struck in the face, with a blow that appalled him. To believe that Burke's was the hand so lifted against his friend; that the "vagabond" was told to "keep to his pantomimes;" by one who so lately had confessed the dearest obligations to him, would be to fix upon Burke an incredible imputation of dishonour. Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith,) does not even believe that if Burke had taken any part in the letters (though far from supposing that some portion of the secret may not have fallen into his reluctant keeping), he would have continued to sit down at their common Club table in all the frankness of their familiar intercourse, with the wellabused Anthony Chamier. The stronger presumption is that in his ordinary daily duties as Secretary in the War Office, Chamier sat much nearer Junius than ever he sat in Gerardstreet.

The main object of Mr. Jelinger Symons's recently published work, as its title promises, is to prove that William Burke was Junius. "The belief," observes Macknight, “that Burke (Edmund) and Junius were the same person, continued during his life, has been encouraged by all his biographers, and cannot be said, in defiance of all argument (?), to have completely subsided in the present day." Thus, Mr. Sergeant Burke, in his Private and Domestic Life of the great orator, adduces many strong reasons in support of his belief that Burke either originated or helped the Letters of Junius; and that the likelihood is that they did not emanate from a single writer. Both Sir William Blackstone and Lord Mansfield, no mean judges of evidence, were of the same opinion."-(J. G. Symons.)

From the few pages which Mr. Sergeant Burke has devoted to this political mystery we select the following:

"The Letters must have been written by a person inimical to the Grafton administration, and to the secret influence by which it was believed to be guided. In the general opinion, and in the particular circumstances of Burke, motives might have induced him to commence and continue the attack. The Duke of Grafton had been brought into administration

by the Rockingham party, and was represented as having betrayed that nobleman and his friends. On that account, or because he succeeded to another ministry, he was very obnoxious to the partisans of the Marquis. Hence it was natural to impute a severe attack on him to one of a party in which the pre-eminence of genius unquestionably belonged to Burke. In the House Burke poured forth his eloquence in assaults upon the Grafton administration in general, and more particularly on those of its acts which are the principal butts of Junius's invective."*

The author next adduces Burke's success in anonymous publications, and more especially his successful imitation of other writers, as in the cases of Bolingbroke and Lucas.

"Stronger ground for secrecy would also exist if more than one party was engaged in the composition of these celebrated epistles, as there would be probably no union in agreeing to a public acknowledgment. From the variety of testimony connecting different persons with the Letters, the likelihood really is that they did not emanate from a single writer. That theory will account, in particular, for Burke's friend, Sir Philip Francis, being so feasibly shown to be mixed up with the transaction, and charged with the actual authorship. It is indeed very difficult to believe some of those charged, and especially Francis, innocent of a participation in Junius.

"Some external evidence has arisen to strengthen the presumption that Burke was at least in communication with Junius. In 1767, two years before Junius commenced,—at a time when debates were not reported, one of Burke's earliest parliamentary speeches, evidently written out under his dictation, came in manuscript to Woodfall's Public Advertiser, with (for Woodfall's guidance) the private signature of C. That identical signature of C. was the private one which Junius afterwards adopted in communicating with that same Woodfall, the well-known publisher of the Advertiser,

* When Burke visited Paris in 1773; he learnt at the table of Madame du Deffand, that in France, as in England, he was suspected of being Junius,

in which the Letters appeared. Among the persons then supposed to be Junius was a Mr. Dyer, a member of the Gerardstreet or Literary Club, and a man much mixed up with the private, official, and political affairs of the day. Dyer was very intimate with Mr. Burke and his family. When Dyer died in 1772, the letters of Junius ceased; but what was even more strange was this fact, related by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of Dyer's executors. The moment Dyer was dead, Edmund Burke's cousin, William Burke, went to the deceased's lodgings, and there seized and destroyed a large quantity of manuscript. Reynolds happening to come in, found the room covered with the papers, cut up into the minutest fragments, there being no fire in the grate. Reynolds expressed some surprise, and Mr. William Burke hurriedly explained that 'the papers were of great importance to himself, and of none to anybody else.'*

"Mrs. Burke once admitted that she believed her husband knew the author of the Letters, but that he did not write them. It is, moreover, certain that on one occasion Edmund Burke himself acknowledged to Sir Joshua Reynolds that he knew who was the writer of Junius's Letters; intimating, when he said so, that he wished to hear no more upon the subject."

DANIEL O'CONNELL ON EDMUND BURKE AND JUNIUS.

In 1848, there appeared two volumes of Personal Recollections of the late Daniel O'Connell, M.P., by William J. O. N, Daunt, Esq., in which appear the following opinions of the great Irish Orator, as to the identity of Burke and Junius:

"It is my decided opinion (said O'Connell) that Edmund Burke was the author of the Letters of Junius. There are many considerations which compel me to form that opinion. Burke was the only man who made that figure in the world which the author of Junius must have made, if engaged in public life, and the entire of Junius's Letters evinces that close

*This destruction of manuscript is, however, thought by others to have been for the purpose of destroying evidence of stock-jobbing.

acquaintance with the springs of political machinery, which no man could possess unless actively engaged in politics.

“Again, Burke was fond of chemical studies; now chemical similes are frequent in Junius.

"Again, Burke was an Irishman; now Junius, speaking of the Government of Ireland, twice calls it 'the Castle,' a familiar phrase amongst Irish politicians, but one which an Englishman in those days would never have used.

"Again, Burke had this peculiarity in writing, that he often wrote many words without taking the pen from the paper. The very same peculiarity existed in the manuscripts of Junius, although they were written in a feigned hand.

"Again, it may be said that the style is not Burke's. In reply I would say, that Burke was master of many styles. His work on Natural Society, in imitation of Lord Bolingbroke, is as different in point of style from his work on the French Revolution as both are from the Letters of Junius.

"Again, Junius speaks of the King's insanity as a Divine visitation; Burke said the very same thing in the House of Commons.

"Again, had any one of the other men to whom the Letters are, with any show of probability, ascribed, been really the author, such author would have had no reason for disowning the book, or remaining incognito. Any one of them but Burke would have claimed the authorship and fame -and proud fame. But Burke had a very cogent reason for remaining incognito. In claiming Junius, he would have claimed his own condemnation and dishonour, for Burke died a pensioner. Burke was, moreover, the only pensioner who had the commanding talent displayed in the writings of Junius.

"Now, when I lay all these considerations together, and especially when I reflect that a cogent reason exists for Burke's silence as to his own authorship, I confess I think I have got a presumptive proof of the very strongest nature, that Burke was the writer."

JUNIUS DESCRIBED BY BURKE.

In Burke's speech in the House of Commons, upon the prosecution of Almon for reprinting Junius's famous Letter to the King, occurred the following celebrated description of Junius:

"How comes this Junius to have broke though the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrolled, unpunished through the land? The myrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or upon you, when the mighty boar of the forest that has broke through all their toils is before them. But what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one, than he strikes down another dead at his feet. For my own part, when I saw his attack upon the King, I own my blood ran cold. I thought he had ventured too far, and that there was an end of his triumphs; not that he had not asserted many bold truths. Yes, Sir; there are in that composition many bold truths by which a wise prince might profit. It was the rancour and venom with which I was struck. But while I expected from this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher and coming down souse upon both Houses of Parliament. Yes, he made you his quarry, and you still bleed from the effects of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, Sir-(the Speaker, Sir Fletcher Norton, remarkable for his large eyebrows)— for he has attacked even you, and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. Not content with carrying away our royal eagle in his pounces and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate, and King, Lords, and Commons thus become the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this House, what might not be expected from his knowledge, his firmness, and his integrity? He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, and by his vigour. Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal nothing from hi