PRELIMINARY ESSAY.

It was not from personal vanity, but a fair estimate of his own merit, and the importance of the subject on which he wrote, that the author of the ensuing letters predicted their immortality. The matter and the manner, the times and the talents they disclose, the popularity which attended them at their outset, the impression they produced on the public mind, and the triumph of the doctrines they inculcate, all equally concur in stamping for them a passport to the most distant posterity.

In their range these letters comprise a period of about five years; from the middle of 1767 to the middle of 1772: and never has the history of this country, from its origin to the present hour, exhibited a period of equal extent that more peremptorily demanded the severe, decisive, and overpowering pen of such a writer as JUNIUS. The storms and tempests that, within the last twenty years, have shaken the political world to its centre, have been wider and more tremendous in their operation; but they have, for the most part, discharged their fury at a distance. The constitutions of other countries have been swept away by the whirlwind; but that of England still towers, like the pyramids of Egypt, a wonderful and immortal fabric, overshadowing the desart that surrounds it, and defying the violence of its hurricanes. In the period before us, however, this stupendous and beautiful fabric itself was attacked, and trembled to its foundation: a series of unsuccessful ministries too often profligate VOL. I.

*A

and corrupt, and not unfrequently cunning, rather than capable; a succession of weak and obsequious parliaments, and an arbitrary, though able chief justice, addicted to the impolitic measures of the cabinet, fatally concurred to confound the relative powers of the state, and equally to unhinge the happiness of the crown and of the people; to frustrate all the proud and boasted triumphs of a glorious war, concluded but a few years before by an inglorious peace1; to excite universal contempt abroad, and universal discord at home. Hence France, humiliated as she was by her losses and defeats, did not hesitate to invade Corsica in open defiance of the remonstrances of the British minister; and succeeded in obtaining possession of it, whilst Spain dishonourably refused to make good the ransom she had agreed to, for the restoration of the capital of the Philippine Isles, which had been saved from pillage upon this express stipulation. They saw the weakness and distraction of the English Cabinet, and had no reason to dread the chastisement of a new war. The discontents in the American colonies, which a little address might at first have stifled for ever, were blown into a flame of open rebellion, by the impolitic violence of the very minister who was appointed, by the creation of a new office at this very time and for this express purpose, to examine into the causes of dissatisfaction, and to redress the grievances complained of: while, at home, the whole ways and means of the ministry, instead of being directed against the insolence of the common enemy, were exhausted against an individual, who, perhaps, would never have been so greatly distinguished, had not the ill-judged and contu. macious opposition of the cabinet, and their flagrant violation of the most sacred and important principles of the constitution, in order to punish him, raised him to a height of popularity seldom attained even by the most successful candidates for public applause; and embroiled themselves on his account in a dispute with the nation at large, almost amounting to a

1 In 1763, through the negotiation of the Duke of Bedford.

eivil war, and which, at length, only terminated in their own utter confusion and defeat1.

It was at this period, and under these circumstances, that the ensuing letters successively made their appearance in the Public Advertiser, the most current newspaper of the day. The classical chastity of their language, the exquisite force and perspicuity of their argument, the keen severity of their reproach, the extensive information they evinced, their fearless and decisive tone, and, above all, their stern and steady attachment to the purest principles of the constitution, acquired for them, with an almost electric speed, a popularity which no series of letters have since possessed, nor perhaps ever will; and what is of far greater consequence, diffused among the body of the people a clearer knowledge of their constitutional rights than they had ever before attained, and animated them with a more determined spirit to maintain them inviolate3. Enveloped in the cloud of a fictitious name, the writer of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld with secret satisfaction, the vast influence of his labours, and enjoyed, though, as we shall afterwards observe, not always without apprehension, the universal hunt that was made to detect him in his disguise. He beheld the people extolling him, the court execrating him, and ministers and more than ministers trembling beneath the lash of his invisible hand.

It is by no means, however, the intention of the editor of the present volumes to vindicate the whole of the method pursued by JUNIUS towards the accomplishment of the pa

1 In the language of Lord Chatham, delivered on May 1, 1771, in the House of Lords, "they rendered the very name of parliament ridiculous, by carrying on a constant war against Mr. Wilkes."

2 They were generally copied from the Public Advertiser into all the daily and evening papers.

3 That the same general impression was produced by the appearance of these letters in Parliament, which is so well known to have been produced out of it, is evident from almost all the speeches of the day, if the editor had time to refer to them. But the two following extracts from a speech of Mr. Burke and of Lord North will, he presumes, be sufficient for the purpose.

The

triotic objects on which his heart appears to have been most ardently engaged. Much of his individual sarcasm might perhaps have been spared with advantage-and especially the whole of his personal assaults upon the character and

The first ensuing is part of a speech delivered by the former gentleman. "Where then shall we look for the origin of this relaxation of the laws and all government? How comes this JUNIUS to have broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrouled, unpunished, through the land? The myrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or you, or you. No: they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broke through all their toils, is before them. But what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one than he lays down another dead at his feet. For my part, when I saw his attack upon the King, I own my blood ran cold I thought he had ventured too far, and there was an end of his triumphs, not that he had not asserted many truths. Yes, Sir, there are in that composition many bold truths, by which a wise prince might profit. It was the rancour and venom, with which I was struck. In these respects the North Briton is as much inferior to him, as in strength, wit, and judg ment But while I expected in this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both Houses of Parliament. Yes, he did make you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, Sir; he has attacked even you-he has-and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying away our Royal Eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. King, Lords, and Commons are but the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this house, what might not be expected from his knowledge, his firmness, and integrity? He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by his vigour. Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; nor could promises nor threats induce him to conceal any thing from the public." The following is part of a speech delivered by Lord North. "When factious and discontented men have brought things to this pass, why should we be surprised at the difficulty of bringing libellers to justice? Why should we wonder that the great boar of the wood, this mighty JUNIUS has broke through the toils and foiled the hunters? Though there may be at present no spear that will reach him, yet he may be some time or other caught. At any rate he will be exhausted with fruitless efforts; those tusks which he has been whetting to wound and gnaw the constitution will be worn out. Truth will at last prevail. The public will see and feel that he has either advanced false facts, or reasoned falsely from true principles; and that he has owed his escape to the spirit of the

times

motives of the king. Aware as he is of the arguments in favour of occasionally attacking the character of the chief magistrate, as urged by JUNIUS himself in his Preface post p. 26, and in Vol. II. p. 69, he still thinks that no possible circumstances could justify so gross a disrespect and indecency; that no principle of the constitution supports it, and that every advantage it was calculated to produce, might have been obtained in an equal degree and to an equal extent, by animadverting upon the conduct of the king's ministers, instead of censuring that of the king in person. In the volumes before us the editor is ready to acknowledge that these kinds of paragraphs seem at times not altogether free from, what ought never to enter the pages of a writer on national subjects-individual spleen and enmity. But well may we forgive such trivial aberrations of the heart, in the midst of the momentous matter these volumes are well known to contain, the important principles they inculcate; and especially under the recollection that but for the letters of JUNIUS, the Commons of England might still have been without a knowledge of the transactions of the House of Commons, consisting of their parliamentary representatives-have been exposed to the absurd and obnoxious harassment of parliamentary arrests, upon a violation of privileges undefined and incapable of being appealed against-defrauded of their estates upon an arbitrary and interested claim of the crown

times, not to the justice of his cause. The North Briton, the most flagitious libel of its day, would have been equally secure, had it been as powerfully supported. But the press had not then overflowed the land with its black gall, and poisoned the minds of the people. Political writers had some shame left; they had some reverence for the Crown, some respect for the name of Majesty. Nor were there any members of Parliament hardy enough to harangue in defence of libels. Lawyers could hardly be brought to plead for them. But the scene is now entirely changed. Without doors, within doors, the same abusive strains prevail. Libels find patrons in both houses of Parliament as well as in Westminster Hall. Nay, they pronounce libels on the very judges. They pervert the privilege of this house to the purposes of faction. They catch and swallow the breath of the inconstant multitude, because, I suppose, they take their voice, which is now that of libels, to be the voice of God."