He was ridiculed by Foot in his Auction of Pictures, and by Pope in the Dunciad, and was cer tainly no respectable character.

HENRY MARTYN.

HENRY MARTYN is supposed to have been the person alluded to in the character of Sir Andrew Freeport. Being the chief person employed in writing the British Merchant, a treatise that was much valued by government, he was rewarded with the office of Inspector general of imports and exports. He is said to have contributed his assistance in writing many papers in the Spectator; but unfortunately they have not been distinguished. See No. 195, 200.

ZACHARY PEARCE.

DR. ZACHARY PEARCE was born on the 8th September 1690 in the parish of St. Giles in High Holborn. His father had acquired a competent fortune as a distiler, and retired at the age of forty to an estate in the county of Middlesex which he had purchased. Mr. Pearce received the rudiments of his education in a private school at Great Ealing, and was removed to Westminster-school in 1704; where he highly distinguished himself, and was elected one of the king's scholars. In 1710, when he was twenty years old, he was elected to Trinity College in Cambridge. In 1716 his new edition of Cicero de Oratore, with notes and emendations, was first published. This he was

advised to dedicate to Lord Parker, afterwards earl of Macclesfield; who was so well pleased with the performance, that he thenceforth became his friend and patron. When Lord Parker was made High Chancellor of Great Britain, Mr. Pearce was appointed his chaplain. From that time preferments crowded upon him; and he would have received many more if his ambition had been equal to his merit. He was made Bishop of Bangor in 1747-8, and removed to the see of Rochester in 1756. When advanced to the age of 83, he happened to fatigue himself so much by confirming 700 persons at Greenwich, that he never afterwards recovered his strength; a paralytic complaint seized him, and he almost lost the power of swallowing. Being asked by one of his friends who constantly attended him, how he could live on so little nourishment? I live, said he, upon the recollection of an innocent and well spent life, which is my only sustenance. After languishing several months, he died on the 29th of June, 1774,. in the 84th year of his age.

Besides publishing valuable editions of Cicero de Oratore, and de Officiis, and Longinus de Sublimitate, he was author of several sermons, and some controversial works. But what we are chiefly concerned in at present is his papers in the Spectator. He wrote No. 572, a humorous essay on quacks; and No. 633, a dissertation on the eloquence of the pulpit. In the ludicrous paper the Editor confesses that he has made some additions and retrenchments; but the other is printed as it came to his hand without variation.

Besides these writers, of whom we have now given a short account, we are informed that there

were several others who contributed their assistance. Dr. Parnell is said to have written several papers, but these have not been distinguished. The favours of Mr. Ince, who was secretary to the comptrollers of the army accounts in 1740, are acknowledged by Steele in No. 555. The Rev. Richard Parker, vicar of Embleton, wrote No.. 474. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke wrote the letler on travelling, No. 364, when he was only nineteen years of age. The letter signed F. J. in No. 520, is said to have been the production of Mr. Francham of Norwich. The last letter, and the verses in No. 527, are by Pope: and the pastoral ballad in No. 603, was written by Mr. Byrom, a native of Manchester, who afterwards published a system of short-hand, and died in 1763.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN, LORD SOMERS,

MY LORD,

BARON OF EVESHAM.

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 assiduous to deserve it. But, my Lord, this is perhaps the only particular in which your prudence will be always disappointed.

While justice, candour, equanimity, 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 public 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 affected. 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 constitution 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 (a), 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, would be a more proper work for an history than 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 parts of learning, of your great humanity and complacency of manners, and of the surprising influence which is peculiar to you, in making very one, who converses with your Lordship, prefer you to himself, without thinking