I declare, solemnly, Sir, that I have heard nothing from all the
    fine Gentlemen who visit us, more remarkable, for half a year, than
    that one young Lord was seven times drunk at Genoa.

I have lately taken the liberty to stay three or four rounds_ [i.e., of the bottle] beyond [the toast of] The Church! to see what topics of discourse they went upon:  but, to my great surprise, have hardly heard a word all the time, besides the Toasts.  Then they all stared full in my face, and shewed all the actions of uneasiness till I was gone.

    Immediately upon my departure, to use the words of an old Comedy,
    “I find by the noise they make, that they had a mind to be
    private.”

I am at a loss to imagine what conversation they have among one another, which I may not be present at:  since I love innocent Mirth as much as any of them; and am shocked with no freedoms whatsoever, which are inconsistent with Christianity.

I have, with much ado, maintained my post hitherto at the dessert, and every day eat a tart in the face of my Patron:  but how long I shall be invested with this privilege, I do not know.  For the servants, who do not see me supported as I was in my old Lord’s time, begin to brush very familiarly by me:  and they thrust aside my chair, when they set the sweetmeats on the table.

I have been born and educated a Gentleman, and desire you will make the public sensible that the Christian Priesthood was never thought, in any Age or country, to debase the Man who is a member of it.  Among the great services which your useful Papers daily do to Religion, this perhaps will not be the least:  and it will lay a very great obligation on

    Your unknown servant,

    G.W._

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Poor RICHARD improved, Being an Almanac, &c., for the year of our Lord 1758.

RICHARD SAUNDERS.  Philom.

Philadelphia.

COURTEOUS READER.

I have heard that nothing gives an author so great pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by other learned authors.  This pleasure I have seldom enjoyed.  For though I have been, if I may say it without vanity, an eminent author of Almanacs annually, now a full quarter of a century, my brother authors in the same way, for what reason I know not, have ever been very sparing in their applauses; and no other author has taken the least notice of me:  so that did not my writings produce me some solid Pudding, the great deficiency of Praise would have quite discouraged me.