seem to have been aware. "Yet, for the benefit of the succeeding age," says Junius, in his concluding sen tence, "I could wish that your retreat might be deferred until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption at which the worst examples cease to be contagious." Bacon has it, that " men o'erspread with vice, do not so much corrupt public manners, as those that are half evil, and in part only." Putredo serpens majis contagiosa est quam matura. I think, in some of the early editions of this letter, the words "as philosophers tell us," were inserted between the words "which" and "the," reading thus-" at which, as philosophers tell us, the worst examples cease to be contagious." Were it warrantable to infer an imitation from a similitude in a single point, Mr Heron might go back to the Latin classics, and add the names of Horace, Juvenal, and Petronius, to those of the English writers, whom Junius is supposed to have studied and to have had in his eye. That abrupt and indignant use of the imperative mood, so frequent in him, is also to be met with in each of these Latin authors. "Content your self, my lord, with the many advantages," &c.-" Avail yourself of all the unforgiving piety," &c.-" Return, my lord, before it be too late," &c.-"Take back your mistress.' 66 Indulge the people. Attend Newmarket," &c.-"Now let him go back to his cloister," &c. Thus Horace-I nunc, argentum et marmor vetus, &c. -I nunc et versus tecum meditare canoros: and Juvenal, speaking of Hannibal, I demens, et sævos curre per Alpes ;-and in the eloquent reflections over the body of Lycas in Petronius, the speaker exclaims, "Ite nunc mortales, et magnis cogitationibus pectora implete. Ite cauti, et opés fraudibus captas per mille annos, disponite." But whether Junius had models or not, he probably surpassed all who went before him in the graces of diction. He appears to have imparted an unknown music to English prose, and to have given it a fascination, in no wise inferior to the language of Rousseau. The beginning of his sentences are no less harmonious than his cadences at their close; nor, to my ear, can any lines in poetry, taking the preceding passage along with them, flow with more sweetness and ease than do the following, in one of the letters to the Duke of Grafton. "You had already taken your degrees with credit in those schools, in which the English nobility are formed to virtue," &c. as do also the four concluding periods of the letter containing the remarked sentiment from Lord Bacon. I am aware it may be thought, that too much stress is here laid on mere sound; but if we analyze the sources from which our relish of good composition is derived, we shall be compelled to acknowledge the great importance of the ear in the discernment of literary excellence. Cicero, as we are told by Lord Kaimes, I think, has even employed redundant words for the improvement of his harmony; and Rousseau informs us, that he has spent whole nights in constructing and rounding a period: Hence may be inferred the importance these great writers attached to this part of their art. As it was highly fashionable at this time to speak of Junius, he is descanted upon in the letters of Tamoc Caspipina, which came out in Philadelphia in the year 1771. In these, he is prettily denominated the knight of the polished armour, a fancy with which the writer seems not a little pleased, since he has taken care that the G 98 JUNIUS'S LETTERS-REV. MR DUCHE. idea shall not be lost for want of repeating. These letters proceeded from the pen of the Reverend Mr Duche, a very popular preacher of the Episcopal denomination. He had a fine voice and graceful delivery, but was never rated high in point of ability. His sermons were deemed flowery and flimsy, like the letters of Caspipina. Mr Duche was a Whig before, and I believe after, the declaration of independence; but being in Philadelphia when the British army took possession of it, and think. ing, probably, that his country was in a fair way of being subdued, he changed sides, and wrote a very arrogant, ill-judged letter to General Washington, in which he advises him to renounce a cause which had very much degenerated, and to "negotiate for America at the head of his army." Mr Duche was weak and vain, yet probably not a bad man: His habits, at least, were pious ; and, with the exception of this political tergiversation, his conduct exemplary. His whimsical signature of Tamoc Caspipina is an acrostic on his designation, as The Assistant Minister of Christ's Church and St Peter's, in Philadelphia, in North America. THE AUTHOR REMOVES TO YORKTOWN. $99 CHAPTER IV. The Author removes to Yorktown-Boarding-House, and Character of the Inmates-General Society-Returns to Philadelphia, and pursues his Legal Studies-FencingAnecdote of a Madman Causes of the War with Britain State of Parties Preparation for War. T My irregular course of life had much impaired my health, for the re-establishment of which, and to enable me to pursue my studies without interruption from my free-living companions, my uncle advised my spending the approaching summer in Yorktown. Mr Samuel Johnson, the prothonotary of that county, was his parti cular friend, a respectable man who had been in the practice of the law, and had a very good library. Having been apprised of the project, he kindly offered me the use of his books, as well as his countenance and assistance in my reading. Accordingly, I submitted to become an exile from Philadelphia, with nearly the same objects and feelings of Propertius, when he left Rome for Athens. Magnum iter ad doctas proficisci cogor Athenas— Qualiscunque mihi, tuque puella vale. Not that York was an Athens; but I was sent thither for improvement, and there were various attractions in the city, from which it was no doubt prudent to withdraw It was in the spring of 1773 that I was transferred to this pleasant and flourishing village, situated about me. : 100 AUTHOR LEAVES PHILADELPHIA. twelve miles beyond the Susquehanna. It was this circumstance which rendered it an eligible retreat for congress in the year 1778, when General Howe was in pos session of the capital and eastern parts of Pennsylvania. I was well received by Mr Johnson, but with that formal theoretical kind of politeness, which distinguishes the manners of those who constitute the better sort in small secluded towns: And if, in these days, the prothonotary of a county of German population was not confessedly the most considerable personage in it, he must have been egregiously wanting to himself. This could with no propriety be imputed to my patron. Although apparently a mild and modest man, he evidently knew his consequence, and never lost sight of it, though, to say the truth, I received full as much of his attention as either I desired or had a right to expect: He repeated the tender of his books and services, complimented me with a dinner, suggested that business and pleasure could not be well prosecuted together, and consigned me to my meditations. I established myself at a boarding-house, at whose table I found a practising attorney, a student of law, another of physic, and a young Episcopal clergyman, who had lately arrived from Dublin. The first was a striking instance of what mere determination and perseverance will do, even in a learned profession. He was an Irishman, a man of middle age-the extent of whose attainments was certainly nothing more than in a coarse, vulgar hand, to draw a declaration; and in equally vulgar arithmetic, to sum up the interest due upon a bond. His figure was as awkward as can well be imagined, and his elocution exactly corresponded with it. From the humble post of under-sheriff, he had lately emerged to |