explain to the public what I really know. In exchange for your regiment, you accepted of a colonel's half-pay (at least two hundred and twenty pounds a year) and an annuity of two hundred pounds for your own and Lady Draper's life jointly.— And is this the losing bargain, which you would represent to us, as if you had given up an income of eight hundred pounds a year for three hundred and eighty? Was it decent, was it honourable, in a man who pretends to love the army, and calls himself a soldier, to make a traffic of the royal favour, and turn the highest honour of an active profession into a sordid provision for himself and his family? It were unworthy of me to press you farther. The contempt with which the whole army heard of the manner of your retreat, assures me, that as your conduct was not justified by precedent, it will never be thought an example for imitation.

The last and most important question remains. When you receive your half-pay, do you, or do you not, take a solemn oath, or sign a declaration upon your honour, to the following effect? That you do not actually hold any place of profit, civil or military, under

The contempt with which the whole army, &c.] In the case of Sir William Draper, JUNIUS has held up to reprobation, a plan of military bargaining and arrangement, which, however common, is assuredly not the most honourable to the army. In the former steps of this arrangement, Sir William Draper was not singularly blameable. But, in regard to the charge with which this Letter closes, the indignation, the malice, the eloquence of JUNIUS, could not be too severe.

his Majesty. The charge which the question plainly conveys against you, is of so shocking a complexion, that I sincerely wish you may be able to answer it well, not merely for the colour of your reputation, but for your own inward peace of mind.

LETTER VI.

TO JUNIUS.

THIS short Letter is remarkable for little, except for shewing Sir William Draper prostrate, and tortured to confession before his adversary; for offering an explanation which served but to arm that adversary with another poisoned weapon against him; for presenting an exculpatory suggestion, in regard to the possibility of making even the best of men feel humbled and unhappy, by harassing accusation, questioning, and reproach, a suggestion which we shall find to draw from JUNIUS, in the next subsequent Letter, one of the most masterly trains of distinction concerning the agency of conscience, that have been ever exhibited by any moralist.

SIR,

27. February, 1769.

I HAVE HAVE a very short answer for JUNIUS's important question. I do not either take an oath, or declare upon honour, that I have no place of profit, civil or military, when I receive the half-pay as an Irish colonel. My most gracious Sovereign gives it me as a pension; he was pleased to think I deserved it. The annuity of two hundred pounds Irish, and the equivalent for the half-pay, together, produce no more than three hundred and eighty pounds per annum, clear of fees and perquisites of office. I receive one hundred and sixty-seven pounds from my government of Yarmouth. Total, five hundred ́ and forty-seven pounds per annum. My conscience is much at ease in these particulars; my friends need not blush for me.

JUNIUS makes much and frequent use of interrogations: they are arms that may be easily turned against himself. I could, by malicious interrogation, disturb the peace of the most virtuous man in the kingdom. I could take the decalogue, and say to one man, Did you never steal? To the next, Did you never commit murder? And to JUNIUS himself, who is putting my life and conduct to the rack, Did you never bear false witness against thy neighbour? JUNIUS must easily see, that unless he affirms to the contrary, in his real name, some people who may be as ignorant of him as I am, will be apt to suspect him of having deviated a little from the truth: therefore let JUNIUS ask no more questions. You bite against a file: cease, viper.

W. D.

You bite against a file: cease, viper.] Sir William Draper, amid all his distress, cannot refrain from discovering the collegian. One should have thought, that this beauty of the fabulists, Esop and Phædrus, could not but be known to him, as much too trite and hacknied for seasonable use on such an occasion as the present.

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH.

THIS Letter is the Io Triumphe! of JUNIUS, in regard to the general result of his newspaper correspondence with Sir William Draper.

It begins with haughty ridicule of the confusion, the pedantry, the wildness, and the unseasonableness, of those metaphorical ornaments, which Sir William had, with a sort of anxious ostentation, spread over his Letters.

JUNIUS then artfully suggests to the reader's reflection, the contrase between the scholar-like composition of his poor antagonist, affecting beauties which could not but deform its general aspect, and weaken its general effect; and the happier texture of his own stile, which shewed not an ornament, but what was completely incorporated, so as to form the best strength of some argument, and in which the labour of rhetoric, logic, and eloquence, was as much as possible concealed under the appearance of native, unstudied sentiment, creating a language for itself, and of business-like plainness. The substance which fills the second paragraph, is a masterly specimen of acute moral discrimination, and of much intimate examination of the principles of human character. It is precisely the middle compound character which JUNIUS specifies, that is the most easily wounded by enquiry and reproach. The power of moral discernment, displayed in this passage, were not unworthy of a Johnson, a Shakespeare, a Tacitus, or an Adam Smith; for, it is to be observed, that though Adam Smith's general Theory of Moral Sentiments be not good for much, yet in the subordinate trains of induc tion which occur in that work, he has given not a few admirable proofs of eminent skill in the anatomy of human character, and of just acquaintance with the practical springs of moral action. Of the subsequent parts of this Letter, the most remarkable is that in which JUNIUS deduces from Sir William's defence of himself an accusation against his Sovereign. The inference was fair; the act such as JUNIUS has named it; the dilemma to which Sir William Draper

was