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Benjamin Franklin: Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, & Early Writings

Edited by J. A. Leo Lemay

“The reader seems to see many Franklins, one emerging from another like those brightly painted Russian dolls which, ever smaller, disclose yet one more.” — John Updike, The New Yorker

Overview
Table of Contents

Overview

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Statesman, scientist, philosopher, printer, and civic leader, Benjamin Franklin was also the most powerful writer of his time. From his first appearance in print, in the guise of the eccentric, opinionated, voluble “Silence Dogood” (1722), to his last published article, a searing satire against slavery (1790), he covered every aspect of “the question of America” with radiant clarity, wit, and penetration.

This Library of America collection begins with items written by Franklin during his early years in Boston and London (1722–1726), including the complete “Silence Dogood” essay series. The volume also includes the famous “Busy-Body” essays (1728–1729); many of the news articles and essays he penned after he purchased the failing Pennsylvania Gazette (which eventually became the most widely read newspaper in the colonies); and various political satires, pamphlets, and personal correspondence written while he lived in Philadelphia from 1726 to 1757. The book concludes with material he published while a diplomat in London from 1757 to 1775 (including letters to the press, satires, and pamphlets).

Controversial in his own time, and the subject of vigorous debate ever since—to Matthew Arnold he exemplified “victorious good sense,” while to D. H. Lawrence he was “the first dummy American”—Franklin emerges in this collection as a figure of extraordinary complexity for readers to discover, consider, and appreciate anew.

A companion volume includes Poor Richard’s Almanack, Franklin’s classic Autobiography, and his later writings.

J. A. Leo Lemay (1935–2008), editor of this volume, was du Pont Winterthur Professor of English at the University of Delaware. The author of numerous works on Franklin, including The Canon of Benjamin Franklin 1722–1776: New Attributions and Reconsiderations, he edited The Oldest Revolutionary: Essays on Benjamin Franklin and (with P. M. Zall) The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: A Genetic Text.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Benjamin Franklin: Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, & Early Writings is kept in print by a gift from Daniel and Joanna Rose to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.
Table of Contents

Boston and London 1722-1726

Silence Dogood, 1722
No. 1 April 2
No. 2 April 16
No. 3 April 30
No. 4 May 14
No. 5 May 28
No. 6 June 11
No. 7 June 25, with accompanying poem
No. 8 July 9
No. 9 July 23
No. 10, August 13
No. 11, August 20
No. 12, September 10
No. 13, September 24
No. 14, October 8

Hugo Grim on Silence Dogood
Rules for The New-England Courant
To “your Honour”: Defense of James Franklin to Samuel Sewall
On Titles of Honour
High Tide in Boston
Timothy Wagstaff
Abigail Twitterfield
A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain
Plan of Conduct

Philadelphia, 1726-1757

Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion
Epitaph

The Busy-Body
No. 1, February 4
No. 2, February 11
No. 3, February 18
No. 4, February 25
No. 5, March 4
No. 8, with suppressed addition

A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency
The Printer to the Reader
“One Piles a Fiddler”
Fire and the Nature of Horses
The Trial and Reprieve of Prouse and Mitchel
A Gallant Duel and an Unhappy Man
Printer’s Errors
Letter of the Drum
On that Odd Letter of the Drum
An Unlucky She-Wrestler
Rules and Maxims for Promoting Matrimonial Happiness
A Witch Trial at Mount Holly
The Aurora Borealis
The Earliest New-England Immigrants
Lying Shopkeepers
Replies by “Betty Diligent” and “Mercator”
On the Providence of God in the Government of the World
Compassion and Regard for the Sick
English Officials for America
Apology for Printers
“A certain St-n-c-tt-r”
The Molasses Bill
“A certain C-n-table”
“George is as good as de best”
Fighting Bucks
Doctrine to be Preached
Death of a Lion
A Burnt-Offering
Lost Money
On Simplicity
“To melt the Pewter Button”
Anthony Afterwit
Celia Single
Praise for William Penn
On Censure or Backbiting
Alice Addertongue
Men are Naturally Benevolent as Well as Selfish
Death of a Drunk
Counterfeits
Rules for a Club Formerly Established in Philadelphia
Proposals and Queries to be Asked the Junto
On Drunkenness
A Meditation on a Quart Mugg
Blackamore, on Molatto Gentlemen
Brave Men At Fires
Queries on a Pennsylvania Militia
On Constancy
The Death of Infants
Parody and Reply to a Religious Meditation
A Thunderstorm
The Murder of a Daughter
Variant Accounts of a Battle
On Protection of Towns from Fire
Self-Denial Not the Essence of Virtue
A Man of Sense
Reply to a Piece of Advice
On a Pertinacious Obstinacy of Opinion
Dialogue Between Two Presbyterians
Women’s Court
Advice to a Petty Creature and Replies
A Sea Monster
The Art of Saying Little in Much
The Drinker’s Dictionary
Captain Farra
Upon the Talents Requisite in an Almanack-Writer
The Compassion of Captain Croak
Octuplets
Obadiah Plainman Defends the Meaner Sort
Obadiah Plainman to Tom Trueman
Religious Mood in Philadelphia
Statement of Editorial Policy
Essay on Paper-Currency, Proposing a New Method for Fixing Its Value
Letter from Theophilus
Obituary of Andrew Hamilton
Obituary of James Merrewether
I Sing My Plain Country Jane
A Proposal for Promotion Useful Knowledge Among the British Plantations in America
Apology for the Young Man in Goal
An Over-Masted Privateer
American Privateers
Account of Louisbourgh
Old Mistresses Apologue
The Antediluvians Were All Very Sober
Appreciation of George Whitefield
The Speech of Miss Polly Baker
Whitefield’s Accounts
Verses on the Virginia Capitol Fire
The Necessity of Self-Defence
Devices and Mottoes of the Associators
Advice to a Young Tradesman
Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania
Rules Proper to be Observed in Trade
Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion
Idea of the English School
Course of Experiments
On Transported Felons
Rattle-Snakes for Felons
Appeal for the Hospital
Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, &c
The Kite Experiment
Join or Die
The Albany Plan of Union
Reasons and Motives for the Albany Plan of Union
No Taxation Without Representation: Three Letters of 1754 to Governor William Shirley, with a Preface of 1766
A Dialogue Between X,Y, and Z, Concerning the Present State of Affairs in Pennsylvania
A Parable Against Persecution
A Parable on Brotherly Love

Letters to:
Joshua Babcock
Cadwallader Colden
Peter Collinson
Jared Elliot
Jane Franklin
John Franklin
Josiah and Abiah Franklin
Thomas Hopkinson
Elizabeth Hubbart
Joseph Huey
John Lining
James Logan
Jane Mecom
James Parker
John Perkins
Catharine Ray
James Read
William Shipley
George Whitefield

London, 1757-1775

A Defense of the Quakers and the Pennsylvania Assembly
A Letter from Father Abraham, to His Beloved Some
A New-Englandman to the Printer of The London Chronicle: A Defense of the Americans
A Description of Those, Who, at Any Rate, Would Have a Peace with France
Humourous Reasons for Restoring Canada
The Jesuit Campanella’s Means of Disposing the Enemy to Peace
A Narrative of the Late Massacres, in Lancaster County, of a Number of Indians, Friends of the Province, by Persons Unknown
The Duke of York’s Travels
The Grand Leap of the Whale
Invectives Against the Americans
The Mother Country
On the Prospects of War in America
“Homespun” Celebrates Indian Corn
On the Paving of Chancery Lane
On the Tenure of the Manor of East Greenwich
“Two Taylors”
“Homespun’s” Further Defense of Indian Corn
Pax Quaeritur Bello
On Chastising the Colonies
The Frenchman and the Poker
A Mock Petition to the House of Commons
Contempt for the Thames
On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor
The Misrepresentation of America
Reply to Coffee-House Orators
Right, Wrong, and Reasonable
Of Lightning, and the Method (Now Used in America) of Securing Buildings and Persons from Its Mischievous Effects
American Longevity
Railing and Reviling
Causes of the American Discontents Before 1768
Subjects of Subjects
On the Candidacy of Barlow Trecothick
On the Labouring Poor
Phonetic Alphabet
Queries
On Civil War
On Sinecures
A New Version of the Lord’s Prayer
Defense of American Placeholders
Positions To Be Examined
New Fables
A Conversation on Slavery
The Cravenstreet Gazette
The Rise and Present State of Our Misunderstanding
Account of an Audience with Hillsborough
“The Seeds Sown of a Total Disunion of the Two Countries”
Introduction to a Plan for Benefiting the New Zealanders
Toleration in Old and New England
The Sommersett Case and the Slave Trade
Preface to the Declaration of the Boston Town Meeting
“A Little Time Must Infallibly Bring Us All We Demand or Desire”
On the Hutchinson Letters
An Infallible Method To Restore Peace and Harmony
Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One
‘Tis Never Too Late To Mend”
An Edict by the King of Prussia
A Chimney-Sweeper’s Logic
Public Statement on the Hutchinson Letters
On a Proposed Act to Prevent Emigration
On Franklin’s Ingratitude
“A War It Will Be”
An Open Letter to Lord North
A Method of Humbling Rebellious American Vassals
An Act for the More Effectual Keeping of the Colonies Dependent
An Imaginary Speech
A Dialogue Between Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Saxony, and America
A Proposed Memorial to Lord Dartmouth
Proposed Articles of Confederation
Resolutions on Trade Submitted to Congress
Account of the Devices on the Continental Bills of Credit
The King’s Own Regulars
Bradshaw’s Epitaph
The Rattle-Snake as a symbol of America
What Would Satisfy the Americans?

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