Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/32

22 modeſt and ſenſible men, who do not love diſputation, will leave you in tranquil poſſeſlion of your errors. By following ſuch a method, you can rarely hope to pleaſe your auditors, conciliate their good-will, or work conviction on thoſe whom you may be deſirous of gaining over to your views. Pope judiciouſly obſerves,

Men muſt be taught as if you taught them not, And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.

in the ſame poem he afterwards adviſes us,

To ſpeak, though ſure, with ſeeming diffidence.

He might have added to theſe lines, one that he has coupled elſewhere, in my opinion, with leſs propriety. It is this:

For want of decency is want of ſenſe.

If you aſk why I ſay with leſs propriety, I muſt give you the two lines together:

Immodeſt words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of ſenſe.

Now want of ſenſe, when a man has the misfortune to be ſo circumſtanced, is it not a kind of excuſe for want of modeſty? And would not the verſes have been more accurate, if they had been conſtructed thus:

Immodeſt words admit but this defence, That want of decency is want of ſenſe.

But I leave the deciſion of this to better judges than myſelf.

In 1720, or 1721, my brother began to print a new public paper. It was the ſecond that made its appearance in America, and was entitled the New-England Courant. The only one that exiſted before was the Boſton News Letter. Some of his friends, I remember, would have diſſuaded