say to my other remaining old Friends, the fewer we become, the more let us love one another” (Papers 39:67–68).

Autograph letter signed ("BFranklin") to Mary “Polly” Stevenson (“My Dear Friend”), 2 pages (318 x 201 mm) on a bifolium of laid paper (watermarked Pro Patria with Maid of Dort, countermarked crowned GR), London, 22 March 1762, regarding her study of electricity and other subjects, eight-line autograph postscript, integral leaf with autograph address panel (“To | Miss Stevenson | at Mrs. Tickell’s | Wanstead Essex”) on verso; some light staining at top of first page, long separations at head and foot of central vertical fold, a short marginal separation at horizontal fold, seal tear and repair, but red wax seal preserved largely intact. Half maroon morocco folding-case gilt, chemise.

Franklin congratulates Stevenson on her reading his Experiments and Observations on Electricity in the French translation of Thomas-François Dalibard, and responds to a question she had posed in a letter to him, 10 March 1762, concerning Leyden jars: “I was about to ask a Question I find you cannot answer—How it happens that the Surface of the Bottle which contains less than it’s natural Quantity of Electric Fire does not immediately replenish itself from the Hand that holds it, unless the Fire which has a Communication with the other Surface is applied to something that will receive it’s superabundant Quantity” (Papers 10:65–66).

He here replies, “I must retract the Charge of Idleness in your Studies, when I find you have gone thro’ the doubly difficult Task of reading so big a Book on an abstruse Subject and in a foreign Language.

“The Question you were about to ask is a very sensible one.— The Hand that holds the Bottle receives & conducts away the electric Fluid that is driven out of the outside by the repulsive Power of that which is forc’d into the inside of the Bottle. As long as that Power remains in the same Situation, it must prevent the Return of what it had expell’d; tho’ the Hand would readily supply the Quantity if it could be receiv’d.—” These two opening paragraphs appear, virtually verbatim, as Letter LIII in the 1769 (pp. 460–61) and 1774 (pp. 470–71) editions of Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America.

The letter then turns to the topic of a new play that Stevenson was keen to see, a comedy in verse by William Whitehead that had premiered the previous month, and Franklin does not miss the opportunity to gently tease her about the title: “Your good Mama bids me tell you, that she has made Enquiry and finds that the School for Lovers will not be acted till the Benefits are over; but when she hears that it is to be acted she will send you timely Notice. I need not add, that your and your Friends Company at Dinner that Day will be a great Pleasure to us all. But methinks ’tis a Pity, that when you are so desirous of studying in that School, it should not be open, and must we be depriv’d of the Happiness of seeing you till it is? Rather than that should be, I would almost venture to undertake reading you a few Lectures on the Subject myself.”

Franklin requests that she send Dalibard’s translation of his work (which he terms “the French Letters, on Electricity”) to him “as a Friend is desirous of perusing them.” He closes by sending his “sincere Respects to Mrs. Tickell, Mrs. Rooke, Miss Pitt, etc.,” but adds a postscript that has evidently not previously appeared in print:

“P. S. We were greatly alarm’d in the Night between Friday & Saturday by a Fire at the Bottom of the Street that has almost destroy’d two Houses. Our House & Yard were cover’d with falling Coals of Fire but as it rain’d hard nothing catch’d. We mov’d a few of the most valuable Things; but suffer’d no Damage, tho’ we lost——some Rest.” This bit of news, since it concerned her mother’s house, might well have been quite distressing to Stevenson, which is undoubtedly why Franklin added a joke to the conclusion.

REFERENCES

Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Cohn, 37:144–145 (not locating the original, text [surprisingly accurate, but lacking the postscript entirely] taken from Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 1262)

PROVENANCE

Stan V. Henkels, Catalogue No. 1262, The Great Autograph Sale, 1 July 1920, lot 31 (undesignated consignor) — Robert L. McNeil Jr., of Philadelphia (acquired by Snider from the McNeil estate through the offices of Joe Rubinfine American Historical Autographs)