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Printed for HARRISON and Co. No. 18, Paternofter-Row.

MDCC LXXXVI.

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JOHN

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SOMMERS,

BARON OF EVESHAM.

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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 moft acknowledged merit.

None but a perfon of a finifhed character, can be the proper patron of a work, which endeavours to cultivate and polish human life, by promoting virtue and knowledge, and by recommending whatsoever may be either ufeful or ornamental to fociety.

I know that the homage I now pay you, is offering a kind of violence to one who is as folicitous to fhun applaufe, as he is affiduous to deferve it. But, my Lord, this is perhaps the only particular, in which your prudence will be always difappointed.

While juftice, candour, equanimity, a zeal for the good of your country, and the most perfuafive eloquence in bringing over others to it, are valuable diftinctions, You are not to expect that the public will fo far comply with your inclinations, as to forbear celebrating fuch extraordinary qualities. It is in vain that you have endeavoured to conceal your fhare of merit, in the many national fervices which you have effected. Do what you will, the prefent age will be talking of your virtues, though pofterity alone will do them juftice.

Other men pafs through oppofitions and contending interests in the ways of ambition; but your great abilities have been invited to power, and importuned to accept of advancement. Nor is it ftrange that this fhould happen to your Lordship, who could bring into the fervice of your Sovereign the arts and policies of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the most exact knowledge of our own conftitution in particular, and of the interests of Europe in general; to which I must also add, a certain dignity in yourfelf, that, to fay the leaft of it, has been always equal to thofe great honours which have been conferred upon you.

It is very well known, how much the Church owed to you in the most dangerous day it ever faw, that of the arraignment of it's prelates; and how far the civil power, in the late and prefent reign, has been indebted to your counfels and wisdom.

But to enumerate the great advantages which the public has received from your administration, would be a more proper work for an history than for an addrefs of this nature,

Your

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