and shame under the ruins? Is this the man who dares to talk of Mr. Wilkes's morals? 3. Is not the character of his presumptive ancestors as strongly marked in him, as if he had descended from them in a direct legitimate line? The idea of his death is only prophetic; and what is prophecy, but a narrative preceding the fact? 4. WAS not Lord Chatham the first who raised him to the rank and post of a minister, and the first whom he abandoned? 5. DID he not join with Lord Rockingham, and betray him? 6. Was he not the bosom friend of Mr. Wilkes, whom he now pursues to destruction? 7. DID he not take his degrees with credit at Newmarket, White's, and the opposition? 8. AFTER deserting Lord Chatham's principles, and sacrificing his friendship, is he not now closely united with a set of men who, though they have occasionally joined with all parties, have in every Venus. The Duke's making her his mistress, is compared to the pulling down of the old temple. His seating her to preside at his table, is represented as similar to the burying of decency and shame, under the temple's ruins. It is in the last part of the figure, that the incongruity occurs. Even in the former part, the resemblance, though just, seems to have been found out with straining labour, and does not too easily meet the reader's intelligence. But JUNIUS, like the wits who wrote the metaphysical poetry of the last century, makes those daring efforts in the discovery of remote and hidden resemblances, and in the use of metaphors, which, if often transcendently happy, cannot however but prove, now and then, unsuccessful. different different situation, and at all times, been equally and constantly detested by this country? 9. HAS not Sir John Moore a pension of five hundred pounds a year?-This may probably be an acquittance of favours upon the turf; but is it possible for a minister to offer a grosser outrage to a nation, which has so very lately cleared away the beggary of the civil list at the expence of more than half a million ? 10. Is there any one mode of thinking or acting with respect to America, which the Duke of Grafton has not successively adopted and abandoned? 11. Is there not a singular mark of shame set upon this man, who has so little delicacy and feeling as to submit to the opprobrium of marrying a near relation of one who had debauched his wife? IN the name of decency, how are these amiable cousins to meet at their uncle's table?-It will be a scene in Edipus, without the distress.-Is it wealth, or wit, or beauty,—or is the amorous youth in love? THE rest is notorious. That Corsica has been sacrificed to the French; that, in some instances, the laws have been scandalously relaxed, and in others daringly violated; and that the King's subjects have It will be a scene in Edipus, without the distress.] I should think that, except for the grossest and most vulgar minds among JUNIUS's readers, this frequent recurrence to the marriages, the divorce, and the mistresses of the Duke of Grafton, could not serve the writer's purpose. But it must be owned, that the allusion to the scenes of dipus, is wonderfully happy. been been called upon to assure him of their fidelity in spite of the measures of his servants. A WRITER, who builds his arguments upon facts such as these, is not easily to be confuted. He is not to be answered by general assertions, or general reproaches. He may want eloquence to amuse and persuade; but, speaking truth, he must always convince. LETTER XIV. ADDRESSED TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC THE defenders of the Duke of Grafton were not yet put to silence. A Letter from one of them, with the signature of Old Noll, had gained insertion in the same paper in which the Letters of JUNIUS appeared, It attempted, with some share of new plausibility, to excuse what of the imputed errors of the Duke's private or political life could not be denied; and to present arguments of greater weight, than any that had been hitherto offered, in defence of the avowed though obnoxious principles of his present administration. JUNIUS probably suspected this Letter to be the production, if not of the Duke himself, at least of Mr. Bradshaw, his secretary. He, therefore, thought proper to reply to it, at considerable length, chiefly by a renewed de- » tail of his former facts and arguments. From the very signature of Old Noll, he takes occasion to begin his Letter with new opprobria against the Duke of Grafton, on account of his descent from the House of Stuart; and to insinuate, in a manner well adapted to prepossess the mind of the reader, that the reasonings and pretences of his opponent were such, as rather to confirm the in-famy, than vindicate the reputation, of the Duke. With a dexterity highly to be admired, he contrives to associate with the abuse of the Duke himself, that of the secretary whom he supposed the author of the Letter of Old Noll. Old Noll had alledged, that two-thirds of the nation approved the fate of the Middlesex election; and that the lawyers of the highest authority had declared the exclusion of Wilkes, and the substitution of Luttrell, to be both acts constitutionally just. JUNIUS appeals boldly to the gentlemen of England for the refutation of the first of these assertions: and, in answer to the second, speaks contemptuously of the discernment and veracity of lawyers; hints at motives of dishonesty in those who had given their opinion in favour of the reprobated conduct of parliament; and denies that the most eminent had as yet decisively spoken. The example of the English nobility had been mentioned, in excuse of the Duke of Grafton's immoralities. JUNIUS skilfully maintains,. . that a bad example, however common, could not be honourably imitated in an eminent station; and declares, that it was not so much the Duke's vice, as his ostentatious effrontery in vice, that he wished to hold up to public abhorrence and scorn. Even the second marriage of his Grace, is here again reprobated by JUNIUS, as having been contracted in circumstances of the most inauspicious indelicacy. The friends whom the Duke had deserted, are, by the satirist, compared with those to whom he was now attached: and it is insinuated, that he had abandoned honour and ability, that he might cling to turpitude and weakness. He is, again, indignantly represented, as lavishing the public money, to relieve the deserved necessities of profligacy, not to supply the wants of indigent virtue. In the close of this Letter, the writer argues that, if the former political conduct of the Duke of Grafton had been weak, uncertain, and insincere, nothing better could be, with any strong probability, augured of him, for the time which was to come. This Letter has the signature of PHILOJUNIUS: it was in answer to one that JUNIUS wished to represent, as if it were unworthy of his own particular notice. SIR, 22. June, 1769. THE name of Old Noll is destined to be the ruin of the house of Stuart. There is an ominous fatality in it, which even the spurious descendants of the family cannot escape. Oliver Cromwell had the merit of conducting Charles the First to the block. Your correspondent OLD NOLL appears to have the same design upon the Duke of Grafton. His arguments consist better with the title he has assumed, than with the principles he professes: for, though he pretends to be an advocate for the Duke, he takes care to give us the best reason, why his patron should regularly follow the fate of his presumptive ancestor.-Through the whole |