SIR,

TO MR. METHUEN.*

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 Ir is with great pleasure I take an opportunity of that you are master of the whole compass of busi- publishing the gratitude I owe you for the place you ness, and have signalised yourself in all the different allow me in your friendship and familiarity. I will scenes of it. We admire some for the dignity, not acknowledge to you that I have often had you in others for the popularity of their behaviour; some my thoughts, when I have endeavoured to draw, in for their clearness of judgment, others for their hap some parts of these discourses, the character of a piness of expression; some for the laying of schemes, good-natured, honest, and accomplished gentleman. and others for the putting of them into execution. But such representations give my readers an idea of It is your Lordship only who enjoys these several a person blameless only, or only laudable for such talents united, and that too in as great perfection as perfections as extend no farther than to his own others possess them singly. Your enemies acknow-private advantage and reputation. ledge 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 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, My Lord, your Lordship's most obliged, And most obedient, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR.

1712-13.

But when I speak of you, I celebrate one who has had the happiness of possessing also those qualities which make a man useful to society, and of having had opportunities of exerting them in the most conspicuous manner.

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

Those personal excellences 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 used by you as lower arts; and as they have occasionally served to cover or introduce the talents of a skilful minister.

he recovered his capital. As far as it regards personal qualities, you attained, in that one hour, the highest military reputation. The behaviour of our minister 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 generosity of the nation he represented.

TO THE EARL OF SUNDERLAND. MY LORD, But your abilities have not appeared only in one VERY many favours and civilities (received from nation. When it was your province to act as her you in a private capacity) which I have no other Majesty's minister at the court of Savoy, at that time way to acknowledge, will, I hope, excuse this pre- encamped, you accompanied that gallant prince sumption; but the justice I, as a Spectator, owe through all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and shared your character, places me above the want of an ex-by his side the dangers of that glorious day in which cuse. 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 condition, as makes all other princes and potentates 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 imDortant 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 follow ing leaves, and the author of them; who is, with the greatest truth and respect,

My Lord, your Lordship's obliged,
Obedient, and humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR.
His lordship was the founder of the splendid and truly
valuable library at Althorp.

Your friends and companions in your absence frequently talk these things of you; and you cannot hide from us (by the most direet silence in any thing which regards yourself) that the frank entertainment we have at your table, your easy condescension in little incidents of mirth and diversion, and general complacency of manners, are far from being the greatest obligations we have to you. I do assure you, there is not one of your friends has a greater sense of your merit in general, and of the favours you every day do us, than, Sir,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,
RICHARD STEELE.

TO WILLIAM HONEYCOMBE, ESQ.† THE seven former volumes of the Spectator having been dedicated to some of the most celebrated persons of the age, I take leave to inscribe this eighth

Afterwards Sir Paul Methuen, Knight of the Bath. This very ingenious gentleman, whilst ambassador at the court of Portugal, concluded the famous commercial treaty which bears his name; and in the same capacity, at the court of Savoy, exerted himself nobly as a military hero.

↑ Generally supposed to be Colonel Cleland.

This dedication is supposed to have been written hy Eustace Budgell, who might have better dedicated it to Wil Wimble.

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. In the six hundred and thirty-second Spectator, At present you are content to aim all your charms the reader will find an account of the rise of this at your own spouse, without farther thought of mis-eighth and last volume. chief to any others of the sex. I know you had for- I have not been able to prevail upon the severa! merly a very great contempt for that pedantic race gentlemen who were concerned in this work to let of mortals who call themselves philosophers; and me acquaint the world with their names. yet, to your honour be it spoken, there is not a sage Perhaps it will be unnecessary to inform the of them all could have better acted up to their pre-reader, that no other papers which have appeared cepts in one of the most important points of life: I under the title of the Spectator, since the closing of mean, in that generous disregard of popular opinion this eighth volume, were written by any of those which you shewed some years ago, when you chose gentlemen who had a hand in this or the former for your wife an obscure young woman, who doth volumes.

THE SPECTATOR.

whole and eu ire, without the loss or acquisition of Drury-lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken a single field or meadow, during the space of for a merchant upon the exchange for above these six hundred years. There runs a story in the fa- ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the as mily, that, when my mother was gone with child of sembly of stock-jubbers at Jonathan's. In short, me about three months, she dreamed that she was wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might with them, though I never open my lips but in my proceed from a law-suit which was then depending own club. in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my first appearance in the world, and at the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it.

Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband, or a father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversions of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe a strict neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.

As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass over it in silence. I find that, during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say, "that my parts were solid, and would wear well." I had not been long at the university, before I distinguished myself I have given the reader just so much of my hisby a most profound silence; for during the space of tory and character, as to let him see I am not altoeight years, excepting in the public exercises of the gether unqualified for the business I have undercollege, I scarce uttered the quantity of a hundred taken. As for other particulars in my life and adwords; and indeed do not remember that I ever ventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in this learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies, that there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with. Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the university with the character of an odd, unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe in which there was any thing new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid; and as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.*

I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit of my contemporaries; and if I can in any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.

There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper: and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least I have passed my latter years in this city, where I for some time: I mean an account of my nam', am frequently seen in most public places, though age, and lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify there are not above half-a-dozen of my select friends my reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a for these three particulars, though I am sensible more particular account. There is no place of ge- they might tend very much to the embellishment of neral resort wherein I do not often make my ap- my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of compearance. Sometimes I am seen thrusting my head municating them to the public. They would indeed into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed with great attention to the narratives that are made for many years, and expose me in public places to in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I several salutes and civilities, which have been always smoke a pipe at Child's,† and while I seem attentive very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversa-suffer, is the being talked to, and being stared at. It tion of every table in the room. I appear on Sun- is for this reason, likewise, that I keep my comday nights at St. James's coffee-house, and some- plexion and dress as very great secrets; though it times join the little committee of politics in the is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both inner room, as one who comes there to hear and im- in the progress of the work I have undertaken. prove. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa-tree, and in the theatres both of

* A sarcasm on Mr. Greaves, and his book entitled Pyrami dographia.

Child's coffee-house was in St. Paul's church-yard, and the resort of the clergy; St. James's stood then where it does now; Jonathan's was in Change-alley; and the Rose tavern was on the outside of Temple bar.

After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work: for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters

present Lord Such a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that said a livery thing in the house, he starts up, "He has good blood in his veins, Tom Mirable begot him; the rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man, who is usually called a well-bred fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom; but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently, cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in

at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he had talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty, and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the same end with himself, the favour of a commander. He will, however, in his way of talk excuse generals, for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it; for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurauce in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to ex-years, that he observes, when he is among us, an pect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from a habit of obeying men highly above him.

earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interest in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions.—R.

No. 3.

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1710-11.

Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus adhæret.
Aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante morati,
Atque in qua ratione fut contenta magis mens,
In sommis eadem plerumque videmur obire.

LUCR. 1. iv. 959.

-What studies please, what most delight,
And fill men's thoughts, they dream them o'er at night.
CREECH

But that our society may not appear a set of humourists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have amongst us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, IN one of my rambles, or rather speculations, I or traces on his brain. His person is well turned, looked into the great hall, where the bank is kept, and of a good height. He is very ready at that and was not a little pleased to see the directors, sesort of discourse with which men usually entertain cretaries, and clerks, with all the other members of women. He has all his life dressed very well, and that wealthy corporation, ranged in their several remembers habits as others do men. He can smile stations, according to the parts they act in that when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He just and regular economy. This revived in my meknows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods-whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petticoat, and whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such an occasion, he will tell you, when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten-another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance, or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the

It has been said that a Colonel Cleland was supposed to have been the real person alluded to under this character,

mory the many discourses which I had both read and heard concerning the decay of public credit, with the methods of restoring it, and which, in my opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to separate interests and party principles.

The thoughts of the day gave my mind employment for a whole night, so that I fell insensibly into a kind of methodical dream, which disposed all my contemplations into a vision, or allegory, or what else the reader shall please to call it.

Methought I returned to the great hall, where I had been the morning before; but to my surprise, instead of the company that I left there, I saw towards the upper end of the hall a beautiful virgin, seated on a throne of gold. Her name (as they told me) was Public Credit. The walls, instead of being adorned with pictures and maps, were hung with many acts of parliament written in golden letters.