THE

SPECTATOR,

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.

VOL. VII.

GLASGOW:

Printed by David Niven;

FOR J. DUNCAN, J. & M. ROBERTSON, DUNLOP & WILSON,
J. & W. SHAW, R. FARIE, A. ORR, A. M'GOUN, AND A.
MACAULAY, GLASGOW —J. DICKSON, E. BALFOUR,
P. HILL, J. HUNTER, AND J. & J. FAIRBAIRN,
EDINBURGH; AND W. COKE, LEITH.

Anno 1791.
+

MR.

རས་འར་“ར.

TO

METHUE N.

SIR,

IT

T is with very great pleasure I take an opportunity of publishing the gratitude I owe to you, for the place you al low me in your friendship and familiarity. I will not acknowledge to you that I have often had you in my thoughts, when I have endeavoured to draw, in fome parts of these discourses, the character of a goodnatured, honeft, and accomplished Gentleman. But fuch reprefentations give my reader an idea of a perfon blameless only,

or only laudable for fuch perfections as - extend no farther than to his own private advantage and reputation.

But when I speak of you, I celebrate one who has had the happiness of poffeffing alfo thofe qualities which make a man useful to fociety, and of having had opportunities of exerting them in the most confpicuous manner.

The great part you had, as British ambaffador, in procuring and cultivating the advantageous commerce between the courts of England and Portugal, has purchafed you the lasting esteem of all who understand the intereft of either nation.

Those personal excellencies which are over-rated by the ordinary world, and too much neglected by wife men, you have applied with the jufteft fkill and judgment. The most graceful address in horfemanship, in the use of the fword, and in dancing, has been employed by you as lower arts,

and as they have occafionally ferved to cover, or introduce the talents of a skilful minifter.

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 viciffitudes of his fortune, and shared, by his fide, the dangers of that glorious day in which he recovered his capital. As far as it regards perfonal qualities, you attained, in that one hour, the highest military reputation. The behaviour of our minifter 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 generofity of the nation he represented.

Your friends and companions in your abfence frequently talk these things of you, and you cannot hide from us, (by the most