FRANKLIN. The F., or, according to the old spelling, the frankelein, was the Eng lish freeholder of former times, who held his lands of the crown, free (frank) from any feudal servitude to a subject-superior. Chaucer's Franklin's Tale, and still more his. description of the F. in the prologue to his. immortal Pilgrimage, have rendered him a classical character. In the whole circle of our literature there is probably no more per feet picture of the person, habits, and surroundings of a jovial old country gentleman. His beard was white as a daisy, his complexion sanguine, he loved a " sop in wine,"' and woe to his cook if his sauce were not poignant and sharp; in a word. "he was. Epicurus' owen son." But the F.'s luxuries were not intended for his own enjoy ment alone, for " a householder, and that a great, was he." His table stood hall alway," "ready covered all the longe•day;" and Nor was it only in dispensing good cheer that the F. fulfilled the functions of the gentleman of his day. At sessions, he was "lord and sire," and full often time he had. been " knight of the shire." He had been sheriff too, and a contour and vavasour; though. what these latter offices were, is a subject of controversy amongst the commentators.. "The dress of the F., according to the duke of Sutherland's MS.," says Mr. Saunders, in his excellent little book called Cabinet Pictures of English Life (p. 204), was a surcoat of red lined with blue, with bars or stripes of fringe or lace over it. He wore a small
blue hat turned up, and black boots," Chaucer adds to his attire a knife or dagger called an " anelace," and a " gipciere" or silk purse, " white as morrow [morning] milk," at his girdle. Mr. Saunders mentions (ut sup.) that in the Metrical Chronicle of Robert de Brune, the F. of an earlier period (13th c.) is ranked immediately after earls, barons, and lords, and was evidently a person of great consideration. Such,. as we have seen, was very much his position in Chaucer's time, but he seems to have fallen in dignity, and we find him in much lower company in Shakespeare's day. In The Winter's Tale the clown is made to say (act v. scene 2): Not swear it, now I am a gentleman • Let boors and franklins say it, I'll swear it.
From other passages it would seem that his position had come to correspond to that of the well-to-do yeoman. In 1 Henry act ii. scene 1, we hear of a F. "in the would of Kent bath brought three hundred marks with him in gold:" and " Cyrnbeline" says (act iii. scene 2), me presently a riding suit, no costlier than is fit a franklin's housewife." There seems no reason to think, however, that Dr. Johnson's remark that F. is "not improperly Englished a gentleman servant," is warranted by his position at any period, and it certainly is not by the passage which he quotes from the Fairy Queen: A spacious court they see, etc., Where them does meet a franklin fair and free.