This is sufficient to show a trait of character which made Junius, as a secret, a success. Without this strong ruling passion there could have been no Junius to spring like a tiger upon king and court. But, if it can be shown in any mental characteristic that Mr. Paine is incompatible with that character which is stamped upon Junius and made him a success, I will surrender the argument. Mr. Paine says, as Horne Tooke had not failed to declare him the author, he then acknowledged it as his own. Had Mr. Tooke been silent, you may well be assured Mr. Paine would never have divulged it to friend or foe of either. Since Mr. Paine above has used the expression, "Jocularly accused of praising his own work," the reader will not fail to remember the same characteristic in Junius, when he says of Philo Junius, and who was also the real Junius himself, that "the subordinate character was never guilty of the indecorum of praising his principal." This again reminds us of Mr. Paine, when speaking of that passage in Numbers: "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were on the face of the earth." Paine bluntly responds: "If Moses said this of himself, instead of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant of coxcombs." * * * * * I now call attention to the fact that Mr. Paine and Junius, when attacking the private character of men, both seem to delight, when the fact would fit, in charging bastardy: _Paine._ "A French _bastard_, landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is, in plain terms, a very paltry rascally original. It certainty hath no divinity in it."--Common Sense. _Junius._ Speaking of the Duke of Grafton's ancestors: "Those of your grace, for instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, even to their _legitimate_ posterity; and you may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my lord, than the register of a marriage," etc.--Let. 12.