the newspaper by a simple yes or Do. The names of address more commonly assumed were Mr. William Middleton, or Mr. John Fretly, and the more common places of address were the bar of the Somerset coffee-house as stated above, of the New Exchange, or Munday's in Maiden lane, the waiters of which were occasionally feed for their punctuality. But these too were varied for other names and places of abode as circumstances might dictate.

"By what conveyance Junius obtained his letters and parcels from the places at which they were left for him is not very clearly ascertained. From the passage quoted from his private letter, No. 10, as also from the express declaration in the Dedication to his own edition of his letters, that he was at that time the sole depository of his own secret,' it should seem that he had also been uniformly his own messenger: yet in his private letter of January 18th, 1772, he observes, the gentleman who transacts the conveyancing part of our corre spondence tells me there was much difficulty last night.' In truth the difficulty, and danger of his constantly performing his own errand must have been extreme; and it is more reasonable therefore to suppose that he employed some person on whom he could place an implicit reliance; while to avoid the apparent contradiction between such a fact and that of his affirming that he was the sole depositary of his own secret, it is only necessary to conceive at the same time that the person thus confidentially employed was not intrusted with the full scope and ob ject of his agency. He sometimes, as we learn from his own testimony, employed a common chairman as his messenger, and perhaps this, after

all, was the method most usually resorted to.

"That a variety of schemes were invented and actually in motion to detect him there can be no doubt; but the extreme vigilance he at all times evinced, and the honourable forbearance of Mr. Woodfall, enabled him to baffle every effort, and to persevere in his concealment to the last. Your letter,' says he in one of his private notes, was twice refused last night, and the waiter as often attempted to see the person who sent for it.'

I

"On another occasion his alarm was excited in consequence of various letters addressed to him at the printing-office, with a view as he suspected of leading to a disclosure either of bis person or abode. return you,' says he in reply, the letters you sent me yesterday. A man who can write neither common English, nor spell, is hardly worth attending to. It is probably a trap for me: I should be glad to know what the fool means. If he writes again, open his letter, and if it contain any thing worth my knowing, send it: otherwise not. Instead of C. in the usual place' say only 'a letter' when you have occasion to write to me again. I shall understand you.'

"Some apprehension he seems to have suffered, as already observed, from the impertinent curio sity of Swinney; but his resentment was chiefly roused by that of David Garrick, who appears from his own account, and from intelligence on which he fully relied, to have been pertinacious in his attempts to dis cover him. For three weeks or a month, he could scarcely ever write to Mr. Wocdfall without cautioning him to be specially on his guard against Garrick and under this impression alone, he once changed bis

address.

address. He wrote to Garrick a private note of severe castigation through the medium of the printer, which the latter, from an idea that it was unnecessarily acrimonious, resubmitted to his consideration with a view of dissuading him from sending it, upon which our author desired him to tell Garrick personally to desist, or he would be amply revenged upon him. As it is important,' says he, to deter him from meddling, I desire you will tell him I am aware of his practices, and will certainly be revenged if he does not desist. An appeal to the public from Junius would destroy him.'

"It is not impossible to form a plausible guess at the age of Junius,, from a passage in one of his private letters; an inqniry, which, though otherwise of little or no consequence, is rendered in some measure important, as a test to determine the validity of the claims that have been laid to his writings by different candidates or their friends. The passage referred to occurs in his letter to Woodfall, dated Nov. 27, 1771;' after long experience of the world,' says he, I affirm before God I never knew a rogue who was not unhappy. Now when this declaration is coupled with the two facts, that he made it under the repeated promise and intention of speedily disclosing himself to his correspondent, and that the correspondent thus schooled, by a moral axiom gleaned from his own long experience of the world,' was at this very time something more than thirty years of age; it seems absurd to suppose that Junius could be much less than fifty, or that he affected an age he had not actually attained.

.

There is another point in the history of his life, during his ap pearance as a public writer, which for the same reason must not be

suffered to pass by without observation, although otherwise it might be scarcely entitled to notice; and that is, that during a great part of this time, from January, 1769, to January, 1772, he uniformly resided in London, or its immediate vicinity, and that he never quitted his stated habitation for a longer period than a few weeks. This too, we may collect from his private correspondence, compared with his public labours. No maa but he, who with a thorough knowledge of our author's style, undertakes to examine all the numbers of the Public Advertiser for the three years in question, can have any idea of the immense fatigue and trouble he submitted to by the composition of other letters, under other signatures, in order to support the pre-eminent pretensions and character of Junius, attacked as it was by a multiplicity of writers in favour of administration, to whom, as Junius, he did not chuse to make any reply whatever. Surely Junius himself, when he first undertook the office of public political censor, could by no means foresee the labour with which he was about to encumber himself. And, instead of wondering that he should have disappeared at the distance of about five years, we ought much rather to be surprised that he should have persevered through half this period with a spirit at once so indefatigable and invincible. Junius had no time for remote excursions, nor often for relaxation, even in the vicinity of the metropolis itself.

"Yet from his private letters we could almost collect a journal of his absences, if not an itinerary of his little tours: for he does not appear to have left London at any time without some notice to the printer, either of his intention, or of the fact itself upon his return home; inde

pendently

pendently of which the frequency and regularity of his correspondence seldom allowed of distant travel. I have been out of town,' says he, in his letter of Nov. 8, 1769, for three weeks; and though I got your last, could not conveniently answer it.'-On another occasion, I have been some days in the country, and could not conveniently send for your letter until this night:' and again, I must see proof-sheets of the dedication and preface; and these, if at all, I must see before the end of next week.' In like manner, I want rest most severely, and am going to find it in the country for a few days.'

"The last political letter that ever issued under the signature of Junius was addressed to Lord Camden. It appeared in the Public Advertiser for Jan. 21, 1772, and followed the publication of his long and elaborate address to Lord Mansfield upon the illegal bailing of Eyre; and was designed to stimulate the noble earl to a renewal of the contest which he had commenced with the chief justice towards the close of the preceding session of parliament. It possesses the peculiarity of being the only encomiastic letter that ever fell from his pen under the signature of Junius. Yet the panegyric bestowed was not for the mere purpose of instigating Lord Camden to the attack in question. There is sufficient evidence in his private letters that Junius had a very high, as well as a very just opinion of the integrity of this nobleman; and an ardent desire that the estimate he had formed of his integrity should be known to the world at large. In the whole course of his political creed there seems to have been but one point upon which they differed, and that was the doctrine assented to by his lordship, that the crown

possesses a power in case of very urgent necessity, of suspending the operation of an act of the legislature. It is a mere speculative doctrine, and Junius only incidentally alluded to it in a letter upon a very different subject. The disagreement upon this point seems eagerly to have been caught at, however, by another correspondent in the Public Advertiser, who chose the signature of Scævola, apparently for the express purpose of involving the political satirist in a dispute with his lordship. Scævola, observes he in a private letter, 'I see is determined to make me an enemy to Lord Camden. If it be not wilful malice, I beg you will signify to him, that when I originally mentioned Lord Camden's declaration about the corn bill, it was without any view of discussing that doctrine, and only as an instance of a singular opinion maintained by a man of great learning and integrity. Such an instance was necessary to the plan of my letter. And again, shortly afterwards, finding that the communication had not been received as it ought to have been, I should not trouble you or myself about that blockhead Scævola, but that his absurd fiction of my being Lord Camden's enemy has done harm. Every fool can do mischief, therefore signify to him what I said.' Not satisfied however with this hint to the printer, he chose, at the same time, under the subordinate character of PhiloJunius, to settle the point, and preclude all possibility of altercation by an address to the public, that should dexterously mark out this single difference in a mere speculative opinion; and while it amply defended the view he had taken of the subject, should evince such an evident approbation of his lordship's general conduct, as could not fail of

being gratifying, to him. This letter appeared in the Public Advertiser, Oct. 15, 1771.

"Lord Camden, however, was not induced by this earnest attempt aud last letter of Junius to renew his attack upon Lord Mansfield; yet this was not the reason, or at least not the sole or primary reason for Junius's discontinuing to write. It hás already been observed, that so early as July, 1769, he began to entertain thoughts of dropping a character and signature which must have cost him a heavy series of labour, and perhaps not unfrequently exposed him to no small peril. I really doubt,' says he, whether I sball write any more under this signature. I am weary of attacking a set of brutes, whose writings are really too dull to furnish me with even the materials of contention, and whose measures are too gross and direct to be the subject of argument, or to require illustration.'

In perfect consonance with this declaration, in his reply to the printer, who had offered him half the profits of the letters at that time published under his own correction, or an equal sum for the use of any public institution he should chuse to name, he makes the following temark, of which a part has been already quoted on another occasion: As for myself, be assured that I am far above all pecuniary views, and no other person, I think, has any claim to share with you. Make the most of it therefore, and let your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate, independence: without it no man can be happy, nor even honest. If I saw any prospect of uniting the city once more, I would readily continue to labour in the vineyard. Whenever Mr. Wilkes can tell me that such an union is in prospect, he shall hear

1812.

of me. Quod si quis existimat me aut voluntate esse mutata, aut debilitatá virtute, aut animo fracto, vehementer errat.'

·

"Even so long afterwards as January 19, 1773, in the very last letter we have any certain knowledge he ever addressed to Mr. Woodfall, he urges precisely the same motives for his continuing to desist. I have seen the signals thrown out for your old friend and correspondent. Be assured I have had good reason for not complying with them. In the present state of things, if I were to write again, I must be as silly as any of the horned cattle that run mad through the city, or as any of your wise aldermen. I meant the cause and the public: both are given up. I feel for the honour of this country, when I see that there are not ten men in it who will unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all alike vile and contemptible. You have never flinched that I know of: I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity. If you have any thing to coinmunicate of moment to yourself, you may use the last address and give a hint.'

In effect from the dissolution of the consolidated whig party upon the death of George Grenville, the absurd divisions in the Bill of Rights society, and the political separations in the city, our author had much reason to despair of the cause in which he had so manfully engaged.

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To the moral character of Junius this letter is of more value than all the popular addresses he, ever composed in his life. It is impossi ble to suppose it to flew from the affectation of an honesty which did not exist in his heart. The circum. stances under which it was sent, altogether prohibit such an idea: un

known as he was, and unknown as he had now determined to continue, to his correspondent, there was no adequate motive for his assuming the semblance of an integrity which he felt not, and which did not fairly belong to him. It was, it must have been, a pure, disinterested testimonial of private esteem and 'public patriotism, consentaneous with the uniform tenor both of his open and his confidential history, and conscientiously developing the real cause of his secession.

"In truth it must have been, as he himself states it, insanity, to have persisted any longer in any thing like a regular attack; Lord Camden had declined to act upon his suggestion; the great phalanx of the whig party was broken up by the death of Mr. George Grenville; the vanity and extreme jealousy of Oliver and Horne had introduced the most acrimonious divisions into the society for supporting the Bill of Rights; and the leading patriots of the city had so intermixed their own private interests, and their own private squabbles with the public cause, as to render this cause itself contemptible in the eyes of the people at large. He had already tried, ~but in vain, to awaken the different contending parties to a sense of better and more honourable motives; to induce them to forego their selfish and individual disputes, and to make a common sacrifice of them upon the altar of the constitution. Yet, at the same time, so small were his expectations of success, so mean his ' opinion of the pretensions of most of the leading demagogues of the day to a real love of their country, and so grossly had he himself been Occasionally misrepresented by them, that in his confidential intercourse he bade his correspondent beware of entrusting himself to them. No

thing,' says he, can be more express than my declaration against long parliaments: try Mr. Wilkes once more, (who was in private possession of his sentiments upon this subject ;) speak for me in a most friendly but firm tone, that I will not submit to be any longer aspersed. Between ourselves, let me recommend it to you to be much upon your guard with patriots."

"With his public address to the people, therefore, in letter 59, he seems in the first instance to have resolved upon closing his labours, at least under the character of Junius, provided no beneficial effect were likely to result from it, and as the printer had expressed to him an earnest desire of publishing a genuine edition of his letters, in a collective form, in consequence of a variety of incorrect and spurious editions at that time circulating through the nation, he seems to have thought that a consent to such a plan would afford him a good ostensible motive før putting a finish to his public career; and on this account he not only acceded to the proposal, but undertook to superintend it as far as his invisibility might allow him; as also to add a few notes, as well as a dedication and preface.

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Nothing can be more absurd than the idea entertained by some writers, that Junius himself was the previous editor of one or two of these irregular editions, and espe cially of an edition published but a short time anterior to his own, audaciously enough entitled The Genuine Letters of Junius, to which are prefixed, Anecdotes of the Author; a pamphlet in which the anonymous anecdotist takes it for granted, from his very outset, that Junius and Edmund Burke were the same person, and then proceeds to

reason