looking down; "but it was where my best is due, and that is in your Majesty's service.”

The queen paused, and then said hastily: "You are very young to have fought so well and to speak so well. Now hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak, till our pleasure be further known. And here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold in the form of a chessman, “I give thee this to wear at the collar."

Raleigh, to whom nature had taught those courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt, and as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which gave it.

Sir Walter Raleigh (Raw'li), 1552–

1618. An English courtier, officer, colonizer, historian, and poet. He was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth. But on the accession of James I, Raleigh was imprisoned as a traitor to the king, and was finally executed, in 1618. Elizabeth, Queen of England, 1558

1603. She was a woman of great ability and enterprise, and was devoted to her people. Her reign is famous for commercial prosperity and literary power. ret'i nue, band of attendants. bode, to give promise of. cav a lier', a knight.

King of the elements. People once called air, earth, water, and fire

"the four elements." The "king of the elements," then, is fire. Here the phrase refers to the sun. cai'tiff, a mean, low fellow; a wretch. hal'berd, a long-handled weapon, of

which the head had a point and several long, sharp edges. pen'sion ers, an honorable band of gentlemen who attend the sovereign of England on state occasions, and receive an annual pension.

au'gu ry, a sign of the future; an

omen.

liege'man, a subject; one loyal to

his sovereign.

Shan'non, the largest river in Ireland.

BEGINNING TO WRITE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

FROM a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was laid out in books. Pleased with the "Pilgrim's Progress," my first collection was of John Bunyan's works, in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy Burton's "Historical Collections"; they were small books, and cheap, forty or fifty in all.

"Plutarch's Lives" I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe's, called "An Essay on Projects," and another of Dr. Mather's, called "Essays to do Good," which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters, to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the dreaded effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother.

I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve

years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books.

An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small book, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.

After some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces. My brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads.

One was called the "Lighthouse Tragedy," and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters. The other was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard), the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub Street ballad style; and, when they were printed, he sent me about town to sell them. The first sold

wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise.

This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet-probably a very bad one; but as prose-writing has been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand.

Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion

for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse, and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.

I also sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterward with the original, I discovered many faults, and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language; and this encouraged me to think I might possibly, in time, come to be a tolerable English writer of which I was extremely ambitious.

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the New England Courant. He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit and made it more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us.

Hearing their conversation, and their accounts of