the impotent imbecility, after you have loft the vigour of the paffions. YOUR friends will afk, perhaps, Whither fhall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in the metropolis, where his life has been fo often threatened, and his palace fo often attacked? If he returns to Wooburn, fcorn and mockery await him. He muft crea e a folitude round his eftate, if he would avoid the face of reproach and derifion. At Plymouth, his deftruction would be more than probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honeft Englishman will ever forget his attachment, nor any honeft Scotchman forgive his treachery to Lord Bute. At every town he enters, he muft change his liveries and naine. Which ever way he flies, the Hue and Cry of the country pursues him. In another kingdom indeed, the bieffings of his administration have been more fenfibly 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 efcaped, my Lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people, plundered, plundered, infulted, and oppreffed as they have been, will not always be disappointed. IT is in vain therefore to fhift the fcene. You can no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Perfecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for confolation, and find nothing but reproaches and defpair. But, my Lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger; and though you cannot be fafe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have liftened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends, with whofe interefts you have fordidly united your own, and for whom you have facrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a man of hcnour. 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 fuffer you to profit by experience, nor even to confult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you, that life is no more than a dramatic feene, in which the hero fhould preferve his confiftency to the laft, and that as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance. JUNIUS. call LETTER XXIV. SIR, TO JUNIUS. 14.. September, 1769. HAVING accidentally seen a republication of your letters, wherein you have been pleased to assert, that I had fold the companions of my fuccefs; I am again obliged to declare the said affertion to be a most infamous and malicious falsehood; and I again upon you to stand forth, avow yourself, and prove the charge. If you can make it out to the fatisfaction of any one man in the kingdom, I will be content to be thought the worst man in it; if you do not, what must the nation think of you? Party has nothing to do in this affair: you have made a perfonal attack upon my honour, defamed me by a moft vile calumny, which might poffibly have funk into oblivion, had not such uncommon pains been taken to renew and perpetuate this fcandal, chiefly because it has been told in good language: for I give you full credit for your elegant diction, well turned periods, and attic wit; but wit is oftentimes falfe, though VOL. I. N it it may appear brilliant; which is exactly the cafe of your whole performance. But, Sir, I am obliged in the most serious manner to accufe you of being guilty of falfities. You have faid the thing that is not. To support your ftory, you have recourse to the following irrefiftible argument: "You fold the companions of your victory, because when the 16th regi"ment was given to you, you was filent.” The conclufion is inevitable. I believe that fuch deep and acute reafoning could only come from such an extraordinary writer as Junius. But unfortunately for you, the premises as well as the conclufion are abfolutely falfe. Many applications have been made to the miniftry on the fubject of the Manilla Ranfom fince the time of my being colonel of that regiment. As I have for fome years quitted London, I was obliged to have recourse to the honourable Colonel Monfon and Sir Samuel Cornish to negotiate for me; in the last autumn, I perfonally delivered a memorial to the Earl of Shelburne at his feat in Wiltshire. As you have told us of your importance, that you are a perfon of rank and fortune, and above a common bribe, you may in all probability be not unknown to his lordship, who can fatisfy you of the truth of what I fay. But I fhall now now take the liberty, Sir, to feize your battery, and turn it against yourself. If your puerile and tinfel logic could carry the least weight or conviction with it, how must you ftand affected by the inevitable conclufion, as you are pleased to term it? According to Junius, Silence is Guilt. In many of the public papers, you have been called in the moft direct and offenfive terms a liar and a coward. When did you reply to these foul accufations? You have been quite filent; quite chop-fallen: therefore, because you was filent, the nation has a right to pronounce you your own to be both a liar and a coward from argument: but, Sir, I will give you fair-play; will afford you an opportunity to wipe off the first appellation; by defiring the proofs of your charge against me. Produce them! To wipe off the laft, produce yourself. People cannot bear any longer your Lion's skin, and the despicable impofture of the old Roman name which you have affected. For the future affume the naine of fome modern * bravo and dark affaffin: let your appellation have some affinity to your practice. But if I must perish, * Was Brutus an ancient bravo and dark affaffin; or does Sir W.D. think it criminal to ftab a tyrant to the heart? |