that I do not mean to flatter any minister, either past or present, these are my thoughts: they seem to have acted like lovers, or children; have *pouted, quarrelled, cried, kissed, and been friends again, as the objects of desire, the ministerial rattles, have been put into their hands. But such proceedings are very unworthy of the gravity and dignity of a great nation. We do not want men of abilities, but we have wanted steadiness ; we want unanimity; your letters, Junius, will not contribute thereto. You may one day expire by a flame of your own kindling. But it is my humble opinion, that lenity and moderation, pardon and oblivion, will disappoint the efforts of all the seditious in the land, and extinguish their wide-spreading fires. I have lived with this sentiment; with this I shall die. WILLIAM DRAPER.

* Sir William gives us a pleasant account of men, who, in his opinion at least, are the best qualified to govern an empire.

IF Sir William Draper's bed be a bed of torture, he has made it for himself. I shall never interrupt his repose. IIaving changed the subject, there are parts of his last letter not undeserving of a reply. Leaving his private character and conduct out of the question, I shall consider him merely in the capacity of an author, whose labours certainly do no discredit to a newspaper.

There is something in

We say, in common discourse, that a man may be his own enemy; and the frequency of the fact makes the expression intelligible. But that a man should be the bitterest enemy of his friends, implies a contradiction of a peculiar nature. it, which cannot be conceived, without a confusion of ideas, nor expressed, without a solecism in language. Sir William Draper is still that fatal friend Lord Granby found him. Yet, I am ready to do justice to his generosity; if, indeed, it be not something more than generous, to be the voluntary advocate of men,

who think themselves injured by his assistance, and to consider nothing in the cause he adopts, but the difficulty of defending it. I thought, however, he had been better read in the history of the human heart than to compare or confound the tortures of the body with those of the mind. He ought to have known, though, perhaps, it might not be his interest to confess, that no outward tyranny can reach the mind. If conscience plays the tyrant, it would be greatly for the benefit of the world that she were more arbitrary, and far less placable, than some men find her.

But it seems 1 have outraged the feelings of a father's heart. Am I, indeed, so injudicious? Does Sir William Draper think I would have hazarded my credit with a generous nation, by so gross a violation of the laws of humanity? Does he think I am so little acquainted with the first and noblest characte ristic of Englishmen? Or, how will he reconcile such folly with an understanding so full of artifice as mine? Had he been a father, he would have been but little offended with the severity of the reproach, for his mind would have been filled with the justice of it. He would have seen, that I did not insult the feelings. of a father, but the father who felt nothing. He would have trusted to the evidence of his own paternal heart, and boldly denied the possibility of the fact, instead of defending it. Against whom, then, will his honest indignation be directed, when I assure him, that this whole town beheld the Duke of Bed

ford's conduct, upon the death of his son, with horror and astonishment. Sir William Draper does himself but little honour in opposing the general sense of his country. The people are seldom wrong in their opinions; in their sentiments they are never mistaken. There may be a vanity, perhaps, in a singular way of thinking; but, when a man professes a want of those feelings, which do honour to the multitude, he hazards something infinitely more important than the character of his understanding. After all, as Sir William may possibly be in earnest in his anxiety for the Duke of Bedford, I should be glad to relieve him from it. He may rest assured, this worthy nobleman laughs, with equal indifference, at my reproaches, and Sir William's distress about him. But here let it stop. Even the Duke of Bedford, insensible as he is, will consult the tranquillity of his life, in not provoking the moderation of my temper. If, from the profoundest contempt, I should ever rise into anger, he should soon find, that all I have already said of him, was lenity and compassion.

Out of a long catalogue, Sir William Draper has confined himself to the refutation of two charges only. The rest he had not time to discuss; and, indeed, it would have been a laborious undertaking. To draw up a defence of such a series of enormities, would have required a life, at least, as long as that which has been uniformly employed in the practice of them. The public opinion of the Duke of Bedford's

extreme economy is, it seems, entirely without fourdation. Though not very prodigal abroad, in his own family, at least, he is regular and magnificent. He pays his debts, abhors a beggar, and makes a handsome provision for his son. His charity has improved upon the proverb, and ended where it began. Admitting the whole force of this single instance of his domestic generosity, (wonderful, indeed, considering the narrowness of his fortune, and the little merit of his only son) the public may still, perhaps, be dissatisfied, and demand some other less equivocal proofs of his munificence. Sir William Draper should have entered boldly into the detail of indigence relieved, of arts encouraged, of science patronized, men of learning protected, and works of genius rewarded. In short, had there been a single instance, besides Mr. Rigby*, of blushing merit, brought forward by the Duke for the service of the public, it should not have been omitted.

I wish it were possible to establish my inference with the same certainty on which I believe the principle is founded. My conclusion, however, was not drawn from the principle alone.-I am not so unjust as to reason from one crime to another: though I think that, of all the vices, avarice is most apt to

This gentleman is supposed to have the same idea of blushing, that a man, blind from his birth, has of scarlet or sky-blue.