Few pens of the day effected more than Hopkinson’s in educating the American people for political independence. The brevity, wit, and vivacity of his pieces gave them portability, currency, and popular favour. Of this class—the most important—of his writings we may specify “The Pretty Story,” 1774; “The Prophecy,” 1776; “The Political Catechism,” 1777. But the collector of American History (a large class these collectors have now become!) must secure for his shelves, if he can, (which is more than doubtful), “The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson,” Philadelphia, pub. by Dobson, 1792, 3 vol. 8vo.
Personal
At this shop I met Mr. Francis Hopkinson, late a mandamus councillor of New Jersey, now a member of the Continental Congress, who, it seems, is a native of Philadelphia,… was liberally educated, and is a painter and a poet. I have a curiosity to penetrate a little deeper into the bosom of this curious gentleman, and may possibly give you some more particulars concerning him. He is one of your pretty, little, curious, ingenious men. His head is not bigger than a large apple, less than our friend Pemberton, or Doctor Simon Tufts. I have not met with anything in natural history more amusing and entertaining than his personal appearance,—yet he is genteel and well bred, and is very social.
Sir:—I have the pleasure to inclose to you a commission as judge of the United States for the District of Pennsylvania, to which office I have nominated, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, have appointed you. In my nomination of Persons to fill offices in the Judicial Department, I have been guided by the importance of the object—considering it as of the first magnitude, and as the Pillar upon which our political fabric must rest. I have endeavoured to bring into the high offices of its administration such characters as will give stability and dignity to our National Government,—and I persuade myself they will discover a due desire to promote the happiness of our Country by a ready acceptance of their several appointments. The laws which have passed, relative to your office, accompany the commission. I am, Sir, with very great esteem, Your most obedient Servant.
He was the author of several fugitive pieces, which were very popular in their day. His well known ballad, called “The Battle of the Kegs,” gives evidence of a rich and exhaustless fund of humor, and will probably last the wear of centuries. He excelled in music, and had some knowledge of painting. His library was extensive, and his stock of knowledge constantly accumulating. In stature, Mr. Hopkinson was below the common size. His countenance was animated, his speech fluent; and motions were unusually rapid. Few men were kinder in their dispositions, or more benevolent in their lives.
Even in these days, Francis Hopkinson would have been regarded as a man of quite unusual cultivation, having in reality many solid as well as shining accomplishments. He was a distinguished practitioner of the law; he became an eminent judge; he was a statesman trained by much study and experience; he was a mathematician, a chemist, a physicist, a mechanician, an inventor, a musician and a composer of music, a man of literary knowledge and practice, a writer of airy and dainty songs, a clever artist with pencil and brush, and a humorist of unmistakable power. For us Americans, the name of Francis Hopkinson lives—if indeed it does live—chiefly on account of its presence in the august roll-call of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; and through all the strenuous years which preceded and followed that great avowal, this man served the cause therein set forth, not only as a patriot of austere principle, as a statesman of genuine sagacity, as a citizen of high civic courage, but as a wit and a satirist,—the edge of his sarcasm cutting into the enemy as keenly as any sword, and the ruddy glow of his mirth kindling good cheer over all the land on many a grim day when good cheer was a hard thing to be had on his side of the fight.
General
A poet, a wit, a patriot, a chemist, a mathematician, and a judge of the admiralty; his character was composed of a happy union of qualities and endowments commonly supposed to be discordant; and, with the humour of Swift and Rabelais, he was always found on the side of virtue and social order.
Great as Judge Hopkinson’s reputation was as an advocate while at the bar, and distinguished as he was for learning, judgment, and integrity when upon the bench, he was, perhaps, more celebrated as a man of letters, of general knowledge, of fine taste, but, above all, for his then unrivaled powers of wit and satire. Dr. Rush, after speaking of his varied attainments, says:—“But his forte was humour and satire, in both of which he was not surpassed by Lucian, Swift, or Rabelais. These extraordinary powers were consecrated to the advancement of the interests of patriotism, virtue, and science.” This praise may be too strong; and yet we hardly know where to find papers of more exquisite humour than among the writings of Francis Hopkinson. His paper on the “Ambiguity of the English Language,” to show the ridiculous mistakes that often occur from words of similar sounds, used the one for the other: on “White-Washing” on “A Typographical Method of Conducting a Quarrel,” which made friends of two fierce newspaper combatants; “The New Roof,” an allegory in favor of the Federal Constitution; the “Specimen of a Collegiate Examination,” to turn certain branches, and the modes of studying them, into ridicule; and “The Battle of the Kegs,” are all pieces which, while they are fully equal to any of Swift’s writings for wit, have nothing at all in them of Swift’s vulgarity.
His pen was not distinguished for depth, but there was a genuine humor in his productions, which made him widely popular. A majority of his poetical effusions were of an ephemeral nature, and were forgotten, in a degree, with the occasion which called them forth; yet a few have been preserved, among which may be mentioned “The Battle of the Kegs,” a ballad, or sort of epic, of inimitable humor.
All through the war Hopkinson’s fertile brain was busy devising arguments in prose and verse to strengthen and cheer the hearts of his countrymen, and by the able discharge of his duties in the administration of naval affairs and as treasurer of loans he rendered special service to the good cause.
Francis Hopkinson was another of the writers who served the popular cause by seizing every occasion to make the British pretensions to rule ridiculous as well as hateful. His “Battle of the Kegs” probably laughed a thousand men into the Republican ranks.
Hopkinson has some title to rank as one of the earliest American humorists. Without the keen wit of “McFingal” some of his “Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings” published in 1792, have more geniality and heartiness than Trumbull’s satire. His “Letter on White-washing” is a bit of domestic humor that foretokens the Danbury News man, and his “Modern Learning,” 1784, a burlesque on college examinations, in which a salt-box is described from the point of view of metaphysics, logic, natural philosophy, mathematics, anatomy, surgery and chemistry, long kept its place in school readers and other collections.
The ballad was immensely popular; perhaps more so than any ballad of Revolutionary times; and I can well remember how (after the first quarter of this century had passed) patriotic schoolboys used to love to reel off, in brilliant recitation, that story of the trick of the Yankees upon the obtuse Britishers. But Hopkinson wrote much better things; he was master of a quiet satire and of a dry humor.
