THE

SPECTATOR.

WITH SKETCHES OF THE

LIVES

OF

THE AUTHORS,

AND

EXPLANATORY NOTES.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

Edinburgh:

PRINTED FOR CUTHELL AND MARTIN, VERNOR AND HOOD,
LACKINGTON, ALLEN, AND CO. LONDON;

BELL AND BRADFUTE, EDINBURGH; AND

J. AND A. DUNCAN, GLASGOW;

By John Brown, Anchor Close.

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

CHARLES LORD HALIFAX.

MY LORD,

SIMILITUDE of manners and

studies is usually mentioned as one of the strongest motives to affection and esteem; but the passionate veneration I have for your Lordship, I think, flows from an admiration of quali ties in you, of which, in the whole course of these papers, I have acknowledged myself incapable. While I busy myself as a stranger upon earth, and can pretend to no more than being a looker-on, you are conspicuous in the busy and polite world, both in the world of men and that of letters: While I am silent and unobserved in public meetings, you are admired by all that approach you, as the life and genius of the conversation. What a happy conjunction of different talents meets in him whose whole discourse is at once animated by the strength and force of reason, and adorned with all the graces and embellishments of wit! When learning irradiates common life, it is then in its highest use and perfection; and it is to such as your Lordship that the sciences owe the esteem