and to preclude an improper application. To my tea-table dialogues I will add a Dictionary of French phrases, and words of the latest introduction, to assist those of my readers who have not as yet arrived at much perfection in that excellent part of education. But my great intention in this department is, to enable my fair readers to be in and out of the mode in all parts of Great Britain precisely at the same time. And although in my own private judgment I think I ought to publish my Miscellany only once a month; yet if, from humour or taste, or the quick succession of customs and modes, this is not thought sufficient to answer the various purposes of my work, I will at all times cheerfully submit to a reasonable number of my subscribers. That my publication may not be deficient in any embellishment or illustra tion which other works of the same kind furnish to their readers, plates will be given, from drawings by the best masters and mistresses, of the different arti cles of dress most approved in the fashionable world. As in books of Architecture, there are elevations of fronts and back-fronts, sections of arches and abutments, designs for frizes, stucco-cornices, and pilasters; so, in my Miscellany, similar assistances will be given to the artists of the female figure, and the inventors of female decoration.

The third division of my intended Miscellany will be a section for Female Essayists; and I hope to make a proper, spirited, and entertaining choice. I will occasionally admit little affecting histories, to animate the female world to virtuous and worthy deeds. Nor will it be less necessary for this laudable purpose, sometimes to record bad, as well as good actions, imprudencies and levities, as well as wise and discreet conduct. In this, I must own, I shall only have the merit of following the example set me by several of those works which are professedly

written for the instruction of the female world. And indeed, how can ladies be instructed in morals, unless they know every side of the question? or how be taught to avoid the snares and dangers of the world, unless they are let into the whole secret of their effects and operation?

A Critical Review of Books will be my fourth. But here I have not the most distant thought of intermeddling with the property of some worthy men, whom I honour and esteem. Books of Humour or of Philosophy, Belles Lettres, and History, if they be not the production of one who is, or may become my subscriber, I will not criticise. God forbid that I should presume to think myself qualified to judge and decide concerning the merit of all sorts of books. I will confine my remarks to Novels and Plays, reserving to myself the liberty of dipping into the softest kind of Poetry; and even in this I will endeavour to avoid two things wherein my fellow-labourers in this harvest have frequently erred. In the first place I will on no account give the character of a book, unless it has had the approbation of the public for a dozen years at least. Singular as this may appear to be, it was the practice of the best ancient critics. And besides abridging my own labour, it will much abridge that of others: for I myself, led to think favourably of a book by a fair character in an old Review, have made a tedious and fruitless search for it in both public and private libraries. Secondly, For the most part I will give my opinion in the way of specimen and extract only. I reluctantly censure an association of men, who have so often, and so justly, deserved well of mankind; but at all times I must speak truth. And I am forced to say, that my brethren, in criticising various departments of Literature,

frequently to lead both themselves and their readers quite away from the book they were giving an account of. This, to be sure, as Pope said of his own Pastorals, though it is not criticism, is something better; but my modesty will not allow me to attempt it.

As a little poetry is thought necessary in works of this kind, I shall reserve my fifth department for the productions of the Female Muse. In this article I am excessively nice and delicate. My ear is naturally good, and my understanding as yet undebauched. At the same time I must confess, that what we find in the multitude of Miscellanies, which daily come abroad, is poetry highly seasoned and refined; and were I well assured of the sex of the authors, I would not hesitate to admit it into mine.But as this is doubtful, I shall only propose it as an excellent model to all my correspondents.

My sixth and last department I intend to make the largest, and my endeavours shall not be wanting to make it the most useful. It is wholly to consist of Freethinking. A thousand times have I been grieved to the soul, to think that that religion which emancipates the human mind from folly and prejudice, that religion which M. de Voltaire justly stiles the mild, the benevolent, the unpersecuting, should in a great measure be confined to the most worthless of the human race, whose lives discredit their prc. fession; of whom many, though they have not been persecuted for their opinions, have yet suffered for their crimes. Human laws, ever unmerciful, and I may add unjust, to punish those for their actions, who have deserved rewards for the benevolence and freedom of their thoughts? In the sincerity of my heart, I hope none of the fair-sex will think rashly of my endeavours, since I wish to convert them to a new religion, merely that they may do honour to

it. Lest I should be suspected of vanity, which of all weaknesses I hate the most, I shall say nothing more than that I intend to give to each number an engraving of some woman who has distinguished, or who may distinguish, herself, either by her actions or her writings. I am, SIR,

Your humble servant,

PROJECTOR LITERARIUS.

N 61. SATURDAY, APRIL 1, 1786.

In treating of the moral duties which apply to dif. ferent relations of life, men of humanity and feeling have not forgotten to mention those which are due from Masters to Servants. Nothing indeed can be more natural than the attachment and regard to which the faithful services of our domestics are entitled; the connection grows up, like all the other family-charities in early life, and is only extinguished by those corruptions which blunt the others, by pride, by folly, by dissipation, or by vice.

I hold it indeed as the sure sign of a mind not poised as it ought to be, if it it insensible to the pleasures of home, to the little joys and endearments of a family, to the affection of relations, to the fidelity of domestics. Next to being well with his own conscience, the friendship and attachment of a map's family and dependents seems to me one of the most comfortable circumstances in his lot. His si

som comfort or disquiet that sticks close to him at all times and seasons, and which, though he may now and then forget it amidst the bustle of public, or the hurry of active life, will resume its place in his thoughts, and its permanent effects on his happiness, at every pause of ambition or of business.

In situations and with dispositions such as mine, there is perhaps less merit in feeling the benevolent attachment to which I allude, than in those of persons of more bustling lives and more dissipated attentions. To the Lounger, the home which receives him from the indifference of the circles in which he sometimes loiters his time, is naturally felt as a place of comfort and protection-and an elderly man-servant, whom I think I govern quietly and gently, but who perhaps quietly and gently governs me, I naturally regard as a tried and valuable friend. Few people will perhaps perfectly understand the feeling I experience when I knock at my door, after any occasional absence, and hear the hurried step of Peter on the stairs; when I see the glad face with which he receives me, and the look of honest joy with which he pats Cæsar (a Pomeranian dog who attends me in all my excursions) on the head, as if to mark his kind reception of him too; when he tells me he knew my rap, makes his modest inquiries after my health, opens the door of my room which he has arranged for my reception, places my slippers before the fire, and draws my elbow-chair to its usual stand; I confess I sit down in it with a self-complacency which I am vain enough to think a bad man would be incapable of feeling.

It appears to me a very pernicious mistake, which I have sometimes seen parents guilty of in the education of their children, to encourage and incite in them a haughty and despotic behaviour to their servants; to teach them an early conceit of the differ