which, in 1709, gave him his first celebrity. Voltaire was a boy of ten,
in his native village near Paris. Bolingbroke was a rising young member
of the House of Commons, noted, like Fox at a later day, for his
dissipation and his oratory. Addison, aged thirty-four, had written his
Italian travels, but not the 'Spectator' and was a thriving politician.
Newton, at sixty-four, his great work all done, was master of the mint,
had been knighted the year before, and elected president of the Royal
Society in 1703 Louis XIV was king of France, and the first king of
Prussia was reigning. The father of George Washington was a Virginia boy
of ten; the father of John Adams was just entering Harvard College; and
the father of Thomas Jefferson was not yet born."




III.


PAYING TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE.

When Benjamin was seven years old he had not been to school a day.
Yet he was a good reader and speller. In manhood he said: "I do not
remember when I could not read, so it must have been very early." He
was one of those irrepressible little fellows, whose intuition and
observation are better than school. He learned more out of school than
he could or would have done in it. His precocity put him in advance
of most boys at seven, even without schooling. It was not necessary
for him to have school-teachers to testify that he possessed ten
talents,--his parents knew that, and every one else who was familiar
with him.