to prevent any other of the Grecian army from killing Hector. The passage I allude to is one of the finest in the Iliad. “ Λαδισιν δ ̓ ἀνένευε καρήατι διος ̓Αχιλλεὺς 22 B. line 205. Divine Achilles, lest some Greek's advance Yours, ANTI-BELIAL*. LETTER CIV. TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. SIR, December 4, 1771. YOUR ingenious correspondent, Anti-Junius, has too much wit and taste to be easily satisfied. It is really a misfortune to be born with such exquisitely fine feelings. If, now that he is well fed and clothed, he cannot endure the severity of a southern breeze, what would become of him upon his native mountains? Junius can never write to please him. If he receives the least mention of past enormities, what is it but "cold scraps, baked meats, political fiddling, and the voice of the charmer!" hashed mutton, and Dutch music with a vengeance! If, on the contrary, he lays any new villanies before the public, then, one and all, the hungry pack open upon him at once: "Here's invention for you!-What an abominable liar!-Why does he not stick to his facts? Does he think us such idiots as to swallow wit for truth?" In short, Sir, the Scotch have strange qualmish stomachs; it is not in the art of cookery to please them. Nothing will go down but oatmeal and brimstone. Anti-Junius is not so explicit as I could wish. 1. What intercourse was that between Lord Irnham and his daughter, *The letters of Anti-Belial, and the next, from Juniper, are doubtless from the varied and prolific pen of Junius. They are minor Philo-Juniuses, to explain, defend, and support the reputation of the principal.-ED. which he says has been so long interrupted? I mean no offence to the lady, but really the word intercourse is a little equivocal. 2. What was that purpose for which Sir James Lowther's grant was obtained, and which, Anti-Junius says, has been long since defeated? 3. Who does he mean by a man ever burthensome to every administration? I hope he does not mean the Duke of Grafton's friend, Sir James Lowther, or at least that he does not give the Baronet this pretty character by order of the Duke of Grafton. After all, I really think that Junius, called upon as he is by so able an antagonist, cannot do less than discover himself. He must be woefully given to suspicion, if he has the least doubt of the tender mercy of the Scotch, or of the forgiving piety of St. James's. JUNIPER*. * The following are the passages in Anti-Junius's answer to Junius, Letter 67, to which a reply is more particularly given in the above : "Had Junius a single friend in the world whom he dared trust or consult, his performance of yesterday, so uninstructive to your readers, so fatal to his reputation, would surely have never found its way to the press. His invective has neither novelty nor variety to recommend it; the public palate must nauseate at the insipidity of his repeated abuse, and loathe the repast which his miserable thrift has attempted to furnish forth from the cold scraps and baked meats of his former scurrilous entertainments. In vain does this political fiddler labour for the public attention, by thrumming the worn-out strings of Middlesex election, Whittlebury timber, Hine's patent, and the long-forgotten rule made absolute against Mr, Vaughan. The voice of the charmer himself can no longer charm with these sounds; these chords so repeatedly struck fall flat, even upon the ear of envy itself. * * "With the recriminating malice of antiquated virginity, he endeavours to sully the daughter's innocence with the father's crimes, suppressing a wellknown circumstance, viz. that all intercourse between that father and that daughter has long been interrupted. * "Sir James Lowther's nonsuit is in the eye of the heaven-reading Junius another visible operation of retribution, not on the King, indeed-he does not seem to be affected by it, any farther than as it has introduced the parenthesis of the Luttrell alliance-but on the poor Duke of Grafton, whose days are anxious, and whose nights are sleepless, because a grant, obtained to serve a purpose long since defeated, and to gratify the importunities of a man ever burthensome to every administration, is adjudged invalid. For this the Duke of Grafton wears the dismal countenance of solitary sorrow; for this does he fruitlessly look round for consolations; for this does Mr. Bradshaw shed the April showers of lambent lamentation. Surely Junius thinks to mislead rea, LETTER CV. VETERAN TO LORD BARRINGTON. MY LORD, January 28, 1772. It is unlucky for the army that you should be so thoroughly con vinced as you are how extremely low you stand in their opinion. The consciousness that you are despised and detested by every individual in it, from the drummer (whose discipline might be of service to you) to the general officer, makes you desperate about your conduct and character. You think that you are arrived at a state of security, and that, being plunged to the very heels in infamy, the dipping has made you invulnerable. There is no other way to account for your late frantic resolution of appointing Tony Shammy your deputy-secretary at war. Yet I am far from meaning to impeach his character as a broker. In that line he was qualified to get forward by his industry, birth, education, and accomplishments. I make no sort of doubt of his cutting a mighty pretty figure at Jonathan's. To this hour among bulls and bears his name is mentioned with respect. Every Israelite in the alley is in raptures. What, our old friend, little Shammy!-Ay, he was always a tight, active little fellow, and would wrangle for an eighth as if he had been born in Jerusalem. Who'd ha' thought it! Well, we may now look out for the rebuilding of the temple. My Lord, if I remember right, you are partial to the spawn of Jonathan's. Witness the care you took to provide for Mr. Delafontaine in the military department. He limped a little when he left the alley*, but your Lordship soon set him upon his legs again. This last resolution, however, approaches to madson, and annihilate common-sense, by the use of a few ridiculous halfmeaning epithets. * * "If you are really the honest state-gardener you would be thought, and not the malicious discontented impostor I think you, away with your shuf fling well-worded delays. The noisome plant that has brought forth such bitter fruit is surely now ripe enough to be plucked." * The transactions here referred to in respect to Delafontaine and Chamier, or Shammy, as he was called in the alley, are more particularly noticed in the Private Letters, Nos. 52 and 56. Chamier was successor in the War Office to Mr. D'Oyly, who was discarded to make room for him. ness. Your cream-coloured Mercury* has over-reached both you and himself; and remember what I seriously tell you, this measure will, sooner or later, be the cause, not of your disgrace (that affair's settled), but of your ruin. What dæmon possessed you to place a little gambling broker at the head of the War Office, and in a post of so much rank and confidence as that of deputy to the Secretary at War? (I speak of your office, not of your person.) Do you think that his having been useful in certain practices to Lord Sandwich gives any great relief to his character, or raises him in point of rank? My Lord, the rest of the world laugh at your choice; but we soldiers feel it as an indignity to the whole army, and be assured we shall resent it accordingly. Not that I think you pay much regard to the sensations of anything under the degree of a general officer, and even that rank you have publicly stigmatized in the most opprobrious terms. Yet still some of them, though in your wise opinion not qualified to command, are entitled to respect. Let us suppose a case, which every man acquainted with the War Office will admit to be very probable. Suppose a lieutenant-general, who perhaps may be a peer, or a member of the House of Commons, does you the honour to wait upon you for instructions relative to his regiment. After explaining yourself to him with your usual accuracy and decision, you naturally refer him to your deputy for the detail of the business. My dear General, I'm prodigiously hurried. But do me the favour to go to Mr. Shammy; go to little Waddlewell; go to my duckling; go to little three per cents reduced; you'll find him a mere scrip of a secretary; an OMNIUM of all that's genteel; the activity of a broker; the politeness of a hair-dresser; the- the- the- dc. Our general officer, we may presume, being curious to see this wonderful Girgashite, the following dialogue passes between them :: Lieut.-Gen. Sir, the Secretary at War refers me to you for an account of what was done Waddlewell. Done, Sir! Closed at three-eighths! Looked flat, I must own; but to-morrow, my dear Sir, I hope to see a more lively appearance. * T. Bradshaw, whose absurd elevation has been already noticed, and will occasionally be found observed upon again. Lieut.-Gen. Sir, I speak of the non-effective fund. Waddlewell. Fund, my dear Sir! In what fund would you wish to be concerned? Speak freely: you may confide in your humble servant-I'm all discretion. Lieut.-Gen. Sir, I really don't understand you. Lord Barrington says that my regiment may possibly be thought of for India Waddlewell. India, my dear Sir! Strange fluctuation! from fourteen and an half to twenty-two-never stood a moment, but ended cheerful: no mortal can account for it! Lieut.-Gen. Damn your stocks, Sir! Tell me whether the commission Waddlewell. As for commission, my dear Sir, I'll venture to say that no gentleman in the alley does business upon easier terms. I never take less than an eighth, except from Lord Sandwich and my brother-in-law; but they deal largely, and you must be sensible, my dear Sir, that when the commission is extensive, it may be worth a broker's while to content himself with a sixteenth. The general officer, at last, fatigued with such extravagance, quits the room in disgust, and leaves the intoxicated broker to settle his accounts by himself. After such a scene as this, do you think that any man of rank or consequence in the army will ever apply to you or your deputy again? Will any officer of rank condescend to receive orders from a little whiffling broker, to whom he may formerly, perhaps, have given half-a-crown for negociating an hundred pound stock, or sixpence for a lottery ticket? My Lord, without a jest, it is indecent-it is odious-it is preposterous. Our gracious master, it is said, reads the newspapers. If he does, he shall know minutely in what manner you treat his faithful army. This is the first of sixteen letters addressed to your Lordship, which are ready for the press, and shall appear as fast as it suits the printer's convenience VETERAN. |