emerald, with their trees and hedges, and cattle, fill up the whole space from the edge of the water: and just opposite to you is a large farm-house at the bottom of a steep smooth lawn, embosomed in old woods, which climb half-way up the mountain's side, and discover above them a broken line of crags that crown the scene. Not a single red tile, no flaring gentleman's house, or garden-walls, break in upon the repose of this little unsuspected paradise; but all is peace, rusticity, and happy poverty in its neatest, most becoming attire.

JUNIUS.'

1. DEDICATION TO THE ENGLISH NATION.

(SOMEWHAT ABRIDGED.)

(FROM "JUNIUS," PUBLISHED IN 1772.)

I DEDICATE to you a collection of letters, written by one of yourselves for the common benefit of us all. They would never have grown to this size, without your continued encouragement and applause. To me they originally owe nothing, but a healthy, sanguine constitution. Under your care they have thriven. To you they are indebted for whatever strength or beauty they possess. When kings and ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be transmitted to posterity. When you leave the unimpaired, hereditary freedom to your children, you do but half your duty. Both liberty and property are precarious,

(1) Who "Junius" really was, remains still unknown-though public opinion and criticism point to Sir Philip Francis as the most likely of the forty or fifty claimants of the honour.

"The style of Junius is wanting in some of the more exquisite qualities of eloquent writing; it has few natural graces, little variety, no picturesqueness; but still it is a striking and peculiar style, combining the charm of high polish with great nerve and animation, clear and rapid, and at the same time sonorous-masculine enough, and yet making a very imposing display of all the artifices of antithetical rhetoric."-Craik, English Literature and Language, ii. 322.

unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to protect them. This is not the language of vanity. If I am a vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am the sole depositary of my own secret, and it shall perish with me.

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If an honest and I may truly affirm, a laborious zeal for the public service has given me any weight in your esteem, let me exhort and conjure you never to suffer an invasion of your political constitution, however minute the instance may appear, to pass by, without a determined, persevering resistance.3 One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law (ie. the law of usage). What yesterday was fact, to-day is doctrine (or principle). Examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous measures, and where they do not suit exactly, the defect is supplied by analogy. Be assured that the laws, which protect us in our civil rights, grow out of the constitution, and that they must fall or flourish with it. This is not the cause of faction, or of party, or of any individual, but the common interest of every man in Britain.

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4

Let

(1) The logic of this passage is somewhat difficult to detect. We may certainly hand down an inheritance to our children; but the sense and spirit by which it is to be protected we cannot transmit; for they must wait for their development until the inheritance is attacked. He means that the incentives and arguments may be bequeathed with the inheritance; and he assumes that this book supplies them. Hence the deprecation of the charge of vanity.

(2) Vanity, pride. Originally "vanity" meant emptiness, hollowness—(“ all is vanity!"); then unreality, as when Shakespere speaks of "lying vainness," or vanity, till at length, changing from objective to subjective, it came to mean a desire for, and even courting of, the applause of others. The word "vainglory" was once generally used to express this passion. "Pride" is excessive self-appreciation, and satisfaction even in its own estimate of itself, but not a desire for the applause of others. A man may be too proud to be vain; such a man could not condescend to court the approbation of others. There is a sophistry in the application of the word above. A man in a mask might be as vain of the commendations of his appearance, manners, &c., as one who was without disguise-nay, even more so: he might be vain of the skill by which he eluded detection. This was no doubt the case of Junius.

(3) Exhort and conjure. There is generally, as here, a definite and graduated force in the coupled adjectives or verbs of this writer. Just now, "force and direction of satire; "the force, as it were, of the discharged cannon; the direction, the aim which is taken in firing. Here, "exhort," recommend, urge upon you by arguments "conjure," appeal to you by the dearest personal considerations. So in "determined, persevering resistance," the words are admirably chosen; the resistance may be determined or resolute, but may be overcome at one assault; let it be persevering too, and it becomes much more formidable.

(4) Faction, party, individual. This is intended for a triple descending gradation. "Faction" (fr. Lat. factio) is the most comprehensive term, implying

it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium' of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman, and that the right of juries to return a general verdict, in all cases whatsoever, is an essential part of our constitution, not to be controlled or limited by the judges, nor in any shape questionable by the legislature. The power of king, lords, and commons is not an arbitrary power. They are the trustees,2 not the owners of the estate. The fee-simple is in us. They cannot alienate, they cannot waste.3 When we say that the legislature is supreme, we mean that it is the highest power known to the constitution; that it is the highest in comparison with the other subordinate powers established by the laws. In this sense, the word supreme is relative, not absolute. The power of the legislature is limited, not only by the general rules of natural justice, and the welfare of the community, but by the forms and principles of our particular constitution.. If this doctrine be not true, we must admit, that king, lords, and commons have no rule to direct their resolutions, but merely their own will and pleasure. They might unite the legislative and executive power in the same hands, and dissolve the constitution by an act of parliament. But I am persuaded you will not leave it to the choice of seven hundred persons, notoriously corrupted by the crown, whether seven millions of their equals shall be freemen or slaves. The inattention or indifference of the nation has continued too long. You are roused at last to a sense of your danger. The remedy will soon be in

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an active, turbulent, proselyting party, often consisting of vast numbers, as the faction of Cæsar and Pompey at Rome; a "party" is an offset from the main body, sometimes accidentally formed, not necessarily large, nor desirous of extension, as the Whig and Tory parties; the "individual' is the indivisible unit or atom of the social or political mass. Dean Alford has lately attacked the word "individual," and tells us we ought to use the "Saxon word, man; "but would he use it in the above sentence?

(1) Palladium, the guarantee of safety and strength-as the image of Pallas was while it remained in Troy-according to the beautiful old legend.

(2) Trustees. A trustee is one who holds a trust for another, and is consequently responsible for the use made of the estate; whereas the owner has arbitrary power over it, and is irresponsible.

(3) They cannot alienate, &c., i.e. the legislature, being trustees, not owners, cannot hand over the estate to another owner, nor injure it while they are in possession of it.

(4) This is one of the bold and unscrupulous assumptions too common with the writer, and by which he damages his cause. It would be quite impossible for the crown to "corrupt " the whole body of the commons.

your power. If Junius lives, you shall often be reminded of it. If, when the opportunity presents itself, you neglect to do your duty to yourselves and to posterity, to God and to your country, I shall have one consolation left, in common with the meanest and basest of mankind,—Civil liberty may still last the life of

JUNIUS.

2. LETTER TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

(ABRIDGED.)

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

MY LORD,—If nature had given you an understanding qualified to keep pace with the wishes and principles of your heart, she would have made you, perhaps, the most formidable minister that ever was employed, under a limited monarch, to accomplish the ruin of a free people. When neither the feelings of shame, the reproaches of conscience, nor the dread of punishment, form any bar to the designs of a minister, the people would have too much reason to lament their condition, if they did not find some resource in the weakness of his understanding. We owe it to the bounty of Providence, that the completest depravity of the heart is sometimes strangely united with a confusion of the mind, which counteracts the most favourite principles, and makes the same man treacherous without art, and a hypocrite without deceiving. The measures, for instance, in which your grace's activity has been chiefly exerted, as they were adopted without skill, should have been conducted with more than common dexterity. But truly, my lord, the execution has been as gross (rough, clumsy) as the design. By one decisive step, you have defeated all the arts

(1) I.e. by another election which was impending.

(2) I.e. you are too weak or stupid to be thoroughly wicked. In a somewhat similar vein of poignant sarcasm, Mackintosh ("History of England") characterises Henry VIII. as having "in those two direful deeds, the execution of More and of Anne Boleyn, perhaps approached as nearly to the ideal standard of perfect wickedness as the infirmities of human nature will allow."

(3) Treacherous, &c., a very forcible and pregnant expression, denoting the will to be wicked without the power, the desire to be a traitor, without the art to conceal his treachery; the form and semblance of a hypocrite without the power of deceiving; moral wickedness without mental ability to make the wickedness operative.

of writing. You have fairly confounded the intrigues of opposition, and silenced the clamours of faction. A dark, ambiguous system might require and furnish the materials of ingenious illustration; and, in doubtful measures, the virulent exaggeration of party must be employed, to rouse and engage the passions of the people. You have now brought the merits of your administration to an issue, on which every Englishman of the narrowest capacity may determine for himself. It is not an alarm to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people, upon their own most essential interests. A more experienced minister would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first principles of the Constitution, before he had made some progress in subduing the spirit of the people. With such a cause as yours, my lord, it is not sufficient that you have the court (ie. the judge) at your devotion, unless you can find means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body of the people form that jury, and from their decision there is but one appeal. Whether you have talents to support you, at a crisis of such difficulty and danger, should long since have been considered. Judging truly of your disposition, you have perhaps mistaken the extent of your capacity. Good faith and folly (i.e. stupidity) have so long been received as synonymous terms, that the reverse of the proposition has grown into credit, and every villain fancies himself a man of abilities. It is the apprehension of your friends, my Lord, that you have drawn some hasty conclusion of this sort, and that a partial reliance upon your moral character has betrayed you beyond the depth of your understanding. You have now carried things too far to retreat. You have plainly declared to the people what they are to expect from the continuance of your administration. It is time for your grace to consider what you also may expect in return from their spirit and their resentment.

3. EULOGIUM ON LORD CHATHAM.

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

It seems I am a partisan of the great leader of the opposition. If the charge had been a reproach, it should have been better supported. I did not intend to make a public declaration of the respect I bear to Lord Chatham. I well know what unworthy

(1) This rather long and verbose sentence merely means, " you have not had the sense to conceal your tactics."