She has found
in the accepted Whig principles a satisfactory compromise, a
working theory of society, a modus vivendi which nobody supposes
is perfect but which will answer the prayer appointed to be read
in all the churches, "Grant us peace in our time, O Lord." The
theories to which men gave their lives in the seventeenth century
seem ghostly in their unreality; but the prize turnips on Sir
Robert's Norfolk farm, and the wines in his cellar, and the
offices at his disposal--these are very real indeed. London
merchants are making money; the squire and the parson are
tranquilly ruling the country parishes; the philosophy of John
Locke is everywhere triumphant. Mr. Pope is the poet of the hour,
and his "Essay on Man," counseling acceptance of our mortal
situation, is considered to be the last word of human wisdom and
of poetical elegance. In prose, the style of the "Spectator"
rules--an admirable style, Franklin thought, and he imitated it
patiently until its ease and urbanity had become his own. And
indeed, how much of that London of the third decade of the
century passed into the mind of the inquisitive, roving,
loose-living printer's apprentice from Philadelphia! It taught
him that the tangible world is the real world, and that nothing
succeeds like success; but it never even whispered to him that
sometimes nothing damns like success.
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