the name, or rather written under the signature of Junius; nor did he always indeed assume a signature of any kind. When he did so, however, his signature was diversified, and the chief of them were Mnemon and Atticus, Lucius, Junius and Brutus. Under the first he sarcastically opposed the minis. try upon the subject of the Nullum Tempus bill, which involved the celebrated dispute concerning the transfer on the part of the crown of the duke of Portland's estate of the forest of Inglewood, and the manor and castle of Carlisle, to sir James Lowther, son-in-law of lord Bute, upon the plea that these lands, which formerly belonged to the crown, had not been duly specified in king William's grant of them to the Portland family; and that hence, although they had been in the Portland family for nearly seventy years, they of right belonged to the crown still. The letters signed Atticus and Brutus relate chiefly to the growing disputes with the American colonies: and those subscribed Lucius exclusively to the outrageous dismission of sir Jeffrey Amherst from his post of governor of Virginia.

The name of Mnemon seems to have been merely taken up at hazard. That of Atticus was unquestionably assumed from the author's own opinion of the purity of his style, an opinion in which the public universally concurred: and the three remaining signatures of Lucius, Junius, and Brutus were obviously deduced from a veneration for the memory of the celebrated Roman patriot, who united these three names in his own.

There were also a variety of other names occasionally assumed by this fertile political writer, to answer particular purposes, or more completely to conceal himself, and carry forward his extensive design. That of Philo-Junius, he has avowed to the public, in the authorised edition of the Letters of JUNIUS: but besides this they have yet to recognize him under the mask of Poplicola, Domitian, Vindex, and a variety of others, as the subjoined pages will sufficiently testify.

The most popular of our author's letters anterior to those published with the signature of JUNIUS in 1769, were those subscribed Atticus and Lucius; to the former of which the few letters signed Brutus seem to have been little more than auxiliary, and are consequently not polished with an equal degree of attention. These letters, in point of time, preceded those with the signature of JUNIUS by a few weeks: they are certainly written with admirable spirit and perspicuity, and are entitled to all the popularity they ac quired:-yet they are not perhaps possessed of more merit than our author's letters signed Mnemon. They nevertheless deserve a more minute attention from their superior celebrity. The proofs of their having been composed by the writer denominated JUNIUS are incontestible: the manner, the phraseology, the sarcastic, exprobatory style, independently of any other evidence, sufficiently identify them. These therefore are now added, together with such others whose genuineness is equally indisputable, to the acknowledged letters of JUNIUS, to render his productions complete.

The attention paid to these philippics, and the celebrity they had so considerably acquired, stimulated the author to new and additional exertions: and having in the beginning of the ensuing year completed another with more than usual elaboration and polish, which he seems to have intended as a kind of introductory address to the nation at large, he sent it forth under the name of JUNIUS (a name he had hitherto assumed but once) to the office of the Public Advertiser, in which journal it appeared on Saturday, January 21, 1769. The popularity expected by the author from this performance was more than accomplished; and what in some measure added to his fame, was a reply (for the Public Advertiser was equally open to all parties) from a real character of no smail celebrity as a scholar, as well as a man of rank, sir Wm. Draper; principally because the attack upon his majesty's ministers had extended itself to Lord Granby, at that time commander in chief, for whom sir William professed the most cordial esteem and friendship.

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 parliaIt possesses the peculiarity of being the only encomiastic letter that. ever fell from his pen under the signature of JUNIUS.

ment.

Lord Camden, however, was not induced by this earnest attempt and 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 has 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 shall 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."

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. 1 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 communicate of moment to yourself, you may use the last address and give a hint."

The mode in which the communication between the writer and his printer was carried on is interesting.

Thus widely informed, and applying the information he was possessed of with an unsparing hand, to purposes of general exposure in every instance of political delinquency, it cannot but be supposed that JUNIUS must have excited a host of enemies in every direction, and that his safety, perhaps his existence, depended alone upon his concealment. Of this he was sufficiently sensible. In his last letter to sir Wm. Draper, who had endeavoured by every means to stimulate him to a disclosure of himself, he observes, “As to me, it is by no means necessary that I should be exposed to the resentment of the worst and the most powerful men in this country, though I may be indifferent about yours. Though you would fight, there are others who would assassinate." To the same effect is the following passage in a confidential letter to Mr. Woodfall. "I must be more cautious than ever; I am sure I should not survive a discovery three days; or, if I did, they would attaint me by bill." On many occasions, therefore, notwithstanding all the calmness and intrepidity he affected in his public letters, it is not to be wondered at that he should betray some feelings of apprehension in his confidential intercourse. In one of his private letters, indeed, he observes, "As to me, be assured it is not in the nature of things that they (the Cavendish family) or you or any body else should ever know me, unless I make myself known: all arts, or inquiries, or rewards, would be equally ineffectual." But in other letters he seems not a little afraid of detection or surmise. "Tell me candidly," he says, at an early period of his correspondence with Mr. Woodfall under the signature of JUNIUS, "whether you know or suspect who I am." "You must not write to me again," he observes in another letter, "but be assured I will never desert you." "Upon no account, nor for any reason whatever are you to write to me until I give you notice." Change to the Somerset coffee-house, and let no mortal know the alteration. I am persuaded you are too honest a man to contribute in any way to my destruction. Act honourably by me, and at a proper time you shall know me."

"

The Somerset coffee-house formed only one of a great variety of places, at which answers and other parcels from the printer of the Public Advertiser were ordered to be left. No plan indeed could be better devised for secresy than that by which this correspondence was maintained. A common name, such as was by no means likely to excite any peculiar attention, was first chosen by JUNIUS and a common place of deposit in. dicated:-the pareels from JUNIUS himself were sent direct to the print

ing-office, and whenever a parcel or letter in return was waiting for him, it was announced in the notices to correspondents by such signals as "N. E. C."— “a letter,"" Vindex shall be considered," "C. in the usual place," "an old Correspondent shall be attended to," the introductory C. being a little varied from that commonly used; or by a line of Latin poetry. "Don't always use," says our author, "the same signal: any absurd Latin verse will an swer the purpose." And when the answer implied a mere negative or affirmative, it was communicated in the newspaper by a simple yes or no. The ňames 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 18, 1772, he observes, "the gentleman who transacts the conveyancing part of our correspondence 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 depository of his own secret, it is only necessary to conceive at the same time that the person thus confidentially employed was not entrusted with the full scope and object 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

*Mr. Jackson, the present respectable proprietor of the Ipswich Journal, was at this time in the employment of the late Mr. Woodfall, and he observed to the editor, in September last, that he once saw a tall gentleman dressed in a light coat with bag and sword, throw into the office door opening into Ivy lane a letter of JUNIUS's, which he picked up and immediately followed the bearer of it into St. Paul's Church-yard, where he got into a hackney coach and drove off. But whether this was " the gentleman who transacted the conveyancing part" or JUNIUS himself, it is impossible to ascertain.

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."

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 his person or abode. “I 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."

The great and doubtful question who was the author of Junius's letters is discussed at considerable length, with much knowledge of fact, though not always with equal acuteness. The aim of the writer is to destroy the pretensions of all whose names have been ever introduced as claimants to this honour, without undertaking to substitute any other in their place. However unsatisfactory such a conclusion may be to our curiosity, it is at least one step towards truth to remove the errors which have impeded its progress, and the arguments of the editor are therefore entitled to very respectful consideration. Although he does not designate any individual, he has collected a variety of characteristics, which any future candidate must possess before he can be received as Junius.

That he was a man of easy, if not of affluent circumstances, is unquestionable, from the fact that he never could be induced in any way or shape to receive any acknowledgment from the proprietor of the Public Advertiser, for the great benefit and popularity he conferred on this paper by his writings, and to which he was fairly entitled. When the first genuine edition of his letters was on the point of publication, Mr. Woodfall again urged him either to accept half its profits, or to point out some public charity or other institution to which an equal sum might be presented. His reply to this request is contained in a paragraph of one of his Private Letters, No. 59, and confers credit on both the parties. "What you say about the profits is very handsome. I like to deal with such men. 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." In this last sentence he reasoned from the sphere