who have missed the game within a few hours, merely by starting aside, or stumbling upon a poor joke or pun.

To these virtues, it is almost needless to say that the exercise of patience is indispensably necessary. This, indeed, is the foundation of the whole; and of what does patience consist but of the suppression of all caprice, ill-temper, hasty and harsh words, and little resentments, which are unbecoming the graces of submission and humility? For this reason, if I might be permitted to give advice to legacy-hunters, while I attempt to vindicate them, I would suggest that it is an amusement which, if not begun in youth, can rarely be practised with success in age. I know several legacy-hunters who have begun late in life, and have always been unsuccessful from want of patience, and from forgetting that they are to comply with the humours of another at the expence of their own. Youth, when the faculties are supple, is the proper time to begin the art; and hence it is that parents of much experience begin very early to train up their children to that kind of respect for bachelor uncles and maiden aunts, which may ultimately conduct them with advantage to the Probate-office. I cannot, however, recommend a very early attempt at this

art, as young people are apt to be impatient and careless; yet, with proper instructions on the doctrine of the main chance, it is wonderful what proficiency some will attain at an age when others are contentedly drudging in shops and warehouses, and acquiring no more wealth than they can honestly earn.

If my readers will now seriously consider that here are a race of human beings who make it their study, some for months, and some for years, to practise the amiable qualities abovementioned, I trust they will agree with me that legacy-hunters may be presented in a more favourable light than that in which they have hitherto been placed. It remains, therefore, that I state one or two reasons why I have projected this apology for their character and conduct.

the

My first reason is, because they deserve our compassion; for, even if successful, they who are influenced by such principles are very rarely persons who have an inclination to profit by their victory. The acquisition of the object of their labours has seldom tended to promote happiness, or dignify character. But if, upon this account, they merit our compassion, they are yet more to be pitied in their disappointments, which exceed in bitterness almost all

that we know of human misery. This will ap

perhaps, they laborious part and some

years,

pear evident, if we consider that, have performed the painful and above described for a series of for a great portion of their life; and if we consider likewise that others, fancying themselves to be nearly approaching the reward of their labours, have anticipated that reward in a manner which, if disappointment follows, is peculiarly embarrassing. It frequently happens also that, when the object is gained, and all seem secure, congratulations are flowing in, and new schemes of new life and show are forming, some trifling circumstance is discovered, although so small as a single word, or a cypher, which is represented in Westminster-hall in such a manner as to overthrow the patience and submission of years, and send away the unhappy legacy-hunter, not only impoverished, but disgraced. There is another class of disappointments scarcely inferior to this: for some have had the mortification, after all their pains, to discover, not that they are omitted in the will, but that there was no will at all. Whether it be possible to bear the least of these evils with resignation must be left to the decision of those who have suffered them. They would form subjects of very unprofitable speculation with

the rest of mankind, because they are mixed with certain feelings to which they are happily strangers.

many

And this leads me to another reason for the apology I have attempted for legacy-hunters, and that is, that nobody pities them. There seems on the contrary a general combination to treat not only without pity, but with contempt, this laborious, attentive, assiduous, and submissive race of men. Yet, surely, even this seems to recommend their characters, when they have the courage to persist against so difficulties. Nor have they courage only, but philosophy also, to submit to so many privations, if successful, and to so many evils and mortifications where they fail. Let us, then, endeavour to represent their character in as favourable a light as it will admit, with this reserve, that one half the perseverance, attention, and obliging temper, which is so frequently thrown away upon a dotard, might have been crowned with success in a shop; and that the wealth which is not the produce of integrity or talents, will rarely contribute to character or happiness.

THE PROJECTOR. No 53.

"Histrio hoc videbit in scenâ, quod non videbit sapiens

in vitâ?"

CICERO.

January 1806.

Few comparisons have more frequently oc

curred than that of human life to the stage. Familiar conversation, even among those who have seldom seen a theatre, has condescended to borrow many significant and serious expressions from the economy of mimic life. We frequently speak of being delighted with new scenes, or disgusted with a continued repetition of the old. We applaud the man who attempts a difficult part, and performs it well, and we sigh at the remembrance of those who are gone, or going off the stage, and can delight us no more. Perhaps, indeed, in other cases, many if our language were attentively examined, we should find that a very great part of what we consider as the most appropriate expressions on serious occasions, and calculated to elevate the subject of conversation or writing, is derived