Your Lordship is produced by Providence, in an ample and flowing fortune, to make a ftand for honesty, and to preferve the names of virtue and honour from oblivion. Whoever has exerted himself for the publick, has at your houfe a friend and a benefactor: diftinctions are there made by the rule of reafon and juftice; a young and noble heart, generously disposed by Nature, and fortified by letters, can determine, in fpite of prevailing fashion to the contrary, that good and evil are really distinct confiderations, and that "to diftinguish virtuous men is the best "knowledge of the world." I could give a thousand inftances of your Lordship's great humanity this way, and of your having attained in your first years to be "the terror of ill, and the refuge of good men." What can fondnefs itself wifh more for a man, than to have wealth, and the best fenfe in the ufe of it; than to be elegantly delightful, artlefsly eloquent, difcreetly fincere, and judicioufly bountiful? Your Lordship will be tranfmitted to futurity by the profeffors of those liberal arts you protect and encourage. The prefent I now make you can give me no opportunity to endeavour that way. But, as these occafional writings are arguments against the incurfions made upon our liberty, and written even when thofe innovations were first attempted; I humbly defire your Lordfhiy's protection 1 to them and their author, who is, with the utmoft integrity, my Lord, your Lordship's most obliged, moft obedient, and moft humble fervant, RICHARD STEELE. SIR, A [1715]. S foon as I thought of making the LOVER a present to one of my friends, I refolved, without farther distracting my choice, to fend it TO THE BEST-NATURED MAN. You are fo univerfaily known for this character, that an epistle fo directed would find its way to you without your name, and I believe nobody but you yourfelf would deliver fuch a fuperfcription to any other perfon. Prefixed to an edition of "The Lover and Reader," in 12mo, 1715. + Dr. Samuel Garth, the celebrated author of "The Difpen"fary."-The first edition of this admirable poem came out in 1694; and went through three impreffions in a few months. This extraordinary encouragement put him upon making several improvements in it; and in 1706 he published a fourth edition, with feveral additions. Major Pack obferves, that "The Difpenfary had loft and gained in every edition; almost every "thing that Sir Samuel left out being a robbery from the pub"lick, whilst every thing that he added was an embellishment "to his poem." On the acceffion of King George I. he had the honour of being knighted with the Duke of Marlborough's fword. He died Jan. 18, 1718-19. 66 This propenfity is the nearest a kin to love; and good-nature is the worthiest affection of the mind, as love is the nobleft paffion of it: while the latter is wholly employed in endeavouring to make happy one fingle object, the other diffufes its benevolence to all the world. As this is your natural bent, I cannot but congratulate to you the fingular felicity that your profeffion is fo agreeable to your temper. For what condition is more defirable than a conftant impulse to relieve the diftreffed, and a capacity to adminifter that relief? When the fick man hangs his eye on that of his phyfician, how pleasing must it be to speak comfort to his anguish, to raise in him the first motions of hope, to lead him into a perfuafion that he fhall return to the company of his friends, the care of his family, and all the bleffings of being? The manner in which you practise this hea venly faculty of aiding human life, is according to the liberality of feience, and demonftrates that your heart is more fet upon doing good than growing rich. The pitiful artifices which empiricks are guilty of to drain cafh out of valetudinarians, are the abhorrence of your generous mind; and it is as common with GARTH to fupply indigent pa tients with money for food, as to receive it from wealthy ones for phyfick. How much more amiable, Sir, would the generofity which is already ready applauded by all that know you, appear to those whose gratitude you every day refuse, if they knew that you refift their presents left you should supply those whose wants you know, by taking from those with whofe neceffities you are unacquainted? The families you frequent receive you as their friend and well-wisher, whofe concern, in their behalf, is as great as that of those who are related to them by the ties of blood and the fanctions of affinity. This tenderness interrupts the fatisfactions of converfation, to which you are fo happily turned; but we forgive you that our. mirth is often infipid to you, while you fit abfent to what paffes amongst us from your care of fuch as languish in fickness. We are fenfible their diftreffes, instead of being removed by company, return more ftrongly to your imagination by comparison of their condition to the jollities of health. But I forget I am writing a dedication; and in an address of this kind, it is more ufual to celebrate mens great talents, than those virtues to which fuch talents ought to be fubfervient; yet where the bent of a man's fpirit is taken up in the application of his whole force to ferve the world in his profeffion, it would be frivolous not to entertain him rather with thanks for what he is, than applaufes for what he is capable of being. Befides, Sir, there is no room for fay ing any thing to you, as you are a man of wit, and a great poet; all that can be spoken that is worthy an ingenuous fpirit, in the celebration. of fuch faculties, has been incomparably faid by yourself to others, or by others to you: you have never been excelled in this kind but by those who have written in praise of you: I will not pretend to be your rival even with fuch an advantage over you; but, affuring you, in Mr. Codrington's words*, that I do not know whether my love or admiration is greater, I remain, Sir, your most faithful friend, and moft obliged, humble fervant, RICHARD STEELE. CCCCXLVI. ORIGINAL PREFACE† to "The Drummer," 1715. HAV AVING recommended this Play to the town, and delivered the copy of it to the bookfeller, I think myfelf obliged to give fome account of it. It had been fome years in the hands of the author; and, falling under my perufal, I thought fo well of it, that I perfuaded him to make fome additions and alterations to it, and let it appear "Thou haft no faults, or I no faults can spy: CODRINGTON to Dr. Garth, before The Difpenfary. See hereafter, N° CCCCLV. upon |