disgust and mortification upon his patron's dismissal from office. But he never discovered those talents that could in any respect put him upon an equality with JUNIUS. He was moreover a man of mild disposition, and in no respect celebrated for political courage. To which general remarks, in contravention of this gentleman's claim, the editor begs leave to subjoin the following extract of a letter upon the subject, addressed by a friend of Dr. Butler's, and who himself took an active part in the politics of the times, to a high official character of the present day, and which he has been allowed the liberty of copying :

"

"Mr. Wilkes shewed me the letters he received privately from JUNIUS: parts of one of these were printed in the public papers at the request of the Bill of Rights. The autograph was remarkable-it was firm and precise, and did not appear to me at all disguised. Mr. Wilkes had been intimate with bishop Butler when quartered as colonel of the militia at Winchester; and from some very curious concurrent circumstances, he had strong reasons for considering that the Bishop was the author, and I had some reasons for conjecturing the same. Yet I must confess, that if these suspicions were stronger and more confirmed, yet I think I should require more substantial proofs; and my reasons are, that from all I was ever able to learn of the

Bishop's personal character, he was incapable of discovering, or feeling those rancorous sentiments, so unbecoming his character as a Christian, and his station as a prelate, expressed towards the duke of Grafton, lord North, sir William Draper, and others-more especially the King. Nor do I think that his being the sole depositary of his own secret, which, as JUNIUS says, would be, and I fancy was, buried in everlasting oblivion, when he was entombed; would have encouraged him to have used such opprobrious language."

The pretensions of the Rev. Philip Rosenhagen, though adverted to in a preceding edition of these letters, are hardly worth noticing. He was at one time chaplain to the 8th regiment of foot; and is said to have endeavoured to impose upon lord North with a story of his having been the author of the letters in order to induce his Lordship to settle a pension upon him. It is sufficient to observe, that Mr. Rosenhagen, who was a school-fellow of Mr. H. S. Woodfall, continued on terms of acquaintance with him in subsequent life; and occasionally wrote for the Public Advertiser: but was repeatedly declared by Mr. Woodfall, who must have been a competent evidence as to the fact, not to be the author of JUNIUS's Letters. A private letter of Rosenhagen's to Mr. Woodfall is still in the possession of his son, and nothing can be more

different from each other than this autograph and that of JUNIUS.

It has been said in an American periodical work entitled "The Wilmington Mirror," that General Lee in confidence communicated to a friend the important secret that he was the author of these celebrated letters; but, whether Lee ever made such a communication or not, nothing is more palpable than that he did not write them-since it is a notorious fact, that during the whole, or nearly the whole of the period in which they successively appeared, this officer was on the continent of Europe, travelling from place to place, and occupying the whole of his time in very different pursuits.

The friend to whom this communication is said to have been made, is a Mr. T. Rodney, who declares as follows in a communication inserted in the above-mentioned American periodical work.

"In the fall of 1773, not long after general Lee had arrived in America, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon in his company, when there was no other person present. Our conversation chiefly turned on politics, and was mutually free and open. Among other things, the Letters of JUNIUS were mentioned,. and general Lee asked me, who was conjectured to be the author of these letters. I replied, our conjectures here generally followed those started

in England; but for myself, I concluded, from the spirit, style, patriotism, and political information which they displayed, that lord Chatham was the author; and yet there were some sentiments there that indicated his not

being the author. General Lee immediately replied, with considerable animation, affirming, that to his certain knowledge, lord Chatham was not the author; neither did he know who the author was, any more than I did; that there was not a man in the world, no, not even Woodfall, the publisher, that knew who the author was; that the secret rested solely with himself, and for ever would remain with him.

"Feeling, in some degree, surprised at this unexpected declaration, after pausing a little, I replied: No, general Lee, if you certainly know what you have affirmed, it can no longer remain solely with him; for, certainly, no one could know what you have affirmed but the author himself!'

"Recollecting himself, he replied: I have unguardedly committed myself, and it would be but folly to deny to you that I am the author; but I must request that you will not reveal it during my life; for it never was, nor never will be revealed by me to any other.' He then proceeded to mention several circumstances to verify his being the author; and, among them, that of his going over to the Continent, and ab

senting himself from England most of the time in which these Letters were first published in London, &c. &c. This he thought necessary, lest, by some accident, the author should become known, or at least suspected, which might have been his ruin, had he been known to the court of London, &c."

The account from which we have made this extract was reprinted in the St. James's Chronicle for April 16, 1803, which the editor prefaces by observing, "Of Mr. Rodney, or of the degree of credit that may reasonably be attached to his declaration, we know nothing; but the subject is so curious, that we think our readers will not be averse from having their attention once more drawn to it."

The public do not in any degree appear to have been influenced either by general Lee's pretended assertion, or Mr. Rodney's positive declaration and this claim had totally died away like the rest, when in 1807 it was revived by Dr. Girdlestone of Yarmouth, Norfolk, who endeavoured to establish general Lee's pretensions by a comparison of Rodney's statement with Mr. Langworthy's Memoirs of the general's life, in a pamphlet published anonymously, under the title of "Reasons for rejecting the presumptive evidence of Mr. Almon, that Mr. Hugh Boyd was the writer of JUNIUS, with passages selected to prove the real author of the

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