Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/737

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JUNIUS 717 days; or if I did, they would attaint me by bill." In other letters he speaks with the ut- most confidence. " As to me, he assured that it is not in the nature of things that they, or you, or anybody else should ever know me, unless I make myself known ; all arts, or inquiries, or rewards would be equally ineffectual." And in his dedication to the English nation he de- clared : " I am the sole depositary of my own secret, and it shall perish with me." Junius appears to have written in a disguised hand. Various prescribed signals, as "0.," "A let- ter," or a scrap of Latin poetry, were made to him in the notices to correspondents in the " Public Advertiser." Answers and parcels from the printer were left for him according to his orders in a great variety of places, ad- dressed to different names. Who the person was who thus foiled the scrutiny of his own age has been the subject of more than 100 vol- umes or pamphlets, and of a vast number of essays in periodicals. Efforts have been made at different times to identify him with Sergeant James Adair, Col. Isaac Barre Hugh Macaulay Boyd, Edmund Burke, Bishop John Butler, Lord Oamden, Lord Chatham, Lord Chester- field, J. L. De Lolme, John Dunning (Lord Ashburton), Samuel Dyer, Henry Flood, Dr. Philip Francis, Sir Philip Francis, Edward Gibbon, Richard Glover, Henry Grattan, Wil- liam Greatrakes, George Grenville, James Grenville, William Gerard Hamilton, James Hollis, Sir William Jones, John Kent, Gen. Charles Lee, Charles Lloyd, Thomas Lord Lyt- telton, Laughlin McLean, the duke of Port- land, Gov. Thomas Pownall, Sir Robert Rich, John Roberts, the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen, Lord George Germaine (Viscount Sackville), the earl of Shelburne, Earl Temple, John Home Tooke, Horace Walpole, John Wilkes, Alex- ander Wedderburn (Lord Loughborough), Dr. James Wilmot, and Daniel Wray. Several of these laid claim to the honor of which they were ambitious, while the real author may have declined to accept a brilliant literary fame with the stigma of an almost fiendish malignity of character. The first attempt to fix the authorship upon Sir Philip Francis was made in 1816 by John Taylor, in his "Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Charac- ter Established," and it has from that time been more generally ascribed to him than to any other. According to Macaulay, " the case against Francis, or, if you please, in favor of Francis, rests on coincidences sufficient to con- vict a murderer." Besides numerous and con- stant coincidences in dates and circumstances, and resemblance of character and handwriting, it should be observed that he never directly denied the charge. In answer to an inquiry, he wrote evasively : " Whether you will assist in giving currency to a silly malignant false- hood is a question for your own discretion." Lftdy Francis affirms that his first gift to her after .marriage was an edition of Junius, which he hade her take to her room, keep from sight, and never to speak on the subject; and he made a posthumous present to her of a sealed copy of Taylor's "Identity of Junius," found in his bureau. According to her statement, also, Sir Philip made himself known as Junius to the king, Lord North, and Lord Chatham, under an engagement of secrecy, and received in consequence his Indian appointment; and the secret was faithfully kept by each of the contracting parties, who were equally inter- ested in not divulging it. Since the publi- cation of the facsimiles of the feigned hand- writing of Junius, facts have come to light which seem to prove conclusively the identity of Francis with him. A lady recognized the handwriting as the same as that of an anony- mous note which she received in 1770 at Bath, enclosing a copy of verses written in a differ- ent hand. When the life of Francis was pub- lished (1867), two lines of these verses were found quoted in a letter from Richard Tilgh- man of Philadelphia, dated Sept. 29, 1773, in a manner implying that Francis would recog- nize them. Renewed examination proved that the lady's copy of verses was in Tilghman's handwriting. Tilghman, who was a law stu- dent in the Temple in 1769 and 1770, was a near relative and intimate friend of Francis, and was with him at Bath when the verses were delivered. This led to a careful exami- nation of the note in which the verses were enclosed by experts, who unhesitatingly pro- nounced it to be written in the feigned hand of Junius. Now Tilghman could not have been Junius, for the letters were begun before he left America, and continued after his return home. It follows then that Francis was the writer of the note and consequently Junius. Complete editions of his letters were published by George Woodfall, son of the original print- er of them (3 vols., London, 1812 and 1814), to which an elaborate preliminary essay was prefixed by Dr. John Mason Good. A new edition (1850-'55), by John Wade, forming two volumes in Bonn's "Standard Library," contains the whole of Woodfall's edition. The most complete bibliography of Junius is given in Lowndes's " Bibliographer's Manual," vol. iii. (London, 1860). Merivale's "Memoir of Sir Philip Francis " (2 vols. 8vo, London, 1867) contains much new evidence concerning the authorship. See also Chabot and Twistle- ton's "Handwriting of Junius Professionally Investigated" (4to, London, 1871). Sir Alex- ander Cockburn, lord chief justice of Eng- land, in a work announced for publication in 1874, is said to prove almost conclusively the identity of Sir Philip Francis with Junius. .11 Ml S. I. Franeiscns (FsANgois DU JON), a Protestant theologian, born in Bourges, France, in 1545, died in Leyden in 1602. He was de- signed for the law, but having embraced the doctrines of the reformation, he went in 1562 to Geneva, where he studied theology. He became minister of a Walloon congregation in Antwerp in 1565, and took a prominent part