laws of humanity? Does he think I am so little acquainted with the first and noblest characteristic of Englishmen? Or how will he reconcile such folly with an understanding so full of artifice as mine? Had he been a father, he would have been but little offended with the severity of the reproach, for his mind would have been filled with the justice of it. He would have seen that I did not insult the feelings of a father, but the father who felt nothing. He would have trusted to the evidence of his own paternal heart, and boldly denied the possibility of the fact, instead of defending it. Against whom then will his honest indignation be directed, when I assure him, that this whole town beheld the Duke of Bedford's conduct, upon the death of his son, with horror and astonishment. Sir William Draper does himself but little honour in opposing the general sense of his country. The people are seldom wrong in their opinions,—in their sentiments they are never mistaken. There may be a vanity perhaps in a singular way of thinking;—but, when a man professes a want of those feelings, which do honour to the multitude, he hazards something infinitely more important than the character of his understanding.
