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cient analogy between the state in which they found the respective sciences that were the subjects of their successful investigation and the object of our present inquiry, to justify our making, at very humble distance, and on a subject of minor importance, a somewhat similar attempt.

We are aware there are persons who think, that as Junius and all his contemporaries have now passed off the stage of existence, and the tomb has closed upon their contests and enmities, the period is not far distant when his descendants may be expected to come forward and produce the author's famous vellum-bound and gilt set of his works, and claim the honours unanimously awarded to the genius of their ancestor: but in this opinion we cannot concur; such a disclosure would be inconsistent with the ordinary feelings of human nature. It certainly could not be expected from his immediate descendants ; and the highest literary fame of an ancestor so remote as to be personally unknown to his more distant relatives, would probably be regarded as a "trifle light as air," when poised in the balance against even the imaginary disgrace of being allied to a man who is considered to have violated the most sacred ties of private friendship and public honour.

If, therefore, the secret be ever penetrated, it should seem that it is only to be effected by the persevering labours and sagacity of numerous investigators; and perhaps it may be found that we already possess sufficient means (if judiciously applied) of yet dragging this defamer of character-this moral assassin-even at the eleventh hour, from that obscurity, which he vainly imagined to be impenetrable, into the full glare of day;

and by a complete chain of circumstantial evidence to transfix the soaring Junius to the earth, as the giant Gulliver was by the minute but innumerable cords of the Lilliputians, there to bear the obloquy due to his demerits so long as his own brilliant compositions and the English language shall endure.

Indeed, the ardour with which the subject has been pursued, shews that there is a mental gratification and pleasure attending such investigations, which afford an ample recompense for the labour and trouble bestowed upon them, independently of any expectation of fame, which the most fortunate inquirer is by no means certain of obtaining.

Before the publication of the edition of Junius by Mr. G. Woodfall, the son of the original publisher of the Letters, the public were not in possession of sufficient data to form a correct judgment on this interesting topic; the whole matter was involved in obscurity, and nothing but vague and uncertain conjectures could be formed on the subject. That publication, however, poured a clear stream of light into the palpable obscure, by disclosing to the world, from a source of unquestionable authenticity, a vast mass of direct and incidental facts and circumstances relating to Junius and his writings.

This work contains in three volumes, not only the whole of the letters written by the author of Junius, and originally printed in the newspaper called the "Public Advertiser," under various signatures, but also the writer's private and confidential correspondence with Mr. Wilkes and Mr. H. S. Woodfall, with eight fac-similes of his handwriting taken from his private letters to Woodfall, and five seals used by the author of Junius.

It also gives (with one remarkable exception, which will be noticed in its proper place) fac-similes of the handwriting of all the principal persons to whom the letters had then been attributed. And there is prefixed to the work a valuable preliminary essay, written by the late Dr. John Mason Good, discussing the political and literary merits of the Letters, and canvassing the pretensions of the various suspected authors.*

The private letters of Junius to Mr. Woodfall, and his confidential correspondence with Mr. Wilkes, are of the first importance, as regard the present inquiry; for, not being intended to meet the eye of the public, they contain, as might be expected, many allusions to the pursuits and personal habits of the writer, with his offhand opinions on various subjects, and many little incidental traits of character, which afford useful hints and clues to lead us to the discovery of the real author of these celebrated compositions.

Previously to the publication of Mr. Woodfall's valuable work, the only persons who appear to have seriously

* In Mr. Woodfall's complete edition of Junius the Letters are classed in the following order:—

1. Junius' Private Letters to Mr. H. S. Woodfall, consisting of sixty-four letters and notes.

2. His Confidential Correspondence with Mr. Wilkes, containing altogether eighteen letters, of which ten are written by Junius, and eight by Wilkes. The above are all comprised in the first volume.

3. The Letters of Junius which are usually printed in the common editions, containing sixty-nine letters.

4. The Miscellaneous Letters of Junius written under various other signatures, consisting in the whole of 113 letters and papers, which occupy part of the second and the whole of the third volumes.

investigated the subject of the authorship of the Letters of Junius, were Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Charles Butler, and the result of their joint inquiries was first published by the latter in a letter dated July 1799, and afterwards with some additions in his Reminiscences in 1822. But the appearance of Mr. Woodfall's work stimulated the exertions of many other investigators, and the following works have since been published in support of the claims of various individuals. In 1816, Mr. John

Taylor published "The Identity of Junius with a dis-Su

tinguished living character [Sir Philip Francis] established." This work created considerable sensation in the literary world, which was not diminished by a very able critique appearing upon it in the Edinburgh Review for November 1817, said to have been written by Mr. Brougham, wherein the Reviewer confessed himself almost a convert to the views of Mr. Taylor. The editor also of an edition of Junius, published at Edinburgh in 1822, who styles himself "Atticus Secundus," likewise acquiesces in the reasoning of Mr. Taylor, in some able preliminary dissertations prefixed to the work.

In the year 1825, there appeared" A Critical Inquiry regarding the real Author of the Letters of Junius, proving them to have been written by Lord Viscount Sackville, by George Coventry This work was printed by Mr. G. Woodfall, having been previously announced for publication by Mr. Murray. Mr. Coventry's statement seems to have made a serious impression on some ingenious writer on the other side of the Atlantic, for there was published anonymously, at Boston, North America, in 1828, a work entitled-"Junius Unmasked,

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or Lord George Sackville proved to be Junius." This book contains some able arguments in corroboration of Mr. Coventry's views, but the facts and materials on which they are founded appear to have been taken almost exclusively from Mr. Coventry's book. This American publication was reviewed in No. 65, of the North American Review, and a decision given in favour of the claims of Lord George Sackville: and thus the authorities on behalf of these two rival candidates appear nearly balanced. In the year 1828, Mr. E. H. Barker published his Five Letters on the Author of Junius, entitled-I. The claims of Sir Philip Francis, K.B., to the Authorship of Junius' Letters disproved. II. Some inquiries into the claims of the late Charles Lloyd, Esq. to the composition of them. This is an exceedingly curious and interesting work, containing letters from several intelligent correspondents to Mr. Barker, which detail many particulars respecting the Letters of Junius, and their supposed author, among the most valuable of which are several communications from Mr. Coventry and Mr. Butler, of so late a date as 1828. Indeed, the author appears to have been indefatigable in his endeavours to obtain all possible information on the subject of his investigation.

In 1831, another work was published at Boston, in America, entitled "An Essay on Junius and his Letters, embracing a sketch of the life and character of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and memoirs of certain other distinguished individuals, by Benjamin Waterhouse, M.D.;" in which the author gives the following account of the commencement and result of his labours. "After recovery from a slight infection caught from Thomas Paine,

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