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To the Right Honourable John Lord Somers
My LORD,
Though the author has written a large Dedication, yet that being
addressed to a Prince whom I am never likely to have the honour of
being known to; a person, besides, as far as I can observe, not at
all regarded or thought on by any of our present writers; and I
being wholly free from that slavery which booksellers usually lie
under to the caprices of authors, I think it a wise piece of
presumption to inscribe these papers to your Lordship, and to
implore your Lordship's protection of them. God and your Lordship
know their faults and their merits; for as to my own particular, I
am altogether a stranger to the matter; and though everybody else
should be equally ignorant, I do not fear the sale of the book at
all the worse upon that score. Your Lordship's name on the front in
capital letters will at any time get off one edition: neither would
I desire any other help to grow an alderman than a patent for the
sole privilege of dedicating to your Lordship.
I should now, in right of a dedicator, give your Lordship a list of
your own virtues, and at the same time be very unwilling to offend
your modesty; but chiefly I should celebrate your liberality towards
men of great parts and small fortunes, and give you broad hints that
I mean myself. And I was just going on in the usual method to
peruse a hundred or two of dedications, and transcribe an abstract
to be applied to your Lordship, but I was diverted by a certain
accident. For upon the covers of these papers I casually observed
written in large letters the two following words, DETUR DIGNISSIMO,
which, for aught I knew, might contain some important meaning. But
it unluckily fell out that none of the Authors I employ understood
Latin (though I have them often in pay to translate out of that
language). I was therefore compelled to have recourse to the Curate
of our Parish, who Englished it thus, Let it be given to the
worthiest; and his comment was that the Author meant his work should
be dedicated to the sublimest genius of the age for wit, learning,
judgment, eloquence, and wisdom. I called at a poet's chamber (who
works for my shop) in an alley hard by, showed him the translation,
and desired his opinion who it was that the Author could mean. He
told me, after some consideration, that vanity was a thing he
abhorred, but by the description he thought himself to be the person
aimed at; and at the same time he very kindly offered his own
assistance gratis towards penning a dedication to himself. I
desired him, however, to give a second guess. Why then, said he, it
must be I, or my Lord Somers. From thence I went to several other
wits of my acquaintance, with no small hazard and weariness to my
person, from a prodigious number of dark winding stairs; but found
them all in the same story, both of your Lordship and themselves.
Now your Lordship is to understand that this proceeding was not of
my own invention; for I have somewhere heard it is a maxim that
those to whom everybody allows the second place have an undoubted
title to the first.
This infallibly convinced me that your Lordship was the person
intended by the Author. But being very unacquainted in the style
and form of dedications, I employed those wits aforesaid to furnish
me with hints and materials towards a panegyric upon your Lordship's
virtues.
In two days they brought me ten sheets of paper filled up on every
side. They swore to me that they had ransacked whatever could be
found in the characters of Socrates, Aristides, Epaminondas, Cato,
Tully, Atticus, and other hard names which I cannot now recollect.
However, I have reason to believe they imposed upon my ignorance,
because when I came to read over their collections, there was not a
syllable there but what I and everybody else knew as well as
themselves: therefore I grievously suspect a cheat; and that these
Authors of mine stole and transcribed every word from the universal
report of mankind. So that I took upon myself as fifty shillings
out of pocket to no manner of purpose.
If by altering the title I could make the same materials serve for
another dedication (as my betters have done), it would help to make
up my loss; but I have made several persons dip here and there in
those papers, and before they read three lines they have all assured
me plainly that they cannot possibly be applied to any person
besides your Lordship.
I expected, indeed, to have heard of your Lordship's bravery at the
head of an army; of your undaunted courage in mounting a breach or
scaling a wall; or to have had your pedigree traced in a lineal
descent from the House of Austria; or of your wonderful talent at
dress and dancing; or your profound knowledge in algebra,
metaphysics, and the Oriental tongues: but to ply the world with an
old beaten story of your wit, and eloquence, and learning, and
wisdom, and justice, and politeness, and candour, and evenness of
temper in all scenes of life; of that great discernment in
discovering and readiness in favouring deserving men; with forty
other common topics; I confess I have neither conscience nor
countenance to do it. Because there is no virtue either of a public
or private life which some circumstances of your own have not often
produced upon the stage of the world; and those few which for want
of occasions to exert them might otherwise have passed unseen or
unobserved by your friends, your enemies have at length brought to
light.
It is true I should be very loth the bright example of your
Lordship's virtues should be lost to after-ages, both for their sake
and your own; but chiefly because they will be so very necessary to
adorn the history of a late reign; and that is another reason why I
would forbear to make a recital of them here; because I have been
told by wise men that as dedications have run for some years past, a
good historian will not be apt to have recourse thither in search of
characters.
There is one point wherein I think we dedicators would do well to
change our measures; I mean, instead of running on so far upon the
praise of our patron's liberality, to spend a word or two in
admiring their patience. I can put no greater compliment on your
Lordship's than by giving you so ample an occasion to exercise it at
present. Though perhaps I shall not be apt to reckon much merit to
your Lordship upon that score, who having been formerly used to
tedious harangues, and sometimes to as little purpose, will be the
readier to pardon this, especially when it is offered by one who is,
with all respect and veneration,
My LORD,
Your Lordship's most obedient
and most faithful Servant,
THE BOOKSELLER.
Content of To the Right Honourable John Lord Somers [Jonathan Swift's ebook: A Tale of a Tub]
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