vidual. You cannot but know, Sir, that what was Mr. Wilkes's case yesterday, may be yours or mine to-morrow; and that, consequently, the common right of every subject of the realm is invaded by it. Professing, therefore, to treat of the constitution of the House of Commons, and of the laws and customs relative to that constitution, you certainly were guilty of a most unpardonable omission, in taking no notice of a right and privilege of the house, more extraordinary and more arbitrary than all the others they possess put together. If the expulsion of a member, not under any legal disability, of itself creates in him an incapacity to be elected, I see a ready way marked out, by which the majority may, at any time, remove the honestest and ablest men who happen to be in opposition to them. To say, that they will not make this extravagant use of their power, would be a language unfit for a man so learned in the laws as you are. By your doctrine, Sir, they have

If the expulsion, &c.-creates-] The moods of verbs express , the generic distinctions of potentiality. None of these is more remarkable than that which subsists between power actually existent, and power only possible; the former signified in the indicative mood, the latter in the subjunctive. But, of this truth, English writers in general appear, if we may judge from their practice, to be utterly ignorant, or scornfully careless. Our grammarians distinguish a subjunctive mood: but, our writers employ the form of the indicative, indifferently, also for the subjunctive. JUNIUS uses here, creates of the indicative, instead of the subjunctive create. He uses, elsewhere, are for be. And, in general, though in other respects the most correct in style, perhaps, of all our writers, he ⚫ uses always the forms of the indicative, to signify as well possible as actually existing power. In this, I cannot advise the reader to imitate him.

the power; and laws, you know, are intended to guard against what men may do, not to trust to what they will do.

Upon the whole, Sir, the charge against you is of a plain, simple nature: it appears even upon the face of your own pamphlet. On the contrary, your justification of yourself is full of subtlety and refinement, and in some places not very intelligible. If I were personally your enemy, I should dwell, with a malignant pleasure, upon those great and useful qualifications which you certainly possess, and by which you once acquired, though they could not preserve to you, the respect and esteem of your country; I should enumerate the honours you have lost, and the virtues you have disgraced: but having no private resentments to gratify, I think it sufficient to have given my opinion of your public conduct, leaving the punishment it deserves to your closet and to yourself.

JUNIUS.

To your closet and to yourself.] I am afraid, that the use of the closet in this place, cannot be called happy. Not that a specious defence of the figure might not be found. But, after the ardour and majesty of the former part of the sentence, the manner in which closet is mentioned in the end of it, produces to the mind of the reader much of the effect of an anti-climax. How should his closet punish him, by any thing separate from the punishment of his own reflections?

LETTER XIX.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

JUNIUS had alleged, in the Letter immediately preceding, that Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries, in order to represent faithfully the state of the law of England at the time when they were written, ought to have expressed all the causes of disqualification from serving in Parliament, which were then known to that law. He even bestowed the praise of affirming, that all the legal and known causes of such disqualification were faithfully exhibited in that excellent compendium of English jurisprudence. But he hence took occasion to reproach Blackstone so much the more severely, as an apostate from principles which he had solemnly recorded as his, and had recommended by his authority to the whole nation.

Even since the publication of the Letter in which these facts were the most distinctly explained, Blackstone had found an Advocate; who in a Letter to the Publisher of the St. James's Evening Post, imputed to JUNIUS, the absurdity of complaining, that the Commentaries of the Laws of England did not foretel events, as well as explain principles and institutions, did not anticipate the facts of the crimes, the expulsion, and the incapacitation of John Wilkes.

It did not escape the sagacity of JUNIUS, that this imputation, however egregiously false, might have its weight with those careless readers to whom a joke, or a malicious insinuation, is at any time better than a grave and candid argument, and who are apt to hasten away, with half apprehended misrepresentations upon their minds, as being too light and indifferent about truth, to use any pains of inquiry to discover it, unless it be urged unavoidably upon their notice.

He therefore hastened, in the person of PHILO-JUNIUS, to correct that writer's unjust charge. This was the object of the following short Letter.

In the first paragraph of this Letter, its author relates and refutes the misrepresentation of his new opponent. In the second paragrafik,

he endeavours to confirm his own original statement, by a reference to the incidents of the debate in the House of Commons, in which Blackstone's Commentaries were successfully quoted against himself.

SIR,

14. August, 1769.

A CORRESPONDENT of the St. James's Evening-Post first wilfully misunderstands JUNIUS, then censures him for a bad reasoner. JUNIUS does not say that it was incumbent upon Doctor Blackstone to foresee and state the crimes for which Mr. Wilkes was expelled. If, by a spirit of prophecy, he had even done so, it would have been nothing to the purpose. The question is, not for what particular offences a person may be expelled; but generally, whether by the law of parliament expulsion alone creates a disqualification. If the affirmative be the law of parliament, Doctor Blackstone might and should have told us so. The question is not confined to this or that particular person, but forms one great general branch of disqualification, too important in itself, and too extensive in its consequences, to be omitted in an accurate work expressly treating of the law of parliament.

The truth of the matter is evidently this. Doctor Blackstone, while he was speaking in the House of Commons, never once thought of his Commentaries, until the contradiction was unexpectedly urged, and stared him in the face. Instead of defending himself

upon the spot, he sunk under the charge, in an agony of confusion and despair. It is well known, that there was a pause of some minutes in the house, from a general expectation that the Doctor would say something in his own defence; but it seems, his faculties were too much overpowered to think of those subtleties and refinements which have since occured to him. It was then that Mr. Grenville received the severe chastisement, which the Doctor mentions with

Sunk under the charge, &c.] The labours of Lowth and of Johnson have been employed in vain. The barbarous anomalies of English speech are still renewed, perpetuated, and multiplied. Newspapers, magazines, reviews, and translations, are absolutely so many flower-beds of provincialisms, foreign idioms, colloquial barbarisms, and ignorant or affected violations of the most common proprieties of grammar. These are, much more than any other books, in the hands of the common reader. From these, even persons of liberal education, borrow the greater part of their phraseology for both speaking and writing. Hence is our language, in spite of the progress of literature, at least not more correct and pure than in the days of Swift and Addison. Instead of sunk, which is properly the participle perfect, JUNIUS ought to have here used sank, the only preterite of the verb sink. But, the vicious use of sunk, as a preterite, is, in defiance of analogy and classical authority, now almost universal. On the contrary, it is common with English writers, to use the preterite for the participle-he had began, for he had begun―he had ran, for he had run, &c. &c.—A practice so vicious cannot be too earnestly exploded.

It was then that Mr. Grenville received, &c.] Mr. Grenville, after triumphantly quoting Dr. Blackstone's book against the Doctor himself, paused for the Doctor's reply, and insultingly shook his head when he saw the Doctor remain fearfully silent. The interruption of the debate, and the still cager expectation of the house, moved Sir Fletcher Norton to interpose. The words of his interposition, though contemptuously mentioned by JUNIUS, were sufficiently facetious.