DEDICATION.
To the Honourable
GEORGE LYTTLETON, ESQ;
One of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury.
Sir,
Notwithstanding your constant refusal, when I have asked leave to
prefix your name to this dedication, I must still insist on my right
to desire your protection of this work.
To you, Sir, it is owing that this history was ever begun. It was by
your desire that I first thought of such a composition. So many years
have since past, that you may have, perhaps, forgotten this
circumstance: but your desires are to me in the nature of commands;
and the impression of them is never to be erased from my memory.
Again, Sir, without your assistance this history had never been
completed. Be not startled at the assertion. I do not intend to draw
on you the suspicion of being a romance writer. I mean no more than
that I partly owe to you my existence during great part of the time
which I have employed in composing it: another matter which it may be
necessary to remind you of; since there are certain actions of which
you are apt to be extremely forgetful; but of these I hope I shall
always have a better memory than yourself.
Lastly, It is owing to you that the history appears what it now is. If
there be in this work, as some have been pleased to say, a stronger
picture of a truly benevolent mind than is to be found in any other,
who that knows you, and a particular acquaintance of yours, will doubt
whence that benevolence hath been copied? The world will not, I
believe, make me the compliment of thinking I took it from myself. I
care not: this they shall own, that the two persons from whom I have
taken it, that is to say, two of the best and worthiest men in the
world, are strongly and zealously my friends. I might be contented
with this, and yet my vanity will add a third to the number; and him
one of the greatest and noblest, not only in his rank, but in every
public and private virtue. But here, whilst my gratitude for the
princely benefactions of the Duke of Bedford bursts from my heart, you
must forgive my reminding you that it was you who first recommended me
to the notice of my benefactor.
And what are your objections to the allowance of the honour which I
have sollicited? Why, you have commended the book so warmly, that you
should be ashamed of reading your name before the dedication. Indeed,
sir, if the book itself doth not make you ashamed of your
commendations, nothing that I can here write will, or ought. I am not
to give up my right to your protection and patronage, because you have
commended my book: for though I acknowledge so many obligations to
you, I do not add this to the number; in which friendship, I am
convinced, hath so little share: since that can neither biass your
judgment, nor pervert your integrity. An enemy may at any time obtain
your commendation by only deserving it; and the utmost which the
faults of your friends can hope for, is your silence; or, perhaps, if
too severely accused, your gentle palliation.
In short, sir, I suspect, that your dislike of public praise is your
true objection to granting my request. I have observed that you have,
in common with my two other friends, an unwillingness to hear the
least mention of your own virtues; that, as a great poet says of one
of you, (he might justly have said it of all three), you
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.