closet and the nation." Thus,
those noble personages had it all to themselves. Again--

"If Grenville was peculiarly exceptionable, another middle person
might have the Treasury. I fancy their middleman to be the same they
had in their thoughts this time twelve-month--Lord Gower. They talked
of the Duke of Northumberland as a proper person for the Treasury, in
case of the Duke of Grafton's going out. The truth is, the Bedfords
will never act any part, either fair or amiable, with your lordship or
your friends, until they see you in a situation to give the law to
them." No doubt all this was perfectly true; the whole was selfish,
supercilious, and exclusive; one red riband matched against another,
one garter balanced against a rival fragment of blue; the whole a
court-ball, in which the nation had no more share than if it had been
danced in the saloon of Windsor; a masquerade in which the political
minuet was gravely danced by the peerage in character, and of which
the nation heard scarcely even the fiddles. But those times have
passed away, and, for the honour of common sense, they have passed
never to return.

The long contested authorship of "Junius's Letters" makes the subject
of a brief portion of his correspondence. A letter from Charles
Townshend, brother of Lord Sidney, says--"I met Fitzherbert last
night, and talked to him on the subject of our late conversation. I
told him that I had heard that he had asserted that you were the
author of 'Junius's Letters,' for which I was very sorry, because, if
it reached your ears, it would give you a great deal of concern. He
assured me, that he had only said that the ministry now looked upon
you as the author, but that he had constantly contradicted the report
whenever it was mentioned in his company, particularly yesterday and
the day before, to persons who affirmed that you were now fixed on as
the writer of those papers. He declared that he was convinced in his
own mind that you were not concerned in the publication, and that he
had said so." This letter was written in 1771. Burke replies to it, in
two days after, in a letter of thanks, unequivocally denying that he
had any share in those letters. "My friends I have satisfied; my
enemies shall never have any direct satisfaction from me. The
ministry, I am told, are convinced of my having written Junius, on the
authority of a miserable bookseller's preface, in which there are not
three lines of common truth or sense.