pared his precautions; and we find them of a piece with his determination. He knew he might conceal his name, and compromise some of his opinions to an unimportant extent; but he could not conceal his style without crippling those free powers of mind on which he should depend for his effect. To meet this difficulty, and mislead all suspicion in limine, he had, in the first place, whether suffering from the gout or not, kept all the world at a distance, and encouraged reports that he was a moody, feeble, incapable old man, moping about on crutches, and suffering from a disordered brain. In the next place, he made the first of the Miscellaneous Letters, signed "Poplicola," an attack upon Lord Chatham, couched inferentially and in a curious conditional phraseology. Under such circumstances, suspicion was effectually warded off from the Earl. Though some may have considered the hand, the style, like Esau's, certainly the voice, the utterance seemed that of some Tory Jacob entertaining a strong enmity against the Lord Privy Seal. Public curiosity was thus dexterously led astray; and the grim Earl, goaded by revenge, ambition, and the gout, was left unsuspected and unmolested in his retreat, to weave his web and fling out his lines, like a powerful Whig spider, waging war with all the Tory Beelzebubs of the land.

In all the main courses of politics, adopted and followed by Junius, he was one with Lord Chatham. They thought alike on everything great and essential. Junius was a Whig, and he addressed himself, of set purpose, to the popular ideas of the English nation. That such a writer should begin by striking at the most glorious and venerable Whig in the kingdom, one whom the democracy most delighted to honor, is a fact strongly suggestive of our suspicions. It would be such in any case. But here, where we are to guard against seemings, and look for ambages at every step, it appears to present a very strong "evidence of design." It adds vastly to the weight of the testimony in this case, though some literal people interpret it the other way-swallow, with innocent consciences, this first demonstration of the most cunning strategist in all literature!

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After which the way is clear for the formidable, real purpose of the Letters. In the first letter, Poplicola," without ever mentioning Chatham, says, "But if, instead of a man of common mixed character," &c., "a nation had confided in a man purely and perfectly bad." Again, "As the destruction of the constitution would be his great object," &c. The suspension of the law by proclamation is also denounced. Likewise that "masterpiece of treachery," fomenting discord between England and her colonies, "that both may become a prey to his own dark machinations!" The writer well knew that all this would only have the force of Priam's javelin on the buckler of Pyrrhus. The people would not credit a word of it. They knew Chatham was always the champion of the constitution, and that the proclamation was issued by him and Lord Camden, to prevent, for a little time, the exportation of provisions from the kingdom in a period of great scarcity. In the same letter, Camden, the most constitutional lawyer in England, and Chatham's closest friend, is called "an apostate lawyer," for his share in the business. In his next letter, "Poplicola" allows that the "suspension" was necessary; but that, because these noblemen did not sufficiently impress or allow the actual illegality of the thing, they deserved detestation, contempt, and the gibbet, as there was no Tarpeian rock to throw them from! Such assaults, for such causes, are preposterousunimaginable, in fact, except on the hypothesis here put forward. However, it is curious to remark how the enmity of the letter-writer against Chatham dies away by degrees. He wonders, in the third letter, the Earl's " 'spirit and understanding" would permit him to hold office under "a pernicious Court minion" (Bute). He says, a pension and a title were considered by the rest of the world "beneath Chatham's acceptance;" though he would have hanged him for a traitor in the preceding epistle! "But," says Anti-Sejanus, "to become the stalking horse of a stallion!" and so forth. The coarse and bloody ferocity of this blow at the Princess Dowager's favorite,shows the true aim and animus of the writer. Chatham or Camden is only made use of to pre

Court and the Tories. There is one little circumstance which strikes us a good deal. One of the Miscellaneous Letters called forth W. D. (Sir William Draper) in defence of Lord Chatham. But "Poplicola" was so little interested in that Earl, that he did not even recollect the initials of the man who wrote

for him. He alluded, in his next letter, to the defender as C. D.; he knew or cared so very little about the man or his initials! In every one of his projects, Chatham was accustomed to look to the accessories as well as to the prominent parts of it. There seems to be a consummate cunning in that little trait we have quoted.

He was still Privy Seal, but towards the close of 1768 the office having been put in commission, in consequence of his absence (one of the Miscellaneous Letters satirizes the three commissioners), he sent it back, by Lord Camden, to the man who, he subsequently declared in the House of Lords, had duped him. Three days afterwards, a letter signed "Atticus," satirized the King's cabinet all round, with the exception of Camden. When "Atticus" comes to Chatham (whose resignation was not yet announced,) he stops short with a Quos ego-" Of Chatham I had much to say, but it were inhuman to persecute when Providence has marked out the example to mankind!" Implying, of course, that his Lordship was come to be a helpless old driveller, incapable of doing anything, and not worth talking about!

Almon's "Anecdote's of Chatham" show a vast number of passages in his lordship's speeches curiously similar to others occurring in Junius. Mr. Taylor, in his "Junius Identified," has rather violently wrested this similarity to his own purpose, in arguing for Sir Philip Francis. It is far easier to adduce it, according to its natural bias, in support of our hypothesis. Not being able to presume on space sufficient to quote these passages, we refer the reader to Taylor's book, if he cannot find time to make the comparison for himself. The speeches spoken by Chatham in the Lords, and the letters written by Junius, will afford in sentiment, figure of speech, or peculiarity of phrase, the most striking proofs of the identity of the utterer and the writer. We cannot believe that Sir Philip Francis, reporting his lordship's speeches, either plagiarized from them, or gave his own form and coloring to the orator's ideas. As we have already stated, there is no mark of an understrapper's pen upon these beautiful and formidable specimens of literature. The writer was certainly a man who performed a remarkable part on the stage of the time-who had an intimate and personal interest in the object of the letters, who had confronted, upon equal or superior terms, the distinguished men whom he vituperated. His elegant and polished style, magisterial one, and general intrepidity of speech, show

him to have been as lofty in station as in intellect-an aristocrat of the noblest style. At the time of the publication of the letters of Junius, such seems to have been the opinion of the shrewdest judges. Horne Tooke, in his reply to Junius, July, 1771, says— "The darkness in which Junius thinks himself shrouded has not concealed him. Because Lord Chatham has been ill-treated by the King, and treacherously betrayed by the Duke of Grafton, the latter is to be the pillow on which Junius will rest all his resentments, and the public are to oppose the measures of Government from mere motives of hostility to the Sovereign." It was in reply to this dangerous thrust that Junius introduced his curious eulogy on Lord Chatham, in his fifty-fourth letter. It is, like the invective of "Poplicola," compulsory. He praises Chatham, to mislead those who may suspect him to be the Earl himself, and who would naturally suppose, that in such a case, he would not venture to speak of his lordship in eulogy.

Wilkes seems to look to Junius, as to some grave, powerful, and dignified being. The little squinting scoffer, who girded at everything else—who was cultor Deorum parcus et infrequens-almost falls down and worships the veiled eidolon. He says, in 1771, in reply to Junius: "I do not mean to indulge in the impertinent curiosity of finding out the most important secret of our timethe author of Junius. I will not attempt, with profane hands, to tear the veil of the sanctuary. I am disposed, with the inhabitants of Attica (Wilkes's grandiloquence for Athenians), to erect an altar to the unknown god of our political idolatry, and will be content to worship him in clouds and darkness.' And again: "I did not go to Woodfall to pry into a secret I had no right to know. The letter itself bore the stamp of Jove." This could scarcely be the stamp of the "good Juvenal," Francis, or the threadbare Macleane. See also the manner in which Woodfall receives the commands of his shadowy correspondent, and how he reverences him! He buys a franchise, and humbly begs that the shadow of a name will tell him how to vote. Woodfall certainly knew who Junius was: George Grenville also knew it, and Sir Philip Francis. Burke undoubtedly suspected it, and, if put to the test, would have pronounced the right name. His very figurative and flighty speech on the subject of Junius, in the House of Commons, shows that he did not think himself speaking of any private secretary, Franciscan or other

wise.

The wild boar, or the bird, was not, in his opinion, to be sought for among the "small deer" of the political world. Having finished the boar, the orator comes to the bird: "While I expected, in his daring flight, his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down, souse, upon both Houses of Parliament! Yes, he did make you his prey, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. In short, after carrying our royal eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he laid you prostrate. King, Lords, and Commons, are but the sport of his fury!" Not the fury of young Philip Francis, certainly! The idea of cause and effect, in connexion with him, would be as incongruous as that implied by Horace (ad Pisones)

"Humane capiti cervicem pictor equinam
Jungere si velit."

The shrewd men we have quoted (not including Flaccus) certainly looked for Junius among the most potent and lordly spirits of the day. And it was after no long criticism of handwriting, idiom, form of words, dashes above and below C, and such-like, that they reached their conclusion.

It may be argued that Junius must have been in the War-Office. But Chatham, who knew all the departments of State, who had also been a soldier, and, in his palmy days, the director of armaments in their magnitude and minutiæ, knew the War-Office as well as his own house. His great interest in the business of it is particularly accounted for by the dismissal of his friend, General Amherst, from his Government of Virginia. The "bloody" Barrington, for whom Legge was dismissed, was Secretary at War; and the blows he would feel most would reach him through his office. Chatham, who assailed the Ministry "along their whole line," found the War Office a convenient and vulnerable point, and aimed many of his strokes there. Again, it may be objected, that the great Earl would scarcely pay such attention as Junius has paid, to the party business of the city of London; but Pitt was always proud of the support of the city, and conscious of the value of the Livery to the cause of constitutional liberty. In the House of Lords, in 1770, Chatham said: When I mentioned the Livery of London, I thought I saw a sneer on same faces; but let me tell you, my lords, though I have the honor to sit in this house as a peer of the realm, coinciding with these honest citizens in opinion, I am proud of the honor of associating my

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name with theirs; and let me tell the noblest of you all, it would be an honor to you. The Livery of London was respectable long before the Reformation. The Lord Mayor of London was a principal among the twentyfive barons who received Magna Charta from King John; and they have ever since been considered to have a principal weight in all the affairs of government." Lord Chatham was deeply interested in such an excellent friend and ally as the city of London often proved itself to be, and may again.

Respecting the treatment of America, it would seem that the opinions of Junius and Chatham differed; but it is not easy to state the sentiments of either of them on the matter. Junius (Poplicola) blames Chatham for encouraging the colonists; yet, in the first of the Junian series, he says the question of taxation should have been "buried in oblivion." Again, in 1771, he considers the right of the British legislature to tax the colonies as merely speculative. Chatham seems vacillating too; he agreed with George Grenville in the attempt to tax the Americans

if they would permit it; seeing they would not, he was afterwards against it. Then he rejoiced that America had resisted; and perished in an effort to hinder her independence! Junius and Chatham are found to agree on this question, quite as often as they seem to differ.

Chatham's dislike of Grafton, Bedford, Mansfield, and the rest, was countenanced by many causes. Grafton, from being an adherent and parasite of the Earl, had deserted him, and gone over to the enemy― the Court party. Such insolent ingratitude the Earl never pardoned. Grafton was the man whose defection most injured the cause of the Whigs. If he had remained faithful, observes Mr. Almon, and scorned an alliance with the Bedfords and the King's friends— the Grenvilleites, Newcastle, and Rockingham Whigs would have carried all before them. Fearfully did Grafton expiate this sin against Lord Chatham, as Junius attests. The Earl's dislike of the King was no secret. George hated William Pitt as heartily as his father did before him. Chatham declared in parliament that the King had duped him; and Wilkes says to Junius, "Lord Chatham told me, the King was the falsest hypocrite in Europe." The letter to the King speaks out the very soul of the Whig Earl. The latter hated Mansfield, with a hatred which began in their youth, and only increased with their years. The estate left by Sir William Pynsent to Mr. Pitt was litigated;