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be substituted with considerable effect. Still those who are not of opinion that our language is insolvent, and no longer able to pay any demands upon it, will perhaps be ready to express their surprise that an actor cannot appear for the first time on the stage without making his debut, and will be induced to inquire why a girl who is the common property of every rake should be said to possess the most captivating naivetè?

In affairs of gallantry, it is not perhaps wonderful that terms should be introduced to disguise sentiments. According to the general method of conducting matters of this kind, it is absolutely necessary that one of the parties should be deceived, and there are few more certain modes of deception than the employment of words which have either no meaning at all, or may be made to assume a meaning for a limited time. But the use of French words in gallantry appears to suggest a general excuse for the use of them in other cases. I offer this as a conjecture merely, although I hope it will be thought capable of some degree of proof. Our language, while it is justly praised for its strength and energy, may yet possess too much of both for particular purposes and particular occasions. It was, perhaps, better suited to

our robust forefathers, than to the present delicate race; and it requires to be softened and thinned, for the same reason that we have found it necessary to exchange the iron armour of our ancestors for broadcloth and flannel. In our language, it is notorious that there are many words respecting gallantry, such as fornication, adultery, &c. which are extremely harsh and unpolite, and which we therefore have exchanged for tendresse, fille de joie, demirep, affaire de cœur, and other graceful diminutives.

There is one phrase in particular which sums up the whole business of gallantry, and is soft and mellifluous to the chastest ear; I mean faux pas, which surely deserves all the praise bestowed on it, although some classes of men, such as divines, proctors, and judges, still make use of the harsh words noticed above. There seems, likewise, this peculiar advantage in the faux pas, that it means nothing very disreputable, which the other words are thought to imply very strongly. On the contrary, the persons who may have committed a faux pas suffer very little injury, except perhaps losing the mauvaise honte, and are still received with so much respect in the polite circles, as to be encouraged to treat those of the old school, and PROJECTORS especially, with a proper degree of

hauteur, and finally to consider the affair as a mere bagatelle, not worth remembering.

But as some words are introduced to supply the place of others, so there are also a few phrases which have been very conveniently adopted in lieu of thinking. The je ne sçai quoi is one of the most useful of these, and applicable in a thousand instances of taste, opinion, sentiment; or rather where taste, opinion, and sentiment, happen not to be at hand. Whether a man, a book, a picture, or a house be described, it is liked or disliked for a certain je ne sçai quoi, and there the bargain ends. What the je ne sçai quoi is, or means, no person will be so rude as to inquire even of themselves. Whatever it may be, it is the cause of much buying and selling, of marrying and being given in marriage, and of all those sudden changes which take place, from the dislike of a gown, to the rejection of a lover; and owing to its being held sacred from explanation or inquiry, it is, to use the phrase of the advertising faculty, one of the "most pleasant, safe, mild, and effectual remedies," for fickle tempers that ever was invented. The advantages of such a resource must be obvious to any person who will consider the miserable state to which many would be reduced, were they to be ob

liged to account for their attachments and aversions in plain and intelligible language.

From what has been advanced, therefore, although we may not precisely hit the cause of this invasion on our language by foreigners; yet we may discover that the kind reception they meet with, and the frequent uses to which they are applied, are rather, upon the whole, a matter of necessity than choice. An able advocate might also say something of modesty and respect for the English language in the persons who encourage these intruders; for surely every lover of the language of a people of reflection and virtue, would be sorry to find it employed to make folly consistent, and crimes blameless; and must be pleased with the tacit ridicule of any contrivance to defend that by jargon which is irreconcileable to sense.

THE PROJECTOR, N° 55.

"Cœlum ipsum petimus stultitiâ."

HOR.

March 1806.

Ir has been sometimes a question with me whether the long space which intervenes between my lucubrations be an advantage, or a detriment to me. On the one hand it appears, that if I commit any mistake, a month must elapse before I can correct it, or offer any apology; and the same time must intervene between the beginning and the conclusion of any subject which it has been found necessary to extend through two papers. On the other hand, however, it may be hoped, that if I have committed an offence in one paper, it stands a chance of being pardoned before I begin another; and if I am guilty of that greatest of all offences in persons of my profession, namely, repetition of the same thoughts, the reader has a suitable time allowed him to forget both the original and the copy.

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