Note 22 — Part I

When Samuel Keimer discovered that Franklin and Meredith were about to launch a newspaper, he began his Universal Instructor in all Arts and Sciences: and Pennsylvania Gazette (first issue, Dec. 28, 1728). Franklin and Joseph Breintnall wrote the Busy-Body series for Bradford's American Weekly Mercury. Nos. I-V and VIII are by Franklin. See S. Bloore's "Joseph Breintnall, First Secretary of the Library Company" (in Bibliography). That Keimer became infuriated, one can see in issues X, XII, and XVI of the Universal Instructor ..., in which Busy-Body is scourged with both prose and poetry.