burning, admirably selected, and irresistible in their application'. In his similes, however, he is once or twice too recondite, and in his grammatical construction still more frequently incorrect. Yet the latter should in most instances perhaps, if not the whole, be rather attributed to the difficulty of revising the press, and the peculiar circumstances under which his work was printed and published, than to any inaccuracy or classical misconception of his own. As to the surreptitious copies of his letters, he frequently complains of their numerous errors. "Indeed," says he, "they are innumerable";" and though the genuine edition labours under very considerably fewer, and on several occasions received his approbation on the score of accuracy, yet it would be too much to assert that it is altogether free from errors. In truth this was not to be expected, for it is not known that a single proof sheet (excepting those containing the first two letters) was ever sent to him. "You must correct the press yourself," says he in one of his letters to Woodfall;"but I should be glad to see corrected proofs

1 The following character of his style and talents is the production of a pen contemporaneous but hostile to him. It occurs in a letter in the Public Advertiser, subscribed Alciphron, and dated August 22, 1771. The writer had well studied him.

"The admiration that is so lavishly bestowed upon this writer, affords one of the clearest proofs, perhaps, that can be found, how much more easily men are swayed by the imagination, than by the judgment; and that a fertile invention, glittering language, and sounding periods, act with far greater force upon the mind, than the simple deductions of sober reasoning, or the calm evidence of facts. For the talents of JUNIUS never appeared in demonstration.

Rapid, violent, and impetuous, he affirms without reason, and decides without proof; as if he feared that the slow methods of induction and argument would interrupt him in his progress, and throw obstacles in the way of his career. But though he advances with the largest strides, his steps are measured. His expressions are selected with the most anxious care, and his periods terminated in harmonious cadence. Thus he captivates by his confidence, by the turn of his sentences, and by the force of his words. His readers are persuaded because they are agitated, and convinced because they are pleased. Their assent, therefore, is never with. held; though they scarcely know why, or even to what it is yielded.” 2 Private Letters, No. 5.

of the two first sheets1." The Dedication and Preface he certainly did not revise.

Yet if the grammatical construction be occasionally imperfect, (sometimes hurried over by the author, and sometimes mistaken by the printer) the general plan and outline, the train of argument, the bold and fiery images, the spirited invective that pervade the whole, appear to have been always selected with the utmost care and attention. Such finished forms of composition bear in themselves the most evident marks of elaborate forecast and revisal, and the author rather boasted of the pains he had bestowed upon them than attempted to conceal his labour. In recommending to Woodfall to introduce into his purposed edition various letters of his own writing under other signatures, he adds, "If you adopt this plan I shall point out those which I would recommend; for you know, I do not, nor have I time to give equal care to them all.-As to JUNIUS I must wait for fresh matter, as this is a character which must be kept up with credit." The private note accompanying his first letter to Lord Mansfield commences thus, "The inclosed, though begun within these few days, has been greatly laboured; it is very correctly copied; and I beg that you will take care that it be literally printed as it stands3." The note accompanying his last and most celebrated letter observes as follows: "At last I have concluded my great work, and assure you with no small labour." On sending the additional papers for the genuine edition he asserts, "I have no view but to serve you, and consequently have only to desire that the Dedication and Preface may be correct. Look to it; if you take it upon yourself, I will not forgive your suffering it to be spoiled. I weigh every word; and every alteration, in my eyes at least, is a blemish." In like manner in his letter to Mr. Horne, he interrogates him, "What public question have I declined, what villain have I spared? Is there no labour in the composition of these letters?" In effect no excellence of any kind is to be attained

without labour: and the degree of excellence that characterises the style of these addresses, intrinsically demonstrates the exercise of a labour unsparing and unremitted. Mr. Horne, in his reply, attempts to ridicule this acknowledgment: "I compassionate," says he, "your labour in the composition of your letters, and will communicate to you the secret of my fluency.-Truth needs no ornament; and, in my opinion, what she borrows of the pencil is deformity1." Yet no man ever bestowed more pains upon his compositions than Mr. Horne has done: nor needed he to have been more ashamed of the confession than his adversary. To have made it openly would have been honest to himself, useful to the young, and salutary to the conceited.

His most elaborate letters are that to the King, and that to Lord Mansfield upon the law of bailments: one of his most sarcastic is that to the Duke of Grafton, of the date of May 30, 1769; and one of his best and most truly valuable that to the printer of the Public Advertiser, dated Oct. 5, 1771, upon the best means of uniting the jarring sectaries of the popular party into one common cause.

His metaphors are peculiarly brilliant, and so numerous, though seldom unnecessarily introduced, as to render it difficult to know where to fix in selecting a few examples. The following are ably managed, and require no explanation. "The ministry, it seems, are labouring to draw a line of distinction between the honour of the crown and the rights of the people. This new idea has yet been only started in discourse, for, in effect, both objects have been equally sacrificed. I neither understand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it. The King's honour is that of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the same. I am not contending for a vain punctilic.Private credit is wealth; public honour is security.-The feather that adorns the royal bird, supports its flight. Strip him of his plumage and you fix him to the earth'." Again: "Above all things, let me guard my countrymen against

the meanness and folly of accepting of a trifling or moderate compensation for extraordinary and essential injuries. Concessions, such as these, are of little moment to the sum of things; unless it be to prove, that the worst of men are. sensible of the injuries they have done us, and perhaps to demonstrate to us the imminent danger of our situation. In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved; while every thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever1." Once more: "The very sun-shine you live in, is a prelude to your dissolution. When you are ripe, you shall be plucked"." The commencement of his letter to Lord Camden shall furnish another instance: "I turn with pleasure, from that barren waste, in which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a character fertile, as I willingly believe, in every great and good qualification3."

In a few instances his metaphors are rather too far-fetched or recondite: "Yet for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred, until your morals shall be happily ripened to that maturity of corruption, at which the worst examples cease to be contagious"." The change which is perpetually taking place in the matter of infection gives it progressively a point of utmost activity: -after which period, by the operation of the same continued change, it becomes progressively less active, till at length it ceases to possess any effect whatever. The parallel is correctly drawn, but it cannot be followed by every one. In the same letter we have another example: "His views and situation required a creature void of all these properties; and he was forced to go through every division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily arrived at the caput mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state, but brought into action, you become vitriol again"." This figure is too scientific, and not quite correct: vitriol cannot, properly speaking, be said to be, in any instance, a caput mor

P. 147.

1 Vol. II. p. 96, 97.
2 Id. p. 125.

3 Id:
4 Vol. I. p. 108.

5 Vol. I. p. 105.

tuum. He seems, however, to have been unjustly charged with an incongruity of metaphor in his repartee upon the following observation of Sir W. Draper: "You, indeed, are a tyrant of another sort, and upon your political bed of torture can excruciate any subject, from a first minister down to such a grub or butterfly as myself." To this remark his reply was, as follows: "If Sir W. Draper's bed be a bed of torture, he has made it for himself. I shall never interrupt his repose." We need not ramble so far as to vindicate the present use of this last word by referring to its Latin origin: he himself has justly noticed under the signature of PhiloJunius, that those who pretend to espy any absurdity either in the idea or expression, "cannot distinguish between a sarcasm and a contradiction3."

To pursue this critique further would be to disparage the judgment of the reader. Upon the whole these letters, whether considered as classical and correct compositions, or as addresses of popular and impressive eloquence, are well entitled to the distinction they have acquired; and quoted as they have been, with admiration, in the senate by such nice judges and accomplished scholars as Mr. Burke and Lord Eldon, eulogized by Dr. Johnson, and admitted by the author of the Pursuits of Literature, to the same rank among English classics as Livy or Tacitus among Roman, there can be no doubt that they will live commensurately with the language in which they are composed.

These few desultory and imperfect hints are the whole that the writer of this essay has been able to collect concerning the author of the Letters of JUNIUS. Yet desultory and imperfect as they are he still hopes that they may not be utterly destitute both of interest and utility. Although they do not undertake positively to ascertain who the author was, they offer a fair test to point out negatively who he was not; and to enable us to reject the pretensions of a host of persons, whose friends have claimed for them so distinguished an honour.

> Vol. I. p. 160.

2 Id. p. 163.

3 Id. p. 171.