My LORD,
I should not act the Part of an impartial Spectator, if I Dedicated the following Papers to one who is not of the most consummate and most acknowledged Merit.
None but a person of a finished 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 Useful or Ornamental to Society.
I know that the Homage I now pay You, is offering a kind of Violence to one who is as solicitous to shun Applause, as he is a.s.siduous to deserve it. But, my Lord, this is perhaps the only Particular in which your Prudence will be always disappointed.
While Justice, Candour, Equanimity, a Zeal for the Good of your Country, and the most persuasive Eloquence in bringing over others to it, are valuable Distinctions, You are not to expect that the Publick will so far comply with your Inclinations, as to forbear celebrating such extraordinary Qualities. It is in vain that You have endeavoured to conceal your Share of Merit, in the many National Services which You have effected. Do what You will, the present Age will be talking of your Virtues, tho" Posterity alone will do them Justice.
Other Men pa.s.s 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 Const.i.tution in particular, and of the interests of "Europe" in general; to which I must also add, a certain Dignity in Yourself, that (to say the least of it) has been always equal to those 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 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 publick has received from your Administration, would be a more proper Work for an History, than an Address of this Nature.
Your Lordship appears as great in your Private Life, as in the most Important Offices which You have born. I would therefore rather chuse to speak of the Pleasure You afford all who are admitted into your Conversation, of Your Elegant Taste in 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.
[Footnote 1: In 1695, when a student at Oxford, aged 23, Joseph Addison had dedicated "to the Right Honourable Sir George Somers, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal," a poem written in honour of King William III. after his capture of Namur in sight of the whole French Army under Villeroi. This was Addison"s first bid for success in Literature; and the twenty-seven lines in which he then asked Somers to "receive the present of a Muse unknown," were honourably meant to be what Dr. Johnson called "a kind of rhyming introduction to Lord Somers." If you, he said to Somers then--
"If you, well pleas"d, shall smile upon my lays, Secure of fame, my voice I"ll boldly raise, For next to what you write, is what you praise."
Somers did smile, and at once held out to Addison his helping hand.
Mindful of this, and of substantial friendship during the last seventeen years, Addison joined Steele in dedicating to his earliest patron the first volume of the Essays which include his best security of fame.
At that time, John Somers, aged 61, and retired from political life, was weak in health and high in honours earned by desert only. He was the son of an attorney at Worcester, rich enough to give him a liberal education at his City Grammar School and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was entered as a Gentleman Commoner. He left the University, without taking a degree, to practise law. Having a strong bent towards Literature as well as a keen, manly interest in the vital questions which concerned the liberties of England under Charles the Second, he distinguished himself by political tracts which maintained const.i.tutional rights. He rose at the bar to honour and popularity, especially after his pleading as junior counsel for Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Six Bishops, Lloyd, Turner, Lake, Ken, White, and Trelawney, who signed the pet.i.tion against the King"s order for reading in all churches a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, which they said "was founded upon such a dispensing power as hath been often declared illegal in Parliament." Somers earned the grat.i.tude of a people openly and loudly triumphing in the acquittal of the Seven Bishops. He was active also in co-operation with those who were planning the expulsion of the Stuarts and the bringing over of the Prince of Orange. During the Interregnum he, and at the same time also Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, first entered Parliament. He was at the conference with the Lords upon the question of declaring the Throne vacant. As Chairman of the Committee appointed for the purpose, it was Somers who drew up the Declaration of Right, which, in placing the Prince and Princess of Orange on the throne, set forth the grounds of the Revolution and a.s.serted against royal encroachment the ancient rights and liberties of England. For these services and for his rare ability as a const.i.tutional lawyer, King William, in the first year of his reign, made Somers Solicitor-General. In 1692 he became Attorney-General as Sir John Somers, and soon afterwards, in March 1692-3, the Great Seal, which had been four years in Commission, was delivered to his keeping, with a patent ent.i.tling him to a pension of 2000 a year from the day he quitted office. He was then also sworn in as Privy Councillor. In April 1697 Somers as Lord Keeper delivered up the Great Seal, and received it back with the higher t.i.tle of Lord Chancellor. He was at the same time created Baron Somers of Evesham; Crown property was also given to him to support his dignity. One use that he made of his influence was to procure young Addison a pension, that he might be forwarded in service of the State. Party spirit among his political opponents ran high against Somers. At the close of 1699 they had a majority in the Commons, and deprived him of office, but they failed before the Lords in an impeachment against him. In Queen Anne"s reign, between 1708 and 1710, the const.i.tutional statesman, long infirm of health, who had been in retirement serving Science as President of the Royal Society, was serving the State as President of the Council. But in 1712, when Addison addressed to him this Dedication of the first Volume of the first reprint of "the Spectator", he had withdrawn from public life, and four years afterwards he died of a stroke of apoplexy.
Of Somers as a patron Lord Macaulay wrote:
"He had traversed the whole vast range of polite literature, ancient and modern. He was at once a munificent and a severely judicious patron of genius and learning. Locke owed opulence to Somers. By Somers Addison was drawn forth from a cell in a college. In distant countries the name of Somers was mentioned with respect and grat.i.tude by great scholars and poets who had never seen his face. He was the benefactor of Leclerc. He was the friend of Filicaja. Neither political nor religious differences prevented him from extending his powerful protection to merit. Hickes, the fiercest and most intolerant of all the non-jurors, obtained, by the influence of Somers, permission to study Teutonic antiquities in freedom and safety.
Vertue, a Strict Roman Catholic, was raised, by the discriminating and liberal patronage of Somers, from poverty and obscurity to the first rank among the engravers of the age."]
No. 1. Thursday, March 1, 1711. Addison.
"Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat."
Hor.
I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure "till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my following Writings, and shall give some Account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this Work. As the chief trouble of Compiling, Digesting, and Correcting will fall to my Share, I must do myself the Justice to open the Work with my own History.
I was born to a small Hereditary Estate, which [according to the tradition of the village where it lies, [1]] was bounded by the same Hedges and Ditches in _William_ the Conqueror"s Time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from Father to Son whole and entire, without the Loss or Acquisition of a single Field or Meadow, during the s.p.a.ce of six hundred Years. There [runs [2]] a Story in the Family, that when my Mother was gone with Child of me about three Months, she dreamt that she was brought to Bed of a Judge. Whether this might proceed from a Law-suit which was then depending 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 my future Life, though that was the Interpretation which the Neighbourhood put upon it. The Gravity of my Behaviour at my very first Appearance in the World, and all 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 till they had taken away the Bells from it.
As for the rest of my Infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pa.s.s it over in Silence. I find that, during my Nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen Youth, but was always a Favourite of my School-master, 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 by a most profound Silence: For, during the s.p.a.ce of eight Years, excepting in the publick Exercises of the College, I scarce uttered the Quant.i.ty of an hundred Words; and indeed do not remember that I ever 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 [3]] 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 my self right in that Particular, returned to my Native Country with great Satisfaction. [4]
I have pa.s.sed my latter Years in this City, where I am frequently seen in most publick Places, tho" there are not above half a dozen of my select Friends that know me; of whom my next Paper shall give a more particular Account. There is no place of [general [5]] Resort wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my Head into a Round of Politicians at _Will"s_ [6] and listning with great Attention to the Narratives that are made in those little Circular Audiences. Sometimes I smoak a Pipe at _Child"s_; [7] and, while I seem attentive to nothing but the _Post-Man_, [8] over-hear the Conversation of every Table in the Room. I appear on _Sunday_ nights at _St. James"s_ Coffee House, [9] and sometimes join the little Committee of Politicks in the Inner-Room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My Face is likewise very well known at the _Grecian_, [10] the _Cocoa-Tree_, [11] and in the Theaters both of _Drury Lane_ and the _Hay-Market_. [12]
I have been taken for a Merchant upon the _Exchange_ for above these ten Years, and sometimes pa.s.s for a _Jew_ in the a.s.sembly of Stock-jobbers at _Jonathan"s_. [13] In short, where-ever I see a Cl.u.s.ter of People, I always mix with them, tho" I never open my Lips but in my own Club.
Thus I live in the World, rather as a Spectator of Mankind, than as one of the Species; by which means I have made my self a Speculative Statesman, Soldier, Merchant, and Artizan, without ever medling with any Practical Part in Life. I am very well versed in the Theory of an Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Oeconomy, Business, and Diversion 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 an exact Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forc"d 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.
I have given the Reader just so much of my History and Character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the Business I have undertaken. As for other Particulars in my Life and Adventures, I shall insert them in following Papers, as 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 my self 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 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 my self, at least for some Time: I mean, an Account of my Name, my Age, and my Lodgings. I must confess I would gratify my Reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as for these three Particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the Embellishment of my Paper, I cannot yet come to a Resolution of communicating them to the Publick. They would indeed draw me out of that Obscurity which I have enjoyed for many Years, and expose me in Publick Places to several Salutes and Civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest [pain] I can suffer, [is [14]] the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this Reason likewise, that I keep my Complexion and Dress, as very great Secrets; tho" it is not impossible, but I may make Discoveries of both in the Progress of the Work I have undertaken.
After having been thus particular upon my self, 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 _To the Spectator_, at Mr. _Buckley"s_, in _Little Britain_ [15]. For I must further acquaint the Reader, that tho" our Club meets only on _Tuesdays_ and _Thursdays_, we have appointed a Committee to sit every Night, for the Inspection of all such Papers as may contribute to the Advancement of the Public Weal.
C. [16]
[Footnote 1: I find by the writings of the family,]
[Footnote 2: goes]
[Footnote 3: where]