J U N I U S. 



393 



casion, to a friend of his : " I should be proud to be 

 capable of writing as Juniiis has done ; but there are 

 many passages in his letters 1 should be very sorry to 

 have written." And, moreover, in one of the letters^ 

 of Junius, Lord George Sackville is roundly accused of 

 want of courage. 



Of all the candidates for the celebrity of Junius, 

 there is none whose pretensions have been so obstre- 

 perously advanced as those of Hugh Macauley Boyd. 

 This gentleman was born of a respectable family in 

 Ireland, educated nt the College of Dublin, and intend. 

 ed for the profession of the law. But, at an early age, 

 he abandoned his legal pursuits; and having come over 

 to London in the year 1766, he addicted himself to po- 

 litics, and led an unsettled life, which continually in- 

 volved him in pecuniary difficulties. He is known as 

 the author of The Freclifllilcr, which he wrote at Bel- 

 f;it. in the year 1776; of The rt'liig, a series of pa- 

 pers published in the ls.nHon Cotirntil, between Novem- 

 ber 177!>, "I'd Mnrch 1780; and the Indian Observer, 

 published nt Madras in 1793. The chief advocates; 



ceTJor of the exchequer, member of Parliament for Har- for the claims of this gentleman, are, Mr. Almon, 

 wich, and commissioner of the Board of Trade; Samuel Mr. Campbell, the editor of Boyd's works, and Mr. 



Wr shall endeavour to give a con- 



Juniiu. prarcd in tlie rMic Adicrliscr on Saturday, the 21st 

 ' of January 17'>!; yet it lias been ascertained, in the 

 ~"~~ ~ * most satisfactory manner, that he carried on a corres- 

 pondence in that paper, under various other signa- 

 tures, from the month of April, 17''7. The last polui- 

 cal Irttrr, under the signature of Junius, was that ad- 

 dressed to Lord Camden, which appeared in the Pub- 

 l:c Advcrlittr for January 21, 1772; and the last pri- 

 vate letter which he is known to have addressed to his 

 ,tcr, Mr. Woodfall, is dated January 1<|. 177.:. 

 \Ve agree, then, with the author of the Preliminary 

 Essay to Wood fall's edition of the Letters (181^), that 

 the claimant who cannot produce, at least, the charac- 

 teristics alluded to, is in vain brought forward as the 

 author of the Letters of Junius. 



The principal persons to whom the Letters of Junius 

 have been at different times attributed, are the follow- 

 ing : Charles Lloyd, a clerk of the treasury, and af- 

 irds a deputy teller of the exchequer ; John Ro- 

 berts, also a clerk in the treasury, and afterwards, sue- 

 ly, private secretary to Mr. IVlh.im, whtn chan- 



Junun. 

 Letters nt'. 



; William Gerrard Hamilton ; Dr. Butler, late 

 :> nf 1 It-retard ; the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen ; Ma- 

 jor-General Ch*rle* Lee; John Wilkes ; Henry Mood ; 

 John Dunning, Lord Ashburton ; I.ord George Sack- 

 \ille; lit:. i-y Boyd; Mr. Glover, author of 



Itonidnt i M. DC Lolme ; the late Duke of Portland; 

 and Sir Philip Francis. 



Of the first nine candidates in the above list, we in- 

 Und to say nothing, as we consider their pretensions 

 to have been already sufficiently disproved ; and shall, 

 therefore, in so far as relates to them, merely refer our 

 curious reader* to the work* mentioned at the end of 

 this article. 



The claims of Dunning, Lord Ashburton, to the ho- 

 nour* of JUTHU -, were formerly considered a* superior to 

 those of any other candidate. He powetied all the requi- 

 ite talent*, learning, and wit; hi* age, and rank in life, his 

 politic*! principle*, attachments, and antipathies, together 

 with hi* usual residence, during the period in question, 

 are all in favour of that hypothesis which assumes him 

 a* the author. Yet there are one or two circumstances 

 in his ituation, which render this hypothesis high- 

 probable. Dunning was solicitor-general at the 

 time these letter* first appeared, and for more than 

 twelve month* afterward* ; and he cannot therefore be 

 >ed to have been the author of the famous letter 

 > king. Beside*, it i* pretty clear, a* we have al- 

 ready hinted, both from hi* public letters, and hi* pri- 

 vate correspondence with Mr. Woodfall, that Junius was 

 not a professional lawyer. 



The talent* of Lo'nl George Sackville were well 

 known ; hi- political prim iple* made him incline to 

 the ame tide of the question which Juniu* espoused ; 

 and he wa inspected, by >ir William Draper and other*, 

 at an early period, of being the real author of Junius. 

 It i* very remarkable, too, that from a private letter from 

 Juniu* to his printer, in which he aawrts, that a per- 

 son of the name of Swinney had called upon Lord 

 Sackvillr, and taxed him with bring Juniu* to hi* face; 

 pear* that Juniu* was in the knowledge of this 

 fact a few hours after it happened. It would i 

 follow, therefore, either that Lord George Sackville 

 wa* Juniu*, or that Junius, nt least, mu-t have been in 

 habit of intimacy with that nobleman. On the other 

 hand, hi* Lordship i* said to have observed, on one oc- 

 xu. rT n. 



George Chalmers. 



else statement of the arguments used by the last men- 

 tioned gentleman, omitting only such circumstances in 

 the pnf, as appear to us to be altogether trivial and 

 inconclusive. 



Mr. Wood*, the player, who, nt the period in ques- 

 tion, was an apprentice with Mr. Woodfall, the printer, 

 on seeing the jnc -iiinilc of Boyd's writing, in the year 

 1800, said he had no doubt that the hand- writing was 

 the tame as that of the letters of Junius. Mr. Almon, 

 in the year 17<>!t. having seen a manuscript letter of 

 Junius, which Mr. Woodfall read nt a meeting of book- 

 sellers and printer*, he fu.|wetcd Boyd, and ta.\ed him 

 with being the author. l' \d. it is said, instantly 

 changed colour ; and, after a short pause, he said, " the 

 '. ude of hand-writing is not a conclusive fact.'* 

 The evidence of Mr. Boyd is brought forward to prove, 

 that her husband commenced his correspondence with 

 the 1'ublic Advertiser nt the end of the year 1768 ; that 

 he wrote occasionally in the same paper, during the 

 years I7(>!>ai>d 1770, under the signatures of Lucius 

 and Brutus ; that he wa* at great pains in accustoming 

 himself to disguise his hand-writing ; that he sent let- 

 ter* almost every week secretly to the Public Adverli- 

 ter, and sometimes carried packets himself to some 

 penny post office, or asked her to carry them to Wood- 

 fall's letter box ; that he manifested much solicitude to 

 see the letters of Junius, and was continually talking 

 about Junius ; that she would often hint to him her 

 suspicion that he wa* Junius, to which he made no re- 

 ply. The same lady states, that Mr. Boyd took a house 

 at Huston-Green, near Harrow, when Junius' contro- 

 versy with Mr. Home commenced; that he wrote a 

 great deal while it lasted, and was constantly talking 

 upon the subject. She farther says, that in November 

 1771, Boyd borrowed from a neighbour at Ruston- 

 ii, several law books and elate trials, which he 

 read with great attention, for the purpose, as she thinks, 

 of supporting the charge of Junius against Lord Mans- 

 field, which appeared on the 21st of January 1772; 

 and tl>at al>out three weeks after the publication of that 

 letter, Boyd went to Ireland. Mrs. Boyd moreover 

 states, that on the very day on which the letters of 

 Junius were republished, with a dedication, preface, 

 and notes, Boyd presented her with a copy of the book ; 

 3 n 



