all the polite 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 character of distinction. I am, MY LORD, Your Lordship's most obedient, Most devoted humble Servant, THE SPECTATOR. DEDICATION* TO THE RIGHT HON. CHARLES, LORD HALIFAX.a MY LORD, SIMILITUDE of manners and studies is usually mentioned as one of the strongest motives to affec *This dedication includes Nos. 81-169. Charles Montague, grandson to an earl of Manchester, was taken much notice of at Cambridge, for his City and Country Mouse, a satire on Dryden. Being brought to court at the revolution, he was constituted one of the lords commissioners of the treasury, March 2, 1691-2; chancellor of the exchequer, in May 1694. The coin being exceedingly debased and diminished, he formed the design of calling in the money, and re-coining it, in 1695; which was effected in two years: to supply the immediate want of cash, he projected the issuing of exchequer-bills. For this service, he had the thanks of the house of commons in 1697. He was next year appointed first lord commissioner of the treasury; and resigning that post in June 1700, obtained a grant of the office of auditor of the receipt of the exchequer; and the same year, Dec. 13, was created baron Halifax. On the accession of George I. he was a member of the regency; was appointed first lord commissioner of the treasury, Oct. 5, 1714; created viscount Sunbury and earl of Halifax, Oct. 15; and died May 15, 1715.-Addison has celebrated this lord in his account of the greatest English poets. Steele has drawn his character in the second volume of the Spectator, and in the fourth of the Tatler; but Pope, in the portrait of Bufo, in the Epistle to Arbuthnot, has returned the ridicule which his lordship, in conjunction with Prior, had heaped on Dryden's Hind and Panther. Walpole's Catalogue, vol. ii. p. 116. tion and esteem; but the passionate veneration I have for your lordship, I think, flows from an admiration of qualities in you, of which, in the whole course of these papers, I have acknowledged myself incapable. While I busy myself as a stranger upon earth, and can pretend to no other than being a looker-on, you are conspicuous in the busy and polite world, both in the world of men, and that of letters. While I am silent and unobserved in public meetings, you are admired by all that approach you, as the life and genius of the conversation. What an happy conjunction of the different talents meets in him whose whole discourse is at once animated by the strength and force of reason, and adorned with all the graces and embellishments of wit! When learning irradiates common life, it is then in its highest use and perfection; and it is to such as your lordship, that the sciences owe the esteem which they have with the active part of mankind. Knowledge of books, in recluse men, is like that sort of lantern, which hides him who carries it, and serves only to pass through secret and gloomy paths of his own; but, in the possession of a man of business, it is, as a torch in the hand of one who is willing and able to shew those who were bewildered the way which leads to their prosperity and welfare. A generous concern for your country, and a passion for every thing that is truly great and noble, are what actuate all your life and actions; and I hope you will forgive me that I have an ambition this book may be placed in the library of so good a judge of what is valuable; in that library where the choice is such, that it will not be a disparagement to be the meanest author in it. Forgive me, my lord, for taking this occasion of telling all the world how ardently I love and honour you; and that I am, with the utmost gratitude for all your favours, MY LORD, Your Lordship's most obliged, Most obedient, and most humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. |