_Ben in clover--Turns a Rhymer--Makes a prodigious noise in Boston
--Bit by the Poetic Tarantula--Luckily cured by his father._
Ben is now happy. He is placed by the side of the press, the very mint
and coining place of his beloved _books_; and animated by that delight
which he takes in his business, he makes a proficiency equally
surprising and profitable to his brother. The field of his reading too
is now greatly enlarged. From the booksellers' boys he makes shift,
every now and then, to borrow a book, which he _never fails to return_
at the promised time: though to accomplish this he was often obliged
to sit up till midnight, reading by his bed side, that he might be as
good as his word.
Such an extraordinary passion for learning soon commended him to the
notice of his neighbours, among whom was an ingenious young man, a
tradesman, named Matthew Adams, who invited him to his house, showed
him all his books, and offered to lend him any that he wished to read.
About this time, which was somewhere in his thirteenth year, Ben took
it into his head that he could write poetry: and actually composed
several little pieces. These, after some hesitation, he showed to his
brother, who pronounced them _excellent_; and thinking that money
might be made by Ben's poetry, pressed him to cultivate his _wonderful
talent_, as he called it; and even gave him a couple of subjects to
write on. The one, which was to be called the LIGHT-HOUSE TRAGEDY, was
to narrate the late shipwreck of a sea captain and his two daughters:
and the other was to be a sailor's song on the noted pirate
Blackbeard, who had been recently killed on the coast of North
Carolina, by Captain Maynard, of a British sloop of war.
Ben accordingly fell to work, and after burning out several candles,
for his brother could not afford to let him write poetry by daylight,
he produced his two poems. His brother extolled them to the skies, and
in all haste had them put to the type and struck off; to expedite
matters, fast as the sheets could be snatched from the press, all
hands were set to work, folding and stitching them ready for market;
while nothing was to be heard throughout the office but constant calls
on the boys at press--"_more sheets ho! more Light-house tragedy! more
Blackbeard!_" But who can tell what Ben felt when he saw his brother
and all his journeymen in such a bustle on his account--and when he
saw, wherever he cast his eyes, the splendid trophies of his genius
scattered on the floor and tables; some in common paper for the
multitude; and others in snow-white foolscap, for presents to the
GREAT PEOPLE, such as "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR."--"The HON. THE
SECRETARY OF STATE."--"The WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR."--"The ALDERMEN, and
GENTLEMEN OF THE COUNCIL."--"The reverend the _clergy_, &c." Ben could
never tire of gazing at them; and as he gazed, his heart would leap
for joy--"_O you precious little verses_," he would say to himself,
"_Ye first warblings of my youthful harp! I'll soon have you abroad,
delighting every company, and filling all mouths with my name!_"
Accordingly, his _two poems_ being ready, Ben, who had been both poet
and printer, with a basket full of each on his arm, set out in high
spirits to sell them through the town, which he did by singing out as
he went, after, the manner of the London cries--
"Choice Poetry! Choice Po-e-try!
Come BUY my choice Po-e-try!"
The people of Boston having never heard any such cry as that before,
were prodigiously at a loss to know what he was selling. But still Ben
went on singing out as before,
"Choice Poetry! Choice Poetry!
Come, buy my choice Poetry!"
I wonder now, said one with a stare, if it is not _poultry_ that that
little boy is singing out so stoutly yonder.
O no, I guess not, said a second.
Well then, cried a third, I vow but it must be _pastry_.
At length Ben was called up and interrogated.
"_Pray, my little man, and what's that that you are crying there so
bravely?_"
Ben told them it was poetry.
"_O!--aye! poetry!_" said they; "_poetry! that's a sort of something
or other in metre--like the old version, isn't it?_"
"_O yes, to be sure_," said they all, "_it must be like the old
version, if it is poetry_;" and thereupon they stared at him,
marvelling hugely that a "_little curly headed boy like him should be
selling such a wonderful thing_!" This made Ben hug himself still more
on account of his poetry.
I have never been able to get a sight of the ballad of the Light-house
Tragedy, which must no doubt have been a great curiosity: but the
sailor's song on Blackbeard runs thus--
"Come all you jolly Sailors,
You all so stout and brave;
Come hearken and I'll tell you
What happen'd on the wave.
Oh! 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard
I'm going now for to tell;
And as how by gallant Maynard
He soon was sent to hell--
With a down, down, down derry down."
The reader will, I suppose, agree with Ben in his criticism, many
years afterwards, on this poetry, that it was "wretched stuff; mere
blind men's ditties." But fortunately for Ben, the poor people of
Boston were at that time no judges of poetry. The silver-tongued Watts
had not, as yet, snatched the harp of Zion, and poured his divine
songs over New-England. And having never been accustomed to any thing
better than an old version of David's Psalms, running in this way--
"Ye monsters of the bubbling deep,
Your Maker's praises spout!
Up from your sands ye codlings peep,
And wag your tails about."--
The people of Boston pronounced Ben's poetry _mighty fine_, and bought
them up at a prodigious rate; especially the LIGHT-HOUSE TRAGEDY.
A flood of success so sudden and unexpected, would in all probability
have turned Ben's brain and run him stark mad with vanity, had not his
wise old father timely stepped in and checked the rising fever. But
highly as Ben honoured his father, and respected his judgment, he
could hardly brook to hear him attack his beloved poetry, as he did,
calling it "_mere Grub-street_." And he even held a stiff argument in
defence of it. But on reading a volume of Pope, which his father, who
well knew the force of contrast, put into his hand for that purpose,
he never again opened his mouth in behalf of his "_blind men's
ditties_." He used to laugh and say, that after reading Pope, he was
so mortified with his _Light-house Tragedy, and Sailor's Song_, which
he had once thought so fine, that he could not bear the sight of them,
but constantly threw into the fire every copy that fell in his way.
Thus was he timely saved, as he ingenuously confesses, from the very
great misfortune of being, perhaps, a miserable jingler for life.
But I cannot let fall the curtain on this curious chapter, without
once more feasting my eyes on Ben, as, with a little basket on his
arm, he trudged along the streets of Boston crying his poetry.
Who that saw the youthful David coming up fresh from his father's
sheep cots, with his locks wet with the dews of the morning, and his
cheeks ruddy as the opening rose-buds, would have dreamed that this
was he who should one day, single handed, meet the giant Goliah, in
the war-darkened valley of Elah, and wipe off reproach from Israel. In
like manner, who that saw this "_curly headed child_," at the tender
age of thirteen, selling his "_blind men's ditties_," among the
wonder-struck Jonathans and Jemimas of Boston, would have thought that
this was he, who, single handed, was to meet the British ministry at
the bar of their own house of Commons, and by the solar blaze of his
wisdom, utterly disperse all their dark designs against their
countrymen, thus gaining for himself a name lasting as time, and dear
to liberty as the name of Washington.
O you time-wasting, brain-starving young men, who can never be at ease
unless you have a cigar or a plug of tobacco in your mouths, go on
with your puffing and champing--go on with your filthy smoking, and
your still more filthy spitting, keeping the cleanly house-wives in
constant terror for their nicely waxed floors, and their shining
carpets--go on I say; but remember it was not in this way that our
little Ben became the GREAT DR. FRANKLIN.