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.
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