The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The Tatler
Edited by
George A. Aitken
In Four Volumes
Volume Four
B. Lens Senr delineavit
Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.
Engraved by Wm. H. Ward & Co. L'd. from the Original by Sturt after Lens.
The Tatler
Edited with Introduction & Notes
by
George A. Aitken
Author of
"The Life of Richard Steele," &c.
VOL. IV
New York
Hadley & Mathews
156 Fifth Avenue
London: Duckworth & Co.
1899
At the Ballantyne Press
To the Right Honourable
Charles Lord Halifax.[1]
From the Hovel at Hamptonwick,
April 7, 1711.
My Lord,
When I first resolved upon doing myself this honour,I could not but indulge a certain vanity in datingfrom this little covert, where I have frequently had thehonour of your Lordship's company, and received fromyou very many obligations. The elegant solitude ofthis place, and the greatest pleasures of it, I owe toits being so near those beautiful manors wherein yousometimes reside: it is not retiring from the world,but enjoying its most valuable blessings, when a manis permitted to share in your Lordship's conversationsin the country. All the bright images which the wits[Pg 4]of past ages have left behind them in their writings,the noble plans which the greatest statesmen have laiddown for administration of affairs, are equally thefamiliar objects of your knowledge. But what ispeculiar to your Lordship above all the illustriouspersonages that have appeared in any age, is, that witand learning have from your example fallen into anew era. Your patronage has produced those arts,which before shunned the commerce of the world, intothe service of life; and it is to you we owe, that theman of wit has turned himself to be a man of business.The false delicacy of men of genius, and the objectionswhich others were apt to insinuate against their abilitiesfor entering into affairs, have equally vanished. Andexperience ha