THE PROJECTOR. N° 51.

"The great thing to be recorded is the state of your

own MIND."

JOHNSON.

December 1805.

THE time is now arrived when it is usual to express some regret for past errors, and to form resolutions of future amendment. Perhaps few take their leave of a departing year, without reflections and feelings which would be very unpleasant, if they were not softened by the hope, that its successor will be ushered in with brighter prospects, and guided by more active experience. We can all recollect some transactions that have ended in shame, and some in disadvantage; some that might have been conducted with more prudence, and some which it would have been wiser not to attempt. If we pass to the lesser occurrences of life, we regret hours that have been spent unprofitably; and wish that many words and replies which escaped us inadvertently, or were provoked by passion, could be forgiven as readily as we desire to forget them. In our moments of self

many

complacency, indeed, we are willing to believe, that what is not forgotten may be proved to be harmless, and that the effects of caprice are as short as its duration. But, amidst the most flattering apologies we make for our failings, whether of the greater or lesser kind, we seldom omit to console ourselves with the reflection, that there is yet time to reform; and we generally fix on the commencement of a year as the æra of amendment.

To facilitate this periodical attempt, which is sometimes successful, and sometimes but a delusion, the use of Diaries has been proposed, into which the transactions and reflections of each day should be transferred, and in which, as in a glass, we may survey both body and mind at full length. It is necessary, however, that a mirror be faithful: even the coquet and the flirt would not value a glass which reflected only the beauties of the countenance, and did not show where paleness might be removed by rouge, or where a pimple might be concealed by a patch.

Of those who have attempted to register their actions and their thoughts, some have become ashamed of their fidelity, and some tired of the restraint. Some have detailed events which might, without injury, have been consigned to

oblivion, and others have neglected to record what would have been worth remembering. The Diaries of some have been the journals of selflove; and by setting down those events only which may be read with approbation, embellished with sentiments which were never felt, their writers have practised a deception on themselves, while they thought they were ingeniously deceiving others. From some we have had exact dates of journies and of walks, of purchases and of sales, in which the only object was to balance accompts, and to explain deficiencies. Men not remarkable for strength of intellect, and who do not consider that a Diary, to be useful, ought to comprehend what passes in the mind rather than in the family, have dwelt, with a scrupulous exactness of chronology, on births and christenings, on weddings and illnesses, on repairs of houses and improvements of land, and on bargains with landlords and customers.

Even ASHMOLE, a name highly to be respected, condescends to tell us when Joan Morgan, his maid, died of the small-pox, when his wife quickened, and when he discharged his man Hobs. He never appears to have perceived of how little importance it was for himself to recollect, or for others to be told, how

often he was troubled with the tooth-ach, or took a purge; how often he bled with leeches, and what was the consequence of his rubbing the skin near his rump. Yet while I select these unnecessaries from his Diary, let it not be concealed that there is one item which my fellow-citizens have probably read with more interest, and from which a caution may be deduced which will seldom be neglected. I allude to his having "fallen ill of a surfeit occasioned by drinking water after venison !"

With the exception of this very useful hint, which the advanced state of dinner-knowledge perhaps renders superfluous, it is evident, that a diary of such materials as the above might be extended to many folios, without answering any valuable purpose. Men seldom grow wiser by being reminded when they parted with a tooth, or discharged a servant; when they contracted to build a stable, or took pills to procure a sweat. When a man marries a second wife, he is in no great danger of forgetting that he buried the first; and it must be somewhat mortifying to him who wishes to review the progress of his life, that his Journal enables him only to recover the dates of a jaunt, or the items of a tavern-bill, the age of his wine, or the sickness of his horse. And if such circumVOL. II.

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stances are of little consequence to the recorder of them, what must they be to the reader? Few men can expect to possess such sympathetic tenderness, as to feel much anxiety about a neighbour of whom they know nothing but the chronology of his gout or his rheumatism: still less can they be desirous to know when he paid visits or bills, when he let blood, or tenements.

I have been led into these remarks by lately picking up, on a stall near Smithfield, a Diary of a very singular kind, in which the writer's mind was strongly, and in many respects properly, imbued with a sense of religion. But the chief purpose, if I mistake not, of this Diary, was such a review of his mind, as might enable him to conquer two propensities very predominant. The one was a temper not of the most placid kind; the other, an inclination to enjoy the pleasures of the table considerably beyond the bounds of temperance and sobriety. The whole forms one of the most candid exposures of a mind continually at variance with itself, and for a long series of years forming, in vain, resolutions of amendment, which men of different habits would think it very easy to keep. This Diary, or Journal, was published in 1776, a few months after the death of the author, Dr. Rutty, an eminent physician in