Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/262

252 capacity. A better understanding might make him sensible of the wonderful beauty of that system he was endeavouring to corrupt; the danger of the attempt might alarm him; the meanness and intrinsic worthlessness of the object (supposing he could attain it) would fill him with shame, repentance, and disgust. But these are sensations which find no entrance into a barbarous, contracted heart. In some men there is a malignant passion to destroy the works of genius, literature, and freedom. The Vandal and the Monk find equal gratification in it.

like these, my Lord, have a general relation to your grace, and inseparably attend you, in whatever company or situation your character occurs to us. They have no immediate connexion with the following recent fact, which I lay before the public, for the honour of the best of sovereigns, and for the edification of his people.

(whose piety and self denial, one would think, might secure him from such a multitude of worldly necessities,) with an annual revenue of near a million sterling, unfortunately wants money. The navy of