all your Projects; it were better I had been burnt, than to have given Ear to your destructive Counsels.  You overturn a whole House, least a Corner of it should fall; you feed a Prince with his own Limbs, and pretend to maintain him, when he is devouring himself.  Villains, justly did the Fire come to burn me, for suffering you to live; but, when it perceived me in the Power of Projectors, it ceased, concluding I was already consumed.  Fire is the most merciful of Projectors, for Water quenches it; but you increase in spight of all the Elements.  Princes may be poor; but when they once have to do with Projectors, they cease to be Princes, to avoid being poor.

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Printed for W. BOREHAM, at the Angel in Pater-Noster-Row, where Advertisements and Letters from Correspondents are taken in.

Numb.  XXII

THE

THEATRE.

By Sir JOHN FALSTAFFE.

To be Continued every Tuesday and Saturday.

Price Two-pence.

     Quos Jupiter vult perdere, dementat prius.

Saturday, April 30. 1720.

It is common with Authors of my Rank to give themselves Airs of Consequence, when they assume a Right of correcting, or reforming, the Vices, or Follies of the Age.  The late Sir John Edgar, of obscure Memory, pretended to define a Sort of Men whom he called wrong-headed, and has told two or three Stories by Way of Examples, from whence he wou’d have you think, that a Slip of Memory, is an Error in Judgment; as you may see in his Instance of the Foot Soldier, who robbed the Gentleman, and forgetting that he had put the Things into his own Pockets, afterwards changed Coats with the Gentleman, and by that Means put him again in Possession of whatever he before had robbed him.  Without any Malice to Sir John’s Remaines, I shall beg Leave to observe, that the Term wrong-headed more properly belongs to him, who has an ill Turn of thinking, and judging, than to him who commits a careless Oversight, which is common to Men of the best Parts.  My Reason for introducing this, is, from some Reflections that I have made on the Subject of my last Paper; by which it appears to me that there are Multitudes of this Sort of People in the World, pursuing Fortune in a very giddy Way.  I suppose it will be thought ridiculous, to call him wrong-headed, who by any Artifice shall improve his Estate; yet when the Misfortunes of others, and those by much the greater Number, and a Decay of Trade are put in Ballance against that Artifice, I doubt this Charge must be somewhere, tho’ I am not cunning enough to tell where.  As I see but little Company, and retire for my Ease and the Improvement of my Studies; I was deeply ingaged in Thought the other Night upon this Topick, and in made such a strong Impression upon me, that it produced a very odd Dream.  As it is the Weakness of Women, and old Men, to be fond of telling their Dreams to their Friends, I hope my Readers will excuse me this Infirmity of my Age.