have been equaliy sacrificed. I neither understand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it. The king's honour is that of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the same. I am not contending for a vain punctilio. A clear unblemished character comprehends not only the integrity that will not offer, but the spirit that will not submit to an injury; and whether it belongs to an individual or to a community, it is the foundation of peace, of independence, and of safety. Private credit is wealth; public honour is security. The feather that adorns the royal bird supports his flight. Strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth.'

Thus also he remarks: In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved; while everything solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost forever.'

Of the supposed enmity of George III. to Wilkes, and the injudicious prosecution of that demagogue, Junius happily remarks: "He said more than moderate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honour of your majesty's personal resentment. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could not consume. Animated by the favour of the people on the one side, and heated by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest sparkle in collision. There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. The passions are engaged, and create a maternal affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer.'

The letter to the king is the most dignified of the letters of Junius; those to the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford the most severe. The Duke of Grafton was descended from Charles II. and this afforded the satirist scope for invective: The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, even to their legitimate posterity; and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are some hereditary strokes of character by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human face. Charles I. lived and died a hypocrite; Charles II. was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you lived like Charles II. without being an amiable com

panion; and for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.'

In the same strain of elaborate and refined sarcasm the Duke of Bedford is addressed:

On the Duke of Bedford.

My lord, you are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if in the following lines a compliment or expression of ap plause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your estabfished character, and perhaps an insult to your understanding. You have nice feelings, my lord, if we may judge from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illustration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness of your temper, or probably they are better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. You have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. You have still left ample room for speculation when panegyric is exhausted.

Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fear as well as the hatred of the people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? and is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, my lord! Let it not be recorded of you that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, though you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigour, of the passions.

Your friends will ask, perhaps: Whither shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis, where his life has been so often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If he returns to Woburn, scorn and mockery await him: he must create a solitude round his estate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honest Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. At every town he enters, he must change his liveries and name. Whichever way he flies, the hue and cry of the country pursues him.

In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt, his virtues better understood; or, at worst, they will not for him alone forget their hospitality. As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people plundered, insulted, and oppressed, as they have been, will not always be disappointed.

It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene; you can no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation. and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger; and though you cannot be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed everything that ought to be dear to a man of honour. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last; and that, as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance.

These are certainly brilliant pieces of composition. The tone and spirit in which they are conceived are harsh and reprehensible-in some parts almost fiendish-but they are the emanations of a power

ful and cultivated mind, that, under better moral discipline, might have done lasting honour to literature and virtue. The acknowledged productions of Sir Philip Francis have equal animation, but less studied brevity and force of style. The soaring ardour of youth had flown; his hopes were crushed: he was not writing under the mask of a fearless and impenetrable secrecy. Yet in a letter to Earl Grey on the subject of the blockade of Norway, we find such vigorous sentences as the following:

State of England in 1812.

Though a nation may be bought and sold, deceived or betrayed, oppressed or beggared, and in every other sense undone, all is not lost, as long as a sense of national honour survives the general ruin. Even an individual cannot be crushed by events or overwhelmed by adversity, if, in the wreck and ruin of his fortune, the character of the man remains unblemished. That force is elastic, and, with the help of resolution, will raise him again out of any depth of calamity. But if the injured sufferer, whether it be a great or a little community, a number of individuals or a single person, be content to submit in silence, and to endure without resentment-if no complaints shall be uttered, no murmur shall be heard, deploratum est-there must be something celestial in the spirit that rises from that descent.

In March 1798, I had your voluntary and entire concurrence in the following, as well as many other abandoned propositions-when we drank pure wine togetherwhen you were young, and I was not superannuated-when we left the cold infusions of prudence to fine ladies and gentle politicians-when true wisdom was not degraded by the name of moderation-when we cared but little by what majorities the nation was betrayed, or how many felons were acquitted by their peers-and when we were not afraid of being intoxicated by the elevation of a spirit too highly rectified. In England and Scotland, the general disposition of the people may be fairly judged of by the means which are said to be necessary to counteract it-an immense standing army, barracks in every part of the country, the bill of rights suspended, and, in effect, a military despotism.

In the last of the private letters of Junius to Woodfall-the last, indeed, of his appearances in that character-he says, with his characteristic ardour and impatience, 'I feel for the honour of this coun try, when I see that there are not ten men in it who will unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all alike, vile and contemptible.' This was written in January, 1773. Forty-three years afterwards, in 1816, Sir Philip Francis thus writes in a letter on public affairs, addressed to Lord Holland, and the similarity in manner and sentiment is striking. The style is not unworthy of Junius: My mind sickens and revolts at the scenes of public depravity, of personal baseness, and of ruinous folly, little less than universal, which have passed before us, not in dramatic representation, but in real action, since the year 1792, in the government of this once flourishing as well as glorious kingdom. In that period, a deadly revolution has taken place in the moral character of the nation, and even in the instinct of the gregarious multitude. Passion of any kind, if it existed, might excite action. With still many generous exceptions, the body of the country is lost in apathy and indifference-sometimes strutting on stilts-for the most part grovelling on its belly-no lifeblood in the heart-and instead of reason or reflection, a caput mor

tuum for a head-piece; of all revolutions this one is the worst, because it makes any other impossible.'*

Among the lighter sketches of Francis may be taken the following:

Characters of Fox and Pitt.

They know nothing of Mr. Fox who think that he was what is commonly called well educated. I know that it was directly or very nearly the reverse. His mind educated itself, not by early study or instruction, but by active listening and rapid apprehension. He said so in the House of Commons when he and Mr. Burke parted. His powerful understanding grew like a forest oak, not by cultivation, but by neglect. Mr. Pitt was a plant of an inferior order, though marvellous in its kind-a smooth bark, with the deciduous pomp and decoration of a rich foliage, and blossoms and flowers which drop off of themselves, and leave the tree naked at last to be judged by its fruits. He, indeed, as I suspect, had been educated more than enough, until there was nothing natural and spontaneous left in him. He was too polished and accurate in the minor embellishments of his art to be a great artist in anything. He could have painted the boat, and the fish, and the broken nets, but not the two fishermen: He knew his audience, and, with or without eloquence, how to summon the generous passions to his applause. The human eye soon grows weary of an unbounded plain, and sooner, I believe, than of any limited portion of space, whatever its dimensions may be. There is a calm delight, a dolcé riposo, in viewing the smooth-shaven verdure of a bowling-green as long as it is near. You must learn from repetition that those properties are inseparable from the idea of a flat surface, and that flat and tiresome are synonymous. The works of nature, which command admiration at once, and never lose it, are compounded of grand inequalities.

From Junius's Letter to the King.-To the Printer of the 'Public

Advertiser.'-December 19, 1769.

SIR-When the complaints of a brave and powerful people are observed to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have suffered; when, instead of sinking into submission, they are roused to resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every inferior consideration must yield to the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the state. There is a moment of difficulty and danger, at which Hattery and falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled. Let us suppose it arrived. Let us suppose a gracious, well-intentioned prince made sensible at last of the great duty he owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful situation; that he looks round him for assistance, and asks for no advice but how to gratify the wishes and secure the happiness of his subjects. In these circumstances, it may be matter of curious speculation to consider, if an honest

*The character of Francis is seen in the following admirable observation, which is at once acute and profound: With a callous heart there can be no genius in the imagination or wisdom in the mind; and therefore the prayer with equal truth and sublimity says: incline our hearts unto wisdom." Resolute thoughts find words for themselves, and make their own vehicle. Impression and expression are relative ideas. He who feels deeply will express strongly. The language of slight sensations is naturally feeble and superficial-Reflections on the abundance of Paper, 1810. Francis excelled in pointed and pithy expression. After his return to parliament in 1784, he gave great offence to Mr. Pitt, by exclaiming, after he had pronounced an animated eulogy on Lord Chatham: But he is dead, and has left nothing in this world that resembles him!' The writer of a memoir of Francis, in the Annual Obituary (1820). states that one of his maxims was. That the views of every one should be directed towards a solid, however moderate independence, without which no man can be happy, or even honest. There is

a remarkable coincidence-too close to be accidental-in a private letter by Junius to his publisher. Woodall, dated March 5, 1772: As for myself, be assured that I am far above all pecuniary views. and no other person I think has any claim to share with you. Make the most of it. therefore, and let all your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate independence. Without it. no man can be happy, nor even honest. It is obvious. however, that Francis may have copied from Junius, and it has been surmised that, notwithstanding his denials of the authorship, he was not unwilling to bear the imputation.

man were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his sovereign. Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable. that the first prejudice against his character is removed; that the ceremonions difficulties of an audience are surmounted that he feels himself animated by the purest and most honourable affection to his king and country; and that the great person whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention. Unacquainted with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his sentiments with dignity and firmness, but not without respect: Sir-It is the misfortune of your life, and originally the cause of every reproach and distress which has attended your government, that you should never have been acquainted with the language of truth till you heard it in the complaints of your people. It is not, however, too late to correct the error of your education. We are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance for the pernic ous lessons you received in your youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes from the natural benevolence of your disposition. We are far from thinking you capable of a direct deliberate purpose to invade those original rights of your subjects on which all their civil and political liberties depend. Had it been possible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonourable to your character, we should long since have adopted a style of remonstrance very distant from the humility of complaint. The doctrine inculcated by our laws, that the king can do no wrong,' is admitted without reluctance. We separate the amiable good-natured prince from the folly and treachery of his servants, and the private virtues of the man from the vices of his government. Were it not for this just distinction, I know not whether your majesty's condition, or that of the English nation, would deserve most to be lamented. I would prepare your mind for a favourable reception of truth, by removing every painful offensive idea of personal reproach. Your subjects, sir, wish for nothing but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate enough to separate your person from your government, so you, in your turn, would distinguish between the conduct which becomes the permanent dignity of a king, and that which serves only to promote the temporary interest and miserable ambition of a minister.

You ascended the throne with a declared-and, I doubt not, a sincere-resolution of giving universal satisfact.on to your subjects. You found them pleased with the novelty of a young prince, whose countenance promised even more than his words, and loyal to you not only from principle but passion. It was not a cold profession of allegiance to the first magistrate, but a partial. animated attachment to a favourite prince, the native of their country. They did not wait to examine your conduct, nor to be determined by experience, but gave you a generous credit for the future blessings of your reign, and paid you in advance the dearest tribute of their affections. Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people who now surround your throne with reproaches and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish from your mind those unworthy opinions with which some interested persons have laboured to possess you. Distrust the men who tell you that the English are naturally light and inconstant; that they complain without a cause. Withdraw your confidence equally from all parties; from ministers, favourites, and relations; and let there be one moment in your life in which you have consulted your own understanding.

When you affectedly renounced the name of Englishman,* believe me, sir, you were persuaded to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one part of your subjects at the expense of another. While the natives of Scotland are not in actual rebellion, they are undoubtedly entitled to protection; nor do I mean to condemn the policy of giving some encouragement to the novelty of their affection for the house of Hanover. I am ready to hope for everything from their new-born zeal, and from the future steadiness of their allegiance. But hitherto they have no claim to your favour. To honour them with a determined predilection and confidence, in exclusion of your English subjects-who placed your family, and, in spite of treachery and rebellion, have supported it, upon the throne-is a mistake too gross for even the unsuspecting generosity of youth. In this error we see a capital violation of the most obvious rules of policy and prudence. We trace it, however, to an original bias in your education, and are ready to allow for your inexperience.

To the same early influence we attribute it that you have descended to take a share, not only in the narrow views and interests of particular persons, but in the

* The king, in his first speech from the throne, said he gloried in the name of Briton.'