[The Difference between Mr Burke and the Duke of Bedford.] [The Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale attacked Mr Burke and his pension in their place in the House of Lords, and Burke replied in his Letter to a Noble Lord, one of the most sarcastic and most able of all his productions.] its history?' He would naturally have said on his side: "Tis this man's fortune. He is as good now as my ancestor was two hundred and fifty years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions; he is an old man with very young pensions-that's all.' * Why will his Grace, by attacking me, force me reluctantly to compare my little merit with that which obtained from the crown those prodigies of profuse donation by which he tramples on the mediocrity of humble and laborious individuals? * Since the new grantees have war made on them by the old, and that the word of the sovereign is not to be taken, let us turn our eyes to history, in which great men have always a pleasure in contemplating the heroic origin of their house. I was not, like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled into a legislator-Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favour and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts by imposing on the understandings of the people. At The first peer of the name, the first purchaser of the every step of my progress in life-for in every step grants, was a Mr Russell, a person of an ancient gentlewas I traversed and opposed-and at every turnpike I man's family, raised by being a minion of Henry VIII. met I was obliged to shew my passport, and again and As there generally is some resemblance of character to again to prove my sole title to the honour of being create these relations, the favourite was in all likeliuseful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly hood much such another as his master. The first of unacquainted with its laws, and the whole system of these immoderate grants was not taken from the its interests both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no ancient demesne of the crown, but from the recent rank, no toleration even for me. I had no arts but confiscation of the ancient nobility of the land. The manly arts. On them I have stood, and, please God, lion having sucked the blood of his prey, threw the in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of offal carcass to the jackal in waiting. Having tasted Lauderdale, to the last gasp will I stand. once the food of confiscation, the favourites became fierce and ravenous. This worthy favourite's first grant was from the lay nobility. The second, infinitely improving on the enormity of the first, was from the plunder of the church. In truth, his Grace is somewhat excusable for his dislike to a grant like mine, not only in its quantity, but in its kind so different from his own. * * I know not how it has happened, but it really seems that, whilst his Grace was meditating his well-considered censure upon me, he fell into a sort of sleep. Homer nods, and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as dreams-even his golden dreams-are apt to be ill-pieced and incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach to me, but took the subject-matter from the crown-grants to his own family. This is the stuff of which his dreams are made.' In that way of putting things together, his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the house of Russell were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst he lies floating many a rood,' he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over with the spray-everything of him and about him is from the throne. Is it for him to question the dispensation of the royal favour? I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favourable construction of which I have obtained what his Grace so much disapproves. In private life, I have not at all the honour of acquaintance with the noble Duke. But I ought to presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly deserves the esteem and love of all who live with him. But as to public service, why, truly, it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself in rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between his services and my attempts to be useful to my country. It would not be gross adulation, but uncivil irony, to say that he has any public merit of his own, to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed pensions were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are original and personal; his, are derivative. It is his ancestor, the original pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his Grace so very delicate and exceptious about the merit of all other grantees of the crown. Had he permitted me to remain in quiet, I should have said: "Tis his estate; that's enough. It is his by law; what have I to do with it or Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign; his, from Henry VIII. Mine had not its fund in the murder of any innocent person of illustrious rank, or in the pillage of any body of unoffending men; his grants were from the aggregate and consolidated funds of judgments iniquitously legal, and from possessions voluntarily surrendered by the lawful proprietors with the gibbet at their door. The merit of the grantee whom he derives from, was that of being a prompt and greedy instrument of a levelling tyrant, who oppressed all descriptions of his people, but who fell with particular fury on everything that was great and noble. Mine has been in endeavouring to screen every man, in every class, from oppression, and particularly in defending the high and eminent, who in the bad times of confiscating princes, confiscating chief-governors, or confiscating demagogues, are the most exposed to jealousy, avarice, and envy. The merit of the original grantee of his Grace's pensions was in giving his hand to the work, and partaking the spoil with a prince, who plundered a part of the national church of his time and country. Mine was in defending the whole of the national church of my own time and my own country, and the whole of the national churches of all countries, from the principles and the examples which lead to ecclesiastical pillage, thence to a contempt of all prescriptive titles, thence to the pillage of all property, and thence to universal desolation. The merit of the origin of his Grace's fortune was in being a favourite and chief adviser to a prince who left no liberty to his native country. My endeavour was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in which I was born, and for all descriptions and denominations in it. Mine was to support, with unrelaxing vigilance, every right, every privilege, every franchise, in this my adopted, my dearer, and more comprehensive country; and not only to preserve those rights in this chief seat of empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every climate, language, and religion in the vast domain that still is under the protection, and the larger that was once under the protection, of the British crown. His founder's merits were by arts in which he served his master and made his fortune, to bring poverty, wretchedness, and depopulation on his country. Mine were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the commerce, manufactures, and agriculture of his kingdom; in which his majesty shews an eminent example, who even in his amusements is a patriot, and in hours of leisure an improver of his native soil. [Character of Howard the Philanthropist.] I cannot name this gentleman without remarking, that his labours and writings have done much to open the eyes and hearts of all mankind. He has visited all Europe-not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of modern art; nor to collect medals, or collate manuscripts, but to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original; it is as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity. Already, the benefit of his labour is felt more or less in every country: I hope he will anticipate his final reward by seeing all its effects fully realised in his own. JUNIUS. On the 21st of January 1769 appeared the first of a series of political letters, bearing the signature of JUNIUS, which have since taken their place among the standard works of the English language. Great excitement prevailed in the nation at the time. The contest with the American colonies, the imposition of new taxes, the difficulty of forming a steady and permanent administration, and the great ability and eloquence of the opposition, had tended to spread a feeling of dissatisfaction throughout the country. The publication of the North Briton, a periodical edited by John Wilkes, and conducted with reckless violence and asperity, added fuel to the flame, and the prime-minister, Lord North, said justly, that 'the press overflowed the land with its black gall, and poisoned the minds of the people.' The government was by no means equal to the emergency, and indeed it would have required a cabinet of the highest powers and most energetic wisdom to have triumphed over the opposition of men like Chatham and Burke, and writers like Junius. The most popular newspaper of that day was the Public Advertiser, published by Woodfall, a man of education and respectability. In this journal the writer known as Junius had contributed under various signatures for about two years. The letters by which he is now distinguished were more carefully elaborated, and more highly polished, than any of his previous communications. They attacked all the public characters of the day connected with the government, they retailed much private scandal and personal history, and did not spare even royalty itself. The compression, point, and brilliancy of their language, their unrivalled sarcasm, boldness, and tremendous invective, at once arrested the attention of the public. Every effort that could be devised by the government, or prompted by private indignation, was made to discover their author, but in vain. It is not in the nature of things,' he writes to his publisher, 'that you or anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known: all arts or inquiries or rewards would be ineffectual.' In another place he remarks, 'I am the sole depositary of my secret, and it shall die with me.' The event has verified the prediction: he had drawn around himself so impenetrable a veil of secrecy, that all the efforts of inquirers, political and literary, failed in dispelling the original darkness. The letters were published at intervals from 1769 to 1772, when they were collected by Woodfall, and revised by their author-who was equally unknown to his publisher-and printed in two volumes. They have since gone through innumerable editions; but the best is that published in 1812 by Woodfall's son, which includes the letters by the same writer under other signatures-probably along with others evidence with his private notes to his publisher, not written by him, for there is a want of direct and fac-similes of his handwriting. The principles of Junius are moderate, compared maxims are conveyed in his letters, but his style has with his personalities. Some sound constitutional undoubtedly been his passport to fame. His illustrations and metaphors are also sometimes uncommonly felicitous. The personal malevolence of his attacks it is impossible to justify. They evince a settled deliberate malignity, which could not proceed from a man of a good or noble nature, and contain allusions to obscure individuals in the public offices, which seem to have arisen less from patriotism than from individual hatred and envy. When the controversy as to the authorship of these memorable philippics had almost died away, a book appeared in 1816, bearing the title of Junius Identified with a Celebrated Living Character. The living character was the late Sir Philip Francis, and certainly a mass of strong circumstantial evidence has been presented in his favour. The external evidence,' says Macaulay, 'is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the secretary of state's office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the Waroffice; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr Chamier to the place of deputy-secretary at war; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the secretary of state's office. He was subsequently chief-clerk of the War-office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of these speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the War-office from resentment at the appointment of Mr Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.' The same acute writer considers the internal evidence to be equally clear as to the claims of Francis. Attention has been drawn to another individual, one of ten or more persons suspected at the time of publication. This is Lord George Sackville, latterly Viscount Sackville, an able but unpopular soldier, cashiered from the army in consequence of neglect of duty at the battle of Minden, but who afterwards regained the favour of the government, and acted as secretary at war throughout the whole period of the American contest. A work by Mr Coventry in 1825, and a volume by Mr Jaques in 1842, have been devoted to an endeavour to fix the authorship of Junius upon Lord George. In 1853 the Grenville Papers were published from the originals at Stowe, and an attempt was made by their editor, Mr W. J. Smith, to prove that Lord Temple was Junius, Lady Temple acting as the amanuensis. Junius had, without disclosing himself, written three letters to Lord Temple on political topics; but these only prove that the unknown looked for the patronage of the Temples, should that family gain an ascendency in the government. It is probable that more than one person was connected with the letters, and Temple may have been one of these supplying hints; but the evidence given to prove that he was really Junius must be pronounced inconclusive. The claim of Francis still remains the best. Philip Francis was the son of the Rev. Philip Francis, translator of Horace. He was born in Dublin in 1740, and at the early age of sixteen was placed by Lord Holland in the secretary of state's office. By the patronage of Pitt (Lord Chatham), he was made secretary to General Bligh in 1758, and was present at the capture of Cherbourg; in 1760 he accompanied Lord Kinnoul as secretary on his embassy to Lisbon; and in 1763 he was appointed to a considerable situation in the Waroffice, which he held till 1772. Next year he was made a member of the council appointed for the government of Bengal, from whence he returned in 1781, after being perpetually at war with the governor-general, Warren Hastings, and being wounded by him in a duel. He afterwards sat in parliament, supporting Whig principles, and was one of the Friends of the People' in association with Fox, Tierney, and Grey. He died in 1818. It must be acknowledged that the speeches and letters of Sir Philip evince much of the talent found in Junius, though they are less rhetorical in style; while the history and dispositions of the man-his strong resentments, his arrogance, his interest in the public questions of the day, evinced by his numerous pamphlets, even in advanced age, and the whole complexion of his party and political sentiments, are what we should expect of Woodfall's celebrated correspondent. High and commanding qualities he undoubtedly possessed; nor was he without genuine patriotic feelings, and a desire to labour earnestly for the public weal. His error lay in mistaking his private enmities for public virtue, and nursing his resentments till they attained a dark and unsocial malignity. His temper was irritable and gloomy, and often led him to form mistaken and uncharitable estimates of men and measures. of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the same. I am not contending for a vain punctilio. A clear unblemished character comprehends not only the integrity that will not offer, but the spirit that will not submit, to an injury; and whether it belongs to an individual or to a community, it is the foundation of peace, of independence, and of safety. Private credit is wealth; public honour is security. The feather that adorns the royal bird supports his flight. Strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth.' Thus also he remarks: "In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved; while everything solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever.' Of the supposed enmity of George III. to Wilkes, and the injudicious prosecution of that demagogue, Junius happily remarks: He said more than moderate men would justify, but not enough to entitle him to the honour of your majesty's personal resentment. The rays of royal indignation, collected upon him, served only to illuminate, and could not consume. Animated by the favour of the people on the one side, and heated by persecution on the other, his views and sentiments changed with his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with opposition, the hardest sparkle in collision. There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves. The passions are engaged, and create a maternal affection in the mind, which forces us to love the cause for which we suffer.' The letter to the king is the most dignified of the letters of Junius; those to the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford the most severe. The latter afford the most favourable specimens of the force, epigram, and merciless sarcasm of his best style. The Duke of Grafton was descended from Charles II., and this afforded the satirist scope for invective: "The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has made it possible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, even to their legitimate posterity; and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. There are some hereditary strokes of character by which a family may be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human face. Charles I. lived and died a hypocrite; Charles II. was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles II., without being an amiable companion; and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.' Of the literary excellences of Junius, his sarcasm, compressed energy, and brilliant illustration, a few In the same strain of elaborate and refined specimens may be quoted. His finest metaphor-sarcasm the Duke of Bedford is addressed: 'My as just in sentiment as beautiful in expression-is lord, you are so little accustomed to receive any contained in the conclusion to the forty-second marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if letter: The ministry, it seems, are labouring to draw a line of distinction between the honour of the crown and the rights of the people. This new idea has yet only been started in discourse; for, in effect, both objects have been equally sacrificed. I neither understand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it. The king's honour is that in the following lines a compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and perhaps an insult to your understanding. You have nice feelings, my lord, if we may judge from your resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving offence where you have so little deserved it, I shall leave the illustration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends have a privilege to play upon the easiness of your temper, or probably they are better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. You have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. You have still left ample room for speculation when panegyric is exhausted.' After having reproached the duke for corruption and imbecility, the splendid tirade of Junius concludes in a strain of unmeasured yet lofty invective: Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fear as well as the hatred of the people. Can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can gray hairs make folly venerable? and is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame, my lord! Let it not be recorded of you that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider that, though you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing the impotent imbecility, after you have lost the vigour, of the passions. almost fiendish-but they are the emanations of a powerful and cultivated genius, that, under better moral discipline, might have done lasting honour to literature and virtue. The acknowledged productions of Sir Philip Francis have equal animation, but less studied brevity and force of style. The soaring ardour of youth had flown; his hopes were crushed; he was not writing under the mask of a fearless and impenetrable secrecy. Yet in 1812, in a letter to Earl Grey on the subject of the blockade of Norway, we find such vigorous sentences as the following: "Though a nation may be bought and sold, deceived or betrayed, oppressed or beggared, and in every other sense undone, all is not lost, as long as a sense of national honour survives the general ruin. Even an individual cannot be crushed by events or overwhelmed by adversity, if, in the wreck and ruin of his fortune, the character of the man remains unblemished. That force is elastic, and, with the help of resolution, will raise him again out of any depth of calamity. But if the injured sufferer, whether it be a great or a little community, a number of individuals or a single person, be content to submit in silence, and to endure without resentment-if no complaints shall be uttered, no murmur shall be heard, deploratum est-there must be something celestial in the spirit that rises from that descent. 'Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall this unhappy old man retire? Can he remain in 'In March 1798, I had your voluntary and entire the metropolis, where his life has been so often concurrence in the following, as well as many other threatened, and his palace so often attacked? If abandoned propositions-when we drank pure wine he returns to Woburn, scorn and mockery await together-when you were young, and I was not him: he must create a solitude round his estate, if superannuated-when we left the cold infusions of he would avoid the face of reproach and derision. prudence to fine ladies and gentle politicians-when At Plymouth, his destruction would be more than true wisdom was not degraded by the name of probable; at Exeter, inevitable. No honest English-moderation-when we cared but little by what man will ever forget his attachment, nor any honest majorities the nation was betrayed, or how many Scotchman forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. At felons were acquitted by their peers-and when we every town he enters, he must change his liveries were not afraid of being intoxicated by the elevaand name. Whichever way he flies, the hue and tion of a spirit too highly rectified. In England cry of the country pursues him. and Scotland, the general disposition of the people may be fairly judged of by the means which are said to be necessary to counteract it-an immense standing army, barracks in every part of the country, the bill of rights suspended, and, in effect, a military despotism.' 'In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of his administration have been more sensibly felt, his virtues better understood; or, at worst, they will not for him alone forget their hospitality. As well might Verres have returned to Sicily. You have twice escaped, my lord; beware of a third experiment. The indignation of a whole people plundered, insulted, and oppressed, as they have been, will not always be disappointed. "It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene; you can no more fly from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches and despair. But, my lord, you may quit the field of business, though not the field of danger; and though you cannot be safe, you may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed everything that ought to be dear to a man of honour. They are still base enough to encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which the hero should preserve his consistency to the last; and that, as you lived without virtue, you should die without repentance.' These are certainly brilliant pieces of composition. The tone and spirit in which they are conceived are harsh and reprehensible-in some parts The following vigorous and Junius-like passage is from a speech made by Francis in answer to a remark of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, namely, that it would have been well for the country if General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr Francis, had been drowned in their passage to India. Sir Philip observed: 'His second reason for obtaining a seat in parliament, was to have an opportunity of explaining his own conduct if it should be questioned, or defending it if it should be attacked. The last and not least urgent reason was, that he might be ready to defend the character of his colleagues, not against specific charges, which he was sure would never be produced, but against the language of calumny, which endeavoured to asperse without daring to accuse. It was well known that a gross and public insult had been offered to the memory of General Clavering and Colonel Monson, by a person of high rank in this country. He was happy when he heard that his name was included in it with theirs. So highly did he respect the character of those men, that he deemed it an honour to share in the injustice it had suffered. It was in compliance with the forms of the house, and not to shelter himself, or out of tenderness to the party, that he forbore to name him. He meant to describe him so exactly that he could not be mistaken. He declared, in his place in a great assembly, and in the course of a grave deliberation," that it would have been happy for this country if General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr Francis, had been drowned in their passage to India." If this poor and spiteful invective had been uttered by a man of no consequence or repute -by any light, trifling, inconsiderate person-by a lord of the bed-chamber, for example-or any of the other silken barons of modern days, he should have heard it with indifference; but when it was seriously urged, and deliberately insisted on, by a grave lord of parliament, by a judge, by a man of ability and eminence in his profession, whose personal disposition was serious, who carried gravity to sternness, and sternness to ferocity, it could not be received with indifference, or answered without resentment. Such a man would be thought to have inquired before he pronounced. From his mouth a reproach was a sentence, an invective was a judgment. The accidents of life, and not any original distinction that he knew of, had placed him too high, and himself at too great a distance from him, to admit of any other answer than a public defiance for General Clavering, for Colonel Monson, and for himself. This was not a party question, nor should it be left to so feeble an advocate as he was to support it. The friends and fellow-soldiers of General Clavering and Colonel Monson would assist him in defending their memory. He demanded and expected the support of every man of honour in that house and in the kingdom. What character was safe, if slander was permitted to attack the reputation of two of the most honourable and virtuous men that ever were employed, or ever perished in the service of their country? He knew that the authority of this man was not without weight; but he had an infinitely higher authority to oppose to it. He had the happiness of hearing the merits of General Clavering and Colonel Monson acknowledged and applauded, in terms to which he was not at liberty to do more than to allude-they were rapid and expressive. He must not venture to repeat, lest he should do them injustice, or violate the forms of respect, where essentially he owed and felt the most; but he was sufficiently understood. The generous sensations that animate the royal mind were easily distinguished from those which rankled in the heart of that person who was supposed to be the keeper of the royal conscience.' In the last of the private letters of Junius to Woodfall-the last, indeed, of his appearances in that character-he says, with his characteristic ardour and impatience, I feel for the honour of this country, when I see that there are not ten men in it who will unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all alike, vile and contemptible.' This was written in January 1773. Forty-three years afterwards, in 1816, Sir Philip Francis thus writes in a letter on public affairs, addressed to Lord Holland, and the similarity in manner and sentiment is striking. The style is not unworthy of Junius: My mind sickens and revolts at the scenes of public depravity, of personal baseness, and of ruinous folly, little less than universal, which have passed before us, not in dramatic representation, but in real action, since the year 1792, in the government of this once flourishing as well as glorious kingdom. In that period, a deadly revolution has taken place in the moral character of the nation, and even in the instinct of the gregarious multitude. Passion of any kind, if it existed, might excite action. With still many generous exceptions, the body of the country is lost in apathy and indifference -sometimes strutting on stilts-for the most part grovelling on its belly-no life-blood in the heart— and instead of reason or reflection, a caput mortuum for a head-piece; of all revolutions this one is the worst, because it makes any other impossible.'* Among the lighter sketches of Francis may be taken the following brief characters of Fox and Pitt: They know nothing of Mr Fox who think that he was what is commonly called well educated. I know mind educated itself, not by early study or instruction, that it was directly or very nearly the reverse. His but by active listening and rapid apprehension. He said so in the House of Commons when he and Mr Burke parted. His powerful understanding grew like a forest oak, not by cultivation, but by neglect. Mr Pitt was a plant of an inferior order, though marvellous in its kind-a smooth bark, with the deciduous pomp and decoration of a rich foliage, and blossoms and flowers which drop off of themselves, and leave the tree naked at last to be judged by its fruits. He, indeed, as I suspect, had been educated more than enough, until there was nothing natural and spontaneous left in him. He was too polished and accurate in the minor embellishments of his art to be a great artist in anything. He could have painted the boat, and the fish, and the broken nets, but not the two fishermen. He knew his audience, and, with or without eloquence, how to summon the generous passions to his applause. The human eye soon grows weary * The character of Francis is seen in the following admirable observation, which is at once acute and profound: With a callous heart there can be no genius in the imagination or wisdom in the mind; and therefore the prayer with equal truth and sublimity says: "Incline our hearts unto wisdom.” Resolute thoughts find words for themselves, and make their own vehicle. Impression and expression are relative ideas. He who feels deeply will express strongly. The language of slight sensations is naturally feeble and superficial.'-Reflections and pithy expression. After his return to parliament in 1784, he gave great offence to Mr Pitt, by exclaiming, after he had pronounced an animated eulogy on Lord Chatham: But he is dead, and has left nothing in this world that resembles him!' In a speech delivered at a political meeting in 1817, he said: We live in times that call for wisdom in contemplation and virtue in action; but in which virtue and wisdom will not do without resolution.' When the property-tax was imposed, he exclaimed that the ministers were now coming to the life-blood of the country, and the more they wanted in 1816, he remarks: 'Whether you look up to the top or down the less they would get.' In a letter to Lord Holland, written to the bottom, whether you mount with the froth or sink with the sediment, no rank in this country can support a perfectly degraded name.' 'My recital,' he says to Lord Holland, 'shall be inflicted on you, as if it were an operation, with compassion for the patient, with the brevity of impatience and the rapidity of youth; for I feel or fancy that I am gradually growing young again, in my way back to infancy. The taper that burns in the socket flashes more than once before it dies. I would not long outlive myself if I could help it, like some of my old friends who pretend to be alive, when to my certain knowledge they have been dead these seven years.' The writer of a memoir of Francis, in the Annual Obituary (1820), states that one of his maxims was, That the views of every one should be directed towards a solid, however moderate independence, without which no man can be happy, or even honest.' There is a remarkable coincidence-too close to be accidental in a private letter by Junius to his publisher Woodfall, dated March 5, 1772: As for myself, be assured that I am far above all pecuniary views, and no other person I think has any claim to share with you. Make the most of it, therefore, and let all your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate independence. Without it, no man can be happy, nor even honest.' It is obvious, however, that Francis may have copied from Junius, and it has been surmised that, notwithstanding his denials of the authorship, he was not unwilling to bear the imputation. on the Abundance of Paper, 1810.-Francis excelled in pointed |