Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/98

Bold textand tyrants have been successively complimented with almost the same professions of duty and affection. But let us suppose them to mean exactly what they profess. The consequences deserve to be considered. Either the sovereign is a man of high spirit and dangerous ambition, ready to take advantage of the treachery of the parliament, ready to accept of the surrender they make him of the public liberty;—or he is a mild, undesigning prince, who, provided they indulge him with a little state and pageantry, would of himself intend no mischief. On the first supposition, it must soon be decided by the sword, whether the constitution should be lost or preserved. On the second, a prince no way qualified for the execution of a great and hazardous enterprise, and without any determined object in view, may nevertheless be driven into such desperate measures, as may lead directly to his ruin, or disgrace himself by a shameful fluctuation between the extremes of violence at one moment, and timidity at another. The minister perhaps may have reason to be satisfied with the success of the present hour, and with the profits of his employment. He is the tenant of the day, and has no interest in the inheritance. The sovereign himself is