Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/810

776 JUNIUS myself, be assured that I am far above all pecuniary views." ..." You, I think, sir, may be satisfied that my rank and fortune place me above a common bribe." In the preface to the second volume of Bonn s edition of 1855, no less than thirty-seven persons are enumerated to whom the authorship has been attributed. Contem porary opinion strongly inclined to Burke, whose power of assuming or disguising style is proved by his Vindica tion of Natural Society ; and, as his biographer Prior pointedly remarks, " contemporary opinion, as formed from a variety of minor circumstances which do not come within the knowledge of future inquirers, is perhaps, on such occasions, the truest." Dr Johnson, who had entered the lists against Junius, told Boswell : "I should have believed Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these letters ; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me." Burke told Reynolds that he knew Junius, and uniformly spoke of him as he would hardly have spoken of himself. A very strong case was made out for Lord George Sackville, on whom, after Burke s denial, Sir William Draper s suspicions permanently fixed. Fox used to say that, although he would not take Single- speech Hamilton against the field, he would back him against any single horse. Boyd is another candidate who did not lack supporters. A plausible claim was advanced for the American General Lee, backed by three experts who pre tended to detect him by the handwriting. A famous expert, Imbert, gave a written certificate on the same ground in favour of Home Tooke ; and another, Nether- clift, declared that there was more of the Junius character in the handwriting of Mrs Dayrolles (the alleged amanuensis of Lord Chesterfield) than in any other specimen submitted to him as a possible performance by the great unknown. Other experts declared confidently for other claimants. But the identity remained an open question, and case after case was pronounced not proven, till the appearance of Mi- Taylor s Junius Identified in 1816, when Sir Philip Francis immediately became the favourite, and during the next half century the problem was pretty generally considered at an end. Prior to the publication, Mr Taylor called on Sir Philip to intimate what was intended, and came away with the impression that he was rather pleased than displeased with the intimation. In fact, he had been already playing Junius, and he continued playing the part till his death in 1818. "His first gift," writes his second wife, whom he married in 1814, two years before Junius Identified, "was an edition of Junius, which he bade me take to my room and not let it be seen or speak upon the subject ; and his posthumous present, which his son found in his bureau, was Junius Identified, sealed up and directed to me." The real Junius might have bequeathed a much more conclusive legacy. He writes to Woodfall, December 17, 1771 : " When the book is finished, let me have a sett (sic) bound in vellum, gilt, and lettered Junius I. II. as handsomely as you can. The edges gilt, let the sheets be well dried before binding, I must also have two setts in blue paper covers. This is all the fee I shall ever require of you." These were duly sent, and it would have been something to the purpose had Francis bequeathed one of them to his wife. Neither of them has turned up. The surviving son (by the first wife) likewise claimed the authorship for the father as a source of pride to the family, so that no evidence in their possession would have been kept back. Pitt told Lord Aberdeen (the fourth earl) that he knew who Junius was, and that it was not Francis On its being objected that the Franciscan theory had not been started till after Pitt s death, Lord Aberdeen replied "that s stuf," and proceeded to relate tliat he himself had once dined in company with Francis when proofs of his being Junius were adduced before him, that he had listened with evident pleasure, and at last exclaimed in a stilted theatri cal manner, " God ! if men force laurels on my head, I ll wear them." His immediate contemporaries remained unconvinced. Sir Fortunatus Dwarris states broadly that no one who knew, heard, or read Francis thought him capable of producing Junius. Lord Broughton confirmed this. Tierney said : " I know no better reason for believing the fellow to be Junius than that he was always confoundedly proud of something, and no one could ever guess what it could be." Lord Stanhope, however, would admit no shadow of doubt upon the point, and Lord Macaulay declared that all reasoning from circumstantial evidence was at an end unless Francis were admitted to be Juniua. Both these eminent authorities agree in resting their case on similarity of handwriting, on the internal evidence of style, and on five points which are summarily stated by Lord Macaulay in his essay on Warren Hastings. As regards similarity ot handwriting, there is one plain test on which experts are agreed, namely, that " it is impossible for a man, in order to disguise his writing, to write better than he does habitu ally " ; and the best penmanship of Junius is incompar ably superior in fineness, delicacy, and grace to the best of Francis, who wrote a large, coarse, clerk-like hand. As regards style, the specimens culled from Francis s speeches and writings prove no more than that he, an assiduous imitator of Junius, succeeded occasionally in catching the mannerism, without any one of the distinctive merits, of his model. Lord Macaulay, not denying the inferiority, endeavours to weaken the argument drawn from it by re marking that it may be urged with at least equal force against every claimant that has ever been mentioned, with the single exception of Burke. " And what conclusion," he asks, "after all, can be drawn from mere inferiority] Every writer must produce his best work ; and the interval between his best and his second best work may be very wide indeed." This undeniable truth might have been urged with equal force by any pretender to a disputed authorship, for example, by Theophilus Swift, the dean s cousin, when he claimed the authorship of the Tale of a Tub. Surely the strongest argument in favour of any given candidate is that (tested by his known writings) he alone was equal to the authorship, and the strongest argument against any given candidate that (tested in the same manner) he was unequal to it. Francis put forth his full powers in his controversy with Hastings, and his friend D Oyly writes to him in 1778 that the public who had followed the controversy allowed both to be good writers ; " but, in their opinion, he (Hastings) takes the lead so decidedly as to admit of no comparison." The five points (which have been logically resolved into three) remained untouched till the publication of the memoirs of Sir Philip Francis by Parkes and Merivale in 1867. This book entirely changed the aspect of the con troversy by showing that Francis s position, opinions, interests, manner of life, and tone during the Junian period were the reverse of what those of Junius might be supposed to have been. During the whole of that period he was first clerk in the war office under Lord Barrington. Born in Dublin, October 22, 1740, he was in his thirtieth year when the famous letters commenced. He was the son of Dr Francis, the translator of Horace, but had married under his station, and was associating principally with his wife s relatives and connexions. The habits of his set may be collected from his letters, e.g. : "January 4, 1769 : I am just returned from spending a riotous fortnight at Bath. Gravier and two others filled a post-coach, which was dragged with no small velocity by four horses. We