Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/248

202 not wonder at the unremitted rancour with which the Duke of Bedford and his adherents invariably speak of a nation, which we well know has been too much injured to be easily forgiven. But why must Junius be an Irishman? The absurdity of his writings betrays him. Waving all consideration of the insult offered by Modestus to the declared judgment of the people (they may well bear this amongst the rest), let us follow the several instances, and try whether the charge be fairly supported.

then,—the leaving a man to enjoy such a repose as he can find upon a bed of torture, is severe indeed; perhaps too much so, when applied to such a trifler as Sir William Draper; but there is nothing absurd either in the idea or expression. Modestus cannot distinguish between a sarcasm and a contradiction.

2. with Junius, that it is the frequency of the fact, which alone can make us comprehend how a man can be his own enemy. We should never arrive at the complex idea conveyed by those words, if we had only seen one or two instances of a man acting to