of

Late and Present Reign, has been indebted to your Councils and Wisdom.

But to enumerate the great Advantages which the Publick has received from your Administration, would be a more proper Work for an History, than for an Addrefs of this Nature.

Your Lordship appears as great in your Private Life, as in the most Impor tant Offices which You have born. I would there A 5

fore

fore rather chufe to speak of the Pleasure You afford

all who are admitted into

your

Converfation,

of "

Your Elegant Taste in all the Polite Parts of Learning, of Your great Humanity and Complacency of

Manners, and of the fur

prifing 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 fhould take notice of all that might be observed in your Lordship, I fhould have nothing new to say upon any other Character of Distinction. I am,

My LORD,

Your Lordship's

moft Obedient,

moft Devoted

Humble Servant,

The Spectator.

THE

SPECTATOR

VOL. I.

N° 1. Thursday, March 1: 17.

Non fumum ex fulgore, fed ex fumo dare lucem Cogitat, ut fpeciofa dehinc miracula promat.

I

Hor.

Have obferved, that a Reader feldom perufes a Book with Pleasure, till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Difpofition, Married, or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiofity, which is fo natural to a Reader, I de

fign