interest of an Author to write what he thinks will have a chance to be read; and I might perhaps have endeavoured to gratify my Correspondent by dedicating a whole PROJECTOR to the honour of the object of his admiration, had I not found myself anticipated by the regular body of Theatrical Criticks, in every thing that it is, or was, or will be, possible to say of this young gentleman. Now, as by virtue of my office, as PROJECTOR, I am prohibited from copying, or borrowing, and hold myself obliged to give my readers nothing but new plans, new schemes, and the very newest inventions, I cannot venture to infringe upon the character of our fraternity by repeating what has been said before, and said so often, that some Critics seem to be exhausted by violent discharges of panegyric, and others have fallen down in fits of apoplectic praise, from a plethora of admiration, which swelled and obstructed all the organs of speech*.

In truth, my worthy friends the Criticks may

* After an account of young Roscius's illness, a paper of Wednesday, (Dec. 19,) sums up in these words: "We cannot conclude without expressing an anxious wish that the indisposition of Master B. may prove slight, and that he may be speedily restored to the prayers of an admiring people, who would be disconsolate for his loss.”

afford a seasonable warning to their brethren, who by absence, or otherwise, have avoided the prevailing contagion. A man who vents his praises at the rate of three columns of Newspaper per day, for a week or two together, must suffer as the constitution does by copious evacuations: the present complaint may be somewhat relieved, but the patient is reduced to a state of extreme weakness, and is in danger of suffering more by inanition, than he could have suffered by fulness. They have already, to drop my physical metaphors, so completely exhausted the English language of its panegyrical phrases, and have so worn out every superlative that expresses praise or admiration, that nothing seems to be left for them, but to convey their encomiums, if they have any not used, in some foreign language, such as French, which is full of exclamations, or perhaps Latin, in which, if we look at the correspondence of the ancient Literati, we shall find considerable stores of compliment and flattery that have not yet been ransacked. This might, indeed, be unintelligible to many of their readers; but I am not sure whether it would be less edifying than many of the criticisms presented to the publick within the last fortnight.

It would have been a happy circumstance for

some of these Critics, had they attended to an advice which Dr. Johnson was accustomed to give; “not to make use of words of disproportionate meaning." We certainly have lately been favoured with words of that description, applied in a manner which ridiculed the circumstance it was intended to elevate; and this, as I take it, proceeds from that excess of criticism in which some writers indulge themselves at the same time that they prohibit it to others. They appear to have so completely taken the power of judging into their own hands, that I know not what their next step may be, unless to put all discrimination under a new species of Excise, and order, that no man shall employ the faculties of his own mind, without giving notice to one of these Critics. This may, like other extensions of the Excise, produce a clamour, as being an infringement on the liberties of the subject; but yet, so ambitious are our Theatrical Critics of a monopoly, that I should not wonder if it soon becomes as criminal for a man to make his own remarks, as to make his own candles.

Big words, however, have had their day as well as little words. Awful and tremendous have been employed as often to describe the scenes of a play, as formerly to depict the hor

rors of an earthquake. Those who have hitherto trembled for the massacres, rapine, and cruelties of a successful invasion, have now been taught to realize their ideas by the difficulties they experienced in the lobbies of the boxes, and the avenues to the pit. The sufferings in the Black-hole at Calcutta appear to have been only gentle perspirations, compared to the agonies of the gallery staircase; and the difficulty of the French making a landing on our shores dwindles to nothing, when compared with the struggles of ladies to get to their places. By what means the floors and the walls have been hitherto preserved, we have yet to learn; but whoever reads the torments of these theatrical martyrs, and considers the language in which they are detailed, may consider the earthquake at Lisbon as a pleasant fiction, or peruse the destruction of Jerusalem with a dignified com

posure.

Words seem to be wanting, although as many as our language affords have been employed, to describe the happiness of those who survived the perils of squeezing, and at length reached their seats; but of the sublime nature of this happiness, the expressions I have seen (and some, doubtless, may have escaped me,) give but a very faint idea. Instead of labour

ing, therefore, hereafter to describe these unspeakable joys, our criticks should pay them the highest compliments possible, by acknowledging their inability, and referring to some more exalted state of human being, in which higher degrees of human felicity may be conceived and enjoyed. I would not have them degrade it by comparisons with an admission to a coronation, a full-dress ball, a grand rout, or any of the petty mobs of this paltry world. They have, indeed, and I should do them injustice not to mention it; they have attempted to give us an idea of this happiness, by depicting the despair that sat on the countenances of those who were

disappointed, and who wandered about the streets the rest of the evening, forlorn and dejected, beyond all hopes of comfort. Their situation must, indeed, have been deplorable; and, in order to represent it, it was no doubt equally judicious to borrow from the horrors of an evil conscience, or a disordered imagination, the looks and the language of the blackest despair. Happy, probably, was it for many families as well as individuals, that the gloomy month of November was o'erpast before this additional plague was inflicted on mankind, this trial beyond all human patience, this disap