PART II.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRM OF FRANKLIN AND MEREDITH.

THE young printers began very prudently. They hired a house in the lower part of Market Street at twenty-four pounds a year, and re-let the greater part of it to Thomas Godfrey, glazier and mathematician, that member of the Junto whose craving for mathematical exactness rendered his company disagreeable. When they had opened their types, set up their press, and bought the other appurtenances of a printing-office, their stock of cash was exhausted. Thus, they began business without money, and in debt for nearly all their implements and materials.

In the nick of time, when, indeed, they were scarcely ready for customers, George House, an acquaintance of Franklin, brought to the office a countryman whom he had found in the street looking for a printer. They executed for him a five-shilling job. "This man's five shillings," says Franklin, "being our first fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and, from the gratitude I felt towards House, has made me often more ready than perhaps I otherwise should have been to assist young beginners." This encouragement they needed the more, because there were not wanting dismal prophets to remind them that Philadelphia had not a great deal of printing to do, and that there were already two established printers to do it. The Junto was of essential use to the young firm. Every member of it exerted himself to procure work for them, and Joseph Breintnal had interest enough to get them the printing of forty sheets of a voluminous work, in which the Quakers were then deeply interested. It was a London translation of a Dutch "History of the Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People called

Quakers;" one of those huge folios under which the shelves (and librarians) of ancient libraries groan.* The price given for this work was so low, that Franklin felt it necessary to compose one sheet every day, which Meredith worked off upon the press. Even when interrupted by other work, he would finish his sheet before going to bed, though to do this he was obliged often to work till eleven at night. One night, when he had finished his prescribed task, onehalf of it was accidentally thrown into pi. He set to work again immediately, distributed the disordered type, and composed the pages anew before he left the office. Besides the ordinary work of a printer, he occasionally cast types, cut ornaments for title-pages, made his own ink, and lamp-black for the ink.

The industry and energy of Franklin could not long escape attention. He heard afterwards, that mention was made of the new printing-office at the Merchants' Every Night Club, when the opinion prevailed that the attempt to establish a third printing-house in Philadelphia could not but result in failure. One gentleman present who lived near the office expressed a contrary opinion, saying, "The industry of that Franklin is superior to any thing I ever saw of the kind. I see him still at work when I go home from the club, and he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." This remark made such an impression upon one of the merchants who heard it, that he offered to supply the young men with stationery on credit; but they were not yet prepared for business of that kind. Meanwhile they contrived to live by their printing, and to slowly extend their small and precarious business.

To establish a newspaper was a darling project with Franklin from the first; and before he had been in business a year, he had nearly completed his plan for beginning one. Franklin had a rare faculty for keeping a secret, but on this occasion it failed him. George Webb, the young runaway from Oxford, came into the office of Franklin and Meredith one day, and asked for employment as a journeyman, as he had bought the remainder of his time from Keimer. Franklin replied that they could not employ him then, but expected to have work for him soon. In strict confidence, he imparted to Webb the secret of the projected paper; telling him that, as there was then but one newspaper in Philadelphia, and that one was very profit

* "The History of the Rise, Increase, & Progress of the Christian People called Quakers. Intermixt with several Remarkable Occurrences," by William Sewel.

able though wretchedly dull, a paper well conducted could scarcely fail to be liberally encouraged. Webb immediately revealed the project to Keimer, who clutched at the idea,* issued proposals for a paper of his own, and engaged the treacherous Webb to assist in printing it. December 24th, 1728, appeared the first number of Keimer's preposterous journal, entitled "The Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences, and Pennsylvania Gazette." Price, ten shillings a year; advertisements three shillings each.

Mr. Keimer's opening address was absurd enough to be amusing. Thus spake Keimer: "As he that intends to erect a noble and magnificent Structure, is obliged to make Use of the meanest and most contemptible Materials, in Order to begin, carry on, and perfect his Undertaking; so no Person whatever can make any true Judgement what Sort of Building it will be by only beholding the preparing of the Mortar, the digging of the Stones, the squaring the Marble, or the mixing of the Colours. The same may justly be observ'd of our UNIVERSAL INSTRUCTOR; for as Great Things are compounded of Small, we think it necessary, in Order to furnish our Paper with proper Materials deserving that Character, to introduce it with an Exposition on the Letter A, the first in the Alphabet; and as Letters were before Words, and Words only serve as so many Messengers to declare the Nature and Property of Things, it cannot be thought impertinent to begin at the lowest End first, and advance by Degrees to the highest Pitch of Knowledge we aim to arrive at."

The exposition of the letter A followed, and was succeeded by a great number of short, learned paragraphs, the headings of which all began with the same letter. The explanation of this curious proceeding was, that Mr. Keimer possessed a copy of Ephraim Chambers's Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, a work that had just appeared in London, from which he extracted the articles in the order in which they occurred. This simple and easy way of filling his columns he continued as long as he conducted the paper. The first number contained two columns of Dictionary,

Keimer had recently tried a lottery, to save himself from ruin; as we learn from the Minutes of the Philadelphia City Council, May 16th, 1728:

"The Board having heard that a Lottery was intended to be erected by Samuel Keimer in this city during this present Fair, he having set forth several printed papers for that purpose, the Board sent for the sd. Keimer, who came, and having heard what he had to say in behalf of sd. Lottery Ordered, that no Lottery be kept during the sd. Fair."

two columns of News paragraphs, an Address of the Legislature of New Jersey to their Governor, and his Reply, and three advertisements, of which two were Keimer's own. One paragraph informed the public that Samuel Keimer had presented a petition to the legislature of New Jersey, "representing the charge he had been at in making their money, and to prevent its being easily counter. feited." So, it appears, the province of New Jersey did not pay very promptly: for the work had been done nine months before.

To do Keimer justice, his paper was better than Bradford's Mercury. There was, at least, something to read in it besides items of European news six months old. The paper was a compound of three ingredients, namely, Keimer's own bungling stupidity, George Webb's recollection of Franklin's ideas as to what a paper ought to be, and tales of English life verging upon the obscene, which Webb may himself have furnished, or selected. When the stock of matter began to run low, Keimer gave in each number a long extract from Daniel Defoe's Religious Courtship.

Franklin witnessed these proceedings of the blabbing Webb and the foolish Keimer with indignation and contempt. When the Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences had been in existence a month, he hit upon an expedient to draw away the attention of the public from its weekly issues. He began, in Bradford's Mercury, a series of extremely entertaining essays, in the manner of the Spectator, and fully equal in quality to all but the best of Addison's own. He signed his first paper "Busy-Body," and afterwards adopted that name as the heading of his department of the paper under which he gave a great variety of amusing matter, composed by himself and his friends of the Junto, particularly by that worthy gentleman, Joseph Breintnal. The first number of the Busy-Body was perfectly adapted to its purpose, since, besides being itself witty and satirical, it gave vague and tempting promises of sharp things to come. "It is probable," said the BusyBody, "that I may displease a great number of your readers, who will not very well like to pay ten shillings a year for being told of their faults. But, as most people delight in censure when they themselves are not the object of it, if any are offended at my publicly exposing their private vices, I promise they shall have the satisfaction, in a very little time, of seeing their good friends and neighbors in the same circumstances." He also announced, that