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had learned this 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 money I could procure. I was particularly pleased with accounts of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's collection in small separate volumes. These I afterwards sold in order to buy a historical collection by R. Burton, 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 of practical and polemical theology. I read the greatest part of thein. 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 em ployed the time devoted to them. I found besides, a work of De Foe's, entitled an Essay on Projects, from which, perhaps, I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life.

My inclination for books at last determined my father to make me a printer, though he had aiready a Son in that profession. My brother had returned som England in 1717, with a press and types, infor der 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 impatient to see me engaged with my brother. I held back for some time; at length, however, I suffered myself to be persuaded, and signed my indentures, being then only twelve years of age. It was agreed that I should serve as ar. apprentice to the age of twenty-one, and should receive journeyinan's wages only during the last year.

In a very short time I made great proficiency in this business, and became very serviceable to my

brother. I had now an opportunity of procuring bet ter 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 warted.

At length Mr. Matthew Adairs, 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 Light-house Tra gedy, contained an account of the shipwreck of Cap. tain Wortnilake and his two daughters; the other was a sailor's song on the capture of the noted pirate called Teach, or Black-beard. They were wretched verses in point of style, mere blindmen's ditties. When printed, he despatched me about town to sell them. The first had a prodigious run, because the event was recent, and had made a great Hoise.

My vanity was flattered by this success; but my father checked my exultation, by ridiculing my productions, and telling me that versiners were always poor. I thus escaped the misfortune of being a vey 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, Í thall relate by what means, situated as I was, ! acquired the small skill I may possess in that way.

There was in the town another young man, a gr at lover of books, o the nan.e of John Collins, w.th whom I was intimately connected. We frequently engaged in dispute, and were indeed 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 becoining a very bad habit, and frequently renders a man's company in

supportable, as being no otherwise capable of indu gence than by an indiscriminate contradiction. In deper dently of the acrimony and discord it introduces into conversation, and is often productive of dislike, and even hatred, between persons to whom friend. ship is indispensably 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 fail 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, whether it was proper to instruct them in the sciences, and whether 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 dis puting. 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 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 ord volume of the Spoc tator fell into my hands. This was a publication I had never seen. I bought the volu.ne, and read it aga:r 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 perod, 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, employ. ing 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 rhyine, 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 1 mingled all my summaries together; and, a few weeks after, endeavoured to arrange them in the best order, before I attempted to form the periods and complete the essays. This I did with a view of acquiring method in the arrangement of my thoughts. On comparing, afterwards, my perform ance with the original, many faults were apparent, which I corrected; but I had sometimes the satisfac tion to think, that, in certain particulars of little importance, I had been fortunate enough to improve the order of thought or the style; and this encouraged me to hope that I should succeed, in time, in writing decently in the English language, which was one of the great objects of my ambition.

The time which I devoted to these exe.cises, and to reading, was the evening after my day's labour was finished, the morning before it began, and Sundays when I could escape attending Divine service. While I lived with my father, he had insisted on my punctual attendance on public worship, and I still indeed considered it as a duty, but a duty which I thought I had no time to practise.

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When about sixteen years of age, a work of Tryon fell into my hands, in which he recommends vegetaple diet. I determined to cbserve it. My brother be ing a bachelor, did not keep house, but boarded with his apprentices in a neighbouring family. My refusing to eat animal food was found inconvenient, and i was often scolded for my singularity. I attended to the mode in which Tryon prepared some of his dishes particularly how to boil potatoes and rice, and make hasty puddings. I then said to my brother, that if he would allow me per week half what he paid fo my board, I would undertake to maintain myself. The offer was instantly embraced, and I soon found that of what he gave me I was able to save half. This was a new fund for the purchase of books; and other advantages resulted to nie from the plan. When my brother and his workmen left the printing. house to go to dinner, I remained behind, and des patching my frugal meal, which frequently consisted of a biscuit only, or a slice of bread and a bunch of raisins, or a bun from the pastry-cook's, with a glass of water, I had the rest of the tire, till their retum, for study; and my progress therein was proportioned to that clearness of ideas, and quickness of concep tion, which are the fruit of temperance in eating and drinking.

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It was about this period that, having one day been put to the blush for my ignorance in the art of calcu lation, which I had twice failed to learn while at school, I took Cocker's Treatise of Arithmetic, and went through it myself with the utmost ease. read a book of Navigation by Seller and Sturmy, and made myself master of the little geometry it contains but I never proceeded far in this science. Nearly a the same time, I read Locke on the Human Under standing, and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs. De Port Royal.

While labouring to form and improve my style, I fnet with an English Gramn.ar, which I believe was Greenwood's, having at the end of it two little essays on rhetoric and logic. In the lattter I found a model of disputation after the manner of Socrates. Shortly after I procured Xenophon's work, entitled, Memora

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