Benjamin Franklin
that they were on his desk when he awoke from a dream while writing the current (1740) preface. In a letter written from the grave, Leeds apologizes to Richard for the “aspersions thrown on you by the malevolence of avaricious publishers of almanacks who envy your success” (76). Leeds confi rms Poor Richard’s calculation of his death but rectifies the exact time by five minutes and 53 seconds (76). He also explains his ability to write a letter to Poor Richard from beyond the grave, stating, “No separate spirits are under any confi nement till after the fi nal settlement of all accounts” (76). Considering the rectifying of Poor Richard’s good name an essential duty, Leeds “entered [Poor Richard’s] left nostril, ascended to [his] brain, found out where the ends of those nerves were fastened that move [Richard’s] right hand and fi ngers, by the help of which he is writing” (76). Leeds’s ghost further pledges Richard additional glimpses of the future and offers as proof of his gift for prediction knowledge that an old friend will remain sober for nine hours, to the astonishment of his friends (76–77). Franklin did not treat all fellow almanac writers as he did Leeds. In 1747, Franklin paid homage to the passing of Mr. Jacob Taylor, “who for upwards of forty years supplied the good people of this and neighboring colonies with the most complete ephemeris and most accurate calculations that have hitherto appeared in America” (137). Franklin further praises Taylor as “an ingenious mathematician as well as an expert and skillful astronomer” (137). In contrast to Franklin’s cavalier and somewhat cruel treatment of Leeds, readers may recognize in his kind words for Taylor an indictment of the kinds of predictions offered by Leeds. Note that Leeds attempts astrological predictions according to the zodiac calendar, similar to today’s horoscopes, while Taylor knew the dates of the winter and summer solstice (the shortest and longest days of the year, respectively). As a logician himself, Franklin naturally would frown upon Leeds’s form of predictions and applaud Taylor’s, which were reckoned through mathematics and astronomy charts. As for the content of the Almanack, the fi rst edition contains many of the elements common
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to the genre: cycles of the moon and other factual information. The contents that distinguish Franklin’s Almanack from others include his aphorisms, or witty sayings, that are displayed in terse two-line phrases or else are presented in short, one-stanza poems. Critics have noted that some of these clever proverbs reappear in subsequent years and that others are not originally Franklin’s, but are borrowed from the British writers Alexander Pope and John Dryden, the French writers François Rabelais and François de La Rochefoucauld, and classical Latin writers such as Horace (viii). Franklin pokes fun at his own talents as a poet in the preface of his 1747 volume: “If thou hast judgment in poetry, thou wilt easily discern the workman from the bungler. I know as well as thee, that I am no poet born; and it is a trade I never learnt nor indeed could learn” (136). As for his use of other writers’ works, Franklin states, “ ’Tis methinks a poor excuse for the bad entertainment of guests that the food we set before them, though coarse and ordinary, is of one’s own raising, off one’s own plantation when there is plenty of what is ten times better to be had in the market” (137). Common topics involve the power struggle between husbands and wives, the need to moderate one’s consumption of food and drink, a general dislike and distrust of lawyers, the perpetual struggle between the wealthy and the poor, and the value of friendship. His rhetorical image of Poor Richard’s wife, whose carping is the reason he begins the enterprise of the almanac in the fi rst place, becomes a recurring theme in his sayings, such as “I know not which lives more unnatural lives / obeying husbands, or commanding wives” (142). One of his most famous sayings that still circulates is “Fish and visitors stink in three days.” Franklin also makes use of a classical form known as antimetabole, which is a purposeful inversion of the order of two nouns in a two-line phrase, such as “Keep thy shop and thy shop will keep you” and “A brother may not be a friend, but a friend will always be a brother.” Regarding the almanac’s traditional role of offering predictions regarding weather so that