CHAPTER IV. Remarks on the extraordinary spirit of malignity and revenge displayed by Junius against many exalted individuals. Noticed by Mr. Belsham in his History of England. Acknowledged by Mr. Woodfall's Editor. Censured by Atticus Secundus. - Dr. Johnson's character of Junius.Critiques on the style of Junius: by Dr. Good - Atticus Secundus.Opinions of Coleridge, Burke, and Burns, on the style of Junius. - Burke's description of the effects produced by the publication of Junius's Letters. ON THE SPIRIT AND STYLE OF JUNIUS. - His breast with raging passions boiled; Hatred, revenge, and blasphemous despight. Cumberland. I quote Junius in English, as I would Tacitus or Livy in Latin. I consider him as a legitimate English classic. The Author of " Pursuits of Literature." THE spirit and temper displayed in the Letters of Junius unquestionably present the most formidable obstacle to the discovery of their author, from the difficulty of fixing upon any individual who could be actuated by motives sufficiently powerful to induce him to pursue with such persevering malignity, and almost superhuman energy, the many exalted personages whom Junius has devoted to infamy, or contempt. To contend that such unparalleled rancour exhibits nothing more than the ordinary and legitimate hostility of political warfare, or, that it was merely designed to write down the party then in power, would be to offer an insult to the reader's understanding. Some other reason must therefore be found to account for the phenomenon; for, as Montesquieu justly observes, "In the eyes of men, actions are more sincere than motives; and it is more easy for them to believe that the act of uttering the most cruel invectives is evil, than to persuade them that the motive which made them utter them is good." In the writings of Junius, the lofty contempt, the bitter irony, the withering sarcasm, the fierce and overwhelming invective of the author, stand out too prominently, and evince too clearly the spirit of revenge which influenced his pen, to be veiled by the polished style, the refined taste, or the ostentatious professions of patriotism with which his Letters are embellished. To prove the correctness of Mr. Butler's conclusion, that Junius "had a personal animosity against the King, the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Mansfield, from the bitterness of his expressions respecting them;" and, that he was "subject to political prejudices and strong personal animosities," as asserted by Dr. Good, it is only necessary to refer to the series of portraits contained in his Letters, in which will be found depicted at full length, the Sovereign and most of his ministers, with spirited sketches of many wellknown political, and military characters of the age;* exhibiting all the force and vigour of a master, whose power consisted in "darkening the gloom, and aggravating the dreadful;" and who admirably succeeded in combining the most hideous forms of Fuseli, with the deepest shades of Rembrandt. If Junius ever aimed at any thing like truth of character in his portraits, he has almost realized the legend of the painter Giotto, who having been commissioned by a mysterious stranger to paint a picture according to certain rules by him prescribed, which were to produce a form of perfect beauty, the result of the process presented to the eye of the astonished artist, instead of a face of ideal perfection, the gorgon countenance of the spouse of Satan. Indeed, any one whose poetical imagination spurned the dull * See Appendix. realities of time and place, might assimilate the cabinet ministers of George the Third, as Junius depicts them, with the privy counsellors of another mighty monarch, who, according to Milton, met for deliberation, not in the dingy brick-built palace of St. James, but in a certain gorgeous "fabric huge," which has recently been rendered familiar to mortal ken, by the magic pencil of Martin, from whose arched roof Pendent by subtle magic many a row As from a sky. That such a misconception was entertained by some sagacious barrister respecting one, at least, of these portraits, is evident from the answer of "A Friend" of Junius, who corrected the mistake of the learned gentleman, in the following terms:-"We say that Lord Mansfield is a bad man, and a worse Judge-but we did not that he was a mere devil." say It was, however, on the devoted head of the Duke of Grafton that Junius poured forth the principal vials of his indignation and wrath. In a letter, dated August 15, 1771, he gives the following ostensible reasons for his hatred :- 66 My detestation of the Duke of Grafton is not founded upon his treachery to any individual, though I am willing enough to suppose that in public affairs it would be impossible to desert or betray Lord Chatham without doing an essential injury to the country; my abhorrence of the Duke arises from an intimate knowledge of his character, and from a thorough conviction that his baseness has been the cause of greater mischief to England than even the unfortunate ambition of Lord Bute." In numerous letters, the Duke is represented as being the most flagitious and degraded of human beings-something not far short of a demon incarnate. So bitter is this display of malignity, that Atticus Secundus makes the following singular remarks on the letter of the 8th July 1769: "In the present letter the sentences flow with more rapidity, as indicating the feelings of one who is in a rage; and, as in the former letter, we seem to see the author grinning horribly a ghastly smile-in this, he appears to our imagination in the attitude of a man who is ready to crush, by his uplifted arm, an enemy who is at once the object of his indignation and his spite." According to Junius's description of his Grace's qualifications, he must have been the identical minister whom our Henry IV. predicted on his death-bed should arise to govern merry England "Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance, Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit The oldest sins the newest kind of ways; England shall double-gilt his treble guilt, England shall give him office, honour, might." The royal seer, it is true, was somewhat mistaken in his chronology; but that was of little consequence, as the nation could well afford to wait a few centuries for the appearance of so perfect a character. The marked malignity shewn by Junius to the Duke of Grafton induced Dr. Watson, afterwards Bishop of Llandaff, to address a letter to his Grace in the Public Advertiser, on his abandoning the administration in 1775, which contains the following passage: "If the heart of * Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson, vol. i. 73. |