You are so thoroughly acquainted with the characters of men, and all the 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, that you are master of the whole compass of business, and have signalized yourself in all the different scenes of it. We admire some for the dignity, others for the popularity of their behaviour; some for their clearness of judgment, others for their happiness of expression; some for the laying of schemes, and others for the putting of them in execution. It is your Lordship only who enjoys these several talents united, and that too in as great perfection as others possess them singly. Your enemies acknowledge 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 interest of your country in so uniform a manner, that even 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. VERY many favours and civilities (received from you in a private capacity) which I have no other way to acknowledge, will, I hope, excuse this presumption: but the justice I, as a Spectator, owe your character, places me above the want of an excuse. 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 * The Right Hon. Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, was appointed Secretary of State, December 5, 1706; from which office he was dismissed June 14, 1710. On the first of September, 1715, he had a pension of 12001. per annum settled on him; on the 16th of April, 1717, he was again made Secretary of State; on the 16th of March, 1717-18, he was appointed Lord President of the Council; on the 6th of February, 1718-19, made Groom of the Stole; and died on the 19th of April, 1722. He married Lady Ann Churchill, sccond daughter of John Duke of Marlborough. 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 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 and country are 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 important 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 following 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. THE SPECTATOR. No. 322. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1711-12. Ad humum mærore gravi deducit et angit. HOR. ARS. POET, 110. Grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul. ROSCOMMON. It is often said, after a man has heard a story with extraordinary circumstances, "it is a very good one if it be true;" but as for the following relation, I should be glad were I sure it were false. It is told with such simplicity, and there are so many artless touches of distress in it, that I fear it comes too much from the heart. "MR. SPECTATOR, "SOME years ago it happened that I lived in the same house with a young gentleman of merit; with whose good qualities I was so much taken, as to make it my endeavour to show as many as I was able in myself. Familiar converse improved general civilities into an unfeigned passion on both sides. He watched an opportunity to declare himself to me; and I, who could not expect a man of so great an estate as his, received his addresses in such terms as gave him no reason to believe I was displeased with them, though I did nothing to make him think me more easy than was decent. His father was a very hard worldly man, and proud; so that there was no reason to believe he would easily be brought to think there was anything in any woman's person or ; character, that could balance the disadvantage of an unequal fortune. In the meantime, the son continued his application to me, and omitted no occasion of demonstrating the most disinterested passion imaginable to me; and in plain direct terms offered to marry privately, and keep it so till he should be so happy as to VOL. III. B gain his father's approbation, or become possessed of his estate. I passionately loved him, and you will believe I did not deny such a one what was my interest also to grant. However, I was not so young as not to take the precaution of carrying with me a faithful servant, who had been also my mother's maid, to be present at the ceremony. When that was over, I demanded a certificate, signed by the minister, my husband, and the servant I just now spoke of. After our nuptials, we conversed together very familiarly in the same house; but the restraints we were generally under, and the interviews we had being stolen and interrupted, made our behaviour to each other have rather the impatient fondness which is visible in lovers, than the regular and gratified affection which is to be observed in man and wife. This observation made the father very anxious for his son, and press him to a match he had in his eye for him. To relieve my husband from this importunity, and conceal the secret of our marriage, which I had reason to know would not be long in my power in town, it was resolved that I should retire into a remote place in the country, and converse under feigned names by letter. We long continued this way of commerce; and I with my needle, a few books, and reading over and over my husband's letters, passed my time in a resigned expectation of better days. Be pleased to take notice, that within four months after I left my husband I was delivered of a daughter, who died within a few hours after her birth. This accident, and the retired manner of life I led, gave criminal hopes to a neighbouring brute of a country gentleman, whose folly was the source of all my affliction. This rustic is one of those rich clowns who supply the want of all manner of breeding by the neglect of it, and with noisy mirth, half understanding, and ample fortune, force themselves upon persons and things, without any sense of time or place. The poor ignorant people where I lay concealed, and now passed for a widow, wondered I could be so shy and strange, as they called it, to the squire; and were bribed by him to admit him whenever he thought fit. I happened to be sitting in a little parlour which belonged to my own part of the house, and musing over one of the fondest of my husband's letters, in which I always kept the certificate of my marriage, when this rude fellow came in, and with the nauseous familiarity of such unbred brutes, snatched the papers out of my hand. I was immediately under so great a concern, that I threw myself at his feet, and begged of him to return them. He, with the same odious pretence to freedom and gaiety, swore he would read them. I grew more importunate, he more curious: till at last, with an indignation arising from a passion I then first discovered in him, he threw the papers into the fire, swearing that since he was not to read them, the man who writ them should never be so happy as to have me read them over again. It is insignificant to tell you my |