steward, and a thousand other recommending circumstances, has chosen you to encourage the growing virtue of their youth, and to preside over their education. Whenever the spirit of distributing prebends and bishopricks shall have departed from you, you will find that learned seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium of an installation; and, what in truth it ought to be, once more a peaceful scene of 'slumber and thoughtless meditation. The venerable tutors of the university will no longer distress your modesty, by proposing you for a pattern to their pupils. The learned dullness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred, until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption, at which the worst examples cease to be contagious.

JUNIUS.

Has chosen you to preside, &c.] The Duke of Grafton had been elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. GRAY, who owed his professorship to the unsolicited patronage of the Duke, composed in his praise an Ode for music, which was performed at his installation. Gray, indeed, wrote also an Ode on the death of Mr. Walpole's cat. Yet, I do not think he would have praised the undeserving. The Duke of Grafton is himself learned. Not very many years ago, he had a noble edition of GRIESBACH's Greek Testament printed, abroad, at his own expence.

Lord Sandwich was the High Steward of the same University. The Duke of Newcastle, who had made many bishops, is said to have found them ungrateful, when the day of his power had passed." LETTER

LETTER XVI.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

THE following is one of the Letters which were given to the Public, under the name, not of JUNIUS, but of his auxiliary, PHILOJUNIUS. It is, perhaps, the best specimen which this whole collection affords, of clear and cogent reasoning. Its introductory paragraph briefly marks, in reference to the dispute about the Middlesex election, that error which is the most common with weak reasoners, who have more of logic than of sound common sense in their heads; and thus explains, by contrast, the best means for discerning and establishing the truth, in every controversy. The precise question concerning the violated rights of the Middlesex election, is next accurately stated. The proper mode of giving full validity of proof, to whatever answer shall be offered, is then more particularly ascertained; and it is evinced, that the only enquiry is concerning the law of parliament, enacted by clear and positive statutes, or declared by indisputable precedents. It was confessed, that there existed no statute declaring the expulsion of any member from the House of Commons, to renderhim incapable of re-election into that parliament out of which he had been expelled: and JUNIUS, upon this topic, simply states that fact. He then shews the only precedent, which had been confidently produced, in support of the decision of the House of Commons, to differ, in its circumstances, so essentially, from the case of the Middlesex election, that no inference of law could be fairly made, from the one to the other. After reasoning in this manner, with admirable clearness and cogency, he returns, in the concluding paragraph of his Letter, to that animated, impressive, exaggerating, oratorical assertion, which was adapted, still better than reasoning, to work his purpose, with many of those to whom his Letters were addressed.

In this Letter, it is not so much the cause of Mr. Wilkes, as that of the Electors of Middlesex, which JUNIUS pleads. He maintains here, only, that Mr. Wilkes was at least not so very ineligible, as by his ineligibility absolutely to annihilate, in law, those votes which were given in his favour:

This

This is a Letter which cannot be too often read, by those who would learn to reason with precision, yet without too elaborate refinement; who would join force and brevity with the most lucid clearness, whether in writing or in debate, in the ardour of real business, or in the coolness of speculation.

SIR,

19. July, 1769.

A GREAT deal of useless argument might have been saved, in the political contest, which has arisen from the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes, and the subsequent appointment of Mr. Luttrell, if the question had been once stated with precision, to the satisfaction of each party, and clearly understood by them both. But in this, as in almost every other dispute, it usually happens that much time is lost in referring to a multitude of cases and precedents, which prove nothing to the purpose, or in maintaining propositions, which are either not disputed, or, whether they be admitted or denied, are entirely indifferent as to the matter in debate; until at last the

A great deal of useless argument might have been saved, &c.] Partly because the disputants on the subject of the Middlesex election, were much more eager than able; partly because the question was originally complex and difficult; from the endeavours of those who assumed the defence of the ministry and the parliament, to perplex it by vain refinements, or to hide the truth under legal subtleties; and because many of those who were on the other side, could only assert with clamour, when they supposed themselves to be giving invincible reasons. This great question, though discussed in a multitude of pamphlets, in much vigorous debate, and in popular conversation throughout all London and Westminster, yet was never stated with clearness and precision, till Junius undertook to explain it in this and some of the following Letters.

mind, perplexed and confounded with the endless subtleties of controversy, loses sight of the main question, and never arrives at truth. Both parties in the dispute are apt enough to practise these dishonest artifices. The man who is conscious of the weakness of his cause, is interested in concealing it: and, on the other side, it is not uncommon to see a good cause mangled by advocates, who do not know the real strength of it.

I SHOULD be glad to know, for instance, to what purpose, in the present case, so many precedents have been produced to prove, that the House of Commons have a right to expel one of their own members; that it belongs to them to judge of the validity of elections; or that the law of parliament is part of the law of the land*? After all these propositions are admitted, Mr. Luttrell's right to his seat will continue to be just as disputable as it was before. Not one of them is at present in agitation. Let it be admitted that the House of Commons were authorised to expel Mr. Wilkes, that they are the proper

* The reader will observe, that these admissions are made, not as of truths unquestionable, but for the sake of argument, and in order to bring the real question to issue.

Expel Mr. Wilkes, &c.] That the House of Commons had acquired by the custom of parliament, a right to expel any of their members, whose crimes appeared to a majority of. the House to make him unworthy of a seat in it, was on all hands confessed. Neither was it alledged that they might not expel, on account of any crimes which should appear to themselves to deserve expulsion. It was not the legality of the expulsion of Wilkes that was disputed,

proper court to judge of elections, and that the law of parliament is binding upon the people; still it remains to be enquired, whether the house, by their resolution in favour of Mr. Luttrell, have or have not truly declared that law. To facilitate this enquiry, I would have the question cleared of all foreign or indifferent matter. The following state of it will probably be thought a fair one by both parties; and then I imagine there is no gentleman in this country, who will not be capable of forming a judicious and true opinion upon it. I take the question to be strictly this: "Whether or no it be the known, established law of parliament, that the expulsion of a member of the House of Commons, of itself creates in him such an incapacity to be re-elected, that, at a subsequent election, any votes given to him are null and void; and that any other candidate who, except the person expelled, has the greatest number of votes, ought to be the sitting member."

To prove that the affirmative is the law of parliament, I apprehend it is not sufficient for the present House of Commons to declare it to be so. We may shut our eyes indeed to the dangerous consequences of suffering one branch of the legislature to declare new laws, without arguments or

but the legality of declaring him incapable of re-election into the same parliament from which he had been expelled, and the legality of annulling the votes which had been given for him while he was under this pretended incapacity.

example,