My Lord,

I humbly beg leave to offer you these two Volumes; they are the best my talents, with such bad health as I have, could produce:⁠—had Providence granted me a larger stock of either, they had been a much more proper present to your Lordship.

I beg your Lordship will forgive me, if, at the same time I dedicate this work to you, I join Lady Spencer, in the liberty I take of inscribing the story of Le Fever to her name; for which I have no other motive, which my heart has informed me of, but that the story is a humane one.

My Lord, Your Lordship’s most devoted and most humble Servant,

Laur. Sterne.