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TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM LORD COWPER,

BARON OF WINGHAM.

MY LORD,

AFTER having long celebrated the superior graces and excellencies, among men, in an imaginary character, I do myself the honour to shew my veneration for transcendent merit under my own name, in this address to your lordship. The just application of those high accomplishments, of which you are master, has been an advantage to all your fellow subjects; and it is from the common obligation you have laid upon all the world, that I, though a private man, can pretend to be affected with, or take the liberty to acknowledge your great talents and public virtues.

It gives a pleasing prospect to your friends, that is to say, to the friends of your country, that you have passed through the highest offices, at an age when others usually do but form to themselves the hopes of them. They may expect to see you in the house of lords as many years as you were ascending to it. It is our common good, that your ad

mirable eloquence can now no longer be employed, but in the expression of your own sentiments and judgment. The skilful pleader is now for ever changed into the just judge; which latter character your lordship exerts with so prevailing an impartiality, that you win the approbation even of those who dissent from you, and you always obtain favour because you are never moved by it.

This gives you a certain dignity peculiar to your present situation, and makes the equity, even of a lord high chancellor, appear but a degree towards the magnanimity of a peer of Great-Britain.

Forgive me, my lord, when I cannot conceal from you, that I shall never hereafter behold you, but I shall behold you, as lately defending the brave and the unfortunate.

When we attend to your lordship, engaged in a discourse, we cannot but reflect upon the many requisites which the vain-glorious speakers of antiquity have demanded in a man who is to excel in oratory; I say, my lord, when we reflect upon the precepts by viewing the example, though there is no excellence proposed by those rhetoricians wanting, the whole art seems to be resolved into that one motive of speaking, sincerity in the intention. The graceful manner, the apt gesture, and the assumed concern, are impotent helps to persuasion, in comparisons of the honest countenance of him who utters what he really means. From hence it is, that all the beauties which others attain with labour, are in

your lordship but the natural effects of the heart that dictates.

It is this noble simplicity, which makes you surpass mankind in the faculties, wherein mankind are distinguished from other creatures, reason and speech.

If these gifts were communicated to all men in proportion to the truth and ardour of their hearts, I should speak of you with the same force as you express yourself on any other subject. But I resist my present impulse, as agreeable as it is to me; though, indeed had I any pretensions to a fame of this kind, I should, above all other themes, attempt a panegyric upon my Lord Cowper: for the only sure way to a reputation for eloquence, in an age wherein that perfect orator lives, is to chuse an argument, upon which he himself must of necessity be silent. I am,

My lord,

Your lordship's

Most devoted,

Most obedient, and

Most humble servant,

RICHARD STEELE.

THE TATLER.

No. CXV. TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1709.

.Novum intervenit vitium & calamitas,
Ut neque spectari, neque cognosci potuerit:
Ita populus studio stupidus in funambulo
Animum occuparat.

TER. DE HECYRA.

Sheer-lane, Jan. 2.

I WENT on Friday last to the opera, and was surprised to find a thin house at so noble an entertainment, till I heard that the Tumbler was not to make his appearance that night. For my own part, I was fully satisfied with the sight of an actor, who by the grace and propriety of his action and gesture, does honour to the human figure, as much as the other vilifies and degrades it. Every one will easily imagine I mean Signior Nicolini, who sets off the character he bears in an opera by his action, as much as he does the words of it by his voice. Every limb, and every finger contributes to the part he acts, insomuch that a deaf man might go along with him in the sense of it. There is scarce a beautiful posture in an old statue, which he does not plant himself in, as the differ

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