THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN EARL SPENCER,

VISCOUNT SPENCER,

VISCOUNT AND BARON ALTHORPE,

Of ALTHORPE in the COUNTY of NORTHAMPTON,

LORD HIGH STEWARD OF ST, ALBAN's, AND ONE OF THE VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE BRITISH LYING-IN HOSPITAL.

MY LORD,

THE obligations, under which I lie

to your Lordship, are of fo tranfcendant a nature as to demand the warmest and most public acknowledgments I can make; and at the fame time suggest the propriety of the present addrefs in fo forcible a manner as to preclude all hefitation and demur on the fubject. But your Lordship,

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Lordship, I hope, will do me the juftice to believe, that my wishes on this occafion are not inferior to the extent of the obligations your benevolence has conferred.

My abilities indeed I may juftly fufpect; and in the present inftance my concern is enlarged, (and with reafon) left what I here offer, as a partial difcharge of the heavy demand against me, be found to aggravate the account, by requiring a specific atonement for the imperfections it brings with it.

All then that remains to one thus circumstanced is, to throw myself without reserve on that benevolence, from which, if not already wearied out by repetition of favours, I may justly hope the indulgence I fo egregiously need on this occafion..

I am fenfible it has been your Lordship's invariable rule to do good by stealth whenever practicable; and your caution in this respect often fuch as to defy difcovery, and always I believe your wifh to avoid it.

However I may, I hope, without offence to your Lordship's delicacy on this fubject, obferve that, though your Lordship's fortune is of the first magnitude, were lifts of your private charities and penfions to diftrefs and penury, which mere accident once prefented to my view, exhibited to the public, it would readily appear, that your Lordship's exclufive fhare of it is far the least.

Secure then, my Lord, of being forgiven the discovery of this fact by all, who rejoice in inftances that do honour to human nature, by raifing it to a refemblance of the most amiable attribute in the divine, as far at least as circumstances admit; and having no great reason. to fear the displeasure of a Nobleman, whose whole study and ambition is to do good and make all within the reach of his benevolence happy, I will be bold to hope that the work I here offer to your Lordship's patronage, though poffeffed of little or no intrinfic merit, may however be received as a decifive proof of my gratitude, under an affurance of its being. the best within the compass of my poor abilities in this department of Literature.

But, my Lord, though thus honoured and happy in domestic life, your Lordship will not, I hope, fuffer the whole stock of your philanthropy to be exhausted on individuals alone; when a diftreffed Public, beneath an enormous load of complicated calamities, and in perhaps the most perilous period of its exiftence, defpairing of redress but from truly virtuous and difinterested characters, like your Lordship, sues in so passionate and affecting a style for immediate fuccour and fupport.

If the generally-received and popular notion of innate powers and properties be juft; if, as Horace obferves, the moral as well as perfonal features of a family be often transmitted to pofterity the conduct and courage of your illuftrious Anceftor, THE GREAT Duke of Marlborough, who in the opinion of Lord Chesterfield, that exquifite judge of men and manners, poffeffed the graces beyond all example; no lefs diftinguished in the cabinet than

quid Augufti paternus

In pueros animus Nerones &c.

HOR. Lib. iv. Ode 4.

the