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PREFIXED TO WOODFALL'S FIRST EDITION, OMITTED IN THE SECOND.

THE present edition contains, besides the letters published by authority of JUNIUS himself, others written by the same author under various signatures, which appeared in the Public Advertiser from April, 1767, to May, 1772, together with his Private Letters, peculiarly curious and interesting, addressed to his printer, the late Mr. H. S. Woodfall, and his confidential correspondence with Mr. Wilkes. These latter papers only reached the proprietor's hands after a considerable part of the work had been printed off, which will account for the unavoidable omission of any notice of them in the Preliminary Essay.

It is in perfect consistency with the plan at first proposed by the author, but which he was compelled in some degree to depart from, as remarked in the Preliminary Essay, that the edition now offered contains, independently of his more finished compositions under the signature of JUNIUS and PHILOJUNIUS, letters under other signatures, bearing nevertheless characteristic and unequivocal marks of proceeding from the same pen; and which, though written perhaps with more haste than the former, exhibit merit enough to accompany them; while they possess no small portion of additional value as comments upon points that require elucidation.

The editor, in thus deciding upon materials which lie scattered through what the author terms six "solid folios," will be found seldom to have relied altogether upon his own judgment, but to have availed himself of a variety of minute clues resulting from incidental references, or open acknowledgments in the Private Letters; direct charges of contemporary labourers in the same political vineyard, which were not disavowed by JUNIUS himself, as was his custom whenever "other persons' sins," to adopt his own language, were attributed to him; or from numerous other casual hints, both in the acknowledged and more palpable Miscellaneous Letters, of which the reader, it is presumed, will meet with instances enough to satisfy himself as he proceeds. To the author's explanatory notes, the present editor has added such others through the entire progress of the work, as the intervening lapse of time has seemed to render necessary, and though some of them are longer than he could have wished, yet from the circumstance of their having been written in answer to letters from JUNIUS, he has thought it more desirable that they should appear in the form in which they are now offered, than be pressed into the text of the work, by which means its present size must have been very considerably extended; and the plan, as devised by the author, have been in some instances departed from. Many of these notes, moreover, selected from the Public Advertiser, will be found in themselves extremely curious and valuable, while at the same time they are nowhere else to be met with. The text has been carefully collated with the journal in which the letters originally appeared, and very numerous errors, which have crept into all the editions, except the genuine one published by Mr. H. S. Woodfall himself, and which have been considerably multiplied in the later impressions, have been carefully corrected or expunged.

The remainder of this Advertisement is of no interest.

THE

HISTORY

DISCOVERY

AND

OF JUNIUS.

To solve riddles is a leading propensity of man, and the more baffling they are the more ardent he becomes in research. Such dispositions of our nature, from their beneficial tendencies, may be commendably indulged. To persevering inquiry society is mainly indebted for its progress, and may look forward to continual advancement, till the utmost limits of discovery are reached, and philosophers, like Alexander at the close of his triumphs, sigh that no more victories remain to be won.

The phenomena of the material universe may challenge wonder and admiration, but what most absorbs sympathy are the mysteries of our own conduct. Hence the superior interest of inquiries that pertain to human genius; its grandeur, its perversions, and its eccentricities. History is replete with these themes; controversies on many of them seem interminable, and the combatants, like hardy warriors, retire from the lists, not because they are vanquished or convinced, but because they are exhausted.

It is this which has tended to leave undetermined many problems of a former period. Few would now care to renew the disputation whether Charles I. or Bishop Gauden com posed Eikon Basilike; whether William or George Cavendish wrote the Life of Wolsey, or Lady Packington The Whole Duty of Man. The question revived in Queen Anne's reign, whether King James was the father of the old Pretender, has descended, with the young Pretender, into oblivion, and neither pen nor claymore is likely again to be drawn respecting any affinities of the Stuarts. Weariness of the dispute, if not greater decorum, precludes further scrutiny into

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the transgressions of Mary Queen of Scotland. Anne of Austria is similarly chartered, though her suspected derelicts were more numerous than those of the Scottish queen. All these are enigmas with which inquirers of the last century pertinaciously wrestled, as well as with the more melancholy ones pertaining to the death of Don Carlos of Spain, Alexis of Russia, and Count Königsmark at the electoral court of Hanover.

The truth of such dark passages of history might not be of use to mankind, if indubitably revealed; but there are inquirers who delight in their exploration as there are adventurers always forthcoming to brave the gloom and icebergs of the polar seas. On the other hand, there are men whose predominant taste is not to unravel mysteries but to create them. Hence the numerous impostors and literary forgeries that have appeared-Annius of Viterbo, Damberger, the pretended African traveller, and George Psalmanazar; the Rowley Poems, the Poems of Ossian, and the Shakspeare Papers. With rare exceptions, the authors of such fabrications maintained their genuineness to the last, and died without confession. Psalmanazar, indeed, after a long and successful career of imposition practised on bishops and church dignitaries, was at length unmasked, chiefly by Dr. Douglas

"the scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks," — who pointed out the contradictions in his pretended missionary labours and nativity in the island of Formosa; but though Psalmanazar was brought to admit his deceptions, he could never be prevailed on to disclose his real name or birthplace.

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Ireland too was an exception-he avowed the Shakspeare forgeries, after deceiving such recondite connoisseurs as the Earls of Lauderdale and Somerset, Sir James Burgess, Dr. Parr, Mr. Pinkerton, and Pye the poet laureate. But neither Chatterton nor Macpherson could be brought to admit the spuriousness of their productions. The "Poems of Rowley were so adroitly executed, that no one, Mr. Malone affirmed, except the nicest judges of English poetry, from Chaucer to Pope, was competent to test their genuineness. As Chatterton died without acknowledging their composition, it is still open to controversy. Dr. Johnson believed that Chatterton was the author, but was astonished at his precocious ability. This is the most extraordinary young man," said he, "who

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has encountered my knowledge-it is wonderful how the whelp has written such things." The "Poems of Ossian " have been an equally successful deception; deceived Gray, Home, and even Dr. Blair, a critic and writer on language by profession. But the acuteness of Mr. Hume, though willing to be converted, suggested a simple trial. "Shew us," said the historian, "the original Celtic poems from which the translations have been made, and tell us how they have been so wonderfully preserved during so many centuries." The appeal was a fair one, but Macpherson declined to join issue, and with affected disdain refused to answer.

These retrospective glances have been cast briefly to indicate the literary enigmas which have occupied a preceding generation, but except as pertaining to the mysterious, they have no relation to the subject of the present inquiry. In the depths of their secrecy the LETTERS OF JUNIUS have been unequalled, but stand wholly distinct from the class of literary forgeries. Rich in intrinsic excellence, they might have been safely left to their own merits to find a lasting place in public esteem. Unlike the fictions adverted to, they are a genuine production, commenced with a determinate purpose, resolutely persevered in, and in the main fully successful. The mystery in regard to them is, that a work of such undoubted claims, one which has commanded such universal admiration, should so long remain a waif-be so long astray in the world without any acknowledged claimant.

To unravel this mystery-to sever this Gordian-knot of the age-is the object of the present Essay. A task which has failed in the hands of so many, is not, it must be owned, either an encouraging or an easy one. Excess of false lights, in some degree, dazzles and perplexes the way. Junius has been profoundly invisible, but he is no myth of antiquity; he lived in an age when hardly anything that provokes curiosity can elude the searching blaze. For the result to be satisfactory, no disembodied spirit will suffice; it must be a being of flesh and blood, one that will bear to be challenged by facts, documents, and living witnesses. Despite of this array, I shall make the attempt. I shall show who Junius was, and the conditions and exigencies under which he acted. I will explain all that is most marvellous in him-all that most astonished his contemporaries-his apparently instantaneous and universal sources of intelligence; his meteoric career and

sudden disappearance; the reasons of his concealment; and why he lived and died unavowed.

WHO, THEN, WAS JUNIUS?

The lists are crowded with claimants, and this is the first difficulty which presents itself. The throng is embarrassing, but many combatants have no title to be placed, and the ranks must be thinned by settling the eligibilities of the tournament. This is a fair preliminary, allowed in every investigation. Geometricians always commence with axioms that are indisputable, by which the path is opened to theorems. In the trial of a judicial issue, certain descriptions of evidence are deemed inadmissible, and not entitled to be examined. By following this course, the ground is cleared, irrelevancies got rid of, and attention concentrated on essential points. It is a precedent I shall follow by describing certain denominations of candidates, none of whom can possibly have been Junius. Acting upon this rule, my first affirmation is,

That JUNIUS was not a Lawyer.

In deciding this issue, I shall not trust to my own judgment, but appeal to higher authority: Lord Campbell, whose words have been quoted (p. 53), says distinctly that Junius could not have been a lawyer, or he would not have committed the serious mistake of denying the power of Chief Justice Mansfield to bail Eyre, charged with theft under peculiar circumstances *. A remark of like import I have heard made by a celebrated ex-chancellor. Indeed the mistake is held by the profession to have been an egregious one, and such as no barrister would have committed.

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In his Dedication he falls into a further unprofessional error, when in speaking of the House of Commons, he says, "They are only trustees, the fee is in us." Upon this, Lord Campbell observes, Those who are of the craft all know that the fee is in the trustee, not in the cestuique trust, or person benefi cially interested." But it is due to Junius to remark, that he never pretended to be of the "craft;" he disdained the connection; considered that it narrowed the mind and corrupted the heart. In a private letter to Wilkes, he says, Though I use the terms of art, do not injure me so much as to suspect I am a lawyer. I had as lief be a Scotchman. Junius, vol. i. p. 440, + Lives of the Chanc. vi. P. 344.

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