ceive myself to be grown old. I us'd
to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private company
as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.

To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for two
years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who
was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up
for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was
destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my
dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions
that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away
and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He
therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners,
bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he might
observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other
on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen
handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so
much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a
workman could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for
my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh
and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade,
and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in
London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be
with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me
displeasing my father, I was taken home again.

II

BEGINNING LIFE AS A PRINTER

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came
into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the _Pilgrim's
Progress_, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
_Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books,[16] and
cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly
of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since
often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for
knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was
now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's _Lives_ there was
in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great
advantage. There was also a book of DeFoe's, called an _Essay on
Projects_, and