obvious in our newspapers, which have long served up a collection of jests half-yearly on these respectable personages, namely, on the eve of Lord Mayor's Day, and on Easter Monday. Veneration surely ought to be kept up for high offices, and men in high offices; but what veneration can be expected from wits, whose notions of merit are so confused, that they look to nothing in a Magistrate but his appetite, and who, with the ignorance of the blind man, who fancied that scarlet was like the sound of a trumpet, can conceive no higher of an Alderman's gown, than by supposing it to resemble a perpetual dinner?

Amidst this general disposition to be merry at each other's remains one expence, there yet class to be mentioned, who are in a very pointed manner the subjects of certain standing jokes-I mean Projectors, of the order of the quill. On their sufferings, however, it is incumbent that I should speak with delicacy; they are sometimes themselves Wits by profession, and may therefore expect that part the goods they send out may be returned upon them, to their loss. They are notwithstanding a poor persecuted class, and continually exposed to the taunts and jeers of the rest of the world. Of this, I was very sensible lately,

of

when, in perusing a treatise on the transmigration of souls, I found that no punishment was devised for bad Authors in that system, because it was thought that no situation could be worse than theirs. And while they are thus beset with witticisms, from those who must borrow them to make up the defects of their own wit, or steal them rather than not have a hit at the tenants of Grub-street, they are deprived of the ordinary resources of persons in a state of persecution. They cannot even be proud in their own defence: for who will take pride at their hands? Not the servants of their patrons for they understand no pride but that of riches, and stare at a live author, as they would at any of the animals in the Tower. It is pleasant, however, upon the whole of this subject, to reflect, that the publick is provided with such an infinite fund of Wit, and that it is deposited in the hands of men of all professions, trades, and callings, and of all parties, for none are so witty as Tories and Whigs, ins and outs, high church and low church. We have only to be apprehensive, that Wit, by being thus scattered abroad so extensively, will lose some of the virtue it has when concentrated, and issued only at proper times and seasons, and in such quantities as

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the public wants require. Perhaps it is owing to this, that what was once said of the learning of a certain Northern nation, may be applied to our Wit. Every man has a mouthful, but none a bellyful." It is true that we have pulpit jokes, and bar jokes, and shopkeepers' jests, and warehousemen's repartees; but in the theatres, which in my memory had a monopoly of the article, I am told the audiences would sit with as much gravity as in the church, if it were not for the facetiousness of the carpenters and scene-shifters, and the striking humour of Harlequin and the Clown. The breaking up of the theatrical monopoly was certainly fatal; for, although some of our dramatic writers have collected from jest books a cargo sufficient to set up with, it is rare that they can carry on trade long, by thus furbishing up second-hand articles; and if they depend on their own stock, they soon become insolvent.

But while we have thus adverted to the ral application of Wit to all things, and all

gene

per

sons, it cannot be concealed that, in the opinion of some very good judges, it is high time to call in much of our old humourous coin, and make a fresh issue for the advantage of modern times and circumstances. All that

respects the vices of the age, and all that touches with a sneer on the religion of the country, may be spared, in cases where both appear too serious for such a mode of treatment. On the other hand, the novelties imported, or likely to be imported, from a neighbouring nation, and the vast commerce of levity nearly established, as it will soon be too great for the coin now in circulation, so it will demand a paper currency, some few notes of which may probably pass through the hands my good friend Mr. Sylvanus Urban.

of

seology of the English language is metaphorical, and borrowed from the most common, and, what some reckon, the most vulgar trades and occupations. This you must be sensible is the case, every time you act candidly and above board, and time that in handling a subject, you chuse to take fresh ground, or avoid interlarding your matter with digressions, and thereby breaking the thread of your discourse.

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every

Among these borrowed allusions which we have pressed into the common service, there is one in every body's mouth, and applied to many authors of the last and present generation, when we say that they have coined new words. At what time this liberty was first taken with the Mint, I know not; it may, perhaps, be coeval with the mint itself. Our coinage, it is well known, was greatly reformed in King William's reign, when the mill was adopted instead of the hammer: but perhaps the phrase coining words may, as I have hinted, be much older; for, from the way in which some of our new words are executed, from the want of a clear head, a legible inscription, and a proper reverse, we may say with as much propriety that they are hammered, as that they are milled.