Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of Sense,
  Read musty lectures on Benevolence,
  Or con the pages of his gaping Day,
  Where all his former fame was thrown away,
  Where all but barren labour was forgot,
  And the vain stiffness of a letter’d Scot;
  Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light,
  But not one hour of darkness; when the night
  Suspends this mortal coil, when Memory wakes,
  When for our past misdoings Conscience takes
  A deep revenge, when by Reflection led,
  She draws his curtain, and looks Comfort dead,
  Let ev’ry Muse be gone; in vain he turns
  And tries to pray for sleep; an Etna burns,
  A more than Etna in his coward breast,
  And Guilt, with vengeance arm’d, forbids him rest: 
  Tho’ soft as plumage from young zephyr’s wing,
  His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring. 
  Ingratitude hath planted daggers there,
  No good man can deserve, no brave man bear. 
    Thus, or in any better way they please,
  With these great men, or with great men like these,
  Let them their appetite for laughter feed
  I on my Journey all alone proceed.

[Footnote 214:  See The School for Lovers, by Mr. Whitehead, taken from Fontenelle.]

[Footnote 215:  See The Cure of Saul, by Dr. Browne.]

JUNIUS.

(1769-1770-1771.)

XLV.  TO THE KING.

The following is the famous letter which appeared in the Public Advertiser for December 20th, 1769.  This is also the one on which the advocates of the theory that George, Lord Sackville, was the writer of the Letters of Junius lay such stress.

To the Printer of the “Public Advertiser”.

December 19, 1769.

SIR,

When the complaints of a brave and powerful people are observed to increase in proportion to the wrongs they have suffered, when, instead of sinking into submission, they are roused to resistance, the time will soon arrive at which every inferior consideration must yield to the security of the sovereign, and to the general safety of the state.  There is a moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled.  Let us suppose it arrived; let us suppose a gracious, well-intentioned prince, made sensible at last of the great duty he owes to his people, and of his own disgraceful situation; that he looks round him for assistance, and asks for no advice but how to gratify the wishes and secure the happiness of his subjects.  In these circumstances, it may be matter of curious speculation to consider, if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his sovereign.  Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that the first prejudice against his character is removed;