Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/809

J U N J U N 775 The Juniperus tkurifera is the incense juniper of Spain and Portugal, and J. phoenicea (J. lycia) from the Medi terranean district is stated by London to be burned as incense. Juniperus communis, the common juniper, and several other species, belong to the section Oxycedrus. The common juniper is a very widely distributed plant, occur ring in the whole of northern Europe, central and northern Asia to Kamchatka, and North America. It grows at considerable elevations in southern Europe, in the Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees, and Sierra Nevada (4000 to 9000 feet). It also grows in Asia Minor, Persia, and at great elevations on the Himalayas. In former times the juniper seems to have been a very well known plant, the name occurring almost unaltered in many languages. The dialectical names, chiefly in European languages, have been collected by Prince L. L. Bonaparte, and published in The Academy (July 17, 1880, No. 428, p. 45). The common juniper is official in the British pharmacopoeia and in that of the United States, yielding the oil of juniper, a powerful diuretic, distilled from the unripe fruits. The wood is very aromatic, and is used for ornamental purposes. In Lapland the bark is made into ropes. The fruits are used for flavouring gin (a name derived from juniper, through the French genievre) ; and in some parts of France a kind of beer called Genevrette was made from them by .the peasants. Juniperus Oxycedrus, from the Mediter ranean district and Madeira, yields cedar oil which is official in most of the European pharmacopoeias, but not in that of Britain. The third section, Caryocedrus, consists of a single species, Juniperus drupacea of Asia Minor. The fruits are large and edible ; they are known in the East by the name Habhel. JUNIUS. This is the signature of an unknown writer who, after exciting and baffling the curiosity of three or four generations of critics, has been allowed to take rank amongst English classics under a pseudonym. The first of the published letters with this signature was dated January 21, 1769; the last, January 21, 1772. The entire series appeared in the Public Advertiser, a popular newspaper edited by Woodfall, to whom a number of private letters were also addressed by the same writer. These are in cluded in the collected and complete editions, as well as a number of letters attributed on varying grounds, more or less satisfactory, to Junius. The first of the letters was a sweeping attack on the Government for the time being. Its spirit may be judged from the concluding sentence : " They (posterity) will not believe it possible that their ancestors could have survived or recovered from so desperate a condition while a duke of Grafton was prime minister, a Lord North chancellor of the exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough secretaries of state, a Granby commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal judge of the kingdom." He does not con descend to particulars, and the letter might have passed unnoticed if Sir William Draper, a man of considerable note, had not undertaken the defence of Lord Granby in answer to it. A bitter controversy ensued, which rapidly degenerated into an exchange of personalities, much to the disadvantage of Sir William. Then came letters to the duke of Grafton, the prime minister, directed more against his private character and conduct than his policy, the main charge against his Grace being his abandonment of Wilkes, whom Junius treats throughout the letters as the champion of the constitution, to be supported against the ministry and the crown. He takes Blackstone, the author of the Commentaries, severely to task for justifying the expulsion of Wilkes, whose cause he also espouses in an altercation with Home Tooke ; and he omits no opportunity of denouncing Luttrell, the elect of Middlesex. The address to the king, the most celebrated of Junius s composi tions, after recapitulating the familiar charges of personal pique and favouritism, calls upon his Majesty to summon his whole council without consulting his minister : " Lay aside the wretched formality of a king, and speak to your subjects with the spirit of a man and in the language of a gentleman. Tell them you have been fatally deceived." Many of the letters turn on topics which have no longer the slightest interest. A long letter is addressed to Lord Mansfield for bailing a man named Eyre. In another, equally elaborate, this learned lord is accused of tampering with the common law by an admixture of the civil law, which is now regarded as his highest praise ; Junius treats it as an attempt to undermine the liberties of England. He relies little on argument or proof. His force is in his style. He commonly assumes his victim to be what he wishes him to be thought, and produces the desired effect by irony, sarcasm, or polished invective. One of his happiest figures of speech is in the letter on the affair of the Falkland Islands : " Private credit is wealth ; public honour is security ; the feather that adorns the royal bird supports his flight ; strip him of his plumage, and you fix him to the earth." Although an admirer of Lord Chatham, Junius agreed with Mr Grenville as to the right of England to tax the colonies ; and, although an uncompromising sup porter of popular rights, he was an advocate or apologist for rotten boroughs. The sensation Junius created in the political world may be inferred from the manner in which the leading orators and statesmen of the day spoke of him. " How comes this Junius," exclaimed Burke, addressing the Speaker, "to have broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the land 1 The myr midons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me or you. No, sir, they disdain such vermin when the mighty boar of the forest who 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 read his attack upon the king, I own my blood ran cold." . ..." Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, but he has attacked even you he has and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying away onr 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 1 He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his pointed penetration and activity." Lord North spoke in the same strain : " Why should we wonder that the great boar of the wood, this mighty Junius, has broke through the toils and foiled the hunters 1 Though there may be at present no spear that will reach him, yet he may be some time or other caught." What added signally to his influence was the general belief of his contemporaries that he was a man of rank and position, familiar with what was passing behind the scenes in high places ; and this belief arose not simply from the intimate knowledge he showed of things and persons about the court and the principal departments of the state, but from the lofty and independent tone that was habitual and seemed natural to him, as when he tells Sir William Draper, "I should have hoped that even my name might carry some authority with it if I had not seen how very little weight or consideration a printed paper receives even from the respectable signature of Sir William Draper"; or when in private letters to the publisher, after waiving all right to the profits of the publication, he says : " As for