Somers was the type of ‘the old whigs’ to whom was addressed the famous ‘Appeal;’ to Macaulay he was no less a symbol of awe and veneration. Yet as a statesman he does not merit all the praise which has been lavished upon him by his whig panegyrists. His part in shaping the settlement of 1688–1689 has been unduly magnified; in the matter of the partition treaty he showed a lamentable want of firmness; notwithstanding his latitudinarian opinions, he does not seem to have been particularly zealous even for the small measure of religious liberty secured by the Toleration Act. On the other hand his sagacity, industry, and disinterestedness are undeniable; his motto, ‘Prodesse quam conspici,’ was no vain boast, and only once towards the close of his career, when he gave some countenance to the agitation for the repeal of the union with Scotland (1713), did he dally with faction.
Somers was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller as lord chancellor in wig and robes, holding the chancellor's purse; also as a member of the Kit-Cat Club and Royal Society. The first portrait, a three-quarter-length, passed into Lord Hardwicke's collection. The Kit-Cat Club portrait is in the possession of Mr. William Baker of Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire. Other portraits of him by the same artist are in the National Portrait Gallery and at the Middle Temple. He was also painted by Richardson in 1713. Engravings of these portraits are among the prints at the British Museum and in Addit. MS. 12097, besides an etching by Picart, done in 1704, in Addit. MS. 20818, f. 194. Unless these portraits grossly belie him, his somewhat commonplace physiognomy must have afforded but a poor index of his powers.
Somers's learning, sagacity, and clearness are discernible in four political tracts written when he was about thirty, and published in London in 1681, viz.:
- ‘The Memorable Case of Denzil Onslow, tried at the Assizes in Surrey, 20 July 1681, touching his Election at Haslemere in Surrey’ (against the corrupt practice of fagot voting).
- ‘A brief History of the Succession of the Crown of England, collected out of records and the most authentick historians’ (in defence of the legality of the Exclusion Bill).
- ‘A Just and Modest Vindication of the Proceedings of the two last Parliaments’ (in answer to the royal declaration).
- ‘The Security of Englishmen's Lives; or the Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England’ (a vindication of the right of the grand jury to reject the bill of indictment against Lord Shaftesbury). Separate reprints of the ‘Brief History’ appeared in London in 1688–9, fol., and 1714, 4to, and of ‘The Security of Englishmen's Lives’ in 1682, 12mo, and 1766, 8vo.
According to Burnet (Own Time, i. 500), ‘The Just and Modest Vindication’ was the joint production of Algernon Sidney, Somers, and Sir William Jones, while ‘The Security of Englishmen's Lives’ was entirely Somers's composition, though it passed as the work of Arthur Capel, earl of Essex [q. v.] To Somers are also assigned the anonymous versions of ‘Ariadne to Theseus’ and ‘Dido to Æneas’ in ‘Ovid's Epistles by several Hands,’ London, 1683, 3rd ed. 8vo, and the ‘Life of Alcibiades’ in ‘Plutarch's Lives by several Hands,’ London, 1684, 8vo. The poems (in tolerable imitation of Dryden) brought Somers into relations with Tonson, for whose edition of ‘Paradise Lost’ (1688) he helped to procure subscribers. The authenticity of a coarse jeu d'esprit, ‘Dryden's Satire to his Muse,’ printed as by Somers in the supplement to ‘The Works of the most celebrated Minor Poets,’ London, 1750, 8vo, is denied—on good grounds, it may be hoped—by Pope (Works, ed. Elwin and Courthope, iii. 252 n.), and a tradition which ascribes to him the ‘Tale of a Tub’ need only be mentioned to be rejected.
To Somers have further been conjecturally ascribed four anonymous tracts, viz.
- ‘A Discourse concerning Generosity,’ London, 1693; 2nd edit. 1695, 12mo.
- ‘Jus Regium; or the King's Right to grant Forfeitures and other Revenues of the Crown,’ &c., London, 1701, 4to.
- ‘Anguis in Herba; or the fatal Consequences of a Treaty with France,’ London, 1701, 4to (reprinted in State Tracts, iii. 312 et seq.).
- ‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei, being True Maxims of Government,’ &c., London, 1709, 8vo; 2nd edit. with title, ‘The Judgment of whole Kingdoms and Nations concerning the Rights, Powers, and Prerogatives of Kings,’ &c., London, 1710, 8vo (frequent reprints). Their authenticity is doubtful.
Somers's large and valuable library passed to his brother-in-law, Sir Joseph Jekyll, and furnished the basis of the collection known as the ‘Somers Tracts,’ first published in London between 1748 and 1752, 16 vols. 4to, afterwards edited by Sir Walter Scott, London, 1809–13, 13 vols. 4to. Most of his manuscripts found their way into the possession of Lord-chancellor Hardwicke's son, the Hon. Charles Yorke, and perished in a fire at his chambers in Lincoln's Inn on 27 June 1752. A selection from such as were saved was printed in the ‘Miscellaneous State Papers’ (1778).
