WILLIAMS, (Author of Letters on Political Liberty) shewing the ultimate
end of Human Power, and a free Government, under God; and in which Mr.
Locke's Theory of Government is examined and explained, contrary to the
general construction of that great Writer's particular sentiments on the
Supremacy of the People. By M. DAWES, Esq. Price 1s.

INSTRUCTIONS

TO A

STATESMAN.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

GEORGE EARL TEMPLE.

M.DCC.LXXXIV.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE EARL TEMPLE.

MY LORD,

The following papers fell into my hands by one of those unaccountable
accidents, so frequent in human life, but which in the relation appear
almost incredible. I will not however trouble your lordship with the
story. If they be worthy of the press, it is of no great consequence to
the public how they found their way thither. If they afford your
lordship a moment's amusement, amidst the weightier cares incident to
your rank and fortune, I have obtained my end.

I have endeavoured in vain to investigate who was their author, and to
whom they were addressed. It should seem, from the internal evidence of
the composition, that they were written by a person, who was originally
of a low rank or a menial station, but who was distinguished by his lord
for those abilities and talents, he imagined he discovered in him. I
have learned, by a kind of vague tradition, upon which I can place
little dependence, that the noble pupil was the owner of a magnificent
_chateau_ not a hundred miles from your lordship's admired seat in the
county of Buckingham. It is said that this nobleman, amidst a thousand
curiosities with which his gardens abounded, had the unaccountable whim
of placing a kind of artificial hermit in one of its wildest and most
solitary recesses. This hermit it seems was celebrated through the whole
neighbourhood, for his ingenuity in the carving of tobacco-stoppers, and
a variety of other accomplishments. Some of the peasants even mistook
him for a conjuror. If I might be allowed in the conjectural licence of
an editor, I should be inclined to ascribe the following composition to
this celebrated and ingenious solitaire.

Since however this valuable tract remains without an owner, I thought it
could not be so properly addressed to any man as your lordship. I would
not however be misunderstood. I do not imagine that the claim this
performance has upon the public attention, consists in the value and