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FOR SHARPE AND HAILES, PICCADILLY; TAYLOR AND HESSEY,
FLEET-STREET; CRADOCK AND JOY, PATERNOSTER-ROW;
AND J. M. RICHARDSON, CORNHILL.

1811.

TO TES

RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN LORD SOMERS,

BARON OF EVESHAM*.

ct the part of an impartial Speccated the following papers to one e most consummate and most acit.

erson of a finished character can tron of a work which endeavours polish human life, by promoting ledge, and by recommending whatither useful or ornamental to so

services which you have effected. Do what you will, the present age will be talking of your virtues, though posterity alone will do them justice.

Other men pass through oppositions 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 strange that this should happen to your lordship, who could bring into the service of your sovereign the arts and policies of ancient Greece and Rome; as well as the most exact knowledge of our own

e homage I now pay you, is offer-constitution in particular, and of the interests of lence to one who is as solicitous to Europe in general; to which I must also add, a she is assiduous to deserve it. But, certain dignity in yourself, that (to say the least erhaps the only particular in which of it) has been always equal to those great honours ill be always disappointed. which have been conferred upon you. candour, equanimity, a zeal for country, and the most persuasive nging over others to it, are valuyou are not to expect that the comply with your inclinations, brating such extraordinary qualithat you have endeavoured to are of merit in the many national

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 indebted to your counsels and wisdom.

But to enumerate the great advantages which the public has received from your administration,

In

patriot, who has been justly said to have lord high chancellor of England. by his life, and planned them for posIn the beginning of 1700 he was removed from his post of lord chancellor; Worcester, 1652. He was educated at and the year after was impeached of high crimes and misds entered himself of the Middle Temple, demeanors by the house of commons, of which he was aclaw with great vigour, judiciously blend- quitted upon trial by the house of lords. He then retired rature. He soon distinguished himself to a studious course of life, and was chosen president of the 681 had a considerable share in a piece Royal Society. In 1706 he proposed a bill for the regulation nd modest Vindication of the two last of the law; and the same year was one of the principal ma1688 he was of counsel for the seven bi- nagers for the union between England and Scotland. and argued with great learning and 1708 he was made lord president of the council, from which e dispensing power. In the convention post he was removed in 1710, upon the change of the miniPrince of Orange's summons, Jan. 22, stry. In the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, his lordship d Worcester; and was one of the mana- grew very infirm in his health; which indisposition is sup commons, at a conference with the house posed to have been the reason that he held no other post than ord abdicated. Soon after the accession a seat at the council table after the accession of King George I. Queen Mary to the throne, he was apHe died of an apoplectic fit, April 26, 1716. Lord Somers, be eral, and received the honour of knight-sides being a most incorrupt lawyer, and honest statesman, made attorney-general, and in 1693 adlord keeper of the great seal of England. an expedient to prevent the practice of d the same year was constituted one of England during his majesty's absence, the two following years. In 1697 he omers, Baron of Evesham, and made

was a master-orator, a genius of the finest taste, a great patron of men of parts and learning, and was the person who redeemed Milton's 'Paradise Lost' from that obscurity in which party-prejudice and hatred had suffered it long to lie neglect ed. He wrote several pieces on the subject of politics, and translated certain parts of Plutarch and Ovid.

+ Trial of the seven bishops, June 29, 1689.

2

would be a more proper work for an history, than himself, without thinking the less meanly of his 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 choose to speak of the pleasure you afford all who are admitted to your conversation, of your elegant taste in all the polite arts 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

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 devoted,

Most obedient humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR.

• This must certainly be an error; and for less we should read more.

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