After an able exposure of the temerity of Dr. Mason Good, the editor of the edition of Junius which contains the Miscellaneous Letters, the writer in the Athenæum justly and indignantly remarks,

"We hope, therefore, never again to hear the character of Junius traduced and calumniated on the strength of the letters which Good has been pleased to attribute to him. These have been added for the most part, as we have shown, without authority, and without probability-and sometimes in direct defiance of facts; and they have left us a Junius who is a moral monster, by whom we can prove anything."

The character of Junius having been thus restored, and the field of controversy cleared of the gigantic stumbling-blocks which covered it, we shall now proceed to inquire into the claims of three competitors who have very recently been recommended to public favor, namely, Sir Philip Francis, Lord George Sackville, and Colonel Lachlan Macleane.

66

There is perhaps no portion of literary history more extraordinary than that which relates to the identification of Sir Philip Francis and Junius. The work in which the attempt is made, entitled Junius Identified," is one of the most singular examples of ingenious and inconclusive reasoning which we have ever had occasion to examine. Circumstances the most trivial, and points of resemblance the most general, twisted into many different shapes, and presented under many different aspects, have been accumulated into a mass of evidence which, after deceiving the world by its bulk, has broken down under its own weight and incoherence. In order to bring the question clearly before the minds of our readers, we shall state in distinct propositions the grounds on which we consider it demonstrable that Sir Philip Francis was not Junius.

1. Sir Philip Francis has given two distinct denials of the charge of his having written Junius. To Sir Richard Phillips he denounces it in 1813, as a silly and malignant falsehood. He denied it to his biographer on the 23d December, 1817, a year only before his death, and he has left among his papers no document connected with the subject. 2. Sir Philip Francis had neither the experience, nor the talents, nor the knowledge, nor the wit, that were requisite for the production of Junius. He was only twentyseven or twenty-eight years of age when Junius' first letter was published, whereas Junius speaks of his long experience of the world, and every page of his writings displays that

knowledge of character, and that practical wisdom which could only be obtained from an extensive intercourse with various classes of society. Sir Philip Francis had never even received a University education, and he had never exhibited any taste or turn for composition before he entered the War Of fice. With regard to his wit, his published writings prove that he was destitute of that faculty; and the writer of this article possesses a letter from the late Lord Chief-Commissioner, Sir William Adam, who was intimately acquainted with Francis, and was in constant intercourse with him, not only in society but in business of all kinds-in which he states that Sir Philip had neither wit nor humor; and that there are many coarse passages in Junius which he was too fastidious and sensitive to have written.

3. Sir Philip did not occupy the position necessary for obtaining the information which Junius had at his command, or possess the wealth which he had at his disposal. He was not connected with Lord Shelburne or his friends, and he was only an inferior clerk in the War Office, with an income of scarcely £450 a year. Junius describes himself as a man of fortune, ready to indemnify Woodfall against any pecuniary loss.

4. Sir Philip occupied his position in the War Office during the whole period that Junius' Letters were writing-from 1763 till the 23d March, 1772, when he resigned his situation.

5. To suppose that a clerk holding office under Government should have labored systematically for four years to villify and overturn the Government by which he was fed, is a supposition too monstrous to be for a moment admitted.

6. Mr. Welbore Ellis (Lord Mendip) was the early patron and friend of Francis-Lord Barrington was the Secretary at War under whom he served, and to whom he was indebted for the splendid appointment which was given him in India; and, yet Junius launched against both these noblemen the fiercest and most galling abuse."* Sir William Adam informed the writer of this article that he constantly met with Francis at the Duke of Bedford's table, and that he never could believe that any person who had so maligned that nobleman's characterf

* Mr. Calcraft, whom Junius abuses, left Francis a thousand pounds.

Letters to the Duke, "as a most inhuman letter, Sir William Draper characterizes one of the which he had read with astonishment and horror."Lett. xxvi.

7. If the Letter to a Brigadier-General was written by Junius, Sir Philip Francis could not be Junius, because he was not at Quebec, and was only nineteen or twenty years of age when it was composed.

8. No reason can be assigned why Sir Philip Francis should have exhibited such bitterness and malignity against Scotland and the Scotch. He never was in Scotland. He never had any occasion, in his official position, to come into collision with any of our countrymen; and those who identify him with Junius have not been able to assign a single reason, or to refer to a single fact in his life, either public or private, which could afford the slightest explanation of so remarkable a feature in the character of Junius.

9. It has been universally believed that Junius was in the army, and had held some official military appointment in actual service. Sir Philip Francis never was in the army, and never held any such position. Lucius* indeed says, "I am not a soldier," and supports his opinions on certain military matters, by stating what "he had heard from military men ;" but Lucius has been found not to be Junius. In the correspondence with Sir William Draper, Junius exhibits an extensive and accurate knowledge of the state of the army, and denounces its mismanagement. Sir William broadly insinuates that Junius was acquainted with Lord Shelburne, and refers him to that nobleman for the truth of one of his statements. Could Sir William have believed, can any person believe, without legal evidence, that an inferior clerk in the War Of fice, who took an official part in all military arrangements, was the author of statements affecting the character of the Commanderin-Chief, the Secretary at War his own superior, and the members of the Government which he served?

or

10. The speeches and writings of Sir Philip Francis, all composed and published since the Letters of Junius appeared, display neither the talent nor the wit, nor the peculiar style of Junius. Butler, in his Reminiscences, after a careful comparison of the writings of both, declares "that all internal evidence is against Sir Philip;" and Dr. Parr, a competent judge, has pronounced the same decision in still more elaborate expressions. "Sir Philip Francis," says he, "was too proud to tell a lie, and he disclaimed the work, (the Letters of Junius.) He was

* Miscellaneous Letters, vol. iii. p. 154.

conscious of deserving. He was too intrepid to shrink when danger had nearly passed by. He was too irascible to keep the secret, by the publication of which he at this time of day could injure no party with which he was connected, nor any individual for whom he cared. Besides, we have many books of his writing upon many subjects, and all of them stamped with the same character of mind. Their general lexis (as we say in Greek) has no resemblance to the lexis of Junius; and the resemblance in particulars can have far less weight than the resemblance of which there is no vestige. Francis uniformly writes English. There is Gallicism in Junius. Francis is furious, but not malevolent. Francis is never cool, and Junius is seldom ardent." To these excellent observations we may add the following remarks of Mr. Butler, on the parallel passages from Junius and Francis:-"If these passages show that Sir Philip was no mean writer, they also prove that he was not Junius. To bring the question to a direct issue-Are the glow and loftiness discernible in every page of Junius once visible in any of these extracts? Where do we find in the writings of Sir Philip those thoughts that breathe and words that burn, which Junius scatters in every page? a single drop of the cobra capella which so often falls from Junius?" In one of the parallel passages quoted in the Edinburgh Review, and in which Sir Philip's attack upon Lord Thurlow is compared with Junius' attack upon Lord Mansfield, the inferiority of Sir Philip is so great in the estimation of Mr. Butler, and, we believe, of every competent critic, "as to render it impossible that he should have been the author of Junius' Letters." But independent of these views, the similarity of diction or of sentiment, which some have found in the writings of Junius and of Francis, wherever it may occur, is the similarity of imitation. Every polemical writer, whether in polities or in religion, has during the last eighty years been, to a greater or a less extent, an imitator of Junius. His thoughts, his metaphors, and even his words, have been stolen, and like Sir Philip Francis, many of our most noted orators and politicians have not scrupled to draw an arrow, poisoned though it may have been, from the ample quiver of the great intellectual gladiator.

11. The appointment of Sir Philip Francis to the situation of a Judge in India just about the time when Junius ceased to write,

has been regarded as a strong argument in favor of his being Junius. We are willing to give it all the force which it would have had if there had been any other grounds for the same opinion, for we are convinced that Junius ceased to write in consequence of an arrangement with the Government. But the appointment of Francis requires no such explanation. Had Lord Barrington or the Government known or even believed that Francis was Junius, dismissal from his place in the War Office would have been the smallest portion of his punishment. But Francis had served nine years in the War Office, and had distinguished himself by his talents and habits of business, and it was by no means strange that at the age of thirtythree he should have received that appointment. The late Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, informed Mr. Butler," that Sir Philip Francis owed the continuance of his seat in the War Office to the kindness of Lord Barrington, the prelate's brother, and that Sir Philip's appointment in India was chiefly if not wholly owing to his Lordship's recommendation of him to Lord North."* Had Francis been an enemy of the Government, his appointment might have required some such explanation as that which has been given of it. He who receives an office from his political opponents, and especially from those whom he has systematically abused, must have surrendered something in exchange for the generosity of the gift.f

* Reminiscences, p. 97, note.

The following remarks by Mr. Barker, express so fullyour views on the general improbability of Sir Philip Francis being Junius, that we cannot withhold them from our readers:

"If the author of Junius should prove to be Sir Philip Francis, it will certainly stand out as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable occurrences ever known, that he, a mere clerk in the War Office, should have commenced his literary career by a series of papers perfect in their style of composition; and his political career by professing those high public principles which belong only to the tongues or the pens of men who have been for a series of years running their course of usefulness and of fame; and that he should have denounced the conduct of the ministry in the severest terms, with the apparent style of an experienced rhetorician, the exact knowledge of an able statesman, the lofty tone of an independent spirit, and a Demosthenic vehemence of diction unparalleled in the history of human eloquence.

"If Sir Philip Francis did, in such circumstances, write the Letters of Junius, then the history of the world itself has exhibited no similar or second instance of this sort; the phenomenon cannot be explained by all the philosophy of the human mind, and nothing is too little or too great for human cre

Although we have thus resisted the claims of Sir Philip Francis, and given him a lower niche than Junius in the Temple of Fame, we cannot concur in any attempt to depreciate his talents, or degrade his name. In the History of Junius and his Works" by Mr. Jaques, the latest work on this exciting controversy, such an attempt has been made. Perplexed with the antagonism of the "internal evidence against Sir Philip," and the fancied "external evidence in his favor," Mr. Butler reduces to zero the pretensions of the distracted knight, and transfers the honor of Junius to Lord George Sackville. Anxious, however, to reconcile the two classes of evidence which he considers as neutralizing each other, he places both hypotheses at right angles to each other, as in the parallelogram of forces, and conducts his reader into a third or diagonal hypothesis, in which he expects him complacently to rest. He restores, as he expresses it, to each hypothesis its individual activity, by supposing that Sir Philip was not Junius, but THE AMANUENSIS of Junius-that the real Junius was too high to be bought, so that

when he made his terms with Government he was contented to remain in a proud obscurity, but stipulated a boon for his scribe; and was of consequence enough to insist that the boon should be liberal!! Mr. Jaques accepts of this hypothesis as the solution of the longagitated problem, and summarily removes every remaining difficulty by the following oracular decision:-"It may probably be objected that no personal intercourse has been traced between Lord George and Mr. Francis -the answer to this is, that it was essential to the preservation of the secret that they should keep aloof, and appear strangers to each other. It is evident that Mr. D'Oyley was THE CONNECTING LINK between the man

of high rank, mature age, and independent fortune, having a personal hatred against the King and his Ministers, whose hand-writing is found to bear a strong resemblance to some of the short private notes written by Junius to Woodfall, AND the clever young inferior clerk who was intrusted with the slavery of writing' or copying for the press the longer and more elaborate letters."*

ignominious fall from Junius to a copying. Had Sir Philip Francis lived to witness his clerk,-from the "mighty boar of the forest" to the most harmless of the quadrupeds,-he would not have expressed his indifference, as

dulity."-BARKER's Five Letters on the Author of Junius, p. 6.

Jaques' History of Junius and his Works, p. 382.

he did, to the "silliness and malignity of the falsehood." He might have laughed at the insult by a parody upon Johnson's example of the anti-climax :

"Sir Philip Francis the great god of war, And Clerk assistant to the Earl of Mar."

It is unfortunate for great men to have such commentators as Mr. Jaques, and unfortunate for truth that a grand question of literary criticism should be submitted to a species of logic by which anything may be proved. There are many reasons, argues the logician, for believing that Sir Philip Francis was Junius, and there are more for believing that Lord George Sackville was the man; ergo, Junius was written by their joint labors-by the mind of the one and the pen of the other. Why not take in a third or a fourth writer into the firm? Colonel Barré or Macleane could be made useful by supplying the materials for the Letter to a Brigadier-General, Junius' earliest production. It is of no importance that Barré, and Macleane, and Sackville, and Francis, were not known to be acquaintances, for it is essential that they should keep aloof and appear strangers to each other!" It is of still less importance that Lord George is in that letter taken to task for his cowardice at Minden, because in one of the Miscellaneous Letters of Junius, his prototype candidly confesses "that he loves to be stationed in the rear!"

As the claims of Lord George Sackville have been again so pertinaciously pressed upon the attention of the public, it will be necessary to examine briefly the grounds upon which they rest. Lord George Sackville, the third son of the first Duke of Dorset, was born in June, 1716, and had reached the age of fifty-three when Junius began his Letters. Prior to this epoch he was made LieutenantGeneral of the Ordnance, Lieutenant-General of His Majesty's Forces, and a member of the Privy Council. At the battle of Minden, which was fought on the 1st August, 1759, Lord George commanded the cavalry. During the heat of the action, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Ligonier, to order Lord George to bring up the cavalry. This order had scarcely been received when Colonel Fitzroy came up with a modified order, that Lord George should march with only the British cavalry, and to the left. Lord George received the order with some confusion, and replied "This cannot be so; would he have me break the line?" Fitzroy, (to use Horace Walpole's

words,) young, brave, and impetuous, urged the command. Lord George desired that he would not be in a hurry. "I am out of breath with galloping," said Fitzroy," which makes me speak quick; but my orders are positive; the French are in disorder; there is a glorious opportunity for the English to distinguish themselves." Lord George still hesitated, saying, "it was impossible the Prince could mean to break the line." Fitzroy stuck to the Prince's order. Lord George asked which way the cavalry were to march, and who was to be their guide? "I," said Fitzroy, bravely. Lord George, pretending the different orders puzzled him, desired to be conducted to the Prince for explanation; in the meantime he despatched Smith, his favorite, with orders to lead on the British cavalry, from which he pleaded no delay could happen. Smith whispered to Lord George, to convince him of the necessity of obeying. Lord George persisted in being carried to the Prince, who, at Fitzroy's report, was much astonished. Even when Lord George did march, he twice sent orders to halt to Lord Granby, (second in command,) who was posting on with less attention to the rules of a march, but with more ardor for engaging. Before they arrived the battle was gained.*

In the beginning of September, 1759, Lord Barrington notified to Lord George Sackville that his Majesty had no further occasion for his services as Lieutenant-General and Colonel of Dragoon Guards. Lord George demanded a court-martial, but as the witnesses were engaged on foreign service, it was not held till the 7th March, 1760, on the return of the English troops from Germany. The proceedings closed on the 3d April, 1760, when the Court pronounced the following sentence:-"This Court is of opinion that Lord George Sackville is GUILTY of having disobeyed the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, whom he was by his commission and instructions directed to obey as Commander-in-Chief, according to the rules of war. And it is the further opinion of this Court, that the said Lord George Sackville is, and he is hereby ADJUDGED, unfit to serve his Majesty in any military capacity whatever." His Majesty confirmed the sentence, struck Lord George's name out of the council-book, and forbade his appearance at Court.

We have referred thus fully to this unfortunate event in Lord George Sackville's life,

* Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George II., vol. iii., p. 194. 2d Edition. 1846.

because upon it, and upon it alone, has been founded the hypothesis of his being Junius. Regarding his dismissal from the army as an act of the witnesses at his trial, and his prohibition to attend the Court as a personal act of the King, (George II.,) Lord George Sackville is supposed to have cherished the deadliest hatred against every individual who had contributed to his degradation, and to have assumed the mask of Junius in order to expose them to the world. The Marquis of Granby is assailed because he was a witness, and the Duke of Grafton because he was the brother of Colonel Fitzroy; and the reason assigned for the attack upon Lord Mansfield is, that his Lordship had erroneously assured Lord George, previous to his trial, that he could not be convicted; while Lord George's hatred and abuse of the Scotch is ascribed to the fact that there were ten Scotch officers on the court-martial that condemned him! Such are the motives which are supposed to have impelled an English nobleman to assail the Sovereign, the Government, and the Judges of his country, and thus, under the pretence of being a patriot, to hazard his property, his liberty, and even his life, in the gratification of a personal animosity. But admitting that any honorable mind could surrender itself to so ignoble a course, let us see how it was pursued by the mortified and dishonored soldier. That the volcano of his fury should have broken forth under the sting of his degradation might have been expected; that it would have scattered its ashes indiscriminately around till its fires were spent and its missiles exhausted, might be readily admitted; but that it should smoulder for nearly ten years, and then eject a Junius from its crater, is too ridiculous to be believed. And how did this avenging Junius launch his first thunderbolt against the supposed enemies of Lord George Sackville? In January, 1768, he addresses to Lord Chatham a letter, ( Private and Secret, to be opened by Lord Chatham only,) giving him information respecting the insincerity and ingratitude of his associates in the Cabinet-a letter that could neither gratify malignity nor satiate revenge. The same Junius, charged with such puny impulses, remains quiet for more than a year; and on the 21st January, 1769, he commences his genuine letters with an argumentative examination of the financial and military condition of the country.

But it is stated that Lord George did, previous to the appearance of Junius, wreak his vengeance against his enemies in writings

both with his name and anonymously; and we may therefore suppose that he had thus exacted a sufficient penalty from his enemies, without making a more severe demand upon them in the person of Junius. On the accession of George III., in 1760, Lord George appeared at Court with the sanction of the Earl of Bute; and though a party prevented a repetition of this informality, yet so little ground had he for hostility against the King, that he was made a member of the Privy Council in 1765, and in the same year appointed one of the Vice-treasurers of Ireland. It is true that, for reasons not known, he resigned this office in the following year, when the Duke of Grafton came into power; but this was a mere loss of place, and not an injury sufficient to justify the assaults of Junius against the Government, and against a King who, instead of having injured him, had, under peculiar circumstances, placed him among the number of his Privy Councillors.

Let us now consider the position and conduct of Lord George Sackville during the time of Junius. Lord George, like several of the leading politicians of the day, held many of the opinions of Junius; but it is impossible, for one moment, to believe that he could have written the violent attacks upon George III., and upon Lord Mansfield, against whom he had no ground of offence. In supporting Sergeant Glynn's motion for a Committee to inquire into the administration of Criminal Justice, which was made in the House of Commons on the 6th December, 1770, Lord George made the following observations, in which he clearly alludes to Junius, and to the famous letter addressed to Lord Mansfield, and published only three weeks before:

"All the records of our Courts of Law," says Lord George, "and all the monuments of our lawyers, are ransacked, in order to find sufficiently odious names by which he may be christened. The libellous and virulent spirit of the times has overleaped all the barriers of law, order, and decorum. The judges are no longer revered, and the laws have lost all their salutary terrors. Juries will not convict petty delinquents, when they suspect grand criminals go unpunished. Hence libels and lampoons, audacious beyond the example of all other times; libels, in comparison of which the North Briton,' once deemed the ne plus ultra of sedition, is perfect innocence and simplicity. The sacred number forty-five, formerly the idol of the multitude, is eclipsed by the superior venom of every day's defamation. All its magical and talismanic powers are lost and absorbed in the general deluge of scandal which pours from the press. When matters are thus