The signature appended to a famous series of letters on political subjects, which appeared in “The Public Advertiser,” at various intervals between 1769 and 1772. They were 44 in number; to which must be added 15 signed Philo-Junius, 113 under various signatures, and 72 privately addressed to Woodfall, the publisher of the “Advertiser,” and to Wilkes. The first of those signed Junius appeared on January 21, 1769.

Authorship

  The following list of 51 names, embraces the personages to whom these celebrated letters have been attributed:
  Adair, James, M.P.; Allen, Captain; Barré, Lieut.-Col. Isaac, M.P.; Bentinck, William Henry Cavendish; Bickerton, Mr.; Boyd, Hugh M’Aulay; Burke, Rt. Hon. Edmund; Burke, William; Butler, John; Camden, Charles, Lord; De Lolme, John Lewis; Dunning, John, afterwards Lord Ashburton; Dyer, Samuel; Flood, Henry; Francis, Sir Philip; George III.; Gibbon, Edward; Glover, Richard; Grattan, Henry; Greatrakes, William; Grenville, George; Grenville, James; Hamilton, William Gerard; Hollis, James; Hollis, Thomas; Jackson, Sir George; Jones, Sir William; Kent, John; Lee, Maj.-Gen. Charles; Lloyd, Charles; Lyttleton, Thomas; Maclean, Laughlin; Marshall, Rev. Edmund; Paine, Thomas; Pitt, William; Portland, William, Duke of; Pownall, Thomas; Rich, Lieut.-Col. Sir Robert; Roberts, John; Rosenhagen, Rev. Philip; Sackville, George, Viscount; Shelburne, Earl of; Stanhope, Philip Dormer; Suett, Richard; Temple, Richard, Earl; Tooke, John Horne; Walpole, Horatio; Wedderburn, Alexander; Wilkes, John; Wilmot, James, D.D.; Wray, Daniel.

  Boswell: “Supposing the person who wrote Junius were asked whether he was the authour, might he deny it?” Johnson: “I don’t know what to say to this. If you were sure that he wrote Junius, would you, if he denied it, think as well of him afterwards? Yet it may be urged, that what a man has no right to ask, you may refuse to communicate; and there is no other effectual mode of preserving a secret and an important secret, the discovery of which may be very hurtful to you, but a flat denial; for if you are silent, or hesitate, or evade, it will be held equivalent to a confession. But stay, Sir, here is another case. Supposing the authour had told me confidentially that he had written Junius, and I were asked if he had, I should hold myself at liberty to deny it, as being under a previous promise, express or implied, to conceal it. Now what I ought to do for the authour, may I not do for myself?

  It has long been a question who was the author of the letters which appeared under the signature of “Junius” in 1769 and 1770. Many have ascribed them to Mr. Wm. Gerard Hamilton, who is certainly capable of having written them, but his style is very different. He would have had still more point than they exhibit, and certainly more Johnsonian energy. Besides, he has all his life been distinguished for political timidity and indecision. Neither would he, even under a mask, have entered into such decided warfare with many persons whom it might be necessary afterwards to have as colleagues. What is still more decisive, he could not have divested himself of the apprehension of a discovery, having long accustomed his mind to too refined a policy, and being very apt to suppose that many things are brought about by scheme and machination which are merely the offspring of chance. He would have suspected that even the penny post could not be safe; and that Sir W. Draper or any other antagonist would have managed so as to command every one of those offices within the bills of mortality. Many have supposed “Junius” to have been written by Mr. Hamilton’s old friend, the well-known and deservedly celebrated Edmund Burke. Dr. Johnson being once asked whether he thought Burke capable of writing “Junius,” said he thought him fully equal to it; but that he did not believe him the author because he himself had told him so; and he did not believe he would deliberately assert a falsehood. Mr. Burke, however, it is extremely probable, had a considerable share in the production of those papers in furnishing materials, suggesting hints, constructing and amending sentences, &c., &c. He has acknowledged to Sir Joshua Reynolds that he knew the author. Sir Joshua with very great probability thinks that the late Mr. Samuel Dyer was the author, assisted by Mr. Burke and by Mr. William Burke, his cousin, now in India.

  Sir,—I frankly assure you that I know nothing of Junius, except that I am not the author. When Junius began I was a boy, and knew nothing of politics or the persons concerned in them. I am, Sir, not Junius, but your very good wisher and obedient servant.

  The question respecting the author of Junius’s Letters, is thought, we believe, by philosophers, to be one of more curiosity than importance. We are very far from pretending that the happiness of mankind is materially interested in its determination; or that it involves any great and fundamental scientific truths. But it must be viewed as a point of literary history; and, among discussions of this description, it ranks very high. After all, are there many points of civil or military history really more interesting to persons living in the present times? Is the guilt of Queen Mary—the character of Richard III.—or the story of the Man in the Iron Mask, very nearly connected with the welfare of the existing generation? Indeed, we would rather caution, even the most profound of philosophers, against making too nice an inquiry into the practical importance of scientific truths; for assuredly there are numberless propositions, of which the curiosity is more easily described than the utility, in all the branches of science, and especially in the severer ones—the professors of which are the most prone to deride an inquiry like that about Junius…. That it proves Sir Philip to be Junius, we will not affirm; but this we can safely assert, that it accumulates such a mass of circumstantial evidence as renders it extremely difficult to believe he is not; and that, if so, many coincidences shall be found to have misled us in this case, our faith in all conclusions drawn from proofs of a similar kind may henceforth be shaken.

  A cause, however ingeniously pleaded, is not therefore gained. You may remember the neatly-wrought chain of circumstantial evidence so artificially brought forward to prove Sir Philip Francis’s title to the “Letters of Junius” seemed at first irrefragable; yet the influence of the reasoning has passed away, and Junius, in the general opinion, is as much unknown as ever.

  I will just state here, en passant, that I have strong reason to suspect that Lord George Sackville was the author of “Junius.” He may have had a literary assistant, but I am convinced by a great variety of reasons, that he was substantially Junius.

  I persist in thinking that neither Mr. Burke nor Philip Francis was the author of the letter under the signature of Junius. I think the mind of the first so superior, and the mind of the latter so inferior, to that of Junius, as to put the supposition that either of them was Junius wholly out of the question.

  A new knight entered the lists with his vizor down, and with unreal devices on his shield, but whose arm was nerved with inborn vigour, and whose lance was poised with most malignant skill. Even now the dark shadow of Junius looms across that period of our annals with a grandeur no doubt much enhanced and heightened by the mystery. To solve that mystery has since employed the most patient industry, and aroused the most varied conjectures…. Strong as this, the “Franciscan,” theory appears when separately viewed, it becomes, I think, far stronger still when compared with the other claims that have been urged. In no other can many strained inferences and many gratuitous assumptions fail to be observed. In no other do the feelings and the circumstances which must be ascribed to Junius, or the dates applying to the cessation of his letters, admit on all points, or even on most points, of simple explanations from the theory adduced. Even the claim on behalf of Lord George Sackville, which at first sight has dazzled many acute observers, will not, as I conceive, endure the light of a close and critical examination.

  Before your last volume is published, I am desirous of stating to you some of the considerations which, more than seventeen years ago, led me to the belief I still entertain, that Walpole had a principal share in the composition and publication of the Letters of Junius: though I think it likely that Mason, or some other friend corrected the style, and gave precision and force to the most striking passages…. If we turn from a recollection of the words to a consideration of the peculiarities of the style of Junius, I think it will be agreed that the most remarkable of all is that species of irony which consists in equivocal compliment. Walpole also excelled in this; and prided himself upon doing so. Are we not justified in saying, that of all who, in the eighteenth century, cast their thoughts on public occurrences into the form of letters, Junius and Walpole are the most distinguished? That the works of no other prose writer of their time exhibit a zest for political satire equal to that which is displayed in the Letters of Junius, and the Memories and Political Letters of Walpole? and that the sarcasm of equivocal praise was the favourite weapon in the armoury of each, though it certainly appears to have been tempered, and sharpened, and polished with additional care for the hand of Junius?

  The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The hand-writing of Junius is the very peculiar hand-writing of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connexions of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State’s office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the war-office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the Secretary of State’s office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the war-office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of those speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the war-office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence. The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at all events, is only which may be urged with at least equal force against every claimant that has ever been mentioned with the single exception of Burke, who certainly was not Junius…. To go no further than the letters which bear the signature of Junius;—the letter to the king and the letters to Horne Tooke have little in common, except the asperity; and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of Francis.

  It is here proper to remark that so far from having any theory of our own on Junius’s identity, we are as entirely free from bias on the subject, and confess ourselves as profoundly ignorant of the authorship of those celebrated Letters, as if, instead of having for many years constantly had the question in our mind, and having read, we believe, nearly everything that has been written on the point, we had never bestowed a thought on the matter. We have indeed a strong impression that Junius was not any one of the numerous persons heretofore so confidently brought forward.

  It is my firm and deliberate conviction, that if Lord Temple were not the author of Junius, then the author has never yet been publicly named, and that he will still remain that mysterious Umbra sine Nomine, to exercise the ingenuity of some more successful inquirer.

  If not a member of the peerage, Junius must have had men of rank and station as his allies, and, as he himself confesses, persons about him who supplied him with the information he required, and whose importunities he was bound to obey. Among the political writers who may be considered as having played the principal part in this combination, Sir Philip Francis and Colonel Lachlan Macleane have the highest claims. We leave it to a jury of our readers to decide between them from the evidence which is now within their reach.

  We think more highly of Lord Temple than Mr. Smith does. He was a man of humour, energy, sense, and we think of sound judgment,—but no genius. There never was a Grenville who had a particle of genius:—not even my Lord, the most plausible of the family, nor Thomas Grenville, the best of them. Lord Temple would not if he could, and could not if he would, have written the Letters of Junius. Junius, with twenty times the ability of Temple, wanted his nobleness and generosity.

  My own impression is, that the “Letters of Junius” were written by Sir Philip Francis. In a speech, which I once heard him deliver, at the Mansion House, concerning the Partition of Poland, I had a striking proof that Francis possessed no ordinary powers of eloquence.

  Wonder has been expressed at the manner in which the secret has been kept. But has it been so closely kept? May not an accurate guess, or a genuine betrayal, have been too hastily disregarded? Burke told Reynolds that he knew Junius. Boyd, according to Almon, as good as let out the secret to him. Lord Grenville and Mr. Thomas Grenville knew, or believed that they knew, Junius, and declared that he was neither of the persons to whom the letters have been popularly ascribed. The tradition in the Woodfall family is decidedly anti-Franciscan. Dr. Parr invariably stood out for Lloyd. Rosenhagen claimed the authorship. Burke has always been a favourite…. The name of Francis was never so much as suggested for the authorship for forty years. It is not mentioned by Almon, who, in his edition of 1806, passes seventeen claimants in review. It only occurs incidentally in Woodfall’s complete edition of 1812, in the letter of “Veteran,” March 23, 1772, publicly calling on D’Oyly and Francis to “declare their reasons for quitting the War Office,” to which (we now know) Francis would have been the last to direct public attention at the time. This edition revived inquiry, and led eventually to the “Junius Identified” of 1814. The credit of first starting the Franciscan theory is certainly due to Mr. Taylor, but its general acceptance to this hour is owing to its unhesitating adoption and eager advocacy by Earl Stanhope and Lord Macaulay, who agree in resting their case on similarity of handwriting and style.

  As to the Junius question in general, there is a little bit of the philosophy of horse-racing which may be usefully applied. A man who is so confident of his horse that he places him far above any other, may nevertheless, and does, refuse to give odds against all the field: for many small adverse chances united make a big chance for one or other of the opponents. I suspect Mr. Taylor has made it at least 20 to 1 for Francis against any one competitor who has been named: but what the odds may be against the whole field is more difficult to settle. What if the real Junius should be some person not yet named?

  During the whole of the present century the public mind of England has been constantly inquiring by whom the Junius letters were written. The claims of all the competitors, with one exception, have been disproved. However strong the circumstantial evidence has borne at different times in favor of different aspirants, some fatal fact would thrust itself forward to overthrow the claimants one by one, until all have dropped out of the controversy…. If Sir Philip Francis were now living, and on trial for libelling the Duke of Grafton, and all the facts and circumstances that sixty years of earnest and enlightened scrutiny had developed had been given to an intelligent jury, the probabilities are that that jury would be unable to agree upon a verdict which pronounced Francis guilty of writing the libel. No jury would hesitate to find that the libel itself was the most scorching and atrocious to be found in any language in the world’s history.

  Probably no English book, except the plays of Shakespeare, has been submitted to such a minute and exhaustive criticism as the “Letters of Junius;” and although the sufficiency of the evidence tracing them to Francis is still much disputed, it may, I think, be truly said that rival candidates have almost disappeared from the field.

  England has hitherto had her mystery in “Junius;” but she will enjoy it no more, for there can be no longer any shadow of doubt that the “Letters” were written by Sir Philip Francis.

  I do not venture to identify Amyand with Junius; but the facts which I am about to set forth deserve consideration…. I have written more than once that I do not know who Junius was; as my ignorance still continues, I will not affirm that Claudius Amyand ever used “Junius” as a signature. In six articles on “The Franciscan Myth,” the first of which appeared in the Athenæum for December 25th, 1897, I have proved that Francis could not be Junius, unless he were the same man who denounced George III. and Lord Mansfield as Junius, and defended them in his own person as Britannicus in the Public Advertiser. I am unable to admit that when Henry Sampson Woodfall, William Pitt, and Lord Grenville stated, from personal knowledge, that Junius was not Francis, they are unworthy of belief…. It certainly requires no ordinary courage or the excuse of invincible ignorance to reject conclusions at which Macaulay, Mr. Leslie Stephen, and Mr. Lecky have arrived; yet the critic who is neither over-weighted nor misled by prepossessions or forgone conclusions may decline to admit the infallibility of any writer.

General

  How comes this Junius to have broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the land? The myrmidons of the Court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or you, or you: no; they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broke through all their toils, is before them. But, what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one, than he lays down another dead at his feet. For my part, when I saw his attack upon the King, I own my blood ran cold…. In short, after carrying away our Royal Eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. King, Lords, and Commons are but the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this house, what might not be expected from his knowledge, his firmness, and integrity! He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by his vigour. Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; nor could promises nor threats induce him to conceal any thing from the public.

  Junius bursts into notice with a blaze of impudence which has rarely glared upon the world before, and drew the rabble after him as a monster makes a show. When he had once provided for his safety by impenetrable secrecy, he had nothing to combat but truth and justice, enemies whom he knows to be feeble in the dark. Being then at liberty to indulge himself in all the immunities of invisibility, out of the reach of danger, he has been bold; out of the reach of shame he has been confident. As a rhetorician, he has the art of persuading when he seconded desire; as a reasoner, he has convinced those who had no doubt before; as a moralist, he has taught that virtue may disgrace; and as a patriot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the high…. It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pungency of periods, or his fertility of allusion, that he detains the cits of London and the boors of Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no cognizance.

  I dedicate to you a collection of letters, written by one of yourselves for the common benefit of us all. They would never have grown to this size, without your continued encouragement and applause. To me they originally owe nothing, but a healthy sanguine constitution. Under your care they have thriven. To you they are indebted for whatever strength or beauty they possess. When kings and ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be transmitted to posterity. When you leave the unimpaired, hereditary freehold to your children, you do but half your duty. Both liberty and property are precarious, unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them. This is not the language of vanity. If I am a vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am the sole depositary of my own secret, and it shall perish with me.

  The classic purity of their language, the exquisite force and perspicuity of their argument, the keen severity of their reproach, the extensive information they evince, their fearless and decisive tone, and, above all, their stern and steady attachment to the purest principles of the constitution, acquired for them, with an almost electric speed, a popularity which no series of letters have since possessed, nor, perhaps, ever will; and, what is of far greater consequence, diffused among the body of the people a clearer knowledge of their constitutional rights than they had ever before attained, and animated them with a more determined spirit to maintain them inviolate. Enveloped in the cloud of a fictitious name, the writer of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld with secret satisfaction the vast influence of his labours, and enjoyed, though, as we shall afterwards observe, not always without apprehension, the universal hunt that was made to detect him in his disguise. He beheld the people extolling him, the court execrating him, and ministers and more than ministers trembling beneath the lash of his invisible hand.

  It is a signal testimony to the eminence of the powers displayed in these Letters, that, at the distance of nearly half a century from their first coming forth—that after a great number of subsequent political censors had each had his share of attention, and perhaps admiration, and are now in a great measure forgotten—and that in times like the present, superabounding with strange events, and flagrant examples of political depravity of their own—they should still hold such a place in public estimation, that the appearance of an edition enlarged and illustrated from the store of materials left by the original publisher, will be regarded as an interesting event in the course of our literature. An interest that has thus continued to subsist in vigour after the loss of all temporary stimulants, and that is capable of so lively an excitement at this distant period, by a circumstance tending to make us a little better acquainted with the author’s character, and to put us in more complete possession of his writings, gives assurance that this memorable work may maintain its fame to an indefinite period, and will go down with that portion of our literature, which, in the language of pride and poetry, we call immortal.

  The author is now considered as an English classic: yet, if we reflect on his very intemperate language, the virulence of his abuse, and the unsupported nature of some of the charges which he has adduced, we should rather be disposed to exclude him from ordinary perusal, as one who would mislead his admirers. He certainly writes with animation, frequently with elegance, generally with force and perspicuity. He argues plausibly, but does not always impress conviction: he evinces a knowledge of the constitution, though he sometimes misrepresents its principles: he is an advocate for liberty, but occasionally carries it to the verge of licentiousness. A ministerial author says, “If we allow him only his merit, where will be his praise?” We answer, that his praise will be that of an ingenious and able writer, and an intelligent politician. At the same time he deserves severe censure for his seditious spirit, the foulness of his reproaches, and his transgression of the bounds of truth.

  The style of Junius is a sort of metre, the law of which is a balance of thesis and antithesis. When he gets out of this aphorismic metre into a sentence of five or six lines long, nothing can exceed the slovenliness of the English. Horne Tooke and a long sentence seem the only two antagonists that were too much for him. Still the antithesis of Junius is a real antithesis of images or thought, but the antithesis of Johnson is rarely more than verbal.

  The style of this writer, it is true, has many faults, and grave ones. It has point without aim, and vigour without agility. Wit alone can long bear up the shafts of sarcasm; and the wit of Junius had only one leg to stand on, a stiff and swollen one. His flashy and figured invectives, like court-dresses, would fit half the court as well as they fitted the person they were made for; if, indeed, like the prefaces of Sallust and Cicero, they were not kept ready until the author had found or contrived a place for their exhibition.

  No man can read a page of any letter without perceiving that the writer has but one way of handling every subject, and that he constructs his sentences with the sole design of saying the most bitter things he can in the most striking way, without ever regarding in the least degree their being applicable or inapplicable to the object of the attack. The consequence is, that the greater part of this invective will just suit one bad man or wicked minister as well as another. It is highly probable that whoever he may be, he had often attacked those with whom he lived on intimate terms, or to whom he was under obligations. This affords an additional reason for his dying unrevealed. That he was neither Lord Asburton, nor any other lawyer, is proved by what we have said of his gross ignorance of law. To hold that he was Mr. Francis is libelling that gentlemen’s memory; and although much external evidence concurs in pointing towards him, he certainly never wrote anything of the same kind in his own character.

  The passage of time has had no very favorable effect upon the reputation of that writer, particularly since it has given to another and impartial generation the opportunity to estimate the value of his patriotism, and to weigh the motives of his censures. It may be doubted, whether the same sort of papers, if written at the present day, would produce one half of the effect they did when the novelty and boldness of the manner contributed so large a share to their success.

  As Wilkes was one of the worst specimens of a popular leader, so was Junius of a popular political writer. One is ashamed to think of the celebrity so long enjoyed by a publication so worthless. No great question of principle is discussed in it; it is remarkable that on the subject of the impressment of seamen, which is a real evil of the most serious kind, and allowed to be so even by those who do not believe that it is altogether remediable, Junius strongly defends the existing practice. All the favourite topics of his letters are purely personal or particular; his appeals are never to the best part of our nature, often to the vilest. If I wished to prejudice a good man against popular principles, I could not do better than to put into his hands the letters of Junius.

  At last “the great boar of the forest,” who had gored the King and almost all his Court, and seemed to be more formidable than any “blatant beast,” was conquered,—not by the spear of a knight-errant, but by a little provender held out to him, and he was sent to whet his tusks in a distant land. This certainly was a very great deliverance for Lord Mansfield, who had long been afraid at breakfast to look into the Daily Advertiser, less he should find in it some new accusation, which he could neither passively submit to nor resent without discredit; and although he might call the mixture of bad law and tumid language poured out upon him ribaldry it had an evident effect in encouraging his opponents in parliament, and in causing shakes of the head, shrugs of the shoulders, smiles and whispers in private society, which could not escape his notice.

  That Junius can only be described with truth as a political adventurer there is no doubt. It is plain enough that his own personal success in life was involved in that of the party whose cause he adopted, or, to speak still more accurately, in the fall of the party which he attacked. And it is equally true that he was utterly unscrupulous in his use of means; that his sincerity, even when he was sincere, was apt to assume the form of the most ignoble rancor, and that no ties of friendship, or party, or connection, seem to have restrained his virulence. All this is but too deducible from the published anonymous writings only…. But when all this has been said, there remains a residue of a higher order, which must in justice to him be fairly weighed in the balance. Notwithstanding all his sins against justice and truth, Junius was assuredly actuated at bottom by a strong and ardent public spirit. He was throughout a genuine lover of his country. He was earnest in behalf of her honor and of her liberties. He saw clearly that her road to the accomplishment of a higher destiny lay through the maintenance of that honor and the extension of those liberties. He hated with an honest hatred the meanness of principle and venality of conduct which characterized but too strongly the governments against which he fought, and tarnished the political genius of his time. And very remarkable was the success which attended his struggle against them. Great indeed were the practical victories achieved by the efforts of this nameless, obscure agitator. Freedom of the press and the personal freedom of the subject owe probably more to the writings of Junius than to the eloquence of Chatham or Burke, the law of Camden and Dunning. It is not too much to say that after the appearance of those writings, a new tone on these great subjects is found to prevail in our political literature.

  Sir Philip Francis, who, under his early disguise of Junius, had such a success as no writer of libels ever will have again. It is our private opinion that this success rested upon a great delusion which has never been exposed. The general belief is that Junius was read for his elegance; we believe no such thing. The pen of an angel would not, upon such a theme as personal politics, have upheld the interest attached to Junius, had there been no other cause in co-operation. Language, after all, is a limited instrument; and it must be remembered that Junius, by the extreme narrowness of his range, which went entirely upon matters of fact and personal interests, still further limited the compass of that limited instrument. For it is only in the expression and management of general ideas that any room arises for conspicuous elegance. The real truth is this: the interest in Junius travelled downwards; he was read in the lower ranks, because in London it speedily became known that he was read with peculiar interest in the highest. This was already a marvel; for newspaper patriots, under the signatures of Publicola, Brutus, and so forth, had become a jest and a byword to the real practical statesman; and any man at leisure to write for so disinterested a purpose as “his country’s good” was presumed of course to write in a garret. But here for the first time a pretended patriot, a Junius Brutus, was read even by statesmen, and read with agitation. Is any man simple enough to believe that such a contagion could extend to cabinet ministers and official persons overladen with public business on so feeble an excitement as a little reputation in the art of constructing sentences with elegance,—an elegance which, after all, excluded eloquence and every other positive quality of excellence? That this can have been believed shows the readiness with which men swallow marvels. The real secret was this:—Junius was read with the profoundest interest by members of the cabinet, who would not have paid half-a-crown for all the wit and elegance of this world, simply because it was most evident that some traitor was amongst them, and that, either directly by one of themselves, or through some abuse of his confidence by a servant, the secrets of office were betrayed.

  Attacked the Government in letters which, rancorous and unscrupulous as was their tone, gave a new power to the literature of the Press by their clearness and terseness of statement, the finish of their style, and the terrible vigor of their invective.

  Though containing occasional passages of weighty invective and of brilliant epigram, these early letters are, I think, of very little value, and it was only by slow degrees that the writer learnt the secret of true dignity of style, and exchanged the tone of simple scurrility for that measured malignity of slander in which he afterwards excelled…. As a popular political reasoner he was truly admirable. He introduced, indeed, little or nothing new or original into controversy, but he possessed to supreme perfection the art of giving the arguments on his side their simplest, clearest, and strongest expression; disengaging them from all extraneous matter, making them transparently evident to the most cursory reader. In this, as in most other respects, he is a curious contrast to Burke, who is always redundant, and who delights in episodes, illustrations, ramifications, general reflections, various lights, remote and indirect consequences. Junius never for a moment loses sight of the immediate issue, and he flies swift and direct as an arrow to its heart. The rapid march of the eighteenth century is apparent in his style, and it is admirably suited for a class of literature which, if it impresses at all, must impress at a glance. He possessed the easy air of good society, and his letters, if not those of a great statesman, are at least unquestionably those of a man who had a real and experimental knowledge of public business, who had mixed with active politicians, who knew the anecdotes which circulated in political society…. A reader who knows Junius as we know him now, must indeed have an extraordinary estimate of the value of a brilliant style if he can regard him with the smallest respect. He wisely attacked for the most part men whose rank and position prevented them from descending into the arena, and who were at the same time intensely and often deservedly unpopular. His encounter with Horne was the one instance in which he met a really able and practised writer; and although the character of Horne was a very vulnerable one, he appears to me to have had in this controversy a great advantage over his opponent.

  The “Letters of Junius,” with which he is credited, are perhaps more famous than excellent, but still excellent.

  If Junius could have exercised a greater command of his feelings, he might have provided a still better feast of malignity. This he could have done by well-contrived admissions, palliations and excuses; and by keeping within the ordinary limits of human nature in his attributing of vices. In that case, we might have had no compunctions in going along with him; our pleasure of malignity would have been unalloyed.

  The literary value of Junius seems to have been absurdly overrated. The letters are vigorous, of course, but their malignity is atoned for or relieved by no philosophical enthusiasm, while the indignation itself appears to be personal first and patriotic afterwards. It is an instance of the difficulty which attends contemporary criticism that Johnson, so eminent a judge of language, thought that Junius was Burke. To us it seems amazing that brass should thus be mistaken for gold. At the same time the Letters have “polish,” a quality for which Francis preserved an exaggerated affection; the balance and modulation of their merciless sentences may still please the ear.

  They are the work of a man who was a practical politician first and a man of letters afterwards, and his writings are distinguished by a political sagacity and precision of criticism which only a close acquaintance with the practice of politics can give. His motives indeed were not of a high order; personal spite entered largely into them, and many of his letters were written merely to revenge real or fancied wrongs.