My Lord,

SHOULD not act the part of an impartial 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 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.

the interests of Europe in 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 private 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 the 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 character of distinction. I ain,

MY LORD,

Your Lordship's most devoted,

Most obedient humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR.

* He was one of the counsel for the seven bishops im