The Tatler Edited by George A. Aitken In Four Volumes Volume Four [Illustration: _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. [Illustration: DESORMAIS] VOL. IV New York Hadley & Mathews 156 Fifth Avenue London: Duckworth & Co. 1899 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 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 dating from this little covert, where I have frequently had the honour of your Lordship's company, and received from you very many obligations. The elegant solitude of this place, and the greatest pleasures of it, I owe to its being so near those beautiful manors wherein you sometimes reside: it is not retiring from the world, but enjoying its most valuable blessings, when a man is permitted to share in your Lordship's conversations in the country. All the bright images which the wits of past ages have left behind them in their writings, the noble plans which the greatest statesmen have laid down for administration of affairs, are equally the familiar objects of your knowledge. But what is peculiar to your Lordship above all the illustrious personages that have appeared in any age, is, that wit and learning have from your example fallen into a new era. Your patronage has produced those arts, which before shunned the commerce of the world, into the service of life; and it is to you we owe, that the man of wit has turned himself to be a man of business. The false delicacy of men of genius, and the objections which others were apt to insinuate against their abilities for entering into affairs, have equally vanished. And experience has shown, that men of letters are not only qualified with a greater capacity, but also a greater integrity in the despatch of business. Your own studies have been diverted from being the highest ornament, to the highest use to mankind, and the capacities which would have rendered you the greatest poet of your age, have to the advantage of Great Britain been employed in pursuits