JUNIUS. 



275 



is likewise evident, from his language, that he was 

 a man of rank mul fortune; this appears not only 

 from liis tone and manner, but from his express 

 jivMTiions: " My rank and fortune place me above 

 a common bribe :" and to one of Woodfall's letters 

 concerning the profits arising from the sale of the 

 letters, he replies, " I am far above all pecuniary 

 views." Lord Eklon declared in parliament that, if 

 not a lawyer, he must have written in concert with 

 the ablest lawyers ; but, the great English lawyer 

 Butler asserts that Junius commits gross inaccuracies 

 vn his legal phrases. Several incidental expressions, 

 as well as his general tone, his intimate knowledge of 

 persons and characters, show him to have been a man 

 beyond middle life. He was evidently acquainted not 

 only with the court but with the city (which was less 

 usual in those days) ; with the history, private intrigues, 

 and secret characters of 'the great; with the manage- 

 ment of the public offices, with the proceedings of par- 

 liament (not then, as since, public); and also with the 

 official underlings, through whom he sometimes con- 

 descends to lash their superiors. With this extensive 

 information, he united a boldness, vehemence, and 

 rancour, which, while lie spared no one, stopped at 

 nothing, and rendered him an object of terror to 

 those whom he attacked. To use his own language, 

 " he gathers like a tempest, and all the fury of the 

 elements bursts upon them at once." " In rancour 

 and venom," said Burke in the house of commons, 

 " the North Briton is as much inferior to him as in 

 strength, wit, and judgment. King, lords, and com- 

 mons are but the sport of his fury." Grafton, Bed- 

 ford, Blackstone, and Mansfield seem to be objects 

 of personal resentment. Chatham and Camden are 

 fiercely attacked in some of his earlier letters, though 

 his tone in respect to them was changed in the latter 

 part of his correspondence. His style is severe, 

 concise, epigrammatic, and polished ; his reasoning 

 powerful; his invective unsparing and terrible. 



Public suspicion, at the time, was fixed most 

 strongly on Burke and Sackville; at a more recent 

 period, the opinion that Sir Philip Francis was the 

 author, gained many adherents. Among the many 

 other shadows who have been raised are Charles 

 Lloyd, a clerk of the treasury, and private secretary 

 to Mr Grenville (doctor Parr thought him the author; 

 but he died three days after the last letter appeared) ; 

 Roberts and Dyer, who died before the letters were 

 finished; Hamilton (single speech) ; Butler, bishop 

 of Hereford (whom Wilkes suspected); the reverend 

 Philip Rosenhagen; general Charles Lee, who, in 

 conversation, once gave out that he was the author, 

 and whose pretensions are supported in a work by 

 Girdlestone ; Wilkes; Hugh Macauley ; Boyd, a 

 writer of some talent (see Campbell's Life of Boyd) ; 

 Dunning (lord Ashburton), who was solicitor-general 

 at the. time; Delolme; Glover; Home Tooke, &c. 

 Burke was strongly suspected in his day, but he 

 spontaneously denied it; and, apart from internal 

 considerations drawn from his temper, style and turn 

 of thinking, it is sufficient to observe that, on several 

 points, Burke and Junius were in direct opposition 

 to each other. The former was a friend of Rocking- 

 liaic, the latter of Grenville; on the American policy 

 iind triennial parliaments, they were at variance; and 

 Burke knew nothing of city politics, with which 

 Junius was so familiar. 



The opinion that Sir Philip Francis (died 1818) 

 was Junius, has found many partisans, and was in- 

 geniously supported in Taylor's work The Identity 

 of Jttnius with a celebrated living Character estab- 

 lished. The arguments are drawn principally from 

 external considerations : his absence on a journey to 

 the continent coincides with an interruption in the let- 

 ters ; his departure for India with a high appointment* 



with their cessation ; his receiving that appointment, 

 without any apparent cause, just after being dismissed 

 from the war office; his station in the war office, with 

 all the details of which Junius is so familiar; his know- 

 ledge of speeches not reported; coincidences of thought 

 and expression between passages of the letters and 

 of speeches of lord Chatham, reports of which had 

 been furnished by Francis, and with his own speeches, 

 made after his return from India ; peculiar modes of 

 spelling, and of correcting the press ; resemblance 

 of handwriting are also brought forward to estal> 

 lish the identity. But the internal argument is 

 against the supposition : Francis was but twenty- 

 seven when the first letters were written, and he 

 never displayed, before or after, any proofs of a 

 capacity or knowledge equal to the compositions of 

 Junius. These circumstances have led to an hypo- 

 thesis that, although he was not the author, he might 

 have been the amanuensis of Junius. 



Another candidate, whose claims are much more 

 powerful than any previously mentioned, is lord 

 Sackville (at one time lord George Germaine, and 

 father of the present duke of Dorset). Sackville 

 was strongly suspected at the time. Sir William 

 Draper divided his suspicions between him and 

 Burke, but finally fixed them on the former. His 

 rank, fortune, temper, and talents concur to render 

 it probable; the friends and enemies of Sackville 

 and Junius are the same, and their political prin- 

 ciples coincide. Sackville's unmerited disgrace is 

 well known; his hostility to the king may have arisen 

 from having been forbidden the court; Mansfield 

 was a crown-officer at the time of his trial ; Bedford 

 was a connexion, and on bad terms with him ; Graf- 

 ton was a witness against him ; Granby was second 

 in command at Minden, and concurred in effecting 

 his disgrace ; Barrington was the organ of his dis- 

 mission. This opinion has been maintained in 

 Coventry's Critical Inquiry (London, 1825), and, 

 with additional proofs, in Junius Unmasked (Boston, 

 America, 1828); but, although many striking coin- 

 cidences have been pointed out, the proof is by no 

 means complete in favour of this hypothesis. In the 

 Posthumous Works of Junius (New York, 1829), 

 with an Inquiry respecting the Author, the letters 

 are ascribed to Home Tooke. A late writer has 

 started the hypothesis that Lord Chatham was Junius 

 (Essay on Junius and his Letters, by B. Waterhouse, 

 8vo, Boston, 1831). A still more recent writer has 

 made an ingenious attempt to show that lord Temple, 

 brother of George Grenville, was the author of these 

 celebrated letters. The fact that Grenville was the 

 favourite of Junius, has often been mentioned, and it 

 has also been suspected, for various reasons, that 

 lord Temple was, in some way, connected with 

 Junius ; Butler (without suspecting Temple) men- 

 tions that the letters appeared to be written in a 

 lady's hand, and that Wilkes once received a card 

 from old lady Temple, in her own hand, which they 

 agreed in thinking resembled the hand-writing of the 

 letters. We have already cited a remarkable pas- 

 sage from the Edinburgh Review on the subject ot 

 Junius's political connexions, and the statement from 

 the Globe seems to point out his family. George 

 Grenville has himself been suspected to be Junius; 

 but it is sufficient to observe tliat he died in 1770, 

 when but a small part of the letters had appeared. 

 The authorship is ascribed to lord Temple, in the 

 work to which we refer, by Mr Newhall, of Salem, 

 in Massachusetts (Letters on Junius, Boston, 1831), 

 on the ground of the well established facts, that his 

 political and personal connexions were the same; 

 that the opinions of Junius, in regard to Chatham 

 and some other persons, differed at different times ; 

 and that this difference atjrees with the changes in 

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