Thus, or in any better way they please, With these great men, or with great men like these, Let them their appetite for laughter feed; I on my Journey all alone proceed. If fashionable grown, and fond of pow'r, With hum'rous Scots let them disport their hour: Let them dance, fairy-like, round Ossian's tomb; Let them forge lies, and histories for Hume; Let them with Home, the very prince of verse, Make something like a Tragedy in Erse; Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil Let them with Ogilvie spin out a tale Of rueful length; Let them plain things obscure, Debase what's truly rich, and what is poor Make poorer still by jargon most uncouth; With ev'ry pert, prim prettiness of youth Born of false Taste, with Fancy (like a child Not knowing what it cries for) running wild, With bloated style, by affectation taught, With much false colouring, and little thought, With phrases strange, and dialect decreed By reason never to have pass'd the Tweed, With words which Nature meant each other's foe, Forc'd to compound whether they will or no; With such materials let them, if they will, To prove at once their pleasantry and skill, Build up a bard to war 'gainst Common-Sense, By way of compliment to Providence; Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of Sense, Read musty lectures on Benevolence, Or con the pages of his gaping Day, Where all his former fame was thrown away, Where all but barren labour was forgot, And the vain stiffness of a letter'd Scot; Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light, But not one hour of darkness; when the night Suspends this mortal coil, when Memory wakes, When for our past misdoings Conscience takes A deep revenge, when by Reflection led, She draws his curtain, and looks Comfort dead, Let ev'ry Muse be gone; in vain he turns And tries to pray for sleep; an Etna burns, A more than Etna in his coward breast, And Guilt, with vengeance arm'd, forbids him rest: Tho' soft as plumage from young zephyr's wing, His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring. Ingratitude hath planted daggers there, No good man can deserve, no brave man bear. Thus, or in any better way they please, With these great men, or with great men like these, Let them their appetite for laughter feed I on my Journey all alone proceed. [Footnote 214: See _The School for Lovers_, by Mr. Whitehead, taken from Fontenelle.] [Footnote 215: See _The Cure of Saul_, by Dr. Browne.] JUNIUS. (1769-1770-1771.) XLV. TO THE KING. The following is the famous letter which appeared in the _Public Advertiser_ for December 20th, 1769. This is also the one on which the advocates of the theory that George, Lord Sackville, was the writer of the _Letters of Junius_ lay such stress. _To the Printer of the "Public Advertiser_". December 19, 1769. SIR,