shop are easily discovered. From alpha to omega the same attention to a period, and the same neglect of good sense, manners, and propriety. However, Mr. X. X. in to-day's Public Advertiser has even out-heroded Herod. It was certainly unpardonable presumption in the modest gentleman who writes for the Gazetteer to assume the merit of a victory over the young gentleman who writes for the Public Advertiser. But Te Deums have been sung before on as slender foundations. The young gentleman, with that fire and spirit which accompanies green years, threw down his glove to the world, and challenged all mankind to contradict the truth of certain facts, or the justice of certain observations. He proposed, if not a reward to the champion who should vanquish him, at least a punishment to himself if vanquished; nor that a slight one, if he were, as X. X. says he is, the favourite of the public. The modest gentleman ventured to take up the glove, and with a boldness not very consistent with his name, demonstrated that the narrative was false in every circumstance material to the question; and the observations not only ridiculous in the view of supporting the conclusion attempted to be drawn, but in a supreme degree injudicious to the cause they were intended to promote.

To this Junius, with prudence beyond his years, makes no reply, and Modestus, after a decent forbearance, presumes to put him in mind of his challenge. This produced the letter signed Junius, in your paper one day last week; in which, to speak negatively, he neither supports the truth of his narrative, or the justice of his observations, and in which, to speak positively, he gives up both. Not fairly, nor with the candour of a gentleman who is convinced of his rash and dangerous mistake; but with the struggles and evasions of a culprit who is convicted of a crime.

Upon this true state of the dispute, Modestus most impudently assumed to himself the victory; and I must confess he seemed to have the appearance of a claim to it. But Mr. X. X. has clearly demonstrated the contrary; and the method this honourable gentleman has taken to chain victory to the triumphant car of the public's favourite adds greatly to his merit.

A person of vulgar understanding would have descended into a tedious detail; he would have endeavoured to show by

argument and fact that Junius was in the right, and Modestus in the wrong. But Mr. X. X., another Alexander, cuts the Gordian knot at once, and annihilates the pretensions of Modestus with a single word. There is so much energy, so much eloquence, so much of the polite scholar, the gentleman, and the patriot, in the term blockhead, that if Modestus possesses but a shadow of what its name imports, he must fairly confess himself routed; and instead of Te Deum, I would advise him to sing De profundis.

It was to be sure the height of insolence in Modestus to attack the favourite of the public; but it may be pleaded in his excuse, that the public has several favourites who are shrewdly suspected to be unworthy of its favour; and Junius has staked and forfeited that favour of which he had much reason to be proud. But pray, Mr. X. X., have not you been guilty of a trifling error, by substituting the public in place of the mob? You wish to know whether the officers are to be tried or not. For answer give me leave to ask you whether you have learned to read? Had that essential part of your education been attended to, you would not have been so ignorant of what has been explained again and again, and you would not have been so illiberal to imagine you could better a bad cause by calling names, an argument which deserves no answer but the strapado.

But your education did not depend on yourself, and perhaps you are left-handed, which I have been told by many intelligent Hibernians, your countrymen, is an insurmountable bar to scholarship; yet common sense is the portion of the unlearned as well as of the learned, and though you may be but an indifferent scholar, there was no occasion to insult her in the way you have done. The world hitherto has believed that Junius was rather unfriendly to the officers concerned in General Gansel's rescue, when he publicly aggravated their offence from a common breach of the peace to an outrage against the constitution; and it believed that Modestus was not their enemy for endeavouring to show that Junius was in the wrong, and representing all the circumstances of excuse which the nature of the case afforded. But here also Mr. X. X. has convinced the world of its mistake: and it stands on his infallible authority, that Junius is a faithful friend to these officers, and Modestus a rancorous and inveterate enemy,

whom nothing can satisfy but the loss of their commissions. The force of genius is certainly wonderful! It discovers in propositions the very reverse of what they contain. But Mr. X. X., when you address the public again, remember, that though paradoxes astonish, they do not convince against evidence.

However, we are but seconds in the quarrel between Modestus and Junius, and we ought not to suffer our principals to proceed to extremities. To soften the rancour of their contention, I would propose that some friendly unfriendly greeting (as Shakespeare calls it) should pass between them. They need not exchange armour, like Glaucus and Diomede (an example which would afford me many choice allusions if I had time to pursue them), but they may exchange names. The propriety of this no man can dispute, for even X. X. will agree with me that Modestus is a little young, and Junius not a little modest.

SIR, November 25, 1769. For answer to my last letter, in which I asked a very plain question, viz., whether the officers of the guards were or were not to be tried for the rescue of General Gansel? your correspondent Y. Y. contents himself with another question, whether I had learnt to read? The question is pertinent enough, and as much to the purpose as if he had inquired the hour of the day. Will this gentleman be so good as to quit all circumlocution, and tell us what we are to trust to? Is Captain Garth, who deserted his guard at noon-day, an equerry to the Duke of Cumberland? Did he not leave the command of his guard to a person who had as little right to take it as Buckhorse, and is he or is he not protected by his Royal Highness? Is not Captain Dodd the old friend of Henry Lawes Luttrell, and the son of the oldest and most intimate

crony of Lord Irnham? Have either of the parties denied any one of the facts stated by Junius? Has not Colonel Salter been ordered to hold his peace? Has not William Viscount Barrington, secretary at war, most infamously neg lected his duty in not moving the King to order a court-martial for the trial of these offenders? And has not the adjutantgeneral publicly and repeatedly, though in vain, represented that they ought to be cashiered? What will the flat general contradiction of an anonymous writer avail against circumstances so particular, so well vouched, that the parties most concerned are ashamed or afraid to deny them? How is Junius to prove his facts but by such a particularity and precision in the state of them, that no man who knows anything of the matter will venture to dispute the truth of them? In this case a negative is as strong as a positive proof, and the only proof the thing will admit of. It is absolutely incredible that neither Captain Garth nor Captain Dodd should contradict such facts as lead immediately to their ruin, if justice were done. Nothing but shame and self-conviction keep

them silent.

As to argument, I should be glad to know why the letter signed Moderatus* has not been answered? It has not even been attempted. Depend upon it, Sir, the silence of Junius portends no good to the ministry. When he honours them with his notice it is not a momentary blast. He gathers like a tempest, and all the fury of the elements burst upon them

at once.

X. X.

* Inserted in the Woodfall edition as Philo-Junius. See Letter No. 31, vol. i. p. 245.

+ The quotation in the note to the preceding Letter, from Private Letter, No. 11, is followed by these words: "But as soon as a good subject offers." This was fulfilled in the attack upon the Duke of Grafton in Letter No. 33, vol. i. p. 249, for the gift of a patent place, customer of the port of Exeter, to Colonel Burgoyne, who sold it, with the supposed knowledge of his Grace, to Mr. Hine for £4000. This Junius deemed so strong a hold upon the Duke, as to advise the printer, on a threatened prosecution for publishing this letter, which contains a very severe statement of the fact, "not to show fear, but to tell them he would justify, and subpoena Mr. Hine, Burgoyne, and Bradshaw, of the treasury," as that would" silence them at once." Private Letter, No. 15.

See

LETTER LXVII.

MODESTUS TO JUNIUS.

SIR,

November 28, 1769. THOUGH you may choose to vent your illiberal resentment under the borrowed signature of X. X., I, who think scurrility no disgrace to your real name, shall not affect to make a distinction where there is no difference. For the same reason I do not plead that, Junius having given the challenge, I am not bound to enter the lists against any other. It is a peculiar advantage in this sort of warfare that, when a man is routed in his own person, he can still keep the field under another; and you in particular have a right to the device, non vultus, non color unus.

After giving up the question as Junius, you come back upon it as X. X. It would be a labour indeed to answer you the same questions in every form you are pleased to assume. But for once I will take the trouble to repeat what I have already said, not from any merit or novelty in your questions, but to leave you without excuse. Had you turned over to my letter in the Gazetteer of the 13th of November, you would have discovered that the gentleman who asked Mr. X. X. whether he had learned to read did not put a very impertinent question. It is there stated that Captain Garth was no otherwise concerned in General Gansel's rescue than by being absent from his guard when it happened. This is undoubtedly a military offence; and if the friendship of Junius or X. X. will still insist to have it punished, there is no help for it. But it is not true that Captain Garth left his guard to be commanded by any person; and it is immaterial to the question whether he be equerry to the Duke of Cumberland, or protected by him. If the thing is so, I congratulate him; but surely that honour neither makes him a criminal nor aggravates his supposed crime. With respect to Captain Dodd, you have brought a fresh charge against him, to which there can be no defence. He is, it seems, a companion of Colonel Luttrell, and his father is the intimate friend of Lord Irnham. I am sorry for it; but if he is guilty of such a crime I must give him up; and I do it with the

VOL. II.

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