307 Eustace Budgell 308 * 309 Addison 310 Steele, T. 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 198 Addison 261 199 Steele, T. 262 200 or Henry Martyn 201 Addison 264 Steele, T. 265 Addison 266 Steele, T. 202 Steele, T. 203 Addison 204 Steele, T. 205 Addison 206 Steele, T. 207 Addison 208 Steele, T. 209 Addison 267 Addison 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. THE SPECTATOR ORIGINAL DEDICATIONS OF THE SUCCESSIVE VOLUMES. O 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 yourself, that (to say the least of it) has been always equal to those great honours which have been conferred up n 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 am, my Lord, Your Lordship's most devoted, TO CHARLES LORD HALIFAX. 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 My Lord, your Lordship's most obliged, 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 unquestioned integrity in those high employ flection with much more justice. and to glory; and your Grace may make that rements which you have passed through, would not after he had arrived at empire by a usurpation upon He spoke of it have been able to have raised you this general ap- those whom he had enslaved; but the Prince of probation, had they not been accompanied with that Mindelheim may rejoice in a sovereignty which was moderation in a high fortune, and that affability of the gift of him whose dominions he had preserved. 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, memorable name. 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, 1712-13. TO THE EARL OF WHARTON. MY LORD, THE author of the Spectator, having prefixed before each of his volumes the names of some great persons to whom he has particular obligations, lays his claim to your Lordship's patronage upon the I shall not here presume to mention the illus-same account. I must confess, my Lord, had not I trious passages of your life, which are celebrated by the whole age, and have been the subject of the Youngest son of Charles, Lord Clifford. and afterward Lord Carleton. 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 |