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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 51
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buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for
they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me
such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he
left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business,
probably I never should have done it. This man continued to live in this
decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to
buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the
pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought
it for when he first began his croaking.
I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, I had
form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement,
which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up
required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on
any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the
company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing,
on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a
president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth,
without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all
expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after
some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.
The first members were Joseph Breintnal, a copyer of deeds for the scriveners, a
good-natur'd, friendly, middle-ag'd man, a great lover of poetry, reading all he
could meet with, and writing some that was tolerable; very ingenious in many
little Nicknackeries, and of sensible conversation.
Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great in his way, and afterward
inventor of what is now called Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his
way, and was not a pleasing companion; as, like most great mathematicians I have
met with, he expected universal precision in everything said, or was for ever
denying or distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all conversation.
He soon left us.
Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, afterwards surveyor-general, who lov'd books, and
sometimes made a few verses.
William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but loving reading, had acquir'd a
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