Junius

Nobody can read, without being struck with the propriety of it, that beautiful passage in the 8th letter—"Examine your own breast, Sir William, &c. &c. &c." A parallel passage may however be found in *Bevill Higgons's Short View of English History* (temp. Hen. VI.), a work written before 1700, and not published till thirty-four years afterwards:— "So weak and fallible is that admired maxim, 'Factum valet, quot fieri non debuit,' an excuse first invented to palliate the unfledged villainy of some men, *who are ashamed to be knaves, yet have not the courage to be honest*." I have not quoted the…