flamed, as it should seem, even with personal animosity against the King, he has never hinted, in these Letters, at any but legal parliamentary methods of preventing or ter minating that which he conceived to be an abuse of the power of the Crown. He draws not one argument from general revolutionary philosophy, nor from any source but old statute, precedent, habit in the Law and Constitution of England. If in personal invective the boldest; he is, in doctrine, the most moderate of all who, at that time, wrote in the newspapers against the measures of admini

stration.

22. NOTHING is more conspicuous from these Letters, in regard to the personal character of their author, than that he was a man of a lofty, erect, independent mind. Who but a bold and high-minded man, would have written as JuNIUS did to his Sovereign, to the Dukes of Bedford and Grafton, to the Earl of Mansfield, to the highest of the powers and dignities on earth? What conscious, proud, energy of resolution and activity, is there not in the language in which he proclaims his contempt of any thing that Sir William Draper might menace against him as a man of fair courage? Does not he brand every thing like hypocrisy, timidity, servility, and all the skulking artifices of low cunning, with the fierce indignation of a man who felt, in his nature, an utter abhorrence of such arts and sentiments; whose whole soul revolted within him, at the very idea of them? It is, indeed, well-known, that the elevation of mind, the honourable pride, the indignant independence of spirit, the unparalleled boldness of attack, which appear in these Letters, were, from the first, among the chief causes of their sudden and extraordinary celebrity. The moral character and the high sentiments of the author, shine out in these Letters, as clearly, and with as much

*12

much of peculiar and picturesque force, as has been ever exhibited, in marking the expression of any countenance in a portrait in which it was even the most luckily and skilfully hit off.

23. THERE are, in these Letters, strong, unambiguous indications, that the writer was in connexion with the present Marquis of Lansdowne (then Lord Shelburnc.) He professes those principles concerning America, adverse to its independence, but requiring a very moderate exercise of the legislative power of Parliament over the Colonies, which made an eminent part of his Lordship's avowed political creed. He resents nothing so much, as that shrinking of government from opposition to the views of France respecting Corsica, in consequence of which, Lord Shelburne's instructions to the ambassador of the Court of France, were disavowed, and his Lordship himself was moved indignantly to resign. He approves nothing in political measures so highly, as that very conduct in which Lord Shelburne was disavowed and thwarted.-JUNIUS's interposition in the controversy between Wilkes and Horne, was evidently made, to preserve the popularity of Lord Shelburne. Lauchlin Maclean, Lord Shelburne's UnderSecretary of State, had lent Wilkes a sum of money in 1766, on promise of being made his Secretary when the Rockingham administration should send him out Governor of Jamaica. Wilkes never obtained the appointment. Af ter Lord Shelburne's resignation, Maclean wanted his money from Wilkes, and accepted a composition for it from the Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights. The circumstances in which the demand of the money was made against Wilkes, excited a quarrel between him and Maclean. Maclean even challenged him to fight. The effects of the quarrel assisted the views of Parson Horne,

for

for driving Wilkes out of the favour of that Society. Wilkes, therefore, attributed the trouble which was given him by Maclean to the secret instigation of Lord Shelburne, his late master; represented Horne's hostilities against him as also prompted and abetted by his Lordship; and, branding this nobleman with the odious appellation of Malagrida, endeavoured by many things thrown out in the newspapers, to lessen his reputation with the people. To prevent this, JUNIUS seasonably interposed; and, alledging that Horne's conduct had, in truth, a tendency to favour the wishes of the Ministers, by defeating the views of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, destroyed the suspicion that the parson was abetted by Lord Shelburne, by demonstrating that, so far as a man's motives might be inferred from the effects of his actions, he must be undoubtedly in the secret pay of Government. Nothing could have been more seasonable or important than this, as a service to Lord Shelburne. He had been calumniated, as treacherously dividing the friends of liberty against one another, in order to diminish the influence of the Rockingham party. JUNIUS, keeping Lord Shelburne out of sight in the question, turned the whole odium upon Horne and Administration. This was the act of a truly able and zealous private friend to his Lordship. Even Sir William Draper scems to have had a suspicion of an intimacy between JUNIUS and Lord Shelburne. "You may," says he," in all probability, be not unknown to his Lordship" (Lord Shelburne.)

THESE are the principal indications to help us to a discovery of the Author of the Letters of JUNIUS, which can be gathered, by careful analysis, from the Letters themselves. It remains, to compare these particulars with what is known of the different persons to whom

the

the composition of the Letters has been, on conjecture, ascribed.

I. THEY were attributed, on suspicion, to the Right Honourable WILLIAM GERRARD HAMILTON.

f

BUT, we have seen, that the Letters of JUNIUS must, of necessity, have been written by one that was a great lawyer: And Hamilton was only a politician, who had not formed his habits of thought and composition amidst legal studies.

HAMILTON had ceased, since about the time of the commencement of the Rockingham administration, from any fervent political activity. JUNIUS was, at the very time when the Letters were written, evidently engaged with high hopes, and with the strained exertion of all the energies of his mind, in the very vortex of political contest and intrigue.

HAMILTON, as appears from the fact, that, after gaining high applause by one or two early Speeches in Parliament, he ceased from all public oratorical efforts, was of an indolence of mental character, not at all to be reconciled to the ideas which we are forced, by a due consideration of these Letters, to conceive of the persevering ardour of their author in the exercise of his powers.

NOR is there reason to believe, that Mr. Hamilton was disposed to inculcate those principles of high Revolution Whiggism which are taught in the Letters of JUNIUS; or, that he had private reasons of hostility to so many Lawyers and Ministers whom JUNIUS makes the subjects of his invectives. He had not, at all, those friendships, hatreds,

hatreds, interests, and prejudices of the lawyer, which are, every where, so conspicuous throughout these Letters.

MR. WOODFALL, who, though he had not the means of knowing, who JUNIUS actually was, yet might know to a certain degree, who he was not, has, without hesitation, declared, that none of the Letters of this collection were written by Mr. Hamilton.

THE incident, in consequence of which, it was, first, suggested, that Mr. Hamilton might be the author of these Letters, has been otherwise satisfactorily explained. He had seen, in the hands of the printer, one of the Letters in manuscript, a day or two before that on which it was to have been published. By some accident, the publication was delayed beyond the day on which he had been told that it would appear. Trusting to his information, he spoke of that Letter, as published, while it was still but in manuscript; and even repeated its substance, in a morning-conversation with his Grace the Duke of Richmond. His Grace looked for the Letter itself, that same morning, in the Public Advertiser. But, it had not yet appeared. Soon after, it, however, did appear. He concluded, that Hamilton, who thus knew the substance of a Letter of JUNIUS, before its publication, must be the very writer. But, Hamilton owed the knowledge which suggested this conjecture, only to the confidence and the delay of the Printer.

BESIDES, Mr. Hamilton, in his last illness, solemnly and voluntarily declared, that he was not the author of these Letters. From a person of doubtful character, or of notorious profligacy and deceit; from one that had, or could imagine he had, even in this last instance of his life, a

strong