FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1737-1791)

During the period before Irving, Philadelphia was the literary and artistic centre of America. Here were to be found such leaders as Franklin, Freneau, Thomas Godfrey, Benjamin Webb, the painter, and Hopkinson, the last in many respects the literary superior of them all. The first matriculant in what is now the University of Pennsylvania, graduated in 1757; a brilliant student of the law, in later years leading lawyer before the supreme court in the Dartmouth College case; a man of cosmopolitan experience, twice resident in England as an officer under the Crown; a patriot and a statesman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was one of the most cultured and most symmetrically rounded of all the early American writers. Literature was to him an avocation, pursued only as he could find time from more pressing duties, but he pursued it his life long. His literary remains have been published in three large volumes. He was the first humorist who may be called genuinely American in his humor. Many of his facetious and satirical essays have a singularly modern style: it is but a short step from Hopkinson to Washington Irving. He was a caustic satirist both in prose and verse and a controversialist who wielded a cogent pen. Unlike most of the poets of his period,-Barlow, Trumbull, Freneau, Dwight, and the others he had no vision of an American poetry of epic dimensions. He was distinctively a lyrist, and judging from the few lyrics that he allowed himself to publish, he had a lyric genius that was equalled in its time only by Freneau's. By a curious irony, he has been remembered almost solely because of a rollicking bit of doggerel dashed off during the British occupancy of Philadelphia, his mock heroic "Battle of the Kegs" [pronounced in 1778 kags undoubtedly], an effusion the most popular in its day of all the revolutionary balladry.

A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN
IN AMERICA TO HIS FRIEND IN
EUROPE ON WHITE-WASHING

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Dear Sir,-The peculiar customs of every country appear to strangers awkward and absurd, but the inhabitants consider them as very proper and even necessary. Long habit imposes on the understanding, and reconciles it to any 10 thing that is not manifestly pernicious or immediately destructive.

The religion of a country is scarcely held in greater veneration than its established customs: and it is almost as 15 difficult to produce an alteration in the one as in the other. Any interference of government for the reformation of national customs, however trivial and absurd they may be, never fails to pro- 20 duce the greatest discontent, and sometimes dangerous convulsions. Of this there are frequent instances in history. Bad habits are most safely removed by the same means that established them, 25 viz. by imperceptible gradations, and the constant example and influence of the higher class of the people.

We are apt to conclude that the

fashions and manners of our own country are most rational and proper, because the eye and the understanding have long since been reconciled to them, and we ridicule or condemn those of other nations on account of their novelty; yet the foreigner will defend his national habits with at least as much plausibility as we can our own. The truth is, that reason has little to do in the matter. Customs are for the most part arbitrary, and one nation has as good a right to fix its peculiarities as another. It is of no purpose to talk of convenience as a standard: everything becomes convenient by practice and habit.

I have read somewhere of a nation (in Africa, I think) which is governed by twelve counsellors. When these counsellors are to meet on public business, twelve large earthen jars are set in two rows, and filled with water. The counsellors enter the apartment one after another, stark naked, and each leaps into a jar, where he sits up to the chin in water. When the jars are all filled with counsellors, they proceed to deliberate on the great concerns of the nation. This, to be sure, forms a very grotesque scene;

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but the object is to transact the public
business: they have been accustomed to
do it in this way, and therefore it ap-
pears to them the most rational and con-
venient way. Indeed, if we consider it
impartially, there seems to be no reason
why a counsellor may not be as wise in
an earthen jar as in an elbow chair; or
why the good of the people may not be
as maturely considered in the one as in 10
the other.

The established manners of every country are the standards of propriety with the people who have adopted them; and every nation assumes the right of 15 considering all deviations there from as barbarisms and absurdities.

The Chinese have retained their laws and customs for ages immemorial: and although they have long had a commer- 20 cial intercourse with European nations, and are well acquainted with their improvements in the arts, and their modes of civilization, yet they are so far from being convinced of any superiority in the 25 European manners, that their government takes the most serious measures to prevent the customs of foreigners taking root amongst them. It employs their utmost vigilance to enjoy the benefits of 30 commerce, and at the same time guard against innovations that might affect the characteristic manners of the people.

Since the discovery of the Sandwich islands in the South-Sea, they have been 35 visited by ships from several nations; yet the natives have shown no inclination to prefer the dress and manners of the visitors to their own. It is even probable that they pity the ignorance of the 40 Europeans they have seen, as far removed from civilization; and value themselves on the propriety and advantage of their own customs.

There is nothing new in these observa- 45 tions, and I had no intention of making them when I sat down to write, but they obtruded themselves upon me. My intention was to give you some account of the people of these new states; but I am 50 not sufficiently informed for the purpose, having, as yet, seen little more than the cities of New-York and Philadelphia. I have discovered but few national singularities amongst them. Their customs 55 and manners are nearly the same with those of England, which they have long

been used to copy. For, previous to the late revolution, the Americans were taught from their infancy to look up to the English as the patterns of perfection in all things.

I have, however, observed one custom, which, for aught I know, is peculiar to this country. An account of it will serve to fill up the remainder of this sheet, and may afford you some amusement.

When a young couple are about to enter on the matrimonial state, a neverfailing article in the marriage treaty is, that the lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested rights of WHITEWASHING, with all its ceremonials, privileges, and appurtenances. You will wonder what this privilege of white-washing is. I will endeavor to give you an idea of the ceremony, as I have seen it performed.

There is no season of the year in which the lady may not, if she pleases, claim her privilege; but the latter end of May is generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge, by certain prognostics, when the storm is nigh at hand. If the lady grows uncommonly fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the nastiness of everything about her; these are symptoms which ought not to be neglected, yet they sometimes go off without any further effect. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard, a wheel-barrow, with a quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets filled with a solution of lime in water, there is no time for hesitation. He immediately locks. the apartment or closet where his papers and private property are kept, and putting the key in his pocket, betakes himself to flight. A husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage. His authority is superseded, his commission suspended, and the very scullion who cleans the brasses in the kitchen becomes of more importance than him. He has nothing for it, but to abdicate, for a time, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify.

up

The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are stripped of their furniture-paintings, prints, and look

numerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great annoyance of passengers in the street.

I have been told that an action at 5 law was once brought against one of these water nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation: but after long argument it was determined that no damages could be awarded; inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences. So the poor gentleman was doubly nonsuited; for he lost both his suit of clothes and his suit at law.

ing-glasses lie huddled in heaps about
the floors; the curtains are torn from
their testers, the beds crammed into
windows, chairs and tables, bedsteads
and cradles crowd the yard; and the
garden fence bends beneath the weight
of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old
coats, under petticoats, and
and ragged
breeches. Here may be seen the lumber
of the kitchen, forming a dark and con- to
fused mass for the foreground of the pic-
ture; gridirons and frying-pans, rusty
shovels and broken tongs, joint stools,
and the fractured remains of rush-bot-
tomed chairs. There a closet has dis- 15
gorged its bowels-riveted plates and
dishes, halves of china bowls, cracked
tumblers, broken wine-glasses, phials of
forgotten physic, papers of unknown
powders, seeds and dried herbs, tops of 20
tea-pots, and stoppers of departed de-
canters-from the rag-hole in the garret,
to the rat-hole in the cellar, no place
escapes unrummaged. It would seem as
if the day of general doom was come, 25
and the utensils of the house were
dragged forth to judgment. In this
tempest, the words of King Lear un-
avoidably present themselves, and might
with little alteration be made strictly ap- 30
plicable.

Let the great gods

That keep this dreadful pother o'er our heads

Find out their enemies now. Tremble thou
wretch

That hast within thee undivulged crimes
Unwhipt of justice . .

Close pent up guilt,
Rive your concealing continents, and ask
These dreadful summoners grace.

These smearings and scratchings, these washings and dashings, being duly performed, the next ceremonial is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house-raising, or a ship launch-recollect, if you can, the hurry, bustle, confusion, and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleansing match. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean. It matters not how many useful, ornamental, or valuable articles suffer mutilation or death under the operation. A mahogany chair and a carved frame undergo the same discipline; they are to be made clean at all events; but their preservation is not worthy of attention. For instance: a fine large engraving is laid flat upon the 35 floor; a number of smaller prints are piled upon it, until the super-incumbent weight cracks the lower glass-but this is of no importance. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp 40 corner of a table; others are made to lean against that, till the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvas of the first. The frame and glass of a fine print are to

This ceremony completed, and the 45 be cleaned; the spirit and oil used on house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings with brushes, dipped into a solution of lime called WHITE-WASH; to pour buckets of water over every floor, and 50 scratch all the partitions and wainscots with hard brushes, charged with soft soap and stone-cutter's sand.

The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles 55 out upon the pent-house, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand, and a bucket within reach, dashes in

this occasion are suffered to leak through and deface the engraving-no matter! If the glass is clean and the frame shines it is sufficient-the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able arithmetician hath made a calculation, founded on long experience, and proved that the losses and destruction incident to two whitewashings are equal to one removal, and three removals equal to one fire.

This cleansing frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine appearance: the storm abates, and all would be well

again but it is impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community should pass over without producing some consequences. For two or three weeks after the operation, the family are usually afflicted with sore eyes, sore throats, or severe colds, occasioned by exhalations from wet floors and damp walls.

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I know a gentleman here who is fond of accounting for everything in a philo- 10 sophical way. He considers this, what I call a custom, as a real, periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is whimsical and ingenious, but I am not at leisure to give you the 15 detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be incurable; but after much study, he thought he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subdue. For this purpose, he 20 caused a small building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the cheapest sort. His hope was that when 25 the white-washing frenzy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub, and scour, and smear to their hearts' content; and so spend the violence of the disease in 30 this out-post, whilst he enjoyed himself in quiet at headquarters. But the experiment did not answer his expectation. It was impossible it should, since a principal part of the gratification con- 35 sists in the lady's having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband, at least once in every year; to turn him out of doors, and take the reins of government into her own hands.

There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher's: which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper. This is generally done. And

like the land of Goshen amidst the plagues of Egypt. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever upon his guard; for should he inadvertently go abroad, and leave the key in his door, the house-maid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms, and brushes-takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers to rights, to his utter confusion, and sometimes serious detriment. I can give you an instance.

A gentleman was sued at law, by the executors of a mechanic, on a charge found against him on the deceased's books to the amount of £30. The defendant was strongly impressed with a belief that he had discharged the debt and taken a receipt; but as the transaction was of long standing, he knew not where to find the receipt. The suit went on in course, and the time approached when judgment should be obtained against him. He then sat down seriously to examine a large bundle of old papers, which he had untied and displayed on a table for the purpose. In the midst of his search he was suddenly called away on business of importance. He forgot to lock the door of his room. The house-maid, who had been long looking for such an opportunity, immediately entered with the usual implements, and with great alacrity fell to cleaning the room and putting things to rights. One of the first objects that struck her eye was the confused situation of the papers on the table. These, 40 without delay, she huddled together like so many dirty knives and forks; but in the action, a small piece of paper fell unnoticed on the floor, which unfortunately happened to be the very receipt in

though it does not abolish, it at least 45 question. As it had no very respect

shortens the period of female dominion. This paper is decorated with various fancies, and made so ornamental that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design.

There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress. He generally has the sole use of a small room or closet for his books and papers, the key of

able appearance, it was soon after swept out with the common dirt of the room, and carried in a dust-pan to the yard. The tradesman had neglected to enter 50 the credit in his books. The defendant could find nothing to obviate the charge, and so judgment went against him for debt and costs. A fortnight after the whole was settled, and the money paid,

which he is allowed to keep. This is 55 one of the children found the receipt

considered as a privileged place, even in the white-washing season, and stands

amongst the dirt in the yard.

There is also another custom, peculiar