“An Undisputed Right to this Offering”: The Dedication
A Critical Edition of Eliza Haywood’s Dedicatory Epistle of The Female Spectator to Juliana Colyear, Duchess of Leeds
The Dedication
To Her Grace the Duchess of Leeds1
May It Please Your Grace,
As the chief view in publishing these monthly essays is to rectify some errors, which, small as they may seem at first, may, if indulged, grow up into greater, till they at last become vices, and make all the misfortunes of our lives; it was necessary to put them under the protection of a lady, not only of an unblemished conduct, but also of an exalted virtue, whose example may enforce the precepts they contain, and is herself a shining pattern for others to copy after, of all those perfections I endeavor to recommend.
It is not, therefore, madam, that you are descended from Marlborough or a Godolphin,2 dear as those patriot-names will ever be, while any sense of liberty remains in Britons; nor on the account of the high rank you hold in the world,3 nor for those charms with which nature has so profusely adorned your person; but for those innate graces, which no ancestry can give, no titles can embellish, nor no beauty atone for the want of, that Your Grace has an undisputed right to this offering, as the point aimed at by the work itself gives it in some measure a claim to your acceptance.
That promise, which the first years of life gave of a glorious maturity, we have seen completed long before Your Grace arrived at an age, which in others is requisite to ripen wit into wisdom, and concile4 the sparkling ideas of the one, with the correcting judgment of the other. — We beheld with admiration even in the most minute circumstances and actions; but the crown of all, was the happy choice of a partner5 in that state which is the chief end of our beings. — There shone your penetration,6 when among so many admirers, you singled out him who alone was worthy of you. — One, who great as he is, is yet more good than great; and who has given such instances how much it is in the power of virtue to ennoble nobility, as all must admire, though few I fear will imitate.
Marriage, too long the jest of fools, and prostituted to the most base and sordid of aims, to you, illustrious pair, owes its recovered fame, and proves its institution is indeed divine.
But this is no more than what everyone is full of; and in entreating Your Grace’s protection to the following sheets, I can only boast of being one among the millions who pray, that length of days, and uninterrupted health may continue that happiness to which nothing can be added, and that
I am,
with the most profound duty and submission,
may it please Your Grace,
Your Grace’s
most humble,
most obedient, and most
faithfully devoted servant,
The Female Spectator
1. Juliana Colyear (née Helen), Duchess of Leeds (1706-1794)
2. The names of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722), and Sidney Godolphin, 1st Baron Godolphin (1645-1712), were considered “patriot-names” due to their partnership under Queen Anne, which “embodied the emerging military-fiscal state” (Harris). Marlborough and Godolphin, both Tories, were also united in friendship through Marlborough’s wife, Sarah—Colyear’s grandmother.
3. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke, the highest rank below the monarch.
4. “Reconcile”
5. Juliana Osborne, widow of Peregrine Osborne, 3rd Duke of Leeds, married Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore in 1732, four months after he was knighted. Colyear, a sporting associate of her first husband’s, served as a Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords 1734-1737. Colyear continued to call herself the Duchess of Leeds after her second marriage.
6. “The action or capacity of penetrating something with the mind; keenness of perception or understanding; insight, acuteness, discernment” (Oxford English Dictionary, “Penetration, n.,” 2).