It was not approbation, it was not esteem, which Forester felt for his new friend it was for the first week blind, enthusiastic admiration--every thing that he had seen or heard before appeared to him trite and obsolete; every person who spoke temperate common sense he heard with indifference or contempt; and all who were not zealots in literature, or in politics, he considered as persons whose understandings were so narrow, or whose hearts were so depraved, as to render them "unfit to hear themselves convinced." Those who read and converse have a double chance of correcting their errors. Forester most fortunately, about this time, happened to meet with a book which in some degree counteracted the inflammatory effects of Random's conversation, and which had a happy tendency to sober his enthusiasm, without lessening his propensity to useful exertions: this book was the Life of Dr. Franklin. The idea that this great man began by being a _printer_ interested our hero in his history; and whilst he followed him, step by step, through his instructive narrative, Forester sympathized in his feelings, and observed how necessary the smaller virtues of order, economy, industry, and patience were to Franklin's great character and splendid success. He began to hope that it would be possible to do good to his fellow-creatures, without overturning all existing institutions. About this time another fortunate coincidence happened in Forester's education. One evening his friend, Tom Random, who was printing a pamphlet, came, with a party of his companions, into Mr.----, the bookseller's shop, enraged at the decision of a prize in a literary society to which they belonged. All the young partisans who surrounded Mr. Random loudly declared that he had been treated with the most flagrant injustice; and the author himself was too angry to affect any modesty upon the occasion. "Would you believe it?" said he to Forester--"my essay has not been thought worthy of the prize! The medal has been given to the most wretched, tame, commonplace performance you ever saw. Every thing in this world is done by corruption, by party, by secret influence!" At every pause the irritated author wiped his forehead, and Forester sympathized in his feelings. In the midst of the author's exclamations, a messenger came with the manuscript of the prize essay, and with the orders of the society to have a certain number of copies printed off with all possible expedition. Random snatched up the manuscript, and, with all the fury of criticism, began to read aloud some of the passages which he disliked. Though it was marred in the reading, Forester could not agree with his angry friend in condemning the performance. It appeared to him excellent writing and excellent sense.