To Benjamin Franklin from George Whatley, 20 September 1784
From George Whatley
ALS: American Philosophical Society
London 20 Sepr 1784
I venture, Dr Sir, to take the Liberty to introduce to you, my good Friend Dr Rowley, who is of the University of Oxon, & one of the Physicians of the Coledge here,5 to ask you how you do, & let me know.— He makes an Excursion to Paris for a few days, only to satisfy his Mind in things relating to a Work, in his own Profession, he is about to publish, in Greek & Latin.6
If the Courier de l’Europe say true, you have been desired by S. M. tres Chretienne to look into the Business of Magnetism.7 Who more fitting? I Shall never forget yr Rebuke, for my calling my poor gone & good Friend Ellis, one of the Conundri8 for laboring about the Keratophita; Coraloides: & the Lord knows what,9 when, hereafter, such Researches might be of Service to Mankind, as the Loadstone is understood to have been, several hundreds of Years after its Property of atracting Iron was discovered.
I Shall be glad to learn that you are in perfect Health. I thank God I am so. Senescimus omnes:1 there’s no Medium; and so God help your Excellency, & yours for ever. Believe me that I ever shall be with the greatest Truth & Respect Your very devoted
George Whatley.
His Excellency Benjn Franklin Esqr &a &a &a
Notation: George Whatley 20 Sept. 1784—
5. William Rowley (1742–1806) began his career as an army surgeon and had already published on medical subjects before enrolling at Oxford in 1780. He received his B.A. in June, 1784, and the same month was named to the Royal College of Physicians: ODNB.
6. Schola Medicinœ Universalis Nova …, a compendium of medical knowledge, was finally issued in 1794.
7. On Sept. 3, the Courier de l’Europe listed BF among the royal commissioners who issued the recent report on mesmerism. Four days later the paper published, and commented on, Mesmer’s May 14 letter to BF (XLII, 247–50): Courier de l’Europe, XVI (1784), 147, 158–9.
8. The usage of “conundrum” to mean a pedant or grandiloquent fool who focuses on the inconsequential, was nearly obsolete by the 18th century. In 1732 BF created a fictional barrister called “the most incomprehensible Alexander Conundrum, Esq”: I, 273.
9. John Ellis, a naturalist with whom BF had corresponded in the 1770s (XIX, 317n; XX, 492–3), argued in his 1755 Essay Towards a Natural History of the Corallines that what were then believed to be marine plants (corals and keratophyta among them) were actually animals. His study, while not the first, was the most detailed and influential: Julius Groner and Paul F. S. Cornelius, John Ellis (Pacific Grove, Calif., 1996), pp. 74–7, 200, 203–5, 218, 224–6.
1. We all grow old.