With an excellent understanding, adorned by all the polite parts of learning, he hath very little taste for conversation, to which he prefers the pleasure of reading and thinking; and in the intervals of his time amuseth himself with an illiterate chaplain, an humble companion, or a favourite servant.
[Footnote 11: See note on p.

29 of vol.i.of present edition.

Swift's "Dedication" of "A Tale of a Tub" to Somers strikes a somewhat different note from that of this "character." [T.S.]] [Footnote 12: His father, John Somers, was an attorney at law in the town of Worcester.

[S.]] These are some few distinguishing marks in the character of that person, who now presideth over the discontented party, although he be not answerable for all their mistakes; and if his precepts had been more strictly followed, perhaps their power would not have been so easily shaken.

I have been assured, and heard him profess, that he was against engaging in that foolish prosecution of Dr.Sacheverell, as what he foresaw was likely to end in their ruin; that he blamed the rough demeanour of some persons to the Queen, as a great failure in prudence; and that, when it appeared Her Majesty was firmly resolved upon a treaty of peace, he advised his friends not to oppose it in its progress, but find fault with it after it was made; which would be a copy of the like usage themselves had met with, after the treaty of Ryswick;[13] and the safest, as well as the most probable, way of disgracing the promoters and advisers.