Silence Dogood’s Recipe for Poetry

When he was in London, Franklin’s brother James saw how Grub Street balladeers would churn out odes and hawk them in the coffee-houses. So he had put Benjamin to work not only pushing type but also producing poetry. Young Benjamin wrote two works based on news stories, both dealing with the sea: one about a family killed in a boating accident, and the other about the killing of the pirate known as Blackbeard. They were, as Franklin recalled, “wretched stuff,” but they sold well, which “flattered my vanity.”

Herman Melville would one day write that Franklin was “everything but a poet.” His father Josiah, no romantic, in fact preferred it that way, and he put an end to Benjamin’s versifying. “My father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars; so I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one.” A year or so later, Silence Dogood lampooned the formula for poetry and eulogies in Boston.

SILENCE DOGOOD # 7, THE NEW-ENGLAND COURANT, JUNE 25, 1722

Give me the Muse, whose generous Force, Impatient of the Reins,

Pursues an unattempted Course, Breaks all the Critic’s Iron Chains

—Watts

Sir,

It has been the complaint of many ingenious foreigners, who have traveled amongst us, that good poetry is not to be expected in New England. I am apt to fancy, the reason is, not because our countrymen are altogether void of a poetical genius, nor yet because we have not those advantages of education which other countries have, but purely because we do not afford that praise and encouragement which is merited, when any thing extraordinary of this kind is produced among us: upon which consideration I have determined, when I meet with a good piece of New England poetry, to give it a suitable encomium, and thereby endeavor to discover to the world some of its beauties, in order to encourage the author to go on, and bless the world with more, and more excellent productions.

There has lately appeared among us a most excellent piece of poetry, entitled, an elegy upon the much lamented death of Mrs. Mehitebell Kitel, wife of Mr. John Kitel of Salem, &c. It may justly be said in its praise, without flattery to the author, that it is the most extraordinary piece that ever was wrote in New England. The language is so soft and easy, the expression so moving and pathetic, but above all, the verse and numbers so charming and natural, that it is almost beyond comparison,

The muse disdains those links and chains,

Measures and rules of vulgar strains,

And over the laws of harmony a sovereign queen she reigns.

I find no English author, ancient or modern, whose elegies may be compared with this, in respect to the elegance of stile, or smoothness of rhyme; and for the affecting part, I will leave your readers to judge, if ever they read any lines, that would sooner make them draw their breath and sigh, if not shed tears, than these following.

Come let us mourn, for we have lost a wife, a daughter, and a sister,

who has lately taken flight, and greatly we have mist her.

In another place,

Some little time before she yielded up her breath, she said, I never shall hear one sermon more on earth. She kissed her husband some little time before she expired, then leaned her head the pillow on, just out of breath and tired.

But the threefold appellation in the first line

A wife, a daughter, and a sister,

must not pass unobserved. That line in the celebrated Watts,

Gunston the just, the generous, and the young,

is nothing comparable to it. The latter only mentions three qualifications of one person who was deceased, which therefore could raise grief and compassion but for one. Whereas the former, (our most excellent poet) gives his reader a sort of an idea of the death of three persons, viz.

A wife, a daughter, and a sister,

which is three times as great a loss as the death of one, and consequently must raise three times as much grief and compassion in the reader.

I should be very much straitened for room, if I should attempt to discover even half the excellencies of this elegy which are obvious to me. Yet I cannot omit one observation, which is, that the author has (to his honor) invented a new species of poetry, which wants a name, and was never before known. His muse scorns to be confined to the old measures and limits, or to observe the dull rules of critics;

Nor Rapin gives her rules to fly, nor Purcell notes to sing.

—Watts

Now ’tis pity that such an excellent piece should not be dignified with a particular name; and seeing it cannot justly be called, either epic, Sapphic, lyric, or Pindaric, nor any other name yet invented, I presume it may, (in honor and remembrance of the dead) be called the kitelic. Thus much in the praise of kitelic poetry.

It is certain, that those elegies which are of our own growth, (and our soil seldom produces any other sort of poetry) are by far the greatest part, wretchedly dull and ridiculous. Now since it is imagined by many, that our poets are honest, well-meaning fellows, who do their best, and that if they had but some instructions how to govern fancy with judgment, they would make indifferent good elegies; I shall here subjoin a receipt for that purpose, which was left me as a legacy, (among other valuable rarities) by my reverend husband. It is as follows,

A recipe to make a New England funeral elegy.

For the title of your elegy. Of these you may have enough ready made to your hands; but if you should choose to make it your self, you must be sure not to omit the words aetatis suae, which will beautify it exceedingly.

For the subject of your elegy. Take one of your neighbors who has lately departed this life; it is no great matter at what age the party died, but it will be best if he went away suddenly, being killed, drowned, or froze to death.

Having chose the person, take all his virtues, excellencies, &c. And if he have not enough, you may borrow some to make up a sufficient quantity: to these add his last words, dying expressions, &c. If they are to be had; mix all these together, and be sure you strain them well. Then season all with a handful or two of melancholy expressions, such as, dreadful, deadly, cruel cold death, unhappy fate, weeping eyes, &c. Have mixed all these ingredients well, put them into the empty scull of some young Harvard; (but in case you have neer a one at hand, you may use your own,) there let them ferment for the space of a fortnight, and by that time they will be incorporated into a body, which take out, and having prepared a sufficient quantity of double rhymes, such as, power, flower; quiver, shiver; grieve us, leave us; tell you, excel you; expeditions, physicians; fatigue him, intrigue him; &c. You must spread all upon paper, and if you can procure a scrap of Latin to put at the end, it will garnish it mightily; then having affixed your name at the bottom, with a moestus composuit, you will have an excellent elegy.

N.B. This recipe will serve when a female is the subject of your elegy, provided you borrow a greater quantity of virtues, excellencies, &c. sir,

Your servant, Silence Dogood