310 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. VII. Apiul 16. '59. 



of tlie sermon, whefher it was, or was not, written 

 by Eusebius. For it is a pliysical impossibility 

 to cut out the whole tongue simply through the 

 natural aperture of the mouth from any person 

 either alive or dead. This is not merely a question 

 of whether the operation would have been fatal to 

 life ; but whether the operation could have been 

 performed at all. In fact, the supposed double 

 miracle of the sermon involved a third miracle, 

 which did not present itself to the mind of the 

 preacher, and which there is no ground for assert- 

 ing; without which, however, the very foundation 

 of the other two miracles is cut away. E. T. 



" JUNIXJS'S LETTEKS : " THEIR AUTHORSUir. 



[We are indebted to the courtes}' of the Editor of Tlie 

 Eastern Province Herald and Port Elizabeth Commercial 

 News for sending us from the Cape a cop}' of that journal 

 of the 4th February last, that we might reprint in " N. & 

 Q." the following communication, the object of which is 

 to show that Macleane was Junius. He will, we are sure, 

 not think us guilty of discourtesj' if we first point out 

 some difficulties in the account here given ; and, secondly, 

 refer him to wliatwe consider conclusive evidence against 

 Maclean^ claim. In the first place, could Mr. Kemp 

 Knott himself have had any knowledge of Junius, inas- 

 much as in the year 1850, the time when he appears to 

 have spoken upon the subject, no less than seventy-eight 

 years had elapsed since the last letter of Junius ap- 

 peared? In the next place, as Woodfall himself did not 

 know who Junius was, is it at all likely that anybody in 

 his employment was acquainted with the fact? 



With regard to Macleane's claim to the authorship, it was 

 put forward with much ingenuity by Sir David Brewster 

 in the North British Review for November, 1848, but we 

 must add, that we think it was most completely dis- 

 proved bj' an article in The Athenceum of the 7th July, 

 1849. No unprejudiced reader can, we think, rise from 

 the perusal of that article without being satisfied that 

 Laughlin Macleane was not the author of the Letters of 

 Junius. — Ed. " N. & Q."] 



(To the Editor of the Eastern Province Herald.') 



Sir, — The authorship of " Junius's Letters" 

 has long been a questio vexata amongst literary 

 men, and one in which the greatest amount of re- 

 search has been employed, but hitherto in vain. 

 Thinking that the subject may not be altogether 

 uninteresting to your readers, the following state- 

 ment may perhaps prove acceptable : — 



Some years ago I became acquainted with the 

 late Mr. Kemp Knott, an Albany farmer. Hav- 

 ing heard that he was in possession of the secret 

 respecting the authorship of these letters, and as 

 I was very intimate with him, I frequently re- 

 quested him to disclose it to me. He told me that 

 he and his father, who was engaged as proof- 

 reader, had been in the employ of Woodfall, and 

 that his (my informant's) father had on his own 

 behalf, as well as that of his son, most solemnly 

 promised never to divulge the name (which, by 

 accident, they had become acquainted with) of 



the author of " Junius's Letters." Subsequently 

 I frequently solicited Mr. Knott to declare who 

 the author of the letters was, urging that no harm 

 could now accrue to any party connected with it. 

 At last, early in the year 1851 — when I again 

 pressed him on the Subject — after expressing his 

 friendship for, and his wish to oblige me, he said 

 he would furnish me with a clue to the authorship, 

 at the same time stating that, of the many writers 

 who had written on the subject, no one had named 

 the real author. He then informed me that the 

 author of " Junius's Letters " having received, 

 subsequent to their publication, an appointment 

 in India, sailed in a King's ship, accompanied by 

 another eminent individual, the author of a cele- 

 brated poem, and that the frigate had never been 

 heard of afterwards. 



A few months after this, on perusing the Illu.<i- 

 trated London News, for 3 1st May, 1851, I read 

 the following extract from "N. & Q.," No. 80, and 

 which extract it was quite impossible Mr. Knott 

 could have seen, as twelve months must have 

 elapsed between the time that he communicated 

 the information, as above related, and the publi- 

 cation of the extract I am about to quote. 



I may here observe that about eight years ago 

 I had intended to make a communication similar 

 to the present ; owing, however, to business and 

 other circumstances, the subject escaped my me- 

 mory. But a short time since, having read in "N. 

 & Q.," for the 15th May, 1858, a letter signed 

 "William James Smith" on " The Candor Pam- 

 phlets, and the Authorship of ' Junius,' " I deter- 

 mined that no farther delay should take place. I 

 now subjoin the extract in question : — 



" The Writer of the Letters of Junius was the secre- 

 tary of the first Marquis of Lansdowne, better known as 

 Lord Shelburne. From his Lordship he obtained all the 

 political information necessary for his compositions. The 

 late Marquis of Lansdowne posses.sed the copy bound ia 

 vellum (two volumes), with many noter, on the margin, 

 in Lord Shelburne's handwriting ; they were kept locked 

 up in a beautiful ebony casket, bound and ornamented 

 with brass. The casket has disappeared, at least so the 

 writer has been told, and not many years ago inquiry 

 was made for it by the present head of that house. Mac- 

 leane was a dark, strong-featured man, who wore his hat 

 slouched over his eyes, and general I3' a large cloak. He 

 often corrected the slips or proofs of his letters at Cox's, a 

 well-known printer near Lincoln's-inn, who deemed him- 

 self bound in honour never to divulge what he knew of 

 that publication, and was agitated when once suddenly 

 spoken to on the subject near the door of the small room 

 in which the proofs were corrected, and with a high and 

 honourable feeling requested never to be again spoken to 

 on the subject. The late President of the Eoyal Academy, 

 Benjamin West, knew Macleane; and his son, the late 

 Raphael West, told the writer of these remarks, that 

 when a young man he had seen him in the evening at his 

 father's in Newman-street, and once heard him repeat a 

 passage in one of the letters which was not then pub- 

 lished. A more correct and veracious man than Mr. R. ; 

 West could not be. Macleane stammered, and was conse- 

 quently of no use to Lord Shelburne as a debater and 



