the Letters on the dispute respecting the Middlesex Election, how admirably does he seize the strength of the argument on the side on which he contended,-and, neglecting the detail of less important matter, urge that alone, with irresistible force! His replies to the attempts of opponents to refute his arguments and destroy his credit, are in general his greatest master-pieces of design. The character, the interests, the ruling passions, the feebler reasonings, the inaccuracies in style, and the incongruities of metaphor, of his opponent, are all at once discerned, seized, and turned with consummate and irresistible energy, to overwhelm the poor being who had dared his wrath. He is never more truly admirable, than in his address in the controversy with Parson Horne. Silly and inconsiderate persons have alledged, that, of all the adversaries of JUNIUS, Horne approached the nearest to him in controversial art. But, the truth is, that JUNIUS, when he spared Horne, spared him for the sake of his adherents, and in order to prevent the threatened division of the City patriots. His object was, to ruin Horne's political influence, without offending his friends. Horne, on the other hand, forgot all regard for the interests of his party, all prudent concern to advance the purposes towards which his previous labours had been so noisily employed, in bellowing pretences of disinterested patriotism, the very nature and circumstances of which gave the lie to what they asserted the most vehemently. Horne's letters co-operated with those of JUNIUS to destroy his own repu tation. The Letters of JUNIUS contributed, in the most eminent manner, to protect Wilkes, on his vulnerable side, from Horne's attacks, and to prevent the party from being entirely dispersed by his mischievous rage. It is, in reality, in those parts of his letters to Horne, in which he has been thought the weakest, that JUNIUS has exercised the most consummate ability and address. Where Horne has appeared the the ablest,--it was there precisely that he did to himself and his friends the greatest mischief. In the attack on Lord Mansfield, it may seem that undisguised virulence is suffered to burst forth injudiciously; and I should think, that, in one or two instances in it, prudence must have been lost in personal resentment. But, JUNIUS knew that the character of fearless boldness, in his invectives, was his best recommendation to authority with the mob. Lord Mansfield, too, was at that time exceedingly odious to all ranks of those who were in the same party with JUNIUS; because his abilities, his fair character, and his attachment to his Sovereign, were supposed to render him the most formidable of all the obstacles to the success of their political wishes; and he was, really, and perhaps not altogether unjustly, believed to be, as a lawyer and judge, too favourable to the influence of Prerogative in the courts, and ready to advance its authority by introducing the maxims of the imperial law of Rome into the interpretation of the laws of England. Hence, boldness to arraign him, talents powerful to cover him with confusion, and pertinacious vehemence returning incessantly to the attack, and urging it with fury, were peculiarly adapted to produce against Lord Mansfield, that strong effect which JUNIUS hoped from them. Lord Camden was expected, at the same time, to urge a similar attack in the House of Peers. But Lord Camden, upon a full consideration of all the circumstances of the case, found it prudent to desist from the attempt: and JUNIUS, when he at last saw the grand party disappointed, and that party, in spite of all his efforts, entirely disorganised, thought it vain to continue his Letters farther. Never man wrote so skilfully to both the gross and the discerning part of readers at the same time. It is said of Shakespeare, that all the speeches in his Plays are so appropriated to their respective speakers, hat no one of them could, without manifest absurdity, be transferred transferred from its present possessor to another: and of JUNIUS, it may, in like manner, be affirmed, that every Letter, every position of invective in his writings, is directed with a propriety of address not susceptible of improving alteration, to the very person to whom it is inscribed. The knowledge of the proper strength of his own powers; an insight into the very heart of his adversary; a constant remembrance of his main design; and all the facilities of vigour, art, and skill, in the use of the engines of ELOQUENCE; strikingly appear to have been exercised by the author, in the composition of every one of the following Letters. One capital object of the remarks which, in this edition, accompany the Letters, is to illustrate this truth, in particular detail. In this place, a more minute selection of instances shall not be introduced. 3. THE KNOWLEDGE of the Author of these Letters, admits of advantageous comparison with that of other orators and controversial writers, ancient and modern. The proper study of mankind, is man. The intimate knowledge of the genera, species, and varieties of human character, in all the powers of thought, native emotions and passions, biasses of affection, turns of humour, casts of imagination, and modes of exterior expression, which constitute their essential principles, and their several distinctions, is, of all human science, the most important part. Within this, lies the chief portion of that common sense which is demanded as the primary qualification for all the business of life. No orator, no statesman, no author, ever attained to great influence in society, otherwise than according to the exact proportion in which he possessed and exercised this knowledge. Without it, JUNIUS could not have displayed such admirable force and propriety in the management of his design. design. His Letters abound with those deep and general, yet original, observations on human character, and on the fortunes of human life, which can be produced only by genius and judgment matured by experience, and fully informed by much and various converse both with books and with mankind. His observations have the sententiousness, the profundity, and even a cast of the malignity of those of Tacitus: they breathe somewhat of the solemn pensive wisdom of Johnson: and they mingle with these qualities, the lively and keenly sarcastic discrimination of Swift. But they possess, besides, a race of originality. They are not borrowed from the stores of those writers, but add new riches to the common stock. JUNIUS thinks like Johnson, like Tacitus, like Swift: but he does not tamely echo their thoughts. He is another and a greater master in the school of artists, not a mere copyist. It is by this grand quality in a particular manner, that the true critic may easily distinguish between the writings of JUNIUS, and those of the puerile imitators of his ELOQUENCE, to whom, for lack of a known owner, his Letters have been sometimes hastily ascribed. Had he no other power of ELOQUENCE; were his Letters destitute of all those anecdotes by which they are so interesting to malignant curiosity; did they not perpetuate the memory of one of the most important popular contentions that have not been carried to a destructive height; did they even not preserve the political manners of England for the time, with all the force of an historical painting adding the comic manner of the Dutch, to the epic grandeur of the Italian school: yet, on account solely of the great original truths which these Letters contain, they would deserve to be studied, with unwearied diligence, by readers of every class, from the school-boy of the highest form, to the statesman and the philosopher. Those striking truths are occasionally noticed, as they occur, in the following Notes and Prefa VOL. I. *f tory tory Observations. They will meet the attention of the discerning reader in a thousand instances in which it has not been thought necessary to point them particularly out. THE knowledge of such general truths, can be the result only of an extensive, minute, and accurate knowledge in detail, of the characters, manners, fortunes, interests, and changing humours of a great variety of individuals. That JUNIUS certainly possessed this knowledge-has been stated, in speaking of the propriety and judgment with which he makes every thing co-operate in every Letter, towards the chief design. Examine his account of any one character that is the subject of his praise or invective! He may,-indeed, he does often, maliciously depart from the truth; but he departs with a verisimilitude, and with a skill in flattery or caricature, which more strikingly evince his knowledge of the turns of character and passion, than if he had rigorously adhered to the truth. In the contest with Sir William Draper, how he probes the soul! With what art, he tortures a man of no mean talents, to confession! He was thought to have dealt with outrageous severity towards the Duke of Bedford: And never was there a more masterly stroke in ELOQUENCE, than that with which he contrives to disarm the public resentment, and to deprive the Duke of that sympathy which seemed to have been raised in his favour, by representing him as utterly unfeeling, and a stranger to that distress which public compassion supposed him to have suffered from the invectives of JUNIUS. He knew, that the King from the very commencement of his reign, had taken no measure in government but what he thought likely to promote the content and welfare of his people,— and desired nothing so much as their happiness and their love. It was believed, that such a sovereign would instantly abandon whatever measures he should know to be odious to |