the Lords in an
impeachment against him. In Queen Anne's reign, between 1708 and 1710,
the constitutional 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reprint of 'the Spectator', he had withdrawn from public life, and four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 gratitude
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, whi