Besides these, all the Scottish articles, such as JOHN KNOX, Sir DAVID LINDSAY, &c., have been rendered very complete by the kind assistance of David Laing, Esq., of Edinburgh, than whom no one is better versed in this department of Bibliography. With respect to Junius, I have been fortunate enough to obtain the co-operation of two earnest enquirers into its authorship, and hence have been enabled to render the article more perfect than anything that has yet been presented to the public. One of these gentlemen, Joseph Parkes, Esq., has, by dint of constant attention, succeeded in forming a very remarkable collection, both of books and manuscripts, relating to the subject, and will probably, at some not very distant period, bring his labours to an interesting development. And now, in respect to JUNIUS, I will reveal a matter which I have kept secret for the last ten years, governed more by some notions of my own as to professional employment, than by any circumstance connected with the particular transaction, which was of an ordinary character, and neither exacted nor implied any secrecy whatever. In the middle of July, 1850, I was suddenly called upon to value, or as my instructions ran, "to inspect the political papers, manuscripts, and a library of books, at No. 3, St. James' Square;" and some pressure of circumstances required that this should be done within an hour, which I undertook. On running my eyes round the library, I perceived a strong indication of politics in the time of George III., and, remembering that I was in the supposed precincts of Junius, I searched eagerly, but without success, for the vellum-bound copy. It was quite clear, however, from numerous gaps, that the older part of the library, for it consisted of two very distinct classes of books, had been thoroughly gutted. Having declared the value of it to be very small indeed in proportion to its extent, I was shown into the Manuscript room. Here I found a considerable quantity of carefully preserved papers, all, with the exception of two very large brown paper parcels (which were distinctly placed apart), contained in drawers, and chronologically arranged. I immediately turned to the Junius period, and there found—although nothing signed Junius—a great many letters from the King to the EARL OF HOLDERNESSE,* communicating and discussing political subjects without reserve; a considerable number from Sir Wm. Draper, one of them quailing about Junius, and wondering how he could have obtained information of certain matters, and others enumerating unrequited services, and earnestly begging a place; a vast many, often of a very confidential character, from the Earl of Hillsborough ;† several from Benjamin Franklin, long and very interesting; and some, at various dates, from the Duke of Manchester, Duke of Grafton, Lord North, Chatham, the Grenvilles, Lord George Sackville, Chesterfield, and other political characters. In one of the drawers was a rough * The Earl was on intimate terms with the King, had filled several diplomatic offices, and was twice Secretary of State in the previous reign. In 1771, April 12, he was appointed Governor to the Prince of Wales. He died, at an advanced age, in 1778. In the Grenville Correspondence is printed one of his letters, dated Nov. 20, 1755, in which he officially (being then in the ministry) discharges Mr. Geo. Grenville from his office of Treasurer of the Navy. His wife, Mary, Countess of Holdernesse, was appointed Lady of the Bedchamber in 1770, and his uncle, Sir Conyers D'Arcy, who died in 1758, had been Comptroller of the Household and Privy Councillor. The Earl of Hillsborough was a Member of the Privy Council, Comptroller of the Household, Joint Post-Master General, Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1768 to 1772, First Commissioner of Trade and Plantations from 1763 to 1772, (with short intervals in 1765 and 1767), and always on intimate terms with the King. He died in 1793. draft, in the well-known upright kind of writing attributed to Junius, but corrected by another hand, of an unpublished letter of LUCIUS to the Duke of Grafton. It was endorsed letter X, and commenced, according to my memorandum, the only one I made, with—“ A long retirement from the world of Politics may perhaps have rendered," &c.—and contained the phrases, proselyte, and busy scum, ending with the word children, and simply signed LUCIUS. This, it will be remembered, is one of the best authenticated Pseudonymes of Junius. Having to get through my valuation with extreme speed, I could take no deliberate notes, nor had I time to examine a tithe of the papers, which extended over nearly half a century. One rather interesting MS. was a Diary beginning at an early date, and ending, I think, with a journey to Paris, in the autumn of 1772, which is about where it might be expected to end to be connected with Junius; but in glancing hastily over it, without any aid but my memory, I could trace nothing in the shape of evidence. Feeling that I was in the path of discovery, I entreated to see the contents of the two large parcels set aside, which-full a quarter of a hundred weight each-were sealed at every aperture, and prominently marked on all sides most secret;' but this was declined until actual right of possession had been obtained. To secure these important papers, I offered five hundred pounds for those I had so hastily inspected, and as much more, speculatively, for the two parcels of 'most secret' ones; under a strong impression that the Junius correspondence was there; and I was promised them, in case they should be for sale. On subsequent enquiry, in October of the same year, I learnt that the papers had been claimed by the Duke of Leeds; and at a later period I was informed that they had been deposited in the strong room of a banker, with the pos sibility that they might come out at the end of six years; but not having since heard any more about them, I presume they are now immured among the family archives. The house which contained these treasures was, in 1836, the residence of the late Duke of Leeds, whose ancestor, Francis Godolphin, fifth Duke of Leeds, married,* in 1773, the only child of Robert D'Arcy, fourth and last EARL of HOLDERNESSE, and succeeded, in 1778, to his Barony and estates. The only daughter of his son George William Frederick, sixth Duke of Leeds, was married, in 1826, to Sackville Lane Fox, Esq., M.P., who resided from 1836 until 1853 in the house in question, and appears to * Mr. Croker, in Boswell's Life of Johnson, (vol. vii. page 362, Bohn's edition,) says that the doggerel lines composed on the marriage of the Duke of Leeds by one of his inferior domestics, and so familiarly quoted by Dr. Johnson, were on the occasion of the marriage of this fifth Duke of Leeds with his second wife, Catherine Anguish. But this is clearly a mistake, as the marriage did not take place till 1788, four years after Johnson's death. In a copy of Boswell's Johnson, with unpublished MS. notes by Mrs. Piozzi and her daughter Lady Keith, which I happen to possess, there is this note. "I fancy I was the lady, whose uncle, Sir Thomas Salisbury, used to repeat it for ever. The song was made by the porter of that Duke of Leeds (viz. the 4th) who married Lady Mary Godolphin." The following are the lines, as quoted by Dr. Johnson, but Mrs. Piozzi gave another version of the second verse, and added a third : "When the Duke of Leeds shall married be To a fine young lady of high quality, She shall have all that's fine and fair, have had possession of the family manuscripts and so much of the Library as had not been removed. These are the simple facts. If they do not reveal who was the actual writer of the Letters of Junius, they at least point out the head quarters of information, and account for some of the hitherto irreconcilable difficulties in adjudicating on the claims of Sir Philip Francis, who I believe to have been largely concerned, though not the sole and unassisted writer. Mr. Woodfall may himself have been a considerable go-between in the matter, just as I was between the Englishman' and the Times,' without caring to pry into a secret which, by disclosure, would frustrate his own objects. I have no leisure to follow out all the ramifications to which this discovery may lead, and must leave the The enquirer will be aided in his interesting task to others. researches by referring to my edition of Junius, and especially Mr. Wade's Essay, prefixed to the second volume. January 30, 1860. HENRY G. BOHN. |