it is necessary that the few labours of the toilet, which survived the entry, should perish at the exit, that carriages should be broke, horses killed, and servants sustain fractures*. But in this great conflict, language must confess its poverty of description: some idea, perhaps, may be formed of it, when I add that, according to the opinion of seven or eight hundred ladies and gentlemen of the first fashion, all that our troops suffered in the late campaign were mere trifles, when compared to the danger and difficulty of getting home from a party of pleasure. It is in vain to compare the landing in Egypt, amidst the continued fire of the enemy, to the passage to one's coach, amidst the compressed ranks, who are as eagerly crowding to their's. I shall leave this, therefore, to some poet, who, having exhausted the metaphors and images of his predecessors, is able to invent some that are new.

"You will perceive now, Sir, that by the constitution of a rout, the complaints to which I adverted in the beginning of my letter dwindle into the prejudices of ignorance; that ease, comfort, and convenience, are vulgarisms which would check the brilliancy of eclat and the

fame of rumour; and that the loss of carriages, horses, and limbs, are the minute ornaments which grace the triumph. If, therefore, the prejudices of the public are to be at all tolerated, it ought to be in a very partial degree. We cannot submit to deprive a rout of its long and edifying columns in a newspaper, and its numerous accidents and casualties. We cannot rob it of the only circumstances which serve as a barrier against the encroachments of city safety and bourgeoise comfort. All, I think, we ought to do in compliance with popular notions, is to add a medical staff to our establishments, and provide a room to be called the Dispensary, or Cockpit, to which the wounded may be removed during an engagement, that their cries may not damp the courage of the other assailants: and perhaps it might not be improper to consult BOULTON or WATT on the power of steam, and request them to fortify the roofs of our houses against those accidents to which still-heads are liable. "I am, Sir,

your humble servant,

"Pall Mall.”

A MAN OF PLEASURE.

THE PROJECTOR. No 7.

"All bodies have their MEASURE and their space : But who can draw the soul's dimensive lines ?"

DAVIES.

July 1802.

OF Or all the PROJECTORS who daily edify the public with their endeavours to improve the state of nature and of man, there.are, perhaps, none who attract more attention, or excite more surprize, than that numerous body of geniuses, known in former days by the name of barbers and wig-makers, but in our politer and more respectful times by that of friseurs and peruquiers. Why the French language should be supposed to ennoble every thing it covers may probably be the object of a future speculation. It is, however, impossible for the proudest of Projectors to look with disrespect upon the class of men I have just mentioned, since to them are committed the heads of almost the whole nation, and since under their hands most of those heads receive the

only improvement that is either deemed necessary, or of which they are thought capable.

Yet, while I pay this compliment to these gentlemen, as becomes one Projector to pay to another, I am not their blind panegyrist.

am bound in justice to say, that with all their abilities they are but men, and have the common failings of men, and especially that very crying weakness of Projectors, namely vanity. I could give specimens, were it necessary, to prove that on some occasions this betrays them into a mode of speaking and writing on the subject of their inventions, which is considerably remote from modesty. This may, however, be only that consciousness of excellence which has been tolerated in great geniuses, and without which, it is said, a great genius will rarely be tempted to make those daring efforts which "elevate and surprize," or, indeed, to exhibit any extraordinary display of talent. I am willing, therefore, to make allowances for their frequent use of superlatives in the description of a wig, and for culling the choicest flowers of encomiastic rhetoric to display the beauty of a curl, or the convenience of a braid.

But I have been more particularly induced, in this day's speculation, to touch on the merit

of our head artists, from a circumstance that struck my eye lately in the newspapers, the columns of which are the Philosophical Transactions" of wig-making and hair-dressing. In an advertisement, addressed to "gentlemen of rank and fashion," who are undoubtedly the ablest and most generous patrons of what belongs to the ornamental part of the head, after an enumeration of the peculiar excellencies that attach to wigs made by the ingenious author, which are too numerous for me to repeat, a discovery is announced that appears to be of the first importance to mankind in general, and that, indeed, I should rather have expected from a philosopher than from a friseur. It is briefly expressed in the following words:

"He," meaning the artist, "has a copperplate engraved, which enables any lady or gentleman TO TAKE AN ACCURate measure

The value of this discovery will at once appear to those who are conversant in the history of mankind at large, but more particularly with the history of literature and literary undertakings, of all which it may be said, that their success or failure has depended entirely on the measure of the head having been