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Junius including Letters of the same writer under other signa
tures, (now first collected.) To which are added, his confiden-
tial correspondence with Mr. Wilkes, and his Private Letters
addressed to Mr. H. S. Woodfall. With a Preliminary Es-
say, Notes, Fac-similes, &c.

1

his share of attention, and perhaps admiration, and are now in a great measure forgotten; and that in times like the present, superabounding with strange events, and flagrant examples of political depravity of their own-they should still hold such a place in public estimation, that the appearance of an edition enlarged and illustrated from the store of materials left by the original publisher, will be regarded as an interesting event in the course of our literature. An interest that has thus continued to subsist in vigour after the loss of all temporary stimulants, and that is capable of so lively an excitement, at this distant period by a circumstance tending to make us a little better acquainted with the author's character, and to put us in more complete possession of his writings, gives assurance that this memorable work may maintain its fame to an indefinite period, and will go down with that portion of our literature, which, in the language of pride and poetry, we call immortal. All will now agree in opinion with the present editor, that it was not vanity in the writer himself to avow a confidence of being read by a remote generation, avoiding, however, to assign, as the strongest foundation of that confidence, his superlative execution; but assuredly this claim to perpetuity was not far from his thoughts, when he mentioned only the principles of his work as the ground of his expectation; "When kings and ministers," he said, "are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are felt only in their remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be transmitted to posterity."

The letters published with the signature of Junius constitute very considerably less than half of the present work. It begins with a Preliminary Essay of 160 pages; next are Private Letters to the late Mr. H. S. Woodfall, the publisher of the Public Advertiser, extending through nearly 100 pages; and these are followed by a private correspondence between Junius and Mr. Wilkes, occupying full 70 pages. Then come the well known Letters, reaching to within 60 or 70 pages of the end of the second volume. This last portion of the second volume, and the whole of the third, are occupied by "Miscellaneous Letters of Junius," which appeared under various signatures, chiefly in the Public Advertiser, before and during the appearance of those of Junius, and most of them verified by internal or circumstantial evidence to be by the same hand. Thus the publication assumes the merit of being, as far as there are any means or chance of accomplishing, a recovery and collection of the entire printed works of the author of Junius's Letters, and challenges the grateful favour of the public, for a service of so much more interesting a kind than it can often happen to a private individual to have the power of conferring.

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