rivate
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. Candor and Openness of Heart,
which shine in all your Words and Actions, exacts the highest Esteem
from all who have the Honour to know You, and a winning Condescention 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 convey'd through Your Hands: A
Secretary of State, in the Interests 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 acknowledgd 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.

[Footnote 1: Charles Spencer, to whom the Sixth Volume of the Spectator
is here inscribed, represented Tiverton, in 1700, when he took the Lady
Anne Churchill, Marlborough's second daughter, for his second wife. On
the death of his father Robert, in 1702, he became Earl of Sunderland.
He was an accomplished man and founder of the library at Althorpe. In
1705 he was employed diplomatically at the courts of Prussia, Austria,
and Hanover. Early in 1706 he was one of the Commissioners for arranging
the Union with Scotland, and in September of that year he was forced by
the Whigs on Queen Anne, as successor to Sir Charles Hedges in the
office of Secretary of State. Steele held under him the off