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230 John Hughes: last Letter 287 The same as the above, 281,

Steele

231 Addison and John Hughes: the Letter Chalmers

160

161

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162

163

Miss Shepheard

164

165

166

167 Steele, T.

168.

169 Addison

233 Addison

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232 Sig. Z. Eustace Budgell, 12mo. Ed. Annotator to Henry Martyn"

234 Steele, T.

235 Addison

236 Steele, T.

237 4to. Bask. Addison, John Hughes, Chalmers, and Duncombe

238 Steele, T.

239 Addison

240 Steele, T.

241 Addison

242 Steele, T.

243 Addison

244 Steele, T.

245 Addison

246 Steele, T.

247 Addison

248 Steele, T.

249 Addison 250 *

251 Addison

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252 Steele, T.- The Letter, 311 The same as 299; and the

John Hughes

253 Addison

254 Steele, T.

255 Addison

256

257

258 Steele, T. 259

260 Addison

261

262

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Letter J. Hughes

312 Steele. T.

313 Eustace Budgell

314 Steele

315 Addison

316 Eustace Budgell

317 The same as 311, &c. 318 Steele

319 Eustace Budgell

320 Steele, T.

321 Addison

322 Steele

323 The same as 317, &c. 324 Steele

325 Eustace Budgell

326 Steele. T.

268 Steele.-The Letter, James 327 Addison

Heywood"

269 The Baskerville 4to. does

not assign this to Addison. 8vo. 1775, has Sig. L

328 Steele, T.

329 The same as 317, &c. 330 Steele

331 Eustace Budgell

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THE

SPECTATO R.

ORIGINAL DEDICATIONS

OF THE SUCCESSIVE VOLUMES.

10 LORD JOHN SOMERS,

BARON OF EVESHAM.

MY LORD,

I 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 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.

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 in particular, and of the interests of Europe in general; to which I must also add, a certain dignity in your self, 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

20

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 am, my Lord,

Your Lordship's most devoted,
Most obedient humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR

TO CHARLES LORD HALIFAX.
MY LORD,

SIMILITUDE of manners and studies is usually men tioned 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 acknowledged 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 worldboth 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 conjunc tion 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 perfec

B

tion; and it is to such as your Lordship, that the
sciences owe the esteem which they have with the
active part of 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 his own; but in the pos-
session of a man of business, it is as a torch in the
hand of one who is willing and able to shew those
who were bewildered the way which leads to their
prosperity and welfare. A generous concern for
your country, and a passion for every thing that is
truly great and noble, are what actuate all your life
and actions; and I hope you will forgive me when
I have an ambition this book may be placed in the
library of so good a judge of what is valuable-in that
library where the choice is such, that it will not be
a disparagement to be the meanest author in it.
Forgive me, my Lord, for taking this occasion of
telling all the world how ardently I love and honour
you; and that I am, with the utmost gratitude for
all your favours,

My Lord, your Lordship's most obliged,
Most obedient, and most humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR.

TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY BOYLE.*

1712.

most sublime pens; but if I could convey you to posterity in your private character, and describe the stature, the behaviour, and aspect, of the Duke of Marlborough, I question not but it would fill the reader with more agreeable images, and give him a more delightful entertainment, 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 pre-eminence 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 SIR, As the professed design of this work is to enter-governed a spirit, were the blessings of heaven upon were brought to pass under the conduct of so welltain its readers in general, without giving offence to wisdom and valour; and all which seem adverse fell out any particular person, it would be difficult to find out so proper a patron for it as yourself, there being by divine permission, which we are not to search into. none whose merit is more universally acknowledged most able and fortunate captain, before your time, You have passed that year of life wherein the by all parties and who has made himself more declared he had lived long enough both to nature friends, and fewer enemies. Your great abilities and to glory; and your Grace may make that reand unquestioned integrity in those high employ-flection with much more justice. He spoke of it ments which you have passed through, would not have been able to have raised you this general approbation, had they not been accompanied with that moderation in a high fortune, and that affability of manners, which are so conspicuous through all parts of your life. Your aversion to any ostentatious arts of setting to shew 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 on 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,
THE SPECTATOR.

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those whom he had enslaved; but the Prince of after he had arrived at empire by a usurpation upon Mindelheim may rejoice in a sovereignty which was the gift of him whose dominions he had preserved.

of honourable designs and actions, is not subject to Glory established upon the uninterrupted success diminution; nor can any attempt 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 for good princes, lawgivers, and heroes, when he in mansion of bliss and immortality which is prepared his due time removes them from the envy of man kind, is the hearty prayer of,

My Lord, your Grace's most obedient,
Most devoted, humble servant,
THE SPECTATO 3.

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