form of tuft-hunting. And it is rather a hasty judgment to set down the fact that he could live on friendly terms with celebrated men of every variety of character and opinions to innate servility of disposition; a better-advised, not to say a more generous judgment, would accept his own explanation-that he " ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person," and that he endured the evil for the sake of the good.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford (1717-1797), the son of Sir Robert Walpole, is one of the most felicitous of our minor writers of prose. The peculiarities of his easy sauntering disposition were a great puzzle to Lord Macaulay: that energetic writer pronounced him "the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious of men," and said that "his mind was a bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations." His inconsistencies are not so startling when we bear in mind the character and station of the man; he was too fond of ease, too much averse to effort, to take the trouble of being consistent. His endeavour was to gratify his various tastes at the minimum of exertion. He had a taste for pictures and for articles of antiquarian value, and haunted printshops and auction-rooms; he frequented clubs and went into society, and amused himself with retailing the gossip and the bonmots to lady and other correspondents; he procured introductions to eminent and notorious individuals; in political circles he enjoyed the mischievous fun of setting people together by the ears. He purposely refrained from forming opinions, or purposely dissembled them, that he might be saved the trouble of maintaining them. He was ambitious of literary distinction, and wrote books: but he pretended that they were valueless, and disclaimed the title of author; partly, no doubt, for the pleasure of so doing, but partly also that he might be saved the effort of supporting a character for learning. He is described as a very tall, slender man, with dark, lively, penetrating eyes, and complexion of a most unhealthy paleness. His observant faculty and freedom from excitement gave him a great advantage in witty repartee and impromptu turning of compliments. One of his greatest beauties of style is his skill in hitting off characteristic traits. His works are rather voluminous writing would seem to have been his favourite employment Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,' 1758; 'Anecdotes of Painting,' 1761-71; Catalogue of Engravers,' 1763; Castle of Otranto,' 1764; Mysterious Mother,' 1768; 'Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III.,' 1768. Several volumes of his Letters have also been published.

Junius.' The first of the celebrated Letters of Junius appeared on the 21st of January 1769, in the 'Public Advertiser,' one of the leading newspapers of the time. The same writer had been, under various signatures, an active correspondent for at least two years before, and is supposed to have written some of the shorter letters that appeared in explanation and reinforcement of the views of Junius. The letters under the signatures of "Junius" and "PhiloJunius" had a certain unity of theme, were more studied in composition, and, from a combination of circumstances, made by far the greatest sensation in the political world. At the time when they appeared, there was an almost unparalleled disorganisation among the rulers of the country:-an obstinate king bent upon asserting and extending his prerogative; Parliament distracted by opposite policies, and still more by personal enmities; difficulties with more than one European power; a growing quarrel with our American colonies; and at home an imbittered struggle for the freedom of the press. Junius attacked the conduct and character of the leading politicians with unprecedented freedom. The mere splendour of his language and the energy of his sarcasm would have made him a reputation; but what chiefly attracted interest and raised consternation was the knowledge that he showed of State secrets and of the private life of his victims. The excitement grew when the name of this apparent traitor to his order baffled the most determined inquiries.

The authorship of Junius was never acknowledged, either publicly or privately. There are several traditions of great persons who professed to know all about it; but none of them are said to have committed themselves to an express declaration. In 1804, the Marquess of Lansdowne asserted that "he knew Junius, and knew all about the writing and production of those letters;" that Junius had never been publicly named; and that he purposed one day to write a pamphlet and disclose the secret : but he died and gave no sign. The evidence for the authorship is thus wholly circumstantial.

In the day and generation of Junius himself, nearly every man of distinction was named by one person or another as the "Great Unknown." The preliminary essay to the 1812 edition of Junius -issued by the son of Woodfall, the publisher of the 'Public Advertiser,' and containing Junius's private letters to Woodfall, along with fac-similes of his handwriting-discusses the pretensions of some twelve or more individuals. Since 1812 many volumes have been written, solving the mystery with equal confidence in favour of different claimants. Colonel Barré, Lauchlin Macleane, Thomas Lord Lyttleton, Lord Temple (with Lady Temple as amanuensis), are among the authors more recently put forward at considerable length.

The pretensions of Sir Philip Francis have been countersigned by an overwhelming number of authorities. His name was never mentioned in connection with the celebrated Letters until 1814; in 1816, Mr John Taylor, in his "Junius Identified with a celebrated Living Character," produced a body of evidence that has since been very generally accepted as conclusive. Brougham, Lord Campbell, De Quincey, Macaulay, Earl Stanhope, and many others have declared themselves satisfied. De Quincey is perhaps the most decided. Lord Brougham, he says, does not "state the result with the boldness which the premises warrant. Chief Justice Dallas, of the Common Pleas, was wont to say that a man arraigned as Junius upon the evidence here accumulated against Sir Philip Francis, must have been convicted in any court of Europe. But I would go much farther; I would say that there are single proofs, which (taken separately and apart from all the rest) are sufficient to sustain the whole onus of the charge."

The arguments in favour of the title of Francis are such as the following:-"Junius" shows an acquaintance with the forms of the Secretary of State's Office, and with the business of the War Office; Francis began life as a clerk in the Secretary of State's Office, and was a clerk in the War Office at the time of the appearance of the Letters. "Junius" shows a minute acquaintance with the private life of statesmen and with secret political manœuvres; Francis had means of access to such knowledge through his father, as well as through other channels. Francis thus possesses the preliminary requisites for a claimant to the honour or dishonour of the authorship. It was possible for him, from his situation in life, to obtain the very special and startling knowledge displayed by "Junius." Farther, it is contended that the character of Francis was consistent with the characteristic temper of "Junius." Francis was an ambitious man, of proud, imperious disposition, with a certain generosity of public spirit, but of intense personal animosity, and very exacting in his ideal of human virtue, especially as regarded his superiors in public station;-a young man in a humble office jealously measuring himself with higher officials, and savage because he had to drudge for men that he considered inferior to himself. Again, it is contended that Francis possessed the requisite ability. "Junius" was evidently a cultivated and practised writer; and Francis was in a peculiar manner bred to the pen by his father, and seems to have begun at an early age to send letters to the newspapers on passing events. In addition to these considerations, which do no more than show that Francis was capable of writing "Junius," and had a motive in his own jealous ambitious temper, there are various alleged coincidences that bring the charge more nearly home. "The tendency of all the external arguments," says De Quincey, "drawn

from circumstantial or personal considerations, from local facts, or the records of party, flows in the very same channel; with all the internal presumptions derived from the style, from the anomalous use of words, from the anomalous construction of the syntax, from the peculiar choice of images, from the arbitrary use of the technical shorthand for correcting typographical errors, from capricious punctuation, and even from penmanship (which, of itself, taken separately, has sometimes determined the weightiest legal interests). Proofs, in fact, rush upon us more plentiful than blackberries; and the case ultimately becomes fatiguing, from the very plethora and riotous excess of evidence. It would stimulate attention more, and pique the interest of curiosity more pungently, if there were some conflicting evidence, some shadow of presumptions against Francis. But there are none, absolutely none.

One of the chief arguments against the title of Francis is that he was an exceedingly vain man, and yet expressly denied the authorship. In reply to this argument De Quincey is particularly ingenious. He points out, in the first place, that the denial is ambiguous-"most jesuitically adapted to convey an impression at variance with the strict construction which lurks in the

literal wording." Secondly, he urges that Francis was debarred from making the avowal by fear and shame. He had obtained his information by treachery, and he had directed his ill-nature against some of his principal benefactors. To disclose the secret would have been to declare himself a detestable villain. And this consideration is one of the strongest corroborative proofs of the identity of Junius with Francis; for who else had the same motive to perpetual secrecy? "Upon such an account only is it possible to explain the case. All other accounts leave it a perpetual mystery, unfathomable upon any principles of human nature, why Junius did not, at least, make his claim by means of some last will and testament."

The principal opponent of the "Franciscan" theory of Junius, as it is called, is Mr Hayward. Those who wish to see all that can be pleaded against the verdict of the majority should consult his "More about Junius," reprinted from Fraser's Magazine,' Vol. LXXVI. The Franciscans have recently received strong support from the Professional Investigation of the Handwriting of Junius,' by Mr Charles Chabot, Expert. Mr Chabot is of opinion that the handwriting of Junius is the handwriting of Francis disguised.

Dr Francis, the father of Sir Philip, was an Irish clergyman, who settled in London as author and teacher about the middle of the century. He is known as the translator of Horace, Demosthenes, and Eschines. He was an active party - writer, was intimate with Lord Holland and other statesmen, and was always

well stored with political gossip. Philip, born in Dublin in '1740, was brought by his father to London, and received his principal schooling at St Paul's, where he was the master's most admired pupil. In 1756 he obtained, through his father's patron, Lord Holland, a junior clerkship in the Secretary of State's Office, and remained there, with certain brief interruptions, until 1762, when he was appointed first clerk in the War Office. He held his clerkship in the War Office for ten years, during which he is supposed to have written the "Candor" letters, "Junius," and many letters under other signatures. He resigned the clerkship in 1772, for reasons that are somewhat obscure. The Franciscans hold that the motive was resentment at the appointment of Chamier as Deputy-Secretary, and connect this with the attacks of Junius upon that individual. In 1773 he obtained an extraordinary preferment, which the Franciscans suppose to be somehow connected with his authorship of Junius. He was made a member of the Supreme Council in Bengal, with a salary of £10,000 a-year. In India he persistently opposed Warren Hastings, and was wounded by him in a duel. Returning to England in 1780, he entered Parliament, and became an active supporter of the Whigs. He died in 1818.

The leading feature in the mechanical part of the style of "Junius" is the predominance of the balanced structure" the poised and graceful structure of the sentences;" and the leading "quality" of the style is sarcasm, sometimes elaborately polished, sometimes inclining to coarse, unvarnished abuse. The imagery is also much admired, and the expression is often felicitous, though far from being of the first order of originality.

John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) is best known in literature by a philological work, 'The Diversions of Purley' (pub. 1786); but his general fame rests more upon his political activity. Made a clergyman against his will by his father, a wealthy London poulterer, he nevertheless engaged actively in politics on the Radical side; and finding himself trammelled by the clerical character, he resigned his living in 1773, and studied law. He twice suffered for his "advanced" opinions. He was fined and imprisoned in 1777 for accusing the king's troops of having "murdered" the American insurgents at Lexington; and in 1794 he was tried for high treason, mainly on account of his connection with the Constitutional Society during the excitement of the French Revolution. Yet, upon the whole, he prospered. Having rendered some service to Mr Tooke of Purley, he was made that gentleman's heir, and assumed his name; and he spent his latter years in literary leisure and genial society at Wimbledon. During his active life he made several unsuccessful attempts to gain a seat in Parliament, and at last entered as representative of the rotten borough