fictitious name, the writer of these philippics, unseen himself, beheld with secret satisfaction the vast influence of his labours, and enjoyed, though, as we shall afterwards observe, not always without apprehension, the universal hunt that was made to detect him in his disguise. He

known to have been produced out of it, is evident from almost all the speeches of the day, if the editor had time to refer to them. But the following extracts from two speeches, one of Mr. Burke and one of lord North will, he presumes, be sufficient for the purpose.

The ensuing is part of a speech delivered by Mr. Burke. "Where then shall we look for the origin of this relaxation of the laws and all government ? How comes this JUNIUS to have broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrouled, unpunished, through the land? The myrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or you, or you. No: they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest, that has broke through all their toils, is before them. But what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one than he lays down another dead at his feet. For my part, when I saw his attack upon the King, I own my blood ran cold. I thought he had ventured too far, and there was an end of his triumphs, not that he had not asserted many truths. Yes, Sir, there are in that composition many bold truths, by which a wise prince might profit. It was the rancour and venom with which I was struck. In these respects the North Briton is as much inferior to him, as in strength, wit, and judgment. But while I expected in this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both houses of parliament. Yes, he

beheld the people extolling him, the court execrating him, and ministers and more than ministers trembling beneath the lash of his invisible hand.

It is by no means, however, the intention of the editor of the present volumes to vindicate

did make you his quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, Sir; he has attacked even you-he has-and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying away our Royal Eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. King, lords, and commons are but the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this house, what might not be expected from his knowledge, his firmness, and integrity? He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by his vigour. Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; nor could promises nor threats induce him to conceal any thing from the public."

The following is part of a speech delivered by lord North. "When factious and discontented men have brought things to this pass, why should we be surprised at the difficulty of bringing libellers to justice? Why should we wonder that the great boar of the wood, this mighty JUNIUS has broke through the toils and foiled the hunters? Though there may be at present no spear that will reach him, yet he may be some time or other caught. At any rate he will be exhausted with fruitless efforts; those tusks which he has been whetting to wound and gnaw the constitution will be worn out. Truth will at last prevail. The public will see and feel that he has either ad

vanced

the whole of the method pursued by JUNIUS towards the accomplishment of the patriotic objects on which his heart appears to have been most ardently engaged. Much of his individual sarcasm might perhaps have been spared with advantage-and especially the whole of his personal assaults upon the character and motives of the king. Aware as the editor is of the arguments in favour of occasionally attacking the character of the chief magistrate, as urged by JUNIUS himself in his Preface post p. 381 and 382 and in Vol. II. p. 315, he still thinks that no possible circumstances could justify so gross a disrespect and indecency; that no principle of

vanced false facts, or reasoned falsely from true principles; and that he has owed his escape to the spirit of the times, not to the justice of his cause. The North Briton, the most flagitious libel of its day, would have been equally secure, had it been as powerfully supported. But the press had not then overflowed the land with its black gall, and poisoned the minds of the people. Political writers had some shame left; they had some reverence for the Crown, some respect for the name of Majesty. Nor were there any members of Parliament hardy enough to harangue in defence of libels. Lawyers could hardly be brought to plead for them. But the scene is now entirely changed. Without doors, within doors, the same abusive strains prevail. Libels find patrons in both Houses of Parliament as well as in Westminster Hall. Nay, they pronounce libels on the very judges. They pervert the privilege of this house to the purposes of faction. They catch and swallow the breath of the inconstant multitude, because, I suppose, they take their voice, which is now that of libels, to be the voice of God."

the constitution supports it, and that every advantage it was calculated to produce, might have been obtained in an equal degree and to an equal extent, by animadverting upon the conduct of the king's ministers, instead of censuring that of the king in person. In the volumes before us the editor is ready to acknowledge that these kinds of paragraphs seem at times not altogether free from, what ought never to enter the pages of a writer on national subjects-individual spleen and enmity. But well may we forgive such trivial aberrations of the heart, in the midst of the momentous matter these volumes are well known to contain, the important principles they inculcate; and especially under the recollection that but for the letters of JUNIUS, the Commons of England might still have been without a knowledge of the transactions of the House of Commons, consisting of their parliamentary representatives have been exposed to the absurd and obnoxious harassment of parliamentary arrests, upon a violation of privileges undefined and incapable of being appealed against-defrauded of their estates upon an arbitrary and interested claim of the crown-and deprived of the constitutional right of a jury to consider the question of law as well as of fact. To the steady patriotism of the late Mr. Fox is the nation solely indebted for a direct legislative decision upon this last important point;-but the ground was previ

ously cleared by the letters before us; it is not often that a judge has dared openly to controvert this right since the manly and unanswerable argument of JUNIUS upon this subject, in opposition to the arbitrary and illegal doctrine of lord Mansfield, as urged in the case of the King against Woodfall':-an argument which seems to have silenced every objection, to have convinced every party, and without which perhaps even the zeal and talents of Mr. Fox himself might have been exercised in vain.

But, after all, who or what was JUNIUS? this shadow of a name, who thus shot his unerring arrows from an impenetrable concealment, and punished without being perceived? The question is natural; and it has been repeated almost without intermission, from the appearance of his first letter. It is not unnatural, moreover, from the pertinacity with which he has at all times eluded discovery, that the vanity of many political writers of inferior talents should have induced them to lay an indirect claim to his Letters, and especially after the danger of responsibility had considerably ceased. Yet while the Editor of the present impression does not undertake, and, in fact, has it not in his power, to communicate the real name of JUNIUS, he pledges himself to prove, from incontrovertible evidence,

1 See this case more particularly detailed in note to Preface, post, p. 354, and in note to Vol. II. p. 62.