Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/220

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cannot submit to hear without being contemptible. Mr. MacKenzie's history is not yet forgotten; and you may find precedents enough of the mode, in which an imperious subject may signify his pleasure to his sovereign. Where will this gracious Monarch look for assistance, when the wretched Grafton could forget his obligations to his master, and desert him for a hollow alliance with such a man as the Duke of Bedford?

Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the summit of worldly greatness; let us suppose, that all your plans of avarice and ambition are accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes gratified in the fear, as well as the hatred of the people; can age itself forget that you are now in the last act of life? Can grey hairs make folly venerable? and is there no period to be reserved for meditation and retirement? For shame! my Lord: let it not be recorded of you, that the latest moments of your life were dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the same busy agitations, in which your youth and manhood were exhausted. Consider, that, although you cannot disgrace your former life, you are violating the character of age, and exposing