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. ChiefJustice 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 ? 66 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.

66

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 Parlia ment, and at last entered as representative of the rotten borough

1

of Old Sarum in 1801. In 1802 he was excluded from the House; his exclusion being a most startling exemplification of two principles-one that no priest can lay aside his orders and become a layman, and the other (enacted in 1802 for the express purpose of ousting Tooke) that no one in priest's orders can sit in the House of Commons. His etymological Diversions' arose out of his political career. He began to theorise in prison upon the construction by the judges of certain propositions in a case quoted against him on his trial in 1777. This perhaps accounts for his proceeding upon what is justly described as the "monstrous" principle that "the etymological history of words is our true guide, both as to the present import of the words themselves, and as to the nature of those things which they are intended to signify." Apart from this, he is very ingenious in his attempts to trace how the language of mind has been borrowed from the language of external things, and how conjunctions and other syntactic particles of speech have been derived from significant nouns and verbs. But the main interest of the 'Diversions' to the general reader lies in the witty intermixture of political thrusts and declamations.

terest.

No other prose writers within this period have any special inThe writings of the eccentric James Burnet, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799), contain interesting passages, such as his theory about the origin of man, and his humorously extravagant defence of the superiority of ancient over modern writers; but the interest is more in the matter than in any felicity or original force of expression.

1 Repealed in 1870.

THE middle thirty years of Paley's life coincided very nearly with the preceding period; but as most of his works1 were published in the beginning of this period, we take him as belonging to it.

His life was easy and prosperous, without any striking turns either of hardship or of good fortune. He was born at Peterborough, his father being a minor canon in the Cathedral. His father was afterwards appointed head-master of the grammarschool of Giggleswick in Yorkshire, and the family removed there. Though not very precocious as a boy, he gave such proofs of shrewdness and intellectual force as to raise high expectations of his future eminence. At the age of fifteen he was entered as a sizar at Christ's College, Cambridge. It is said on his own authority that he was at first an idle student, and loved company better than his books, and that he made a remorseful resolution to read hard when one of his idle companions reproved him for wasting his talents. He probably exaggerated the effect of this reprimand; but however that may be, he did become a hard student, and eventually came out senior wrangler. He taught Latin for three years in an academy at Greenwich. In 1766 he was elected to a fellowship in his college, and appointed a lecturer. One of his college friends

was a son of Bishop Law, and through the bishop's influence he

1 The list is: Moral and Political Philosophy,' 1785; 'Horæ Paulinæ, or The Truth of the Scripture History of St Paul evinced,' 1790; 'A View of the Evidences of Christianity,' 1794; 'Natural Theology,' 1802. There are published

also several of his Sermons.