cumstances, of unsullied honour and generosity, who had it equally in his heart and in his power to contribute to the necessities of other persons, and especially of those who were exposed to troubles of any kind on his own account: that he was in habits of confidential intercourse, if not with different members of the cabinet, with politicians who were most intimately familiar with the court, and entrusted with all its secrets: that he had attained an age which would allow him, without vanity, to boast of an ample knowledge and experience of the world: that during the years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, and part of 1772, he resided almost constantly in London or its vicinity, devoting a very large portion of his time to political concerns, and publishing his political lucubrations, under different signatures, in the Public Advertiser; that in his natural temper, he was quick, irritable and impetuous; subject to political prejudices and strong personal animosities; but possessed of a high independent spirit; honestly attached to the principles of the constitution, and fearless and indefatigable in maintaining them; that he was strict in his moral conduct, and in his attention to public decorum; an avowed member of the established church, and, though acquainted with English judicature, not a lawyer by profession.

What other characteristics he may have possessed we know not; but these are sufficient; and the claimant who cannot produce them conjointly is in vain brought forwards as the author of the Letters of JUNIUS.

The persons to whom this honour has at different times, and on different grounds been attributed are the following: Charles Lloyd, a clerk of the Treasury, and afterwards, a deputy teller of the Exchequer; John Roberts, also a elerk in the Treasury at the commencement of his political life, but afterwards successively private secretary to Mr. Pelham when chancellor of the exchequer, member of parliament for Harwich, and commissioner of the board of trade; Samuel Dyer, a man of considerable learning, and a friend of Mr. Burke and of Dr. Johnson; William Gerard Hamilton, another friend and patron of Mr. Burke; Edmund Burke himself; Dr. Butler, late bishop of Hereford; the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen; Major-General Charles Lee, well-known for his activity during the American war; John Wilkes; Hugh Macauley Boyd; John Dunning, Lord Ashburton; Henry Flood; and Lord George Sackville.

Of the three first of these reported authors

* Anonymously accused of having written these letters in the Public Advertiser, March 21, 1772, et passim.

of the Letters of JUNIUS, it will be sufficient to observe, without entering into any other fact whatever, that Lloyd was on his death-bed at the date of the last of JUNIUS's private letters; an essay, which has sufficient proof of having been written in the possession of full health and spirits; and which, together with the rest of our author's private letters to the Printer of the Public Advertiser, is in the possession of the proprietor of this edition, and bear date January 19th, 1773. While as to Roberts and Dyer, they had both been dead for many months anterior to this period: Lloyd died, after a lingering illness, January 22d, 1773; Roberts July 13th, and Dyer on September 15th, both in the preceding year.

Of the two next reputed authors, Hamilton had neither energy nor personal courage enough for such an undertaking *, and Burke could not

* Hamilton, from his having once made a brilliant speech in the lower House of Great Britain and ever afterwards remaining silent, was called Single-speech Hamilton. In allusion to this fact, and that he was the real JUNIUS, there is a letter in the Public Advertiser of November 30, 1771, addressed to WILLIAM JUNIUS SINGLE-SPEECH, Esq. The air of Dublin however, should seem, according to Mr. Malone's account of him, to have been more favourable to his rhetorical powers than that of Westminster: for this writer tells us that Mr. Hamilton made not less than five speeches in the Irish Parliament in the single Session of 1761-2. Parliamentary Logic, Pref. p. xxii.

have written in the style of JUNIUS, which was precisely the reverse of his own, nor could he have consented to have disparaged his own talents in the manner in which JUNIUS has disparaged them in his letter to the Printer of the Public Advertiser, dated October 5, 1771; independently of which, both of them solemnly denied that they were the authors of these letters, Hamilton to Mr. Courtney in his last illness, as that gentleman has personally informed the editor; and Burke expressly and satisfactorily to Sir William Draper, who purposely interrogated him upon the subject; the truth of which denial is, moreover, corroborated by the testimony of the late Mr. Woodfall, who repeatedly declared that neither of them were the writers of these compositions. Why Burke was so early and generally suspected of having written them it is not easy to say; but that he was so suspected is obvious not only from the opinion at first entertained by Sir William Draper, but from various public accusations conveyed in different newspapers and pamphlets of the day; the Public Advertiser in the month of October containing one letter under the signature of Zeno, addressed "to Junius, alias, Edmund, the Jesuit of St. Omers ;" another under the signature of Pliny

*See Note to Letter LXI,

Junior, a third under that of Querist, a fourth under that of Oxoniensis, and a fifth under that of Scævola; together with many others to the same effect: and, as has already been hinted at, an anonymous collector of many of the letters of JUNIUS, prefixing to his own edition certain anecdotes of Mr. Burke, which he confidently denominated "Anecdotes of JUNIUS," thus purposely, but fallaciously, identifying the two characters *.

If however there should be readers so inflexible as still to believe that Mr. Burke was the real writer of the Letters of JUNIUS, and that his denial of the fact to Sir William Draper was only wrung from him under the influence of fear, it will be sufficient to satisfy even such readers by shewing that the system of politics of the one

In addition to the above proofs that Burke and JUNIUS were not the same person, the editor might refer to the prosecution which Mr. Burke instituted against Mr. Woodfall, the Printer of the Public Advertiser, and conducted with the utmost acrimony for a paper deemed libellous that appeared in this journal in the course of 1783. Considerable interest was inade with Mr. Burke to induce him to drop this prosecution in different stages of its progress, but he was inexorable. The cause was tried at Guildhall July 15, 1784, and a verdict of a hundred pounds damages was obtained against the printer; the whole of which was paid to the prosecutor. It is morally impossible that JUNIUS could have acted in this manner : every anecdote in the preceding sketch of his public life forbids the belief that he could.