afforded by the private letters of JUNIUS himself during the period in question, in connection with other documents, that not one of these pretenders has ever had the smallest right to the distinction which some of them have ardently coveted.

These private and confidential letters, addressed to the late Mr. Woodfall, are now for the first time made public by his son, who is in possession of the author's autographs'; and from

1 There must have been some misunderstanding either of the extent of the question, or the nature of the answer in that part of a conversation which Mr. Campbell, in his Life of Hugh Boyd, states to have occurred between Mr. H. S. Woodfall, (editor and one of the proprietors of the Public Advertiser,) and himself, in relation to the preservation of these autographs. "I proceeded," says Mr. Campbell, "to ask him if he had preserved any of the manuscripts of JUNIUS? He said he had not." p. 164. The veracity of Mr. H. S. Woodfall is well known to have been unimpeachable; and it is by no means the intention of the editor to suspect that of Mr. Campbell. It is probable that Mr. Woodfall understood the question to be whether he had regularly preserved the manuscripts of JUNIUS, or had preserved any of the manuscripts of JUNIUS which had publicly appeared under that signature? No man, not even Mr. Campbell himself could have suspected Mr. Woodfall to have been guilty of a wilful falsehood; nor can any advantage be assigned, or even conceived, that could possibly have resulted from such a falsehood, had it taken place.

It is equally extraordinary that Mr. Campbell, in this same conversation, should represent Mr. Woodfall as saying that as to the story about Hamilton quoting JUNIUS to the late Duke of Richmond, he knew it to be a misconception." In regard to the story itself, Woodfall knew it to be founded in

fact

the various facts and anecdotes they disclose, not only in relation to this extraordinary character, but to other characters as well, they cannot fail of being highly interesting to the political world. To have published these letters at an earlier period would have been a gross breach of trust and decorum: the term of trust, however, seems at length to have expired; most of the parties have paid the debt of nature, and should any be yet living, the length of time which has since elapsed has so completely blunted the asperity of the strictures they contain,

fact from Hamilton's own relation-and has repeatedly mentioned it as such; but he may have meant that the story as told by Mr. Campbell, was a misconception.

In effect the late Duke of Richmond himself distinctly informed the son of the late Mr. Woodfall, that such a cornmunication with Hamilton had taken place, while his Grace was riding with sir James Peachey, afterwards lord Selsey, in the park at Goodwood, though he could not at that distance of time recollect the particular letter to which it referred. The clue to the mystery is that Mr. Hamilton was acquainted with the late Mr. H. S. Woodfall, and used occasionally to call at his office; whence it is highly probable that Mr. Woodfall had shewn him or detailed to him a Letter from JUNIUS then just received, and intended for publication on a certain day. Hamilton alluded to the general purport of this letter, on the day on which it was to have been published as though he had just read it; when to the astonishment of his Grace and Sir James Peachey, to whom he thus mentioned it, no such letter appeared, though it did appear the next day or the day after.

that they could scarcely object to so remote a publication of them. JUNIUS, in the career of his activity, was the man of the people; and when the former can receive no injury from the disclosure, the latter have certainly a claim to every information that can be communicated concerning him.

It was on the 28th of April, in the year 1767, that the late Mr. H. S. Woodfall received, amidst other letters from a great number of correspondents for the use of the Public Advertiser of which he was a proprietor, the first public address of this celebrated writer. He had not then assumed the name, or rather written under the signature of Junius; nor did he always indeed assume a signature of any kind. When he did so, however, his signatures were diversified, and the chief of them were Mnemon, Atticus, Lucius, Junius, and Brutus. Under the first he sarcastically opposed the ministry upon the subject of the Nullum Tempus bill, which involved the celebrated dispute concerning the transfer on the part of the crown of the Duke of Portland's estate of the forest of Inglewood, and the manor and castle of Carlisle, to sir James Lowther, son-in-law of lord Bute, upon the plea that these lands, which formerly belonged to the crown, had not been duly specified in king William's grant of them to the Portland

family; and that hence, although they had been in the Portland family for nearly seventy years, they of right belonged to the crown still. The letters signed Atticus and Brutus relate chiefly to the growing disputes with the American colonies and those subscribed Lucius exclusively to the outrageous dismission of sir Jeffery Amherst from his post of governor of Virginia.

The name of Mnemon was, perhaps, taken up at hazard. That of Atticus was unquestionably assumed from the author's own opinion of the purity of his style, an opinion in which the public universally concurred: and the three remaining signatures of Lucius, Junius, and Brutus were obviously deduced from a veneration for the memory of the celebrated Roman patriot, who united these three names in his own.

Various other names were also occasionally assumed by this fertile political writer, to answer particular purposes, or more completely to conceal himself, and carry forward his extensive design. That of Philo-Junius, he has avowed to the public, in the authorized edition of the Letters of JUNIUS: but besides this, he is yet to be recognized under the mask of Poplicola, Domitian, Vindex, and several others, as the subjoined pages will sufficiently testify.

The most popular of our author's letters anterior to those published with the signature of

JUNIUS in 1769, were those subscribed Atticus and Lucius; to the former of which the few letters signed Brutus seem to have been little more than auxiliary, and are consequently not polished with an equal degree of attention. These letters, in point of time, preceded those with the signature of JUNIUS by a few weeks: they are certainly written with admirable spirit and perspicuity, and are entitled to all the popularity they acquired yet they are not perhaps possest of more merit than our author's letters signed Mnemon. They nevertheless deserve a more minute attention from their superior celebrity. The proofs of their having been composed by the writer denominated JUNIUS are incontestible: the manner, the phraseology, the sarcastic, exprobratory style, independently of any other evidence, sufficiently identify them'. These

That those under the signature of Lucius were early and generally traced to the pen of JUNIUS even by writers of the opposite party, may be fairly inferred from the following passage in a letter in the Public Advertiser of the date of April 27th, 1769, signed "A long forgotten correspondent," intended as an antidote to the poison that JUNIUS was supposed to be propagating.

"In the warm and energetic, though keen and sarcastic style of JUNIUS, we may, I think, easily descry the Lucius, long dreaded by his opponents; and from the warmth of his sentiments, if they do indeed correspond with his expressions, we may expect a future BRUTUS, a patriotic character much to be dreaded by all those who, content with the portion of power

now