Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2]: With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General ReaderFranklin, Benjamin
History
Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin; Written by Himself. [Vol. 1 of 2]: With His Most Interesting Essays, Letters, and Miscellaneous Writings; Familiar, Moral, Political, Economical, and Philosophical, Selected with Care from All His Published Productions, and Comprising Whatever Is Most Entertaining and Valuable to the General Reader
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790; Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790 -- Correspondence; Statesmen -- United States -- Biography
The printing-house, I found, consisted of an old damaged press, and a
small worn-out fount of English types which he was using himself,
composing an elegy on Aquilla Rose, before mentioned; an ingenious young
man, of excellent character, much respected in the town, secretary to
the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very
indifferently. He could not be said to _write_ them, for his method was
to _compose_ them in the types directly out of his head; there being no
copy, but one pair of cases, and the elegy probably requiring all the
letter, no one could help him. I endeavoured to put his press (which he
had not yet used, and of which he understood nothing) into order to be
worked with; and, promising to come and print off his elegy as soon as
he should have got it ready, I returned to Bradford's, who gave me a
little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few
days after Keimer sent for me to print off the elegy. And now he had got
another pair of cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to
work.
These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford
had been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer, though
something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of
presswork. He had been one of the French prophets, and could act their
enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular
religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant of the
world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his
composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's while I worked
with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not
lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read's, before mentioned, who
was the owner of his house; and my chest of clothes being come by this
time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss
Read than I had done when she first happened to see me eating my roll in
the street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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