the most able and fortunate captain before your time, declared he had lived long enough both to nature and to glory; and your grace 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 follow-may make that reflection with much more ing 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 preeminence 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 were brought to pass under the conduct of so well-governed a spirit, were the blessings of heaven upon wisdom and valour; and all which seem adverse, fell out by divine permission, which we are not to search into. You have passed that year of life wherein justice. He spoke it after he had arrived at empire by an usurpation upon those whom he had enslaved: but the Prince of Nindelheim* may rejoice in a sovereignty which was the gift of him whose dominions he had preserved. Glory established upon the uninterrupted success of honourable designs and actions, is not subject to diminution; nor can any. attempts 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 mansion of bliss and immortality which is prepared for good princes, lawgivers, and heroes, when he in his due time removes them from the envy of mankind, is the hearty prayer of, MY LORD, Your Grace's most obedient, most devoted, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. *This title was conferred upon the Duke by the Emperor, after the battle of Hochstadt. VOLUME THE FIFTH. My Lord, TO THE EARL OF WHARTON. 1712-13. THE author of the Spectator, having prefixed before each of his volumes the name of some great persons to whom he has particular obligations, lays his claim to your lordship's patronage upon the same account. I must confess, my lord, had not I 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 parts of human life, that it is impossible for the least misrepresentation of them to escape your notice. It is your lordship's particular distinction that you are master of the whole compass of business, and have signalized yourself in all the different scenes of it. We admire some for the dignity, others for the popularity of their behaviour; some for their clearness of judgment, others for their happiness of expression; some for the laying of schemes, and others for the putting them in execution. It is your lordship only who enjoys these several talents united, and that too in as great perfection as others possess them singly. Your enemies acknowledge this great extent in your lordship's character, at the same time that they use their utmost industry and invention to derogate from it. But it is for your honour that those who are now your enemies were always so. You have acted in so much consistency with yourself, and promoted the interests of your country in so uniform a manner, that even those who would misrepresent your generous designs for the public good, cannot but approve the steadiness and intrepidity with which you pursue them. It is a most sensible pleasure to me that I have this opportunity of professing myself one of your great admirers, and in a very particular manner, VOLUME THE SIXTH. My Lord, TO THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND. 1712-13. VERY many favours and civilities (received from you in a private capacity) which I have no other way to acknowledge, will, I hope, excuse this presumption; but the justice I, as a Spectator, owe your character, places me above the want of an excuse. Candour and openness of heart, which shine in all your words and actions, exact the highest esteem from all who have the honour to know you; and a winning condescension to all subordinate to you, made business a pleasure to those who executed it under you, at the same time that it heightened her majesty's favour to all those who had the happiness of having it conveyed through your hands. A secretary of state, in the interest of mankind, joined with that of his fellow-subjects, accomplished with a great facility and elegance in all the modern as well as ancient languages, was a happy and proper member of a ministry, by whose services your sovereign is in so high and flourishing a condi tates powerful or inconsiderable in Europe, as they are friends or enemies to Great Britain. The importance of those great events which happened during that administration in which your lordship bore so important a charge, will be acknowledged as long as time shall endure. I shall not therefore attempt to rehearse those illustrious passages, but give this application a more private and particular turn, in desiring your lordship would continue your favour and patronage to me, as you are a gentleman of the most polite literature, and perfectly accomplished in the knowledge of books* and men, which makes it necessary to beseech your indulgence to the following leaves, and the author of them, who is, with the greatest truth and respect," MY LORD, Your Lordship's obliged, obedient, THE SPECTATOR. His lordship was the founder of the splendid and tion, as makes all other princes and poten- truly valuable library at Althorp. VOLUME THE SEVENTH. TO MR. METHUEN.* stand the interest of either nation. Sir, The great part you had, as British amIt is with great pleasure I take an oppor-bassador, in procuring and cultivating the tunity of publishing the gratitude I owe you advantageous commerce between the courts for the place you allow me in your friend- of England and Portugal, has purchased ship and familiarity. I will not acknow-you the lasting esteem of all who underledge to you that I have often had you in my thoughts, when I have endeavoured to draw, in some parts of these discourses, the character of a good-natured, honest, and accomplished gentleman. But such representations give my reader an idea of a person blameless only, or only laudable for such perfections as extend no farther than to his own private advantage and reputation. Those personal excellencies which are overrated by the ordinary world, and too much neglected by wise men, you have applied with the justest skill and judgment. The most graceful address in horsemanship, in the use of the sword, and in dancing, has been employed by you as lower arts; and as they have occasionally served to cover or introduce the talents of a skilful minister. But when I speak of you, I celebrate one who has had the happiness of possessing also But your abilities have not appeared only those qualities which make a man useful to in one nation. When it was your province to society, and of having had opportunities | act as her majesty's minister at the court of of exerting them in the most conspicuous Savoy, at that time encamped, you accom manner. *Of Bishops-Canings, in the county of Wilts; after wards Sir Paul Methuen, K. B. He was several years ambassador at the court of Lisbon, where he conducted himself with great ability. panied that gallant prince through all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and shared by his side the dangers of that glorious day in which he recovered his capital. As far as it regards personal qualities, you attained, ORIGINAL DEDICATIONS. in that one hour, the highest military re- | have at your table, your easy Your friends and companions in your absence frequently talk these things of you; and you cannot hide from us (by the most discreet silence in any thing which regards yourself) that the frank entertainment we condescension in little incidents of mirth and diversion, SIR, Your most obedient, and most humble servant, VOLUME THE EIGHTH. TO WILLIAM HONEYCOMB, ESQ.* THE seven former volumes of the Spec- | their lives. But I need not tell you that the tator having been dedicated to some of the most celebrated persons of the age, I take leave to inscribe this eighth and last to you, as to a gentleman who hath ever been ambitious of appearing in the best company. You are now wholly retired from the busy part of mankind, and at leisure to reflect upon your past achievements; for which reason I look upon you as a person very well qualified for a dedication. I may possibly disappoint my readers, and yourself too, if I do not endeavour on this occasion to make the world acquainted with your virtues. And here, sir, I shall not compliment you upon your birth, person, or fortune; nor on any other the like perfections which you possess, whether you will or no; but shall only touch upon those which are of your own acquiring, and in which every one must allow you have a real merit. Your janty air and easy motion, the volubility of your discourse, the suddenness of your laugh, the management of your snuff-box, with the whiteness of your hands and teeth (which have justly gained you the envy of the most polite part of the male world, and the love of the greatest beauties in the female) are entirely to be ascribed to your own personal genius and application. You are formed for these accomplishments by a happy turn of nature, and have finished yourself in them by the utmost improvements of art. A man that is defective in either of these qualifications (whatever may be the secret ambition of his heart) must never hope to make the figure you have done, among the fashionable part of his species. It is therefore no wonder we see such multitudes of aspiring young men fall short of you in all these beauties of your character, notwithstanding the study and practice of them is the whole business of * Generally supposed to be Col. Cleland. free and disengaged behaviour of a fine At present you are content to aim all I must own I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the moment that you confessed your age, and from eightand-forty (where you had stuck so many years) very ingeniously stepped into your grand climacteric. Your deportment has since been very venerable and becoming. gular appearance every quarter-sessions If I am rightly informed, you make a reamong your brothers of the quorum; and if things go on as they do, stand fair for being a colonel of the militia. that your time passes away as agreeably in the amusements of a country life, as it ever did in the gallantries of the town; and that you now take as much pleasure in the planting of young trees, as you did formerly in the cutting down of your old ones. short, we hear from all hands that you are thoroughly reconciled to your dirty acres, and have not too much wit to look into your own estate. am told In After having spoken thus much of my patron, I must take the privilege of an au |