Feasted to the utmost bounds. Sinfully cholerick on a slight provocation, for which I am to ask forgiveness to-morrow. Choler in the morning with little cause, in the afternoon with apparent cause, but amplified by mistake. Much incensed on a small occasion. Cross in the morning from fasting, not only mechanically from bile, but immorally. A little of the beast in drinking. Feasted rather beyond bounds. Feasted a little piggishly. Anger to a too great degree. A fatigue and late dinner, and drank beyond the holy bounds. Choler, merely on an unseasonable call from a poor man. A feast, wherein a little swinish. Mechanically dull, listless, and cross. Dinner, bread, water, and saffron-cakes. Mechanically, shamefully dogged. Dogged on a certain rencounter, but soon relented. Lost a fee pretty contentedly. O my doggishness and snappishness with my servant! Feasted; idle punning wit not enough dis couraged. Still morose. I received great contempt from a patient with much patience, whilst smart at home where I Dogged last night and this morning. Very dogged or snappish. A little swinish at dinner. Sickness on a feast. Cursed snappishness to those under me, on a bodily indisposition. On a provocation, exercised a dumb resentment for two days, instead of scolding. Scolded too vehemently. Unrighteously snappish. weakness! Vapourish from indigestion : our feasts have a sting. Drank to the utmost bounds, if not beyond. Head-ach, the just result of yesterday's excess. Lived to drink; and the head-ach a most righteous consequence." In this manner, our Diarist proceeds throughout the whole of his life; and I hope the specimen I have given will not be useless, if they whom passion and intemperance most easily beset, will begin to record their failings with equal candour. Much of the happiness of life depends on temper; and there is more connexion between equanimity of temper and moderation in appetite than is generally supposed. The records of intemperance, indeed, are too frequently to be consulted in our mad-houses and gaols; but most of the evils which result from passion would probably be avoided by a candour and consciousness like what our Diarist cherished, and by recollecting, that it is on many occasions possible to be without an angry adequate cause, and to extend resentment until it makes the provocation ridiculous. THE PROJECTOR. N° 52. "Sunt qui Crustis et pomis viduas venentur avaras, HOR. "Some with fat bucks on childish dotards fawn; Some win rich widows by their chine and brawn." POPE, December 1805. IT was the opinion of Dr. Joseph Warton, in one of his notes on Pope's Works, that the hæredipetæ, or legacy-hunters, were a more common character among the ancients than with us. I ought to apologize for differing from that eminent Critick, if the subject were not of that kind which depends on times and circumstances, and on which the experience of different men may vary, and yet each be just in his assertions. If we look around us in the present day, I flatter myself that, if we are not of opinion that the race of legacy-hunters is become more numerous, so neither can we conclude that the character is become more scarce. There are some reasons, indeed, which make it very natural to conclude that these watchful ladies and gentlemen must have increased. Every character will become prominent in proportion to the temptations it has to display itself; and surely, in an age which presents so many overgrown fortunes and childless families (if the expression be pardonable), we may expect that the captatores and hæredipete will find it their interest to study their art with more assiduity, and practise it with greater skill. But this class of men have, by some means or other, been subjected to contempt and ridicule. Of this we find many specimens in the antient poets; while the satirists of our own nation have not been inattentive to what they considered as a very fertile and happy topic. One of our celebrated dramatic poets has written a comedy, the sole purpose of which is to expose the arts of legacy-hunters; and many of my predecessors have touched either regularly or incidentally on the same subject. The graver moralists have told us that the legacy-hunter is a man who wastes his life in expectations which he has no right to form, in submissions which detract from a manly spirit, and in attentions that can be kind only when they are sincere; and that when he has attained his object, he |