I do not mean to express the smallest anxiety for the minister's reputation. He acts separately for himself, and the most shameful inconsistency may perhaps be no disgrace to him. But when the Sovereign, who represents the majesty of the state, appears in person, his dignity should be supported. The occasion should be important;-the plan well considered; the execution steady and consistent. My zeal for his Majesty's real honour compels me to assert, that it has been too much the system of the present reign, to introduce him personally, either to act for, or to defend his servants. They persuade him to do what is properly their business, and desert him in the midst of it*. Yet this is an inconvenience, to which he must for ever be exposed, while he adheres to a ministry divided among themselves, or unequal in credit and ability to the great task they have undertaken. Instead of reserving the interposition of the royal personage, as the last resource of government, their weakness obliges them to apply it to every ordinary occasion, and to render it cheap and common in the opinion of the people. Instead of supporting their master, they look to him for support; and for the emolument of remaining one day more in office, care not how much his sacred character is prostituted and dishonoured.

If I thought it possible for this paper to reach the closet, penalties against the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, or impeachment at the least. Little Mannikin Ellis told the King that, if the business were left to his management, he would engage to do wonders. It was thought very odd that a motion of so much importance should be entrusted to the most contemptible little piece of machinery in the whole kingdom. His honest zeal however was disappointed. The minister took fright, and at the very instant that little Ellis was going to open, sent him an order to sit down. All their magnanimous threats ended in a ridiculous vote of censure, and a still more ridiculous address to the King. This shameful desertion so afflicted the generous mind of George the third, that he was obliged to live upon potatoes for three weeks, to keep off a malignant fever.-Poor man!-quis talia fando temperet a lacrymis! AUTHOR.

See Private Letter, No. 33. EDIT.

* After a certain person had succeeded in cajoling Mr. Yorke, he told the Duke of Grafton, with a witty smile, "My Lord, you may kill the next Percy yourself."-N. B. He had but that instant wiped the tears away, which overcame Mr. Yorke.

I would venture to appeal at once to his Majesty's judgment. I would ask him, but in the most respectful terms, " As you are a young man, Sir, who ought to have a life of happiness in prospect, as you are a husband, as you are a father, [your filial duties I own have been religiously performed] is it bona fide for your interest or your honour to sacrifice your domestic tranquillity, and to live in a perpetual disagreement with your people, merely to preserve such a chain of beings as North, Barrington, Weymouth, Gower, Ellis, Onslow, Rigby, Jerry Dyson, and Sandwich? Their very names are a satire upon all government, and I defy the gravest of your chaplains to read the catalogue without laughing."

For my own part, Sir, I have always considered addresses from parliament as a fashionable, unmeaning formality. Usurpers, idiots, and tyrants have been successively complimented with almost the same professions of duty and affection. But let us suppose them to mean exactly what they profess. The consequences deserve to be considered. Either the Sovereign is a man of high spirit and dangerous ambition, ready to take advantage of the treachery of his parliament, ready to accept of the surrender they make him of the public liberty; or he is a mild, undesigning prince, who, provided they indulge him with a little state and pageantry, would of himself intend no mischief. On the first supposition, it must soon be decided by the sword, whether the constitution should be lost or preserved. On the second, a prince no way qualified for the execution of a great and hazardous enterprize, and without any determined object in view, may nevertheless be driven into such desperate measures, as may lead directly to his ruin, or disgrace himself by a shameful fluctuation between the extremes of violence at one moment, and timidity at another. The minister perhaps may have reason to be satisfied with the success of the present hour, and with the profits of his employment. He is the tenant of the day, and has no interest in the inheritance. The Sovereign himself is bound by other obligations, and ought to look forward to a superior, a permanent interest. His paternal tenderness should remind him, how many hos

tages he has given to society. The ties of nature come powerfully in aid of oaths and protestations. The father, who considers his own precarious state of health, and the possible hazard of a long minority, will wish to see the family estate free and unincumbered*. What is the dignity of the crown, though it were really maintained; what is the honour of parliament, supposing it could exist without any foundation of integrity and justice;—or what is the vain reputation of firmness, even if the scheme of government were uniform and consistent, compared with the heart-felt affections of the people, with the happiness and security of the royal family, or even with the grateful acclamations of the populace! Whatever style of contempt may be adopted by ministers or parliaments, no man sincerely despises the voice of the English nation. The House of Commons are only interpreters, whose duty it is to convey the sense of the people faithfully to the crown. If the interpretation be false or imperfect, the constituent powers are called upon to deliver their own sentiments. Their speech is rude, but intelligible; their gestures fierce, but full of explanation. Perplexed by sophistries, their honest eloquence rises into action. The first appeal was to the integrity of their representatives; the second to the King's justice;-the last argument of the people, whenever they have recourse to it, will carry more perhaps than persuasion to parliament, or supplication to the throne.

JUNIUS.

LETTER XXXIX.

TO THE PRINTER OF The public ADVERTISER.
SIR,

28 May, 1770. WHILE parliament was sitting, it would neither have been safe, nor perhaps quite regular, to offer any opinion to the public, upon the justice or wisdom of their proceedings. To

Every true friend of the house of Brunswick sees with affliction, how rapidly some of the principal branches of the family have dropped off.

pronounce fairly upon their conduct, it was necessary to wait until we could consider, in one view, the beginning, progress, and conclusion of their deliberations. The cause of the public was undertaken and supported by men, whose abilities and united authority, to say nothing of the advantageous ground they stood on, might well be thought sufficient to determine a popular question in favour of the people. Neither was the House of Commons so absolutely engaged in defence of the ministry, or even of their own resolutions, but that they might have paid some decent regard to the known disposition of their constituents, and, without any dishonour to their firmness, might have retracted an opinion too hastily adopted, when they saw the alarm it had created, and how strongly it was opposed by the general sense of the nation. The ministry too would have consulted their own immediate interest, in making some concession satisfactory to the moderate part of the people. Without touching the fact, they might have consented to guard against, or give up the dangerous principle, on which it was established. In this state of things, I think it was highly improbable at the beginning of the session, that the complaints of the people upon a matter, which, in their apprehension at least, immediately affected the life of the constitution, would be treated with as much contempt by their own representatives, and by the House of Lords, as they had been by the other branch of the legislature. Despairing of their integrity, we had a right to expect something from their prudence, and something from their fears. The Duke of Grafton certainly did not foresee to what an extent the corruption of a parliament might be carried. He thought, perhaps, that there still was some portion of shame or virtue left in the majority of the House of Commons, or that there was a line in public prostitution, beyond which they would scruple to proceed. Had the young man been a little more practised in the world, or had he ventured to measure the characters of other men by his own, he would not have been so easily discouraged.

The prorogation of parliament naturally calls upon us to

review their proceedings, and to consider the condition in which they have left the kingdom. I do not question but they have done what is usually called the King's business, much to his Majesty's satisfaction*. We have only to lament, that, in consequence of a system introduced or revived in the present reign, this kind of merit should be very consistent with the neglect of every duty they owe to the nation. The interval between the opening of the last and the close of the former session was longer than usualf. Whatever were the views of the minister, in deferring the meeting of parliament, sufficient time was certainly given to every member of the House of Commons, to look back upon the steps he had taken, and the consequences they had produced. The zeal of party, the violence of personal animosities, and the heat of contention had leisure to subside. From that period, whatever resolution they took was deliberate and prepense. In the preceding session, the dependents of the ministry had affected to believe, that the final determination of the question would have satisfied the nation, or at least put a stop to their complaints; as if the certainty of an evil could diminish the sense of it, or the nature of injustice could be altered by decision. But they found the people of England were in a temper very distant from submission; and, although it was contended that the House of Commons could not themselves reverse a resolution, which had the force and effect of a judicial sentence, there were other constitutional expedients, which would have given a security against any similar attempts for the future. The general proposition, in which the whole country had an interest, might have been reduced to a particular fact, in which Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Luttrell would alone have been concerned. The House of Lords might interpose; the King might dissolve the parliament;— or, if every other resource failed, there still lay a grand con

"The temper with which you have conducted all your proceedings, has given me great satisfaction." King's speech on closing the session of Parliament, May 19, 1770. EDIT.

There was no autumnal session this year. Parliament did not meet till January 9, 1769-70. EDIT.