time, any professional or political interest to prompt him to write them.

2. THE illegality of General Warrants; the right of Juries to return general verdicts even in the case of trials for libels; the want of a legal power in the House of Commons to disqualify any of its Members for re-election, by its own vote merely; the necessity of renovating the Constitution, by reducing Parliaments to three years, as the necessary: term of the duration of each; the danger of the increase of the influence of the Crown, and the justice of diminishing it; are well known to have been the great principles of Constitutional Law, which DUNNING took delight to illustrate and enforce,

Now, these are the principles, to illustrate and enforce which, the main scope of the Letters of JUNIUS is directed.

Ir was by his arguments on the question in respect to the right of a Jury to return a general Verdict in the case of a Libel, that DUNNING rose, first, into that remarkable celebrity as a Constitutional Lawyer, which must ever be long to his name.

THE arguments which he employed in all the trials in which he was of the Counsel, on those points of Constitutional Law which JUNIUS has illustrated; are still upon record; are exactly those of JUNIUS; have, in the reported pleadings, as in the Letters, a striking cast of fresh, unborrowed, bold originality.

In a Letter on the Seizure of Papers, &c. which was believed to be the joint production of DUNNING and Lord Camden,

Camden, as well as in the famous Letter on the Law' of Libel, the same doctrine is taught, on these subjects, as in the Letters of JUNIUS.

IN Parliament, Mr. DUNNING maintained that same doctrine concerning the legislative authority of the British Parliament over the American colonies, and the discretion with which it should be exercised, which JUNIUS explains in these Letters.

THE famous motion; that "the influence of the Crown' had increased, was increasing, and ought to be dimi "nished;"-successfully made by DUNNING in the session of Parliament 1770-80, was fit to come only from the Author of JUNIUS's Letter to the King, breathed the same spirit as that, and was supported by topics of argument such as had been before urged by JUNIUS.

EVEN on the illegality of suspending acts of Parliament by proclamation, DUNNING is known to have held precisely that difference of opinion from Lord Camden and Lord Chatham, which these Letters display.

He held, on various occasions, the same doctrine as Ju NIUS, in respect to the indefeasibility of the elective rights. of those which are called Rotten Boroughs.

ALL history affords not another example of an agreement of opinions so entire, between two different persons, both of first-rate genius, both remarkable for bold originality of manner and talents, as would be that which we here recognize between the doctrines and reasonings of JuNIUS and those of DUNNING, if JUNIUS and DUNNING were not, in fact, one and the same.

3. It is well known, that DUNNING was, at the bar, precisely that feared and dangerous enemy to the authority of Lord Mansfield, which we have seen, that JUNIUS ap proved himself [14. of this Essay, p. 73.]. He opposed that Judge, in his attempts to enlarge the authority of the Bench over the Jury, with perpetual boldness, asperity, strength of argument, and sarcastic reproof.→ "That is one of your Lordship's orders!"-was a phrase frequent with DUNNING, to note, contemptuously, his disapprobation of directions given by Lord Mansfield to Juries. Those who were DUNNING's contemporaries at the bar, still remember, that Lord Mansfield seemed, as it were, to stand perpetually in awe of the boldness of his genius, the vigour of his reasonings, the impressive, subjugating ascendency of his mind. DUNNING was peculi arly distinguished for his attachment to the Law of Eng land genuine and unadulterated; and in his pleadings, he waged continual war against that disposition to fill it with improvements from the Civil Law, and the Law of Nations, which Lord Mansfield was, by his habits of study and thought, led to display. DUNNING, in the Court of King's Bench, evinced that very opinion of Lord Mansfield, as a man of great but dangerous talents, which so remarkably animates the Letters of JUNIUS; and he seemed to make it the pride of his life and character, as a counsellor and a pleader, to guard against those sophistications of the genuine constitutional Law of England, by which he thought the liberties of his country in danger of being undermined by the artful genius and the arbitrary principles of the Lord Chief Justice.

DUNNING is well known to have looked, at once, with the spirit of rivalry, and with proud disdain, on the unsteady political conduct of Mr. Wedderburne, now Earl of VOL. I. Roslin,

Roslin, and on his success in the career of political ambition. The very sentiments with which DUNNING is known to have viewed him, are expressed in those poignant sarcasms with which the most exceptionable parts of his conduct are, in these Letters, assailed.

In regard to Sir William Blackstone, Sir Fletcher Norton, and the other lawyers who are, in the Letters of JuNIUS, made the subjects of ridicule and reproach, DUNNING is equally known to have entertained the same sentiments of mingled jealousy and disdain.

EVEN the coincidence of the sentiments of JUNIUS with the sentiments and conduct of DUNNING in respect to Lord Mansfield, is, alone, such a proof of their identity, as has been, in many other instances, judged to be entirely conclusive. It would be difficult to name another instance in literary history, of a coincidence of sentiments so complete, and extending through so many minute particulars, without an identity of persons.

4. MR. DUNNING's relations of political interest were, during the whole period while these Letters were printed in the Public Advertiser, precisely the same as those of the author of the Letters appear, from them, to have been.He was still Solicitor-General when JUNIUS began his Letters: But, his heart was with Lord Shelburne, with the Earl of Chatham, with Mr. George Grenville, in opposition. He acted, in this, the same part with Lord Camden. The Lord Chancellor, and the Solicitor-General, confined themselves to the mere functions of their offices, as lawyers; and thought, that, by this mode of conduct, they might, without impropriety or dishonour, continue in of fice, as long as there was any hope of the restoration of

the

the full powers of the Government to the hands of a genuine Whig Administration, to be composed of themselves and their friends. The conduct of DUNNING, Lord Camden, and some of their friends, was, in this case, nearly similar to that of Oliver St. John, when he was SolicitorGeneral to Charles the First. Their opposition was not the less hearty, and somewhat the more effectual, for their being in office. They derived peculiar lights to guide their opposition, from their official situations in the ministry.Witheld, however, by the decencies of ministerial duty, from open opposition in Parliament; they became, in corsequence, so much the more vigilant and active in every measure of secret opposition. They were obliged to use every secret effort, to which they might in honour descend; because, it was not doubtful but they themselves must soon retire from office, if they could not procure their friends to be recalled to it.-Indeed, nothing is more certain, than that DUNNING was effectively in the opposition, for the whole three years during which the publication of these Letters took place.

5. Ir is observed above [4.]; that JUNIUS disapproved the opposition of Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, to the taxation of America by the Stamp-Act; that he was friendly [5.] to the character, and to the latter measures, of Mr. George Grenville; that, [19.] if not a supporter of the measures of Mr. Grenville, when that gentieman was at the head of the administration, he must at least have been a member of the motley ministry formed by Lord Chatham in 1766,-one that had remained in office, after Lord Chatham's abdication or exclusion from power,-had made himself in some sort a party to the measures of Charles Townshend, respecting America,-or had, at least, not protested against them, and was hence reduced, by principle