to juftice; if guilty, punishable. The parliament is the high and folemn tribunal for matters of such great moment. To that be they fubmitted. But I hope also that fome notice will be taken of, and fome punishment inflicted upon, falfe accufers, efpecially upon fuch, Junius, who are wilfully falfe. In any truth I will agree even with Junius; will agree with him that it is highly unbecoming the dignity of Peers to tamper with boroughs. Ariftocracy is as fatal as democracy. Our constitution admits of neither. It loves a King, Lords, and Commons really chofen by the unbought fuffrages of a free people. But if corruption only shifts hands; if the wealthy commoner gives the bribe, instead of the potent Peer, is the itate better served by this exchange? Is the real emancipation of the borough effected, because new parchment bonds may possibly superfede the old ? To fay the truth, wherever such practices prevail, they are equally criminal to and deftructive of our freedom.

THE rest of your declamation is scarce worth confidering, excepting for the elegance of the language. Like Hamlet in the

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play,

play, you produce two pictures; you tell us, that one is not like the Duke of Bedford; then you bring a moft hideous caricatura, and tell us of the refemblance; but multum abludit imago.

ALL your long tedious accounts of the minifterial quarrels, and the intrigues of the cabinet, are reducible to a few short lines ; and to convince you, Sir, that I do not mean to flatter any minifter, either paft or prefent, these are my thoughts: they feem to have acted like lovers, or children; have *pouted, quarrelled, cried, kiffed, and been friends. again, as the objects of defire, the ministerial rattles, have been put into their hands. But fuch proceedings are very unworthy of the gravity and dignity of a great nation. We

do not want men of abilities; but we have wanted steadiness; we want unanimity: your letters, Junius, will not contribute thereto. You may one day expire by a flame of your own kindling. But it is my humble opinion that lenity and moderation, pardon and oblivion, will difappoint the efforts of all the feditious in the land, and extinguish their wide

* Sir William gives us a pleasant account of men, who, in is opinion at least, are the best qualified to govern an empire.

fpread

fpreading fires. I have lived with this fentitiment; with this I fhall die.

WILLIAM DRAPER.

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC

ADVERTISER.

SIR,

13. October, 1769.

IF Sir William Draper's bed

be a bed of torture, he has made it for himfelf. I fhall never interrupt his repofe. Having changed the subject, there are parts of his laft letter not undeferving of a reply. Leaving his private character and conduct out of the question, I fhall confider him merely in the capacity of an author, whose labours certainly do no difcredit to a newspaper.

WE fay, in common discourse, that a man may be his own enemy, and the frequency of the fact makes the expreffion intelligible. But that a man fhould be the bittereft enemy his friends, implies a contradiction of a pe

of

'culiar nature. There is fomething in it, which cannot be conceived without a confufion of ideas, nor expreffed without a folecifm in language. Sir William Draper is ftill that fatal friend Lord Granby found him. Yet I am ready to do juftice to his generofity; if indeed it be not something more than generous, to be the voluntary advocate of men, who think themselves injured by his afsistance, and to confider nothing in the cause he adopts, but the difficulty of defending it. I thought however he had been better read in the history of the human heart, than to compare or confound the tortures of the body with those of the mind. He ought to have known, though perhaps it might not be his intereft to confefs, that no outward tyranny can reach the mind. If confcience plays the tyrant, it would be greatly for the benefit of the world that fhe were more arbitrary, and far lefs placable, than fome men find her.

BUT it seems I have outraged the feelings of a father's heart.-Am I indeed fo injudicious? Does Sir William Draper think I would have hazarded my credit with a generous nation, by fo grofs a violation of the VOL. I.

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laws

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laws of humanity? Does he think I am fo little acquainted with the first and noblest characteristic of Englishmen? Or how will he reconcile fuch folly with an understanding fo full of artifice as mine? Had he been a father, he would have been but little offended with the feverity of the reproach, for his mind would have been filled with the juftice of it. He would have feen that I did not infult the feelings of a father, but the father who felt nothing. He would have trusted to the evidence of his own paternal heart, and boldly denied the poffibility of the fact, inftead of defending it. Against whom then will his honest indignation be directed, when I affure him, that this whole town beheld the Duke of Bedford's conduct, upon the death of his fon, with horror and astonishment. Sir William Draper does himself but little honour in oppofing the general sense of his country. The people are feldom wrong in their opinions,—in their sentiments they are never mistaken. There may be nity perhaps in a fingular way of thinking; -but when a man professes a want of those feelings, which do honour to the multitude, he hazards fomething infinitely more important than the character of his understanding.

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