"For want of modesty is want of sense." If you ask why less properly, I must repeat the lines, "Immodest words admit of _no defence_, For want of modesty is want of sense." Now is not the _want of sense_ (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his _want of modesty_? and would not the lines stand more justly thus? "Immodest words admit _but this defence_, That _want of modesty_ is want of sense." This, however, I should submit to better judgments. My brother had, in 1720 or 21, began to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the _New-England Courant_. The only one before it was the _Boston News-Letter_. I remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgment, enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less than _five-and-twenty_.[5] He went on, however, with the undertaking; I was employed to carry the papers to the customers, after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets. He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by writing little pieces for his paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their conversations and their accounts of the approbation their papers were received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but being still a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing anything of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it at night under the door of the printing-house. It was found in the morning, and committed to his writing friends when they called in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure of finding it had met with their approbation, and that, in their different guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose that I was rather lucky in my judges, and they were not really so very good as I then believed them to be.