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Lord Shelburne and Lord Camden," the two great friends of Junius. When we combine these remarkable disclosures, only recently brought before the public eye, with the cardinal facts mentioned by the Marquis of Lansdowne, almost at his dying hour, that he knew Junius,-that he knew all about the writing and production of his Letters,― that he had not yet been named,—and that there was no longer any reason for conceal

be Junius, got the necessary information, he stated that he got it through his friend Macleane, who then moved in the first circles. But we have now much clearer evidence of the means which were employed to obtain this information. Jeremy Bentham informs us that Lord Shelburne told him that he knew "all that passed" at Court, through of the two Ladies Waldegrave, the daughters the Duchess of Gloucester, who lived at Court as "Ladies of Honor, or some suching his name,- -we can scarcely refuse our thing," and that "they used to write to the Miss V's, who were inmates of Lord Shelburne's family, and report what passed at Court." Bentham himself experienced the effect of the influence of Lord Shelburne. He had written in the Public Advertiser for 1789, some letters signed Anti-Machiavel. On the day, or the day after the publication of one of these letters, he called at Lansdowne House, where the following incident occurred:

assent to the opinion, that either Barré or Macleane was Junius. We have already seen that Macleane was the friend, the countryman, and the fellow collegian of Burke; and that "it is an undoubted fact," according to Prior, "that Burke himself indirectly acknowledged to Sir Joshua Reynolds that he knew the writer of Junius.” We know also that Mrs. Burke, Sir Joshua, and Mr. Malone, all believed that Burke polished the compositions of Junius for the public eye; and if we put any faith in these statements, it will be difficult to find any other friend than Macleane for whom Burke could have performed this act of kindness. It is demonstrable from Junius' answer to Junia, written by Caleb Whiteford, that he had coadjutors by whom he was often unwillingly influenced, and it is therefore the less improbable that these coadjutors may have occasionally given him some assistance.

"You are found out,' cried Lord Lansdowne, laying hold of me; Lady L. it was that detected you,' and he told me by what mark. He was in a perfect ecstasy. Never shall I forget the rapidity with which we vibrated arm in arm talking over the matter, in the great dining-room. A day or two after there came out in the same paper an answer, under the signature of 'A Partisan.’ So,' says he, here's an antagonist you have got Do you know who he is?' 'Not I, indeed.' 'Well, I will tell you, it is THE KING.' That he had means of knowing this was no secret to me. For The connection of Wilkes with Junius is a considerable length of time, a regular journal well known. They were at one time apof what passed at the Queen's House had been re-parently friends, and at another enemies. ceived by him; he had mentioned to me the persons In taking Wilkes' part against the King and from whom it came. The answer was, of course, a trumpery one. the Ministry, Junius says, "I know that man The communication produced on me the sort of effect that could not but have much better than any of you ;* that Nature been intended. JUNIUS had set the writings of the intended him for a good-humored fool, but day to the tune of asperity. I fell upon THE BEST that a systematical education, with long OF KINGS with redoubled vehemence."* practice, had made him a consummate hypocrite." And yet in a month or two we find him writing letters to Wilkes as a political friend, and assisting and advising him in his proceedings. Now this was precisely the relative situation of Macleane and Wilkes. Macleane had not only been his political coadjutor, but had lent him money. Wilkes, however, seems to have taken offence at his conduct, and to have been a party to an at

Not satisfied with these means of information, Lord Shelburne had still more active agents. Bentham tells us that Captain Blankett and Mr. Jekyll were necessary in struments to Lord Shelburne, and that it was their business to watch in the quarters of the enemy. "His Lordship," continues Bentham, "did not care much about Hastings; but knowing the part the King took, and hav-tack upon Macleane in the Public Advertiser ing all the King's conversations repeated to him, he professed to take Hastings' part." And when the conversation turned upon Lord Mansfield, Bentham learned "that he was the object of undisguised antipathy to

says Prior, "accompanied from Paris by Mr. Laugh* After Wilkes had been in exile, " he appeared," lin Macleane, an old acquaintance of Mr. Burke, privately in London, early in May, 1766, and was determined, as he said, either to make his fortune from the fear of the Government, or to annoy it.”

* Dr. Bowring's Life of Jeremy Bentham, p. 112; Life of Burke, vol. i. p. 152. see also p. 116.

Letter LII., 24th July, 1771.

*

in January, 1771. Having obtained what he thought evidence that Wilkes was the author of this attack, Macleane sent him a challenge through Major Macleane on the 29th January. Wilkes refused to accept it, -denied that he was the author of the offensive letter, and thus compelled Macleane to publish the correspondence in the Public Advertiser. It is a curious fact, and one of some value in the Junius controversy, that in this attack of Wilkes upon Macleane, Wilkes himself "is injuriously treated," a circumstance which Wilkes pleads as a proof that he did not write the letter. To this Macleane replies that "there is not a syllable of what Mr. Wilkes calls injurious to him' which does not point to the source from which the letter sprang. His favorite foibles alone are touched upon, and with a very gentle hand. But is it not the stale trick of all assassins when they stab in the dark to give themselves a slight wound that they may escape suspicion ?"t

About this time a remarkable change seems to have taken place in the views and position of Junius, and an analogous change took place in the views and position of Macleane. Lady Shelburne died on the 5th January, 1771, and soon afterwards Lord Shelburne left England for the Continent. If Macleane had hitherto been private secretary to his Lordship, he must now have been thrown out of employment, but whether this was the case or not he seems at this time to have shown a disposition to favor the Ministry. He is said to have written early in 1771 a pamphlet in "Defence of the Ministry on the subject of the Falkland Islands," and thus to have gained the patronage of Lord North. On the 8th May, 1771, he resigned his seat for Arundel by accepting the Chiltern Hundreds. In the same month Lord North appointed him superintendent of Lazarettos, with a salary of £1000 per annum, and two pounds per day

After Junius' friendly correspondence with Wilkes from August to November, 1771, two of his letters relating to the Bill of Rights Society were misrepresented to the public. He suspected Wilkes to have done this, and desired Woodfall to tell him "that he will not submit to be any longer aspersed," and adds, "between ourselves let me recommend it to you to be much upon your guard with Patriots."

The writer of this article owes the knowledge of these curious letters to the kindness of N. W. Simons, Esq, of the British Museum.

There is not a copy of this pamphlet in the British Museum, nor any other library, public or private, where we have made inquiry after it, and our inquiries have been very extensive.

of travelling expenses. In January, 1772, he received the appointment of Collector of Philadelphia, and, what is curious, his absence from England agrees with the interval in the correspondence between Junius and Woodfall—an interval which continued from May 10, 1772, to January 19, 1773. Macleane, too, returned in 1773, to receive a new and lucrative appointment from the Government; and Junius reappeared from his occultation of eight months, not to expostulate with the Ministry, or fulfil his patriotic pledge to the English nation, but to disappear like a meteor from the political horizon, and be seen and heard of no more! Even after Macleane received his appointment to the Collectorship Junius wrote no more under his real signature, and in his private note, dated January 19, 1777, he took a final leave of Woodfall in the following expressive strains :

66

I have seen the signals thrown out for your have good reason for not complying with them. old friend and correspondent. Be assured that I In the present state of things, if I were to write again, I must be as silly as any of the horned cattle that run mad through the city, or as any of your wise aldermen. I meant the cause and the public. Both are given up. I feel for the honor of this country when I see that there are not ten men in it who will unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all alike, vile and contemptible."

In the month of April, 1773, Macleane was appointed Commissary-General of Musters, and Auditor-General of Military Accounts, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in India, an appointment worth about £5000 a-year,* and one which "was thought to be the reward of some greater service than the defence of the Ministry on the affair of the Falkland Islands." He went out to India in the same ship with Sir Philip Francis,discharged with consummate talent and success the important duties which were intrusted to him by the company; and resigned his office early in 1775.Before he left India, he received from Mr. Hastings, the Governor-General, authority to act as his confidential and political agent; and, having

* In a letter now before us, to Mr. Macpherson from Colonel Dow, who succeeded Colonel Macleane in these offices, he states that the new Members of Council had proposed to restrict Macleane from continuing to draw 25 per cent. on certain military stores with which he supplied the army, which Colonel Dow calculates as worth 50,000 rupees per annum. Macleane's annual income, therefore, must have greatly exceeded £5000.

stopped at Madras, he was intrusted with a similar agency by the Nabob of Arcot. After his arrival in England in the winter of 1775, he and Mr. Macpherson devoted their time to the affairs of the Nabob of Arcot and Mr. Hastings, and discharged these duties with an energy and zeal which were deeply appreciated by their employers. Mr. Gleig, the biographer of Hastings, expresses his satisfaction that it has "fallen to his lot to bear testimony to the noble exertions and disinterested friendship of Lieutenant-Colonel Macleane;" and in the same work our readers will find explained, "the true nature of that series of transactions which led first to the tender by Colonel Macleane of Mr. Hastings' resignation, and subsequently to the refusal of Mr. Hastings to acknowledge the authority under which such tender was made." They will find also in the admirable letters of Macleane, which Mr. Gleig has given in full, a satisfactory explanation of his conduct, and ample evidence that he had all the knowledge and talents which were necessary for the compositions of Junius.

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formed the writer of this article, that application had been made to him to give a title to some of these properties, but that he uniformly declined to do this, from a conviction that the estate was insolvent, and hence a considerable West India estate became the property of its steward.

Such was the melancholy termination of a life singularly eventful, associated with the early history of Goldsmith, the death of Wolfe, and the destinies of Warren Hastings; and now closely related to the mysterious history of Junius. It is with some diffidence that we have ventured to point out this relation, but accident placed in our hands documents of some weight, and we have felt it a duty to use them in contributing to gratify, so far as we can, a laudable curiosity. The preceding details are sufficient of themselves to place Macleane on as high a level as any of the competitors for the laurels of Junius. We humbly think, without insisting on others holding the same opinion, that he stands preeminent above them all, and in order to substantiate this conviction, we shall endeavor to remove some objections which have been urged against our views, and to illustrate some facts which may contribute to their support.

We

The interests of his friends rendered it necessary that Macleane should again visit India, and return with the greatest despatch to England. He accordingly set out in July, 1777, and proceeding through France to 1. One of the objections against the precedMarseilles, he embarked in a ship for Alex-ing theory is founded upon the second letter andria, and crossing the Desert to Suez, then of eighteen lines, signed Vindex, in which no easy matter, he embarked on board the Macleane's pamphlet on the Falkland Islands Sea-horse, Capt. Parker, for Madras, where is referred to in such terms* as it is supposed he arrived in about two months and ten days. Macleane himself could not have used. After remaining only a few days at Madras deny that there is any proof that this letter to transact business with the Nabob of Ar- was written by Junius. It has no resemcot, he embarked in a packet for the Cape blance to his style, and is utterly unworthy of Good Hope, to which he had a speedy of him. What motive could Junius have, if passage. Before he left the Cape, he wrote he was not Macleane, to correct a trivial error a letter to a friend in India, saying that he and accompany it with an ungenerous sneer was about to embark for England, "in a at Macleane's impediment of speech? But if crazy vessel, commanded by a crazy captain." Macleane and Vindex were Junius, the letter This vessel was the "Swallow packet, in question was an excellent method of miswhich foundered at sea, and Macleane and leading his enemies, and one particularly all on board perished. He left a will, by appropriate when both Macleane and Junius which he bequeathed a variety of "profuse" were beginning to desert "the cause and the legacies, without any available funds to pay public." Macleane, as we have just seen, them. He had purchased four estates in charges Wilkes with the very same trick only Grenada, for which he paid £200,000; * five weeks before the date of Vindex's letter; but strange to say his heirs declined to ad- and Macleane himself, if Vindex, gave himself minister to his will. His son-in-law, the late a slight wound to escape conviction.† Colonel Wilkes, governor of St. Helena, in

* We have before us a list of these estates with their prices, and a memorandum stating that "in all these estates, Mrs. Macleane has a clear right of dower." This paper is docqueted by Mr. Macpherson as one "relative to Mrs. Macleane," with the date January, 1781.

"Pray tell that ingenious gentleman, Laughlin Macleane, &c.," (correcting a trifling mistake about the king of Spain's titles,)" In spite of Mr. Laughlin's disinterested, unbroken, melodious eloquence, it is a melancholy truth," &c., Letter xc., March 6, 1717 -Woodfall's Junius, vol. iii. p. 343.

See page 183. The writer in the Athenæum,

2. If we suppose that Junius was Vindex, and therefore acquainted with Macleane's defence of the Ministry, is it not inexplicable that he should have omitted an opportunity of denouncing his conduct with all the bitterness and eloquence which he generally brings to such a task?

3. It was the opinion of several of Macleane's personal friends in Scotland, while the Letters of Junius were publishing, that they were written by Macleane.

4. Sir William Adam, the personal friend of Macleane and Francis, stated in writing to the author of this article, that in his opinion the former possessed the wit and talents necessary for the production of Junins.

of any of the individuals with whom he was identified.*

In studying the history and character of Junius there are important lessons, moral and social,to be learnt. We have said that Junius was a patriot and moralist, and we have no doubt that many of our readers were startled by the statement. We spoke of him as the invisible organ of a party-wielding its weapons, struggling on its ramparts, or cheering on its forlorn-hope. His patriotism, therefore, becomes that of his party, and his morality that of his associates. If he has been the advocate of great truths, we must extend to him our gratitude, whatever may have been his motives. If he denounced political corruption without being himself corrupt, and exposed the vices of his opponents without being himself vicious, we must hail him as a moralist, unless we find him careless about his facts or cognizant of their falsehood. In order to form a right estimate of the character of a party writer, we must peruse the writings of the party to which he is opposed. His per6. Junius' answer to Junia is a very remark-sonalities may have been called forth by theirs; able production, and one which we could prove, were it expedient, to be more likely to issue from the pen of Macleane than from that of any of the other claimants.

5. The Rev. Mr. Parish informed the writer of this article that his father, who was chaplain to Lord Townshend, when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, had heard Lord Townshend express his belief that Macleane was Junius; and he saw at Dublin Castle a print called the Tripartite Junius, in which Macleane was represented with two other individuals as his co-adjutors.

7. As Macleane was a physician, we might expect metaphors and expressions connected with the medical profession. Expressions of this kind are extremely common, (about forty in number,) and some of them, such as "the caput mortuum of vitriol," could scarcely have come from the pen of a writer who had not been familiar with medicine or chemistry. It is a curious fact that a writer on this subject actually infers from some of these expressions that Junius must have been a chemist.

8. The late Mr. Woodfall, and others, have remarked a similarity between the hand-writing of Macleane and Junius, and there are resemblances also in the spelling of particular words, and also in particular modes of expression. We place little value on any argument derived from the hand-writing of Junius. It is evident that Junius must have either used a feigned hand or the hand of an amanuensis, or a friend. Had Junius written his Letters in his usual hand, his detection would have been instantaneous. There is certainly no resemblance of any importance between the hand-writing of Junius and that

already referred to, has wisely stated that Junius must often be judged by contrarieties, of which this is a fair example.

their ferocity may justify his; and in his exposures even of private failings we may discover but a faint reflection of the conduct of his adversaries. In the times of Junius the personalities and calumnies of the supporters of the Ministry, purchased by the Government and paid for by the nation, were such as to justify the utmost severity of retaliation.

But though the character of Junius, while he himself remains in the shade, may be pure and noble, it may assume a different aspect when he is identified. Were Lord Chatham, or Lord Sackville, or Burke, or Sir Philip Francis, to stand forth as Junius, his morality would disappear, and his patriotism sink into disaffection and disloyalty; and were either Barré or Macleane to be honored with his laurels, we must brand them as traitors to the cause which they advocated, and as men who bartered their obligations to the community for a mess of pottage.

It is always instructive, and now more than ever, to beware of Patriots, to scrutinize the pretensions of popular leaders, and to estimate the value of their labors. Junius was a very

* Mr. Britton has stated in his work on Junius, "that George Chalmers, in an appendix to his Supplemental Apology to the believers in the Shakspeare Papers, has examined and confuted Macleane's pretensions to the authorship of the Mystic Letters," pp. 37, 38, note. This assertion is an entire mistake, as Mr. Britton himself admits. Mr. Chalmers has not even mentioned Macleane's claims in the work referred to, or in any other work.

moderate reformer, liberal in his political | views, but hostile to innovation. His object was to defend constitutional rights, and not to create them. It was "the unimpaired, hereditary freehold" which he strove to bequeath to posterity. It was the "liberty of the press, the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of Englishmen," and the right of juries to return a general verdict, for which he combated. Had he lived in the present day he would neither have been a Repealer, nor a Confederate, nor a Chartist. He would have hesitated even to extend the suffrage till the people were fit to exercise

it, for he declared that both liberty and property would be precarious till the people had acquired sense and spirit to defend them. Education and religious knowledge must precede the extension of political privileges. No person is entitled to a political right till he has learned how to use it; no man is qualified for a trust till he knows how to fulfil it. The rights of the subject are not the rights of an individual, but the rights of the community; and he who either prostitutes or sells such a birthright, dishonors and robs every member of the community to whom the same inheritance has been bequeathed.

From Tait's Magazine.

BEAUTY.

PART I.

OBLIVION ne'er shall have the hour
When Beauty first for me her bower
Left to reveal her magic power—
Islet of peace in Mem'ry's sea,
Home of my heart, I fly to thee.
Hid in the quiet studious cell,
Fast bound in Learning's mystic spell,
Enough for me was classic page
Of Latin bard or Grecian sage-
Anacreon's song and Sappho's lay,
The sparkling verse of Horace gay,
Mild Maro's tale of rural love,
And Ovid's of the gods above,
Oft sweetly whiled the hours away;
But never taught my heart to play
With secret trembling at the sight
Of Beauty's form ethereal bright.

PART II.

One has chimed from the sacred fanes-
Mysterious silence pensive reigns;
No wakeful sound invades my ear,
No living, breathing things appear;
The lamp grows dim, the lamp expires,
Thought from the dizzy brink retires
Of pending rock, whence, eagle-eyed,
She scann'd Truth's ocean rolling wide.
Musing, I o'er the embers hung,
When sportive Fancy gaily sprung

Forth from her cell. Beauteous she traced

An image like a cherub, graced
With tints of richer, deeper dye

Than owns the rainbow-varied sky;

With wavy tresses, raven bright,

Glist'ning with lustrous hues of light-
Like an arrowy fall's dark tide
When the sunbeams swift o'er it glide-
Calmly they rest, though unconfined,
Over a brow where, throned, a mind
Of heavenly mould displays its state,
Sweet, gentle, kind, yet nobly great;
With dark eyes couched on liquid dew,
Lending the diamond's brilliant hue;
With cheeks like curving wreaths of snow,
Tinged with Aurora's ruddiest glow;
With lips that far excel the rose,
Hiding what Neptune might suppose
Stolen from the treasured Persian main,
Where deep he holds his pearly reign.
Her snowy neck, smooth, polished, shone,
The pillar of an ivory throne;
A smile, bewitchingly displayed,
Brightly o'er her features strayed;
Her glance streamed radiance on my soul,
And bade deep raptures o'er me roll;
A harp, where music coyly slept,
Her alabaster fingers swept;
The parted lip a blended swell
Sent echoing through my silent cell.
Wrapt from this harshly jarring sphere,
Within heaven's gate I seemed to hear
Strains that immortals only know,
Whose hearts are ne'er untuned by woe;
Legions of spirits, swift as light,
In splendor burst upon my sight-
Myriads of harps are now unhung,
Myriads of harps are newly strung,
Myriads of angel-voices sing,
Myriads of echoes gently ring-
A torrent rolls along the skies,

Then, like the warbling streamlet, dies.

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