TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE of BEAUFORT,: KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD, THESE little Volumes are inscribed to Your GRACE, in gratitude for your having permitted the COMPILER to decorate them with an Engraving of CARDINAL ALBERONI, from your Portrait of that extraordinary man at Badminton. Thefe Thefe Volumes have perhaps fome claim to the notice of YOUR GRACE, as they will fhew that the virtues which you pracyou tife upon principle, feem to be hereditary in your illuftrious family; and that it appears to be as characteristic of a SOMERSET to love his King and to ferve his Country, as it is for him to be royally defcended and fplendidly endowed. I have the honour to be, My Lord, Your Grace's obliged and obedient fervant, THE COMPILER. i ADVERTISEMENT. THE greater part of the following ANECDOTES has already appeared in THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. They are fubmitted to the Public in their present form, corrected and enlarged, in confequence of the favourable opinion fome of the COMPILER's literary friends appeared to entertain of them. THE FRONTISPIECE which decorates these little volumes was defigned by a YOUNG FRIEND of the COMPILER, " who," to make use of the words of a celebrated Foreign Artist on seeing a picture painted by him," requires only the mediocrity "of RAFFAELLE, with respect to rank "and to fortune, to enable him to become "the rival of that great mafter in the "noblest efforts of his genius and of his "knowledge." |