THE SECRECY OF JUNIUS.

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vately with such a storm as would make him tremble even in his grave!' In another note to Woodfall, he wrote thus of a man named Swinney :-' He is a wretched but dangerous fool; he had the impudence to go to Lord G. Sackville, whom he had never spoken to, and to ask him whether or no he was the author of Junius - take care of him.' How Junius, unless he had been Lord Sackville himself, should have been acquainted with this circumstance, as it appears he was immediately after it occurred, baffles all conjecture.

"Whenever he alluded to the personal hazard he incurred by the disclosure and castigation of political delinquency, he evidently wrote with a full sense of his own importance. 'It is by no means necessary,' he observed, in his last

letter to Sir W. Draper, that I should be exposed to the resentment of the worst and most powerful men in this country, though I may be indifferent about yours. Though you would fight, there are others who would assassinate. The following passage occurs in one of his confidential notes to Woodfall :-' I must be more cautious than ever : I am sure I should not survive a discovery three days, or, if I did, they would attaint me by bill.'

"In his correspondence with Woodfall, every precaution that ingenuity could devise, or apprehension could suggest, was employed to baffle the attempts of those who attempted to trace him out. His own parcels were sent direct to the printing-office; but he obtained the replies of Woodfall by stratagem :-They were addressed to him in such fictitious names, and left at such coffee-houses as he, from time to time, appointed. In one of his notes to Woodfall, he said: 'change to the Somerset Coffee-house, and let no mortal know the alteration. I am persuaded you are too honest a man to contribute in any way to my destruction: act honourably by me, and at the proper time you shall know

me.'

"When there was a parcel waiting for him, the fact was announced in the 'Public Advertiser,' among the notices to correspondents, by some preconcerted signal, as, N.E.C.-A Letter-C. in the usual place: or a line from a Latin Poet. It does not appear in what manner he procured his letters from the coffee-houses to which they were sent. As he twice declared that he was the sole depository of his own secret, and that it should die with him, it might be supposed that he uniformly went for them himself; but in one of his private notes he says to Woodfall, 'The gentleman who conducts the conveyancing part of our correspondence tells me there was much difficulty last night.'

"It is most likely that he employed some trustworthy messenger, who, how

ever, might not have been fully aware of the nature of his agency. A tall gentleman, dressed in a light coat, with bag and sword, once threw a letter, from Junius, into the office door of the 'Public Advertiser,' in Ivy-lane. He was immediately followed by Mr. Jackson, of Mr. Woodfall's office, into St. Paul's Churchyard, where he got into a hackney-coach and drove off.—Was this Junius himself, or the gentleman who conducted 'the conveyancing part' of his correspondence with Woodfall?

"In general, he appears to have been satisfied that the obstacles which he threw in the way of those who sought to discover him were insurmountable. 'Be assured,' said he, in one of his confidential notes to Woodfall, that it is not in the nature of things that they (the Cavendish family), or you, or any body else, should ever know me, unless I make myself known: all arts, or inquiries, or rewards, would be equally ineffectual.' And again, in his letters to Wilkes, he observed, 'At present there is something oracular in the delivery of my opinions. I speak from a recess which no human curiosity can penetrate-and darkness, we are told, is one source of the sublime. The mystery of Junius increases his importance.'

"But occasionally he seems to have been under considerable apprehensions of being detected. Upon no account,' said he, in one of his private notes to Woodfall, nor for any reason whatever, are you to write to me until I give you notice!' During a period of three weeks, he never addressed Woodfall without warning him to beware of Garrick.

"Woodfall, however, imprudently told Garrick, in confidence, that Junius would probably soon cease to write. Garrick immediately hurried with the intelligence to Ramus, one of the royal pages; and Ramus, without a moment's delay, conveyed it to the king, who was then residing at Richmond. Within twelve hours Woodfall received a note from Junius, with the following postscript:- Beware of David Garrick. He was sent to pump you, and went directly to Richmond, to tell the king I should write no more.'-Shortly afterwards (November 10th, 1771), he penned the following extraordinary epistle to Garrick; which, however, was never forwarded: 'I am very exactly informed of your impertinent inquiries, and of the information you so busily sent to Richmond, and with what triumph and exultation it was received. I knew every particular of it the next day. Now, mark me, vagabond-Keep to your pantomimes; or, be assured, you shall hear of it. Meddle no more, thou busy

LETTER OF JUNIUS TO GARRICK.

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informer. It is in my power to make you curse the hour in which you dared

"It appears from the following expressions in his correspondence with Woodfall, that Junius was unsparing of toil, to achieve excellence as a writer. Of his first Letter to Lord Mansfield he says, 'The enclosed, though begun within these few days, has been greatly laboured.' Of his concluding and most famous Letter, he observes, 'At last I have concluded my great work, and I assure you with no small labour.' On another occasion, after expressing much anxiety that the dedication and preface to the genuine edition of his letters might be correct, he thus continues, 'Look to it-if you take it upon yourself, I will not forgive you suffering it to be spoiled. I weigh every word; and every alteration, in my eyes at least, is a blemish.'

“His last public letter was printed on the 21st of January, 1772. Twelve months afterwards (January 19, 1773), he sent the following note to Woodfall, who never heard from his extraordinary correspondent again: 'I have seen,' says he, the signals thrown out for your old friend and correspondent. Be assured that I have had good reason for not complying with them. In the present state of things, if I were to write again, I must be as silly as any of the horned cattle that run mad through the city, or as any of your wise aldermen. I meant the cause and the public: both are given up. I feel for the honour of this country, when I see that there are not ten men in it who will unite and stand together upon any one question. But it is all alike vile and contemptible.""

The acute and truly philosophical Coleridge thus speaks of the Junius correspondence:

"The great art of Junius is never to say too much, and to avoid with equal anxiety a common-place manner, and matter that is not common-place. If ever

* I have the authority of the present Mr. Woodfall for stating that his grandfather, Henry Sampson Woodfall, did forward to Garrick a copy of this letter from Junius; the words "impertinent inquiries" being altered to "practices" by desire of the author. The manuscript, in the hand-writing of Woodfall, was found amongst Garrick's papers, and realised a high price at the sale of his effects.

b

he deviates into any originality of thought, he takes care that it shall be such as excites surprise for its acuteness, rather than admiration for its profundity. He takes care? Say rather, that nature took care for him.

"It is impossible to detract from the merit of these Letters: they are suited to their purpose, and perfect in their kind. They impel to action, not thought. Had they been profound or subtle in thought, or majestic and sweeping in composition, they would have been adapted for the closet of a Sidney; or for a House of Lords, such as it was in the time of Lord Bacon; but they are plain and sensible whenever the author is in the right; and whether right or wrong, always shrewd and epigrammatic; and fitted for the coffee-house, the Exchange, the lobby of the House of Commons, and to be read aloud at a public meeting. When connected, dropping the forms of connection;-desultory, without abruptness or appearance of disconnection;-epigrammatic and antithetical to excess;--sententious and personal;-regardless of right or wrong;— yet well skilled to act the part of an honest warm-hearted man; and, even when he is in the right, saying the truth but never proving it,—much less attempting to bottom it;-this is the character of Junius: and on this character, and in the mould of these writings, must every man cast himself, who would wish in factious times to be the important and long-remembered agent of a faction. I believe that I could do all that Junius has done, and surpass him by doing many things which he has not done: for example-by an occasional induction of startling facts, in the manner of Tom Paine, and lively illustrations and witty applications of good stories and appropriate anecdotes, in the manner of Horne Tooke. I believe I could do it, if it were in my nature to aim at this sort of excellence, or to be enamoured of the fame and immediate influence which would be its consequence and reward. But it is not in my nature. I not only love truth, but I have a passion for the legitimate investigation of truth. The love of truth, conjoined with a keen delight in a strict yet impassioned argumentation, is my master-passion, and to it are subordinated even the love of liberty and all my public feelings; and to it whatever I labour under of vanity, ambition, and all my inward impulses."

These remarks on the literary merits and peculiarities of the "Letters" serve not only to characterise them as the emanations of high intellect, but also to indicate that of the profound critic.

1

OPINIONS OF COLERIDGE.

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"With few exceptions, the seventh 'Letter' of the series is a blameless composition. Junius may be safely studied as a model for Letters, when he truly writes letters. Those to the Duke of Grafton and others, are small pamphlets in the form of letters."

“Perhaps the fair way of considering these Letters would be as a kind of satirical poems; the short and for ever balanced sentences constitute a true metre; and the connection is that of satiric poetry, a witty logic, an association of thoughts by amusing semblances of cause and effect, the sophistry of which the reader has an interest in not stopping to detect, for it flatters his love of mischief, and makes the sport."

LETTER XII.-"One of Junius's arts, and which gives me a high notion of his genius, as a poet and satirist, is this: he takes for granted the existence of a character that never did and never can exist, and then employs his wit, and surprises and amuses his readers, with analysing its incompatibilities."

LETTER XXIII.-[To the Duke of Bedford.]-" Sneer and irony continued with such gross violation of good sense, as to be perfectly nonsense. The man who can address another on his most detestable vices in a strain of cold, continual irony, is himself a wretch."

LETTER XXXV.-" This address to the King is almost faultless in composition, and has been evidently tormented with the file. But it has fewer beauties than any other long letter of Junius; and it is utterly undramatic. There is nothing in the style, the transitions, or the sentiments, which represents the passions of a man emboldening himself to address his sovereign personally. Like a Presbyterian's prayer, you may substitute almost everywhere the third for the second person without injury. The newspaper, his closet, and his own person, were alone present to the author's intention and imagination. This makes the composition vapid. It possesses an Isiocratic correctness when it should have had the force and drama of an oration of Demosthenes. From this, however, the paragraph beginning with the words 'As to the Scotch,' and also the last two paragraphs, must be honourably excepted. They are, perhaps, the finest passages in the whole collection."

The following comments, on the nature, merits, and demerits of the Letters now referred to, are evidently by an accomplished and

* "Coleridge's Literary Remains," vol. i., p. 248-255.