asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new
printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry
for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would
be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already
half-bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary, such
as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge
fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon
ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or
that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known
him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have
done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to
declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house
there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the
pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have
bought it for when he first began his croaking.

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding
year, I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of
mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday
evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his
turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals,
Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and
once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on
any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of
a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after
truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to
prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct
contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited
under small pecuniary penalties.

The first members were Joseph Breintnal, a copyer of deeds for the
scriveners, a good-natur'd, friendly, middle-ag'd man, a great lover of
poetry, reading all he could meet with, and writing some that was
tolerable; very ingenious in many little Nicknackeries, and of sensible
conversation.

Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and
afterward inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he
knew little out of his way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like
most great mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal
precision in everything