It was some time before our hero acquired dexterity in his new trade: his companions formed, with amazing celerity, whole sentences, while he was searching for letters, which perpetually dropped from his awkward hands: but he was ashamed of his former versatility, and he resolved to be steady to his present way of life. His situation, at this printer’s, was far better suited to him than that which he had quitted, with so much disgust, at the brewer’s. He rose early, and, by great industry, overcame all the difficulties which at first so much alarmed him. He soon became the most useful journeyman in the office. His diligence and good behaviour recommended him to his master’s employers. Whenever any work was brought, Forester was sent for. This occasioned him to be much in the shop, where he heard the conversation of many ingenious men who frequented it; and he spent his evenings in reading. His understanding had been of late uncultivated; but the fresh seeds that were now profusely scattered upon the vigorous soil took root, and flourished.

Forester was just at that time of life when opinions are valued for being new: he heard varieties of the most contradictory assertions in morals, in science, in politics. It is a great advantage to a young man to hear opposite arguments, to hear all that can be said upon every subject.

Forester no longer obstinately adhered to the set of notions which he had acquired from his education; he heard many, whom he could not think his inferiors in abilities, debating questions which he formerly imagined scarcely admitted of philosophic doubt. His mind became more humble; but his confidence in his own powers, after having compared himself with numbers, if less arrogant, was more secure and rational: he no longer considered a man as a fool the moment he differed with him in opinion; but he was still a little inclined to estimate the abilities of authors by the party to which they belonged. This failing was increased, rather than diminished, by the company which he now kept.

Amongst the young students who frequented Mr.——‘s, the bookseller, was Mr. Thomas ——, who, from his habit of blurting out strange opinions in conversation, acquired the name of Tom Random. His head was confused between politics and poetry; his arguments were paradoxical, his diction florid, and his gesture something between the spouting action of a player, and the threatening action of a pugilist.

Forester was caught by the oratory of this genius from the first day he heard him speak.

Tom Random asserted, that “this great globe, and all that it inhabits,” must inevitably be doomed to destruction, unless certain ideas of his own, in the government of the world, were immediately adopted by universal acclamation.

It was not approbation, it was not esteem, which Forester felt for his new friend it was for the first week blind, enthusiastic admiration — every thing that he had seen or heard before appeared to him trite and obsolete; every person who spoke temperate common sense he heard with indifference or contempt; and all who were not zealots in literature, or in politics, he considered as persons whose understandings were so narrow, or whose hearts were so depraved, as to render them “unfit to hear themselves convinced.”

Those who read and converse have a double chance of correcting their errors.

Forester most fortunately, about this time, happened to meet with a book which in some degree counteracted the inflammatory effects of Random’s conversation, and which had a happy tendency to sober his enthusiasm, without lessening his propensity to useful exertions: this book was the Life of Dr. Franklin.

The idea that this great man began by being a printer interested our hero in his history; and whilst he followed him, step by step, through his instructive narrative, Forester sympathized in his feelings, and observed how necessary the smaller virtues of order, economy, industry, and patience were to Franklin’s great character and splendid success. He began to hope that it would be possible to do good to his fellow-creatures, without overturning all existing institutions.

About this time another fortunate coincidence happened in Forester’s education. One evening his friend, Tom Random, who was printing a pamphlet, came, with a party of his companions, into Mr.——, the bookseller’s shop, enraged at the decision of a prize in a literary society to which they belonged.

All the young partisans who surrounded Mr. Random loudly declared that he had been treated with the most flagrant injustice; and the author himself was too angry to affect any modesty upon the occasion.

“Would you believe it?” said he to Forester —“my essay has not been thought worthy of the prize! The medal has been given to the most wretched, tame, commonplace performance you ever saw. Every thing in this world is done by corruption, by party, by secret influence!”

At every pause the irritated author wiped his forehead, and Forester sympathized in his feelings.

In the midst of the author’s exclamations, a messenger came with the manuscript of the prize essay, and with the orders of the society to have a certain number of copies printed off with all possible expedition.

Random snatched up the manuscript, and, with all the fury of criticism, began to read aloud some of the passages which he disliked.

Though it was marred in the reading, Forester could not agree with his angry friend in condemning the performance. It appeared to him excellent writing and excellent sense.

“Print it — print it then, as fast as you can — that is your business — that’s what you are paid for. Every one for himself,” cried Random, insolently throwing the manuscript at Forester; and, as he flung out of the shop with his companions, he added, with a contemptuous laugh, “A printer’s devil setting up for a critic! He may be a capital judge of pica and brevier, perhaps — but let not the comp............