"About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. 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 that view, I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete 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 occur to me.
"Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults and corrected them.
"But I found that I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them.
"Therefore, I took some of the tales in the Spectator and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again."
About this time his brother began to publish a newspaper.
It was the fourth newspaper published in America, and was called the New England Courant.
People said that it was a foolish undertaking. They said that one newspaper was enough for this country, and that there would be but little demand for more.