Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/119

Rh this accomplished youth declared himself the champion of government, the world was busy enquiring what honours or emoluments could be a sufficient recompense, to a young man of his rank and fortune, for submitting to mark his entrance into life with the universal contempt and detestation of his country.—His noble father had not been so precipitate.—To vacate his seat in parliament;—to intrude upon a county in which he had no interest or connexion;—to possess himself of another man's right, and to maintain it in defiance of public shame as well as justice, bespoke a degree of zeal or of depravity, which all the favour of a pious Prince could hardly requite. I protest, my Lord, there is in this young man's conduct a strain of prostitution, which, for its singularity, I cannot but admire. He has discovered a new line in the human character;—he has degraded even the name of Luttrell, and gratified his father's most sanguine expectations.

Duke of Grafton, with every possible disposition to patronize this kind of merit, was contented with pronouncing Colonel