BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 13 



it very safe for himself, and very embarassing for those 

 against whom he used it; but he afterwards abandoned it, 

 apparently from a feeling that it gave advantages rather to 

 cunning than to truth, and was better adapted to gain vic- 

 tories in conversation, than either to convince or to inform. 



A few years before this, his brother had begun to publish 

 a newspaper, the second that had appeared in America. 

 This brought most of the literary people of Boston occa- 

 sionally to the printing-office; and young Franklin often 

 heard them conversing about the articles that appeared in 

 the newspaper, and the approbation which particular ones 

 received. At last, inflamed with the ambition of sharing in 

 this sort of fame, he resolved to try how a communication of 

 his own would succeed. Having written his paper, therefore, 

 in a disguised hand, he put it at night under the door of 

 the printing-office, where it was found in the morning, and 

 submitted to the consideration of the critics, when they met 

 as usual. 'They read it,' says he; 'commented on it in my 

 hearing ; and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met 

 with their approbation ; and that in their different guesses 

 at the author, none were named but men of some character 

 among us for learning and ingenuity.' ' I suppose,' he 

 adds, 'that I was rather lucky in my judges, and that they 

 were not really so very good as I then believed them to 

 be.' Encouraged, however, by the success of this attempt, 

 he sent several other pieces to the press in the same way, 

 keeping his secret, till, as he expresses it, all his fund of 

 sense for such performances was exhausted. He then dis- 

 covered himself, and immediately found that he began to 

 be looked upon as a person of some consequence by his 

 brother's literary acquaintances. 



