Claims of Sir Philip Francis rejected. 119 to public favour, namely, Sir Philip Francis, Lord George Sackville, and Colonel Lachlan Macleane. There is perhaps no portion of literary history more extraordinary than that which relates to the identification of Sir Philip Francis and Junius. The work in which the attempt is made, entitled "Junius Identified," is one of the most singular examples of ingenious and inconclusive reasoning which we have ever had occasion to examine. Circumstances the most trivial, and points of resemblance the most general, twisted into many different shapes, and presented under many different aspects, have been accumulated into a mass of evidence which, after deceiving the world by its bulk, has broken down under its own weight and incoherence. In order to bring the question clearly before the minds of our readers, we shall state in distinct propositions the grounds on which we consider it demonstrable that Sir Philip Francis was not Junius. 1. Sir Philip Francis has given two distinct denials of the charge of his having written Junius. To Sir Richard Phillips he denounces it in 1813, as a silly and malignant falsehood. He denied it to his biographer on the 23d December 1817, a year only before his death, and he has left among his papers no document connected with the subject. 2. Sir Philip Francis had neither the experience nor the talents, nor the knowledge, nor the wit, that were requisite for the productions of Junius. He was only twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age when Junius' first letter was published, whereas Junius speaks of his long experience of the world, and every page of his writings displays that knowledge of character, and that practical wisdom which could only be obtained from an extensive intercourse with various classes of society. Sir Philip Francis had never even received an University education, and he had never exhibited any taste or turn for composition before he entered the War Office. With regard to his wit, his published writings prove that he was destitute of that faculty; and the writer of this Article possesses a letter from the late Lord Chief-Commissioner, Sir William Adam, who was intimately acquainted with Francis, and was in constant intercourse with him, not only in society but in business of all kinds-in which he states that Sir Philip had neither wit nor humour; and that there are many coarse passages in Junius which he was too fastidious and sensitive to have written. 3. Sir Philip did not occupy the position necessary for obtaining the information which Junius had at his command, or possess the wealth which he had at his disposal. He was not connected with Lord Shelburne or his friends, and he was only an inferior clerk in the War Office, with an income of scarcely Junius describes himself as a man of fortune, £450 a year. 4. Sir Philip occupied his position in the War Office during the whole period that Junius' Letters were writing-from 1763 till the 23d March 1772, when he resigned his situation. 5. To suppose that a clerk holding office under Government should have laboured systematically for four years to vilify and overturn the Government by which he was fed, is a supposition too monstrous to be for a moment admitted. 6. Mr. Welbore Ellis, (Lord Mendip,) was the early patron and friend of Francis-Lord Barrington was the Secretary at War under whom he served, and to whom he was indebted for the splendid appointment which was given him in India;—and yet Junius launched against both these noblemen the fiercest and most galling abuse.* Sir William Adam informed the writer of this Article, that he constantly met with Francis at the Duke of Bedford's table, and that he never could believe that any person who had so maligned that nobleman's character† could have dared to accept of his hospitality. 7. If the Letter to a Brigadier-General was written by Junius, Sir Philip Francis could not be Junius, because he was not at Quebec, and was only nineteen or twenty years of age when it was composed. 8. No reason can be assigned why Sir Philip Francis should have exhibited such bitterness and malignity against Scotland and the Scotch. He never was in Scotland. He never had any occasion, in his official position, to come into collision with any of our countrymen; and those who identify him with Junius have not been able to assign a single reason, or to refer to a single fact in his life, either public or private, which could afford the slightest explanation of so remarkable a feature in the character of Junius. 9. It has been universally believed that Junius was in the army, and had held some official military appointment in actual service. Sir Philip Francis never was in the army, and never held any such position. Lucius‡ indeed says, "I am not a soldier," and supports his opinions on certain military matters, by stating what he had heard from military men," but Lucius has been found not to be Junius. In the correspondence with Sir William Draper, Junius exhibits an extensive and accurate knowledge of the state of the army, and denounces its misman * Mr. Calcraft, whom Junius abuses, left Francis a thousand pounds. Sir William Draper characterizes one of the Letters to the Duke, "as a most inhuman letter, which he had read with astonishment and horror."-Lett. xxvi. + Miscellaneous Letters, vol. iii. p. 154. Claims of Sir Philip Francis rejected. 121 agement. Sir William broadly insinuates that Junius was acquainted with Lord Shelburne, and refers him to that nobleman for the truth of one of his statements. Could Sir William have believed, or can any person believe, without legal evidence, that an inferior clerk in the War Office, who took an official part in all military arrangements, was the author of statements affecting the character of the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary at War his own superior, and the members of the Government which he >served? 10. The speeches and writings of Sir Philip Francis, all composed and published since the Letters of Junius appeared, display neither the talent nor the wit, nor the peculiar style of Junius. Butler, in his Reminiscences, after a careful comparison of the writings of both, declares that all internal evidence is against Sir Philip ;" and Dr. Parr, a competent judge, has pronounced the same decision in still more elaborate expressions, "Sir Philip Francis," says he, "was too proud to tell a lie, and he disclaimed the work, (the Letters of Junius.) He was too vain to refuse celebrity which he was conscious of deserving. He was too intrepid to shrink when danger had nearly passed by. He was too irascible to keep the secret, by the publication of which he at this time of day could injure no party with which he was connected, nor any individual for whom he cared. Besides, we have many books of his writing upon many subjects, and all of them stamped with the same character of mind. Their general lexis (as we say in Greek) has no resemblance to the lexis of Junius; and the resemblance in particulars can have far less weight than the resemblance of which there is no vestige. Francis uniformly writes English. There is Gallicism in Junius. Francis is furious, but not malevolent. Francis is never cool, and Junius is seldom ardent." To these excellent observations we may add the following remarks of Mr. Butler, on the parallel passages from Junius and Francis:-" If these passages shew that Sir Philip was no mean writer, they also prove that he was not Junius. To bring the question to a direct issue-Are the glow and loftiness discernible in every page of Junius once visible in any of these extracts? Where do we find in the writings of Sir Philip those thoughts that breathe and words that burn, which Junius scatters in every page ?—a single drop of the cobra capella which so often falls from Junius?" In one of the parallel passages quoted in the Edinburgh Review, and in which Sir Philip's attack upon Lord Thurlow is compared with Junius' attack upon Lord Mansfield, the inferiority of Sir Philip is so great in the estimation of Mr. Butler, and, we believe, of every competent critic, "as to render it impossible that he should have been the author of Junius' Letters." But independent of these views, the similarity of diction or of sentiment, which some have found in the writings of Junius and of Francis, wherever it may occur, is the similarity of imitation. Every polemical writer, whether in politics or in religion, has during the last eighty years been, to a greater or a less extent, an imitator of Junius. His thoughts, his metaphors, and even his words, have been stolen, and like Sir Philip Francis, many of our most noted orators and politicians have not scrupled to draw an arrow, poisoned though it may have been, from the ample quiver of the great intellectual gladiator. 11. The appointment of Sir Philip Francis to the situation of a Judge in India just about the time when Junius ceased to write, has been regarded as a strong argument in favour of his being Junius. We are willing to give it all the force which it would have had if there had been any other grounds for the same opinion, for we are convinced that Junius ceased to write in consequence of an arrangement with the Government. But the appointment of Francis requires no such explanation. Had Lord Barrington or the Government known or even believed that Francis was Junius, dismissal from his place in the War Office would have been the smallest portion of his punishment. But Francis had served nine years in the War Office, and had distinguished himself by his talents and habits of business, and it was by no means strange that at the age of thirty-three he should have received that appointment. The late Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, informed Mr. Butler, "that Sir Philip Francis owed the continuance of his seat in the War Office to the kindness of Lord Barrington, the prelate's brother, and that Sir Philip's appointment in India was chiefly if not wholly owing to his Lordship's recommendation of him to Lord North."* Had Francis been an enemy of the Government, his appointment might have required some such explanation as that which has been given of it. He who receives an office from his political opponents, and especially from those whom he has systematically abused, must have surrendered something in exchange for the generosity of the gift.† * Reminiscences, p. 97, note. The following remarks by Mr. Barker express so fully our views on the general improbability of Sir Philip Francis being Junius, that we cannot withhold them from our readers: "If the author of Junius should prove to be Sir Philip Francis, it will certainly stand out as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable occurrences ever known, that he, a mere clerk in the War Office, should have commenced his literary career by a series of papers perfect in their style of composition; and his political career by professing those high public principles which belong only to the tongues or the pens of men who have been for a series of years running their course of usefulness and of fame; and that he should have denounced the conduct of the ministry in the severest terms, with the apparent style of an experienced Lord Sackville Junius-Sir Philip his Amanuensis!! 123 Although we have thus resisted the claims of Sir Philip Francis, and given him a lower niche than Junius in the Temple of Fame, we cannot concur in any attempt to depreciate his talents, or degrade his name. In the "History of Junius and his Works" by Mr. Jaques, the latest work on this exciting controversy, such an attempt has been made. Perplexed with the antagonism of the "internal evidence against Sir Philip," and the fancied "external evidence in his favour," Mr. Butler reduces to zero the pretensions of the distracted knight, and transfers the honour of Junius to Lord George Sackville. Anxious, however, to reconcile the two classes of evidence which he considers as neutralizing each other, he places both hypotheses at right angles to each other, as in the parallelogram of forces, and conducts his reader into a third or diagonal hypothesis, in which he expects him complacently to rest. He restores, as he expresses it, to each hypothesis its individual activity, by supposing that Sir Philip was not Junius, but THE AMANUENSIS of Junius-that the real Junius was too high to be bought, so that when he made his terms with Government he was contented to remain in a proud obscurity, but stipulated a boon for his scribe; and was of consequence enough to insist that the boon should be liberal!! Mr. Jaques accepts of this hypothesis as the solution of the long agitated problem, and summarily removes every remaining difficulty by the following oracular decision :-" It may probably be objected that no personal intercourse has been traced between Lord George and Mr. Francis-the answer to this is, that it was essential to the preservation of the secret that they should keep aloof, and appear strangers to each other. It is evident that Mr. D'Oyley was THE CONNECTING LINK between the man of high rank, mature age, and independent fortune, having a personal hatred against the King and his Ministers, whose hand-writing is found to bear a strong resemblance to some of the short private notes written by Junius to Woodfall, AND the clever young inferior clerk who was intrusted with the 'slavery of writing' or copying for the press the longer and more elaborate letters."* Had Sir Philip Francis lived to witness his ignominious rhetorician, the exact knowledge of an able statesman, the lofty tone of an independent spirit, and a Demosthenic vehemence of diction unparalleled in the history of human eloquence. "If Sir Philip Francis did, in such circumstances, write the Letters of Junius, then the history of the world itself has exhibited no similar or second instance of this sort; the phenomenon cannot be explained by all the philosophy of the human mind, and nothing is too little or too great for human credulity."-BARKER'S Five Letters on the Author of Junius, p. 6. * Jaque's History of Junius and his Works, p. 382. |