ingly accept a sarcasm from Colonel Barré,* or a simile from Mr. Burke. Even the silent vote of Mr. Calcraft is worth reckoning in a division. What though he riots in the plunder of the army, and has only determined to be a patriot when he could not be a peer? Let us profit by the assistance of such men while they are with us, and place them, if it be possible, in the post of danger to prevent desertion. The wary Wedderburne, the pompous Suffolk, never threw away the scabbard, nor ever went upon a forlorn hope. They always treated the king's servants as men with whom, some time or other, they might probably be in friendship. When a man who stands forth for the

upon all government, and I defy the gravest of your chaplains to read the catalogue without laughing."

*Isaac Barré defended the colonies and opposed the Stamp Act in the House of Commons with "a display of eloquence, which astonished all who heard him." When the ministry in 1771 tried to suppress the practice of reporting the parliamentary debates, he denounced them and the House of Commons in the strongest and most sarcastic terms; and after closing his speech he "left the house, calling upon every honest man to follow him." The letters of Junius were afterwards attributed to him.

"A simile from Mr. Burke." One is here forcibly reminded how prophetic this sarcasm is of what Mr. Paine will say in his Rights of Man, of Mr. Burke's imagery: "I have now to follow Mr. Burke through a pathless wilderness of rhapsodies." "His inten

tion was to make an attack on the French revolution; but instead of proceeding with an orderly arrangement he has stormed it with a mob of ideas, tumbling over and destroying one another."

public, has gone that length from which there is no practicable retreat, when he has given that kind of personal offense, which a pious monarch never pardons, I then begin to think him in earnest, and that he will never have occasion to solicit the forgiveness of his country. But instances of a determination so entire and unreserved are rarely to be met with. Let us take mankind as they are; let us distribute the virtues and abilities of individuals, according to the of fices they affect; and when they quit the service, let us endeavor to supply their places with better men than we have lost. In this country there are always candidates enough for popular favor. The temple of fame is the shortest passage to riches and prefer

ment.

Above all things, let me guard my countrymen against the meanness and folly of accepting of a trifling or moderate compensation for extraordinary and essential injuries. Our enemy treats us as the cunning trader does the unskillful Indian; they magnify their generosity, when they give us baubles of little proportionate value for ivory and gold. The same House of Commons who robbed the constituent body of their right of free election; who presume to make a law, under pretense of declaring it; who paid our good king's debts, without once inquiring how they were incurred; who gave thanks for repeated murders committed at home, and for national infamy incurred abroad; who screened Lord Mansfield; who imprisoned the magistrates of the metropolis for asserting the subjects' right to the protection of the laws; who erased a judicial record, and ordered all proceedings in criminal suit to be

suspended; this very House of Commons have graciously consented that their own members may be compelled to pay their debts, and that contested elections shall, for the future, be determined with some decent regard to the merits of the case. The event of the suit is of

no consequence to the crown. While parliaments are septennial, the purchase of the sitting member or of the petitioner, makes but the difference of a day. Concessions such as these, are of little moment to the sum of things; unless it be to prove that the worst of men are sensible of the injuries they have done us, and perhaps to demonstrate to us the imminent danger of our situation. In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float, and are preserved; while every thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost forever."

Nor did Junius ever receive pay for his writings. The charges made against him are thus briefly disposed of: "To write for profit, without taxing the press; to write for fame, and to be unknown; to support the intrigues of faction, and to be disowned as a dangerous auxiliary by every party in the kingdom, are contradictions which the minister must reconcile before I forfeit my credit with the public. I may quit the service, but it would be absurd to charge me with desertion. The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment to the people. in truth, sir, I have left no room for an accommodation with the piety of St. James'. My offenses are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance. On one side, our warmest patriots would disclaim me as a burthen to their honest ambition. On the other, the vilest

But,

prostitution, if Junius could descend to it, would lose its natural merit and influence in the cabinet, and treachery be no longer a recommendation to the royal favor."--Let. 44. "He is not paid for his labor, and certainly has a right to choose his employment."-Let. 63. "As for myself, it is no longer a question whether I shall mix with the throng and take a single share in the danger. Whenever Junius appears he must encounter a host of enemies. But is there no honorable way to serve the public without engaging in personal quarrels with insignificant individuals, or submitting to the drudgery of canvassing votes for an election? Is there no merit in dedicating my life to the information of my fellow-subjects? What public question have I declined? What villain have I spared? Is there no labor in the composition of these letters?"-Let. 53.

In compiling the Letters, he says in his Preface: "The printer will readily acquit me of any view to my own profit. I undertake this troublesome task merely to serve a man who has deserved well of me and the public, and who, on my account, has been exposed to an expensive, tyrannical prosecution." This was Mr. Woodfall, publisher of the Public Advertiser.

I am now prepared to ask: What, then, was the object of Junius? What does he mean by "The Cause and the People"? To what Cause has he "dedicated his life"? and which, if he should desert, would be the "vilest prostitution?" Why this great zeal and disinterested benevolence? Aloof from party, unknown to the public, writing for neither fame nor favor, what is the meaning of this literary adventurer?

A REVOLUTIONIST.

THE object of Junius was to produce a revolution in England, to dethrone the king, depose the ministry, dissolve Parliament, and bring the constitution back to its original principles. He defends, at the same time, the action of the American colonies, and encourages them to move on with the work.

It is, perhaps, noticeable to the historian, and especially if he studies the causes of human action, that great movements in behalf of human weal are at no given time confined to a particular locality, but that they, in a measure, span the world. They at least radiate till they affect the whole of a particular type of mankind. Nor is this attributable altogether to commerce and a social interchange of thought, for these take time; but it seems as though, at times, convulsions of thought instantaneously affect great classes of people widely separated by ocean or country. The study of mobs and riots in America, England, and France would lead to this conclusion. It is, however, not a mooted point, that the same cause which moved the colonies to action just prior to the revolution, at the same time convulsed the English nation. The tyranny of king, min