ORIGINAL DEDICATIONS. MY LORD, Volume the First. TO JOHN LORD SOMERS, BARON OF EVESHAM. I SHOULD not act the part of an impartial in particular, and of the interests of Europe in Spectator, if I dedicated the following papers to one who is not of the most consummate and most acknowledged merit. None but a person of a finished character can be a proper patron of a work which endeavours to cultivate and polish human life, by promoting virtue and knowledge, and by recommending whatsoever may be either useful or ornamental to society. I know that the homage I now pay to you, is offering a kind of violence to one who is as solicitous to shun applause, as he is assiduous to deserve it. But, my lord, this is perhaps the only particular in which your prudence will be always disappointed. While justice, candour, equanimity, a zeal for the good of your country, and the most persuasive eloquence in bringing over others to it are valuable distinctions; you are not to expect that the public will so far comply with your inclinations, as to forbear celebrating such extraordinary qualities. It is in vain that you have endeavoured to conceal your share of merit in the many national services which you have effected. Do what you will, the present age will be talking of your virtues, though posterity alone will do them justice. general; to which I must also add, a certain dignity in yourself, that (to say the least of it) has been always equal to those great honours which have been conferred upon you. It is very well known how much the church owed to you, in the most dangerous day it ever saw, that of the arraignment of its prelates;* and how far the civil power, in the late and present reign, has been indebted to your counsels and wisdom. But to enumerate the great advantages which the public has received from your administration, would be a more proper work for a history, than for an address of this nature. Your lordship appears as great in your pri vate life, as in the most important offices which you have borne. I would, therefore, rather choose to speak of the pleasure you afford all who are admitted to your conversation, of your elegant taste in all the polite arts of learning. of your great humanity and complacency of manners, and of the surprising influence which is peculiar to you, in making every one who converses with your lordship prefer you to himself, without thinking less meanly of his own talents. But if I should take notice of all that might be observed in your lordship, I should have nothing new to say upon any other cha racter of distinction. MY LORD, I am, Your Lordship's most devoted, Other men pass through oppositions and contending interests in the ways of ambition; but your great abilities have been invited to power, and importuned to accept of advancement. Nor is it strange that this should happen to your lordship, who could bring into the service of your sovereign the arts and policies of ancient Greece and Rome; as well as the most exact knowledge of our own constitution' peached in 1688. MY LORD, He was one of the counsel for the seven hishops, im Volume the Second. TO CHARLES LORD HALIFAX. 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 qualities in you, of which, in the whole course of these papers, I have ac knowledged myself incapable. While I busy myself as a stranger upon earth, and can pretend to no other 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. prosperity and welfare. A generous concern What an happy conjunction of different talents for your country, and a passion for every thing meets in him whose whole discourse is at once which is truly great and noble, are what actuanimated by the strength and force of reason, ate all your life and actions; and I hope you and adorned with all the graces and embellish- will forgive me when I have an ambition this ments of wit! When learning irradiates com- book may be placed in the library of so good mon life, it is then in its highest use and per- a judge of what is valuable, in that library fection; and it is to such as your lordship, that where the choice is such, that it will not be a the sciences owe the esteem which they have disparagement to be the meanest author in it. with the active part of mankind. Knowledge Forgive me, my lord, for taking this occasion of books in recluse men, is like that sort of of telling all the world how ardently I love and lantern, which hides him who carries it, and honour you; and that I am, with the utmost serves only to pass through secret and gloomy gratitude for all your favours, paths of his own; but in the possession of a MY LORD, man of business, it is as a torch in the hand of Your Lordship's most obliged, most obedient, one who is willing and able to show those who and most humble servant, were bewildered, the way which leads to their THE SPECTATOR. Volume the Third. SIR, TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY BOYLE* 1712. Your aversion to any ostentatious arts of setting to show those great services which you have done the public, has not likewise a little contributed to that universal acknowledgment which is paid you by your country. As the professed design of this work is to entertain its readers in general, without giving offence to any particular person, it would be difficult to find out so proper a patron for it as yourself, there being none whose merit is The consideration of this part of your chamore universally acknowledged by all parties, racter, is that which hinders me from enlarging and who has made himself more friends, and on those extraordinary talents, which have fewer enemies. Your great abilities and un- given you so great a figure in the British questioned integrity, in those high employ-senate, as well as in that elegance and politements which you have passed through, would ness which appear in your more retired connot have been able to have raised you this ge- versation. I should be unpardonable if, after neral approbation, had they not been accom- what I have said, I should longer detain you panied with that moderation in an high for- with an address of this nature; I cannot, howtune, and that affability of manners, which are ever, conclude it, without acknowledging so conspicuous through all parts of your life. those great obligations which you have laid can be found in the following or any other book. One cannot indeed without offence to yourself observe, that you excel the rest of mankind in the least, as well as the greatest endowments. Nor were it a circumstance to be mentioned, if the graces and attractions of your person were not the only pre-eminence you have above others, which is left almost unobserved by greater writers. I shall not here presume to mention the illustrious passages of your life, which are celebrated by the whole age, and have been the subject of the most sublime pens; but if I could convey you to posterity in your private Yet how pleasing would it be to those who character, and describe the stature, the be- shall read the surprising revolutions in your haviour, and aspect, of the Duke of Marl-story, to be made acquainted with your orborough, I question not but it would fill the reader with more agreeable images, and give him a more delightful entertainment than what dinary life and deportment! How pleasing would it be to hear that the same man, who carried fire and sword into the countries of all that had opposed the cause of liberty, and struck a terror into the armies of France, had, in the midst of his high station, a behaviour as gentle as is usual in the first steps towards greatness! And if it were possible to express that easy grandeur, which did at once persuade and command, it would appear as clearly to those to come, as it does to his contemporaries, that all the great events which were brought to pass under the conduct of so well-governed a spirit, were the blessings of heaven upon wisdom and valour; and all which seem adverse, fell out by divine permission, which we are not to search into. You have passed that year of life wherein the most able and fortunate captain, before your time, declared he had lived long enough both to nature and to glory; and your grace may make that reflection with much more justice. He spoke it after he had arrived at empire by an usurpation upon those whom he had enslaved: but the Prince of Mindelheim.* *This title was conferred upon the Duke by the Emperor, after the battle of Hochstadt. may rejoice in a sovereignty which was the gift of him whose dominions be had preserved. Glory established upon the uninterrupted success of honourable designs and actions, is not subject to diminution; nor ean any attempts prevail against it, but in the proportion which the narrow circuit of rumour bears to the unlimited extent of fame. We may congratulate your grace not only upon your high achievements, but likewise upon the happy expiration of your command, by which your glory is put out of the power of fortune: and when your person shall be so too, that the Author and Disposer of all things may place you in that higher mansion of bliss and immortality which is prepared for good princes, law-givers, and heroes, when he in his due time removes them from the envy of mankind, is the hearty prayer of, MY LORD, Volume the Fifth. ́· TO THE EARL OF WHARTON. MY LORD, 1712-13. It is your lordship only who enjoys these se The author of the Spectator, having prefixed veral talents united, and that too in as great before each of his volumes the name of some perfection as others possess them singly. Your great persons to whom he has particular obli- enemies acknowledge this great extent in your gations, lays his claim to your lordship's pa- lordship's character, at the same time that tronage upon the same account. I must con- they use their utmost industry and inventior fess, my lord, had not I already received great to derogate from it. But it is for your honour instances of your favour, I should have been that those who are now your enemies were alafraid of submitting a work of this nature to ways so. You have acted in so much consisyour perusal. You are so thoroughly acquainted tency with yourself, and promoted the interests with the characters of men, and all the parts of your country in so uniform a manner, that of human life, that it is impossible for the even those who would misrepresent your geneleast misrepresentation of them to escape your rous designs for the public good, cannot but notice. It is your lordship's particular dis-approve the steadiness and intrepidity with tinction that you are master of the whole com- which you pursue them. It is a most sensible pass of business, and have signalized yourself pleasure to me that I have this opportunity of in all the different scenes of it. We admire professing myself one of your great admirers, some for the dignity, others for the popularity and in 'a very particular manner, of their behaviour; some for their clearness of judgment, others for their happiness of expression; some for the laying of schemes, and others for the putting of them in execution. MY LORD, Your Lordship's most obliged, and Volume the Sixth. TO THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND. MY LORD, 1712-13. and a winning condescension to all snbordiVERY many favours and civilities, (received nate to you, made business a pleasure to those from you in a private capacity) which I have who executed it under you, at the same time no other way to acknowledge, will, I hope, that it heightened her majesty's favour to all excuse this presumption; but the justice I, as those who had the happiness of having it cona Spectator, owe your character, places me veyed through your hands. A secretary of above the want of an excuse. Candour and state, in the interest of mankind, joined with openness of heart, which shine in all your that of his fellow-subjects, accomplished with words and actions, exact the highest esteem a great facility and elegance in all the modern from all who have the honour to know you; as well as ancient languages, was a happy and proper member of a ministry, by whose ser- to me, as you are a gentleman of the most vices 'your sovereign is in so high and flourish- polite literature, and perfectly accomplished ing a condition, as makes all other princes in the knowledge of books* and men, which and potentates powerful or inconsiderable in makes it necessary to beseech your indulEurope, as they are friends or enemies to gence to the following leaves, and the auGreat Britain. The importance of those great thor of them, who is, with the greatest truth events which happened during that admin- and respect, istration in which your lordship bore so important a charge will be acknowledged as long as time shall endure. I shall not therefore attempt to rehearse those illustrious passages, but give this application a more private and particular turn, in desiring your lordship would continue your favour and patronage truly valuable library at Althorp. SIR, MY LORD, Your Lordship's obliged, obedient, THE SPECTATOR. His lordship was the founder of the splendid and Volume the Seventh. TO MR. METHUEN.* It is with great pleasure I take an opportunity of publishing the gratitude I owe you for the place you allow me in your friendship and familiarity. I will not acknowledge to you that I have often had you in my thoughts, when I have endeavoured to draw, in some parts of these discourses, the character of a good-natured, honest, and accomplished gentleman. But such representations give my reader an idea of a person blameless only, or only laudable for such perfections as extend no farther than to his own private advantage and reputation. employed by you as lower arts; and as they have occasionally served to cover or introduce the talents of a skilful minister. But your abilities have not appeared only in one nation. When it was your province to act as her majesty's minister at the court of Savoy, at that time encamped, you accompanied that gallant prince through all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and shared by his side the dangers of that glorious day in which he recovered his capital. As far as it regards personal qualities, you attained, in that one hour, the highest military reputation. The behaviour of our minister in the action, and But when I speak of you, I celebrate one the good offices done the vanquished in the who has had the happiness of possessing also name of the Queen of England, gave both the those qualities which make a man useful to conqueror and the captive the most lively society, and of having had opportunities of examples of the courage and generosity of the exerting them in the most conspicuous man-nation he represented. ner. Your friends and companions in your abThe great part you had, as British ambas-sence frequently talk these things of you; sador, in procuring and cultivating the adva-and you cannot hide from us (by the most tageous commerce between the courts of Eng-discreet silence in any thing which regards land and Portugal, has purchased you the yourself) that the frank entertainment we lasting esteem of all who understand the in-have at your table, your easy condescension terest of either nation. in little incidents of mirth and diversion, and Those personal excellencies which are over general complacency of manners, are far from rated by the ordinary world, and too much being the greatest obligations we have to you. neglected by wise men, you have applied I do assure you, there is not one of your with the justest skill and judgment. The friends has a greater sense of your merit in most graceful address in horsemanship, in the general, and of the favours you every day do use of the sword, and in dancing, has been us, than, |