its author might often be observed on his walks taking a cloth from his pocket and flicking the dust from his boots. This note of particularity runs through the whole volume. It is observation and reflection that lends interest and charm to the whole of this celebrated book. The Letters of Junius 8 5 There is one other writer who, by the mystery attending his person probably as much as by his literary efforts, has attracted considerable attention. In the columns of the Public Advertiser from January 21, 1769, to January 21, 1772, there appeared a series of open letters, violently attacking the King and the Government of the Duke of Grafton, which live in literary history as the Letters of Junius. The identity of the writer was for many years a matter of speculation, and, among other people, they were attributed to Burke, Chatham, Wilkes, Chesterfield, Horne Tooke, Horace Walpole, and Gibbon. There is, however, no reasonable doubt that they were the work of Sir Philip Francis, a freakish politician, who fought a duel in India with Warren Hastings, was concerned in a notorious divorce action, and supported Wilberforce in his crusade against the slave trade. Junius was a superficial politician, but the vividness and vehemence of his invective make it almost comparable to Swift's, and there is no other political writing in English literature after his time that has the same forcefulness, except the famous Runnymede Letters, written by Disraeli. The characteristics of the Junius Letters have been summed up by Professor Saintsbury. "An affectation of exaggerated moral indignation, claptrap rhetorical interrogations, the use, clever enough if it were not so constant, of balanced antitheses, a very good ear for some, though by no means many, cadences and rhythms, some ingenuity in trope and metaphor, and a cun ning adaptation of that trick of specialising with proper names with which Lord Macaulay has surfeited readers for the last half-century—these, though by no means all, are the chief features of the Junian method." The following extract from a letter addressed to the Duke of Grafton with its insinuated attack on George III is characteristic of the method and the style of Junius: With any other prince, the shameful desertion of him in the midst of that distress, which you alone had created, in the very crisis of danger, when he fancied he saw the throne already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities, would have outweighed the memory of your former services. But his Majesty is full of justice, and understands the doctrine of compensations; he remembers with gratitude how soon you had accommodated your morals to the necessities of his service, how cheerfully you had abandoned the engagements of private friendship, and renounced the most solemn professions to the public. The sacrifice of Lord Chatham was not lost on him. Even the cowardice and perfidy of deserting him may have done you no disservice in his esteem. The instance was painful, but the principle might please. Sir Philip Francis died in 1818. BIBLIOGRAPHY GIBBON: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J. B. Bury, 7 vols. Life of Gibbon, by J. Cotter Morison. CHESTERFIELD: Letters to his Son, 2 vols. DAVID HUME: Treatise on Human Nature, 2 vols. Essays, 1741-1752 (World's Classics). History of England, by J. S. Brewer. HORACE WALPOLE: A selection of Walpole's Letters is published in National Library. ADAM SMITH: The Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. (World's Classics). JOHN LOCKE: Philosophical Works, 2 vols., in Bohn's Library. Essay on the Human Understanding. GILBERT WHITE OF SELBORNE: Natural History of Selborne (Everyman's Library). JAMES BOSWELL: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson (Everyman's Library). Life of Samuel Johnson, 1 vol. "JUNIUS": Letters, 1 vol. |