TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN Lord SOMMERS,

BARON OF EVESHAM.

MY LORD;
SHOULD not act the part of an impartial

Spectator, if I dedicated the following papers to one who is not of the most confummate and most acknowledged merit.

ISS

None but a person of a finished character, can be the proper patron of a work, which endeavours to cultivate and polish human life, by proinoting 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

folicitous 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 Rot to expect that the public will so far com. ply with your inclinations, as to forbear cele. brating 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 virtucs, though posterity alone will do them justice.

OTHER men pass through oppositions and contending interest in the ways of ambition ; but your great abilities have been invited to power, and importuned to accept of advance. ment. Nor is it strange that this should happen to your Lordship, who could bring into the service of your Sovereign the arts and palicies of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as

the

the most exact knowledge of our own conAtitution in particular, and of the interests of Europe in general; to which I must also add, a certain dignity in yourself, that (co fay the least of it) has been always equal to those great honours which have been con

ferred 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 civil power, in the late and present reign, has been indebeed to your councils and wisdom.

But to enumerate the great advantages wliich the public has received from your ad- . ministration, would be a more proper work for an 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 chuse to speak of the pleasure you afford all who are admitted into your conver

. fation, of your clegant taste in all the polite

parts

parts 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 cha. racter of distinction. I am,

My LORD,

Your Lordship's

mnost obedient,

most devoted,

bumble servant,

THE SPECTATOR,