ourselves, Mr. PROJECTOR, I am not very desirous that this change should take place. I am an old man, and have never known very much harm result from calling a spade a spade. If we change the names of the furniture of our houses, that it may appear more agreeable and fashionable, and receive a new sanction independent of the goodness of the manufacture, the next step will be, and for the very same reason, to give new names, and fine sounding epithets, to the articles which compose our heads and hearts. Already I think I see some symptoms of this. Why is that article which every body laughs at almost every day in the newspapers, called crim. con. but because certain persons are desirous of getting rid of the seventh commandment? What are those ladies, fairly translated into English, whom we honour with the titles of demireps, filles de joye, and elegantes? What is a fracas that must be finished by powder and ball, but the very same thing that used formerly to be finished by the gallows? But even this is not all-Look, Mr. PROJECTOR, once more at the catalogue on your table, and read the following article: Peché mortel, with down squabs and cotton cases!' now what, in the name of wonder, do you take this to be? Why, they tell me it is a kind of couch, or sopha, and for what purpose truly! Peché mortel is in plain English a deadly sin: and don't we pray every Sunday, 'from fornication and all other deadly sius, &c?' I dare say there was some fine anecdote in the annals of French gallantry which gave rise to this manufacture: a pretty origin for an article of furniture that may be innocently and ignorantly bought up by some sober and decent citizen-a fine Trojan horse for him to introduce in his family.—No, Mr. PROJECTOR, we do not pretend to be immaculate symptoms of frailty have of late years been discovered in the court and the alley, as well as in the mall and the square. We have our failings and infirmities, and proof enough that wickedness depends not on wealth, and that temptation may assail from a whiskey as well as a Dickey; but let us guard against hypocrisy, and not imagine that a fine name will conceal the depravity of a bad action: and whatever we do, let us have no deadly sins, with down squabs, and cotton cases.'" THE PROJECTOR. N° 10. Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks, October 1802. ALTHOUGH the insufficiency of riches to procure happiness be a maxim established by universal experience, and their tendency to corrupt the heart be no less certain, when they happen to operate upon a weak understanding; yet as there are some persons to whom these truths appear paradoxical, I have given the following letter an early place; not, however, without suspicion that the author is rather a painter than a sufferer; nor without hinting, that he cannot earn the praise of originality who describes the influence of money acquired without intellectual effort. "TO THE AUTHOR OF THE PROJECTOR. 66 SIR, "THE subject of your last paper, and some incidental reflections in your former lucubrations, have suggested to me that you are the person to whom I may now reveal my case, and one of those writers to whose opinion if I had long ago adhered, I might have avoided my present perplexities. I have no uncommon complaints, indeed, to make, no new facts to prove the shortness or uncertainty of human life, and no new list to exhibit of the miseries attached to the inhabitants of this lower world. Mine are distresses which frequently occur; but, as I do not remember to have seen them represented in a manner correspondent with my feelings, I am induced to think that you may probably discover something original, if not in the incidents, which I confess are common even to vulgarity, at least in the construction of my narrative. "My parents were of the middle rank of life in the place where they lived, although in the metropolis they would perhaps have been reckoned among the low. Their circumstances were just sufficient to afford their children, of whom I was the eldest, an education somewhat more extensive than common; and their wish was to instill such principles in us, of religion and virtue, as might atone for the deficiencies of birth and fortune. "Of my youth, nothing is worth mentioning; it was spent in learning and practising what was good and useful, and I entered the busy world with better principles as well as better prospects than youths of my rank generally can boast. The death of a relation to whom I was consigned in London, put me early in possession of a business which I then thought lucrative; and I was so well pleased with its produce, that I married a young woman without any fortune, merely because I loved her. This was the happiest time of my life, and it lasted some years. Business increased, for I equally hated idleness and extravagance: but unfortunately for me, it happened to increase with too great rapidity; and by some of those lucky hits which are neither uncommon nor dishonourable, I was surprised by the sudden accession of a profusion of wealth, beyond my utmost expectations, and I may honestly say, as far as I can remember, beyond my most sanguine wishes. And here began all my miseries. Every morning and every evening, at home and abroad, in the parlour and the |