Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/232

 to produce either the proofs or yourself, I will excuse it. Take courage; I have not the temper of Tiberius, any more than the rank or power. You, indeed, are a tyrant of another sort; and, upon your political bed of torture, can excruciate any subject, from a first minister down to such a grub or butterfly as myself; like another detested tyrant of antiquity, can make the wretched sufferer fit the bed, if the bed will not fit the sufferer, by disjointing or tearing the trembling limbs, until they are stretched to its extremity. But courage, constancy, and patience, under torments, have sometimes caused the most hardened monsters to relent, and forgive the object of their cruelty. You, Sir, are determined to try all that human nature can endure, until she expires: else, was it possible that you could be the author of that most inhuman letter to the Duke of Bedford, I have read with astonishment and horror. Where,