Benjamin Franklin Autobiography
CHAPTER I
The Author's Reasons for undertaking the present Work---A Dissertation upon Vanity---Some Account of his Ancestors---He
discovers that he is the youngest Son of the youngest Son for five Generations---Young Franklin is at first destined for the
Church---His Father soon after takes him from School and emplys him as an Assistant in making Candles, Etc.---He is desirous of
being a Sailor---Some Account of his youthful Frolicks--- Becomes greatly attached to Books---Is bound Apprentice to a
Printer---Begins to study Composition---Adopts a vegetable Regimen---And is extremely fond of Disputation.
TWYFORD, at the Bishop of St. Asaph's, 1771.
Dear son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among
the remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be
equally agreeable to(1) you to know the circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the
enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I sit down to write them for you. To which I have
besides some other inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a state of
affluence and some degree of reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the
conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may like to know, as they may
find some of them suitable to their own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.
That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection
to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct some faults
of the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But
though this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing most like living
one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in
writing.
Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old men, to be talking of themselves and their own past actions; and I shall
indulge it without being tiresome to others, who, through respect to age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me a hearing,
since this may be read or not as any one pleases. And, lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by
nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without
vanity I may say," &c., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of
it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor,
and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to
thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.
And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to
His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must
not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal
reverse, which I may experience as others have done: the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only in whose
power it is to bless to us even our afflictions.
The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished
me with several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that the family had lived in the same village, Ecton,
in Northamptonshire, for three hundred years, and how much longer he knew not (perhaps from the time when the name of
Franklin, that before was the name of an order of people, was assumed by them as a surname when others took surnames all over
the kingdom), on a freehold of about thirty acres, aided by the smith's business, which had continued in the family till his time, the
eldest son being always bred to that business; a custom which he and my father followed as to their eldest sons. When I searched
the registers at Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, there being no registers
kept in that parish at any time preceding. By that register I perceived that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for five
generations back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer,
when he went to live with his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my father served an apprenticeship. There
my grandfather died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son Thomas lived in the house at Ecton, and left it
with the land to his only child, a daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of
the manor there. My grandfather had four sons that grew up, viz.: Thomas, John, Benjamin and Josiah. I will give you what account
I can of them, at this distance from my papers, and if these are not lost in my absence, you will among them find many more
particulars.
Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire
Palmer, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in
the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of
which many instances were related of him; and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 17O2,
January 6, old style, just four years to a day before I was born. The account we received of his life and character from some old
people at Ecton, I remember, struck you as something extraordinary, from its similarity to what you knew of mine.
"Had he died on the same day," you said, "one might have supposed a transmigration."
John was bred a dyer, I believe of woolens. Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an
ingenious man. I remember him well, for when I was a boy he came over to my father in Boston, and lived in the house with us
some years. He lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left behind him two quarto volumes,
MS., of his own poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and relations, of which the following, sent to
me, is a specimen.(2) He had formed a short-hand of his own, which he taught me, but, never practising it, I have now forgot it. I
was named after this uncle, there being a particular affection between him and my father. He was very pious, a great attender of
sermons of the best preachers, which he took down in his short-hand, and had with him many volumes of them. He was also much
of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the
principal pamphlets, relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but
there still remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo. A dealer in old books met with them, and knowing
me by my sometimes buying of him, he brought them to me. It seems my uncle must have left them here, when he went to America,
which was about fifty years since. There are many of his notes in the margins.
This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary, when they
were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against popery. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal and
secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool. When my great-great-grandfather read it to his
family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees, turning over the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door
to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned down again
upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin. The family
continued all of the Church of England till about the end of Charles the Second's reign, when some of the ministers that had been
outed for nonconformity holding conventicles in Northamptonshire, Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all their
lives: the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal Church.
Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having
been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and
he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same
wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at
one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two,
and was born in Boston, New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first
settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his church history of that country, entitled
Magnalia Christi Americana, as 'a godly, learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. I have heard that he wrote sundry
small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the
home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty
of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars,
and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense,
and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and
manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them
was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the author.
"Because to be a libeller (says he) I hate it with my heart; From Sherburne town, where now I dwell My name I do put here; Without
offense your real friend, It is Peter Folgier."
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father
intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church. My early readiness in learning to read (which must have
been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all his friends, that I should certainly make a good
scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand
volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would learn his character. I continued, however, at the
grammar-school not quite one year, though in that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the head
of it, and farther was removed into the next class above it, in order to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But my father,
in the meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education, which having so large a family he could not well afford, and the
mean living many so educated were afterwards able to obtain--reasons that be gave to his friends in my hearing--altered his first
intention, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr.
George Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair
writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in
his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in
New England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in
cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc.
I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my father declared against it; however, living near the water, I was
much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was commonly
allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and
sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho' not then
justly conducted.
There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for
minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharff there fit for us to stand upon,
and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very
well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and
working with them diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little
wharff. The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharff. Inquiry was made
after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by our fathers; and though I pleaded the
usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.
I think you may like to know something of his person and character. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature,
but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice, so
that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimesdid in an evening after the business of the day was
over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other
tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and
publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his
circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him
for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and
advice: he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an
arbitrator between contending parties.
At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start
some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our
attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the
victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that
other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of
food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I
dined upon. This has been a convenience to me in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of
a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites.
My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to have
any sickness but that of which they dy'd, he at 89, and she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some
years since placed a marble over their grave, with this inscription:
JOSIAH FRANKLIN, and ABIAH his Wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an
estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labor and industry, with God's blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably,
and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy
calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In
filial regard to their memory, Places this stone.
J.F. born 1655, died 1744, AEtat 89.
A.F. born 1667, died 1752, ----- 95.
By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I us'd to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private
company as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.
To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John,
who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I
was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under
apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to
his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their
work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to
me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs
myself in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the
intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle
Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with
him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home again.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever 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 R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father's little library
consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a
thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's
Lives there was in which 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 apprehended 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 one, 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.
And 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 the 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, most probably a very bad one; but
as prose writing bad 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.
There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed,
and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to
become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it
into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you
may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I
have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.
A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning,
and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary
side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought,
bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see
one another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I
replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without entering into
the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my
antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method
and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remark, and thence grew more attentive
to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.
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, try'd to compleat 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 collections 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 compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By
comparing my work afterwards 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 time
for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be
in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact on
me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to
practise it.
When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to
go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My
refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with
Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then
proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly
agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books. But I had
another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and,
despatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from
the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from
that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.
And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at
school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself with great ease. I also read Seller's and
Shermy's books of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they contain; but never proceeded far in that science.
And I read about this time Locke On Human Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs. du Port Royal.
While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which
there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic
method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same
method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer
and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I
found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd
it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of
which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining
victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining
only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be
disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or
apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so;
or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my
opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of
conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their
power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one
of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a
positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish
information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present
opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:
"Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
"And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"
He also advises,
"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence."
And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly,
"For want of modesty is want of sense."
If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines,
"Immodest words admit of no defense,
"For want of modesty is want of sense."
Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his want of modesty? and would not the
lines stand more justly thus?
"Immodest words admit but this defense,
"That want of modesty is want of sense."
This, however, I should submit to better judgments.