was not the author; neither did he know who the author was, any more than I did; that there was not a man in the world, no, not even Woodfall, the publisher, that knew who the author was; that the secret rested solely with himself, and for ever would remain with him.

"Feeling, in some degree, surprised at this unexpected declaration, after pausing a little, I replied: No, General Lee, if you certainly know what you have affirmed, it can no longer remain solely with him; for, certainly, no one could know what you have affirmed but the author himself!"

"Recollecting himself, he replied: "I have unguardedly committed myself, and it would be but folly to deny to you that I am the author; but I must request that you will not reveal it during my life; for it never was, nor never will be revealed by me to any other.' He then proceeded to mention several circumstances to verify his being the author; and, among them, that of his going over to the Continent, and absenting himself from England most of the time in which these Letters were first published in London, &c. &c. This he thought necessary, lest, by some accident, the author should become known, or at least suspected, which might have been his ruin, had he been known to the court of London, &c."

The account from which we have made this extract was reprinted in the St. James's Chronicle for April 16, 1803, which the editor prefaces by observing, "Of Mr. Rodney, or of the degree of credit that may reasonably be attached to his declaration, we know nothing; but the subject is so curious, that we think our readers will not be averse from having their attention once more drawn to it."

The public do not in any degree appear to have been influenced either by General Lee's pretended assertion, or Mr. Rodney's positive declaration and this claim had totally died away like the rest, when in 1807 it was revived by Dr. Girdlestone of Yarmouth, Norfolk, who endeavoured to establish General Lee's pretensions by a comparison of Rodney's statement with Mr. Langworthy's memoirs of the general's life, in a pamphlet published anonymously, under the title of "Reasons for rejecting the presumptive evidence of Mr. Almon, that Mr. Hugh Boyd was the writer of JUNIUS, with passages selected to prove the real author of the Letters of JUNIUS." And in consequence of this revival of Mr. Lee's claim, the editor feels himself called upon to examine its foundation somewhat more in detail.

The passages selected are in no respect convincing to his mind, and do not appear to havo

been so to that of the public. But without entering upon so disputable a question as that of a superiority of literary taste, it will be sufficient to remark that the great distance of General Lee from England during the period in which the Letters of JUNIUS were published, together with the different line of politics which he pursued, render it impossible that Lee could have been the author of these letters.

The correspondence of General Lee previous to his quitting England for America, in August, 1773, as published by Mr. Langworthy in the memoirs of his life, and adverted to in Dr. Girdlestone's pamphlet, extend through a period of about thirteen months, from Dec. 1, 1766, to Jan. 19, 1768, and give us the following dates. 1766, Dec. 1. To the King of Poland, from

25.

London.

The Prince of Poland, the

same.

1767, May 1. Mr. Coleman, from Warsaw.

The letter was not addressed to Mrs. Macauley, but to

The dates of the letters written by JUNIUS under his occasional signatures are as follows:

Dec. 5. Y. Z. on the King's speech,

on opening the parliament Nov. 24, 1767: the receipt of which will be found acknowledged by the printer in his usual method among the "answers to correspondents," Nov. 80.

19. No signature, on the subject of American politics.

22. Downright.

It is only necessary for the reader to compare these two lists of dates, and places; as for example, London, and Warsaw, or Kamineck, during the two months of May and August, and to observe the rapidity with which the Letters of JUNIUS were furnished, in answer to the different subjects discussed, to obtain a full proof that the latter list of letters could not have been written by the author of the former.

These remarks however relate only to the year 1767. Let us see how the account stands for 1769, being the year in which the author first appeared before the public under his favourite signature (with the single exception of Miscellaneous Letter, No. LII.) It is difficult to ascertain exactly at what places General Lee was residing during this period. Langworthy's memoirs abound with erroneous dates, which are not material however to the present question. The only serviceable hint that can be collected from them is, that he was rambling somewhere or other abroad, and "could never stay long in one place:" to which the editor adds, “ that we can collect nothing material relative to the adventures of his travels, as his memorandumbooks only mention the names of the towns and