ledged myself incapable. While I busy | his own; but in the possession of a man of myself as a stranger upon earth, and can business, it is as a torch in the hand of one pretend to no other than being a looker-on, who is willing and able to show those who you are conspicuous in the busy and polite were bewildered, the way which leads to world; both in the world of men, and that their prosperity and welfare. A generous of letters. While I am silent and unob- concern for your country, and a passion for served in public meetings, you are admired every thing which is truly great and noble, by all that approach you, as the life and are what actuate all your life and actions; genius of the conversation. What a happy and I hope you will forgive me when I have conjunction of different talents meets in him an ambition this book may be placed in the whose whole discourse is at once animated library of so good a judge of what is valuaby the strength and force of reason, and ble; in that library where the choice is adorned with all the graces and embellish- such, that it will not be a disparagement to ments of wit! When learning irradiates be the meanest author in it. Forgive me, common life, it is then in its highest use and my lord, for taking this occasion of telling perfection; and it is to such as your lord- all the world how ardently I love and ho ship, that the sciences owe the esteem nour you; and that I am, with the utmost which they have with the active part of gratitude for all your favours, mankind. Knowledge of books in recluse men, is like that sort of lantern which hides him who carries it, and serves only to pass through secret and gloomy paths of MY LORD, Your Lordship's most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. VOLUME THE THIRD. TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY BOYLE.* 1712. Sir, *Youngest son of Charles Lord Clifford. He was created Baron Charleton, in 1714; but dying, unmarried, in 1725, the title died with him. He was several years secretary of state during the reign of Queen Anne. life. 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. The consideration of this part of your character, is that which hinders me from enlarging on those extraordinary talents which have given you so great a figure in the British senate, as well as in that elegance and politeness which appear in your more retired conversation. I should be unpardonable if, after what I have said, I should longer detain you with an address of this nature: I cannot, however, conclude it, without acknowledging those great obligations which you have laid upon, SIR, Your most obedient humble servant, Marlborough, I question not but it would | the most able and fortunate captain before fill the reader with more agreeable images, your time, declared he had lived long enough and give him a more delightful entertain-both to nature and to glory; and your grace ment than what 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 preeminence you have above others, which is left almost unobserved by greater writers. Yet how pleasing would it be to those who shall read the surprising revolutions in your story, to be made acquainted with your ordinary 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. 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 Nindelheim* may rejoice in a sovereignty which was the gift of him whose dominions he had preserved. Glory established upon the uninterrupted success of honourable designs and actions, is not subject to diminution; nor can 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, lawgivers, and heroes, when he in his due time removes them from the envy of mankind, is the hearty prayer of, MY LORD, Your Grace's most obedient, most devoted, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. *This title was conferred upon the Duke by the Em You have passed that year of life wherein peror, after the battle of Hochstadt. VOLUME THE FIFTH. TO THE EARL OF WHARTON. 1712-13. who enjoys these several talents united, and that too in as great perfection as others possess them singly. Your enemies acknow character, at the same time that they use their utmost industry and invention to derogate from it. But it is for your honour that those who are now your enemies were always so. You have acted in so much consistency with yourself, and promoted the interests of your country in so uniform a manner, that even those who would misrepresent your generous designs for the public good, cannot but approve the steadiness and intrepidity with which you pursue them. It is a most sensible pleasure to me that I have this opportunity of professing myself one of your great admirers, and in a very particular manner, My Lord, THE author of the Spectator, having prefixed before each of his volumes the name of some great persons to whom he has par-ledge this great extent in your lordship's ticular obligations, lays his claim to your lordship's patronage upon the same account. I must confess, my lord, had not I already received great instances of your favour, I should have been afraid of submitting a work of this nature to your perusal. You are so thoroughly acquainted with the characters of men, and all the parts of human life, that it is impossible for the least misrepresentation of them to escape your notice. It is your lordship's particular distinction that you are master of the whole compass of business, and have signalized yourself in all the different scenes of it. We admire some for the dignity, others for the popularity 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 them in execution. It is your lordship only MY LORD, VOLUME THE SIXTH. My Lord, TO THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 1712-13. tates powerful or inconsiderable in Europe, as they are friends or enemies to Great Britain. The importance of those great events which happened during that administration 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 desir ing your lordship would continue your favour and patronage to me, as you are a gentleman of the most polite literature, and perfectly accomplished in the knowledge of books* and men, which makes it necessary to beseech your indulgence to the following leaves, and the author of them, who is, with the greatest truth and respect, VERY many favours and civilities (received from you in a private capacity) which I have no other way to acknowledge, will, I hope, excuse this presumption; but the justice I, as a Spectator, owe your character, places me above the want of an excuse. Candour and openness of heart, which shine in all your words and actions, exact the highest esteem from all who have the honour to know you; and a winning condescension to all subordinate to you, made business a pleasure to those who executed it under you, at the same time that it heightened her majesty's favour to all those who had the happiness of having it conveyed through your hands. A secretary of state, in the interest of mankind, joined with that of his fellow-subjects, accomplished with a great facility and elegance in all the modern as well as ancient languages, was a happy and proper member of a ministry, by whose services your sovereign is in so high and flourishing a condi MY LORD, Your Lordship's obliged, obedient, THE SPECTATOR. His lordship was the founder of the splendid and tion, as makes all other princes and poten- truly valuable library at Althorp. VOLUME THE SEVENTH. TO MR. METHUEN.* Sir, The great part you had, as British amIt is with great pleasure I take an oppor-bassador, in procuring and cultivating the tunity of publishing the gratitude I owe you advantageous commerce between the courts for the place you allow me in your friend- of England and Portugal, has purchased ship and familiarity. I will not acknow- you the lasting esteem of all who underledge to you that I have often had you in stand the interest of either nation. 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 reputa tion. But when I speak of you, I celebrate one who has had the happiness of possessing also those qualities which make a man useful to society, and of having had opportunities of exerting them in the most conspicuous manner. *Of Bishops-Canings, in the county of Wilts; after wards Sir Paul Methuen, K. B. He was several years ambassador at the court of Lisbon, where he conducted himself with great ability. Those personal excellencies which are overrated by the ordinary world, and too much neglected by wise men, you have applied with the justest skill and judgment. The most graceful address in horsemanship, in the use of the sword, and in dancing, has been 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 re- | have at your table, your easy condescension putation. The behaviour of our minister in little incidents of mirth and diversion, in the action, and the good offices done the vanquished in the name of the Queen of England, gave both the conqueror and the captive the most lively examples of the courage and generosity of the nation he represented. Your friends and companions in your absence frequently talk these things of you; and you cannot hide from us (by the most discreet silence in any thing which regards yourself) that the frank entertainment we and general complacency of manners, are far from being the greatest obligations we have to you. I do assure you, there is not one of your friends has a greater sense of your merit in general, and of the favours you every day do us, than, VOLUME THE EIGHTH. TO WILLIAM HONEYCOMB, ESQ.* THE seven former volumes of the Spec- | their lives. But I need not tell you that the tator having been dedicated to some of the free and disengaged behaviour of a fine most celebrated persons of the age, I take gentleman makes as many awkward beaux, leave to inscribe this eighth and last to you, as the easiness of your favourite hath made as to a gentleman who hath ever been am- insipid poets. bitious of appearing in the best company. At present you are content to aim all You are now wholly retired from the your charms, at your own spouse, without busy part of mankind, and at leisure to re-farther thought of mischief to any others flect upon your past achievements; for of the sex. I know you had formerly which reason I look upon you as a person a very great contempt for that pedantic very well qualified for a dedication. race of mortals who call themselves philoI may possibly disappoint my readers, sophers; and yet, to your honour be it and yourself too, if I do not endeavour on spoken, there is not a sage of them all could this occasion to make the world acquainted have better acted up to their precepts in with your virtues. And here, sir, I shall one of the most important points of life: I not compliment you upon your birth, per-mean, in that generous disregard of popuson, or fortune; nor on any other the like perfections which you possess, whether you will or no; but shall only touch upon those which are of your own acquiring, and in which every one must allow you have a real merit. lar opinion which you showed some years ago, when you chose for your wife an obscure young woman, who doth not indeed pretend to an ancient family, but has certainly as many forefathers as any lady in the land, if she could but reckon up their Your janty air and easy motion, the vo-names. lubility of your discourse, the suddenness of your laugh, the management of your snuff-box, with the whiteness of your hands and teeth (which have justly gained you the envy of the most polite part of the male world, and the love of the greatest beauties in the female) are entirely to be ascribed to your own personal genius and application. You are formed for these accomplishments by a happy turn of nature, and have finished yourself in them by the utmost improvements of art. A man that is defective in either of these qualifications (whatever may be the secret ambition of his heart) must never hope to make the figure you have done, among the fashionable part of his species. It is therefore no wonder we see such multitudes of aspiring young men fall short of you in all these beauties of your character, notwithstanding the study and practice of them is the whole business of * Generally supposed to be Col Cleland. I must own I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the moment that you confessed your age, and from eightand-forty (where you had stuck so many years) very ingeniously stepped into your grand climacteric. Your deportment has since been very venerable and becoming. If I am rightly informed, you make a regular appearance every quarter-sessions among your brothers of the quorum; and if things go on as they do, stand fair for being a colonel of the militia. I am told that your time passes away as agreeably in the amusements of a country life, as it ever did in the gallantries of the town; and that you now take as much pleasure in the planting of young trees, as you did formerly in the cutting down of your old ones. short, we hear from all hands that you are thoroughly reconciled to your dirty acres, and have not too much wit to look into your own estate. In After having spoken thus much of my patron, I must take the privilege of an au thor in saying something of myself. I shall though you know how often many protherefore beg leave to add, that I have pur- found critics in style and sentiments have posely omitted setting those marks to the very judiciously erred in this particular, end of every paper, which appeared in my before they were let into the secret. Í former volumes, that you may have an op-am, portunity of showing Mrs. Honeycomb the shrewdness of your conjectures, by ascribing every speculation to its proper author: SIR, Your most faithful humble servant, THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. In the six hundred and thirty-second Spectator the reader will find an account of the rise of this eighth and last volume. I have not been able to prevail upon the several gentlemen who were concerned in this work to let me acquaint the world with their names. Perhaps it will be unnecessary to inform the reader, that no other papers which have appeared under the title of the Spectator, since the closing of this eighth volume, were written by any of those gentlemen who had a hand in this or the former volumes. |