198 Calne. 
architecture, especially on our Cathedrals, that have yet ever been 
published. The account which Britton gives in his autobiography 
of the extreme awe and trembling with which he approached the 
great man at Bowood, and of his astonishment at the extraordinary 
kindness he met with, is very amusing. Lord Edmond has given 
many anecdotes of the domestic life in those days, to which the 
Earl of Shelburne gladly retired from the political anxieties and 
strife of tongues in London. Among other distinguished visitors 
were Jeremy Bentham, who has written ‘“ Letters from Bowood,” 
Dr. Price, a famous controversialist of the day, and many others. 
At that time the celebrated “ Letters of Junius” were making a 
great sensation in the country. The real author was not and is not 
yet known. Some one of the company at Bowood, fancying that 
the Earl of Shelburne was, from his high position, acquainted with 
the secret, ventured one day at table to put the question to him. 
The Earl answered, “ I know no more about it than the boy standing 
behind my chair.” The boy happened to be a West Indian black— 
a species of domestic very common at that period. So the black 
boy always got the nickname of Junius in the hqusehold afterwards. 
He died and was buried in the churchyard at Calne. Some facetious 
gentlemen there contrived one day to smuggle in to the churchyard 
and place over the grave a stone with the inscription “ Here lies 
Junius,” and some time afterwards, the news about the inscription 
having found its way to London, two gentlemen posted down all 
the way to make enquiries, thinking that at Calne the mystery of 
the authorship of the letters was now to be solved. But the cheat 
was explained to them and the stone removed. 
It is not generally known that Dr. Johnson, of the Dictionary, 
was once at Bowood. This is not mentioned in Boswell’s life of 
him: and perhaps purposely omitted, because it does not tell much 
in favour of the Doctor’s good manners: a want of attention to 
which was one of the failings of one of the most remarkable men 
that England ever produced. The story is given in another col- 
lection of “ Johnsoniana.” It is this:—‘ Dr. Johnson, having had 
a general invitation from Lord Shelburne to see Bowood his 
Lordship’s seat in Wiltshire, he accordingly made him a visit in 
