(356) Probably Lord George Sackville, so disagreeably celebrated for his conduct at Minden; afterwards a peer, by the title of Lord Sackville, and secretary of state.  In the North Briton which was in preparation when Wilkes was taken up, he advised that Lord George should carry the sword before the King at an intended thanksgiving.  Of all the persons suspected of being the author of Junius, Lord George Sackville seems the most probable.-C. ["It is peculiarly hostile to the opinion in favour of Lord George, that Junius should roundly have accused him of want of courage.”  Woodfall’s Junius, Vol. i.  P. 161.]

(357) Lord Gower had been reputed the head of the Jacobites.  Sir C. H. Williams sneeringly calls him “Hanoverian Gower;” and when he accepted office from the house of Brunswick, all the Jacobites in England were mortified and enraged.  Dr. Johnson, a steady Tory, was, when compiling his Dictionary, with difficulty persuaded not to add to his explanation of the word deserter—­“Sometimes it is called a Go’er."-C. ["Talking,” says Boswell, “upon this subject, Dr. Johnson mentioned to me a stronger instance of the predominance of his private feelings in the composition of this work than any now to be found in it:  ’You know, Sir, Lord Gower forsook the old Jacobite interest:  when I came to the word renegades after telling what it meant, one who deserts to the enemy, a revolter, I added, sometimes we Say a Gower:  thus it went to the press; but the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out.’” Croker’s Boswell.]

(358) Churchill the satirist and Wilkes; of whom Mr. Southey, in his Life of Cowper, relates the following anecdote:—­“Churchill became Wilkes’s coadjutor in the North Briton; and the publishers, when examined before the privy council on the publication of No. 45, having declared that Wilkes gave orders for the printing, and Churchill received the profits from the sale, orders were given for arresting Churchill under the general warrant.  He was saved from arrest by Wilkes’s presence of mind, who was in custody of the messenger when Churchill entered the room.  ‘Good morning, Thompson,’ said Wilkes to him:  ’how does Mrs. Thompson do?  Does she dine in the country?’ Churchill took the hint as readily as it had been given.  He replied, that Mrs. Thompson was waiting for him, and that he only came for a moment, to ask him how he did.  Then almost directly he took his leave, hastened home, secured his papers, retired into the Country, and eluded all search."-E.

(359) Mr. Southey states, that “a fortnight had not elapsed before both parties were struck with sincere compunction, and through the intercession of a true friend, at their entreaty, the unhappy penitent was received by her father:  it is said she would have proved worthy of this parental forgiveness, if an elder sister had not, by continual taunt,; and reproaches, rendered her life so miserable, that, in absolute despair, she threw herself upon Churchill for protection.  Instead of making a just provision forher, which his means would have allowed, he received her as his mistress.  If all his other writings were forgotten, the lines in which he expressed his compunction for his conduct would deserve always to be remembered—­