ficient knowledge to be able to make little things for myself, when I have had no mechanic at hand, and to construct small machines for my experiments, while the idea I have conceived has been fresh and strongly impressed on my imagination.

My father at length decided that I should be a cutler, and I was placed for some days upon trial with my cousin Samuel, son of my uncle Benjamin, who had learned his trade in London, and had established himself at Boston. But the premium he required for my apprenticeship displeasing my father, I was recalled home.

From my earliest years I had been passionately fond of reading, and I laid out in books all the little money I could procure. I was particularly pleased with accounts of voyages. My frst acquisition was Bunyan's collection in small eperate volumes. These I afterwards sold in order to buy an historical collection by R. Buron, which consisted of small cheap volumes, amounting in all to about forty or fifty. My father's little library was principally made up of books practical and polemical theology. I read the greatest part of them. I have since often regretted, that at a time when I had so great a thirst for knowledge, more eligible books had not fallen into my hands, as it was then a point decided, that I should not be educated for the church. There was also among my father's books, Plutarch's Lives, in which I read continually, and I still regard as advantageously employed the time I devoted to them. I found be

sides a work of de Foe's entitled, An Essay on Projects, from which, perhaps, I derived impres

sions that have since influenced some of the prin cipal events of my life.

My inclination for books at last determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already a son in that profession. My brother had returned from England' in 1717' with a press and types, in order to establish a printing house at Boston. This business pleased me much better than that of my father, though I had still a predilection for the sea. To prevent the effects which might result from this inclination, my father was anxious to see me engaged with my brother. I held back for some time; at length, however' I sufferd myself to be persuaded, and signed my indentures, being then only twelve years of age. It was agreed that I should serve as an apprentice to the age of twenty-one, and should receive journeyman's wages only during the last year.

In a very short time I made great proficiency in this buisness, and became very serviceable to my brother. I had now an opportunity of procuring better books. The acquaintance I necessarily formed with booksellers' apprentices, enabled me to borrow a volume now and then, which I never failed to return punctually and without injury. How often has it happened to me to pass the greater part of the night in reading, by my bed side, when the book had been lent me in the evening, and was to be returned the next morning, lest it might be missed or wanted.

At length Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious tradesman, who had a handsome collection of books, and who frequented our printing house,

took notice of me. He invited me to see his library, and had the goodness to lend me any books I was desirous of reading. I then took a strange fancy for poetry and composed several little pieces. My brother thinking he might find his account in it, encouraged me, and engaged me to write two ballads. One, called the Lighthouse Tragedy, contained an account of the shipwreck of Capt. Worthilake, and his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song on the capture of the noted pirate called Teach, or Blackbeard. They were wretched verses, in point of style-mere blind men's ditties. When printed, he despatched me about the town to sell them. The first had a prodigious run, because the event was recent and had made a great noise.

My vanity was flattered by this success; but my father checked my exultation, by ridiculing my productions, and telling me that versifiers were always poor. I thus escaped the misfortune of being, probably, a very wretched poet. But as the faculty of writing prose has been of great service to me, in the course of my life, and principally contributed to my advancement, I shall relate by what means, situated as I was, I acquired the small skill I may possess in that

way.

We

'There was in the town another young man, a great lover of books, of the name of John Collins, with whom I was intimately connected. frequently engaged in dispute, and indeed were so fond of argumentation, that nothing was so agreeable to us as a war of words. This contentious temper, I would observe, by the by, is in danger of becoming a very bad habit, and frequently renders a man's company insupportable,

as being no otherwise capable of indulgence than by indiscriminate contradiction. Independently of the acrimony and discord it introduces into conversation, it is often productive of dislike, and even hatred, between persons to whom friendship is indispensibly necessary. I acquired it by reading, while I lived with my father, books of religious controversy. I have since remarked that men of sense seldom fall into this error; lawyers, fellows of universities, and persons of every profession, educated at Edinburgh, excepted.

Collins and I fell one day into an argument relative to the education of women; namely, wether it was proper to instruct them' in the sciences, and wether they were competent to the study. Collins supported the negative, and affirmed that the task was beyond their capacity. I maintained the opposite opinion, a little, perhaps, for the pleasure of disputing. He was naturally more eloquent than I; words flowed copiously from his lips; and frequently I thought myself vanquished, more by his volubility than by the force of his arguments. We separated without coming to an agreement upon this point; and as we were not to see each other again for some time, I committed my thoughts to paper, made a fair copy and sent it to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters had been written by each, when my father chanced to light upon my papers, and read them. Without entering into the merits of the cause, he embraced the opportunity of speaking to me upon my manner of writing. He observed, that though I had the advantage of my adversary in correct spelling and pointing, which I owed to my occupation, I

was greatly his inferior in elegance of expression, in arrangement and perspicuity. Of this he convinced me by several examples. I felt the justice of his remarks, became more attentive to language, and resolved to make every effort to improve my style. Amidst these resolves, an odd volume of the Spectator fell into my hands. This was a publication I had never seen. I bought the volume, and read it again and again I was enchanted with it-thought the style excellent, and wished it were in my power to imitate it. With this view I selected some of the papers, made short summaries of the sense of each period, and put them for a few days aside. I then, without looking at the book, endeavoured to restore the essays to their due form, and to express each thought at length, as it was in the original, employing the most appropriate words that occurred to my mind. I afterwards compared my Spectator with the original; I perceived some faults, which I corrected; but I found that I wanted a fund of words, if I may so express myself, and a facility of recollecting and employing them, which I thought I should by that time have acquired, had I continued to make verses. The continual need of words of the same meaning, but of different lengths for the measure, or of different sounds for the rhyme, would have obliged me to seek for a variety of synonymes, and have rendered me master of them. From this belief, I took some of the tales of the Spectator, and turned them into verse; and after a time, when I had sufficiently forgotten them, I again converted them into prose.

· Sometimes, also, I mingled all my summaries together; and a few weeks after, endeavoured to arrange them in the best order, before I at