Such were the circumstances, and such the estimation of the public, in which the Duke of Bedford, with the Earls of Gower, Sandwich, and Halifax, their friends and parliamenaary dependents, began to act, in strict concert, in order to make their terms with government, and to exercise a restraining influence over the Pelham administration. At that time, the parties in parliament were not fewer than five: the Pitt and Grenville party; the Bedford party; the predominant party of the Pelhams; the Tories, with the rest who paid their court to the Prince of Wales; and the friends of the Duke of Cumberland, who were headed by Henry, the father of Charles Fox. The Bedford party, could not of themselves form an efficient administration, and engross the power of the government. But, they were sufficiently formidable to be devoutly courted by all the rest. The Pelhams received them into a share of their power. But, though not deficient in talents, they wanted character and popularity: and it became unavoidably necessary to employ Pitt and the Grenvilles. While Pitt dictated the measures of administration in the end of the reign of George the Second, the Duke of Bedford and his friends, like the other parties, gave him their parliamentary support. The Lieutenancy of Ireland was an honour worthy of the Duke's rank and ambition; and its patronage enabled him to provide amply for his creature Rigby, as well as to perform some acts of magnificent beneficence, in which ostentation had no share. He, next, condescended to become the political ally of Bute ; went ambassador to Paris; and had the honour or the infamy, of being the ostensible negotiator of the peace of 1768. His friend, Lord Halifax, was at the same time Secretary of State; and his party gave their vigorous support to the administration of Bute.

After his return from France, the Duke was, for some short time, discontented with Lord Bute and the court. But, ere he could rush into opposition, the death of Lord Egremont left a vacancy in the ministry, which the Duke of Bedford with his friends were called to fill. Lord Bute, and this new administration, were soon mutually dissatisfied with each other. The opposition between the court and the ministry, became publicly known ; and an attempt vas made to substitute Pitt, Lyttleton, and Temple, instead of Halifax, Bedford, and Grenville, in the chief offices of the ministry. It failed of success. The Duke of Bedford saw Lord Bute,

and even the King himself at his mercy. He used his advantage cruelly; obliging the King to expel from official employment, all such of his servants as were supposed to have been appointed at the recommendation of the Earl of Bute; and, in particular, Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, that nobleman's brother, whom the King had, before, voluntarily promised, never to dismiss from his office. Such an insolent triumph of his ministers, was not to be endured by the Sovereign. The Newcastle and Rockingham Whigs were invited to come into office, almost upon their own terms; and the Duke of Bedford, and his associates, were with great indignation dismissed. He had not the favour of the people to support him in his disgrace. Popularity he had never courted: and in cases of electioneering, in his government of Ireland, and on account of the share he had taken in negotiating the late peace, the popular odium had been often strongly directed against him. Amid the distresses and riots of the weavers of Spitalfields, he was now again threatened by a mob of those men, in his house in Bloomsbury. They thought their distresses to be owing to the importation of French stuffs, and the prevalence of French fashions; aud for all this, what could they blame so much, as the Duke of Bedford, and his peace?—He was not unwilling to seize the first occasion for returning into favour at court. When the King and his secret advisers became weary of the measures of the Rockingham administration, and again courted the Grenvilles; the Duke of Bedford, the friend of George Grenville, eagerly threw himself into the negotiation; but was scornfully slighted by Lord Bute, by whom the insolent dismission of his brother had not yet been forgotten. Lord Chatham then formed a new administration, in obedience to the particular commands of his Sovereign; and, for a time, strove to exclude from power all but the King's friends and those whom he thought his own. He soon found himself unable, without other aid, to withstand the opposition which the Rockingham Whigs, the Bedford party, and the friends of George Grenville and Lord Temple, were exciting against him. He sought the friendship of the Duke of Bedford; and the Duke, with his friends, were not unwilling to serve under Lord Chatham. But, the King had not yet pardoned the Duk?'s former insolence; and Lord Chatham was thus hindered from fulfilling the engagemanis he had privately VOL. 1.

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made with the Duke. Lord Chatham proved unable to superintend and preserve the fabric which he had reared. Mr. Townshend died; Mr. Conway resigned; the Duke of Grafton deserted Lord Chatham, for the friendships which were to be found at court; Lord Chatham, himself, at last abandoning the ministry which he had formed, was reconciled to his brothers, and to the Rockingham Whigs. It was then that, more than on any former occasion, the Whigs believed themselves to be on the point of becoming sole masters of the powers of government. At that crisis, the Duke of Bedford accepted the offers of the court, joined the Duke of Graficn, and drew upon himself the fiercest rage of all the Whigs, by making himself, as they conceived, the saviour of Lord Bute, of the Tories, and of the system of secret influence in the closet. Considerably more than a year had now passed since that coalition took place; and, though amidst very trying difficulties, the administration formed by it still stood unshaken. Hence that indignation of all the Whigs agginst the Duke of Bedford, which is in the following Letter of JUNIUS so vehemently expressed.

In this Letter, JUNIUS labours to represent whatever appeared to have been mean or unpopular in the Duke of Bedford's private conduct, in a light in which it shall become still more odious in the eyes of the public. He strives to overwhelm the feelings of the Duke himself, with a sense of baseness, folly, and dishonour, that shall make him shrink from the public eye. And he endeavours even to set this nobleman's character forth in colours which, if not horrible enough to drive his ancient dependents and adherents from around him, might at least frighten aray his new associates, to whom his real disposition and qualities were less intimately known. The whole public and private conduct of the Duke are, in this Letter, reviewed. His vices and errors are represented in comparison with the advantages and duties of his rank and condition. Enough is here done, not indeed to make us believe with JUNIUS, that the Duke of Bedford was one of the basest and most vicious of mankind, yet certainly to convince us that, though not destitute of talents, he wanted that enlarged comprehension in his views of public and private good, that firmness founded ufion conscious wisdom and beneficence, as well

as that generous magnanimity, which can alone make a Duke of Bedford truly equal to all that the English nation are willing to hope from the reeprsentative of the good Lord Southampton, and of Lord Russel.

This Letter is, certainly, one of the ablest specimens of the eloquence of

JUNIUS. The contrast of a fancied good character, with the actual bad one of the Duke of Bedford; the artful imputation of treachery won by bribes, in the negotiating of the peace; the hinted coarseness and vulgarity of the object of his satire, in his private pleasures; the recalling that outrage to recollection, with which the Duke had, on a former occasion, treated his Sovereign; the suggestion, that the Duke might now fancy all his plans of ambition consummated, and himself indisputable master of the voices of the cabinet council; above all, the alarming earnestness with which, in the concluding paragraphs the Duke is taught to believe the whole empire to be, as it were in arms against him; compose, together, an assemblage of splendid parts, forming certainly one of the most powerfully and elaborately eloquent of all this collection of Letters. There is, however, in some parts of it, a quaintness, inconsistent with that chaste delicacy of writing which can alone deserve the approbation of true

taste.

By QUAINTNESS, I mean, the use of that cast of thought, and that mould of style, which in propriety belong only to true wit, upon occasions when there is no genuine wit produced, and when indeed the use even of such wit would be unseasonable.

MY LORD,

19. September, 1769.

YOU are so little accustomed to receive any marks of respect or esteem from the public, that if, (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 possibly 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.

The

You are indeed a very considerable man. highest rank;-a splendid fortune;-and a name glorious till it was yours,-were sufficient to have supported you, with meaner abilities than I think you possess. From the first, you derive a constitu

Cautious therefore of giving offence, where you have so little deserved it, &c.] Here is an instance of the unseasonable affectation of refinement of thought, and of a turn of style fitted to excite surprise. Even by JUNIUS's own meaning, the Duke of Bedford, the less he deserved real praise, deserved just so much the more to be harassed with the offence of that which was ironical. It was only, as believing that all praise offered to him, must be insincere and ironical, that the Duke is pretended to be incapable of hearing praise otherwise than with resentment, or with an excusing forgiveness which would operate in favour of none but his personal friends. Sincere praise would not have given offence; but had not been deserved. Ironical praise would give offence; but, then, it had been deserved. In the beginning of the words quoted, JUNIUS means ironical praise: in the last phrase, it is sincere praise to which he alludes. What a confusion of thoughts and of language! But the same quaintness pervades the whole paragraph. I am anxious to point it distinctly out; for it is what the inexperienced are the readiest to admire and to imitate as a beauty.