Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/66

56 thoughts of ever returning to Philadelphia. He was totally without money; the little he had been able to raiſe having barely ſufficed for his paſſage. I had fifteen piſtoles remaining; and to me he had from time to time recourſe, while he tried to get employment.

At firſt, believing himſelf poſſeſſed of talents for the ſtage, he thought of turning actor; but Wilkes, to whom he applied, frankly adviſed him to renounce the. idea, as it was impoſſible he ſhould ſucceed. He next propoſed to Roberts, a bookſeller in Paternoſter-row, to write a weekly paper in the manner of the Spectator, upon terms to which Roberts would not liſten. Laſtly, he endeavoured to procure employment as a copyiſt, and applied to the lawyers and ſtationers about the temple; but he could find no vacancy.

As to myſelf, I immediately got engaged at Palmer's, at that time a noted printer in Bartholomew Cloſe, with whom I continued nearly a year. I applied very aſſiduouſly to my work; but I expended with Ralph almoſt all that I earned. Plays, and other places of amuſement which we frequented together, having exhauſted my piſtoles, we lived after this from hand to mouth. He appeared to have entirely forgotten his wife and child, as I alſo, by degrees, forgot my engagements with Miſs Read, to whom I never wrote more than one letter, and that merely to Inform her that I was not likely to return ſoon. This was another grand error of my life, which I ſhould be deſirous of correcting were I to begin my career again.

I was employed at Palmer's on the ſecond edition of Woolaſton's Religion of Nature. Some of his arguments appearing to me not to be well founded, I wrote a ſmall metaphyſical treatiſe, in which I animadverted on thoſe paſſages. It