observed in entering a room, but none in the passage that leads to it. There is a nice distinction of ranks and of sex in the seats of public places, but no allowance for rank or sex in the avenues through which we have to pass. And although this creates not only inconvenience, but even danger, it is so generally accounted an honour to produce a mob, that all the difficulties of access or retreat are detailed among the most pleasant circumstances of the affair; and the player's benefit, or the lady's rout, which is accompanied by such incidents, is considered as enjoying an enviable superiority.

A mob, therefore, is not always collected from curiosity. It is a mark of high respect; and that such respect may be secured beyond all possibility of failure from excuses and preengagements, a far greater number are invited than are either expected to come, or could be contained in the house if they did. The assemblage, indeed, is nominally a party, or a party of friends; but in what such a party differs from a mob, the essence of which is mixture and compression, we are not told; and in what manner to distinguish one mob from another, unless by dress, is yet a desideratum in the philosophy of social life.

It has been thought that of late years the spirit of genteel mobbing has increased. It is certain that we read in the papers of much greater crowds or mobs at public places than was the case formerly. Perhaps one reason is, that the people are not so often left to form their own conjectures respecting public shows and spectacles. So much is said before-hand by the various arts of puffing, that natural curiosity is increased by these artificial excitements. How far the accident which is the subject of this paper, may tend to damp the fervour of mobbing, remains to be discovered. I have heard, however, of one lady who after tenderly lamenting the death of so many "poor wretches" in the Old Bailey, went the same evening to one of the theatres, and declared on her return, that she never was more frightened, as she was very near being thrown down and trod upon, in endeavouring to get into the pit. Persons of such feeling as this will no doubt take warning, and make— for the boxes.

THE PROJECTOR. N° 69.

"Credula res Amor est."

OVID.

April 1807.

THE

HE complaint many years ago repeated often and bitterly, that the fair sex was neglected, by being left out of our systems of education, and but indifferently treated in the œconomy of social order, cannot, perhaps, be urged in the present day with so much propriety. Either from a sense of justice, or an increase of gallantry, numerous Projectors have appeared of late, vigorously bent on raising the ladies above every degree of depression or inferiority; and not only on assigning, but preparing them to hold their just rank in society.

The means by which this favourable change has been brought about are various. Some have supposed that the ladies, being by nature fitted to shine in all the honourable departments usually filled by the other sex, have conceived that nothing more was wanted than to restore to them a right of which they had

in some dark and barbarous age been deprived. Others, conceiving that whatever the original intentions of nature were, continual oppression may vitiate the breed of the noblest animals, have proposed to restore the capabilities of the fair sex, by alloting them the same education as is given to the males, and instructing them in such manly branches of science as may revive, if I may so speak, their lost nature, and restore that equality which the advocates for this system have found, or imagined they have found, in some distant period of the golden age.

Whether these schemes are founded upon sound principles, and are calculated to produce wise effects, is a question which I shall noț venture to discuss. I am assured, however, by some of the most amiable, and some of the most learned of the fair sex, that in attempting to cure a positive evil, some of these Projectors have lost themselves; and have bewildered their readers, in the search after an imaginary good. While they have very properly contended against the barbarians who would consider women as mere children, or mere instruments of pleasure or tyranny, they have at the same time forgot that, under every modification of their condition, they ought to retain

the feminine character in order to be objects of superior respect and attachment. My informants also assure me, that the best interests of the sex do not require that they should be admitted into a participation of the amusements or of the business hitherto pursued by men only; and that it is no more necessary for them to learn their athletic sports of hunting and horse-races, than it is to learn the manual exercise, and be qualified to hold commissions in the army and navy. And even with regard to literature, although some of the sex have been admired for excelling in those studies that have almost universally been pursued by men, and although a much more considerable portion of useful knowledge may be easily acquired by the fair sex than has hitherto been taught them, yet those who are candidates for the honourable offices of wives and mothers are of opinion, that a critical knowledge of the learned languages, and of some abstruse parts of the sciences, are not absolutely necessary to the proper discharge of those offices, but may on the contrary interrupt the usual process of

election.

Notwithstanding these opinions, which have operated as a check on the writers who some years ago were more intent on reversing the