The best work of Ralph was his History of England, including the reigns of William III, Anne, and George I, published in 1744-6. Of this Charles James Fox says:30 "I am every day more and more surprised that Ralph should have had so much less reputation as an historian than he seems to deserve." Hallam says he was "the most diligent historian we possess for the time of Charles II."31 This work gives us the best proof of his ability. Although inexcusably tedious, it is used as a reference volume today. The only work of his later years was The Case of Author by Profession or Trade Stated, 1758, in which he complained that authors should be vilified when writing for money. He preferred to publish this anonymously, for which he had excellent reasons. He died in extreme poverty, from an attack of gout, at Chiswick in 1762.31 mor. 31 * He was by far the most capable man of the Philadelphia coterie, excepting Franklin, and would have achieved local distinction, had he remained at home. He was a man of talents, a writer of good prose, with a keen critical eye, a sense for facts, and a suggestion of conscious huHe attempted to join the school of English poets who were striving to get away from the artificial tendencies of classicism. This is seen in the freedom of his verse, his love of nature and his joy in dwelling upon it, his choice of subjects and the varieties of his descriptions. His poetry was not important enough to have an influence on the precursors of the romantic school, but it is interesting that he appreciated the value of the new movement. In 1699 James Logan came to this country as secretary and later, commissioner to Penn, and at the latter's death 30 See C. J. Fox, History of Early Part of Reign of James II, p. 22. 81 See Hallam's Constitutional History, Vol. 2, p. 576. The History contained an introduction reviewing the reigns of Charles II and James II. 31* See the excellent article by Francis Espinasse in the Dictionary of National Biography. was made the business agent for the family. From 1702 to 1742, he served as a member of the Provincial Council, was mayor of Philadelphia, chief justice of the Supreme Court, and for two years was the acting Governor. He was born in Ireland in 1674, but from religious preferences his father removed the family to England. Before he was thirteen the boy knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and soon added mathematics, and modern languages. Because of a controversy with Governor Keith, Logan published in his own defence The Antidote (Philadelphia, 1725) and A Memorial in Behalf of the Proprietor's Family and himself (Philadelphia, 1725). In reply to Rawle's Ways and Means, he wrote What's therein to be found?" To his friend, Peter Collinson, in London, 1735, he wrote of his experiment in cultivating maize.32 He defended Godfrey's claim to the invention of the quadrant, and in 1734 wrote to the Royal Society, An Account of T. Godfrey's Improvement of Davis's Quadrant, transferred to the Mariner's Bow. His Charge to the Grand Inquest, 13 April, 1736, (Phil., 1736; London, 1737), a general disquisition on crime, and his letters to Sir Hans Sloane On the Crooked and Angular appearance of Lightning,33 and On the Sun and Moon, when near the Horizon,34 and to Robert Jordan and other friends,35 advising against retaining their seats in the Assembly, on account of the necessity of providing for the defence of the Province, show some of his many interests. Franklin, in 1735, had printed Cato's Distichs, englished 32 This was printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 39, p. 192. Later it was enlarged and put into a Latin essay, Experimenta Meletematade Plantarum Generatione, Leyden, 1739; reprinted and translated by Dr. Fothergill, London, 1747. 33 See Philosophical Transactions, 38, p. 441. 34 Thirty copies were privately printed; it was reprinted in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 6. 35 See Idem, Vol. 39, reprinted in Memoirs of James Logan, by Armsted. in couplets by Logan, which is held to be the first translation of a classic made and printed in the British colonies. Greater learning is shown in Logan's annotated translation of Cicero's De Senectute,36 which contains a preface by Franklin and was published by the latter in 1744. Franklin calls this "the first translation of a classic in this Western World." However, Sandys had made translations from Ovid in Virginia one hundred and twenty years earlier, though they were printed in London. The translation of Cicero is quaint and entertaining, as though by one happy in his task; the notes are full, with many references as to where researches may be continued. The editor says it was undertaken partly for his own amusement, but principally for the entertainment of a neighbor, 'who was not familiar with Roman history.' Franklin saw it in manuscript and was highly impressed. Logan's free and easy style can be seen in such a passage as this: "I am therefore far from being of the Mind of some, and amongst them we have known men of good Learning, who lament and bewail the Condition of human Life as if it were a State of real Misery; For I am not at all uneasy that I came into, and have so far passed my Course in this World; because I have so lived in it, that I have Reason to believe, I have been of some use to it; and when the Close comes, I shall quit Life as I would an Inn, not as a real Home. For Nature appears to me to have ordained this Station here for us, as a Place of Sojournment, a transitory Abode only, and not as a fixt Settlement or permanent Habitation. But Oh the glorious Day, when freed from this troublesome Rout, this Heap of Confusion and Corruption below, I shall repair to that divine Assembly, that heavenly Congregation of Souls, And not only to 36 This book, the finest production of Franklin's printing, is valued at $75. It was reprinted in London, 1750, 1758; Glasgow, 1751, 1758; Philadelphia, 1758, 1812. Cato's Distichs is rarer and is valued at $600. those I mentioned, but also to my dear Cato, than whom a more virtuous Soul was never born, nor did ever any exceed him in Piety or Affection."37 Among Logan's correspondents were many famous men. Letters between him and Penn give a better picture of public affairs from 1702 to 1711 than any other documents. Professor Tyler38 says: "Occasionally one finds.. . . a passage of general discussion, in which the clear brain and the noble heart of the writer utter themselves in language of real beauty and force." Flamstead, Sir Hans Sloane, Jones the mathematician, Gronovius, Linnæus, Fabricius, Edmund Halley and others respected him. Linnæus named a class of plants for him. The Indians honored him by calling a chieftain after him. At his death he bequeathed to the city his library of two thousand volumes, which included many of the Greek and Roman classics and the Greek mathematicians in folio. John Davis 39 says, in an account of a visit to this library in 1798: "I consider him so great a benefactor to literature that he is scarcely less illustrious than its munificent patrons of Italy; his soul has certainly been admitted to the company of the congenial spirits of a Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medici." This Loganian library was added to by his brother, Dr. William Logan, by William Mackenzie, of Philadelphia, who in 1828 left five thousand volumes, and in 1867 by the Rush-Ridgway contribution. It was made a branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia.40 In the Mercury of April, 1731, is an anonymous poem, 37 Chapter 23, p. 168. 38 M. C. Tyler, History of American Literature, II, 234. 39 Travels in America, p. 40. 40 John Neal said of him: "Logan was a great scholar for the age, familiar with many languages, and a good mathematician. We look upon him as altogether an extraordinary man." Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1825, Vol. 69; "American Writers," No. 4. entitled “The Wits and Poets of Pennsylvania," in which the author satirizes five of his contemporaries, Breintnall, Webb, Taylor, Brooke and a fifth whose name is not given and the description of whom is not recognizable. The first, Joseph Breintnall, is mentioned by Darlington as an enterprising merchant.41 Franklin pictures him as “a copier of deeds for the scriveners, a good-natured, friendly, middleaged man; a great lover of poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in many little knick-knackeries, and of sensible conversation." 42 Breintnall was the first secretary to the City Library Company. As a contributor to the Mercury, he continued to number thirty-two the series of articles signed "Busy Body" of which Franklin had written six. Included in one of these essays, that of June 19, 1729, is a poetical description of Market street, its shops, dwellings, post and pillory. Breintnall was a friend and admirer of Webb's and wrote a rhymed preface to the latter's Bachelor's Hall: 43 "Let every deed that merits praise, Be justly crown'd with spritely verse; Long stand the dome, the garden grow, Than this to hear, and that to view." The satirist, referred to above, gives this estimate of him: "For choice of diction, I should Breintnall choose, 41 See Darlington's Memorials of John Bartram and Humphrey Marshall. Philadelphia, 1849. 42 See Autobiography, p. 142. 43 History of Philadelphia, 1609-1885, by J. F. Scharf and T. Westcott, Vol. 2, p. 1104. |