esteem: ...the greatest man among the members of the Junto, and in some respects, the greatest man of that age, was the Lord Keeper Somers. He was equally eminent as a jurist and as a politician, as an orator, and as a writer. His speeches have perished; but his State papers remain, and are models of terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence. He had left a great reputation in the House of Commons, where he had, for four years, been always heard with delight; and the Whig members still looked up to him as their leader, and still held their meetings under his roof. ... In truth, he united all the qualities of a great judge, an intellect comprehensive, quick and acute, diligence, integrity, patience, suavity. In council, the calm wisdom, which he possessed in a measure rarely found among men of parts so quick and of opinions so decided as his, acquired for him the authority of an oracle. ... From the beginning to the end of his public life he was a steady Whig. A fire at the law offices of Charles Yorke in Lincoln's Inn Square on 27 January 1752 destroyed a large amount of Somers's surviving private papers. The Town of Somers, Connecticut was incorporated in 1734 by the General Court of Massachusetts and named for Somers. Notes References R. M. Adams, 'In search of Baron Somers', in Perez Zagorin (ed.), Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Enlightenment (University of California Press, 1980), pp. 165–93. J. C. D. Clark, Reflections on the Revolution in France. A Critical Edition (Stanford University Press, 2001). Stuart Handley, 'Somers, John, Baron Somers (1651–1716)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2008, accessed 6 June 2009. Henry Horwitz, Parliament, policy and politics in the reign of William III (Manchester University Press, 1977). Michael Landon, The Triumph of the Lawyers. Their Role in English Politics, 1678–1689 (University of Alabama Press, 1970). Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. Popular Edition in Two Volumes. (London: Longmans, 1889). William L. Sachse, Lord Somers. A Political Portrait (Manchester University Press, 1975) Further reading Richard Cooksey, Essay on the Life and Character of John Lord Somers (1791). Henry Maddock, Account of the Life and Writings of Lord-Chancellor Somers (1812). John Oldmixon, Memoirs of the Life of John, Lord Somers (1716). L. G. Schwoerer,