314 
of Hume, which, in Fransham’s copy, 
have been accompanied with verbal and. 
marginal emendation; tha precision is 
instructive, which these minute criticisms 
display, Middleton and Shaftesbury 
were retained in his select, though nar- 
sow library, but ‘* Hume was the only 
author among the mederns on the sub- 
ject of metaphysics, whom he profess- 
ed to read with perpetual satisfaction. 
Among the ancients, Plato and Cicero 
were his favourites, and the arguments 
of Cotta in “ De Natura Decorum,” al- 
ways afforded him an intellectual feast.” 
_ Some patronage was shown to Fran- 
sham by the Chute family, with whon 
his sister lived as housekeeper. They 
allowed him to sleep in their Norwigh- 
house, and to use their library. One 
night in bed he imagined that his patron, 
who was ill at Pickenham, would not live 
to return to Norwich, and related his 
ideal terror to the servants. . Young Mr, 
Chute that night died ; and Fransham 
lways described this act of divination, as 
if he were no less favoured than the seers 
of antiquity. 
_ After the loss of this patron, Fran- 
sham hired a garret, in St. Clement's 
parish, kept a school there, and’ was at. 
tended by fifteen or twenty scholars. At 
this time his confinement was close, and 
his income barely sufficient for wants 
narrowed to monastic privation. His 
health suffered; he took rapid solitary 
walks, in his plaid, during the evening 
and morning twilight, with a broad hat 
slouched over his eyes, and his hands be- 
hind him, and was. supposed often to 
sleep on Mosswold heath, which was his 
usual stroll, His choice luricheon was a 
plum-cake. To drum, and to blow the 
kn sabe in wet weather, his relaxatis 
ons; military tunes, his favourite rhyihms, 
AA head-ache, for which he coveted 
strong tea as a remedy, induced him, ina 
‘want of fuel, to burn this havthoy, which 
he never replaced. To his drum he sub- 
stituted a cane-chair, which supplied the 
exercise without the noise to the neigh- 
bourhood, and equally excited, by as- 
sociation, a martial ardor, or military 
yeminiscences, in his fancy. Sometimes 
he would play at marbles aloné in his 
apartment: then, no doubt, mathema- 
tical truths would cluster in his recollec- 
tion, and a delight analagaus to that of 
solving problems, would arise, from ob- 
serving in his trickling spheres the equa, 
Jity between the angle of incidence, and 
ie angle of reflection, 
Ti 1769 he gave to the press: his 
‘ ‘ 
Memoirs of the late John Franshamy 
[May 15 
*€ Oestram of Orpheus,” the arhasti of 
his dissertations containing any trace of 
the * Platonic opinions which he finally 
professed. Born, like Ammoyius Saccas, 
of Christian parents, having also rejected 
the religion of his fathers; and confining 
his studies almost exclusively to. the an- 
cient writers, Fransham’s mind, like that 
of Ammonius, . insensibly filled up the 
blank, occasioned by the effacement of 
hereditary notions, with.ideas derived 
from Greek mythology. Like the Plato. 
nists .of Alexandsta, he-endeavoured ta 
give an allegoric turn to the fables of 
paganism, which might enable him with, 
out inveracity to speak of them as truths; 
Such euphemisms abounded in his cons 
versation.. Having been advised to 
take chicken-broth for a head-ache; he 
called it sacrificing a cock to /Esculas 
plus. He lost for a time, through in- 
flanmation, the sight of one eye, which 
recovered on a change of the weather 
from warm to cold, This ingident, he 
described as a miracle, said that he had 
prayed for relief to Juno, (the power 
presiding over the atmosphere), and that 
she had given 1t.7 ; 
: 
* See paragraph xxxvir, where ah apology 
is made for cailing Orpheus & man, and hot 4 
god. 
+ Thomas Chubb, in his ¢* Author's 
Farewell,” p. 168; observes: ‘If one infinite 
intelligence be sufficient to answer all the 
Pufposes, that are answered throvgh the 
universe; there can be no: reason for adniit4 
ting an infinity of such intelligences ;.seeing 
there is nothing in nature Which countenances 
such a supposition,” 
To which sentence Fransham hag attached 
this marginal note: ¢ Yes: the infinitély 
various parts of nature 3 worlds within world 
of infinite minuteness, worlds beyond worlds 
of infinite extent, systems indefinitely muls 
titudinous both microscopic and telescopic; 
each seeming to require a distinct ,attentive 
regulating artist.” 
Apparently Fransham had adopted the 
opinion of Spinoza, that the first cause ig 
indeed uncreated and. indestructible, but not 
intelligent; and is no other than the entire, 
eternal, finite, mass of matter, of which 
the universe is composed: but he had not 
adopted the opinion of Philo and of the 
Unitarian philosopheys, that the great whole 
is shapened and aniniated by a single co-~ 
eternal soul, On the. contrary; Fransham 
appears to have held, that there were inius 
merable intelligent-powers, or powerful in- 
telligences,; which conspired to shape and 
animate the parts of natare, and that these 
all-pervading, plastic, and Cesiguing. minds, 
wight 
ee. 
