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LESS SHE HAD THE NEXT BEST TO SUPPORT HER COURAGE. THROUGHOUT a long and ACTIVE LIFE, SHE NEVER WAS KNOWN TO FINESSE ; AND WHEN IN DOUBT (FOR WHO FROM DOUBTS ARE FREE?) SHE WON THE TRICK. THOUGH DESIROUS OF HONOURS, SHE WAS HONEST IN DEALING HER CARDS, AND, SUCH IS THE DANGER OF INSPECTION, UPRIGHT IN SORTING THEM. AFTER FORTY YEARS NOBLY SPENT IN THE STUDY OF HOYLE, SHE CONDESCENDED TO

DIVERT HER DYING HOURS WITH A DUETTO AT CRIBBAGE; AND, HAVING GENTLY REMOVED HER PEGS, DEPARTED THIS LIFE, WITH HIS NOB IN HER HAND."

THE PROJECTOR. N° 37.

"So great is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community."

HAPPENING

BLACKSTONE.

November 1804.

APPENING a few days ago to look into a weighty folio on law, I was surprized to find how many statutes have been made for the ex

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press purpose of protecting or conveying property. Perhaps, indeed, it may in some respect be said, that the whole purpose of our statutes is directed to this object; and it is certain that almost all the trials in our courts have the same security in view. I could not help, therefore, congratulating myself on living in a country where such ample provision is made against force or fraud; and so many wise regulations have been adopted, in order that those happy days may be realized in our land, when every "sit under his own vine and under his own fig-tree, none making him afraid." But in the midst of this pleasing reverie, from which the publick might very probably have received a congratulatory and consolatory PROJECTOR, I was disturbed by receiving the following letter, which I must allow, in one respect at least, seems to prove that, in a country where the rights of possession are studied and preserved more than in any other, there is one species of property which is wholly neglected, and which the owner finds it extremely difficult to secure when he has it, or to pursue it when stolen. But let my correspondent speak for himself.

66

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE PROJECTOR.

"SIR,

"I COULD wish that, at some leisure moment, you would take into consideration the present low state of wit in this country. I have too great a respect for a nation that has produced Addison and Swift, Johnson and Chesterfield, to suppose that the present generation of wits are inferior to their great ancestors; and, therefore, upon due reflection on the subject, I am inclined to think that the cause of our declension in this valuable article arises from a defect in our laws. Highly as I regard the laws of our happy and envied land, I suspect they may be justly accused of neglecting the interests of wit; for I cannot in the whole body of statutes find one which is calculated for the preservation of this species of property. I trust, therefore, I do not take too great liberty with certain names of renown in history when I draw this inference, that our statesmen have in general been very dull men, who knew something of preserving property in land and malt, in hops, and sugar and tea, in deals, and iron, and raw spirits, but who were utterly unacquainted with a good joke, and never supposed that any genius had a right to be protected in his repartees.

"I feel this injury, Sir, with much acuteness; and, therefore, I shall wave all delicacy about what some people, who have nothing to say for themselves, call egotism, and inform you plainly, that I am a wit by profession, and have been the author of most of the good things that have been circulated in the metropolis for a great number of years: but in all that time I have never been able to retain one good thing for my own use and benefit. The moment I have said it, the title-page, if I may so speak, is torn from it, and another name, real or fictitious, is appended to it, and out comes an edition at Oxford or Cambridge, which ever after passes as the legitimate production of either of those seats of learning. And so numerous have been the depredations committed on my property in this way, that I know at this moment a great many reputedly clever fellows who are asked to dinners and suppers on the strength of some of my bon mots, which they produce with as much confidence as if they were their own. Yet where my remedy?

is

"I had the curiosity within these few weeks to visit some friends at both universities on purpose to look after my property, not with the hopes of recovering it, but to see in what hands it had got; and, perhaps, you will hardly give

me credit when I assure you, that I found half the colleges, both of Oxford and Cambridge, enlivened by editions of my town-jokes, committed to memory by Tom and Jack and Will when in my company in London, and published as their own when they got to Brazen-nose and All Souls, St. John's and Clare-hall. It was in vain for me to assert my right; I should have only been myself a joke; for I find it a maxim among the dealers in second-hand jests, that there is no property in them, and that to contend for the authorship of a good thing would only spoil the telling of it. I hope, however, Mr. PROJECTOR, that you entertain a more correct opinion of the nature of such articles, and consider them as entitled to full protection. I have only to add on this part of my subject, that there were some few alleviating circumstances in the editions of my jokes published at the universities. I had the happiness to find that, although an undergraduate would sometimes bring out a smart thing of mine as his own, and run away with the credit of it, yet in general they were ascribed to men of high rank. In this kind of disguise, or in this transmigration of souls, if I may so term it, I found that I was sometimes a bishop, and sometimes the head of a house, sometimes the vice-chancellor, and

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