Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/26

16, 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 Lighthouſe Tragedy, contained an account of the ſhipwreck of captain Worthilake 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 blind-men's ditties. When printed, he diſpatched me about the town to ſell them. The firſt had a prodigious run, becauſe the event was recent, and had made a great noiſe. My vanity was flattered by this ſucceſs; but my father checked my exultation, by ridiculing my productions, and telling me that veriſiers were always poor. I thus eſcaped the misfortune of being, probably, a very 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, I ſhall relate by what means, ſituated as I was, I acquired the ſmall ſkill I may poſſeſs in that way.

There was in the town another young man, a great lover of books, of the name of John Collins, with whom I was intimately connected. We frequently engaged in diſpute, and were indeed 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 becoming a very bad habit, and frequently renders a man's company inſupportable, as being no otherwiſe capable of indulgence than by indiſcriminate contradiction. Independently of the acrimony and diſcord it introduces into converſation, it is often productive of diſlike,