Benjamin found pleasant literary associates in Philadelphia. A gifted young man usually attracts to himself bright young men near his age. Such was the case with Benjamin. Three young men especially became his boon companions, all of them great readers. Their literary tendencies attracted Benjamin, though their characters were not deficient in high aims and integrity. Their names were Charles Osborne, Joseph Matson, and James Ralph. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk. Matson was a pious young man of sterling integrity, while the others were more lax in their religious opinions and principles. All were sensible young men, much above the average of this class in intellectual endowments. Osborne and Ralph were imaginative and poetical, and frequently tried their talents at verse-making.
They formed a literary club, and spent their leisure time together, reading to each other, discussing questions, and, in other ways, seeking self-improvement. Sundays they devoted chiefly to intellectual pastime, strolling along the banks of the Schuylkill, except Matson, who was too much of a Christian to desecrate the Sabbath. He always went to the house of God on Sundays; nor was he esteemed any less highly by his skeptical associates for so doing.
"You estimate your talent for poetry too highly," said Osborne to Ralph, at one of their literary interviews. "Poets are born, not made; and I hardly think you was born one."
"Much obliged for your compliment," replied Ralph, not at all disconcerted by Osborne's rather personal remark; "but I may become poet enough for my own use. All poets are not first-best when they begin. It is practice that makes perfect, you know."
"Practice can't make a poet out of a man who is not born one; and you are not such," continued Osborne. "That piece that you just read is not particularly poetical. It is good rhyme, but it lacks the real spirit of poesy."
"I agree with you; I do not call it good poetry; but every poet must begin; and his first piece can not be his best. Poets improve as well as clerks."
"Real poets!" responded Osborne, with a peculiar smile at the corners of his mouth. And he continued:
"You seem to think that a fortune awaits a poet, too; but you are laboring under a great mistake. There is no money in poetry in our day, and there never was."
"Perhaps not; nevertheless I am confident that a poet may readily win popularity and a livelihood. At any rate, I am determined to try it, in spite of your decidedly poor opinion of my abilities."
"Well, my advice is that you stick to the business for which you were bred, if you would keep out of the poor-house." Osborne said it more to hector Ralph than any thing. "A good clerk is better than a poor poet; you will agree to that."