of a free people, whose rights have been invaded, we are interested in their cause. Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to have submitted, and at what moment it would have been treachery to themselves not to have resisted. How much warmer will be our resentment, if experience should bring the fatal example home to ourselves!

The situation of this country is alarming enough to

have been taking advantage of the generous confidence of his people, and playing on the easiness of their temper. If so, they were indeed insulted and abused. The exordium, then, is a complete chain of logical deduction, and the case is fully made out, provided the popular feeling referred to was correct. And here we see where the fallacy of Junius lies, whenever he is in the wrong. It is in taking for granted one of the steps of his reasoning. He does not, in this case, even mention the feeling alluded to, in direct terms. He knew it was beating in the hearts of the people; his whole preceding train of thought was calculated to justify and inflame it, and he therefore leaps at once to the conclusion it involves, and addresses them as actually filled with resentment "to see such a temper insulted and abused." The feeling, in this instance, was to a great extent well founded, and so far his logic is complete. In other cases his assumption is a false one. He lays hold of some slander of the day, some distorted statement of facts, some maxim which is only half true, some prevailing passion or prejudice, and dexterously intermingling them with a train of thought which in every other respect is logical and just, he hurries the mind to a conclusion which seems necessarily involved in the premises. Hardly any writer has so much art and plausibility in thus misleading

the mind.

rouse the attention of every man who pretends to a concern for the public welfare. Appearances justify suspicion; and, when the safety of a nation is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of inquiry. Let us enter into it with candor and decency. Respect is due to the station of ministers; and if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness as that which has been adopted with moderation.

The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so much upon the administration of its government, that, to be acquainted with the merit of a ministry, we need only observe the condition of the people. If we see them obedient to the laws, prosperous in their industry, united at home, and respected abroad, we may reasonably presume that their affairs are conducted by men of experience, abilities, and virtue. If, on the contrary, we see a universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all parts of the empire, and a total loss of respect in the eyes of foreign powers, we may pronounce, without hesitation, that the government of that country is weak, distracted, and corrupt. The multitude, in all countries, are patient to a certain point. Ill usage may rouse their indignation and hurry them into excesses, but the original fault is in government.* Perhaps there never was an instance

*

3. Here is the central idea of the letter-the proposition to be proved in respect to the king and his ministers. The former part of this paragraph contains" the major premise, the remainder. the minor down to the last sentence, which brings out the conclusion in emphatic terms. In order to strengthen the minor,

of a change in the circumstances and temper of a whole nation, so sudden and extraordinary as that which the misconduct of ministers has, within these very few years, produced in Great Britain. When our gracious sovereign ascended the throne, we were a flourishing and a contented people. If the personal virtues of a king could have insured the happiness of his subjects, the scene could not have altered so entirely as it has done. The idea of uniting all parties, of trying all characters, and distributing the offices of state by rotation, was gracious and benevolent to an extreme, though it has not yet produced the many salutary effects which were intended by it. To say nothing of the wisdom of such plan, it undoubtedly arose from an unbounded goodness of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a capricious partiality to new faces; it was not a natural turn for low intrigue, nor was it the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations. No, sir; it arose from a continued anxiety in the purest of all possible hearts for the general welfare.*

which was the most important premise, he rapidly contrasts the condition of England before and after the king ascended the throne. In doing this, he dilates on those errors of the king which led to, and which account for, so remarkable a change. Thus the conclusion is made doubly strong. This union of severe logic with the finest rhetorical skill in filling out the premises and giving them their utmost effect, furnishes an excellent model for the student in oratory.

4. In this attack on the king, there is a refined artifice, rarely if ever equaled, in leading the mind gradually forward from the slightest possible insinuation to the bitterest irony. First we have the " uniting

Unfortunately for us, the event has not been answerable to the design. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that change which hardly any change can mend. Yet there is no extremity of distress which of itself ought to reduce a great nation to despair. It

of all parties," which is proper and desirable; next "trying all characters," which suggests decidedly a want of judgment; then "distributing the offices of state by rotation," a charge rendered plausible, at least, by the frequent changes of ministers, and involving (if true) a weakness little short of absolute fatuity. The way being thus prepared, what was first insinuated is now openly expressed in the next sentence. The word "folly" is applied to the conduct of the king of England in the face of his subjects, and the application rendered doubly severe by the gravest irony. Still, there is one relief. Allusion is made to his "unbounded goodness of heart," from which, in the preceding chain of insinuations, these errors of judgment had been deduced. The next sentence takes this away. It directly ascribes to the king, with an increased severity of ironical denial, some of the meanest passions of royalty, "a capricious partiality for new faces," a "natural love of low intrigue," "the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations!" It is unnecessary to remark on the admirable precision and force of the language in these expressions, and, indeed, throughout the whole passage. There had been just enough in the king's conduct, for the last seven years, to make the people suspect all this, and to weaken or destroy their affection for the crown. It was all connected with that system of favoritism introduced by Lord Bute, which the nation so much abhorred. Nothing but this would have made them endure for a moment such an attack on their monarch, and especially the absolute mockery with which Junius concludes the whole, by speaking of

is not the disorder, but the physician; it is not a casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious hand of government, which alone can make a whole people desperate.

Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth of observation, we need only mark how the principal departments of the state are bestowed [distributed], and look no farther for the true cause of every mischief that befalls us.

The finances of a nation, sinking under its debts and expenses, are committed to a young nobleman already ruined by play.* Introduced to act under the auspices

"the anxiety of the purest of all possible hearts for the general welfare!" His entire Letter to the king, with all the rancor ascribed to it by Burke, does not contain so much bitterness and insult as are concentrated in this single passage. While we can not but condemn its spirit, we are forced to acknowledge that there is in this and many other passages of Junius, a rhetorical skill in the evolution of thought which was never surpassed by Demosthenes.

5. The Duke of Grafton, first Lord of the Treasury. It is unnecessary to remark on the dexterity of connecting with this mention of a treasury, "sinking under its debts and expenses," the idea of its head being a gambler loaded with his own debts, and liable continually to new distresses and temptations from his love of play. The thought is wisely left here. The argument which it implies would be weakened by any attempt to expand it. Junius often reminds us of the great Athenian orator, in thus striking a single blow, and then passing on to some other subject, as he does here to the apostasy of the Duke of Grafton, his inconsistency, caprice, and irresolution.