SETTING FORTH THE CONDITION OF ENGLISH POLITICS
PRECEDING AND COTEMPORARY WITH
THE REVOLUTIONARY JUNIAN PERIOD,
AND SIHOWING THAT THE GREATEST
ORATOR AND STATESMAN
WAS ALSO THE GREATEST
Fistolaqg    iritcr  of  his   ge.
BY
WILLIAM DOWE.
Search then the ruling passion; there alone
The wild are constant and the cunning known;
That clew once found unravels all the rest;
The prospect clears and Wharton stands confest.
POPE.
That terrible Cornet of Horse.
WALPOLE.
A trumpet of sedition.
GEORGE III.
NEW YORK:
MILLER, ORTON & CO., 25 PARK ROW.
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., 12 PATERNOSTER ROW.
1857.




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
WILLIAM DOWE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
MILLER & HOLMAN,
Printers and Stereotypers, N. Y.




THIS ESSAY,
TOUCHING
THE MOST POPULAR ENGLISH WRITER OF A FORMER PERIOD,
THE MOST POPULAR ENGLISH WRITER OF THE PRESENT,
CHARLES DICKENS,
By one repeatedly thankful to him for the pleasantest reading hours of his life-since the morning of Ivanhoe, and
the Bride of Lammermoor-and a sincere admirer of the
resolved and genial democrat, who, being the most famous
and flattered author of his time, has always chosen to stand
by the side of the people, laboring for and with them, and
sympathizing with their wants, feelings and interests; and
who now seems willing to advance a new claim to a
more general applause, by the opinion that all his countrymen should learn the use of arms, and thus be enabled to stand erect, on a level with the people of other
nations in the Old and New World.*
THE AUTHOR.
* See " Household Words," No. 319, p. 363.








PREFACE.
THE historic reader is struck-or should be-with the
facts that Lord Chatham is represented as in some degree out of his senses-full of a certain perversity, secret,
evasive, scowling, and implacable-during a portion of his
career; and that the period of his strange, unexplained
lunacy was the very period of the Junian epistles. In the
earlier part of the lustrum, 1767-1772, the great baffled
minister was doing something under a cloud, and behind a
curtain; and Junius, at the same time, in all his fortitudes, girding at the king, lords, and commons of England.
A remarkable coincidence; but not sufficiently remarked,
we suspect, by those who meditate that Epistolary Sphinx of
the last age.
The same reader has, probably, felt surprise that the
orator, whose genius and audacity could raise the monotonous character of British eloquence to the old Greek level of
the Agora-and the statesman, who, since the stronger
times of the Wolseys and Burleighs, stands up alone to
redeem the common run and fatal mediocrity of British
statesmanship, should have such an indistinct and meagre




Vi                    PREFACE.
biography, and leave some of the best effects of his energetic life to the keeping of tradition; at a period, too, not
beyond the memory of some men now living. This veiling of such a bust in the procession of the celebrities, suggests something, in the dispositions of the great man himself
and in those of his compeers and countrymen, which does
not show itself in a passing glance.
Along with these, there are two other striking considerations.  The first is, the general appearance of dislike
with which the great peers of that time —the Butes, Albemarles, Russels, Rockinghams, and others-allude to
Lord Chatham, in their memoirs, or any letters having
reference to that angry period; while their sons and successors continue to the present day the old impressions
of aversion —an aversion which certainly seems too deeply
rooted to have had its rise in the mere political feuds
of the day.  The next is, the curious anxiety of Lord
Mahon-Chatham's descendant-and, along with him, Lord
Brougham, Mr. Macaulay, and others, to make the world
believe, against the most glaring contrary evidence, that the
vehement orator and statesman was a poor hand at a letter, a feeble sycophant of George III., and, for the rest, a
man of crotchets and oddities, which no one could rightly
understand then, and which no one need try to understand
any more.
Such considerations-calculated, perhaps, to excite certain doubts, and rouse curiosity-were those which first led,
in this case, to the method of Lord Chatham's madness, and
the conclusions shown in the following pages.
The writer has seen but one attempt to prove that Junius
was Lord Chatham: that of Dr. Waterhouse,* of Cam* The Doctor's testimony, though garrulous and rambling, is not with



PREFACE.                        Vii
bridge, Massachusetts, who published his book in 1831, and
whose manner of treating the subject did his theory more
harm  than good.  He confines himself to what may be
called the classic series, rejecting the Miscellaneous Collection, which confused and puzzled him, and making that
desperate which was difficult before. The Doctor, entering
the arena, on which he was to cope with the most cunning
strategist on record, is confounded by the fact that Poplicola
begins by a terrible show of attack on-Lord Chatham!
He gives up the Miscellaneous Series as something unaccountable, and rambles on his way to the conclusion with
half the evidence.  In  England, Messrs. Swinden  and
another produced rifaccimnentos of the Doctor's argument.
But the Chathamites are not the only inquirers who have
stood puzzled before the Poplicolas and Correggios. The
Franciscans, too, have flung doubts upon them-on some
of them, at least-more disposed to give up the letters
than give up their theory. The truth is, those searchers,
from the beginning, have had an humble opinion of the
Junian legerdemain, and thought they could circumvent
that Ulysses of the pen with a few hours' felicitous thinking, and a nice balancing of the evidences discoverable in the
letters themselves, and the tenor of the few years embraced
by their publication.
The only man who could be Junius is presented in these
pages; his life before and after 1767 being the best proof
out a certain merit. He was in his youth a cotemporary of Junius; and,
as a medical pupil of Dr. Fothergill, of London, could gather enough
from the gossip of the capital to produce the convictions of his after life.
He had heard whispers of.the truth long before those sectaries, the Franciscans and others, rose to corrupt and darken it with their devices, glosses,
and heresies. In this respect, the opinion of Dr. Waterhouse is of higher
value than people are disposed to think.




Viii                   PREFACE.
of his identity. That is the main argument. Following
it out in the synthetic way, the reader is led inevitably to
perceive the means of secrecy, and the nature of the strategy. Lord Chatham is curiously abused by Junius in the
very opening of the epistolary war; and this suggests
the mode of dealing with the whole cunning system of concealment.
Suivez le fil de la rividre.
Un autre r6pondit: Non, ne le suivez pas;
Rebroussez, plutbt, en arridre.
Pursuing this course of contraries, described by Lafontaine,
the investigator finds himself in an untrodden way; and
the Miscellaneous Series, rejected by other theorists, leads
him, against the current of appearances, in the direction of
the truth.  It shows Junius opposing and denouncing
himself; it shows him also arguing in a similar spirit of
ambages against Lord Chatham; and presents a succession
of epistolary combats and sparrings, in which we can perceive
the Mask doing all in his power to confuse and bewilder
those who would be most likely to trace him by his political
and personal sentiments. In the eighth chapter of this book,
that curious and complicated strategy is pointed out, and
many letters not included in Woodfall's collection are
identified as those of the secret writer. Among these are
two, lying eight or nine years away from the recognized
Junian period.  All this shows the Mask moving over
a wider field, and in a stranger way than most people
have suspected, and at the same time suggests that there
may be as much of his literature yet unreclaimed as we
find between the covers of Woodfall's book. There are,
doubtless, many lights of this theme still burning in the
crypts of the dead London journals; and the inquirer




PREFACE.                            ix
within reach of them may yet use them in forming the
complements of a truth given here in its outline and incomplete features.*
WEST HOBOKEN, Sept., 1856.
* In arranging the following pages, the writer has often wished for
some of those out-of-the-way books and journals which have cotemporary reference to the Junian literature. But he does not recollect with less
gratitude those helps within his reach, in the excellent Athenaeum Library, of the city of Boston, remarkable and enjoyable beyond other libraries
of this country, for the liberality of its loanings, and an unrestricted access
to its valuable shelves-things which the inquirer or student so dearly appreciates, and without which a huge library is little more to him than a
huge trouble and disappointment. Along with the free and satisfactory
order of the Boston Athenseum, the writer always remembers with pleasure the cheerful genius of the place, the courteous and accomplished
Mr. Charles Folsom, prince of librarians.








TABLE OF CONTENTS.
DEDICATION                                                iii
PREFACE                                                    V
CHAPTER I.
CONSIDERATION OF THE STRATEGY OF JUNIUS, AND THE VARIOUS CLAIMS
AND OPINIONS ADVOCATED IN CONNECTION WITH THE AUTHORSHIP OF
THE LETTERS  -   -   -   -   -   -                         1
Influences at work to conceal the Identity of Junius-Pettifogging of
the Franciscans-Preliminary glance at the Junian Period-the Strategy
that led inquirers to Stowe-Ideas of Sir James Mackintosh, Lord Nugent, and the Duke of Buckingham-List of the Juniuses, Burke, Gibbon, etc.-Heron, the late Quarterly Reviewers, the Duke of Albemarle,
Sir Harris Nicholas -Bohn's edition of Junius-Search narrowed to two
persons-One of them Junius.
CHAPTER II.
ANTECEDENTS OF JUNIUS - THE POLITICAL CAREER OF WILLIAM PITT,
FIRST EARL OF CHATHAM    -   -   -   -   -  21
William Pitt's opposition career-Early adhesion to the party of the
Prince of Wales, and bold attacks on George II. and his policy-The




X1i               TABLE  OF CONTENTS.
king's antipathy against him —Pitt's alliances and vigorous efforts to
force himself into office-George II. resists obstinately-Is defeatedPitt Paymaster of the Forces-Acts with Newcastle-Plots with FoxAnother vehement seizure of office in 1757-The Secretary stands aloneThe Quadrennium-Is forced from office by George III.-The court policy-The king strives to detach Pitt from his family and other alliancesSucceeds in 1767.
CHAPTER III.
LORD CHATHAMeS DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO CONSTRUCT HIS HELPLESS
MOSAIC MINISTRY-HIS STRANGE RETIREMENT, AND THE CONSEQUENT
CONFUSIONS                                                50
Lord Chatham's reckless piece of "joinery"-The truckle-bed-The
Duke of Portland and others escape from it-The Duke of Bedford will
not go into it-Lord Chatham goes away and shuts himself up-Outcries
and calls which he will not hear-Attempts to bring him out-Strange
whisperings about him-The Great Seal put in commission, to provoke
him-The king tries to bring him back-Exhorts him, prays him, warns
him, offers to send his own doctor to see what the matter is-Says he will
go himself-All in vain-Curious fact concerning Hayes-Seclusion of
Lord Chatham's apartment there.
CHAPTER IV.
LORD CHATHAMeS RESOLUTION TAKEN-THE FEINTS AND PRECAUTIONS
MADE USE OF TO BAFFLE THE CURIOUS INQUIRY OF THE WORLD RESPECTLNG HIS AGGRESSIVE EPISTLES    -   -   -   -   -  69
Political writing in England-Marchamont Needham, Bolingbroke,
Wharton, Smollett, Burke, etc. —First of the Miscellaneous Series of
Junius-Curious oblique but significant attack on the character of Lord
Chatham and on Lord Camden-Machinery of concealment-The Mask
would be thought a Grenvillite-Praises George Grenville-Also tries
to look like Burke-Lord Campbell's notion-Lord Chatham anticipates it.




TABLE  OF CONTENTS.                     XliU
CHAPTER V.
LORD CHIATHAMS UNDENIABLE LITERARY ABILITIES, AND THE REMARKABLE VERSATILITY OF HIS LNTELLECTUAL POWERS    -   -      92
Lord Mahon's efforts to show that Lord Chatham was no letter-writer
and could do nothing but make speeches-Pitt's education-Admiration
excited by his style of parliamentary eloquence-Its astonishing power
and versatility-Pitt's literary tastes-Love of the drama-Was looked
on as a dramatic censor and arbiter of elegance in letters-Wrote poetryCurious verses to Garrick-Translation of Thucydides-Facetious letters
in the Chatham Correspondence-This last a meagre collection-Pitt's
affected and sarcastic modes of writing and acting-Lord Brougham
puzzled by them.
CHAPTER VI.
A CONSIDERATION OF PARILLEL PASSAGES IN WHICH THE POLITICAL
SINTIMENTS OF THE MASK AND LORD CHATHAM ARE SHOWN TO BE
COINCIDENT    -. -                      108
Speeches of 1770, in the House of Lords-The parallels-the instances
in which the orator adopted the sentiments of the Junian literature-Mr.
Taylor's argument founded on the parallels-Perfect inadequacy of Philip
Francis, the amanuensis, secretary, and reporter of the Earl of ChathamLate admissions of the Franciscans to the effect that the earl had a hand
in the letters-That he was the purveyor and assistant of the young War
Office clerk-Their argument that the latter was " precocious," and soon
lost the early Junian stamina.
CHAPTER VII.
POLITICAL BATTLES OF 1770 AND 1771, IN WHICH JUNIUES AN  LORD
CHATHAM SHOW THEMSELVES ON THE SAME SIDE, AND MAKE USE OF
TEEB SAME WAR-CRIES                                      131
Hostile relations of Lord Chatham with Lord Bute, the Earl of Mansfield,
the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Grafton, and the king-" Savagery"




XiV               TABLE  OF CONTENTS.
of George III. —The parliamentary struggle-Suicide of Chancellor
Yorke —Lord Chatham's assaults against the King and his MinistryJunius on the side of the Earl-London and Westminster on the same
side —Lord Chatham called a madman by his opponents-He tries to
engage in a war against Spain-Vituperates the peace-Junius vituperates the King's personal cowardice-George III. resists, sustaining his
Ministers-Opposition fails-Junius abuses the King outrageously-Lord
Chatham's political disgust and despondency-His last frown and last
blow at Lord Mansfield.
CHAPTER VIII.
A CONSIDERATION OF THE CURIOUS AND COMPLICATED SYSTEM OF ATTACKS
AND DEFENSES ADOPTED BY LORD CHATHAM IN THE MANAGEMENT OF
HIS MYSTERY   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   161
Strategy of the Miscellaneous Series of the letters-Curious and complicated attacks on Lord Hillsborough-Letter of " Nerva," against Lord
Chatham and for Mansfield, recognized as Junius's-Mr. Simons, of the
British Museum-Letter to a Brigadier-general certainly by JuniusNew pamphlet by the same hand-Double discomfiture of Brigadiergeneral Townsend-Pitt the patron and friend of General Wolfe-Character of that hero-His behavior at dinner with the great War-ministerLord Mahon's piece of gossip-Pitt's fierce habit of letter-writing.
CHAPTER IX.
COTEMPORARY EVIDENCES; SHOWING THAT THE ACUTEST JUDGES OF
THAT PERIOD CONSIDERED JUNIUS TO BE LORD CHATHAM    -    189
Motives of men's silence respecting Lord Chatham —Horne Tooke's
sentiments respecting Junius-He sees Lord Chatham's policy in the
letters-Nearly pushes off the mask —Burke's ideas of Junius —His
speeches in the House of Commons concerning Lord Chatham's strange
retreat and the audacity of Junius-Burke believed Junius attacked his
friends, and even himself, to guard the secret-Wilkes's reverent way
of talking to the Shadow-Considers Junius a political Jove-Woodfall's
profound respect and obedience-Dr. Johnson's attack on Chatham and
Junius together-Alderman Beekford's curious admission of the identity.




TABLE  OF CONTENTS.                      XV
CHAPTER X.
LORD CHATHAM'S SPEECHES AND REPORTERS-AFFECTATIONS AND INADEQUACY OF SIR PHILIP FRANCIS, LORD CHATHAM'S AMANUENSIS AND
SECRETARY -                                              203
Philip Francis and Mr. Boyd, reporters of the Earl of Chatham-His
style the same, however reported-Francis reported for other LordsAdmissions of Lady Francis-Her letter in Campbell's "Lives of the
Chancellors"-Her argument that Francis was a precocious genius-The
Indian appointment and ~10.000 a year-Junius not bribed-Francis's
pamphlet on the Regency-Speeches in parliament-Expostulation with
Mr. Brougham —His remarkable letters to Edmund Burke —Playing
Junius-Burke's way of rebuking him.
CHAPTER XI.
SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS LYING ROUND THE MAIN TRACK OF
THE ARGUMENT -                                           218
Junius not the sole depositary of his secret-Francis his medium or
conveyancer —Lady Chatham-Her accomplishments —She conducted
the Earl's open correspondence, and was his amanuensis-Lord Chatham's chirography-Junius and Lord Chatham on the affairs of America-Not at variance, but curiously "at one" on that subject-Lord
Chatham's modified sympathy with the Americans-His statue at
New York-The War Office-Lord Chatham's familiarity with it-His
contempt of Change Alley-Mrs. Ann Pitt, one of her brother's secret
political agents both in France and England-Her character-Lord Mahon's representations-Mrs. Pitt's letters-David Garrick-He cowers
under the abuse of Junius, and protests he would not for the world pronounce his name.
CHAPTER XII.
RECAPITULATION-PASSING REMARKS ON THE JUNIAN LETTERS PUBLISHED
IN THE GRENVILLE PAPERS AND IN THE CHATHAM CORRESPONDENCEMR. MACAULAY'S LETTER, AND CONCLUSION    -   -   -   - 237
Recapitulation-The Grenville Correspondence —Mr. Smith's theory




XVi               TABLE  OF CONTENTS.
of Lord Temple's authorship a futile one-The "three letters" mere
feints-The North British Review-The two letters addressed to Lord
Chatham-Cunning demonstrations made for a purpose —Mr. Macaulay's
War Office argument-The judge and jury test of this theme-Odium
of the letters-It would leave Lord Chatham's character as it was-His
biography imperfect without the letters-Junius impossible without the
antecedents of Lord Chatham-The fragments of a mutilated character
restored in the statue sculptured by Grattan.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
CHAPTERt I.
CONSIDERATION OF THE STRATEGY OF JUNIUS, AND THE VARIOUS CLAIMS
AND OPINIONS ADVOCATED IN CONNECTION WITHI THFE AUTHORSHIP OF
THE LETTERS,'Tis a spirit; sometime it appears like a lord: sometime like a lawyer;
sometime like a philosopher. He's very often like a knight; and, generally in all shapes that a man goes up and down in, between eighty and
twenty-three, this spirit walks in.
TIssON OF ATHENS.
We have a number of shadows to fill up the muster-book.
FALSTAFF.
ONE of the classics of the English language,* is an author
without a name, who lived and agitated the public mind in
the time of Cowper and Burns.  He was, as his letters
sufficiently show, a man of genius, eloquence and subtlety
-the last distinctive the greatest of the three.  For, as
regards the two first, we may find those who equal or ap* In Mayhew's " London Labor and London Poor," we perceive that,
among those works which a street seller of books esteems the English
classics-such as the Spectator, the Vicar of Wakefield, Tom Jones, and
Robinson Crusoe-he numbers the Letters of Junius. This is curious
enough; for it is hard to explain why such a political literature should
be at all attractive in our day. Perhaps it is the vituperative audacitywhich girds at all dignities and the great folk, that gives it a name, and
generally recommends it in a popular way. On the whole, the letters are
a tough kind of reading, and nobody, as yet, we believe, has got them up
with the entertaining editions for railway passengers.
1




2             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
proach him; but nowhere can we find a cunning to match
the artifice which, for over eighty years, has succeeded in
confusing and baffling the curious inquiries of the world.
Everything proves that he was a wonder of intellectual
strength and versatility; but the wonder that he has not
been found out is a greater wonder than himself. Not that
he has not been recognized. The identity has been known
to many, and pointed out by a few, and there is not a discussion of that interesting mystery in which the true name
does not necessarily and largely occur; while, in later discussions, it puts itself so prominently forward that one
would think few could avoid recognizing it.  Still, curiously
enough, the general eye wanders over that Junian shape
without resting upon it. In spite of a thousand considerations indicating the identity, there seems to have always
been a disinclination to challenge it aloud. And this disinclination may naturally be explained as growing by degrees
out of a system of precautions and dissuasives, operating,
according to the design of Junius, long after he had departed, and also, due to the influences of his family concealing
or controlling all sources of correct intelligence on the subject. Indeed, the greater number of those dissertations
that have appeared ill the Junian controversy-especially
those having the greatest air of authority —seem to us far
less intended to aid a discovery than to set investigators
astray.  The advocacy for Sir Philip Francis, aided by his
own demeanor respecting it, was wonderfully calculated to
divert the public mind from the true merits of the question,
and the true way of investigating it. The Franciscans first
created the court-room pettyfogging style of evidence. And




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   3
yet, as we shall perceive in the future pages of this disquisition, the facts which are thought to tell most remarkably in favor of Sir Philip, are those very things which,
after all, lead us to the real Junius.
The letters of Junius cover a space of five years, from
1767 to 1773, a time when the press was teeming with letters and pamphlets, on the exciting political subjects of the
day. At the former date, George III. was a young man
of twenty-seven, and had been about six years on the throne.
In the first unpopular decade of his reign he was engaged
in a contest with the great circumvallation of the Whigs,
whose fathers and grandfathers had made the Revolution of
1688, and established the Guelphic family, and who were,
therefore, always invoking the constitution, and patriotically quarreling among themselves for white sticks, garters,
regiments, sees, sinecures, pensions, all the emoluments, in
fact, of all the offices in the state.  Hereditary salvagers,
they were always ready to claim salvage. Sir Robert Walpole had done all in his power to keep the armaments quiet
and inexpensive, and he and his party had poisoned the
whole body politic with the venalities and corruptions of a
demoralizing peace. Pitt, by far the greatest, if not the
best of the Whigs, forced himself into power in 1756, after
a long effort of twenty years, and, with a prodigality which
amazed and insulted them, threw away on regiments and
line-of-battle ships, on Wolfe, Hawke, Boscawen, Amherst,
Saunders, the king of Prussia, and all the fierce vanities of
conquest, as much money as would have kept and fattened
the whole " country party," during their lives, in the lap of
patriotic luxury. But in 1762, by God's blessing, they had




4             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
stcceeded, altogether, in thwarting and pulling him down,
and giving away a great portion of what his victories had
won for the nation.   Since that time, the government was
in the condition of a ship with a series of unskilful and
mutinous crews.  The young king, following the advice of
his mother, Princess Dowager of Wales, the Earl of Bute
and others of his friends, was resolved to have none but a
subservient ministry which would not offend his ears with
the Whig jargon or harass his prerogative, and so he kept
manoeuvring, and shuffling, and changing his servants. The
Whigs made use of counter intrigues; their writers assailed
the king's friends and the court party, and Wilkes was
tried and punished for his irreverent language in the " North
Briton."   The City of London, always "a fast burgh" of
democracy, returned that incendiary to parliament for Middlesex, in 1764, and when the house expelled him, pitchforked him -back in triumph —only to see him turned out
again.
This grievance was a wonderful lift to the country party.
The occasion was vigorously improved, and the outcry great.
Meantime, George Grenville passed the Stamp Act, and
threw the American colonists into a ferment, preparatory to
the War of Independence.  In little more than a year, the
Rookinghams, coming in turn to the helm, repealed that
act, and, at the same time, declared that England had, nevertheless, the right to impose taxes, thus letting " I dare not
wait upon I would."  The King, who was more of a farmer
than a despot, though fated to look very much like the latter in the end, and who found his business only half done,
and himself not very well treated by his scolding Bedfords,




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 5
pennywise Grenvilles, gruff, gawky Temples, and sour Puritanical Rockinghams, now tried to detach William Pitt from
his family alliance, and induce him to lead a King's ministry.  He succeeded; and Pitt, created Earl of Chatham,
became premier, in 1766, with a motley crew of colleagues
forced upon him by the stress of circumstances and the
astute policy of George III. The result was, that, in a few
months, he went away to the country and left them to their
fate, in spite of a world of outcries.  The ministry of the
Duke of Grafton supervened in 1768, that of Lord North
— the seventh premier in less than ten years-in 1770, and
under these the government sustained a succession of the
rudest assaults, urged and directed by the angry and indefatigable Earl of Chatham, who fulminated powerfully in
the House of Lords, more terrible, in his flannels, to the
peerage of that place, than any Clifford or king-marring
Warwick that ever stood there in greaves and corslet.
It is with the confusion of the earl's unfortunate ministry, in 1767, that the warfare of Junius began, and it ended
when the defeated Whigs found, in 1772, that they could
not overpower the king's friends. During that time, the
mask assailed the perverse ministry, deserted by the Earl of
Chatham, till it fell into ruins, and took a new shape under
the Duke of Grafton, when he fell upon that, too, with increased vehemence, striking at his Grace the Earl of Bute,
the Princess Dowager of Wales, and the king himself, with
amazing bitterness and fury. He advocated the chief Whig
principles, and, like his party, made a vigorous handle of
the Middlesex election and London remonstrances, the
management of the Colonies, the Court of King's Bench




6             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
trials of the publishers, the Spanish convention, and all the
collateral and minor subjects of popular satire and objurgation. When, in 1770 and 1771, the Whigs, lately divided
by the royal influences, made a united attack upon government, under the leadership of the Earl of Chatham, the letters were found seconding the onslaught in the most vehement manner. When Lord North was found too firmly intrenched to be overcome, the jaculation dire of Junius came
to an end; he hurled no more missiles, and was silent. This
will convey some slight idea of the stage on which he played
his part, and the general motives which must have urged the
various actors in that stirring political drama.
When the masked writer begins his course of aggression
by a curiously indirect, but sufficiently expressive, attack on
the two men who most conspicuously and steadily advocated
the opinions which we know he entertained on the chief
questions of that period; when he begins both his miscellaneous and regular series of letters by such palpable hits at
the most popular and venerable Whig in the kingdom, people generally take it as it reads, simply, with an easy,
unsuspecting confidence in the candor of the Mask; accept
it very much as a man would take an honest friend's declaration, that the Czar Nicholas behaved like a tyrant, in subverting, or helping to subvert, the independent government
of Hungary, or some thing of that sort. When Lord
Chatham is suggested in this inquiry, it is retorted in a tone
of conclusiveness that the masker calls that nobleman a
traitor, a lunatic, a worthless idol, and so forth; and this is
an argument which has disconcerted thousands upon the
threshold. Other considerations, no doubt, have helped to




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  7
mislead inquiry, but that wonderful gesticulation against the
earl, just at starting, is the grand dissuasive. When Junius
talked of George Grenville as that wise and honest minister,
that pure patriot, the simple enquirers always called out and
bid each other take notice that this man was a Grenvillite
surely; and this device was found to be as effective as that
employed respecting the Earl of Chatham. The querist
took the ghost's word for it in both cases. And that impression has long continued. One said Junius was George
Grenville himself; others said, no; he was James Grenville;
some contended for the other brother, Lord Temple, and the
most confident held out for Charles Lloyd, private secretary
of George Grenville.  A writer, in the Edinburgh Review,
said to have been Sir James Macintosh, expressed his belief
as follows: " A simple test ascertains the political connection of Junius; the only circumstance which could not be
concealed without defeating his general purpose. He supported the cause of authority against America with Mr.
Grenville, the minister who passed the Stamp Act. He
maintained the highest popular principles on the Middlesex
election with the same statesman who was the leader of opposition on the question. No other party in the kingdom combined these two opinions. Whoever revives the inquiry,
therefore, unless he discover positive and irresistible evidence in support of his claimant, should show him to be politically attached to the Grenville party, which Junius certainly was."* A tradition of something to come out of
the library at Stowe has long kept the critics on the qui
* Edinburgh Review, vol. xliv., July, 1826.




8             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
vive.  The London Magazine, in 1827, made a noise by
stating that Lord Nugent and the Duke of Buckingham,
rummaging in that library, found three original Juniuses in
a pigeon-hole.  A literary flurry followed, the only result
of which was, that the magazine got a very handsome assistance in the way of advertisement.  But there was some
truth in the matter, along with much gossip.  The three
letters are facts, and about to be published in London, in
the Grenville Correspondence.*
But the search after Junius has not been confined to that
circle. Almost every one of the remarkable writers of that
day has been put forward as the author of the letters.
Exclusive of the above, we have had in the ring: —John
Wilkes, John Horne Tooke, Macaulay, Boyd, Burke, Barre,
Hood, Grattan, Francis, Maclean, Glover, Delolme, Earl
of Shelburne, the Duke of Portland, Sir W. Jones, Gibbon,
Sam Dyer, General Lee, W. Gerard Hamilton, J. Roberts, Lord Ashburton, Lord Camden, James Hollis, Dr.
Wray, Horace Walpole, Lord Loughborough, W. Greatrakes, Rev. P. Rosenhagen, John Kent, Bishop Butler,
Lord Chesterfield, Lord George Sackville, Dr. Francis, Dr.
Wilmot, Thomas Lord Lyttelton, and others. We believe somebody in the crowd called out Dr. Johnson; and
another earnest inquirer said Peter Pindar!  If ghosts
ever laugh, "Lord Umbra" must have often made merry
over such a rabble of counterfeit presentments.
Of all these, Edmund Burke was the only man whose peculiar powers came up to the standard of Junius. He had
* WVe have seen these, and our remarks on them are in the last chapter
of this book.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   9
the perfervid mind and vehemence of the secret writer, and,
with all the philosophy and statesmanship which have
secured his fame with posterity, he was considered a man
of the most rancorous feeling. People said, with Archbishop Markham, that his house was a nest of adders, and
his behavior in the House of Commons that of a wolf, or
other wild animal in the midst of a flock of sheep, showing
his teeth and snapping at every one about him. He was
also considered somewhat crack-brained, by his contemporaries, who would always fly before dinner from the echoes of
his exalted brogue.  Wilkes said he talked like a man
accustomed to live on potatoes and whisky, and Gibbon
declared he was the most rational madman he ever heard,
while an epigram, in the public prints, set forth that the Irish
toads and snakes had no venom because it was all concentrated in Burke., The latter was therefore talked of as a
man truculent and talented enough to be the writer of the
letters, some of which, in the miscellaneous series, cunningly tried to encourage the opinion, as we shall see. But
Burke had not the heart of Junius. He was generally
fierce with ratiocination-a thing which the other scorned
as something of that "Persian apparatus" which strong
haters dispense with.  Burke generalized, and had an eye to
the effects of eloquence; but Junius came to particulars and
persons, with the bloody sincerity of Burns' HighlanderWha has na thought but how to kill
Twa at a blow.
XJohn Williams (Antony Pasquin), the scurrilous lampoon writer so
terribly flagellated by Gifford in the " Baviad" and the notes, was the
author of that ferocious conceit.
1*




10              JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.
Burke himself has set the question at rest; he denied the
authorship to Dr. Johnson, Charles Townsend,* and Dean
Marly, telling the latter he could not write like Junius; and
if he could, he would not. We perceive Mr. Prior, in his
last edition of Burke's life, has left out his argument, that
the Irish orator was Junius. He might have allowed it to
remain, seeing it is as good as any offered by the rest of the
Junian theorists. Gibbon has had his advocates. But his
blood was too cold to boil in the strife of contemporaries,
and he always thought more of his Nestorians and Monophysites than of the Whigs and Tories.' Lord George Sackville
was put forward, on account of his well-known military discontents. But his style was as bad as his soldiership.; and
his pretensions must go to the rear with those of Lord
Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Lord Temple, and that
somewhat costive celebrity, William  G. Hamilton, whose
memory is preserved by a nickname, and the curious history of his attempt to put a man of genius to his own selfish
uses.t  General Lee was once thought to be Junius.  He
was " Junius Americanus," who wrote several letters in the
years 1769  and  1771, and also wrote the preamble of
the Bill of Rights for the citizens of London. Junius, in a
private letter to  Wilkes, says, that his own namesake
*" Burke's Correspondence," edited by Earl Fitzwilliam  and Gen.
Bourke, vol. i., p. 267, Oct. 17, 1771.
t In " Burke's Correspondence," we have an account of the government
pension with which Hamilton expected to render poor Burke his sole
industrious literary mentor and drudge for life, and the shrewd refusal of
the latter to be made use of by such a taskmaster; a man, in fact, of more
tyrannical tastes than any Roman emperor of them all. Vitellius himself would be content with the brains of nightingales and thrushes,
while Hamilton affected to nourish himself with those of an Irish orator




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                11
(from whom, however, he differs on many points of opinion)
is plainly a man of abilities. In 1813, Dr. Girdlestone
published in London an odd little book on Lee's claims;
and it is merely mentioned here for the amazing portraits of
the general and his dog-a pair of anatomies-which ornament the frontispiece.
Heron (the antiquary Pinkerton we believe), who published his edition of Junius, with a preliminary essay and
notes, in 1801, says he thinks Junius was Lord Ashburton.
He speaks of him in a manner worthy of the subject, and
gives a truer estimate of his character than any we have had
since 1801.  He recognizes the great eloquence of the letters, their elegance and force, and the general evidence they
afford of a lofty and cultivated intellect, strengthened by
exercise. Reading his essay, you are sure he does not
mean any clerk.  It is the fit prologue of some lordly
entrance-the trumpet of the true Junius.  But there is
some appearance of constraint in this essay and the notes.
He contends for no candidate, merely saying he thinks it
probable Junius was Lord Ashburton, and so dismisses the
matter in a sentence. He pronounces the name, and passes
on. After coming repeatedly (as we see by the notes to the
letters) in contact with the man who completely suits the
terms of his essay, he mentions one with whom he has not
come into contact at all!  We are convinced Heron shrunk
from expressing his real thought. There is something else
provoking suspicion in his book. It is very remarkable
that, though he gives sketches of the chief men of that
Junian time, he leaves out the greatest figure of all-Lord
Chatham. This looks odd; but there is something still




12            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
more curious connected with it. In one part of his book he
promises to give, further on, a sketch of the earl and of his
son (though what business the son had in such a connection
it is hard to discover); but no such things are to be found:
he omits them.  What could have led him to be silent concerning the biography of the great man, and leave such a
lacuene in his book? He very probably applied to William
Pitt on that subject. Could Pitt have said anything to
dissuade or discourage him? Questions and surmises of
this kind are, of course, vague, and of little positive value;
but inquirers into the matter should pay particular attention
to everything that concerns Lord Chatham, and mark,
furthermore, how often his claims, so to express it, seem to
be evaded and slurred over.
Among the latest attempts to lighten the darkness of this
mystery, has been that of Mr. Britton, who, looking over
the array of claimants, and thinking the force of single
hypothesis could no further go, resolved to consolidate two
or three of those already made, and so presented Junius as
"three single gentlemen rolled into one," to wit: Lord
Ashburton, Lord Shelburne, and Col. Barre.  More recently still, a writer in the NVorth British ReviewE, said to be
Sir David Brewster, revives the old idea that Lachlin Macleane was the man.  But Macleane was a mere man about
town, and struggling with his gambling debts and other
dirty difficulties at a time when Junius was fluttering the
king, peers and commons of England, with a lordly and
tyrannical scourge.  It may be added, that the letters con* North British Review, vol. x., November, 1848.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  13
tinned to come after Macleane had been made Collector of
Philadelphia.
In the "Rockingham Memoirs,," lately published, the
noble editor is not afraid to contribute an opinion to the Junian controversy. It is like Mr. Britton's-of the composite
order.  He goes back to the exploded idea, so positively
maintained by the "learned monster," Dr. Parr, and by
others, that Charles Lloyd was Junius; but not solely so.
-ie believes George Grenville himself wrote the first letters
of the series, and afterwards employed Lloyd to take the
materials of those epistolary thunderbolts to Mr. Philip
Francis at the War Office, to receive the filing and finishing
of that remarkable juvenal! When a duke writes criticism,
he should be treated with respectful consideration. But, after
all, we must admit he only makes another incredible sort of
trinity, a draggle-tailed hypothesis, to speak leniently.
In a late Quarterly Review, we see another adventurous
theory of identity, with the merit, at least, of originality.
The article commences very well, and the following is
worthy of all acceptation: " The author of the letters, it
has been well observed, must be sought for in narrow limits. He could not have been one of the obscure professors
of literature to be found by thousands in our own day. He
must have moved in the highest ranks of political life —he
must have been contemptuous of the emoluments of authorship. That these compositions, over a period of five years
from first to last, should have been the only effort of the
alert and energetic intellect which produced them, is most
* "l Memoirs of the Marquis of Rockingham," edited by the Duke of
Albemarle.




14            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
unlikely. When Junius is really discovered, we shall probably see him disappearing like a storm-cloud from one
point of the political horizon, to burst wvith thunder and
lightning in another."*   What follows this very excellent
opinion?  What formidable English genius stalks in at the
heels of such a prologue?  Why, a callow  debauchee,
Thomas Lord Lyttelton-a feeble imitation of Lord Rochester-in the twenty-third year of his age.  We do not
remember to have anywhere read such an instance of the
bathos, or sinking, in prose. The power of your tyrannical
theory over the poor Frankenstein that fashions it, could
not be shown with more furious felicity.  Taking a calm
general view, the writer sees clearly, and with judgment;
but when he comes into his hypothesis and jumbles himself
up with dates and coincidences, he is but a lost man, for
seventy mortal pages together, full of pale-colored and unconvincing parallels and passages that lead to nothing of
the identity he desires to establish.  It is really too bad to
see Junius disappearing in the grandeur of a thunder-cloud,
at one point of the horizon, only to find him emerging elsewhere from a brothel, with a semi-fuddled Lytteltonish expression of countenance, and " waking the night-owl with a
catch," at two o'clock in the morning!
But it was no part of our purpose to discuss any of these
claims, and we Lave gone out of the way in alluding to
them.  Except two theories on which this argument shall
turn, the rest seem really to be the mere rubbish of so
much falsified pretension, not worth any further argument.' British Quarterly Review, vol. xc. December, 1851.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                15
The efforts to discover Junius seem to have been inadequately made. The political ground over which he and his
contemporaries moved, has not been sufficiently surveyed
by the majority of the investigators.  They have kept their
eyes within the space of five years covered by the letters,
forgetting that it is hard to recognize any man, the man
you know best, by a piece of his body-by a fragment of
his life, and that the antecedents and motives of such striking displays must enter into any estimate likely to lead to
a just conclusion. Mr. Taylor, whose book, published over
forty years ago, seems to have been a great authority, has
shown himself very unfit for his task.  He first said Dr.
Francis was Junius, and proved it. He then corrected himself and argued for the son, Sir Philip, and he confesses
that it was by accident he met with " Almon's Anecdotes"
of Lord Chatham, a book that furnishes him with the greater
portion of his self-refuting argument. The idea of coming
at the secret by accident-of circumventing such a wizard
as Junius by unforeseen advantages, is ridiculous. As for the
history, or rather the biography of that Georgian period,
and the contests between Whiggery and Prerogative, Mr.
Taylor seems to have little regarded them; and the great
majority of the querists and critics that have come after him
do not appear to have had a much larger degree of information respecting them.  Mr. Taylor especially relied
upon the virtue of parallels and coincidents.  This fashion
has been extensively followed, and, certainly, if the hidden
writer could be conjured forth by such legerdemain, we
should, at this moment, have a score or two of Juniuses Unmasked scowling up and down the field of our literature.




16            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
The late Sir Harris Nicholas expressed some acute and
judicious opinions respecting Junius.  He thought the
question had never been properly investigated, and that the
failures are the reproach of criticism.  He says, one cause
of want of success was the tendency to rely too much on
the statements of the secret writer, which he would make " for
the purposes of argument or illustration-to give greater
force to his attacks, or divert attention from himself." With
these objects, he evidently feigned representations of his
own character, situation and feelings, simulated the approbation of men and measures, attacked and defended individuals, etc. " To deny that Junius was a consummate actor,
even if a stronger term would not be still more applicable,
would be to deny that he wrote from political or party motive, and that he availed himself of the weapons which then
disgraced party warfare.  It is not, therefore, in studied
phrases, elaborate metaphors or well-turned periods, nor in
the attacks upon, or praise of, individuals that the author is
to be traced."*  Sir Harris, of course, meant, he is not to
be traced in these alone; for they must be considered in
every investigation of the subject.  He advised a careful
and patient search. for internal evidence, such as he had
proposed to himself in all the letters of Junius, believing
that the materials thus to be gathered would enable the
inquirer to build up a true hypothesis, and come at
the secret writer by analysis.  But there is a quality of
deception in Junius which makes that method useless. We
cannot rely on anything he says; we know he would carry
* " Bohn!s edition of Woodfall's Junius," vol. ii.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               17
a shading of simulation along his most earnest lines, and
cannot distinguish the truths from the fallacies.  Besides,
every individual would have his own peculiar manner of
feints and ambages.  Sir Harris's plan would never answer.
No one can analyze a conundrum. The attempt would only
lead to a bewilderment of the faculties and nothing distinctly
visible in the end; as was, indeed, the case with Sir Harris
himself, who, when he had analyzed for a good while, said
he could not arrive at any Junius.  His analysis had left
him in a state of infidelity to any of the creeds. He swept
the board clear of them all. He failed, in fact (if he did
not designedly turn away from his conclusions), because he
kept his attention too closely fixed in the maze of the
letters, and did not sufficiently recognize that we must work
externally as well as internally. To reach Junius, we m'ust
circumvent him, by a just knowledge of his ground and
surroundings, as well as countermine him through his literary peculiarities.
The worthiest of the Junian critics point to one in high
station; and Junius must be looked for among the men of
most mark and likelihood. The search for him has exhibited an approach to the truth. The crowd of competitors
has been gradually diminished, and only two or three can
claim a serious thought. In spite of the late advocacy of
the Lytteltons, Macleanes, and Temples, it is allowed that
the sentiment of the literary world, as expressed or implied
in works of character and standing (to wit: the Chatham
Correspondence, Lord Campbell's Chancellors, Lord Mahon's
History of England, Mr. Macaulay's essays or letters,
Bohn's edition of Junius), leans to Sir Philip Francis, and




18            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
certainly influences the tone of criticism in the periodicals
and society. Up to 1814, it was Grenvillite; since then it
has been Franciscan. Francis certainly presents a number
of coincidences, probabilities, and seemings, wonderfully
convincing to all easy and unstudying investigators-the
great majority.  Their arguments have their value, no
doubt, and it consists in the fact, that anything which
brings us to Francis, only leads us the nearer to the true
Junius. It is curious to see how that young clerk and his
advocates are at issue. He did all in his power to preserve
the secret of the best friend of his life; while they, urging
on his claims, tend with a necessary fatality to thwart his
object. The slight amount of controversy in these pages shall
be mainly used against the Franciscan advocates. The
latest of these, Mr. Bohn's editor, goes further than the rest,
and puts forward something new; and, respecting him, we
cannot help saying, he seems more likely to have decided
without bias than Lord Mahon, the editors of the Chatham Correspondence, or those taking the tone from them.
This, no doubt, may be a baseless suspicion; but we shall
continue to entertain it, nevertheless. The step made by
him, in advance of the rest, is the admission that Lord
Chatham had a hand in the letters; that he was the ally or
auxiliary of Junius. He could not avoid this conclusion.
Tracing the arguments offered on behalf of Francis, the
inquirer soon becomes aware of something he was not looking for in that direction. In the curious movements, and
a certain appearance of reference and restraint; discoverable
either in the Franciscan arguments or the role of Sir Philip
himself, he gets a suggestion of the truth, as Leverrier and




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                19
Adams got theirs, by marking the behavior of Uranus; and
we are carried at last, by sure calculation, to recognize the
long-shrouded perturbator.  Sir Philip is necessary to the
truth of this mystery, and he and Junius are as inseparable
as the ghosts of Paulo and Francesca.
All these considerations marshal us the way we ought to
go. With little respect for the microscopic modes of inquiry
adopted, with whatever intent, by Lords Campbell and
Mahon, Mr. Macaulay, Sir David Brewster, and the crowd
of writers and critics, poring, with the sagacity of Malvolio,
over the great Cs and Ps of the letters, and looking to
phrases, exclamations, dates, coincidences, men in cloaks
and bag-wigs, library pigeon-holes, and so forth, going over
the same track of doubts and hearsays, and wearying all
minds with nothing to the point, we shall indicate the
outlines of the Junian shape, and leave the impedimentathe little collateral and complementary matters-to make
the best of their way after the main argument. If we shall
point to the Who, sufficiently plainly for general, commonsense recognition, we may very fairly leave the How, and the
Where, and the Why to be more nicely arranged by the subsequent efforts of criticism. We hold, then, with a strong
assurance, that, to find the extraordinary man shadowed forth
in the "Letters," we must look for him among the most noted
and overbearing politicians of his era —not as an echo, but an
original; look for him among the very foremost intellects of
that stirring time, when the battles of British opinion were
shaking the world, and changing the destinies of continents
and empires. The track of some powerful biography would,
naturally, be likeliest to lead us to the end we have in view;




20            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
and, therefore, making the fittest premise of such an argument as this, we shall try to follow, through an almost
continual storm of opposition and party strife, the imperfectly-recorded career of one forever busy with his tongue
and pen, subtle, intriguing, abusive; the terror and admiration of king, lords, and commons; various and voluble —
the Roscius as well as the Cicero of his age; a veteran glacliator, well skilled in all the currents of a heady political
fight, and seldom or never out of one-William Pitt, First
Earl of Chatham.




CHAPTER II.
ANTECEDENTS OF JUNIUS - THE POLITICAL CAREER OF WILLIAM PITT,
EARL OF CHATHAM.
Trace to its cloud this lightning of the mind.
BYRON.
The mind of the writer must have been nurtured to this cast and tone
of passion.
HERON (1801).
TH1E biography of William Pitt is a meagre one, considering his great renown as the noblest of British statesmen and orators.  He was born in 1708, and educated at
Eton school, whence he went to Oxford. At college, he
made a respectable progress in his classic studies, and
read much in English, thus forming the tastes of his life,
during which he preserved his partiality for the Roman
authors and the polite literature of England. His letters to his
nephew, Thomas Pitt (" Chatham Correspondence," vol. i.),
show the influence of such studies on his mind, and how
familiar he was with the amenities of mental culture, and
the belles lettres. Tacitus and Polybius were his favorite
authors, and he was in the habit of copying portions of
Thucydides, to form his mind after such a noble model.
At an early age, and before he had taken any degree, he
traveled on the continent, "where," says Lord Chesterfield,




22             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
he generally  improved his mind.   On his return he accepted a cornet's commission in the Blues, entered parliament for the family borough of Old Sarum,* at the age
of 27, and began his career, as he ended it forty-three
years later, in. opposition. His first hostility was against
Sir Robert Walpole, under the banner of the great commoner, Pulteney, whose course of life, as it resembled his
own in some respects, perhaps gave it its first directing impulse. The earliest known speech of Pitt was a good deal
in that equivocating vein, discoverable in many parts of
his future biography. Like Pulteney and the other patriots,
he had attached himself to the heir-apparent, and seconded
a motion for a congratulatory address to the king, George
II., on the marriage of the rebellious Frederick, Prince
of Wales.  The royal couple disliked their son, and perhaps
not without reason, fairly wishing him out of the world, at
times, as Lord Hervey tells us, in his memoirs.  Pitt's
speech was laudatory of the prince, and conveyed an
amount of irony which the king would feel and remember. In less than a year Walpole deprived the " terrible
cornet of Horse" of his commission, seeing he could
not muzzle him, and Pitt then became groom  of Prince
Frederick's Bed Chamber. His sister, Mrs. Ann Pitt, also
became attached to the apartment of the Princess of Wales.
It is easy to imagine how the formidable man, who so often
* Twenty-five years ago, this venerable place might have pleaded such
a fact against the general sarcastic outcry which turned Gatton and itself
into a sort of twin-proverb. It will be long enough, very probably,
before the Manchesters, and other large cities of England, will equal
those much-abused close boroughs, in contributing to the statesmanly renown of that county.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 23
and so bitterly, masked or unmasked, assailed George III.,
very often dandled him in his arms as a child, and carried
him  cock-horse  to Banbury.  Pitt's temper, naturally
haughty and vehement, was not improved by his dismissal,
and he became very fierce and abusive in his place, in the
House of Commons. Horace Walpole, brother of Sir Robert, provoked him by calling him a young man, and drew
upon himself the rebuke which Dr. Johnson has so solemnized. There are not many traces to be found of Pitt's early
parliamentary career. But it is certain that the king and
the court party disliked such a loose-tongued partisan of the
prince, and that he and Lyttelton and Cobham had formed
a sort of compact, to stand or fall together. In 1742, a debate occurred, in which he grappled with his most enduring
antagonist. Horace Walpole, writing to Sir Horace Mann,
says:' We have had another great day in the House, on
the army in Flanders, which the opposition were for lisbanding; but we carried it by 120.  Murray spoke for the
first time, with great applause. Pitt answered him, with all
his force and wit of language, but in an ill-founded argument.  In all appearance they will be great rivals."*
They were rivals before that day.  On the death of George
I., the boys, being at Oxford together, wrote each a prize
threnody on the occasion, and Murray, the senior by about
three years, was the victor. On the next day of the aforementioned debate (December 10th), Pitt not only attacked
the Hanoverian army, but the Elector himself, in a strain of
"Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann," vol. i., p. 264. Pitt, mindful of his college days, was, doubtless, eager to be at Murray in any sort
of argument.




24            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
sarcasm which astonished every one. Next year, after the
battle of Dettingen, he declared, in one of his speeches,
that the ardor of the English soldiers was restrained by the
cowardice of the Hanoverians, and called the affair an
escape, not a victory! He also affected to think the king
had run no risks at all in the field. The intrepid air of the
man, in saying all this, used to make some of his hearers
tremble; and we see in it some of the first genuine flashes
of the Junian spirit.  The king hated his very name;
while the people called him  "true Briton," and lauded
him to the skies for his attacks on those electoral interests,
so expensive to the nation.
In 1744, on some ministerial changes, Pitt's friends went
into office, and he looked for the place of Secretary of
State; but he found the king's antipathy strongly opposed
to his advancement.  Being appeased by the Duke of Newcastle, and encouraged with promises,. he thought fit to
moderate the rancor of his tongue in opposition.  He
began to advocate what he had formerly opposed, supporting an increase of the army and the foreign subsidies, with
forcible arguments. In 1745, he advocated the measures
which enabled fourteen Whig lords to raise each a regiment
of horse-rthe Duke of Bedford, Lords Gower and Halifax,
says Horace Walpole, being "at the head of the job."
These colonelcies of horse, projected at a time when rumors
)f Prince Charles Edward's raid were in the air, give one a
significant idea of the chieftainship which then divided, or
wished to divide, the government between them, and colored
all the political history of the time. But, in spite of Pitt's
milder demonstrations, his majesty was obdurate; the door




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               25
of the office sought was not, for twelve years, to be opened
to that disconsolate Whig Peri at the gate, looking wistfully
through the bars. His parliamentary Georgics, in fact,
were not well calculated to bring him anything better than
a harvest of popular huzzas. His friends, the Pelhams,
once more tried earnestly to bring him in, and Lord Cobham,
for himself and his following, agreed with the Duke of
Bedford to support the foreign policy of government, on
condition that Pitt should be made Secretary of War, and
the Grenvillites and the rest otherwise placed. But the
king resisted his ministers, and refused to have anything to
say to the terrible man who abused his Hanoverians, and
said he himself was in no danger at Dettingen. The Pelhams then resigned, whereupon George II. turned obstinately to Lords Bath and Grenville, bidding them  take the
helm, and save him from the coalition.  The reader will
perceive how the government of that time resembles the
condition of things twenty years later, and how George
III. was obliged to manceuvre, like George II., looking to
the Earl of Chatham, as his grandfather had looked to the
other great commoner ennobled —Pulteney, Earl of Bath.
But Lords Bath and Grenville were deterred by the forces
against them, the king was obliged to give way, and
Pitt came into office with a high hand, taking it, as it
were, by storm. It was, however, but an Irish office-the
king still insisted on that-the Vice Treasurership of Ireland. In a little time he was made Paymaster of the Forces
-a department which was suitable, in some degree, to his
genius, and certainly facilitated the knowledge of military
matters, and the business of the WVar Office, which he after2




26              JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.
wards put to such account, during his immortal secretaryship, and which Junius, too, could make use of in a manner so puzzling to-most people. Thus, after ten years'
fighting-quite a Trojan siege-he found himself in possession of the place, or rather within the outer walls.
During his struggles in the cold shade of opposition, Pitt
had been comparatively poor, but his circumstances were
now improved by his marriage, and a legacy of ~10,000,
left him in admiration of his eloquence and patriotism by
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, a fine-spirited woman,
with all her faults, who affected the high Roman tone of
"the country party,"  and sighed to think that England
was going to destruction-buying up estates at a bargain
all the time, and adding acre to acre long after her eightieth
year.*
The old king held out astonishingly, he showed no signs
X The brave duchess had quite apassion for leaving legacies, or making
gifts to great men of the Whig tone of patriotism. She left ~20,000 to
Lord Chesterfield; gave ~1,000 to Lord Marchmont, and another ~1,000
to Pope —a gift spoken of by Bolingbroke in a letter to Marchmont
("Marchmont Papers"). It is not pleasant to remember that, after receiving
the money, the poet should have left behind him (in his Epistle to a Lady,
that cruel portrait of her Grace, as Atossa. She survived him for a short
time, and might have seen the lines, in which case her opinion of him
would not have been more favorable than Bolingbroke's. That " guide,
philosopher, and friend" declared, after Pope's death, that the poet had
dealt treacherously with him in printing the " Patriot King" without his
knowledge, and against his wishes. After all, Pope might have looked
on the gift as a sort of bribe. The duchess was greatly afraid of a man
who had secured the ear of posterity, conscious that the brave disorder of
her biography would tempt him to put her in his Portrait Gallery. It is
probable Pope had made the verses before he got the money, and could
not find it in his heart to destroy them. He might also think she would
never see them-an argument suitable enough to the tone of his moral
philosophy.




JUTNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               27
of dying. After that gleam of favor in 1746, Pitt supported the measures of government, as in duty bound to
do; and, in time, the Cobhams about him  changed into
the Grenvilles, a rising family of ambitious brothers and
sisters. Pitt still looked to higher office, and, writing to
the Duke of Newcastle, then with the king at Hanover,
earnestly expressed his longing " to efface the past by every
action of his life." In 1751, when his former friends of the
Prince of Wales' opposition denounced the. Duke of Newcastle's Bavarian subsidy, and his commercial treaty with
Spain (involving a Spanish right to search English vessels
on the coast of South America, which Pitt had formerly
repudiated), the latter was the chief defender of the ministerial policy in the Commons:
He ceased to make a fiddle faddle
About a Hessian horse and saddle!
In this and other questions, he was ready with his dexterous
palinodes, which, indeed, might be found the more reasonable for the exaggeration of his preceding opposition;
though, doubtless, he must have groaned in soul to think
what negotiable popularity he was sacrificing to his dream
of ministerial power. The interpellations and taunts he
was forced to endure in the House, tried his proud spirit
severely, and led to a number of gladiatorial passages, in
which he showed a wonderful science and command of his
weapons. In 1752, the Prince of Wales was dead. Three
years afterwards, Mr. Pelham, the premier,,died, and then,
the poor king, knowing the elements of the Whig power
surrounding the throne, said, with a troubled prophecy:




28            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
"Now, I shall have no more peace."  Newcastle was made
prime minister, and to him Pitt stuck dutifully, though
with very little respect for his Grace's style of statesmanship.
Still, the door of royal favor remains shut.  Pitt is impatient, subservient, and despairing. He tells the Duke of
Newcastle he had flattered himself the interests of his
Grace were concerned in bringing forward a man of his
own raising. He longs for some softening of his Majesty's
mind towards him, and then, to alarm the duke, says his
wishes all tend to a quiet retreat. In a letter to Lord Hardwicke, he says: "The weight of irremovable royal displeasure is a load too great to move under, it must crush any
man, it has sunk and broken me."*   We may conceive his
discontent and smothered anger when he could write in such
a strain as that-his humble language contrasting with the
haughty assumption that it is the king who is his adversary.  Pitt's talk of retirement in these querulous epistles
was all pretense; his watchful arriere pensee was still
shaping out some powerful future. He had married the
Lady Hester Grenville, and become the greater part of a
strong family confederacy. He had, also, an understanding
with Fox, that, in the ministerial changes, which they would
do all they could to bring about, Pitt was to be Secretary
of State, and Fox at the head of the Treasury. Meantime,
the former began to treat the administration roughly, and
ever and anon, refreshed his powers by an assault on his
ever present rival, Murray.  Fox, writing to Lord Harting"" Chatham Correspondence." vol. i. p. 105.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                29
ton, Nov. 28, 1754, says of one of Pitt's speeches: "Every
word was Murray, yet so managed that neither he nor anybody else could or did take any public notice of it, or in any
degree reprehend him. I sat next Murray, who suffered for
an hour."   Mr. Fox does not attempt to describe the management or manner of this attack; perhaps, it would have
taxed his less subtle intellect to do so; for, though Fox
was cunning, Pitt was deep.  But we cannot help thinking
it displayed something of that equivocal art, visible in
certain of the miscellaneous letters, and to be spoken of
more particularly in some of the succeeding pages.
The Paymaster and Mr. Fox used, at this time, to meet
by night, like conspirators as they were, to discuss and
arrange their plans for the seizure of office. The king, feeling himself undermined, refused to allow Fox to have the
leadership of the House of Commons, and also refused to
hear of Pitt for the Secretaryship of State.  Newcastle,
dreading the concerted action of the plotting pair, resolved
to separate them.  Fox was taken into the Cabinet, and
Pitt was left as he was-neglected, mortified, and exasperated. But he prepared a stroke of revenge. In 1755, the
king returned from Hanover with a subsidiary treaty; and,
forthwith, orders to pay large sums of money to Hessians
and Russians, were sent to Mr. Legge, Chancellor of the
Exchequer.  The latter, supported by Mr. Pitt, refused to
pay them, and a notable eclat was the result.  When parliament met, Pitt, declaring aloud that the English people
should have prevented with their bodies (" a physical force"
expression in the genuine style of Junius) the going of the
king to Hanover, came out in all his British glory, thunder



30            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
ing against the Electorate, the subsidies, and all the rest of
the royal predilections, and also denouncing the general
imbecility of the administration.  Horace Walpole (what
would the world do without that cynical philosopher, so
full of affectations and prejudices, who furnishes us so opportunely with intelligence to be found nowhere else, and fills
up so many lacunes of political and personal history?), describing one of the parliamentary mellays of 1755, sets before us, in a letter tow Gen. Conway, some of the characteristics of the Junian literature: "You will ask, what is
beyond this (a speech of Gerard Hamilton's)?  Nothing,
but whatever was beyond whatever was, and that was Pitt.
He spoke, at past one, for an hour and thirty-five minutes.
There was humor, wit, vivacity, fine language, more boldness,
in short, more astonishing perfection, than even you, who
are used to him, can conceive.  He was not very abusive,
yet very attacking on all sides.  He ridiculed my Lord
Hillsborough, crushed poor Sir George (Lyttelton), crucified
the Attorney (Murray), lashed my Lord Grenville, painted
my Lord of Newcastle, attacked Mr. Fox, and even hinted
up to the Duke of Cumberland himself."  This assailing
of the whole line will remind the reader of "Correggio"
(Letter 4), "Lucius" (Letter 35), "Atticus" (Letter 48),
and "Domitian" (Letter 87)-all in the miscellaneous
series.  The end of this House of Commons war was, that
Fox was made Secretary of State, and Pitt, Legge, and
Grenville, were dismissed.
Thus was the high-spirited and ambitious athlete once
* " Walpole's Correspondence," vol. i., p. 308




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                31
more thrown heavily in the ring.  But circumstances were
about to avenge him.  Everything had been falling into
confusion in the helpless hands of Newcastle; nothing but
domestic discontents and foreign disasters, the loss of
Minorca, the cruel and cowardly shooting of Byng, and the
people, as in the days of Swift, ready to hide themselves in
the ground iA the reports of French invasion.  Towards
the close of 1756, the duke shuffled from the helm, and left
George II. to fall into the hands of the dreaded Pitt.  The
latter now told Fox, point blanc, that he would not act
with him as minister, and, flushed with a consciousness of
strength, said to the Duke of Devonshire: " My lord, I can
save this country." The latter duke now became first Lord
of the Treasury, with Pitt as Secretary of State, Lord
Temple, First Lord of the Admirality, and George
Grenville, Treasurer of the Navy-the three brothers
holding, so to speak, the bolts, and exercising the sinews of
war.  But the king still struggled against his fate, and the
excluded politicians rallied round the royal closet. Temple
opposed with vehemence a vote of thanks to his majesty for
bringing over some Hessian troops, and the king's antipathy
to the whole family was, if possible, increased. The language of one of them  (Pitt) was, he said, beyond his
comprehension, and the other (Temple) was a rude, insolent
man. Regardless of the plans for the restoration of the
public confidence, proposed by the new ministers, he vehemently desired the return of the Duke of Newcastle-he
only wanted to turn out the scoundrels.  "I think," said
George II. to Lord Waldegrave, in allusion to his grace,
"he is apt to be afraid; therefore, go and encourage him.




32            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Tell him that I do not look on myself as king while I am
in the hands of these scoundrels, that I am determined to
get rid of them at any rate, and he may depend on my
favor and protection."* But the duke shrunk from the perils
of the crisis.  Still the king struggled to liberate himself,
and, urged by the Duke of Cumberland, fiercely broke up
the ministry, and dismissed Pitt, Temple, Legge, and their
friends.  This was in 1757.  The whole kingdom was in a
ferment, and the people in general were loud and decided
in their encouragement of Pitt and the rest.  The king
and his friends, on the other hand, made desperate efforts to
form a ministry. Lord Waldegrave, a very honest courtier
but a very poor statesman, tells us how George II. wanted
to make even him Prime Minister, in spite of his protestations!  All the court contrivances, however, were discomfited, and, after a confusion of three months, Pitt came back
again, and planted his hated flag upon the floor of the
royal closet. It was a great triumph. But the fate of
difficulty and clogging compromise was ever to follow him.
He had the poor Duke of Newcastle-whom he would have
excluded —for a colleague, as first Lord of the Treasury,
and Lord Granville, whom he had styled flagitious, was
President of the King's Council.
Pitt, at last, held the place he had been looking up to, for
twenty years. But now that he was in it, he found it a
perilous and rugged platform, surrounded by jealous adversaries, who only tolerated his overbearing superiorities
from fear.  He was obliged to strain every nerve to keep
"Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs," p. 96.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   33
his footing, and must have intimately felt the truth of that
sentiment versified in a succeeding day, and applied to a
spirit as self-willed and full of ambition as his own:
He who ascends the mountain tops shall find
The highest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though, high above, the sun of Glory glow,
And, far beneath, the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toil which to these summits led.
The secretary well knew the nature of the men and things
about him. He knew that, for all his efforts to achieve the
glory and good of England, there were thousands, and
those among the highest in the realm, who would repay
him by pulling him down and driving him into retirement;
and the consciousness of this gave his words and acts a
dash of that impulsive willfulness which, at a later period,
procured him the name of a lunatic. Temple asked, in
1759, for a ribbon of the Garter, and the king refused.
Pitt, strongly moved, added his own requests to those of
his brother-in-law, and at last wrote to the Duke of Newcastle: " Unconscious as I am of the want of diligence and
fidelity, in sustaining the vast and dangerous load his majesty has been pleased to lay on my shoulders, I will
forbear, now and forever, entering into a subject where I
may possibly judge amiss, and wherein, above all things, I
most wish not greatly to err. * * * All I mean at present
to trouble your grace with is, to desire that, when next my
reluctant steps shall bring me up the stairs at Kensington,
2*




34            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
and mix me with the dust of the ante-chamber, I may learn,
once for all, whether the king continues finally inexorable
and obdurate."* In spite of the heavy style —deliberately
chosen —that marks much of Pitt's official correspondence,
and which appears somewhat in the foregoing, strong shapes
of expression, such as that about " the dust of the antechamber," show the nature of the writer, and remind one of
his sarcastic House of Commons displays; while that bold
assumption, that the king himself is his enemy, together
with the threat of throwing down his load in some possible
terrivy and leaving everything at six and seven, foreshadows
the willful desertion of 1767 and 1768, the fierce accusations
of 1770, in the House of Lords, and the resolute language of Junius in lofty castigation of George III.
Four years passed away in a war of sea and land fights
and triumphs in every quarter of the globe, such as, from a
condition of danger and depression, raised England to an
unexampled pitch of authority and renown.  The conquest
of Canada, Cape Breton, St. John's, Senegal, Pondicherry,
Goree, Dominique, Belleisle, Martinique, Granada, St. Lucie,
St. Vincent, the Havana, the crushing of the French power
in India, the demolition of the French fleets in their harbors
or on the high seas, the statesmanship and guineas which
strengthened the King of Prussia against a swarm of enemies, and the diversions which left the House of Bourbon
covered with defeat on the continent of Europe-all these
things were due to the victorious genius of the only real
War Minister England has ever had, and they form one of
*" Chatham Correspondence," vol. i., p. 434.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  35
the brightest chapters of British history.  Pitt had a
haughty consciousness of his glory, and of what he deserved
of his king and country. But how short was his tenure of
that power which became him  so well!  Small and feeble
men, corrupting the morals of the nation, and lowering it
into contempt, enjoyed long leases of power with its emoluments and the favor of the sovereign.  But the man whose
ministry was the most splendid in his country's annals was
scarcely warm in his seat when he was hustled out of it.
In his life of seventy years, ever struggling to win that
prize of his high calling, and sacrificing his ease, and very
often his self-respect, in the pursuit, he was allowed but jbur
in which to breathe the native atmosphere of his mind, and
exercise his inborn faculties of statesmanship and command. But four years. The rest was, subserviency, intrigue,
duplicity, anger, hypocrisy, disappointment, and the perverse
energy of the passions.  Perhaps we cannot truly estimate
how all this must have embittered the nature of William Pitt
— that strong, splenetic nature, so full of impulse and ambition, and so keenly gifted with the capacity of suffering.
We are so accustomed, in the absence of parliamentary reports, or any means of getting a correct idea of that highreaching character, to judge of him by some stupid official
correspondence or other inadequate presentment of the man,
that we do not, at a general glance, discover the angry heart
of a disappointed statesman in such a crisis.  But still we
can fancy how a spirit born to rule, such as his, must have
felt the briefness of his ministerial power, and the insulting
opposition that labored to mar it, and soon forced him to
surrender it.




36              JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.
His great ministry-his Quadrennium —drew to a close
with the life of George II., who bequeathed to his successor, along with his crown, a sincere antipathy to William
Pitt.* George III., urged by the teaching of his mother
and the advice of his friends, was resolved to rid the crown
of the troublesome Whig oligarchy or oligarchies, which,
for seventy years, had borne sway in England, instead of
the Stewarts. The monarchy, surrounded by the great Whig
families, presented something of the feudal appearance of
former dynasties in the midst of the military fiefs. The Newcastles, Argyles, Devonshires, Bedfords, Graftons, Richmonds, Cavendishes, Dorsets, Grenvilles, and so forth, with
their peers and followers, stood round the throne, asserting a hereditary right to the business of government, and looking on the country as on the brink of ruin, unless the great
Whig families should have the privilege of saving it. Those
lords who had raised regiments in 1745, would naturally
think themselves the bulwark of the Protestant succession,
and highly deserving of everything the nation could bestow
upon them.t They would allow the king to reign-to have
* A trifling incident may also help to show what the court people
thought of the great minister. When George III., a few months after his
marriage, went in procession with the queen to the London banquet, the
populace, recognizing Pitt's carriage and liveries among the rest, crowded round them with acclamations, hugged his footman and kissed the
horses! The royal folks, no doubt, felt as the king of Scotland once did
towards Johnnie Armstrong, and the affair was called by the courtiers
"the abominable behavior of Mr. Pitt."
t Horace Walpole says, that the Dukes of Bedford, Bolton, and Montague, Lords Harcourt, Halifax, etc., got permission to raise regiments,
which were paid by government. But he says it is certain, that not
six regiments were ever raised, or four employed. He gives a pretty
broad hint that several of the lords were paid for soldiers that they never
enrolled.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                37
the sword of honor and the crown; but the government,
that is, the emoluments of government, were to belong to
some prevailing section of themselves.  Those chiefs employed their pocket lists as their feudal ancestors employed
clansmen or men-at-arms; and we have William Pitt himself borrowing the Duke of Newcastle's majority, to carry
out some points in his war-policy.  Lord Waldegrave, in
his " Memoirs," describes, in a few words, the general character of the government at that period: " When the Hanoverian succession took place, the Whigs became possessors
of all great offices and lucrative employments, since which
time, instead of quarreling with the prerogative, they have
been the champions of every administration. However,
they have not always been united into one body, under one
general, like a regular and well-disciplined army, but they
may be more aptly compared to an alliance of different
clans fighting in the same cause, possessing the same principles, but influenced and guided by their different chieftains."* George III. desired to change all that, as much
as possible, and restore the crown to something of its ancient
influence; and though it is not the fashion, at this time of
day, to extenuate the willful policy of that king, or the
statesmanship of his ministers and favorites, yet we should
be disposed to give his cause a fair hearing, when we estimate, at this cool distance, the nature of that bewildering
opposition which worked so arrogantly and selfishly against
him.  The rapacious and overbearing Whig chiefs, scheming against one' another, and appropriating everything
" Waldegrave's Memoirs," p. 18.




38             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
within their reach,* were forever talking of liberty and the
constitution, and it is not to be wondered at, after all, if the
poor young king grew sick of such a jargon, and longed to
revert to a purer system  of monarchy (and, perhaps, not a
more turbid system of constitutional government), in which
he may feel himself somewhat more of a king than a
cochol ac l'engrais, and have none of those insolent Whigs
coming into his closet and scolding him into convulsions, or
the milder necessity of eating nothing but potatoes (" Royal Farmers"), for a week. Looking round him, he saw
in William Pitt one of the most formidable exponents of
that Whig predominancy he disliked so much, and felt that it
could not be diminished while the Great Commoner continued in the van of power, overawing the royal mind by
his superiority, and controlling everything with the voice
and port of a dictator. Pitt, on his side, believed in 1688,
and the principles which placed the house of Brunswick on
the throne; and he also firmly and potently believed that
any attempts against himself and his statesmanship would
be calculated to damage these in some measure. He was
always disposed to act with his alliance and on the recognized WThibg system. But it must be understood, that he
always supported these with the more earnestness and
vivacity, that they seconded his own high views of national
glory and prosperity-in other words, aided his ambition.' Lord IIervey, in his " Memoirs," says that, having once observed to
George II. that he supposed his majesty found great relaxation in his frequent visits to the country, the king replied: " Yes, my lord, I am very
glad to get away into the country; for I see so many hungry faces around
me in London, I am afraid they will eat me up at last."




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                39
In the beginning of his reign, George III. began to put
his policy in operation-a shrewd little policy of dividing
to conquer. He manceuvred to break the family alliances
and other coalitions which might presume to dispute his
cabinet with him.  He followed out this idea with wonderful pertinacity and a fatal sort of success, in the midst of
perilous confusions, through tempests of vituperation, and
in spite of the most desperate looking national disasters.
He agitated so vigorously, that the first nine years of his
reign witnessed seven ministries, or rather premiershipsthe former being, perhaps, too definite a phrase for that
scrambling succession of administrations, curious evidences
of the chaotic state of things then existing. They were no
clean clearings-out, and compact comings-in-no more
marching in bands was permitted. Everything was done in
a bit-by-bit, patchwork way, so as to have men of various leanings included, and thus guard against a monopoly of ministerial power by any too-powerful subject. It is rather puzzling
to try and distinguish the wavering outline of these ministries. Pitt's ministry slid into Bute's, and that somehow
into Grenville's; after this occurs a huddle that seems
about to change into the Bedford or the Pitt, again; but it
is the Rockingham that comes; and soon another shuffling
takes place, and we have a shape of government-" if
shape it may be called, that shape had none" —it is the
ministry in the truckle-bed from which Lord Chatham flies
away disgusted and enraged; and as we look at it, it is the
Grafton ministry; then that, too, changes, in the twinkling
of a zodiac, and lo! it is the good-humored and fatal Lord
North, patting his portly person, and unconsciously making




40           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
the most perilous and important chapter of modern
history.
In the attempt to get rid of the expensive and overbearing William Pitt, the Earl of Bute was a prime instigator.
There are letters in the "Chatham Correspondence" which
seem to show, and are intended to show, a cordiality between the favorite and the minister, and we have seen statements that Bute's influence with the court party was far
less than the world supposed; leading people to the idea
that Lord Chatham, who must have been well informed on
that subject, could not have entertained any violent antipathy to the Scottish Sejanus.  But that Bute had a hand
in Pitt's dismissal is as sure as he had a potential voice in
forming the biases of George III. With a presence in history, almost as shadowy as that of Nominis Umbra himself,
and' "with no more biography than a fly," as Chancellor
Thurlow used to say, how wonderfully that fastidious and
somewhat feeble, man has contrived to make himself talked
of in the world! Bubb Doddington, in his " Diary," reveals the Earl's animus towards Pitt.  Under date of 29th
December, 1760, the diarist says Bute called on him and
expressed a wish that Lord Holdernesse should quarrel with
his colleagues, and throw up his office in seeming anger, in
order that he (Bute) may go in without appearing to displace any one.  From  the same source, we learn that
Glover, the poet, spoke to Doddington, in admiration of
Bute, applauding his conduct and the determination of the
king, and saying they would beat everything yet.  This
gives a glimpse behind the scenes; shows the plotting
character of the young king's court, and the efforts of his




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 41
"friends" to get rid of the Secretary.*  The Princess of
Wales, too, who lived on very friendly terms with the Earl
of Bute, was a great part of these intrigues; and we can
easily conceive how Pitt's contemptuous rage against those
personages would be expressed in the bitterest language of
Junius. His ministry drew to its close in 1761. The king
was always sighing, like Falkland, for the blessings of
peace, and thus formed the general fashion of deprecating
the continuance of the war. In the autumn of 1761, the
minister, who had organized victory before Carnot was born,
finding that France and Spain had signed a family Compact, wanted to attack them promptly, and bring them to
their senses by one or two of his coups de tonnere. But the
feeling was entirely aginst him; the real enemy was not
Bourbon, but Pitt. It was a courtly grief of the first magnitude to see him towering like a colossus, under whose
huge legs his colleagues and others were doomed to creep
about and find themselves dishonorable-staves. A majority of the Cabinet outvoted him, on this question of war,
whereupon he haughtily resigned, declaring, with a scarce
disguised contempt, to the people about him, that " he would
not be responsible for measures he was not permitted to
guide."   Dutiful politicians of all sorts threw up their eyes
and hands in amazement at such language, which, they said,
was only fit for the Grand Turk, and Temple quitted office
with his brother-in-law. Newcastle also, the nominal head
of that ministry, resigned soon after, casting on the long* No one, reading the concluding page or two of " Doddington's Diary,"
can have the slightest doubt that Lord Bute did everything in his power
to bring about a change such as would remove Pitt.




42            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
enjoyed domains of office, as he quitted them for the last
time, a glance like that of Boabdil, when he bid a last adieu
to the pleasant seats of Granada. Then the court party
triumphed, and the shy, saturnine Lord Bute succeeded in
grasping what, with the king's aid, he had plotted for-the
premiership of England-a brief possession,
George Grenville refused to follow the fortunes of his
family and provoked the future sarcastic opposition of Pitt,
by getting into the place lately held by the latter.  In
1762, the Duke of Bedford, a strong opponent of Pitt's
belligerent policy, went to France, and there concluded the
treaty of Paris, signing away, with a stroke of his pen, conquests which had cost the late Secretary so much travail of
soul to achieve. Meanwhile, a storm, directed by the latter, whether in parliament, or through channels of the press
of which we have no certain knowledge as yet, blew against
Bute and the court policy; a boot-jack and a petticoat
(this last representing, by synecdoche, the Princess of
Wales) were burnt together in the streets; and, then, the
obnoxious minister bent, sighed like a reed, and passed
away behind the scenes to come no more forward in history. He had achieved great things, however, in driving out
Pitt and Temple, and shutting the gates of Bellona, for
whose worship the former was the only adequate high
priest. Still, these royal victories were as disconcerting as
those of Pyrrhus.  Popular feeling and the Pittite phalanx were at work, and his majesty, seeing that, without a
strong ministry, different from that of the long-headed
arithmetician then at the head of the cabinet, the business
of the country would be at a deadlock, now seemed will



JUNIUS, LORD CEIATHAM.              43
ing to have Pitt back; but without his tail. The Great Commoner always treated his majesty, as yet, with scrupulous
and obsequious courtesy, and George III., shrewdly guessing that, while feebler politicians would cling for support to
their alliances, the genius of Pitt would urge him to stand
and move alone, was the more anxious to treat with him
and tempt his ambition. Bute sent Beckford to him and
afterwards called, himself, upon him. Then, on August
27th, 1763, Pitt was brought to the young king, who had
been properly drilled for the interview.  The Hardwicke
MSS. profess to give an account of it, and the "Grenville
Papers" furnish another, and the average truth of this indistinct and shuffling business would seem to be that the king,
consenting that Pitt should be premier, wished to retain
some of those already in the ministry, while he delivered
himself from the irksome control of Bedford and George
Grenville. He would open the door a little way, on his
cunning plan. But Pitt desired that it should be flung
back, on golden hinges turning, to admit his allies, sayingvery probably with a sarcastic affectation of humility habitual
with him-that he was but a little knife, and if his majesty
would use it, he should not blunt the edge.  The king
seems to have listened with a deference and even an assent
which, in Pitt's opinion, looked like acquiescence, when the
ex-minister spoke of the necessity of a radical change of
men and measures. This interview took place on Saturday;
and another took place on Monday. Meantime, his majesty
reported the colloquy, and received counsel of his mother
and his friends. In the second interview, Pitt spoke, as
before, of removing those who had brought about the late




44            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
disadvantageous peace, and employing those who had credit
with the nation. Alas! it was of the latter the poor king
was especially apprehensive; and, as regarded some of
those whom Pitt would remove, he could only say, and
repeat, that his honor was concerned; and so brought the
interview to an end. Pitt always asserted that the king
had deceived him in these interviews; that he had retracted
in one, the assent he had given in the other, and that there
was " something behind the throne, greater than the throne
itself."
Meantime, the pamphleteers and newspaper writers were
skirmishing at a vehement rate. Lord Temple, an irascible
man of honorable principles and moderate capacity, feeling
that a royal dislike of his connection had caused the failure
of the late negotiation, encouraged a war of the press
against the government. He was the friend of every man
who could point a quill against the court and the Earl of
Bute, and the chief supporter of Wilkes, conductor of the
most renowned journal in history. Macaulay, in consideration of his heartiness in hounding on the demagogues, calls
him the "malignant Temple"-a verdict too much in that
writer's exaggerated style. Pitt, at this time, took marked
occasion to express, in the House of Commons, his disapproval of the doings of Wilkes, hinting that Temple was
considered the great patron of such vituperative warfare,
and at the same time, oddly enough (but perfectly in character), protesting he would act, live, and die in union with
his noble brother.  His disavowal of Wilkes had its effect,
and advances were still made to him.
In 1764, he detached himself from his alliance with the




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               46
Duke of Newcastle, and expressed to this nobleman his
determination to act for himself in future. Having seen, he
said, his war policy lately given up in a full house, he would
have no more centres of union.*
In 1765, at a time when rumors of dangerous mobs and
mutinies were flying about everywhere, the Duke of Cumberland, by command of his majesty, undertook to negotiate with Pitt and Temple, or rather with the first, hoping
some chance may push the latter out of the question. And
now commence those movements and occurrences from
which, looking closely at them, we can immediately gather
the identity of Junius and Lord Chatham.
The negotiation failed, because the king stipulated that
Lord Northumberland and Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, the latter, Lord Bute's brother, should remain in their places; and
this was not agreeable to Lord Temple.  Another negotiation followed, with the same result.  Then Pitt, as is very
evident from what we know of the sayings and doings of
that period, began to find Temple a sort of clog and hinderance to that compromise, which, in the ambitious commoner's opinion, was called for by the occasion. The king
tried his courtesies and conciliations on Pitt. He had found
Bedford intolerable; and George Grenville himself would
grumble about a trifle given or proposed for Sir William
Breton, or any one supposed to be connected with Lord
Bute.  Indeed, when it was a question of giving away any
good thing to them, Grenville could hate the Scotch like a
Wilkite.  All this, and his penurious behavior respecting
"* Chatham Correspondence," vol. ii., p. 297.




46              JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.
the king himself, influenced his majesty in his advances to
Pitt. But matters proceeded slowly and warily. The king
distrusted the veteran astuteness of the Great Commoner,
and the latter nursed an angry recollection of that unsatisfactory interview.
In the mean time, George Grenville (who will be remembered with Erostratus), having received an extremely correct
plan of taxation, shaped and passed his Stamp Act, and so
set the world on fire.*
This Bill was opposed by Mr. Pitt, who, with his usual
sagacity, though he could only recognize Grenville in the
matter, said it was marked with the mean and narrow
genius of the originator. Negotiations continued; but believing his pear to be almost ripe, he held back. He would
not enter the ministry, bound up with any party cabal. On
24th of February, 1765, writing to the Earl of Shelburne,
he says, rather sharply, that the king's pleasure and gracious command alone shall be a call to him: "I am  deaf,"
he adds, "to every other thing.   I will not say more, lest'I say too much."t In this holding off of Pitt, the Duke
of Cumberland, cooperating with the Duke of Newcastle,' The " Grenville Papers" contain a curious statement respecting this
renowned Act, which did not originate with Mr. Grenville. Mr. Henry
McCulloch, of Turnham Green, wrote a letter to Mr. Jenkinson in 1763,
accompanied by two bills or proposals; one respecting a duty on vellum
and paper, which, at 6d. to 18d. per sheet, would bring ~60,000 a year
from the American colonies; the other for creating and issuing bills
of credit, called Exchequer Bills, for the use of the colonies. The reader
is, doubtless, thinking of the saying attributed to the Chancellor Oxensteirn. The statistical and financial renown of the McCullochs, is, after
all, greater than the world supposed.
t " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 12.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               47
succeeded in arranging matters with the Marquis of Rockingham; and the Lutestring Administration, calculated for a
season's wear, was brought into precarious existence. The
Rockinghams were extremely desirious that Pitt should rouse
up his power and come among them; and Edmund Burke,
writing to Flood, on 18th of May, 1765, says: "Nothing
but an intractable spirit in your friend Pitt can prevent a
more admirable and lasting system from being put together,
and this crisis will show whether pride or patriotism be predominant in his character, for you may be assured he has
it now in his power to come into the service of his country,
upon any plan of politics he chooses to dictate, with great
and honorable terms to himself, and every friend he has in
the world, and with such a strength of power as will be
equal to anything but absolute despotism over the king and
kingdom.  A few days will show whether he will take this
part, or continue on his back at Hayes, talking fustian."
Pitt, however, continued inexorable, and bowing gravely and
negatively, with a grand stage bend, over the horrible perplexity of the Rockinghams, assured them that confidence
was a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom; a declaration which he probably meant should go a little further and
higher than the treasury bench.  On the same occasionthe opening of the Session of 1766-he denounced the
American policy of ministers, and the Stamp Act. This
brought up George Grenville, who retorted by saying, the
colonists were encouraged in their disaffection by factious
men at home-by the speeches of Pitt himself in that
house. In a few months, the Rockinghams, in spite of the
subtle efforts and partisan arrangements which so curiously




48            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
mark the political history of that time, and which inevitably
remind the irreverent reader of the Noodles, Coodles,
Doodles and Foodles of Bleak House, went down-only to
make way for something more bewildered and tragic still.
The king now proceeded to the completion of his shrewd
designs. He professed to give Pitt the privilege of making
his own ministry, and thus, taxing the generosity of the
Great Commoner, constrained him more effectually than he
could ever hope to do in any other way.  His majesty
showed a palpable desire that Temple should be dispensed
with in the new arrangements, and in a significant letter to
his first minister, now (July, 1766) Earl of Chatham, tells
his lordship that the aforesaid nobleman has been with him,
and expresses a wish to give the earl a report of the interview, in order to prepare him for a conversation with his
brother-in-law.  " I opened to him," says George III., " a
desire of seeing him in the Treasury, and, in conjunction
with you, chalking out such an administration as can be
formed, considering the unhappy divisions that subsist between men, yet taking the present administration as the
basis to build upon, with such alterations as may seem
necessary, I am sorry to see, though we only kept in generals, that he seems to be inclined to quarters very heterogeneous to my and your ideas, and almost a total exclusion
of the present men, which is not your plan. I concluded
with saying, I should only agree to such a plan as you could
with pleasure be a part of, not to one wherein you had not
a principal share."* This gives a clear idea of the king's
"' Chathain Correspondence," vol. ii., p. 443.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               49
mode of arrangement.  The drift of the letter-the desire
to have the first word, to put Chatham's views at variance
with those of Temple, and, above all, to flatter the former
with the appearance of acting closely and confidentially
with the king-is very palpable.  Everything succeeded to
his majesty's wish. Temple had an interview with Pitt, in
which they differed so much that the former went off in displeasure, declaring to Lord Northington that the desire to
have him in the ministry was only a farce, and to his sister,
that he would not be stuck into it as a cypher, surrounded
by other cyphers, at the will of the premier. The family
alliance was now broken. Temple was out of the way, and
Chatham seemed disposed to act amicably with the court
party.   But an angry Nemesis was about to dash his majesty's astute policy, and some of his worst troubles were
now on the point of beginning.
From a consideration of the foregoing, we can perceive
how closely the spirit and political profession of Pitt coincide with those of Junius. Pitt's career was a continual
fight with the powers of the court and government in support
of the Whig principles and influences, advocated by the
secret writer. The aggressive and haughty animosity visible
in Junius, his irrespective manner of assaulting the gravest
and highest persons in the kingdom, is undeniably Pitt's, as
may be seen even in our scanty statement of antecedents.
The moral and intellectual features of both are the same.
But these antecedents, significant as they are, furnish but
half the circumstantial evidence which, without any effort,
but with irresistible force, tends to establish the theory or
statement of these pages.
3




CHAPTER III.
LORD CHATHAM7S DESPERATE ATTEMPTS TO CONSTRUCT HIS HELPLESS
MOSAIC MINISTRY-HIS STRANGE RETIREMENT AND THE CONSEQUENT
CONFUSIONS.
But, now that I am forced to leave the ship, after having resigned, not
abandoned, the helm, I am desirous of seeing, from the land, the wreck
of my successor.-CIcERo, To ATTICUS.
He, indeed,
Retired into the desert, but with arms.
MILTON.
GEORGE III., unprophetic of the event, took a good deal
of trouble to bring Chatham into the cabinet, as a sort of
palladium of his cause. But the introduction was as big
with disaster as that of the Greek horse of old, into Troy.
The new earl went into office without his party, and found
himself strangely allied with that which he most hated-the
court party —and controlled by the king's wishes in the
formation of his ministry.  But he was not more embarrassed by such an alliance, than by the displeasure of his late
friends and their determination to give him no assistance.
The first difficulties were ominous of the fate of the administration; and, if Lord Chatham ever had any hopes of success, he appears to have bid adieu to them very soon.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                51
Everything was calculated to discourage him. His peerage
and pension lowered him in popular estimation, and, whenever he remained at home with the gout, the joke of the
day, reported by Lord Chesterfield, was, that "he had indured himself by a fall up stairs."
In endeavoring to form his administration, the earl had
as many difficulties to meet as Nehemiah had of old, beset
by the Horonites in building the wall; though, there the
resemblance ends; for the Hebrew never thought of pulling
down his wall after he had got it up. The new premier
made offers to a great many, but, says Almon, "the superiority of mind which had denied him the usual habits of
intercourse with the world, gave an air of authority to his
manner and precluded the policy of a convenient condescension to the minutie of politeness and fascinating powers
of address.  He made an offer of Secretary of State, to
Lord Gower, whom he had refused, when proposed for the
office by his brother, Lord Temple. He made offers to Lord
Scarborough, Mr. Dowdeswell, and several. others; but in
such terms of hauteur as seemed to provoke, though unintentionally, the necessity of refusal. To the first an abrupt
message was sent, that he might have an office if he would;
to the second, that he could take'such an office or none.
The offers were all rejected. He then waited on Lord
Rockingham at his house in Grosvenor Square. But Lord
Rockingham refused to see him."* Something must be
allowed for the Grenvillite coloring of all this; but, it is
true in the main. Lord Chatham played like a gamester
* "Almon's Anecdotes of Lord Chatham," vol. ii., p. 29.




52            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
who knows luck is against him. In the Chatham Correspondence we have him writing to Mr. Dowdeswell, to offer
him his choice of the first seat at the Board of Trade, or the
place of Joint Paymaster, and asking for his answer in the
course of the day. Mr. Dowdeswell refuses either, in terms
which certainly indicate some discontent with the condition
accompanying them.*  His Lordship, who had always, in
fact, more of the fortiter in re than the suaviter in modo in
his nature, would be apt to show very little of the latter at
such a tormenting crisis.
At last that difficult ministry of 1766 was set up. But people observed, with a puzzled curiosity, that the framer chose
a mere side office for himself-that of Lord Privy Seal.
His colleagues were the Duke of Grafton (who, just before
the Rockinghams had given up the ghost, deserted them,
declaring he would work in the trenches, with spade and
mattock, under a leader like Lord Chatham, and who was now
first Lord of the Treasury), Charles Townsend, Chancellor
of the Exchequer; Lord Shelburne and Mr. Conway, Secretaries of State; Lord Camden, Lord Chancellor; Lord
Northington, President of the Council; Viscount Barrington,
Secretary at War; the Marquis of Granby, Master-General
of the Ordnance. The minor personages of the administration indicated as strange a mixture as the foregoing; and
the character of the whole has been made familiar to all
historic readers by Edmund Burke's description of it: " He
made an administration, so chequered and speckled; he put
together a piece of joinery so crossly indented and whim"Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 29.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                53
sically dove-tailed; a cabinet so variously inlaid; such a
piece of diversified mosaic; such a tesselated pavement,
without cement-here a bit of black stone, and there a bit
of white stone-patriots and courtiers, kings' friends, and
republicans, Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and
open enemies, that it was a very curious show, but utterly
unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand upon."* The orator
then goes on further to compare it to a truckle-bed,
in which the officials were pigging all together, heads and
points; and, in the metaphorical abundance of his description, certainly exemplifies the confusion he is describing.
There never was, in fact, such a strange ministry, before or
since; and we think these pages can show that there never
was such a strange premier, before or since.
In this state of things, the whisperings and buzzings of
party intrigue filled all the air.  Everybody knew the
rickety condition of the ministry, and looked every day for
some change in it. At the close of 1766, in consequence
of the removal of Lord Edgecombe from a Bedchamber, or
a White Stick, there was an earthquake. The Duke of
Portland, Lords Scarborough, Besborough, and Monson retired from the ministry, as did, also, Admirals Keppel and
Saunders. Lord Hardwicke, about this time, says: " The
Grenvilles are very confident the Duke of Bedford, and his
party, will have nothing to do with Lord Chatham." And,
again: "For my part, I do not see my way through the
chaos, nor how it is possible to reconcile so many jarring
interests. The new peer treats them all as Lord Peter does
* Speech on American Taxation-BURKE'S WTorks.




54            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Jack and Martin."* On the 9th December, Lord Chesterfield writes, in a letter to his son: " Eight or nine persons,
of some consequence, have resigned their appointments,
upon which Lord Chatham made overtures to the Duke of
Bedford and his people; but they could by no means agree,
and his grace went, full of wrath, to Woburn. People wait
to see whom Lord Chatham will take in; for some he must
have, even he cannot be alone, contra munduzm. Such a state
of affairs, to be sure, was never seen before in this or any
other country."t Meantime, Lord Peter, assuming a bold
air in the House of Lords, told them he would destroy
faction, and could look the proudest connection in the face.
"'The nobility are not to be brow-beaten by an insolent
minister!" cries the Duke of Richmond.  "Such language
was never before heard, westward of Constantinople!" says
the amazed Secretary Conway. On the motion of the
premier to examine the charter of the East India Company
(introduced at the same time by Beckford, in the Commons),
he found the parties he had defied, or neglected, combining
against him-the Bedfords, the Rockinghams (happy to
return the compliment, and Burke unprophetic of Warren
Hastings), the Grenvilles, the Yorkes, the Portlands, the
Devonshires, the Dowdeswells, and some of the Butes, all
yelping at him, and hardening their faces against him
on every side.: What with the desertions, the general
* " Chatham Correspondence," vol. ii., p. 29.
t " Lord Chesterfield's Letters," vol. iv., p. 442.
T "There are," said Lord lNorthington. "four parties: the Butes, the
Bedfords, the.Rockinghams, the Chathams; and we (the latter) the weakest of the four."




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 55
league of opposition, the failure of his humiliating overtures, particularly to the Duke of Bedford, and, perhaps,
his secret self-reproaches for that desertion of Temple-so
vilely requited, too-Lord Chatham felt the full desperation
of the crisis. We must regard it attentively, for it is the
point from which can be plainly traced the bifurcation-not
to say parallel-represented by the fierce and truculent
literature of Junius on one hand, and the wild, strange
conduct of Lord Chatham in retreat, together with his terrible onslaughts in the Lords, on the other.
The Privy Seal stood alone.  Not as the Secretary stood
before, but as a political Lear, exposed to the storm which
blew and rumbled all about him, and mustering fancies as
fierce as those of the angry old king, when he thinks of
shoeing his horses with felt, and stealing murderously on
his enemies. Tormented in the feet by the gout, and still
more in the head, by the retrospect and prospect of his disappointments, he flung the direction of public affairs from
his hands, and left the government like a ship without a
helmsman.   He saw the difficulties of his former ministry
renewed and exceeded, without any promise of the glory
which could once console him. He had no reliance on the
king. He had not been ten days in the cabinet, when, as
he afterwards said in the House of Lords, "he felt the
floor rotten under his feet!"  Towards the close of 1766,
the baited and baffled man went away to Bath, and other
country places, giving out, that his infirmities obliged him
to retire; and that, therefore, his colleagues need not calculate on any regular assistance from him. This was a decided step. The ministry soon felt the absence of their




56            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
head.  They fell into confusion, and kept calling on him
for help and direction. He gave them none; he hardly
vouchsafed any answer. Pursued by the piteous or spiteful
reclamations of those he had thrown to pig together on that
astonishing truckle-bed, he remained, inexorably in his
retreat. He lived, and made no sign. The political world
was in amazement, as we can gather from correspondences
and memoirs relating to that period. Meantime, the people
he had left behind helped, by their sayings and doings, to
keep his wrath warm. Burke, speaking in 1774, and referring to 1767, says: " Whenever Lord Chatham fell into a
fit of the gout, or any other cause withdrew him from public cares, principles the contrary of his own were sure to
predominate. When his face was hid for a moment, the
whole system was on a wide sea, without chart or compass. * * Deprived of his guiding influence, they were
whirled about, the sport of every gust and easily driven
into any port; and as those who joined with them in manning the vessel, were the most directly opposed to his
opinions, measures, and character, and far the most artful
and powerful of the set, they easily prevailed so as to seize
upon the vacant, unoccupied and derelict minds of his
friends, and instantly they turned the vessel wholly out of
the course of his policy. As if it were to insult as well as
betray him, even long before the close of the first session
of his administration, when everything was publicly transacted, and with great parade, in his name, they made an act,
declaring it highly just and expedient to raise a revenue in
America." Again, Lord Charlemont writing to Mr. Flood
on the 19th February, 1767, says: "No one in opposition




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               57
can get up without directly abusing Lord Chatham, and no
friend ever takes his part." On the 9th of April, following, the same nobleman describes the state of the administration: "Lord Chatham has not been allowed to see any
one, nor to receive letters. He is still minister; but how
long he may continue such, is a problem, that would pose
the deepest politician. The opposition grows more violent,
and seems to gain ground. The ministry are divided into
as many parts as there are men in it, all complaining of his
want of cooperation.  Charles Townsend is at open war,
Conway is angry, Lord Shelborne out of humor, and the
Duke of Grafton by no means pleased."
In December of the same year, Lord  Chesterfield,
writing from Bath to his son, says: "Lord Chatham's
physician ignorantly checked a coming fit of the gout,
and scattered it over his body, and it fell particularly
on his nerves, so that he continues exceedingly vaporish. He would neither see nor speak to anybody while
he was here. For the last eight months, he has been absolutely invisible to his most intimate friends."*   This
extraordinary conduct of a man merely vaporish, must
excite the suspicion of the reader, who will observe that,
about eight months before the writing of this letter,
the first of the Miscellaneous Series of Junius appeared,
making a curious feint against Lord Chatham, and then
opening on that rebellious helpless ministry and the Court,
in all moods of the bitterest hostility! We should think it
would be rather unpleasant for any of those "intimate
3*
" Lord Chesterfield's Letters," vol. iv., p. 463.




68            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
friends," to walk into the workshop of Brontes in the act
of making his thunder and launching it.
Still the retreat of Lord Chatham agitated the king and
the ministry, and puzzled everybody. Lord Chesterfield
writes in January, 1768: " Lord Chatham  is at his repurchased house at Hayes, but sees no mortal. Some say
he has a fit of the gout, which would probably do him good.
Many think his worst complaint is the head, which I am
afraid is too true." A great many suspected, indeed, at
that time, that the complaint of the gout and general
debility, was a mere pretense. Lord Camden, writing to
the Duke of Grafton, a few months before the last-mentioned date, seems to think the earl's illness exaggerated:
" The whole country in the neighborhood," he says, " report
him much better, but his knocker is tied up, and he is inaccessible. I read a letter from Lady Chatham, yesterday,
who is so fearful of owning my lord to be better, that she
retracts it while admitting it in the same sentence, and conveys hopes of his recovery while she forbids them. I verily
believe he is considerably mended."*   These lines, written
by the friend of Lord Chatham, are remarkably significant.
The world could not'be brought to believe that the gout
could torment any man in that terrible manner, for eight
or ten months at a stretch.  But then, what was he about,
all that time, with his knocker tied up?  A question to be
asked.  Some said, carelessly, with Lord Chesterfield, that
he must be touched in the head; but this easy and favorite
mode of explanation in such cases, did not at all satisfy
"*  Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors," vol. v., p. 272.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                59
those who knew the earl best. Besides, that was an old
story.  They said he was mad in the Quadrennium, too.
As his lordship will not be brought out by entreaties,
they try other means. Lord Bottetourt, seeing how matters
stood, and very probably instigated by ministers, demanded
the decision of the Privy Seal in a matter which interested
him —the question of the Wormly Copper Mines. He prepared a motion, to the effect that, if Lord Chatham would
not do the business of his office, others should be appointed
to do it. Commissioners were accordingly chosen on February 2d, 1768-Messrs. Richard Sutton, William Blair, and
William Frazer. Lord Chatham knew that all this, particularly the appointment of such mean men, and one of them,
at least, a Scotchman, was meant to insult and annoy him;
and, on February 16th, Junius speaks of it as a gross
affront, and says, that Lord Chatham should have too much
spirit to put up with it; that any man of spirit could no
more lend his office than he could his mistress to the purposes of prostitution; much less would he descend to take
either of them back again with the public mark of infamy
upon them.* This mode of expression is such as none but
one personally insulted would employ.
Still, the retired minister is besieged with importunities
from the greatest men in the kingdom, who, curiously
enough, do not seem to have the slightest idea they are
addressing a lunatic.  They pay no attention to that
report, but write, write, write. The king, who knows his
man, writes repeatedly, as we see in the'" Chatham  Corre" Miscellaneous Letter xii. No Signature.




60            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
spondence," published eighteen years ago, by the greatgrandsons of the earl.  For two long years-such was
the astonishing period of that strange retreat-his majesty
continued, ever and anon, to address his inexorable Privy
Seal, impatient, incredulous, and scarcely concealing his
royal displeasure. On 30th May, 1767, the king writes the
following significant sentences to the recluse, whom he evidently suspects of hypocrisy: " Though your relations (the
Grenvillites), the Bedfords, and the Rockinghams, are joined, with the intention of storming my closet; yet, if I was
mean enough to submit, they own they would not join
in forming an administration; therefore nothing but confusion could be obtained. Your duty and affection for my
person, your own honor calls on you to make an effort.
Five minutes' conversation with you would raise his (Grafton's) spirit, for his heart is good; mine, I thank heaven,
wants no raising. My love to my country, as well as what
I owe to my own character, and to my family, prompt me
not to yield to faction.  Though none of my ministers
stand by me, I will not truckle."* My Lord Privy Seal is
to take notice of that, and remember it! No one shall
make the king submit, or force the door of his closet.
Again, on the 2d June, his majesty writes to Lord Chatham, and, after telling him plainly the ministry must fall to
pieces, if he will not come out, goes on thus: " If, after
this, you again decline taking an active part, I shall then be
under the necessity of taking steps that nothing but the
situation I am left in could have obliged to."t In another
* " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 260.
t Ibid., vol. iii., p. 267.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 61
letter of exhortation, speaking of the crisis, he says, it would
" almost awaken the great men of former ages, and should,
therefore, oblige Lord Chatham to cast aside any remains
of his late indisposition."* George III., a shrewd man,
who knew the secret political springs, and who, we repeat,
knew Lord Chatham, intus et in cute, would never have written these letters to a man in the slightest degree touched
with insanity. To such royal letters of exhortation, doubt,
or defiance half-concealed, the stern and wily recluse would
always reply by prostrating himself-nothing less!-at his
majesty's feet, and begging for mercy and forgiveness in
the most affected and afflicted strain of oriental submission. In this respect, those letters of the sometime William
Pitt are absolute literary curiosities, worthy the attention
of a future D'Israeli. The man is always complaining of
debility; always prostrating himself. But out he will not
come; not for an hour, not even to see any one in his own
parlor. The king, at one time, begs to know what sort of
a physician he has got. This was Dr. Addington, whose
son, aided by the friendship of the second Pitt, became
afterwards Prime Minister; and people were in the habit of
saying that the " mad doctor" was likely to make the earl
as mad as the generality of his patients.  His majesty
slyly informs the Privy Seal-the priviest of the kind, probably, on record-that he will send his own medical attendant, Sir Clifton Wintringham, to see and prescribe for his
lordship. This was coming alarmingly to the point, and
the sick man makes the greatest haste to prostrate himself,
and protest he would rather be excused; his family physician
*' Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 277.




62            JUNIUS  LORD CHATHAM.
understands his case best (we are very sure he did), and he
hopes his majesty will not think any more of sending Sir
Clifton Wintringham.
But the king was not yet baffled. In the letter already
quoted, of 30th of May, he wrote to the obstinate hermit to
intimate, that as the Privy Seal could not come to the king,
the king would go to the Privy Seal.  That, indeed, was
terrible. His majesty may bolt in with his " What? what?'
and catch the poor incapable " Brutus" girding violently at
the ministry, in the matter of Corsica, and appealing fiercely
to heaven; or, " Atticus" swearing he will not tamely submit
to be sacrificed! Away, therefore, flies a messenger to the
king, who is thanked with prostration, requested not to
think of conferring that overwhelming honor, and assured
that the wretched Privy Seal will make an effort and see the
Duke of Grafton, if his majesty desires it.  With an imposing array of crutches and flannels, accordingly, Chatham
gave his grace that compulsory interview; and we may imagine the benefit the latter would be likely to derive from
it. The duke's opinion of the patient, when he tried to sum
up and distinguish his impressions, after coming away, was,
that the earl seemed " incurably nervous." There can be
little doubt that the Privy Seal would be extremely fidgety
during this painful tete-a-tete with the man whom he
had been flagellating only a week or two bef6re,* for his
ungrateful treatment of the great minister who had led him
by the hand into public life.  After this unsatisfactory
interview came the king's angry note, already quoted, of the
2d June.  Still the great difficulty continued-the ministry
Miscellaneous Letter, xlviii., signed Atticus.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   63
in a state of confusion, and the royal messengers galloping
to and from Hayes. Something must be done, and the
Duke of Grafton is to go down, see the earl again, and ask
whether he means to keep office or to resign. His grace requests an interview; but he can no longer see the Privy
Seal, and is obliged to sit and talk with Lady Chatham instead.  In the "Chatham Correspondence," under date of
9th October, 1768,* appears her ladyship's memorandum of
the t~te-a-tite, which is remarkable for the diplomatic tone of
it. The doubting duke questions, and the lady replies, with
the caution of a witness at a trial, making very scanty admissions.  To the question, whether the earl is disposed
to continue minister, or resign, she answers, that her lord's
health is very infirm, indeed; and to the duke's statement of
difficulties, scruples, and so forth, rejoins with something of
the same assurance still.  In the course of her observations, she says the dismissal of Lord Shelburne had displeased the earl. She says nothing about the dearer friend, Sir
Jeffrey Amherst,t dismissed at the same time.  She must
have thought there was no need of harping upon it, seeing
that Junius had been already making the press ring with it.
This interview indicates, palpably, that Lady Chatham well
knew and assisted her lord's plans and contrivances of
secrecy. A few days subsequently the earl sent back his
seal to the king, and ceased to be a minister.
In connection with this sullen seclusion of the Privy
Seal there is one demonstration which is not without a cer* " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 336.
t General Amherst received his knighthood and garter on Staten Island,
at the hands of General Monckton.




f64            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
tain significancy. In August, 1767, about five months
after the commencement of the Miscellaneous Letters, a
power of attorney was procured, enabling Lady Chatham to
sign letters and transact business for his lordship. This
seems curious, considering that, in his retirement, he had
little correspondence, or need of tiring his fingers, and that
the countess had been, at all times, in the habit of acting as
his amanuensis. But the demonstration was very effective;
and the general idea was, that the Privy Seal was far gone,
indeed, not being able to hold a pen. Still, as we have
shown, there was a great deal of doubt abroad, respecting
the condition and motives of that malcontent minister, and
reports wandered about, at variance with the impression of
his debility. Lord Chesterfield, in one of his letters, after
saying that Lord Chatham refused to see him, or anybody
else, states that he saw him in a post-chaise, " looking very
well."
In another communication, we read of an architect employed at Hayes, about that time, who, making his unheeded way about the premises, came upon his invalid
lordship, looking, as he looked in the post-chaise, "very
well." He told what he saw when he went to town, and
that greatly displeased Lady Chatham. Tom Whately*
* Lord Mahon quotes a letter from Mr. Whately to Lord Lyttelton, in
which the writer draws a doleful picture of the earl's condition. " His depression and dejection are very great-so much so that he insists on being
alone in his apartment, leaning his head on his hands (Tom must have
peeped at him through the keyhole), ordering that no one shall remain in,
or come to, his room, and giving notice that he shall knock, if he wants
any one or anything." A very significant kind of dejection and depression,
no doubt!




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  65
scouted such a report-said the man must have made some
mistake-was not to be credited, in fact. Tom was trying,
apparently, to " take care of himself." The reader remembers what Lord Camden said of one of Lady Chatham's letters. Her interview with the Duke of Grafton is also strongly
significant of something to be guarded. All these things,
and others of the same kind, which cannot find room here,
lead us inevitably to the conclusion that it was neither insanity nor podagra which kept Lord Chatham in that wonderful condition of retirement.*
There is another consideration too curiously suggestive
to be omitted in such a disquisition as this. It is drawn
from  Horace Walpole's observations on this crisis, contained in his "Memoirs of the Reign of George III."
This amusing philosopher and politician, who was no friend
of Chatham (nor, indeed, of any one else; for, as regards
General Conway, to whom he seems to have been the most
attached, he lets us, with an extraordinary frankness, perceive
what a mercenary thing his friendship was), does not trouble
himself to dive after what does not appear near the surface,
but satisfies himself with saying the grim earl was mad:
Mad called he it, for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
In the second and third volumes of these Memoirs, passirm,
we light on a dozen places in which he terms the earl mad
* Horace Walpole says (" Memoirs of George III."), that when Lord
Chatham came unexpectedly to the king's levee, in July, 1769, the courtiers were surprised to see him looking so well and so fat. (Vol. iii.,
p. 373.)




66            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
or wild. He says, that "even before his administration
was formed, he had already commenced that extraordinary
seclusion of himself, which he afterwards carried to an excess
that passed, and no wonder, for a long access of frenzy."
And again: "As if there were dignity in folly, and merit
in perverseness, as if the way to govern mankind was to
insult their undertakings, the conduct of Lord Chatham was
the reverse of common sense, and made up of such undissembled scorn of the world, that his friends could not palliate it, nor his enemies be blamed for resolving it into
madness."   We are interested in some of the traits of this
madness, particularized by Walpole. In 1767, the house
at Hayes was out of Lord Chatham's possession, and he
was restlessly anxious to have it back again. Burton Pynsent was in Somersetshire, while Hayes was but a two
hours' drive from London. Mr. Thomas Walpole was the
purchaser of the earl's late mansion and grounds, and Lady
Chatham wrote to him an eager and pathetic letter, asking
if he would take back the purchase-money, and let the
afflicted earl, whose mind was strangely bent on this matter,
return to his old haunt. Mr. Walpole very handsomely
consented, greatly to the ease and satisfaction of the invalid,
who, doubtless, felt that the air, in the neighborhood of the
metropolis, was purer than anywhere else. Walpole goes
on to tell us of the earl's doings at Hayes: "He had an
impatient dislike of all noise, or whatever promoted noise,
so much so, that his children he could not bear under the
same roof, nor communication from room  to room.  A
winding passage between his house and children, was built
with the same view. When, at the beginning of his second




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 67
administration, he fixed at Northend by Hampstead, he
took four or five houses successively, as fast as Mr. Dingley,
his landlord, went into them, still, as he said, to ward off
the noises of the neighborhood."* Again, there was a very
mad-looking caprice to have food in his own apartment
whenever he had a mind to eat it, and "a succession of
chickens were boiling and roasting at every hour, to be
ready whenever he should call."  If to love chicken, roast
or boiled, be a sign of insanity, we suspect that disease is
more general than the regular faculty have suspected. But
we have an idea that there was more method than madness
in the cookery at Hayes, as well as in the other arrangements.  Walpole's gossip comes, without a doubt, from
one well informed on such matters, and he would be more
than ordinarily inquisitive about everything going on. in
such an eccentric household as the Earl of Chatham's. The
desire of the latter to remove all prying eyes, to keep his
children, whose prattle and amusements he always loved
with the kindest paternal nature, at a distance from him
under another roof, as it were, and to be free from the cistracting business of regular meals, seems to give evidence
of some secret design and occupation.  That prepense
device of the winding passage, to isolate himself from the
rest of the family, would undoubtedly be an excellent preparation for uninterrupted work at his desk, and also, for
unseen communication with any agent, messenger, or faithful secretary, which such a restless and intriguing genius
would stand in need of. The reader will, doubtless, be
I " Memoirs of the Reign of George III.," vol. iii., p. 41.




68            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
struck with the earl's concealments even in his own household.
We do not pretend to support our statement with gossip;
though we may argue that it sometimes contains a great
deal of truth, and that half history is of such stuff as gossip is made of. But we offer the foregoing facts, as we believe them to be, merely as minor considerations, dependent
for any value that may be attached to them, upon the force
of the main argument. If that is good, they fall into their
places, with all due importance, no man holding them in disparagement any more.
The foregoing evidences are calculated to remove from
the reader's mind, the mere ermined idea of the Earl of
Chatham, the general impression that he was an enfeebled
and dignified being, full of loftiness and ceremony, and untouched by the violent passions of common men. They
show that he acted capriciously and like a madman, in the
opinion of his contemporaries. They harmonize that eccentric and overbearing man with the received idea of Junius;
and this preparation was necessary to a fit appreciation of
what is to follow. Again (we repeat), the reader is brought
face to face with the fact, too much overlooked, that while
the early series of the Junian letters was coming mysteriously forth to the public eye, the Earl of Chatham was as
mysteriously shut up from  it.  The recollection of this
may excite a stronger and clearer attention to the further
course of this argument.




CHAPTER IV.
LORD CHATHAM'S RESOLUTION TAKEN-THE FEINTS AND PRECAUTIONS
MADE USE OF, TO BAFFLE THE CURIOUS INQUIRY OF THE WORLD,
RESPECTING HIS AGGRESSIVE EPISTLES.
It shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines,
And blow them at the moon.
HAMLET.
What shall I do to be for ever unknown?
COWLEY (altered).
BETRAYED by his own ill-calculating ambition into an act
of compromise, which cooled his friends and heated his
enemies in an extraordinary degree; stung alike by the
king's triumph over his consistency, and the defection or
mutinous behavior of his colleagues, Lord Chatham carried into retreat a resolve to retrieve (or ruin) matters, by
making war on the ministry, and every ministry subservient
to the court party. Retirement could bring no calm to a
man like him, who would rather wear out than rust out, and
who, in the end, died in armor at his post. Conscious of
his mental resources and the feebleness of those opposed to
him, and knowing it was not in his power to carry on a
contest on the parliamentary arena, just then, he prepared
himself for a hostile movement of another character.   At
no time, indeed, could a man, so capable of wielding the




70             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
democracy of England, feel either house of parliament a
fitting stage for his powers, seeing that the rule against the
publication of the debates prevented the people from knowing what he spoke, except in a garbled or curtailed shape,
and generally after a lapse of time had lessened the interest of his speeches.  In many of his greatest moments, he
must have felt that he wanted an audience, and lamented
that his voice should be so lost in that unreverberating
chapel. Pitt, in a Greek agora, would have rivalled, probably surpassed, Demosthenes, for, as well as we can judge,
he was a more impulsive and a more vituperative man, and
would, therefore, have been much more popular with the oi
polloi. In the House of Lords, the earl found his voice
still more deadened, and was accustomed to sneer at the
scarce witnessed and somewhat dull debates of that place.
In 1770, writing to Earl Stanhope, he says: "The labors
within the house are now the labors of Hercules; for the
house being of late kept clear of hearers, we are reduced to
a snug party of unhearing and unfeeling lords, and the
tapestry hangings; which last, as mute as ministers, yet tell
more than all the Cabinet on the subject of Spain, and the
manner of treating with an insidious and haughty power."*
The earl would often speak in a sarcastic way, of laying a
thing before the tapestry —making a motion before the
tapestry.t   All this shows his natural longing for a larger
* " Chatham Correspondence," vol iv., p. 55.
t The tapestry that hung on the walls of the old House of Lords, represented the Spanish Armada, defeated by Admiral Lord Howard, and
others. It perished in the fire which destroyed the two houses, over
twenty years ago.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                71
audience, and a more popular appreciation; and to these he
had now resolved to appeal.  Baffled in his attempt to become the statesman, he determined to become the censor of
the times-to make use of the press instead of the parliament, in bringing the people to bear against the power
which threatened to be too strong for the chieftains and
alliances.
In 1767, he was desperately ready for the new plan of
aggression, so congenial to his ideas and his powers, and,
we strongly suspect, the habits of his past life. Perhaps, it
is not to be called new, save in the peculiar character of it.
It is very probable, that, among the writers who, for the
preceding quarter of a century, had agitated the public
mind of England through the press, William Pitt had been
one of the most frequent and effective; for it is scarcely to
be supposed that the vehement blood and athletic wit,
vouched for by so many of his contemporaries, would
be entirely confined to the narrow arena of the House
of Commons.   Ever since the period of the civil wars
— since the days of Marchamont Needham, Birkenhead,
and Roger l'Estrange-the influence of the pamphlet and
the broadside had been growing into a necessary element
of government.  Statesmen had made use of it, by the
pens of subsidized writers or by their own.  Before the
general volunteer system of editors, as at the present day,
it was necessary that every political section or flistinguished leadership should have its staff of partisan writers;
and one of the surest avenues to literary success was the
capacity of wielding a quill in the agitating questions of
the time. Defoe, Atterbury, Davenant, Addison, Steele,




72            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Burnet, Swift, Prior, and Mainwaring, were among those
who distinguished themselves in that way; and after them,
came Smollett, Shebbeare, Johnson, Glover, Mallet, Burke,
and a crowd of others, mingling the inspirations of polite
literature with the fierce passions of politics and statesmanship. The highest characters of the realm had fought in
these battles; Lord Somers, Chancellor Cowper, and Lord
Bolingbroke had crossed pamphlets and exchanged letters.
The latter lord in his " Occasional Writer," in his " Craftsman," and in other ways, had denounced Sir Robert Walpole and his Whig policy, almost as heartily as Junius
afterwards'vituperated Grafton and Bute.  The celebrated
Philip, Duke of Wharton, a man, like Chatham, of an eccentric and haughty cast of mind, had published, in his " True
Briton," some of the freest and most intrepid sentiments
of political liberty.  Pulteney —the sometime Great Commoner, assailing Walpole in the Craftsman-Lords Chesterfield, Carteret and Harvey, Bubb Doddington, and others
had worked the machinery and increased the growing importance of what has become the Fourth Estate of the
English realm.  Everything considered, the publication of
the Junian letters as a fact, was nothing extraordinary. It
was their courage and power, and above all, their pertinacity, which (apart from their uncertain authorship) distinguished them from a crowd of similar publications at that
pamphleteering period.
About eight or nine months after the formation of Lord
Chatham's ill-starred administration, and when the Duke of
Grafton was identifying himself with the court party, and
supplanting the influence of the secluded Privy Seal, ap



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                73
peared, on 28th April, 1767, the first of those Miscellaneous Letters in which the betrayed and exasperated
statesman addressed himself to the task of beating down
what he had, in an evil hour, built up, and waging a steady
war of the press against the king's prerogative. The authorship of Junius in that series is recognized by every true
critic. He himself declared the greater part of it to be his
own. Woodfall has presented it as such, and it carries an
internal evidence to the same effect as strong as any such
declaration could be. In thus beginning his warfare, on a
decided, continuous plan, Lord Chatham —already experienced, as we believe, in this business-had deeply pondered
his means and prepared his way. He meditated something
which should survive the time, make his revenges immortal,
and hold up those he despised to the scorn of a coming age.
His assaults should be fierce and unsparing, to meet the
political turpitudes which had exasperated and defeated him;
he would speak daggers, and pour out that powerful rhetoric,
which George II. hated, and Horace Walpole admired, in
the barest and most intelligible language of the passions.
The first premise of such a course was, that the writer should
be anonymous, and keep himself concealed; otherwise he
would be attainted, challenged, or assassinated. A consideration of his dignity as a peer and a proud man, and of that
of his family, would also oblige him to keep away from him
any suspicion of an unscrupulous anger, which could stoop
to the common modes of assault and vituperation-modes
which were necessary to the success of his undertaking.
The British peer and founder of a noble house would not
have it remembered in his epitaph that he could give way to
4




74            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
the bitter truculence of passion which, nevertheless, he should
express or die.  The impulses of his hostility would be all
personal, gathering their distinctive character from that
fact; but the main object of it would be that influence of
the crown against which he had long struggled-an influence
which (in the very words of Mnemon) " revived the doctrine
of dispensing power, state necessity, arcana of government
and all that machinery of exploded prerogative which it had
cost our ancestors so much toil, and blood, and treasure to
break to pieces."*
But all the world would soon recognize this as the
war which Pitt had waged, and which the discontented
Whig earl would still wage, and thus the secret would
be compromised.  In his case the most subtle precautions
were necessary.  He took advantage of the old complaint,
and shutting himself up, at Bath and elsewhere, encouraged
reports that he was tortured and crippled with the gouta feeble, querulous old man, who would fall into hysterics
at the bare mention of politics, and who could not hold a
pen between his fingers. He went further, and countenanced
reports that there was something the matter with his brain.
In all this he certainly succeeded-that is, with the generality of people-the letters of the king, and those of the
Duke of Grafton and others, furnish proof unanswerable
that those who knew Lord Chatham best, never credited a
word of the insanity. Still, the common impression was,
that the earl was a wretched invalid-a lunatic-a lunatic
with a crutch, and bawling through a grate; especially as
* Miscellaneous Letter xiii. Feb. 24, 1768.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                75
the fierce "Poplicola," "Lucius," and the rest, took care to
let the world know as much! Again, the charactery of his
thoughts, his style of writing was to be considered. He had
been generally affecting a loose, inflated, ceremonial modethe very antipodes of his character and mind-curiously
contrasting with the vis vivida of his real manner.  This
way of writing would tend to keep him aloof from any general suspicion of authorship as regarded the strong anA pointed letters of the new writer. But there were a great many
who knew his real style, who had read it in his private
epistles, written under impulse, and who would be apt to
recognize his peculiarities of mind and phrase in the letters.
To change his true manner, or turns of thought, was out of
the question. This would be to cripple those powers on
which he depended for whatever effect his letters were to
produce. No doubt he would elaborate these into something more correct and pointed than his ordinary modes of
expression. Still he must necessarily have left them a
resemblance of the author, sufficient to direct the eyes of the
judicious upon him, to say nothing of the fact that his main
purpose was to advocate the general'courses known to be
his own. But he met this difficulty, also, in a manner that
disconcerted some of the acutest of his contemporaries, and
has succeeded in disconcerting the world in general from
that time to this. The very first of these letters, which he
resolved to transmit to posterity as the literature of Junius,
is a conditional, but sufficiently intelligible attack on the
character of Lord Chatham. This writer against the court,
the king's prerogative, and the influences behind the throne,
begins by attacking that venerable Whig chief, of all men in




76            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
England, coupling with him, subordinately, his most faithful political friend, Lord Camden. This was a very successful piece of strategy.  The man most certain that he
knew that tone of delivery was silenced. The voice was the
voice of Jacob; but the rough hand was the hand of some
Esau of the press.
All this, however, should, if not at that time, at
least long since, have roused a suspicion in the minds
of inquirers. The reader, will, perhaps, remember a similar
manceuvre related in Barham's " Life and Remains of Theodore Hook." The latter was the secret editor of the libelous John Bull newspaper; and in order to baffle the
dangerous curiosity of those who connected him with it, he
put the following notice into the journal, under the heading,
AIr. Theodore Hook:'1 The conceit of some people is amusing, and it has not been unfrequently remarked that conceit
is in abundance where talent is most scarce.  Our readers
will see that we have received a letter from Mr. Hook, disowning and disavowing all connection with this paper.'* * 
We are free to confess that two things surprise us in this
business.  The first, that anything which we have thought
worthy of giving to the public should have been mistaken
for Mr. Theodore Hook's; and secondly, that such a person
as Mr. Hook should think himself disgraced by a connection
with John BIull." This answered very well for one week.
The next, the John Bull contained the following: "cWe
have received Mr. Theodore Hook's second letter.  We are
ready to confess that we may have appeared to treat him
too unceremoniously. But we will put it to his own feelings
whether the terms of his denial were not, in some degree,




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 77
calculated to produce a little asperity on our part.  We
shall never be ashamed, however, to do justice; and we
readily declare that we meant no kind of imputation on Mr.
Hook's character."*  These clever demonstrations threw
most inquirers off the scent, and Hook worked on in safety.
This case in point may be borne in mind, during the
consideration of the Junian letters.
That Miscellaneous Series, as we have said, has been
formidably in the way of those who have been led to recognize in Junius the general features of Lord Chatham, just
as old Nominis Umbra intended it should be. We have not
read Mr. Swinden's book; but the fact that he considers
the greater part of that series spurious, and finds in the letter C., used by Junius in his private communications, a confirmation of the Chatham theory, does not inspire a wish to
look at his proofs. Dr. Waterhouse, who published two
years before Swinden, and who, in his general views, regards
the mystery aright, stands helpless in presence of the Poplicolas, Anti-Sejanuses, Coreggios, and so forth. These letters
have not been less hampering to the Franciscans.  Mr.
Bohn's editor is for putting " Poplicola" and some others
out of the argument, bidding them aroint.  They scowl so
dreadfully on Lord Chatham, that surely they never could
have been written by the young clerk of twenty-seven,
whose fortunes were built up by the earl's hands, and who
ever felt an affectionate veneration for his benefactor! There
need be little doubt of that.  But they are not to be hustled
about and selected, and discarded in that childish manner,
" Barham's Life of Hook, vol. i., p. 215.




78            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
at the discretion of the theorists..  They belong to Junius,
and must be fairly confronted by every one desiring to get
at the heart of this concealment.  The first of them is, we
repeat, admirably adapted as a feint.  But to a close examiner, at this distance, its exaggeration is fatal to it.  That
a writer whose main policy is known to have been that of
Lord Chatham, should denounce him in such solemn language, for a confessedly venial fault-a fault for which the
English people praised and absolved him-inevitably leads
to a suspicion that there is something hollow and hypocritical in the whole demonstration.
After quoting as an epigraph, a sentence of Livy, concerning the throwing of a traitor from the Tarpeian Rock, " Poplicola" makes a general sweep against dictators, and then
comes to his point with a "Let us suppose." He assumes a case
parallel to that of Lord Chatham (it is to be observed he never
mentions him, nor uses the direct proposition-the indicative
mood), and says: " Let us suppose him arrived at that moment, in which he might see himself within reach of the
great object to which all the artifices, intrigues, the impudence, and the hypocrisy of his past life were directed. On
the point of having the whole power of the crown committed to him, what would be his conduct? An affectation of
prostrate humility in the closet, but a lordly dictation of
terms to the people by whose interest he had been supported, by whose fortune he had subsisted (meaning the Grenvilles). Has he a brother? That brother must be sacrificed.  Has he a rancorous enemy?  That enemy must be
promoted. Have years of his life been spent in declaiming
against the pernicious influence of a favorite?  That favorite




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 79
must be taken to his bosom and made the only partner of
his power. X X * He must, also, take advantage of any
favorable conjuncture to try how far the nation will bear to
see the established laws suspended by proclamation, and
upon such occasions he must not be without an apostate
lawyer (Lord Camden) weak enough to sacrifice his own
character, and base enough to betray the laws of his country.  But the master-piece of his treachery, and the surest
way of answering all his purposes, would be (if possible) to
foment such discord between the mother country and her
colonies as may leave them both an easy prey to his own
dark machinations (!). I cannot, without horror, suppose it
possible that this our country should be at the mercy of so
black a villain."*  But if such a man should be discovered
hereafter, he hopes the people will show that a gibbet is
" not too honorable for the carcass of a traitor." This is
certainly a terrible hubbub of words. But the true nature
of it can easily be gathered from what follows.  In the
succeeding letters we see all this fierceness of blame curiously and suddenly softened and refined away, till it ends
at last in mere epithets, shrugs of the shoulders, and solemn
nods of the head. In the second letter, " Poplicola," in
reply to a defense of Chatham, published in the Public Advertiser, comes remarkably down from his first fulminating
attitude. (the reader remembers Hook). He had said Lords
Chatham  and Camden were traitors, the former of whom
especially deserved hanging, for violation of the constitution (because, in a great dearth of provisions which threat-' Miscellaneous Letter i., signed Poplicola, 28th April, 1767.




80            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
ened to be a famine, they had prevented by proclamation,
the exportation of corn, for about a month); now, however, he admits the measure itself was necessary.  But to
maintain that proclamation was legal, that was it-that was
what he meant!  The men who did that should be hanged
on a gibbet, as there was no Tarpeian Rock in London.
But the most curious feature of this matter is, that neither Chatham  nor Camden did, for a moment, maintain
that the act was anything more than an irregular proceeding in a period of distress. Therefore, as we see, the success of that first grand demonstration was procured with
very little real detriment to the venerable earl or his
friend.
Coining to the third letter, we begin to perceive the
honest, bitter, persevering purpose of this literature.  The
Princess Dowager of Wales and Lord Bute are ferociously
assailed. The writer says: " It was his (Bute's) good fortune to corrupt one man (Chatham), from whom we, least
of all, expected such base apostasy. Who, indeed, could
have suspected that it would ever consist with the spirit and
understanding of that person, to accept of a share of power
under a pernicious court minion, whom  he himself had
affected to detest, as much as he knew he was detested
and despised by the whole nation. I will not censure him
for the avarice of a pension, nor the melancholy ambition
of a title.  These were objects which he looked up to,
though the rest of the world thought them beneath his
acceptance. (This is said of the black-hearted traitor who
was about to demolish the constitution, and deserved to be
hanged, in the last letter!) But to become the stalking



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   81
horse of a stallion-(there is no mistaking the sincere ferocity of that expression), to shake hands with a Scotchman
at the hazard of catching all his infamy, to receive the word
from  him-' Prerogative and a Thistle'-by the once respected name of Pitt, it is below contempt!  May that
union, honorable as it is, subsist forever. May they continue to smell at one thistle, and not be separated even in
death."*
In the fifth letter, he turns the members of that wretched
ministry into ridicule, and has a serviceable allusion to "a
lunatic brandishing a crutch." Again, speaking of Lord
Chatham, he says: "His infirmities have forced him  into
retirement, where I presume he is ready to suffer with sullen
submission (of course!) every insult and disgrace that can
be heaped upon a miserable, decrepit, worn-out old man."t
This assertion of the earl's imbecility is significant. There
is a curious appearance of sympathizing with the unhanged
old traitor in it —an out-of-the-way pathos which seems
rather odd in a political disquisition.  There is also an
affectation of a careless regard, in that somewhat gratuitous
familiarity with the miserable, decrepit, worn-out old man,
which must strike the reader; and, in the whole, a tone of
personality, which could only have come from a man speaking disparagingly of himself. No political opponent would
talk in that rather impertinent manner. Again, Atticus,
who has been satirizing the ministry, all round, comes to
the Privy Seal, and says: " The Earl of Chatham-I had
much to say, but it were inhuman to persecute when Provi* Miscellaneous Letter iii. Signed Anti-Sejanus, June 24, 1767
t Miscellaneous Letter xxxv. Signed Lucius, Aug, 29, 1768.
4*




82            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
dence has marked out the example to mankind."* The
aposiopesis is completely Chathamic-it is the great orator,
to the life-reminding the reader of that grand stare at
Mansfield, in the House of Lords, then, "Judge  Felix
trembles!" and the full stop, with-" he shall hear from
me again, some other day." In the letter the shrug of the
shoulders is most eloquent-meaning, " A poor old incapable, too far gone for castigation!"
Just about this time the earl began to throw off his flannels and show himself abroad, freed from the burden of the
Privy Seal.  It is to be observed that the above letter of
" Atticus" is dated over a week after the surrender of that
Seal. What all the world knew in two days, Junius, it
seems, did not know in six; and then could he have known
anything about the earl, when he speaks of him as still
belonging to the ministry? A question for posterity, of
course. But there is a still more noticeable demonstration,
regarding Lord Chatham, which reflects itself back upon
those made at the beginning, and clearly shows the nature
of them. In reply to a missile launched at him by Horne
Tooke in 1771, Junius, whose mask is almost pushed off, is
obliged to speak in praise of Lord Chatham, in order to
guard his complication from  discovery.  It is to be remarked, that the only instances in which Junius is guilty
of the inconsistency of lauding at one time, those he fiercely
abused at another, occur in the cases of Lords Chatham and
Camden. Tooke tells Junius in the most significant manner, that his vituperation is a result of the king's and the
" Miscellaneous Letter xlviii. Signed Atticus, Oct. 19, 1768.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                83
Duke of Grafton's treatment of the Earl of Chatham.
Junius will not seem to wince, but boldly meets the insinuation, in language which, curiously enough, has the
conditional strain observable in the first letter of "Poplicola."  " It seems I am a partisan of the great leader of
the opposition.  If the charge had been a reproach, it
should have been better supported.  I did not intend to
make a public declaration of the respect I bear Lord Chatham.  I well knew what unworthy conclusions would be
drawn from it. But I am called on to deliver my opinion,
and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Horne to
deter me from.doing justice to the man who, I confess, has
grown upon my esteem. (The reader remembers Theodore
Hooke's —" we shall never be ashamed to do justice," and,
"we are free to confess"!)  As for the common, sordid
views of avarice, or any purpose of ambition, I question
much whether the applause of Junius would be of service
to Lord Chatham.  My vote will hardly recommend him to
an increase of his pension or a place in the cabinet. But
if his ambition be on a level with his understanding; if he
judges of what is truly honorable for himself, with the same
superior genius which animates and directs him to eloquence
in debate, to wisdom in decision, even the pen of Junius
shall contribute to reward him.  Recorded honors shall
gather round his monument and thicken over him. It is a
solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. I
am not conversant in the language of panegyric. These
praises are extorted from me. But they will wear well, for
they have been dearly earned." *' Letter liv., August 13, 1771.




84            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
This is designedly a badly written passage, and that part
about the monument and the laurels confused and clumsy.
It is full of art, and one of the most significant paragraphs
in the Junian letters.  At all events, this letter shows that
the hostility of Poplicola and Anti-Sejanus was mere pretense; for no one could truly both abuse and praise the
same man within the space of four years in such a very
contrasted manner.  This, and that curious falling away
from his first show of opposition, lay palpably open the
secret machinery of that subtlest of all letter-writers.  And
before passing on, we shall draw attention to a small part
of that machinery, which is in curious keeping with the
entire.  In defense of Lord Chatham against the first attack of Poplicola, W. D. (Sir William Draper, an ardent
admirer and correspondent of his lordship, whose bust, with
a Latin inscription, he had llaced in his garden), wrote a
letter to the Public Advertiser. "Poplicola," in retorting on
this, quotes W. D., as C. D., a seeming blunder, which, of
course, led people to imagine the mask must be some one
who did not recognize the initials at all-knew no one having such initials, and so fell into the mistake.  He talks of
C. D. all through his letter.  Did Mr. Woodfall attempt to
correct the mistake? Junius, with a consummate cunning,
pays as much attention to the small as to the chief points
of his scheme-as we shall see more distinctly in getting
along.
We now come to consider another feint which, in a certain
sense, is the most important of those he employed, and has
largely colored the seeming of that anonymous literature.
The palpable design of Lord Chatham was, that it should




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                    85
be attributed to the Grenvilles-to Lord Temple, in fact, or
some one writing from his dictation; and circumstances remarkably favored this intention. Temple was, at that time,
angrily discontented with his brother-in-law. He was the
chief patron and support of John Wilkes and his North
BritonHe was at charges for a newspaper,
And entertained a score or two of writers.
Stung by the dictatorial airs of Lord Chatham, in the
arrangement of the ministry, he went away to Stowe, where
he employed Mr. Humphrey-honest Humphrey —Cotes to
write the well-known "Enquiry," published  in 1766, and
denouncing the earl as a renegade to his obligations and
principles, and the tool of the Scottish favorite.* Thus,
just as he prepared himself to beat down and cry down that
unfortunate ministry, Junius found close to his hand the mask
he was to wear, as " Poplicola," and others. The reader remembers the words of the first letter: "Has he a brother?
that brother must be sacrificed."  In the "Enquiry into the
Conduct of a late Right Honorable Commoner," the writer
says: " He will be turned out as he has been turned in,
* Since the time of writing the foregoing, we are beset by the suspicion
that Temple's people never wrote the " Enquiry"-that it was written by
Lord Chatham himself. It has all the Chathamic style of animadversion,
and the motto —" Plain truth, dear Pynsent, needs no flowers of speech,"
-is also extremely suggestive of Lord Chatham's literary felicity. We
cannot believe Temple, who was not very malignant. would authorize
any one to adopt the tone of the " Enquiry" towards his brother-one
with whom he soon acted again. Without means of carrying out our
own inquiry, however, we merely state our strong conviction here.
This " Enquiry" was one of those things which led many to think the
missile of the masked assault came from Temple's armory.




86           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAIM.
only to add, if possible, something more to that public
odium and abhorrence of his name and character, which
have so unanimously followed his apostasy and promotion,
his desertion of his friends and his country, and the accomplishment of his long-sought wretched alliance with the
favorite who  laughs at his folly, despises his vanity,
exalts over his weakness, and rejoices in the public execration of such a hypocrite."  This is the key and tone of
1" Poplicola." All the world, reading that first Junian letter, agreed that "' Poplicola" was a Grenvillite, employed by
Temple; but they saw the pen was a new one; it had
something in it which did not belong to the others. Again
they saw that " Poplicola" used the very argument used by
Lord Temple in the House of Lords, on the opening of the
parliamentary session.  Before the meeting of the houses,
Lords Chatham and Camden had, on behalf of the people,
stopped the exportation of corn, a matter which Camden
frankly admitted was a " forty days' tyranny." On this,
Lord Temple, smarting from his recent wound, towered
into a liberty-loving indignation, and made a vehement
speech against such a dangerous infraction of the British
constitution.  "Forty days' tyranny over the nation by the
crown?   Who can endure the thought?  My lords, less
than forty days' tyranny, such as this country has felt
in some time, would, I believe, bring your lordships together, without summons from your sick beds, faster (mark
the sarcastic allusions to Lord Chatham) than our great
-patriots themselves, to get a place or a pension, or both;
and, for aught I know, make the subject of your consultation that appeal to heaven, that has been spoken of. Once




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 87
establish a dispensing power, and you cannot be sure of
either liberty or law for forty minutes."
The drift of Junius is palpable.  George Grenville is
spoken of as a great and honest minister, while, with regard
to Lord Temple himself, a marked silence is preserved,
with what must look like an apprehensive consciousness to
many readers. Except in the commencement, where he is
merely alluded to, and not named, there appears a studied
show of avoidance, with respect to so prominent a man,
such as he himself would (as the generality would conclude) be led into, were he the writer of the letters. The
matter has thus struck all who have advocated that
inadequate nobleman. Again, that letter of December 15,
1768, addressed to George Grenville, just before the name
"Junius" began to make itself famous, was a wonderful
confirmation of the belief that identified the anonymous
writer with the Grenvilles.  We need not multiply demonstrations of this kind. They are well known, and have
long sent inquirers after the mask to Stowe.  Sir James
Mackintosh, in the Edinburgh Review for June, 1826, bids
them be sure to look in that direction. Like all the rest, he
walked innocently straight after a thing which " doubles to
mislead the hound"-moves deliberately zig-zag.  Many
persons entertain an idea that Lord Chatham was on good
terms with the Grenvilles, his brothers-in-law. But it has
been shown that at this time they were at feud;* and we
can, therefore, clearly perceive how a show of supporting
*A few weeks before the publication of the first letter, the ill-feeling
between the Grenvilles and Chatham was aggravated by the refusal of
the latter to make George Grenville First Lord of the Treasury.




88            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
George Grenville just then, and being a Grenvillite, would
most admirably second the desire of Lord Chatham to keep
himself free from suspicion.
But, of course, he would not confine himself to one system of ambages and feints. His object would be to distract
inquiry by other demonstrations. And we, accordingly,
see that he desires to look like Edmund Burke, a man
whose great ability, quickness of feeling, and tone of prirciple, together with a certain audacity of speech, would
lead many to suspect him. In the Public Advertiser, under
date of October 22d, appeared Junius's melo-dramatic
account of a " Grand Council" of ministers on the affairs of
Ireland.* A day or two after, another writer (we think we
do know that sharp Roman hand!) gives, in the same paper,
what he calls a real account of what passed, at the same
time charging Burke with being the author of the satire.
In his account, he introduces the latter into a pretended
dialogue, under the name of "Brazen," and makes him
talk in the most bombastic and ridiculous style of a political
partisan, till he is fairly turned out of the room. With the
letter signed "Y. Z."t Junius sends for publication to the
Public Advertiser a speech recently spoken by Burke in his
place, against the ministry, the king's speech, etc., but not
published regularly by Mr. Burke till 1772.  Burke's advocates have greatly relied on this fact, and proved, with
critical success, that Burke, desiring to remain forever
unknown as Junius, would send one of his speeches to be' Miscellaneous Letter vii., Oct. 22,1767.
t Ibid. ix., Dec. 5, 1767.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   89
printed through the recognized channel of that writer. In
March, 1768, Junius writes sharply against his own letter
of March 4th  (Mnemon's), signing himself " Anti Van
Teague"*- the opponent of that Irishman!  Then Junius
comes out again as "Anti-Stuart,"t in retort against " Anti
Van Teague." Again, in that letter already alluded to,
signed " Y. Z.," where he speaks of " a party of us," Junius
shows his design; and also in his letter to Woodfall, where
he says " there are people about me whom I would wish not
to contradict, and who would rather see Junius in the papers ever so improperly, than not at all."I Every one was
aware of the fact that Edmund Burke's house was full of
his  relations and  namesakes-William  Burke, and his
brother Richard, being public writers as well as himself; and
it was believed by their opponents that they were always
concocting vituperation against every one and every thing
opposed to the Rockinghams.  That family was, in fact,
called "a nest of adders," as we see from a passage in
Burke's Correspondence,~ lately published.   In  another
place, "Modestus" (who is also Junius), writing to contradict Junius for some of his assertions in the Gansel case,
tries to make the public think Junius an Irishman, concluding thus: "I recommend it to you to tie up that over-drove
animal, John Bull,ll who seems indeed to be stimulated
* Miscellaneous Letter, xv., Mar. 11, 1768.
t In a subsequent chapter we shall speak more at length of this dividing
md going to buffets with himself, practiced by Junius.
T Private letter, No. viii., Sept. 10, 1769.
~ "Burke's Correspondence," edited by Earl Fitzwilliam and Gen.
3ourke.
11 Miscellaneous Letter lxvii., Nov. 28, 1769. This is, probably, in




90            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
to madness, that he may no longer profane a respectable
name, but own that which he received from his godfathers
and godmothers-Sir Patrick O'Bully."
These instances, and others that might be particularized,
show the dexterous efforts of the mask to send inquirers in
the direction of the only man of that day who approached
the intellectual, or, rather, the rhetorical, standard of Lord
Chatham.
Having, in his commencement, made the feints we have
set forth, and provided for all future collateral guards of his
secret, Junius felt himself at liberty to pursue with boldness
his cherished object —the annihilation of the ministry, which
had been forced on him, and which was, up to October,
1768, calling on him for help, abusing him, deserting to the
enemy, and declaring that his sickness was nothing but
a sham. Shut up from the world for about two years,
during which he only showed himself in public on fitful
occasions, he sternly continued, in the midst of questions,
calls, and exhortations, from the king and his colleagues,
to elaborate his fierce letters against the government,
the court party, and all persons and things connected with
their policy. The perplexity he left behind was a grim
comfort to his solitude; and while the king's horses were
wearing themselves out with galloping between the old
brick palace and Hayes, we can conceive how the bitterhearted hermit would bring to mind the king's cunning
solicitude to have just such a piebald ministry, and, with a
smile of savage pleasantry, murmur to himself, from a
allusion to a letter signed "John Bull," written on the side of Junius,
against Gen. Gansel.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  91
favorite author: " Vous l'avez voulu, votes l'avez voulu, George
Dandin; vouz l'avez voulu!"
Lord Campbell, in his " Lives of the Chancellors," alluding to the political blunders and confusions of this period,
says, that the inept and mischievous Lord Northington,
one of Chatham's colleagues in that shipwrecked ministry,
should have been fairly thrown overboard, and then the
vessel might have a chance of righting.* The terrible old
earl seems to have been of his lordship's opinion-only
that he went a little further, and did his best to throw them
all overboard.
* "Lives of the Chancellors," vol. v., p. 267.




CHAPTER V.
LORD CHATHAM'S UNDENIABLE LITERARY ABILITY, AND THE REMARKABLE
VERSATILITY OF HIS INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
William Pitt, the Cicero and Roscius of his age.
LORD ALBEMARLE.
His eloquence was of every kind; his invective was terrible.
LoRD CHESTERFIELD.
To show the identity of Chatham and Junius, it may be
necessary to dwell upon the fact, that the great minister was an
accomplished literary man, master of many expressions,
ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, and thus
meet the objections of those who speak from certain
acquired notions, and without investigating the matter for
themselves. One great dissuasive of the belief we hold, is
the idea the world has entertained of that venerable historic
personage, who talks with such loftiness, and falls with such
dignity upon the stage-an idea at variance with the truculent activity and bitterness of the letters.  Another is the
impression, pretty generally made, that the earl was no letter-writer. Lord Mahon, who labors hard in his history of
England, to avert suspicion from his ancestor, tries, in some
passages, to throw discredit upon the earl's letter-writing




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 93
abilities. In one place he quotes, for the purpose, from
a letter written by Burke to the Marquis of Rockingham, in
1769, and referring to the probable object of Chatham's late
visit at the king's levee: perhaps " to talk some significant,
pompous, explanatory, ambiguous matter, in the true Chathamic style."* Commenting on this, Lord Mahon says:
1" These words, it must be allowed, describe with considerable aptness, though not without exaggeration, as even now
we may trace them, Lord Chatham's epistolary faults."t
Burke is speaking of the earl's way of talking; but Lord
Mahon is ever mindful of the letter-writing deficiencies. It
is curious, however, to observe that he does not quote
Burke correctly; he omits part of a sentence, and that part
an expression which sets the character of Chatham in
its true light. Burke says, "if the latter went to court
without being sent for, it was only humbly to lay a reprimand at the feet of his most gracious master, and to talk
some significant, pompous, explanatory, ambiguous matter,
in the true Chathamic style." Burke's antithetical expression gives a vivid idea of the grim earl; and Burke knew
him well. But that idea would not at all suit Lord Mahon,
who seems always anxious to show his venerable relative
behaving like a fool, a crazy-brain, or, best of all, a driveling sycophant.  He quotes from the "Grenville Papers,"
with great unction, the incredible story of Chatham bursting
into tears in presence of the king, unable to bear his majesty's kindness! He also quotes, of course, the saying of
Wilkes, that Lord Chatham was the best orator, and the
*F "Burke's Correspondence," vol. i., p. 173.
t " Lord Mahon's History of England," vol. v., p.:369.




94            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
worst letter-writer of his age, and gives his own belief that
the earl "was careless in literary composition, inexact,
loose, and repetitionary."   This opinion, indeed, has been
long entertained. It is adopted by Heron (the man who
left his book at sixes and sevens, in such a curious way),
and the later critics seem to fall in with it very easily. A
glance, however, at the oratorical and literary side of Lord
Chatham's character will tend to weaken these preoccupations and fallacies.  The great statesman had no half
faculties; he was a man of many faculties, and whatever he
did, he did well; except in those cases where, as we shall
hereafter try to show, he wrote and acted purposely in an
odd, feeble manner; and truly in this, also, he may be said
to have done well; that is, successfully, and according to
the intent.  Lord Mahon has been showing the sham
" faults" of his relative's literature and life. We shall show
the genuine faults; for, no doubt, the angry, ambitious
man had a good many.
The earliest notices of William Pitt represent him as a
miracle of mental activity. His education was a good one;
he was skilled in composition, loved Milton, Spenser, and
the Georgian dramatists, was familiar with French literature, and wrote verses with much elegance.  Witness his
lines to David Garrick, the "vagabond" of another sort of
missive. Horace Walpole has given us glimpses of Pitt,
that show he was no mere political orator; but a manysided mind, an intrepid censor, a Pericles in high figurative
eloquence, a lively satirist, full of wit, sarcasm, and a terririble invective-a gladiator, in fine, unrivaled in the use of
a brilliant and varied armory. Writing to the Hon. H. S.




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                     95
Conway, on 15th November, 1755, he gives him that
spirited account, already quoted, of Pitt's general assault at
the Cockpit, on the continental policy of England, his usual
cheval de bataille.  Writing on the 16th to Richard Bentley,
he says: " Pitt surpassed himself; and then I need not tell
you he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What figure
would they, with their formal, labored cabinet orations,
make vis-a-vis his manly and dashing eloquence, at one
o'clock in the morning, after sitting in that heat for eleven
hours? He spoke above an hour and a half, with scarce a
bad sentence. The most admirable part was a comparison
he drew of the two parts of the new administration to the
conflux of the Rhone and the Saone-the latter a gentle,
feeble, languid stream, languid but not deep; the other, a
boisterous and overbearing torrent; but they meet at last,
and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each
other, and the glory, honor, and happiness of this nation."*
The peculiar irony of this sentence, describing the union of
* " Walpole's Correspondence," vol. i., p. 309. It is cetious that Walpole did not recollect the lines of Lord Roscommon which contain the imagery made use of by the orator, and which, it is very probable, the latter
quoted, in the words of the poet, as follows:' Thus have I seen a rapid, headlong tide,
With foaming waves the passive Saone divide,
Whose lazy waters without motion lay,
While he with eager force urged his impetuous way."
It is likely Walpole did not hear the speech, but took its points on the report of some of his friends who either forgot, or did not recognize the poetical quotation of the speaker. Lord Byron, whose style of writing and
turn of thought, in prose, show how familiar he was with Walpole's letters, has taken this image of the rivers, used by the two other lords, to express his idea of Madame de Stael's conversation with, we believe,
Counsellor Curran-the lady being, of course, the Rhone.




96             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
the energetic Fox with the easy mediocrity of Newcastle, at
a time when he himself was so pointedly excluded from office, will remind the reader of the conclusion of AntiSejanus's letter: "May that union, honorable as it is, subsist forever; may they continue to smell at one thistle, and
not be separated even in death!"*  Again, on 17th December, 1755, Walpole, writing to the same correspondent, says: "In short, I never heard so much wit, except in
a speech with which Pitt concluded the debate of the day,
on the Treaties. His antagonists endeavored to disarm
him; but as fast as they deprived him of one weapon, he
finds a better. I never suspected him of such a universal
armory. I knew he had a Gorgon's head, composed of
bayonets and pistols; but little thought he could tickle to
death with a feather. On the first debate of these famous
Treaties, last Wednesday, Hume Campbell, whom the Duke
of Newcastle had retained as the most abusive counsel he
could find, against Pitt (and hereafter, perhaps, against Fox),
attacked the former for his eternal invectives.  Oh, since
the last Philippic of Billingsgate memory, you never heard
such an invective as Pitt returned. Campbell was annihilated. * X * Some day or other, perhaps, you will see some
of the glitttering splinters that I have gathered. I have
written under his print these lines, which are not only full
as just as the original, but have not the tautology of " loftiness" and "majesty."
"Three orators, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
l Miscellaneous Letter iii. Anti-SejanuL, Jtne 24, 1767.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  97
The first, in loftiness of thought, surpassed,
The next, in language, and, in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go,
To make the last, she joined the other two."*
The reader may possibly be led to suspect the motive of
those, well-informed on everything else concerning Lord
Chatham, who still persist in saying a man of such force
and versatility of mind could not write very nearly as well
as he spoke. Lord Charlemont, and others, have recorded
their admiration of Pitt's amazing vigor of intellect.
"Heavens, what a fellow  is this Pitt!" exclaims the former, after some of the oratorical displays of 1766; and he
goes on to say that, whereas he already had Pitt's bust,
nothing less than his statue could satisfy him now. It is a
pity, Walpole and the rest do not give some of the "glittering splinters"-some specimens of what they so describe.
But we can find enough to supply the omission. There is
enough in Lord Chatham's printed speeches and letters
to show he appreciated the amenities and facilities of literature and style, and how admirably he could employ them.
We do not mean to lay any stress on his letters to his nephew,
Thomas Pitt; but we cannot conceive how any one who
reads them could say Lord Chatham was not able to write
good letters. There is much scholarly elegance, and the
tone of the old academe in them, and, though couched
in the didactic style, which becomes them, they exhibit as
much easy vivacity as good sense and refinement. Looking
over Thaclaeray's collection of his speeches, we find these
sprinkled with quotations, Latin and English, full of apt* "Walpole's Correspondence," vol. i., p. 312.
5




98            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
ness, native idiom, and wit.  Like all greatest men, he
was not afraid of compromising his dignity by stooping to
the commonplace and playful.  He knew how to raise such
things to the level of the occasion, and give them a significant grace by adopting them; he knew, in fact, that a
vernacular idiom is the best and truest vehicle of eloquence
or poetry.  During a debate, in 1763, on the Cider tax,
which he opposed, George Grenville, nettled by the opposition to his measure, grew angry, and asked, where else,
then, was he to lay the necessary impost; when Pitt, whose
purposes went beyond cider to the displacement of all
incapables, merely smiled, and sneered, and walked out
of the house, humming, in his own inimitable way, the words
of the song: " Gentle shepherd, tell me where?" sure of
the laughter which followed. He had his ends of verse, and
sayings of philosophers, for all occasions. But what respectable orator would wind up an appeal on the grave
subject of reconciliation between England and America
with the lines of the farce:
"Be to her faults a little blind;
Be to her virtues very kind!"
During the debate in the House of Lords, on the subject
of the House of Commons, which he had denounced as
venal and corrupt, he would exclaim:
"Fie on't, O fie,'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely."
Lord Chatham could compose very respectable verse, and
was partial to dramatists and dramatic readings. The
" Chatham Correspondence" tells us how he used to encour



JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                      99
age his children to act little plays; and it is very probable
he wrote and adapted them, on occasion.* He was intimate with Garrick, and, no doubt, a great admirer of a
histrionic genius in many recognized respects so congenial
with his own- for Lord Chatham was called the Roscius of
his age by those who knew him best.  In his sixty-fourth
year, he wrote the following lines, and sent them through
Lord Lyttelton to the great actor. Garrick is at Mount
Edgecombe, near Plymouth, and he is invited, seemingly, to
the ex-minister's farm:
Leave, Garrick, the rich landscape, proudly gay,
Docks, forts, and navies brightening all the bay,
To my plain roof repair, primeval seat;
Yet there no wonders your quick eye can greet,
Save you should deem it wonderful to find
Ambition cured, and an unpassioned mind;
A statesman without power and without gall,
Hating no courtiers, happier than them all;
Bowed to no yoke, nor crouching for applause,
Votary alone of freedom and the laws.
Herds, flocks, and smiling Ceres deck the plain,
And interspersed, a heart enlivening train
Of sportive children frolic o'er the green;
Meantime pure love looks on and consecrates the scene.
Come, then, immortal spirit of the stage,
Great nature's proxy, glass of every age;
Come, taste the simple life of patriarchs old,
Who, rich in rural peace, ne'er thought of pomp or gold.t
* In "Madame D'Arblay's Memoirs," we are informed how a dear old
friend of hers, Mr. Crisp, sent his play of Virginia to Mr. Pitt, in 1754, in
order to receive the correction or the criticism of his acknowledged fine
taste. This great man, who did not know how to write a letter (according to Lord Mahon), seems to have been regarded as one of the Maecenases of his time-the arbiter of literary elegance.  Thomson, who addresses him in the Seasons, knew what he was.
t See Lord Mahon's "History of England, vol. iv., p. 197. These
Arcadian verses were written, ore for posterity than for David Garrick.




100            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Some months previously, on 10th of November, 1771,
Junius had written his fierce note to Garrick, calling him a
vagabond, and bidding him keep to his pantomimes, at his
peril. If Garrick had been suggesting that Lord Chatham
had a hand in the dreaded letters-and this is very likely,
here was a rather staggering piece of poetry! After this, he
had nothing to do, of course, but to take back everything
he may have been whispering about the inexplicable earl.*
A variety of literary levities and quotations shows Lord
Chatham's familiarity with the poets and dramatists-shows
how he, who was Roscius as well as Cicero, could relish
a little farce, too. WVriting to the absent countess on 18th
April, 1772, he gives a ludicrous description of the household: "George, Jack Groom, Podge, the helper Tilly-all
in tribulation and brimstone. Podge sustains the courage
of all by his bons mots.  Being condemned by Mr. Saunders,
he only asked the doctor if one might eat with his distemper.
The answer being in the affirmative, Podge thanked the
doctor, and said he did not care, then, for a little scratching.
The pestiferous are all stuffed together into a room, and
communication cut off. Podge again, hearing the order for
close confinement, says, why don't my lord shut us up in the
great coop, and have our victuals put through on forks, as
they feed the birds."t Again, on January 18, 1775, his
lordship, writing to the same, says: "For God's sake, sweet' It is only in a fragmentary and indirect way we are likely to come at
the true idea of Lord Chatham's literary accomplishments. In the " Table
Talk"' of the poet Rogers, lately published, we have him stating he always understood the orations of Pericles, in Smith's Thucydides, were
translated by the great English orator.
t " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 215.




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                   101
life, don't disquiet yourself about the impudent and ridiculous lie of the hour. The plot does lie very deep. It is
only a spiteful device of fear-court fear, and faction fear.
If gout does not put in a veto-which I trust in heaven it
will not-I will be in the House of Lords on Friday, then
and there to make motions relative to America. Be of good
cheer, noble love!
Yes, I am proud, I must be proud, to see
Men, not afraid of God, afraid of me.'
This seems to show that Junius had not gone to foreign
parts, but was in England still. In another letter, of January 25, 1775, writing to Lord Shelburne, and alluding to
the papers laid before parliament on the subject of America,
he says: "'What a correspondence!  It calls to my mind
what some Pope-Alexander VI., Pius, or Leo-said to a
son of his, afraid to undertake governing-that is, confounding the nation-Nescis mi fili, quam  parva  sapientia hic
noster mundus reqitur.t  What a dialogue between a secretary
of state and a general, in  such a crisis!  Could these
bundles reach the shades below, the remarks of Ximenes
and Cortez on them would be amusing.  * * *  Where it is
to end, I do not conjecture; in perdition, I fear.  The three
regiments are trifling, and the dragoons put me in mind of
le regiment de cavalerie sur les galgres de Mialte, in a scene of' " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 371.
t This is popularly known as the saying of the Chancellor Oxenstiern,
but Lord Chatham's quotation coincides with that of Selden, as we see
in his "Table Talk." It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find the origin
of sayings like the above, based, as they are, on truths of nature and society that impress themselves generally on the minds of men.




102           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Moliere."*  These extracts will tend to give a true idea of
Lord Chatham. That passage about the servants shows
his sense of the odd and the laughable, and his power of
describing them-something resembling the happy way of
Rev. Sydney Smith-while the other shows the impulsive
nature of the man, at his age, addressing his old wife as if
she was a sweetheart in her prime, and then shaking his
head with such a terrible Junian menace, in that couplet.
Those paragraphs from the letter to Lord Shelburne are in
the truest style of Junius. Such genuine expressions of the
earl's mind lead us easily to recognize him, in the sarcastic
and farcical style of the Miscellaneous Letters, in which he
delineates the " Grand Council of Ireland," calls the oratorical manner of the Duke of Grafton a rigmarole, a riddlemeree, and three blue beans in a bladder; terms Tommy
Bradshaw a cream-colored parasite, and Chamier a wonderful Girgashite-a "'tight, active little fellow, that would
wrangle for an eighth, if in Jerusalem;" and, as " Veteran,"
laughs with a jocose ferocity at Lord Barrington. Any
objection against Lord Chatham's age is met by the fact that
at no time of his life was he more full of energy and spirit
than in 1770; never did he more gallantly flutter the Volsces in Corioli. That ludicrous epistle about Podge was
written two or three years after the date of the Junian
levities.
The assumption, therefore, that Lord Chatham could not
write good letters, is an utter fallacy. The fact is, that no
epistolary writer of his age was equal to him in that line;
*" Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 386.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               103
and few, who have read what he has left, as corrected
speeches or letters, can be so ignorant as not to conceive
how Walpole and Chesterfield would sink, and did sink, very
far below him. We believe English literature has suffered
a great loss, in the lost letters of the elder Pitt, the noblest,
most alert, and best-armed intellect of his time. The
correspondence put forth by his descendants in 1838,
is a comparatively poor collection, containing as much
of other people's writing as of his, and giving, doubtless,
the mildest of his manuscript. Seeing what he was and
what we have, as his recognized remains, we are strongly
led to the conclusion that a great amount of his correspondence was destroyed by himself or others. When his son,
William Pitt, in company of some of his literary friends,
was once wishing, above all things, for one of Bolingbroke's
unreported speeches, perhaps he was unaware that his
father's letters were better worth wishing for?
Not that Wilkes and the rest have not had a show of
reason for their opinion of the earl's letter-writing.  Some
of his correspondence is, no doubt, what people have said of
it-heavy and inexact. But this, we repeat, resulted from
the elaborate design of the man, who was, probably, during
the greater part of his career, an anonymous political writer;
for it would be ridiculous to suppose he only began in 1767.
In his common correspondence —at least in that portion
which has been printed by his descendants-he sometimes
seems careless and lumbering to a degree: one would suppose it was the Duke of Newcastle, and not William Pitt.
But our knowledge of the latter, and of his genuine manner, flashing ever and anon from such remains of him as




104           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
we have, leads the close observer to see that the writer is
dissimulating.  Some of his letters are so extravagantly
clumsy and slavish, that they betray him, and the dullest is
scarcely deceived. It was the same with the personal demeanor of Lord Chatham, respecting the king and the
court.  He used to bend so obsequiously at the leveeespecially about the beginning of the Junian controversythat, as Chase Price used to say, you could see, from behind, the tip of his hooked nose between his legs! There
were few who did not suspect all this extravagance in the
manner of such a terribly bold, irrespective man; and it
was, certainly, the perfection of hypocrisy. Of the same
character was the style of his lumbering letters to the king,
in which the grammar as well as the writer seems kootooing
at the feet of one whom he disrespected —as the world
knows. Lord Mahon, who seems but too happy to quote
anything respecting the poor-spirited subserviency, as well
as the shocking syntax of Lord Chatham, does not think
those airs of deference too trifling to speak about in his
History of England. Alluding to a letter from Pitt to
Bishop Warburton, who had been getting up an address
in his diocese (terming that hated peace of 1762 an adequate peace), he says: "The reply of Pitt is couched in
his usual epistolary style of humility, bordering on obsequiousness, which affords such a strange contrast to the
proud and lofty tenor of his life.  He first declares he
should be guilty of temerity were he to presume to exercise
his own judgment in such a case. But he then proceeds to
lay, as the bishop afterwards confessed, his finger on the
weak parts of this transaction:-' I will only venture to




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 105
observe, my lord, that the Cathedral of Gloucester, which
certainly does not stand alone in true duty and wise zeal
towards his majesty, has nevertheless the fate not to be
imitated by any other episcopal see in the kingdom, in this
unaccustomed effusion of fervent gratitude on the peace.' "*
The slow, stern irony of the letter exhibits a remarkable
evidence of design, and reveals a gleam of the Junian sarcasm which also flashes from that heavy, round-about missive
to the Duke of Newcastle, already quoted.  Lord Mahon
says the earl was "unduly pompous in the language and
humble in the tone" of his gratitude to the king for making
him a peer; and Lord Brougham has also recorded his unfavorable opinion of that strange humility. "It is painful,"
he says, with reference to the letters to the king, "to add,
what truth extorts, that this is really not the sentiment and
the language with which a patriot leaveg his sovereign's
councils, for a broad difference of honest opinion, and after
being personally ill-used by that monarch's favorites; but
the tone of feeling and even the style of diction, in which
a condemned felon, having sued for mercy, returns thanks
when his life has been spared. The pain of defacing any
portion of so noble a portrait as Lord Chatham's, must not
prevent me from making the traits of a somewhat vulgar
and sordid kind, which are to be found on a closer inspection of the original."t
We believe there is "a closer inspection of the original"
which his lordship does not seem or pretend to be aware
t "' Lord Mahon's History of England," vol. v., p. 64.
* "Statesmen of the Times of George III." First Series, p. 47.
5*




106           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
of. Why did that haughtiest and most intrepid of men,
who almost called George the Second a coward; who, about
1762, called George the Third the falsest hypocrite in Europe (as Wilkes intimates in a letter to Junius, whom he
believed to be, if not the earl, some one working under his
eye), and who, in 1770, declared aloud that the king had
deceived him —why did that gladiatorial genius write in
such a curiously slavish style?  This is not the natural
blemish of such a portrait, but a strangely unaccountable
daub or blot on the picture, setting every one wondering
how it ever came there. That it was the result of a deeplaid purpose, is very evident. The theory of these pages
gives it an easy explanation. No doubt, in all these dull,
obsequious letters to his majesty, there is conveyed a vast
amount of sarcasm and irony, peculiar to Pitt's nature —
such as he employed in an interview with George III., in
1765, when he called himself, knowing he was looked up
to by the nation, "a little knife;" and such as palpably
looks out from the affected pleonasm of his letters to the
Bishop of Gloucester, to Lord Hardwicke, and to the Duke
of Newcastle. Along with this, it is, in all likelihood, the
truth that, long before the opening of the Junian series,
Pitt was in the habit of writing strong public letters,
anonymously, especially during the controversy in 1762
and 1763, on the subject of the peace.*  For a long series
of years he, doubtless, found it necessary to counteract suspicion by a show of loyal duty, and by the other devices
I In a succeeding chapter we shall point to Junius in his usual attitude, standing at a distance of ten years from his recognized chronologY.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               107
of a slow and ineffective style. An examination of the old
files of the London newspapers might throw great light on
this question.
We have thus tried to show Chatham as he was-a man
of great mental grasp and dexterity, the master of many
literary modes, and very different from that cold, crotchety,
ceremonial character, which many represent him to have
been. We have also observed what seems the undeniable
trace of simulation in his correspondence. The style of it,
in some places, so creeping and so full of subserviency, has
caused general surprise; it shocks all one's notions of such
a man. The biographers, here, stand puzzled in presence
of their subject. And not in this respect alone. There
are portions of the last decade of his life which they declare
past coming at, in any way —shadows, clouds, and darkness
rest upon them. The truth is, that the grim earl has, in
his own way, been almost as great a riddle as Junius. The
investigator would do well to carry this curious similarity
along with him. It is one of the parallels.  We are now
about to consider a few of these.




CHAPTER VI.
A CONSIDERATION OF PARALLEL PASSAGES, IN WHICH THE POLITICAL SENTIMENTS OF JUNIUS AND LORD CHATHAM ARE SHOWN TO BE COINCIDENT.
Fore Gad, they are both in a tale!
DOGBERRY.
The worthy chairman arraigns the hand; I impeach the head. He impeaches the scholar: I the master.
LORD CONINGSBY.
IN the year 1770, Lord Chatham, coming once more into
the political arena, like a giant refreshed with wine, delivered two great speeches in the House of Lords, sweeping, with
that scope of mind which belonged to the genius of the
man, the whole controversial field of politics and statesmanship-a theme on which his mind had brooded long and
angrily-and in those speeches (reported by Mr. Philip
Francis, a young clerk of the War-Office, and not published
till 1791, over twenty years after) are found many passages
which curiously show that the great earl and Junius
thought and expressed themselves alike regarding the highest questions of national policy.  The inference drawn
from this similarity by Taylor-as great a tyrant in theory




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                   109
as Procrustes was in practice-and by others, following
him, is, that the reporter was Junius! Without any more
notes of admiration, we shall trace a few of these parallels,
and show how easily and naturally they fall into their
places in the regular march to our conclusion-a conclusion
very different from Mr. Taylor's.
The first of these Chathamic speeches took place on the
9th of January, and the other on the 22d of the same month,
in 1770.
Here follow the parallels. On the first of these days,
LORD CHATHAM* said he was satisfied there was a power,
in some degree arbitrary, with which the constitution
intrusted the crown, to be made use of, under the correction
of the legislature, and at the hazard of the minister. That
on this principle he had himself advised a measure which he
knew was not strictly legal, but he recommended it as a
measure of necessity, to save a starving people from
famine, and had submitted to the judgment of his country.
JUNIUS (writing on the old subject two years later-a
subject, by the way, which seems more interesting to him
than to anybody else):-That parliament may review the
acts of a minister is unquestionable. But there is a wide
* In these pages, wherever it is necessary tO quote the letters, we have
indicated them by their dates and numbers, rather than by the pages of
any edition-seeing that all readers would not have the same. In the passages quoted, writers italicize the close resemblances. But that habit of
putting sentences in italics is a bad one. It cherishes a laziness of attention in the reader's mind, and should be condemned along with the system
of. claqueurs in a theatre. The reader here will please italicize for himself.




110           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
difference between saying that the crown has a legal power,
and that ministers may act at their peril.  Instead of
asserting that the proclamation was legal, he (Lord Camden) should have said, " My Lords, I knew the proclamation
was illegal; but I advised it because it was indispensably
necessary to save the kingdom from famine, and I submit
myself to the justice and mercy of my country."*  Junius
has a purpose of mystification in referring to that stale
old story. Camden never denied that the act was strictly
out of the course of law. He said it was a sort of forty days'
tyranny, as we have seen.
CHATHAM:-He owned his natural partiality for America,
and was inclined to make allowances even for those excesses.  They ought to be treated with tenderness; for, in
his sense, they were ebullitions of liberty which broke out
upon the skin, and were a sign, if not of perfect health, at
least, of a vigorous constitution, and' must not be driven in
too suddenly, lest they should strike to the heart.
JuNIus (subsequently to the speech): —No man regards
an eruption upon the surface, when the noble parts are
invaded, and he feels a mortification approaching his heart.
* * *  I shall only say, give me a healthy, vigorous constitution, and I shall hardly consult a looking-glass to discover a blemish on my skin.t
We may observe here, that this favorite figure might
have been suggested to Lord Chatham, by the large warts
that, as we see in his portrait, marked his own face, and his
nose. Lord Chatham, like Pericles, Bacon, Kossuth, and' Letter lx., Oct. 15,1771.
t Private letter to Wilkes, Sept. 18, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                111ll
all vigorous and vivid thinkers, loved to give his meaning
in metaphorical shapes. Nothing, we think, more unconsciously shows the identity of the orator and writer in this
argument. Good figures are excellent things, and nobody
ever strikes out a felicity of the sort without reproducing it, on
more than one occasion.
CHATHAM — The Americans had purchased their liberty at
a dear rate, since they had quitted their native country, and
gone in search of freedom to a desert.
JUNIus (near a month before the speech): —They (the
Americans) left their native land, in search of freedom, and
found it in a desert.*
CHATHAM: —The privileges of the House of Peers, however transcendent, however appropriated to them, stood, in
fact, upon the broad bottom of the people. The rights
of the greatest and meanest subjects now stand upon
the same foundation, the security of law common to all.
JuNIus (two months subsequently): —However distinguished by rank, or property, in the rights of freedom we
are all equal.  As we are Englishmen, the least considerable man amongst us has an interest equal to that
of the proudest nobleman, in the laws and constitution of
this country.t
CHATHAM: —This writer (Robertson), in his life of Charles
V., a great, ambitious, wicked man, informs us that the
peers of Castile were so far reduced and cajoled by him, as
to join him in overturning that part of the Cortes which
represented the people.
~' Letter xxxv., Oct. 19, 1769.
t Letter xxxvii., Mar. 19, 1770.




112            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Jumus (near two years subsequently):-I am  persuaded
you will not leave it to the choice of seven hundred persons
notoriously corrupted by the crown, whether seven millions
of their equals shall become freemen or slaves.  Without
insisting on the extravagant concession made  to  Henry
VIII., there are instances in the history of other countries
of a formal deliberate surrender of the public liberty into
the hands of the sovereign.*
CHATHAM:-He (Charles V.) made use of the people,
whom he had enslaved, to enslave others, and employed the
strength of the Castilians to destroy the rights of their
free neighbors of Arragon.t
JUNIUS (a year later): —We are the slaves of the House
of Commons, and, through them, we are the slaves of the
king and his ministers."'
CHATHAM: —The man, who has lost his own freedom, becomes from that moment an instrument in the hands of
an ambitious prince, to destroy the freedom of others.
JUNIus (two months later): —We can never be really in
danger, till the forms of parliament are made use of to
destroy our civil and political liberties-till parliament
betrays its trust, by contributing to establish new principles
* Dedication of the Letters.
t We may observe as a matter of literary curiosity, that Lord Chatham seems to have got his Junian motto from one of the speeches of
Harley, Earl of Oxford, who said (1711), speaking of the States of Castile: Sunt magni nominis umbre. The critics have traced the motto to
Lucan's Pharsalia; but it is very probable Pitt did not find it there
any more than the Edinburgh Reviewers found their epigraph in Publius Syrus. The most learned people don't always quote their Greek and
Latin from the original.
$ Miscellaneous Letter xcv. Signed "A Whig," April 9, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                113
of government, and employing the very weapons committed to it by the collective body, to stab the constitution.*
CHATHAM: —I speak it boldly, it were better for them to
perish in a glorious contention for their rights, than to
purchase a slavish tranquillity, at the expense of a single
iota of the constitution.
JUNIUS (subsequently): —I confess, sir, I should be contented to renounce the forms of the constitution once more,
if there were no other way to obtain substantial justice for
the people.t
Junius repeatedly expresses these sentiments, so full of the
spirit of Lord Chatham.
CHATHAM (with reference to the conduct of the House
of Commons in the expulsion of Wilkes):-My lord, there
is one plain maxim to which I have invariably adhered
through life.  That in every question in which my liberty
or my property were concerned, I should consult and be
determined by the dictates of common sense.
JUNIUS (on the same subject, six months previously): —It
is a point of fact, on which every Englishman will determine
for himself. As to lawyers, their profession is supported by
the indiscriminate defense of right and wrong, and I confess, I have not that opinion of their knowledge or
integrity, to think it necessary that they should decide for
me on a plain constitutional question.:
CHATHAM: —I confess I am apt to distrust the refinements
* Letter xxxv, March19 1770.   t Letter xliv., April 22, 1771.
~ Letter xiv., June 22, 1769.




114            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
of learning.  But Providence has taken better care of our
happiness, and gives us in the simplicity of common sense a
rule for our direction.
JUNIUs (subsequently):-This proposition is singular
enough, and turns upon a refinement very distant from the
simplicity of common sense. (Again-addressing Lord
Mansfield, on his charge to the jury in Almon's case.) Now,
my lord, without pretending to reconcile the distinctions of
Westminster Hall with the simple information of common
sense, etc.* (And again, in a letter to Woodfall.) The
Latin word simplex conveys to me an amiable character,
and never denotes folly. With a sound heart be assured
you are better gifted than if you were cursed with the abilities of a Mansfield.t
CHATHAM: —My lords, I must beg the indulgence of the
House. Neither will my health permit me, nor do I pretend to be qualified to follow that learned Lord (Mansfield)
through the whole of his argument.  No man is better
acquainted with his abilities and learning, nor has a greater
respect for them than I have.
JUNIUS (subsequently, addressing Mansfield): —When I
acknowledge your abilities, you may believe I am sincere.
I feel for human nature, when I see a man so gifted as you
are, descend to such vile practice.4  (Again.)  Let it be
remembered, that Junius never pretends to be a better lawyer than Lord Mansfield.  On the contrary, he takes every
opportunity tb acknowledge the learning and abilities of that
wicked judge.~
* Letter xli., Nov. 14, 1770. t Private Letter, No. xliv., Nov. 27, 1771.
Letter xli., Nov. xliv, 1770.
S Miscellaneous Letter cvi. Signed "Anti-Belial," Feb. 6, 1772.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                115
CHATHAM: —My lord, I affirm  they  (the Commons)
have betrayed their constituency, and violated the constitution.  Under pretense of declaring the law, they have made
a law, and united in the same persons the offices of legislator and of judge.
JUNIUS:-The crime, like the punishment, was in their
own bosom. They were ex post facto legislators; they were
parties; they were judges; and, instead of a court of final
judicature, acted as a sort of criminal jurisdiction in the
first instance. The absolute power of the crown, by the
assistance of the handmaid, corruption, puts on the disguise of privilege.   The cabal advances on us, as an army
once did upon a tower.  It displayed before it a multitude
of nuns, and overawed the resistance of the besieged by the
venerable appearance.*
This figurative sentence is very characteristic. The sentiments of the above are repeated in other parts of the Junian correspondence.
CHATHAM: —My lords, I am a plain man, and have been
brought up in a religious reverence for the original simplicity of the laws of England.
JUNIUS: —Is this the law of parliament, or is it not?  I
am a plain man, sir, and cannot follow you through the
phlegmatic forms of an oration. (Again, writing to Sir William Draper): —Suffer me, then, for I am a plain, unlettered
man, to continue that style of interrogation which suits my
capacity.t
* Miscellaneous Letter xcii. Signed "An Englishman," etc., March 25,
1771.
t Letter vii., March 3, 1769.




116           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
CHATHAM:-The noble lord assures us that he knows not
in what code the law of parliament is to be found; that the
House of Commons, when they act as judges, have no law
to direct them but their own wisdom: that their decision is
law, and, if they determine wrong, the subject has no appeal
but to heaven. What, then, my lords, are all the generous
efforts of our ancestors-are all their glorious contentions,
by which they meant to secure to themselves and transmit
to their posterity a known law, reduced to this conclusion,
that, instead of the arbitrary power to the king, we must
submit to the arbitrary power of the House of Commons? Tyranny, my lords, is detestable in every shape;
but in none so formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of tyrants. But, my lords, we have Magna Charta, we have the statute book, we have the Bill of
Rights.
JUNIUS (over a year subsequently):-The House of Commons judge of their own privileges without appeal. * * *
Surely, sir, this doctrine is not to be found in Magna Charta.  If it be admitted without limitation, I affirm there
is neither law nor liberty in this kingdom. We are the
slaves of the House of Commons, and through them the
slaves of the king and his ministers.*  * * *  The power
of the legislature is limited. If this doctrine be not true,
we must admit that kings, lords, and commons have no
rule to direct their resolutions but their own will and
pleasure.t
CHATHAM:-What security would the people have for
* Miscellaneous Letter xcv. Signed " A Whig," April 9, 1771.
t Dedication of the Letters.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              117
their rights, if once they admitted that a court of judicature may determine every question that came before
it, not by any known positive law, but by the vague, indeterminate, arbitrary rule of what the noble Lord (Mansfield) is pleased to call the wisdom of the court?
JUNIUS (some months subsequently, addressing Mansfield
on the subject of judicial decisions):-Instead of those certain positive rules, by which the judgment of a court of
law should be determined, you have fondly introduced your
own unsettled notions of equity and substantial justice.
The Court of King's Bench becomes a court of equity, and
the judge, instead of consulting strictly the law of the land,
refers only to the wisdom of the court, and the purity of his
own conscience.*
CHATHAM (alluding to the expulsion of Mr. Walpole, in
a preceding reign): —Incapacity was, indeed, declared, but
his crimes are stated as the ground of the resolution, and
his opponent was declared to be not duly elected, even after
his incapacity was established.
JuNIus  (some months previously):-Now, sir, to my
understanding, no proposition can be more evident than that
the House of Commons, by this very vote, themselves
understood, and meant to declare, that Mr. Walpole's incapacity arose from the crimes he had committed, not from
the punishment of the House annexed to them. They did
not infer from Mr. Walpole's incapacity that his opponent
was duly elected; on the contrary, they declared Mr.
Taylor not duly elected, and the election itself void.t
* Letter xli., Nov. 14, 1770.  t Letter xx., Aug. 8, 1769.




118           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
CHATHAM: —That it violates the spirit of the constitution,
will, I think, be disputed by no man who has heard this
day's debate.
JUNIs:-He not only betrays his master, but violates
the spirit of the English constitution.  * * *  To what
extent a king of England may be protected by the form,
when he violates the spirit of the constitution, deserves to
be considered.*
This mode of expression occurs repeatedly in the letters.
CHATIIAM:-Let us not, then, degenerate from the glorious example of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so
I may call them, when compared with the silken barons of
modern days) were the guardians of the people.
JUNIUS (subsequently): —I should be glad to mortify
those contemptible creatures who call themselves noblemen.t
He also speaks of the bloody Barrington as a silken,
fawning courtier.
CHATHAM: —My lords, this is not merely the cold opinion
of my understanding, but the glowing expression of what I
feel-it is my heart that speaks.
JUNIUS (subsequently):-The formality of a well-repeated lesson is widely distant from the animated expression of
the heart. * * *  Forgive this passionate language.  I am
unable to correct it; the subject comes home to us all; it is
the language of my heart4.
" Preface to the Letters.
t Private Letter to Wilkes, Sept. 7, 1771. A critic points to this as a
proof that Junius could not have been a nobleman-a shrewd criticism!
t Letter lviii., Sept. 30, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                119
CHATHAM: —In his (Wilkes's) person, though he were the
worst of men, I contend for the safety and security of the
best; and, God forbid, my lords, that there should be a power
in this country of measuring the civil rights of the subject
by his moral character.
JUNIUS (some months previously): —Let Mr.Wilkes's character be what it may, this at least is certain, that, circumstanced as he is with regard to the public, even his vices
plead for him. The people of England have too much discernment to suffer your grace to take advantage of the
failings of a private character to establish a precedent.*
CHATHAM: —Be it so; there is one ambition at least
which I will ever acknowledge, which I will not renounce
but with my life. It is the ambition of delivering to my
posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from
my ancestors.
JUNIUS (previously): —We owe it to our ancestors, to
preserve entire those rights which they have delivered to
our care.  We owe it to our posterity not to suffer their
dearest inheritance to be destroyed.t
CHATHAM:-His majesty will then determine whether he
will yield to the united petitions of the people of England.
or maintain the House of Commons in the exercise of a
legislative power, which heretofore abolished the House of
Lords and overturned the monarchy.
JUNIus (previously; in his famous letter to the King):-By
depriving a subject of his birth-right, they (the Commons)
have attributed to their own vote an authority equal to an
* Letter ix., April 10, 1769.  t Letter xx., August 8, 1769.




120           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
act of the whole legislature, and though, perhaps, not with
the same motives, have strictly followed the example of the
Long Parliament, which first declared the regal office useless, and soon after, with as little ceremony, dissolved the
lords.  The same pretended power which robs an English
subject of his birth-right, may rob an English king of his
crown.*
CHATHAM:-I should be sorry to trust to their (the Commons') future moderation; unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it-and this I know,
my lords, that when law ends, tyranny begins.
JUNIUS (to the King):-When once they (the Commons)
have departed from the great constitutional line, who will
answer for their future moderation?  Your majesty may
learn, hereafter, how nearly the slave and tyrant are allied.t
We now come to the vehement speech of the 22d of
January, on the motion of Lord Rockingham, for a day to
consider the affairs of the nation.
CHATHAM:-Rather than the nation should surrender its
birth-right to a despotic minister, I hope, my lords, old as
I am, I shall see the question brought to issue, and fairly
tried between the people and the government.
JuNIus (subsequently, on the same subject):-The time
is come when the body of the English people must assert
their own cause; conscious of their strength and animated
by a sense of their duty, they will not surrender their birthright to ministers, parliaments or kings.:
* Letter xxxv., Dec. 19, 1769.   t Ibid.
I Letter xxxvii., March 19,1770.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               121
CHATHAM:-I have been bred up in those principles, and
know that when the liberty of the subject is invaded and all
redress is denied him, resistance is justified.  If I had a
doubt upon the matter, I should follow the example set us
by the most Reverend Bench, with whom I believe it is a
maxim, when any doubt in point of faith arises, to appeal
at once to the source and evidence of our religion-I
mean the Holy Bible. The constitution has its political
bible, by which, if it be fairly consulted, every political
question  may, and  ought to  be, determined.  Magna
Charta, the Bill of Rights, and the petition of Rights,
form that code which I call the Bible of the English Constitution.
JUNIUs (subsequently):-The civil constitution, that legal
liberty, that general creed, which every Englishman professes, may still be supported, though Wilkes, and Horne,
and Townsend, and Sawbridge should obstinately refuse
to communicate, and even if the fathers of the church,
Saville, Richmond, Camden, Rockingham, and Chatham,
should disagree in the ceremonies of the political worship,
and even in the interpretation of twenty texts in Magna
Charta.*
This last is one of those lights which reveal the writer
most incontestibly.
CHATHAM (on the subject of Corsica):-By suffering our
natural enemies to oppress the powers less able to make
resistance, we have permitted them to increase their
strength, and found ourselves at last obliged to run every
~ Letter lix., Oct. 5,1771.
6




122            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
hazard in making that cause our own, in which we were not
wise enough to take a part, while the expense and danger
might have been supported by others.  With respect to
Corsica, I shall only say, that France has obtained a more
useful and important acquisition in one pacific campaign
(the Duke of Bedford's Treaty of Paris) than in any of her
belligerent campaigns; at least, while I had the honor of
administering the war against her.
JUNIuv (previously); —If, instead of disowning Lord
Shelburne, the British court had interposed with dignity
and firmness, you know, my lord, that Corsica would never
have been invaded. The French saw the weakness of a
distracted ministry, and were justified in treating you with
contempt. Either we siffer the French to make an acquisition, the importance of which you probably have no conception of,* or we oppose them by an underhand management, which only disgraces us in the eyes of Europe. From
our secret, indiscreet assistance, a transition to some more
open decisive measures becomes unavoidable, till, at last,
we find ourselves principals in the war, and obliged to
hazard everything for an object, which might have originally
been obtained without expense or danger.t
CHATHAM:-I see that even where their (ministers') measures were well chosen, they are incapable of carrying them
through without some unhappy mixture of weakness or imprudence. They are incapable of doing entirely right.
* Certainly neither Grafton nor any of the politicians of that day, including Lord Chatham himself, could truly estimate the importance of
that acquisition to France. Napoleon Bonaparte had been born a
French subject about nine months previously, in the island.
t Letter xii., May 3 ), 1769.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                123
JUNIUS:-It is not that you (Duke of Grafton) do wrong
by design; but that you should never do right, by mistake.*
CHATHAM:-My lords, I revere the just prerogative of
the crown, and would contend for it as warmly as for the
rights of the people. They are linked together and mutually support each other. I would not touch a feather of the
prerogative.  The expression, perhaps, is light, but since
I have made use of it, let me add that the entire command
and power of directing the local army is the royal prerogative, as the master feather in the eagle's wing.  And if I
were permitted to carry the allusion a little further, I
would say they have disarmed the imperial bird-MIinistrum fulminis alitemn; the army is the thunder of the
crown.
JUNIUS (a year after):-The king's honor is that of the
people, their real interest and honor are the same; private
credit is wealth, public honor is security. The feather that
adorns the royal bird, supports his flight. Strip him of his
plumage and you fix him to the earth.t
This is another strong flash of identity. Mark how the
war-minister, in both places, contends for the free thunder
of the crown.   No mere demagogue like Wilkes would
stand up for the king's prerogative in that way.
CHATHAM: —Whoever understands the theory of the English constitution and will compare it with the fact, must see
how widely they differ.
JUNIUS (subsequently):-Certainly, nothing can be less
i Letter xii., Mlay 30, 1769.  t Letter xlii., Jan. 30, 1771.




124           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
reconcilable to the theory, than the present practice of the
constitution.*
CHATHAM: —Will any man affirm that, as the House of
Commons is now formed, that relation is in any degree preserved. My lords, it is not preserved; it is destroyed. Let
us be cautious, however, how we have recourse to violent
expedients.  The boroughs of the country have been called
the rotten parts of the constitution. But, in my judgment,
these boroughs, corrupt as they are, must be considered as
the natural infirmities of the constitution. The limb is
mortified, but the amputation might be death.
JUNIUS (subsequently):-That the people are unequally
represented, is unquestionable. But let us take care what
we attempt. As to cutting away the rotten boroughs, I
am as much offended as any man at seeing so many of
them under the direct influence of the crown; yet I own
I have both doubts and apprehensions in regard to the
remedy you (Wilkes) propose.' *  *    I am  startled
at the idea of so extensive an amputation. When you
propose to cut away the rotten parts, can you tell what
parts are perfectly sound-at what point the mortification
ends?t
CHATIIAM:-The infusion of health, which I now allude
to, would be to permit every county to elect one member
more, in addition to the present representation.
JuNIus: —Lord Chatham's project, for instance, of increasing the number of knights of shires, appears to me
admirable.$
* Private Letter to Wilkes, No. 66, Sept. 7, 1771.
t Ibid.             T Ibid.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                125
Junius also expresses his approval of the idea conveyed
in the same speechrof infusing a portion of new health into
the constitution to enable it to bear its infirmities.
Such, briefly stated, are a few of the parallels to be gathered from a comparison of the speeches of Lord Chatham
and the Letters. Some of them seem to be merely verbal.
But a person's identity is often marked by trivial modes of
speech, and they have at least the significance of a man's
accent. But the greater part are calculated to carry conviction, especially the metaphoric portions, so eminently
distinctive of the mind of the Earl of Chatham.  The
reader who has not been already familiar with the subject,
will be surprised to know that it is from these parallels Mr.
Taylor mainly concludes that young Francis, the reporter,
was Junius. He sees nobody but Francis in the business.
He does not even recognize the earl so much as to try and
push him out of the way. He thinks him nothing to the
purpose. The complacency of his logic is extraordinary,
and yet this same logic is followed by Lords Campbell and
Mahon, by the editors of the "Chathain Correspondence,"
and by all the rest of the Franciscans.
Mr. Taylor was a most infelicitous theorist. He began
by saying, on some crude assumption, that Junius was Dr.
Francis, father of Sir Philip. He then amended his theory
and advocated the son; and lastly, in the most unlucky
way, he adds a final chapter to his book, which infallibly
leads the reader into the terribly suggestive presence of that
bewildering earl, where we see Francis wearing the proportions of a secretary, active and imitative, and doing his best
to guard an important secret. This theory is helplessly




126           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
managed, indeed. The more we follow it, the more do we
tend to what Mr. Taylor would call the wrong man-to the
very issue against which one of his followers, in particular
(Mr. Bohn's editor), is brought up, with great damage to
his hypothesis. Not an argument is set forth for the "good
juvenal," that is not found encrusted and embossed, as it
were, upon the statesmanship, the eloquence, and the general
policy of the veteran Whig chief.
It will be observed that, in several of the preceding parallels, Junius first expressed the sentiments and figures discoverable in Lord Chatham's speeches. On the 9th and
22d of January, 1770, the earl made allusions to the
Americans who left their native land to find liberty in a
desert-found in the letter of the preceding 19th of December; to the dictates of common sense on any constitutional
question-answering to the spirit of the letter of June
22d; to the want of precedent for the expulsion of Wilkes
-resembling a passage in the aforesaid letter of Decemter
19th; to Wilkes's character as no justification of persecution
— anticipated on the 10th of April; to the transmission of
the rights of election to posterity-first dwelt on, on July
8th, and August 8th; to the tyranny of the Long Parliament, and the danger of the monarch-a sentiment found
in the above-mentioned letter of 19th December; to the
fact that where law ends, tyranny begins-paralleled in the
same letter; to the easy acquisition of Corsica by Francerepeated from May 30th, of the year in which the foregoing
dates also occurred-1769.
These facts must, of course, upset any hypothesis, that
the young man transplanted into his letters the opinions




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               127
and felicities of the harangues' which he reported. The
alternative would seem an embarrassing one, but the coryphcus of the Franciscans, Mr. Taylor, does not appear embarrassed. He meets the facts with an easy unapprehensiveness which excites admiration, saying, merely, and only
with reference to the first of them that comes in his way:
"In this instance, the speech copies the letters. To suppose that Lord Chatham and Junius reciprocally borrowed
from each other, is to encounter a greater difficulty for the
sake of avoiding a less. But the resemblance is not surprising if we imagine that Junius was the reporter; and, as
we proceed, it will appear that no other solution can be
given for this mutual application of each other's sentiments
and language." Such is his mode of grappling with the
difficulty! As he proceeds, he is not a whit more explanatory, or less helpless. Nothing of what he promises appears from him. He does not show how "no other soluti6n can be given." With this slurring-over and slidingout, he goes on with his book, which, certainly, from beginining to end, exhibits no more satisfactory demonstration
of evidence than you find in the foregoing quotation.
" The resemblance is not surprising," he says, " if we imagine," etc. Then he rambles on, leaving the reader trying to
make something out of that broken-backed syllogism. To
bridge the way to what seems his conclusion, he should have
argued that Francis put forcible opinions and phrases into
the mouth of the orator, which the latter never uttered.
But he does not state this, being probably ashamed to pronounce anything so preposterous; and so, leaving the inference hanging loosely, he proceeds with his slip-shod ratio



128           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
cination, huddling his no-proofs and general assumptions
together, like one who wishes to hide, even from  himself,
the want of any clear, firm tissue of evidence in what he is
setting forth. He is always pushing his head with a purblind fatality against Lord Chatham, drawing it back again,
but still making his way after the young reporter; always,
be it repeated, followed close behind by Lords Campbell
and Mahon, Mr. Macaulay, Bohn's editor, and all the
rest of them.
Along with the foregoing parallels, Mr. Taylor has given
certain other resemblances between the Junian letters and
the letters and speeches of Francis.  But they are, for
the most part, ridiculous, being made up of exclamations,
adjurations, quotations, expletives, and so forth. No doubt
a great many of them, such as " I vow to God," and " pray,
sir," are sufficiently like the modes of Junius to be observable; and, in a subsequent chapter, we shall endeavor to
show how they were meant to subserve one of the most
cherished pretensions of Sir Philip's life; and how, with
not less force than the evidences drawn from Lord Chatham's speeches, already quoted, they tend to discredit
the hypothesis Mr. Taylor brings them  forward to support.
Sir Philip's claims are countenanced by certain accidents
of time and place, which his advocates make the most of,
and which are too closely entwined with the truth of
this mystery ever to be disassociated from it. But a few
plain considerations will suffice to put him aside-have
sufficed, on other pages. He was the creature, secretary,
reporter, and amanuensis of Pitt.  "How  warmly I was




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                129
attached to his person," says Francis, in 1787, " and how I
have been grateful to his memory, those who know me
know." Again, in 1791, he declares Lord Chatham's was a
name he could never recollect without admiration and reverence. To suppose that such a youngster of twenty-seven
should, as "Poplicola," "Anti-Sejanus," and so forth, call
that venerable man a black-hearted villain who should be
hanged on a gibbet, is ridiculously absurd; and the absurdity is made more intense by the fact that this War-Office
clerk continues to communicate through Calcraft (as we see
from the " Chatham Correspondence," or, rather, to say the
truth, as we are left to infer; for we see nothing), with the
man he is stabbing, and, as the earl's reporter, goes dutifully
to the lords, to report, " with great exactness," the speeches
of that apostate and lunatic-speeches which the amazing
juvenile furthermore powders and peppers with his own high
felicities of diction and of thought!
Again, you ask who is he that fulmines against the
king, lords, and commons of England, with the censorial
thunder of a mind so evidently conscious of an adroit
veteran strength, so evidently on the level of them all? A
young man, they tell you, of twenty-seven-a smart little
Girgashite in the War-Office, doing duty as a clerk. At
the age of thirty-two, this clerk is supposed to have achieved
the lordly celebrity of Junius, after which it is allowed that
like Toots, in the story, he suddenly ceased to blow; and
when he began to have ripe years and statesmanship, left
off having any Junian brains. His advocates are obliged
to employ this curious logic, seeing that the ability to
write the letters is a test which Francis cannot stand for an




130           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
instant.  There is no need to waste words in maintenance
of this.  Mr. Bohn's editor admits-is obliged to admitenough for our purpose.  With the strongest desire to make
the most of Sir Philip's meagre pretensions, he settles the
Franciscan claim, on that point, in the following sentence,
the antithesis of which is likely to make the reader smile:
"With the fire of a Chatham in his bosom, to electrify the
senate, with the acumen, knowledge of human nature, and
mastery of language of a Hume, a Robertson, or a Gibbon, to adorn and invigorate history, Sir Philip was
destined to leave, as his avowed productions, only a pile
of well-nigh forgotten speeches, protests, pamphlets, manuscript notes on book-margins, and fugitive verses."  Well,
what of that? The editor still argues that he was a man
of precocious gifts. He blew suddenly and strongly into
the magisterial eloquence of Junius, from the age of twentyseven to thirty-two; and then lost stamina, exhausted,
naturally, by such a powerful efflorescence! " Admitting,
by way of illustration," he says, "the inferiority of the
later writings of Francis to those of Junius. I reply, that
Francis was certainly a person of precocious gifts." Alas!
what a falling off is here —the genius which could win
gold medals at college, and then write those immortal-Junian
letters which shook the War-Office and fulmined over England, from Middlesex to Louis Bourbon's throne, subsiding,
at last, into still-born pamphlets, mouthy speeches, forgotten letters, love verses, and marginal notes!
So ran the famous Roman Way,
So ended in a mire.' "Bohn's edition of Woodfall's Junius," vol. ii.




CHAPTER VII.
POLITICAL BATTLES OF 1770 ~AND 1771, IN WHICH JUNIUS AND LORD
CHATHAM ARE ON THE SAME SIDE, AND USE THE SAME WAR-CRIES.
C'est Mirabeau, tonnant contre la Cour.
BERANGER.
I boarded the king's ship; now on the beak,
Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin
I flamed amazement!
SHAKESPEARE.
THE antecedents of Lord Chatham's life show how naturally and consistently he converts himself into Junius; and
the circumstances of that Junian interval confirm the identity in the most emphatic manner. All the foes of Junius
were the foes of Lord Chatham; every blow the Mask
struck was in Chatham's battle. Of course we pass by the
curious feints (proved to be such by the subsequent behavior of Junius) by which the venerable Whig earl and his
jfidus Achiates, Lord Camden, are first denounced for vague,
venial matters, and, in the end, glorified. Looking at the
history of the time, we can understand how Lord Chatham
would entertain the sentiments expressed by Junius concerning the king, Lord Bute, the dukes of Grafton and Bedford, Lords Mansfield, Barrington, Hillsborough, Northing



132           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
ton, etc. With respect to tnese, the secret writer could not
compromise his true opinions without marring his purpose
in writing at all, and throughout his hostility against them,
there is no faltering, nor any shadow of turning. They
are struck and scowled upon, to the end, with a show of
hatred, in which no insincerity is ever detected.
We have already shown, what history shows, in a manner
not to be mistaken, that Lord Bute was one of the most
insidious opponents of Lord Chatham, and that, in concert with the Princess of Wales, and in aid of the king, he
did all in his power to pull the earl down from his place of
chief minister, and take it himself.
The Duke of Grafton deeply stung Lord Chatham; at
first professing great devotion to him, and then joining the
Rockinghams in the Lutestring administration. When the
latter began to totter, his grace left it, saying no one could
save the country, but Lord Chatham, under whom he said
he would serve in any capacity, even with a spade and
mattock. Under the premiership of the earl, he began, in
that strange absence of the chief, to cherish independent
ideas, and, at last, supported by the king, and some of the
hated Bedfords, aspired to the first place. Almon, who
understood the intrigues of that day pretty well, says that
if Grafton had remained faithful to Lord Chatham, and
scorned an alliance with the Bedfords, and king's friends,
the great Whig alliance of the Chathams, Rockinghams,
and so forth, would succeed in winning upon power, and
having everything their own way. The defection of Grafton, and then his premiership, rankled in the heart of Lord
Chatham, who thus saw himself baffled and supplanted by




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               133
the man he had first brought into notice. The fact was, his
grace was too high and haughty to be one of the instruments which the great earl wished to use; and it is easy to
conceive how Lord Chatham's dislike of Grafton would be
more bitter than even his enmity against Lord Mansfield.
In his speech of March 2d, 1770, Chatham said of his
grace: "As for the noble duke, there was, in his conduct,
from the time of my being taken ill, a gradual deviation
from everything that had been settled and solemnly agreed
upon by his grace, both as to measures and men, till, at last,
there were not left two planks together of the ship which
had been originally launched."  Walpole mentions the fact
that Grafton was in the habit of attacking his irascible old
patron, who (this is significant) bore the attacks with a show
of contemptuous indifference, like that with which Mansfield
affected to regard Chatham's attacks on himself. Junius
was, at that time, girding at the duke, and, in this manner, compensating the silence of the earl.
The Duke of Bedford was a rival chief, who, cordially
seconding the policy of Lord Bute, and the king's party,
made the peace of 17G62-a peace which flung contempt
upon Pitt's expensive and glorious war ministry.  "Belleisle, Goree, Guadaloupe, St. Lucie, Martinique, the Fishery
and the Havana," exclaims the angry Mask, with a fierce
irony, in keeping with the rest of his assaults, " are glorious
monuments of your Grace's talents for negotiation."s  All
these places had been acquired by Pitt's victories, and signed away " with a stroke of the pen." Again, in the first' Letter xxiii., Sept. 19, 1769.




134           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
distress of his falling ministry, Lord Chatham was advised
to put his pride under his feet, and ask the assistance of the
Bedfords. But the duke's terms were too haughty, and the
rivals parted in anger. The " Bedford Correspondence" lately
published, shows that "hat "the Bloomsbury gang" were in the
habit of agreeing among themselves, that the gouty earl
was non compos. Mr. Rigby, writing to the Duke of Bedford on the 14th of May, 1770, speaks of a motion in the
House of Lords for the dissolution of parliament, as " the
mad motion of the mad Earl of Chatham."*  Chatham's
dislike of Bedford was a cordial as it was intelligible.
As regards Mansfield, Pitt's rivalry of him began in
boyhood, and they were antagonists to the last syllable of
Lord Chatham's parliamentary career.  We read how, in the
House of Commons, Murray "suffers for an hour," under
the taunts of Pitt; how the latter, scowling upon the
Chief Justice in his grand tragic way, tells him he is about
to speak daggers to him, and then, with a stare, which
Kemble could never equal, cries out:-" Judge Felix trembles; he shall hear from me some other day!"   When the
relatives of Sir William Pynsent wanted to get back the
estate left by that baronet to Pitt, the lords commissioners
of the Great Seal, influenced by Lord Mansfield's opinion,
decided against the right of the legatee. Though the
House of Lords reversed the decision, we can fancy how
this business would further embitter the old hostility of Pitt
against Murray.  In the House of Lords, Chatham was the
most forward to impugn Mansfield's decisions in the cases
"" The Bedford Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 412.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               13.5
of Woodfall and Almon, the bailment of Eyre, the expulsion of Wilkes, and other public questions, exhibiting the
same spirit manifested by Junius in his letters on these
subjects.
For Hillsborough, Barrington and the others-they formed vulnerable parts of a system which Junius was assailing along the whole line; and they were personally inimical to the Earl of Chatham.  The offensive dismissal of
Pitt's successful general, Sir Jeffrey Amherst, from the governorship of Virginia, procured for him by the great warminister himself, was mainly effected by the agency of Hillsborough, acting, of course, with Grafton and the rest.  Sir
Jeffrey was set aside for Lord Bottetourt-the man who
had worried the Privy Seal about the Warmly mines, and
got the three shabby commissioners appointed to take the
earl's place for a time. This treatment of one of his soldiers tormented the latter worse than the gout; and Junius
(as "Lucius" in the Miscellaneous Letters) discharged a
volley of bitter epistles at Hillsborough's head.  The Duke
of Grafton called at Hayes, and showed a desire to explain
the affair; but the Earl would not see him-left him to
hold that diplomatic tete-a-tete with the countess, to which
we have already alluded, and next day sent back the Seal
by Lord Camden, declaring that he could never sufficiently
regret the dismissal of General Amherst and Lord Shelburne.* In his speech of 13th of November, 1770, Lord
Chatham turned fiercely upon Hillsborough, who had interrupted him, and told him his ideas were mean, frivolous, and
* "Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 333.




136           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
puerile; and " Domitian," some weeks afterwards, took up
and completed the castigation of that lord. As for "the
bloody Barrington," he was a trimmer, like Grafton, "a
silken, fawning courtier." " Veteran'" taunts him with a
desertion of Lord Chatham, after he had been adulating and
looking up to him.  Barrington garbled and new-modeled
the system of the War Office, and " Testis" accuses him of
declaring there was not a single great officer in the kingdom
qualified to command an army.t  This was an insult to the
late war-minister, who had formed so many good officers,
and, at the same time, it threw discouragement on the idea
of that Spanish war, to which Chatham was looking forward
with so much expectation. The concluding letters of the
Miscellaneous series are vehement and sarcastic assaults on
Lord Barrington for his venality, for the changes and the
tergiversations of his past career, and the blunders he committed while ordering troops to foreign stations-particularly to Gibraltar. Barrington was, in fact, the mismanager of that "thunder of the crown," which Lord Chatham felt he himself had the best right to wield.
We now come to consider the earl's feelings towards the
king. The parliamentary history of 1770 and 1771 shows
what they were, and we have on record what his majesty,
on his side, thought of that overbearing and subtle chieftain. Wilkes, writing to Junius, in 1771, says Lord Chatham told him, ten years before, that the king was a false
hypocrite.  Now Wilkes well knew that he was either addressing Chatham, or some one in his interest, and that the
* Miscellaneous Letter cvii., Feb. 17,1772.
t Miscellaneous Letter Lxxvii., Nov. 19, 1770.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                137
earl would read his words; so that we believe his statement.
In his place in the lords, the Earl of Chatham proved to all
men, and to posterity that reads his letters, that his slavish
demonstrations of loyalty to the king were as hypocritical
as any part of his majesty's conduct could well be. His
lordship was then showing himself in his true Junian
colors.  What the king thought of such a turbulent man
we can easily imagine. But we are not left to mere imagination in the matter. We can gather a good deal of the
monarch's arriere-penske from some letters in the " Chatham
Correspondence," showing that he distrusted and defied the
machinations of his impracticable servant.  And we have
still stronger evidence of it in a letter from George III., to
Lord North, respecting the putting of William Pitt on his
father's pension-paper for ~3,000 a year.  This letter appeared in the Edinburgh Review, and is quoted by Lord
Brougham in his Series of the Statesmen of the Times of
George III. The reviewer (his lordship, apparently) answers for its authenticity; and it has the internal evidence
of genuineness. It runs thus: —' The making Lord Chatham's family suffer for the conduct of their father is not in
the least agreeable to my sentiments. But I should choose
to know him totally unable to appear on the public stage,
before I agree to any offer of the kind, lest it should be
wrongly construed a fear of him; for, indeed, his political
conduct, last winter, was so abandoned that he must, in the
eyes of the dispassionate, have totally undone the merit of
his former conduct. As to any gratitude to be expected
from him or his family (the Grenvilles are meant), the whole
tenor of their lives has shown them void of that most




138           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
honorable sentiment.  But when decrepitude or death puts
an end to him as a trumpet of sedition, I shall make no
difficulty in placing the second son's name instead of the
father's, and making up the pension of ~3,000."* The
hearty sincerity of the last sentence-which Dr. Johnson
would be disposed to love, though Lord Brougham calls it
savagery-might truly and consistently express the angriest
feeling of the king against the other " trumpet of sedition"
-Junius.  We have very little doubt that his majestyone of the shrewdest of his family-brought both very close
together, in his own mind. Another indirect, but scarcely
less forcible, evidence of the king's feeling, is furnished by
the courtly echo, Lord Bathurst. When, on the death of
Chatham, a bill was introduced to reward his family, this
lord rose and contended that the deceased had been rewarded enough.  " We cannot suppose," he said, " that his
majesty will be offended by our exercising our right to reject
or amend this bill. Before I conclude, I must use the freedom to declare I see no reason to despond, because the Earl
of Chatham is no more. There still remain as firm wellwishers of the country, and men as capable of doing it real
service."t   These decided sentiments, pronounced at such
a moment, show that Bathurst was quite sure of the king's.
Such was the general feeling of George III., towards Lord
Chatham; and the latter knew it right well, and his
animosity against the king finds the truest expression in the
anonymous letters of Junius.
We may now, by way of impressing these truths more
Edinburgh Review, vol. lxvii., p. 158.
t " Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors," vol. v., p. 461.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              139
vividly, look to the movement of the characters, survey the
identity in action-in historic action-as it appeared in 1770
and 1771.
Of all the open fights in which William  Pitt —Great
Commoner or peer-was ever engaged, that continuous
one of those two years was the sharpest and most momentous. In it, the reader.will find expressed, in terms
of parallel significance, almost every marked sentiment of
patriotism, lofty contempt, and intrepid sedition, to be
found in the Junian literature. We cannot particularize
them all, and shall content ourselves with tracing the main
courses and chief outlines of the resemblance, in a rapid
way.
Lord Chatham, in the beginning of 1770, having spurned,
with an impatient vigor which had never left him, his
piebald ministry of 1768, had entered, once more, into
the old Grenvillite alliance, strengthened by the adhesion
of the Rockinghams, Richmonds, and their followers. When
he flung away his Privy Seal, he flung away his crutch along
with it, and stood erect upon his feet, with something of the
resolved agility of Sixtus. The great Whig league then
prepared to storm the ministerial strong-hold, against which
the masked battery of Junius was, all the time, playing
vehemently.  The single session of 1769 being overpast,
the confederates ordered their line, and nowhere, in the
history of constitutional party, do we read of a more terrible onslaught than that which ensued.  On one side
was the king, resolved to keep the door of his closet,
and round him the ministry, the court, the House of Commons, and the Court of King's Bench, with their champions.




140             JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.
On the other side rallied the Grenvillites, the Rockinghams,
the Richmonds-the soldierly vehemence of Barre, the
pomp and  proud  precipitance  of Burke, while, issuing
from his strange seclusion, like the hero of old from
his sullen station beside the ships, the Achilles of debate,
sending his shout before him as he came, " The king's men
must be all destroyed as a corps!" took up his position at
the head of the assailants, showing himself in high spirits,
and in fury-to use the expressive words of the Duke of
Portland*-and greatly astonishing the gossips, who had
fancied he was a cripple, and crazy, and quite incapable of doing  anything-as  Junius had  been  telling
them so persistently!
On the first day of the Session, Lord Chatham, in his
place, begins the onset:
— his fiery charge,
Makes, for a space, an opening large!
The Earl of Coventry, the Dukes of Beaufort and Manchester, and others, are driven out of the enemy's lines,
and the Marquis of Granby, having been previously staggered,t is, on 17th January, fairly captured, and brought off,
in spite of the efforts of the king and the Duke of Graf* "Memoirs of Rockingham," by the Duke of Albemarle, vol. ii.,
p. 143.
t Junius, sending to Woodfall the Miscellaneous Letter, No. lv., addressed to Lord Granby, and signed " Your Real Friend," requests an immediate insertion, as the marquis, whom they had been laboring to detach
from the ministry, is already staggered (Second private note). Junius well
knew he was staggered, for he had chastised him with the valor of his
tongue only a week before, at Hayes, as we see in the Chatham Corre.
spondence, vol. iii., p. 356.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              141.
ton, who, like a pair of Widringtons, strive to retain him
" on their knees!" Then follow the defection and defiance
of Lord Camden, sending dismay into the royal ranks, and
Lord Shelburne cries aloud: "the Seals are going a begging!" demanding, at the same time, if any man will be so
infamous as to accept them. But the king wins over poor
Charles Yorke to take them, nevertheless, and in a couple
of days the suicide of the remorseful Chancellor gives a
character of deadliness to the strife. Lord Chatham's
great effort of 22d of January follows; after which the
Duke of Grafton turns, and fairly flies from the ministerial
ranks. The hopes of the fierce earl are now in full flush,
and Junius discharges a terrible missile at his fugitive
grace, shouting: "When the members drop off, the main
body cannot be insensible to its approaching dissolution!"*
Dowdeswell makes a motion in the Commons, condemning
that body for the expulsion of Wilkes; and Rockingham
makes a similar one next day, in the lords, where Chatham,
defending the cause of the expelled member, uses the words
of Junius, to the effect that, let the man's character be
what it may, the stab to the constitution is the same.  The
Earl of Marchmont rises, inflamed, to threaten the bringing
in of foreign assistance, if the king is to be borne against,
in this way, and is called to order.  On 2d of March,
Chatham thunders again, to declare that ministers allowed the Court of Turin to sell England to France; that
he had been duped and deceived by the king, and that
there was something behind the throne greater than the
" Letter xxxvi., Feb. 14.1770.




142            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
throne itself!  Whereupon, Grafton flings himself before
the infuriated chief, crying: "I rise to defend the king;
these words come from a distempered mind, brooding over
its discontents!"  The earl refuses to deny or retract anything, and appears to pass Grafton by, who, however, shall
not be passed by, elsewhere.
The grim strategos is in all his fortitudes. Now there is a
loud cry of " clubs!" and the citizens and sheriffs of London
and Westminster, headed by the lord mayor in person, bear
themselves into the strife. A Petition and Remonstrance,
on the House of Commons business, are presented on 8th of
2March, at George III., who asks, in disgust, what is the meaning of it, and then rebukes it; whereupon the burghers prepare a second remonstrance. In the civil list debate, of the
14th March, Lord Chatham denounces the corruption and
illegal acts of the Commons, declaring that Camden was dismissed for his vote on 9th of January, in favor of the right
of election, and his attack is interrupted by cries of " order!"
and " to the bar!" Lord Marchmont moves that his words
be taken down, while, "with careless gesture, mind unmoved," the earl bids him take them. The lord mayor, on
22d of March, banquets the allies, and waits his majesty's
reply to  the second  remonstrance.   Meantime, Junius
orders Woodfall to make haste and disperse hand-bills to
draw attention to letter Thirty-six. " Now is the crisis," he
exclaims;  " for God's sake,* let it appear to-morrow!
* The reader, marking the feverish interest of Junius in this vehement
contest, must smile at the devices of the two letters in the Chatham Correspondence, and the three in the Grenville Papers, in which that rare
masquerader declares frankly that he is alone-writes merely for fun



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  143
Lord Chatham is to go to the hall to support the remonstrance. I have no doubt we shall conquer them at last."*
On the 3d April (Letter xxxviii.), Junius fiercely assails the
ministers, sustains the city of London against the House of
Commons, and tries to intimidate George III.; and, on the
10th, as "Moderatus,"t he argues and taunts in the same
style.  On May 1st, he again assails the ministry with
a bill to reverse the judgment of the Commons, in the case
of Wilkes. In spite of his vehemence, the bill is rejected.
In three days he is on his legs again, and moving that the
advice to the king to reject the city Remonstrance is dishonoring to the monarch, and dangerous to the constitution.
He denounces ministers again, and lauds the City of London for its old burgher dignity, and its proud lord mayors,
one of whom affixed his mailed hand to the great Charter
long before many of the noble families, represented in that
house, were founded. That motion is, also, negatived. In
a few days, the Duke of Richmond, in the lords, and Burke,
in the Commons, make nearly simultaneous motions, respecting the American troubles. But these are, also, negatived.
It must be confessed that all these negatives rather compromise the Achillean character of the Whig war. But'the
unwearied leader persists. On 10th May, he makes a motion for the dissolution of parliament, which Mr. Rigby, of'
"the Bloomsbury gang," calls a mad motion, and this is,
has no party feeling-has a mere speculative ambition-is a mere abstract
idea, living in the shade. The fraud of these five letters is gross, open,
palpable, as the absurdity of those who credit them.
* Private Note to Woodfall, No. xxii., March 18, 17.70.
t Miscellanoous Letter lxx.




144           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
also, negatived. On 23d May, the king rebukes the city
remonstrants, and Lord Mayor Beckford makes, somehow,
the reply yet read upon his pedestal at Guildhall.
There is a pause in the strife. The Session is now over,
and a consequent gap is seen in the private and public letters of Junius.  In the private letters there is a lacune of
near seven months, in the Miscellaneous Series of over three
months, while the regular collection shows three letters in
about six months.  Junius pauses in the somewhat discomfited pause of Lord Chatham, at a time when the king's
firmness grew ominous of the fate of those Whig alliances.
But the earl is not cast down. On 23d of May, he writes
an enthusiastic letter of thanks to Lord Mayor Beckford
for that brave codicil speech in the king's presence,* and,
on the 28th, says to Calcraft, with an eye to the less vehement Rockinghams and Camdens, and urged, probably, by
that recklessness which embitters a sinking hope: "Moderation, moderation, is the burden of the song among the body;
for myself I have resolved to be in earnest for the public,
and shall be the scarecrow of violence to the gentle warblers
of the grove!"t  What a ravenous old politician of 63!
Juniius now writes his Thirty-ninth letter, sustaining the
flagging spirits of the City combatants, and still striking at
the ministry-that wretched ministry which does not even
know when it is beaten.  In August,: he hurls a missile at
the lubber-friend of the king, Lord North. In October,
several letters, with the signatures of "A  Whig and an
Englishman," which Junius expresses some anxiety to dis* " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 462.
t Ibid., vol. iii., p. 469.  1 Letter xl., August 22, 1770.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               145
own, appear in the Public Advertiser, warmly eulogizing
Lord Chatllam  as the only man whose ministry would be
welcomed by the nation in this crisis.
The autumn Session now begins; and
The war that for a space did fail,
Now, trebly thundering, swells the gale.
On 12th November, Junius says, of Lord Mansfield:
" We have got the rascal on his knees; let us strangle him
if it be possible."* The Chief Justice had been charging
the jury in the trial of Almon for republishing the famous
letter to the king, and had told them they were to decide on
the simple fact of printing, not on the law of the case. On
the 14th, the Mask discharges one of his fiercest missiles at
Mansfield, denouncing him  for his un-English law, and
taunting him with his early attachment to the Stuarts, and
that drinking of the Pretender's health. A few days later,
Lord Chatham, in the House of Lords (without a mask),
turns round, in the course of his speech, and, looking
sternly at Mansfield, affronts him with the Junian taunt,
so harped upon to the last: "There are other men, my
lords, who, to speak tenderly of them, were not quite so
forward in their demonstrations for the reigning family."
On 22d of November, on the question of naval impressment, Lord Chatham contends that such a power is part of
the common law prerogative of the crown; an argument
used some months afterward by Junius, where he says, " I
see that right, founded upon a necessity which supersedes all' Private Letter to Woodfall, No. xxiv.
7




146           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
argument, and is established by usage immemorial."* On
the same occasion, when Lord Hillsborough interrupts him,
to explain his meaning, the indignant earl tells him his
conduct is indecent, and his distinctions mean, frivolous, and
puerile.  A few weeks after, "Domitian" thus pays his
respects to Hillsborough: "The stage was deprived of a
promising actor when  poor Lord Hillsborough gave his
mind to politics. The Princess Dowager saw what part
this man was capable of acting, and, with regard to himself,
it signified but little whether he represented Prince Volscius
at Drury Lane, or Secretary of State at St. James's."t On
the 5th of December, Lord Chatham moves, that the expulsion of Wilkes was not conclusive-his case being only
cognizable in a court of law; contending that "the right
of election is the vital circulation of the body politic:
stop it, and we are politically destroyed;" a sentiment previously and somewhat similarly expressed by Junius when
discussing the same subject: "It is an eternal truth,
in the political as well as the mystical body, that
where one member suffers, all the members suffer with
it.":
On a report, that the Duke of Grafton is coming back to
the ministry of Lord North, Junius assails his grace bitterly
in his letter signed "Domitian,"  vituperating him for his
treachery to Rockingham and Chatham, and scoffing at him
as a suppliant to Lord North for office, so impatient to be
first Lord of the Admiralty, that the prime minister "can
* Letter lix., October 5, 1771.
t Miscellaneous Letter lxxix., Dec. 8, 1770.
M Miscellaneous Letter lxxxvii., January 17, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  147
hardly keep the fawning creature from under his feet." He
also gives a ludicrous imitation of the Duke's oratory, and
calls his style "a rigmarole in logic, a riddlelneree among
schoolboys, and, in vulgar acceptation, three blue beans in
a bladder; the perpetual parturience of a mountains and the
never-failing delivery of a mouse."*
It is in these slight sarcastic sallies that the grim earl is
most clearly visible. On Tuesday, December 11th, Chatham
is thundering at the gates of the ministry, like the Black
Knight at Torquilstone, striking as if " ten men's strength
were in his single arm."   He makes a speech against
Mansfield, one portion of which explains how the Chief
Justice traveled out of the record; and, in three days, that
portion appears, verbatim, in the letter of Junius, signed
"Phalaris," without any mark of quotation.  "Phalaris,"
however, having used it, goes on to say that he affirms, with
Lord Chatham, his (Mansfield's) conduct was irregular, extrajudicial, and unprecedented.t
In the next debate, on the naval and military resources
and foreign policy of the country, Lord Chatham speaking
of the defenseless condition of Gibraltar, Lord Marchmont
gets up to move that strangers be turned out. The earl
makes repeated efforts to go on and deliver what he has to
say, in the midst of the tumult and Marchmont crying out:
"Clear the Hoose! clear the Thoose! "  But the earl is
forced to stop, the strangers, reporters, and all, are turned
out, and having signed a protest against such a proceeding,
Lord Chatham and many of his friends leave the house,
* Miscellaneous Letter lxxii., June 27, 1770.
t Miscellaneous Letter lxxxii., Dec. 17, 1770.




148           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
too. This was very awkward, seeing that the earl, for good
reasons,.never sent his speeches or abstracts of them to be
printed, without the ostensible mediation of a reporter.
But this syncopated speech was not entirely lost.  Its
meaning, chiefly relating to Spain and the Falkland Islands,
is preserved in the letters of Junius, Nos. 42 and 43, printed a few weeks later, in the letter signed " A member of
Parliament,"* and others signed " Vindex."
The Chathamic war on the ministry is now beginning to
fail in earnest. George Grenville has just died, Earl Temple
is disheartened, Camden and Rockingham are " moderate,"
and Suffolk and Wedderburne have fallen over to the enemy, while Lord North, entrenched in his majorities, laughs
the siege to scorn, slaps his large sides, good-humoredly,
admits he is " that thing called a minister, and not such a
very bad thing neither,"t and prepares to push a new empire into existence twenty, perhaps fifty, years before it
would have come, without his assistance.  Lord Chatham
is now looking hopefully to a fight with the Spaniards, who
are blustering about the Falkland Islands, but who, very
provokingly, soon consent to negotiate and give them up,
with a reservation something like that hanging over Gibraltar.  A reservation!  Ah! the honor of England is compromised. The great earl is for war, decidedly; dreams of
cutting Spanish throats.  A war would require a powerful
hand at the helm. All his friends, Calcraft among them,
prophesy war, and send him rumors of it.  The high-hearted old Pole7march snuffs the smoke of armaments, and has
* Miscellaneous Letter lxxxviii., Feb. 13,1771.
t Butler's " Reminiscences."




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                149
plans for making the House of Bourbon tremble once
again. All his efforts tend to make a warlike need of a warlike genius. His private correspondence echoes the belligerent sentiments of the Junian letters on the foreign policy
of England. He tells Lord Shelburne he does not doubt it
will be war.* On 8th'December, he writes: " War, I take
to be certain, be the ministry what it may at Versailles."t
"Domitian," on 24th December, says: " Give me leave, Mr.
Woodfall, to ask you a serious question: How long is this
country to be governed by a boot and a petticoat, by the
infamous tool of a Scotch exile, and her Royal Highness,
the Princess Dowager of Wales, by North, Ellis, Barrington,
Jenkinson, Hillsborough, Jerry Dyson, and Sandwich? I
will answer you with precision.  It will last till there is a
general insurrection of the English nation, or till the House
of Bourbon have collected their strength to strike you to the
heart."4 How plainly the veteran Boanerges speaks in this
intrepid language, waiting impatiently for the first cannonshot which should set all these poor incapable people a-scampering, and clear the ministerial stage for men to act upon
it!
Speaking in the House of Lords, the earl exclaims:
"I know the strength and preparation of the House of
Bourbon; I know the impoverished and defenseless condition of this country." On the 16th of January, 1771, Junius writes to Woodfall: "Depend upon the assurance I
give you, that every man in administration looks on war as
inevitable."~ In expectation of war and the Chatham as*'"Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 25.   t Ibid., vol. iv., p. 46.
$ Miscellaneous Letter lxxxiii. ~ Private Letter to Woodfall, No. xxviii.




150           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
cendancy, Sir Edward Hawke deserts the ministry-a cause
of great triumph to Junius. Yet the earl now begins to despond, fearing it will be peace, after all. The obstinate firmness of the king and his ministers, and their evident wish to
avoid war, cause him a great deal of uneasiness. On the 21st
of January, writing to Calcraft, he says: "A very short space
must bring all to light, and show if the nation of England is
the tamest and vilest in Europe; I grieve to add my fears it
may be found so."*  On the 23d, he writes: "England, at
this day, is no more like old England, or England forty
years ago, than the Monsignori of modern Rome are like
the Decii, the Gracchi, or the Catos."t The earl had reason
to speak in this melancholy strain; for the very day before,
the king had announced that the dispute with Spain was
settled! But there is one comfort left him, whatever peace
may be abroad, there must be.war at home.
He now prepares a motion for the 5th of February, concerning that disgraceful huddling-up of the Spanish difficulties, and, on the 31st of January, sends Woodfall three
or four paragraph notices for his paper, to the effect that
ministers are about to throw open the doors of the House
of Lords to strangers, hoping by this means to induce them
to do so, or, rather, desiring to bring increased odium on
them, by thus exciting expectations which he knew they
would disappoint. Anticipating a refusal, he adopts the
other mode of placing the whole matter before the public;
and, on the 30th of January, appears a highly exasperated
letter of Junius, in which he ranges, like an angry lion, over
*'" Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 70.
t Ibid., vol. iv., p. 83.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               151
the field of public affairs. With a sweeping denunciation
of the domestic policy of the country, he dashes into that
Spanish question, and vituperates the king for his cowardice
and dishonor, in making such a contemptible peace, in going
about, in fact, with " the mark of a blow upon his face,"
and telling his army that he was too mean-spirited to show
himself at the head of them  any more.*  When Rebecca
tells Ivanhoe that the Black Knight is, alone, battering in
the gate of Torquilstone, he raises himself joyfully on his
couch, and says he thought there was but one man in England who could perform so bold a deed; and we believe the
reader will be inclined to say the same thing respecting this
terrible 42d letter. There was but one man in England
who could have written it, and George III. knew who that
man was, as certainly as he knew the face of William Pitt,
Earl of Chatham. That letter brings out the Attorneygeneral, who sends a note to Woodfall on the subject, menacing a prosecution.  But the intrepid Mask writes a note
also to the same, bidding him not be afraid, for it will all
end in smoke; and so it does. The king refuses to meddle
with Woodfall or his writer. So formidable is the hubbub
raised by the Earl of Chatham, and by Junius, about the
Falkland Islands and that unbearable peace, that Dr. Johnson, by special desire,brings forward his ponderous logic, to
defend the king and the ministry. The attempt to smother
the matter between the tapestries is a failure; the newspapers overflow with the fierce controversy, and the birds of
the air carry the matter.
* Letter xlii., Jan. 30, 1771.




152           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
There seems to be one more Whig battle to bring up. If
the ministry are not to be conquered, they shall be desperately thrashed. That exclusion of reporters at the will of
Parliament is a crying grievance, and Lord Chatham's good
friends in the city will try conclusions about it. In March,
1771, several printers give parliamentary reports, and are
summoned to attend the House of Commons and answer it.
Some refuse, and messengers go to seize them. Wheble, of the
Middlesex Journal, is taken before the Alderman of Farringdon Without, who, being John Wilkes, lets him go, of course,
and binds him to prosecute the messenger. Miller, of the
Evening Post, is advised, should the messenger come for
him, to take the messenger. He does, and brings him
before the city magistrates, who send him to prison. The
Commons summon Lord Mayor Crosby and Sheriff Oliver,
and send them to the Tower.  They also summon Wilkes;
but he will not go; and they adopt the course recommended
by Dogberry, on a somewhat similar occasion, and let him
alone. There is much municipal uproar. Chatham says,
on the 26th of March: "I hold also as fully that, in a conflict of jurisdiction, the Lord Mayor and city magistrates,
acting under an oath of office, cannot be proceeded against
criminally by the House."* Junius denounces the proceedings of the Commons on the 8th and 9th April. Under
the last date, he says: "The Lord Mayor or Mr. Oliver
had nothing to regard but the obligation of their oaths and
the execution of their laws." At the close of the same letter he says a dissolution of the existing parliament, " which
* "Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 129.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               153
had nothing to expect but contempt, detestation, and resistance, could alone restore tranquillity to the people, and to
the king the affection of his subjects."*  On the 22d of
April, Junius follows up these blows, and says the world is
weary of the House of Commons, and demands its dissola
tion. Regarding the principle of resistance against it, he
says: "As to the injury we may do to any future and more
respectable House of Commons, I own I am not now sanguine enough to expect a more plentiful crop of parliamentary virtues in one year than in another. * * * I think no
reasonable man will expect that, as human nature is constituted, the enormous influence of the Crown should cease to
prevail over the virtue of individuals. After all, sir, it is
immaterial whether a House of Commons shall preserve their
virtue for a week, a month, or a year. The influence which
makes a septennial parliament dependent on the pleasure of
the Crown, has a permanent operation and cannot fail
of success."  At the close of the letter he says: "I confess
I should be contented to renounce the forms of the constitution once more, if there were no other way to obtain substantial justice for the people."t
On May 1st, Lord Chatham, in the Lords, repeats the
sentiments of the foregoing: "Not that I imagine this act
(of dissolution) sufficient. No! I have no such sanguine
expectation. The influence of the Crown is become so
enormous that some bulwark must be erected for the defense
of the constitution."  He also said: "I publicly declare
myself a convert to triennial parliaments."   This is nearly
* Miscellaneous Letter xcv. Signed "A Whig,': April 9, 1771.
t Letter xliv., April 22d, 1771.
7*




154           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
the sentiment expressed by Junius in the dedication of his
letters, where he says that long parliaments, like the septennial, give undue influence to the crown.
The battle-to carry on this somewhat damaged metaphor-has lost its former vigor, and the hopes of the allied
Whigs grow less and less.  The prorogation of parliament
extinguishes the city conflagration, like a wet blanket;
and on the 8th of May, Lord Chatham declares if he were
a younger man, he would go to America and live there.
But he is too old. And then, there is that treacherous
deserter, the Duke of Grafton, actually coming back again
to the ministry-nay, he is made Privy Seal on the 12th of
June! Junius is at him  again, with ferocity unabated:
"Though I am not so partial," he exclaims, " to the royal
judgment as to affirm that the favor of a king can remove
mountains of infamy, it serves to lessen, at least, for, it
undoubtedly divides the burden. While I remember how
much is due to his sacred character, I cannot, with any
decent appearance of propriety, call you the meanest and
basest fellow in the kingdom.  I protest, my lord, I do not
think you so."* How significant is the fact, that all this
outrageous abuse of the king should be completely passed
over! His majesty bore it, feeling it was useless to contend with the man whom he certainly knew to be Junius.
If Junius was an understrapper, Woodfall would have been
crushed in one week, or hanged from a lamp-post.  In his
next letter, the dreaded Mask resumes the assault: "' Let
me return to your grace; you are the pillow on which I am
determined to rest all my resentments."t
* Letter xlix., June 22, 1771.    t Letter 1., July 9, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               155
Dissensions now creep into the councils of the city Whigs,
Wilkes and Horne go together by the ears, and the cause
begins  to  grow  somewhat ridiculous.  Junius attacks
Horne. The latter retorts, and very nearly knocks off the
mask of his antagonist, so that the latter is glad to turn
from  this episodal skirmish-after making a curiously constrained eulogy of Lord Chatham (already quoted), to mislead public inquiry.  Junius gets to his pillow; but not to
sleep. His hopes of ministerial change are almost gone;
for the king, with a knowledge and insight of things, which
we do not rightly appreciate at this distance, refuses to have
anything more to do with Lord Chatham. He hates his
very name, as cordially as ever did George II. But the
spirit of aggressiveness is still strong in the old earl. One
stern satisfaction remains-the power of assaulting his
enemies, and tormenting the very loftiest of them, in such
language as the following: "Low craft and falsehood are all
the abilities that are wanting to destroy the wisdom of ages,
and to deface all the noblest monuments that human policy
has erected. I know such a man.  My lord, I know you
both (the king and Grafton), and with the blessing of Godfor I, too, am religious-the people of England shall know
you as well as I do. I am not very sure that greater abilities would not, in effect, be an impediment to a design which
seems, at first sight, to require a superior capacity. A better understanding might make him sensible of the wonderful beauty of that system he was endeavoring to corrupt.
The danger of the attempt might alarm him. The meanness and intrinsic worthlessness of the object (supposing
he could attain to it) would fill him with shame and disgust.




156           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
But there are sensations which find no entrance in a barbarous, contracted heart. In some men there is a malignant
passion to destroy the works of genius, literature, and freedom. The Vandal and the monk find equal gratification in,it."* Before all this towering audacity of abuse, the king
sits quiet. He hears it, and the courtiers hear it, with uplifted hands and eyes, and the fingers of the Attorney-general tingle to be clutching; but they all sit still; they all
cower under the blows of —whom?  Why, Lord Mahon
and Mr. Macaulay will tell you-of young Mr. Philip
Francis, to be sure!
That memorable warfare is ceasing in all parts of the
field. There is a great deal of reluctance and defection
among the assaulters; for there is no hope of beating the
king's ministry now; and the champion in the mask, animated by those personal motives which alone could have
kept alive such an animosity for such a length of time, sees
himself almost single-handed in that bitter business of attacking. Towards the close of 1771, he finds Mansfield
bailing a man named Eyre who has been purloining paper,
and breaks out into an elaborate and wonderful rage.   He
falls upon the Lord Chief Justice as freshly as if he was but
just then beginning.  "With the blessing of God," he cries
to Wilkes, " I'll pull Mansfield to the ground."  In the last
letter but one, of his more famous series, "Murray suffers
for an hour," once more. Junius there drags him like a
victim to the altar of public justice, and calls on Camden to
act the hzaruspex, and finish him with a knife.  But the
* Letter lvii., Sep. 28, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               157
ex-Chancellor has no stomach for such bloody business; he is
weary of all these barren battles, and feels with the Rockinghams and the rest of the " moderates," that the unprofitable fierceness of Lord Chatham, a man so bated by the
king and court, may have the effect of damaging those connected with him, and preventing their chances of place in
any future changes of government policy; and so the war
is at an end; and the ascendancy of the Whigs is forced to
give way to a new order of things-going, in a great measure, to sleep, till roused in 1830, by the fusillades of one
of the French revolutions.
Having surveyed the occurrences of this period, which
wear such a " battailous aspect," even in the mildest style
of narration, we have seen the statesman and the masquer
-so to speak-maintaining each other's opinions, using
each other's language, and striking each other's enemiesand that in so remarkable a manner, that it is only by an
effort we can preserve the distinct idea of each in the hurlyburly. Junius loses, in a great degree, the caution of his
earlier demonstrations; he is dreadfully in earnest, and more
bent on striking than parrying; so that in the wildness
of the mellay, the mask is at times knocked away, and you
get a violent glimpse of the flashing eye and the diabolical
rictus, as the grim earl tomahawks the Mansfields and the
Graftons, or affronts the king himself, with more than the
loftiness of a king.
Passing on from these troubled waters into the calmer
currents of Lord Chatham's life (where our biography shall
come to a close), we can also see how, to the very last, he
remains true to the words, ways, and opinions of Junius.




158           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Writing the dedication of the letters, when the battle was
over in 1772, he employs a favorite mode of expression;
and friequently afterwards, as he had, doubtless, done previously.  He says: "If, when the opportunity offers, you
neglect to do your duty to. yourselves and your posterity,
to God and your country, I shall have one consolation left
in connection with the meanest and basest of men-civil
liberty may still last the life of Junius." A short time
before his death, the thoughts of Chatham, running in the
old channels, are expressed in words pretty similar to the
foregoing, in a letter to Dr. Addington: " Where is this
ruin to end? Heaven only knows. I hold out hitherto.
Perhaps I may last as long as Great Britain."*  At another
time, in conversation with the Earl of Buchan, on the
never-exhausted subject of the national disasters and grievances, he consoles himself by saying, the gout, however, will
end him before the end of England comes.  In January,
1772, he writes to Calcraft: "With regard to that larger
home, our country, that house so fatally divided against itself-little presents itself to view but infatuation and degeneracy.  I do not see the smallest good can result to
the public from my going up to the meeting of parliament.
A headlong, self-willed spirit has sunk the city into
nothing."t The city was always the grand ally of Lord
Chatham.  Writing, for the last time, to Woodfall, in 1773,
he says, in the same mood of mind: "In the present state
of things, if I were to write again, I must be as silly as any
of the horned cattle (Junius loved a pun on occasion) that' " Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 484.
t Ibid., vol iv., p. 197.




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                  159
run mad through the city, or any of your wise aldermen. I
meant the cause and the public; both are given up. I feel
for the honor of this country, when I see that there are not
ten men in it who will unite and stand together on any one
question.  But it is all alike, vile and contemptible."*
There is yet another parallel, which still more remarkably
identifies the language of Junius with the feelings of the
Earl of Chatham, and also shows the implacable tenacity of
the man's mind. In the last letter with his signature,
Junius, in pose plastique, stands for ever in the attitude
of hauling Lord Mansfield forward to be stabbed at the
altar.t In the last scene of all, that ended the parliamentary
history of the elder William Pitt, the dying man, wrapped in
flannels and leaning on his crutch, bent his angry brow, and
delivered his last missile in the direction of that abhorred
Scotchman. In one part of his speech, as appears from a
letter of Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh to Lord Clive (for
the rest of the reports are silent on this significant fact), he
ridiculed the fears of invasion, enumerating those formerly
threatened-a Spanish invasion, a French invasion, a Dutch
invasion.  "M Many noble lords," he went on, " have read in
history, and some noble lords may, perhaps, remember a
Scotch invasion" —holding Lord Mansfield, all the time,
with his glittering eye! This was the last genuine undeni" Private Letter No. lxiii., Jan. 19, 1773.;t In " Rogers' Table Talk" we find a notice of one of the great orator's
assaults on his enemy, the Chief Justice. " No," said Foote to Murphy,
"i we will not leave the gallery; let us wait till he has made the little man
(Murray) vanish entirely." It is a pity such onslaughts are merely matters of hearsay and tradition, while the ballyragging of Cicero and Clodius, in the other House of Lords, remains on record.




160           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
able flash of Junius. To the last, he turned an angry face
on the Lord Chief Justice, mindful of that poetical prize at
college, and the rivalry continued through all the stormier
scenes of his life.




CHAPTER VIII.
A CONSIDERATION OF THE CURIOUS AND COMPLICATED SYSTEM OF ATTACKS AND DEFENSES ADOPTED BY LORD CHATHAM IN THE MANAGEMENT OF HIS MYSTERY.
Sometimes I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards, the bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join.
ARIEL (in the Tempest).
Trinculo, come forth; I'll pull thee by the lesser legs. If any be Trinculo's legs, these are they.
STEPHANO (in the Tempest).
IN, this chapter we offer considerations and a course of
evidence never yet, that we know, set forth in any Junian
investigation. The reader is requested to bewilder himself
a little here, plunge somewhat further below the surface for
what we seek, though it does not, by any means, need a
diver of Delos to  come at it.  In the foregoing pages
we have identified the angry heart of the thwarted politician
and the powerful and versatile brain of the educated statesman. We have now to poiut to the subtlety of the first of
strategists.  Until that subtlety be shown, Junius is not
shown.
Reading over his Miscellaneous Letters, we are apt
to feel as Gyblin, the goblin-page of Scott's romance, does




162           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
over the book of gramarye. No true critic ever doubted
they came from the pen which wrote the letter to the king;
yet what a coil and a complication they present! Instead
of one man, there is the appearance of half-a-dozen, skirmishing in various places —a series of scuffles all over the
field. Junius seems to divide and go to buffets with
himself, in a manner utterly bewildering to our common
conceptions of the duello.  Perhaps it is not to be wondered
at, that hasty inquirers should turn aside from such an
entanglement to the more open tracts of theory, or that
people should be so ready to say, of the letters of the Miscellaneous collection that seem in opposition to the Mask,
" these are not by Junius."  Nevertheless, they are certainly
by Junius. They greatly mistake, who try to circumvent a
riddle by the ordinary rules of ratiocination.
In these Miscellaneous Letters, which are, as it were, the
tirailleurs and voltigeurs of the more regular battle moving
under the sign of Junius, we must be struck with numerous
instances of that curious legerdemain, and led to the conviction that a crowd of epistles, not recognized as his,
would be found on a critical examination of the journals of
his time.
WVe would direct the reader's attention to a few instances of his cunning generalship.  And, first, we shall
look at the assaults upon Lord Hillsborough, who, as Secretary of State for the colonies, was the agent in General Amherst's dismissal from the governorship of Virginia
-an act designed to punish Lord Chatham for his savage
retreat. "L. L."  opens the attack, stating the dismissal of
" Miscellaneous Letter xxx., August 5, 1768.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                163
this meritorious officer, and the fact that, after the conquest
of Canada, Pitt had given him the governorship, with an
assurance that it should be permanent, and require no
residence in Virginia. Lord Hillsborough, conscious of
the motive of this dismissal, was not disposed to discuss
the matter, and affected to treat anonymous attacks with
contempt. But the masked writer was prepared for this.
In another letter we can trace his whole scheme. He says
to his lordship: "I must tell you plainly, they must and
shall be answered; you may affect to take no notice
of them, perhaps, and tell us you treat them with the
contempt they deserve.  But this shall not avail you
here.
Num negare audes? Quid taces? Convincam si negas.*
Lord Hillsborough will seem bullied into reply; there are
to be answers! Next day, accordingly, we have the letter
of " Cleophas," who comes out in defense of his lordship,
and gives an explanation of the secret intrigue of Amherst's dismissal, and Bottetourt's appointment. He makes
assertions which leave the secretary's case vulnerable, and
(lest there should be mistakes in what he asserts) he is
made to admit that he only heard these things at second
hand.  Then "Lucius," in the succeeding letter, falls upon
poor " Cleophas:" " You are pleased to assume the character of a person half-informed. We understand the use of
this expedient.  While you pursue these artifices, it is
impossible to know upon what principles you really rest
your defense."t But " Cleophas" was not the only writer
* Miscellaneous Letter xxxv., August 2,1768.
t Ibid. xxxvii.




164           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
on Hillsborough's side, to produce the deadly damage of
a feeble and absurd defense. " A Considerate Englishman,"
writing in the Advertiser, asserts that the secretary's abilities are brought into employment to correct the blunders of
Mr. Pitt's administration. This letter is not included in
the Miscellaneous Collection. But there is no doubt of
its authorship.  "Lucius," in the letter we have quoted,
alludes to it, and, pointing to the astounding assertion
that Hillsborough was employed to correct Pitt's blunders,
says: "Your emissaries, my lord, have rather more zeal
than discretion!"  The noble secretary must now have
begun to wince under the " defense" of his unknown friends,
and wonder who they were! A dust of controversy is
flying; but he protests he has no hand in it.  "Cleophas,
Junior" (whose letter is not in Woodfall's Collection), now
comes out to help the other "Cleophas," and then " L. L."
(Letter xxxviii.) follows, and denounces the Junior, informing the public that Lord Hillsborough is driven to the
mean and paltry art of employing nameless defendants to
throw out insinuations which he knows to be false; yet,
judging from the general run of mankind, flatters himself
that at least part of them will be believed.  This is the
sublime of subtlety.  Then  follows "Lucius" (Letter
xxxix.), who says, mercilessly: "In your lordship's letter,
signed'Cleophas, Junior,' you are pleased to assert," etc.
And he concludes thus: "You seem  determined to go
through the whole family of' Cleophas.' Be it so. If
your pedigree extended from Denbigh to St. Davids, I
would not cease to pursue you, from father to son, until I
had fairly extirpated the whole race." Then comes " Cleo



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               165
phas" again (Letter xl.), who makes the most plausible and
provoking admissions of what tells against the unhappy
man he seems to be defending. He says: "It is strange,
Lucius, you cannot write one line without abuse!"  He
calls the conduct of " Lucius" ungenteel, and, in a style purposely slip-slop, says: "The scurrilous language you use,
even when your arguments are just, prove you unacquainted
with the gentlemen and sense of honor;" and ends foolishly with " In justice to him, I must declare that I am not,
know not, never saw, nor ever spoke to the Earl of Hillsborough in my life but just as formerly."  "Lucius" comes
out again, in the next letter. saying: "I foresaw that poor'Cleophas' would soon be disavowed. It seems the poor
gentleman never saw nor spoke to your lordship, but just as
formerly. The saving is a good one. After the particulars
collected by' Cleophas,' it looks like trifling with the public
to confess that his accounts were collected in a coffee-house,
and that he will neither answer for facts, nor be directed by
dates." The reader knows that Junius was obliged, in the
character of Hillsborough's defender, to make up his defenses from report, and all must admire the cunning with which
he could thus convert his own ignorance into a help. " These,"
he goes on, " are evasions which I scorn to imitate. * * *'Cleophas,' alias your lordship, says he has ground to
believe the government was not given away, etc. * * *
You ask if there was any harm in this, or any fault in
that. What is that but cryingpeccavi, the very language of
misery and despair?" In conclusion, he says to his lordship: "I know the ostensible defense you give to the public (in the letters) differs widely (it did, indeed,) from the




166           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
real one intrusted privately with your friends.  You are
sensible that the most distant insinuation of what that defense is, would ruin you at once. But I am a man of honor,
and will neither take advantage of your imprudence, nor the
difficulty of your situation."
What cunning is in that glance at the secret influence,
meaning, of course, that the king was the first mover in the
business!  Then, out comes another defender of Hillsborough (what a bloodhound pertinacity in all this!), named
"Scrutator" (his letter is not in the Collection), who thus
ends with a scarcely sheathed sarcasm against the indecent
precipitation of the man he seems to defend: "I honor Lord
Hillsborough for having his man ready, ready not only for
his place, but for the province; ready, not only to kiss
hands, but to take his passage. And from the watchful
activity his lordship has exerted in every known instance
in his arduous employment, I have not the least doubt but
that if Lord Bottetourt had refused to go, or, on any pretext. delayed his departure, Lord Hillsborough had still
some other man in his eye who would have made ample
amends for the deficiencies of both." That defense is
demolishing! But "Lucius" comes on  again: " Your
change of title makes no alteration in the merits of your
case. You argued as well, and were full as honest a man,
under the character of'Cleophas' as you are under that
of' Scrutator.'"  He then goes on to hit his lordship on the
exposed parts of his defense.  To "Lucius" there were
several replies.  "Chrononhotonthologus," discovers a mistake in a date, and " Corrector" follows to sustain " Lucius,"
and emphasize that gross affront to Sir Jeffrey Amherst.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                167
Neither of these letters is in the Junian Collection. Out
comes "Lucius," again,* and winds up the furious argument, by shaming his lordship with a list of the scurrilous
epithets flung by Hillsborough, in the course of the debate,
against him-" Lucius!"
We believe the curiosities of literary history have never
furnished anything to equal all this. We are forced to
stand in amazement at such a complication, and confess that
the force of cunning could no further go. The steady vindictiveness of it is unexampled; but it is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the man who says to Lord Mansfield:
"Let it be my humble office to collect the scattered sweets
(of public reprobation), till their united virtue tortures the
sense."t It should also be remembered, in connection with
this hubbub, that the public did not care much about the
cause of it-that, but for the angry spirit of Junius, not a
single letter would probably have been written on the matter. But Hillsborough had insulted Lord Chatham, and had
also said he never meant to notice any public attacks. Hboc
fonte derizata clades.  After perusing that hurly-burly, how
it strikes us to fancy the whole proceeding from the quiet
writing-desk of a single secluded individual!
Another case of cross-purposes occurs in March, 1768,
when "Mnemon," "Anti Van Teague" and "Anti Stuart,"
fight a triangular duel.  We get from the man who opposes
" Van Teague," the hint that " Mnemon" is an Irishmanthat masked writer, who abuses every respectable character!
And yet another instance occurs in July, where " Insom-' Miscellaneous Letter xliii., Sept. 15, 1758.
t Letter li., November 14, 1770}.




168           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
nis" and " C." quarrel about the Board of Trade. The cunning machinery of these tussles is plainly visible to every
reader, seeing the letters, pro and con, are included by
Woodfall. We can see the man arranging his puppetwork. It is natural to conclude that there is more of the
machinery out of sight, that is, not discoverable by the letters stamped with W oodfall's imprimaltu.  And this conclusion will, we are sure, be found just. Printed in the
notes of Bohn's edition, we find some letters in reply, or in
reference, to those in the text, and the former as forcibly
prove themselves to be from the pen of Junius as the latter.
They are all alike component parts of a design which we
see distinctly in every case. In demonstration of what we
say, we would point to a remarkable letter in abuse of Lord
Chatham, and not included by Woodfall. It is found to
throw a new light upon the whole question; and a knowledge of the Hillsborough legerdemain enables us the more
truly to comprehend it.
On the 10th of December, 1770, a few weeks after
Junius's terrible attack on the Lord Chief Justice, in his
41st Letter, Lord Chatham assailed Lord Mansfield, in
the House of Lords, for his mode of charging the jury in
Woodfall's trial case. On the 14th, four days after, a letter, signed " Nerva," appeared in the Public Adve2rtiser, vituperating Lord Chatham in the bitterest way, for his treatment of the Lord Chief Justice.  The reader will remember
that Mansfield was a man who always affected calmness and
contempt in reply to any attacks of his opponents; and
Horace Walpole tells us that, in this same spirit, he used often
to listen to Lord Chatham himself. But on this occasion,




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                169
after the Chief Justice had been dreadflllly discomfited in
the House, the letter of "Nerva" came out, and everybody
read it as an angry and highly-abusive defense of the Earl
of Mansfield.  As such, it has been read from  that day to
this. But that letter is, as Carlyle would say, a sham from
beginning to end, and was written by Lord Chatham  himself-his subtle spirit and science gleaming palpably from
every paragraph of it.  He will show the world the spectacle of the serene and lofty Mansfield stung into a scolding
rage; he will show him writing or dictating a letter full of
truculent feeling, strangely contrasting with the dignified
equanimity of his usual manner; he will have loose-tongued
anger, mawkish complaint, feeble explanation, and feeble
style mixed up together, and he will have the world exclaim:
"What a defense of himself!  Mansfield was completely
floored in the Lords on Monday, but he really cuts a more
ridiculous figure in this letter."  And so "Nerva" wrote,
and so all this truly came to pass.  The letter to Lord
Chatham  begins thus: "My lord, I saw, on Monday, in a
certain great assembly, the most striking contrast of character that ever was exhibited on any public occasion. On the
one hand, decency, propriety, dignity, wisdom, and temper;
and on the other, presumption, insolence, absurdity, meanness, folly, ignorance, and rancor. Your lordship sat for one
of the pictures, and, I am sorry to say it was not for the
best. To speak without metaphor (!), what demon, save the
demon of malice, could inspire you with an objection to the
fair, the equitable information which Lord Mansfield offered
to the House? The proposal itself, the terms in which it
was conceived, would have conciliated a barbarian; but
8




170          JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
your animosity is worse than a barbarian's (!), and betrays
the principle from which it springs. In an unprecedented,
extrajudicial, captious, and insidious manner, you had taken
occasion to censure that great man's opinions in the court
of justice where he presides. Though you endeavored to
take him by surprise, that you might catch at some unfair
advantage from his answer, you were baffled and disappointed. He answered you with the noble simplicity of
innocence, and the wisdom that never forsakes the mens
comscia recti. He fairly stated his opinions and the principles on which they were grounded, and, without recrimination, he threw down his glove to you all, daring you to convict him of an error upon fair and legal argument."
To see the glaring absurdity of this defense, it is only
necessary to remember, that never was Lord Mansfield more
completely put down and dumfounded, than he was on that
occasion, by Lords Chatham  and Camden.  It is this,
in fact, which gives the letter all its deeply-studied point
and venom. The behavior of the Lord Chief Justice, on
being challenged by Lord Camden, to " fix a day," for discussing the law-points of the charge to the jury (which the
ex-Chancellor declared to be illegal), was shuffling, hesitating, and helpless to a degree that astonished the whole
house. Under some secret court influence, which dissuaded
his previously formed, or expressed intention, he shrunk
from the interpellation, and refused either to answer questions or name a day. Horace Walpole says: "The dismay and confusion of Lord AMansfield were obvious to the
whole audience, nor did one peer interpose a syllable in his
behalf."  Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Chief Jus



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   171
tices," says: "He was so closely pressed on the point, that
he would not answer interrogatories by Lords Chathamn and
Richmond, that the house became desirious the matter
should drop, from consideration of the embarrassment of
the Chief Justice."*  It was on all hands declared and allowed, that Lord  Mansfield was never so discomfited.t
And, in the opinion of the public, the letter of " Nerva" was
an outburst of his spiteful humiliation.   Dire, indeed, they
concluded, must have been the defeat which could sting him
or his friends into the use of such language.  "Nerva" goes
on to defend Mansfield, in an argument cunningly feeble
and fallacious; and then flies out in this way: "All the
world knows you are ignorant of every science.   This
country severely smarts for your ignorance in politics and
finance. Your ignorance of the law may not, perhaps, produce such fatal consequences; but it was such on the occasion I speak of, that your dependent (Camden), the man
who has sold himself to you, body and soul, who trembles
at his tyrant's frown, durst not say a word in defense of your
position, nor even by a distinctive endeavor to shade the
glare of your absurdity.  I know you are not ashamed of
the grossest ignorance and absurdity; but I would ask you
one question. When the great man, whom you had treated
so injuriously, rose up to explain, and, with the most amiable
* " Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices" (Life of Lord 3Mansfield).
t Lord 3Mansfield did not show himself graced with " the power of
words," and was apparently more' known" than " honored at the House
of Lords," on that occasion. Pope's couplet has all the air of a covert
sarcasm. One of the authors of Martinus Scriblerus could only write in
such a sinking style, prepensely. The line, " Plain truth, dear AMurray,
needs no flowers of spcech,' seems written in the same vein.




172           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
moderation and intuitive perspicuity (Mansfield was, as all
the world knows, stammering at the time, and not knowing
rightly how to explain himself),* pointed out your mistake
and rectified your blunder, had you no feelings of remorse for
your injustice towards him?    Did you not see how lovely
virtue was, and zmourn your loss?  (The italics are " Nerva's,"
and, at that bit of sarcastic snobbery, we can see the grim
rictus of the writer ridging his countenance from ear to ear.)
Did not the demon of faction and malice (a favorite expression of the Chief Justice) retire dejected from your heart,
and leave you in the momentary possession, at least, of
better angels?"  We need not quote the entire letter.  But
it ends in a paroxysm  of rage: "You, my lord, have imposed long enough on the world. You are a memorable
exception to the general rule of humanity; for years and
exercise have not endowed you with experience or wisdom,
and you possess, together with the cold heart of age, the hot
brain of rash and intemperate youth.  Already hath your
furious prodigality brought this nation to the brink of ruin.
Retire from the stage, and try, in retirement, to repent
of the evils you have brought on your country." Such
was the letter of "' Nerva," completing, in face of the country at large, the humiliation that had fallen upon the Lord
Chief Justice, before the Tapestries. That Lord Mansfield,
who never condescended to appeal to the public at any
time, should do so with reference to a defeat, which he
would rather have buried in forgetfulness, and do so
~ Horace Walpole says, the Lord Chief Justice tried to mollify Lord
Camden on this occasion, by complimenting him in the most abject
manner.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  173
in such a foolish way, too, is a thought which must instantly suggest the true character of Nerva's truculent
epistle.
In  reply to  "Nerva,"  "Phalaris" comes out, saying
calmly: "As far as assertion goes, no man argues better
than your correspondent' Nerva.'  If we are contented to
take his word for it, Lord Chatharn is a hair-brained desperate old fellow (the very style of a man talking disparagingly of himself), and Lord Mansfield is the quintessence
of wisdom, integrity, moderation, and firmness. I wonder
he did not assure us this worthy judge never drank the Pretender's health on his knees."*   Thus, with the old Chathamic taunt, does Junius wind up his double discomfiture of
the Lord Chief Justice.
In this Miscellaneous Series, we repeat, the evidences of
this legerdemain are found in many places.  There is a
bewildering jumble of epistles,t in which Y. Y. declares
that " Junius and his journeyman have engrossed the whole
alphabet," and a similar one appears towards the close of
that collection,: where Lord Mansfield, doubtless, to his
own astonishment and vexation, finds himself squabbling
turbulently in the streets by means of his apparent partisans, and his bailment of Eyre is discussed in a tempest of
writers; those on his side maltreating Junius with the most
abusive asperity, and calling him (we recognize that voice)
"an Irishman, a liar, and a Jesuit!" In the letter signed
"Augur,"~ the writer speaks of "Poetikastos," "Silurus,"
* Miscellaneous Letter lxxxii., Dec. 17, 1770.  t Ibid. liv., et seq.
a Ibid. ci., et seq.            ~ Ibid. Ix., Sept. 8, 1769.




174           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
and "Pericles," as dirty and foolish writers for administration.
"Silurus," on his side, says he knows Junius, a man sprung
from the lowest dregs of the people-an assertion which, of
course, sent a hundred critics, who had been looking for the
Mask in an upper direction, down altogether the other way.
Without having read all the letters of these names, we are
as confident as Leverrier was about his planet, that they
are from  the same unequaled Briarean hand.  There is
also a " Monody," on the supposed death of Junius, signed
" Poetikastos," and attributed to Sir John Macpherson. This
poem says that Junius was bribed by ministers, "he fell'neath arrows tipt with ministerial gold," implying that he
was a poor mercenary hack.  We think we know the pen
of "Poetikastos," also.  Again, there is, in the Public Advertiser, a fierce, recognized letter, signed  "Zeno," who
vituperates Junius as " the Jesuit of St. Omer's." This,
together with the forcible feeble style of the abuse, leaves
no doubt about "Zeno."  In December, 1771, "AntiJunius," " Sccevola," (called by Junius, in a private letter to
Woodfall, "the wretchedest of dirty fools,") and " One of
the Three" (all unrecognized), make, along with " Cambriensis" and "Juniper" (recognized),* a violent close mellay over
the Duke of Cumberland's marriage and that horrible business of Lord Irnham.  None but Junius would dare stir
up such matters. Again, during the strife of 1770, just at
the crisis when Lord Chatham was preparing a grand assault
on the government, several letters, signed "A Whig and an
Englishman," appeared in the Public Advertiser, speaking
M Miscellaneous Letters cii. and civ., Nov. 13 and Dec. 4, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               175
very much in favor of the restoration of Lord Chatham to
office. With reference to these, Junius thinks it necessary
to write thus, to Woodfall: "By your affected silence, you
encourage an opinion that I am the author of the'Whig,'
though you very well know the contrary. I neither admire
the writer nor his idol."*   This solicitude betrays the
writer. Junius, in a curious, gratuitous way, pretends to
think Woodfall was allowing. people to think Junius wrote
the "Whig."  The truth was, the honest printer was not
dreaming of being affected in the matter. But he put in a
paragraph, to say those' Whigs' did not come from Junius.
Credite posteri!
Having made these statements, which any man possessing the London journals of the Junian time may greatly
improve for himself, we now come to another of those political sham battles, which will, perhaps, be still more interesting to the reader. We had an opportunity of introducing
this in a former chapter, where we expressed a suspicion
that Junius had written many things before 1767, but could
not venture to do so, without having.premised the peculiar
strategy just indicated-a strategy for which no other dissertation seems to have prepared the inquirer. Having
marked the undoubted hand of Junius in " Nerva," we are
prepared to show as clearly, at least, as we show anything
in these pages, that Lord Chatham wrote two very
remarkable letters, which were published in London, in
1760.
In 1841, Mr. N. W. Simons, of the British Museum, dis* Private Letter, No. xxiii., Oct. 19, 1770.




176           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
covered several marks of Junius in one of those two letters
viz: —the letter to an Honorable Brigadier-general. Mir.
Simons' convictions were correctly produced, by a comparison of passages discoverable in the letter of 1760), to the
brigadier (subsequently Lord Townsend), with some in a
couple of the Junian letters, in which that nobleman is
satirized. He truly saw the footsteps of Junius; he wondered at the talons in the dust, seven or eight years off from
the usual haunt of that literary lion. But as he could not
show the face, he obtained less credit than his discovery
merited.  Mr. Britton subsequently took this last as a basis,
and made a Geryon-Junius too monstrous for general recognition.  The knowledge drawn from the peculiar case of
1" Nerva" enables us to reach a conclusion here which Mr.
Simons did not suspect. He could see the mask of Junius
in the letter to a Brigadier-general.  WVe can see the
man himself in the "' Refutation," published in reply to that
letter, and printed along with it, by Mr. Simons, who
was not aware of the amount of subtle evidence wrapt
up in his pamphlet.  We shall explain these two documents.
Brigadier-general George. Townsend (along with two
other brigadiers —Murray and Monckton) went with Wolfe
to the conquest of Canada, in 1759.  Wolfe was killed on
the Heights of Abraham, and M[onckton wounded, and the
capitulation was managed by Townsend.  Townsend's first
letter home said nothing in praise of Wolfe; while, in a letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, he almost
claimed the honor of the success for himself; and he was
also highly lauded by Lord Buckingham on the occasion.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                   177
The Brigadier-general was a self-willed, eccentric man of
quality, who, previous to his departure on the Canada expedition, had shown himself indisposed to bow very low
to  the great minister, Pitt.  We  must remember that
Wolfe was Pitt's officer-his  own choice, his obedient
and devoted hero, his heaven-born general and thunder-bolt
of war, so to speak.  He was a young man, of a forward,
impulsive nature, in whom the eagle eye of the Secretary
saw the spirit of a paladin. Before the expedition sailed,
Pitt and Temple got him to themselves at a dinnertable one day, and we can fancy how the look and talk
of the great war-minister would fire the young man's blood.
Warmed by the glow of Pitt's thought-and very possibly
by his Bordeaux wine along with it-the red-headed hero,
before he left their presence, touched, or half-drew his
sword, and, with the enthusiasm which could make him
quote poetry as he drifted on his path to battle, pledged to
them his sword and his life in the cause of England.*  Pitt
gloried in him. The men of quality did not understand
Wolfe's character; they said he was mad-very like the
minister himself in that respect. "Is he mad, eh?" said
* See Lord Mahon's " History of England" (vol. iv., p. 228) for the story,
somewhat unworthily told, on the authority of Lord Temple. The enthusiastic movement of a fine.souled youth, who loved poetry and, glory, is
not truly described as "gasconading with a drawn sword about the
room;" and the assertion that Pitt was so astonished and hurt at the
sight, as to lift up his eyes and regret he should ever have intrusted the
fortune of the war into such hands, is not to be credited. It seems as silly
a piece of gossip as " Jerningham, Jerningham, bring me my garters!"
No doubt, the wine was in Wolfe's head; no doubt his voice was more
rapid than ordinary; but when he touched his sword, the war minister's
prophetic eye saw Canada British. This is the true version of the story
-begging Lord Mahon's pardon.
8*




17S           JUNIUS, LORD CHIATHAlM.
George II. on one occasion; "then I wish to heaven he
would bite some of my other generals."*
Along with the news of Wolfe's glorious conquest and
death came those dispatches from Townsend, who had
opposed his commander's plan of attack, and had done
little or nothing in the achievement, but who now did
not hesitate to slur over the merits of the dead general.
Less things could set Pitt's blood in a flame at any time.
After the fall of Quebec, Townsend had left the army and
returned home; and at the same timte the French were mustering their strength to retake the city. Then in 1760
appeared the letter to "An Honorable Brigadier-General." It
is full of the aggressive spirit of Junius. The sarcastic
phraseology, the haughty taunts of cowardice, and so forth,
are not to be mistaken-though, of course, the truculent
passion of his later period of disappointment is wanting.
In holding Townsend up to contempt and ridicule, the
writer aggravates the punishment by coupling him with his
friend and favorite, Lord George Sackville, then the most
unpopular man in the kingdom, being considered a coward.
The juxtaposition was calculated to be very galling. The
letter began thus, with a generalizing flourish, such as
Junius mostly affects, as a preliminary of his assaults: "In
my religious doubts, I apply to the divinity of Whitfield; in
my theatrical difficulties, I consult the canonical criticisms
of a certain Right Reverend (Warburton, Shakespeare's com-' Pitt was mad, it seems; so were Wolfe, Burke, Byron, Grattan. To
listen to the critics and common masses of society, one would suppose
men got most of their lights of the world and demi-gods of fame out of
Bedlam.




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHA[M.                  179
mentator, made bishop by Pitt himself); and in my polite
misadventures, the physician of Ludgate IIill (one Dr. Rock)
is my celer atque fidelis, secret and  speedy.  To whom,
therefore, shall I appeal in my military doubts, but to the
man whom fortune, that never-erring judge of merit, in one
short campaign made a soldier (in the errata he says this
should be printed colonel) a general and commander-inchief?"  The letter ends in this way: "Ask his lordship
(Lord George Sackville) why did not the cavalry charge at
Minden. He cannot answer; but he does not blush. Ask
you why you are not at your post, or why you receive the
pay of two regiments for nothing. I know you cannot
answer, and I believe you will not blush."  That style, we
should think, is not to be mistaken.  None but Pitt could
have written the opening paragraph.
The letter contains many passages, sentences, and peculiarities  resembling  others in the Junian  letters.   Mr.
Simons has collected them  with much acuteness and industry, but we need only notice a few.   Brigadier Townsend
(afterwards Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland) had a talent for
painting, particularly in the grotesque line, and for drawing caricatures.   The masked writer makes it the  subject of many sarcastic hits.   In the letter of 1760, we
have:
"As you appear to have made the hero of Minden* your
H Iistory wrongs Lord George in calling him a coward. He was no
more a coward than Admiral Byng, and was, like him, sacrificed to the
English war-system, as ineffective, after the long Walpolean peace, as it
was found later, in the times of Nelson, Moore, and Wellesley, and, more
recently, in our own, when the bluff Sir Charles Napier, an original wargenius, saw his employers flinging over upon him the odium of their own




180             JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
model of all military virtue, I would encourage you to imitate his great example, by making a sort of natural resemblance between you-a resemblance far stronger than any
in  your own collection  of portraits-though  his royal
highness himself (the Duke of Cumberland, whom Townsend disliked), your great chief d'ceuure, be there." Eight
years later, Junius taunts in the same way:
"His Excellency, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, is said
to have a singular turn for portrait-painting, which he willingly employs in the service of his friends.  He performs
gratis, and seldom gives them the trouble to sit for their
pictures. * * * Amidst all the license of your wit, my
lord, I must entreat you to remember there is one character
too sacred even for the pencil of a peer (he hints that
Townsend caricatures the king), though your lordship has
formerly done business in the family."'* (That is, for the
Duke of Cumberland.)  The taunting use of the word caricatura occurs repeatedly in the letter of 1760, as well as
later, in the letters of Junius.
Again, the writer of the former says, referring to Quebec:
" You were at a safe and honorable distance from the scene
of action when you were told you commanded." This
quoted expression is in Townsend's dispatch; and we shall
see how Junius never forgets it.  In the Grand Council of
the affairs of Ireland, reported by Junius with his usual comic
shuffling policy, and felt, perhaps, in his heart what Nelson used to say
more openly, that government ministers are amono the greatest scoun.
drels that ever lived! Instead of being shot on his qnarter-deck, Sir
Charles was delivered over to the jocose executioner, Punch.
* Miscellaneous Letter v., September 16,1767.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               181
sarcasm, Lord Townsend, the viceroy, is introduced, with
the rest of the nick-named ministers, as Sulky Bout de ville,
and made to say: " I was quiet enough at Raneham, when
I was told I was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.  For a man
to be told that he commanded a kingdom, or an army, when
he dreams of no such matter, forms a situation too difficult
for a head like mine. My lords, I speak from experience
upon another occasion; indeed, I found the business done to
my hand by a person who shall be nameless."* (This refers
to Wolfe.)
In the letter of 1760, the writer taunts Townsend for his
partiality to the Scottish regiments; and, harping on an
expression in the dispatches of how the highlanders " took
to their broadswords," he says: " The court which his
lordship (Lord George Sackville) and you have paid to the
highlanders has been, truly, of some use to both. We are
told, in a letter from Quebec, that the highlanders took to
their broadswords-no doubt a very military phrase —and
drove part into the town," etc. Junius, in a scene already
quoted, makes Sulky say: "I believe I had best follow my
Lord Bute's advice, to carry over with me a battalion of
gallant disinterested highlanders, who, if there be any disturbance, may take to their broadswords. Where plunder's
to be had, they'll do anything. I have seen it tried with
astonishing success, and sure never man was in such a taking as I was (Junius, as we have said, loves a pun at
times). * * * However, I shall at least have the satisfaction of drawing their portraits.  I believe the best thing
\Iiscellaneous Letter vii., Oct. 22, 1767.




182           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
I can do, will be to consult my Lord George Sackville. His
character is known and respected in Ireland, as well as here,
and I know he loves to be stationed in the rear as well as
myself."*
We believe there is no need of any more evidence to
show that the writer of the letter to the' Brigadier-general
was Junius. Mr. Simons presents many more such passages. But we quit them, to offer evidence more original
and more curiously corroborative. It is in the "IRefutation" of this letter, published a little after, that we detect
the finest Junian artifice, and see the inside, as it were, of
his subtle machinery.
This " Refutation" is in the very spirit of Nerva's letter.
The object is to damnify Townsend still further by the show
of a mean, vulgar, sputtering, and contemptible defensea defense far more discomfiting to the Brigadier-general than
the direct blows of the assailant. Such is the unparalleled
strategy of Junius!  In the first place the motto of this
reply is a mocking and an equivocal one: " Urit enim
fulgore sto."  The writer sets out with saying that the
man who could begin to talk of Whitfield, the right reverend, a quack doctor, and so forth, in that ridiculous manner, must be out of his senses. Such a slip-slop attempt at
sarcasm, of course, only proves, ostensibly, the stupidity of
him who makes it, and the object is to give in this reply the
style of the Brigadier himself as much as possible.  In
answer to the taunt, that Townsend was colonel, general,
and commander-in-chief in one campaign, the " Refuter" (to
* Miscellaneous Letter vii., Oct. 22, 1767.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              183
coin a word) asks if his assailant has never read of that
great Roman, who, " from reading and private application
alone," showed in the field the qualities of a consummate
general!
To the assertion that Townsend hung back, he replies,
that the brigadier did right in not wantonly " exposing
the troops under his care to any further fatigue and unnecessary effusion of blood, which might have been productive
of dangerous consequences; for, let it be remembered, that
Bougainville was coming up" (!). At the assertion that
Townsend protested against Wolfe's plan of attack, " Refuter" lifts up his hands: " In a most infamous light the author
of such a gross calumny ought to be held!" And he thus
goes on: " That he did protest against the attack proposed
by General Wolfe, is not denied (!); but what was the object thereof, and where was it to be made?  Why, not
immediately against Quebec, but to attack the French in
their intrenchments. To have attempted forcing the French
in their intrenchments, must have been productive of a horrid slaughter, at least-that people ever having been formidable in such situations" (!).
The reader is now beginning to see the nature of that
Refutation. The hardest and most galling things in the
attack are copied into it, so that, under cover of a vindication, they would be sure of going where the letter itself
would not.  In another place, the defender admits that
Townsend must have acted from "quite another motive
than the mere soldier of fortune (the vulgar slip-slop of
this syntax-reminding the reader of "Cleophas," etc.-is
in keeping with all the rest), who wants to rise in the world




184          JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
and make his way by the profession of arms, which was not
at all his case. He, therefore, could have been actuated by
no other spirit than patriotic heroism.  It was her truly
glorious inspiring to his truly British soul (fancy the sardonic smile of the defender as he put these parts of speech
together!) that made him voluntarily-he not being liable
to any command-fly from pomp, wealth, and domestic
happiness, to encounter toils, perils, and death, under new
aspects, in a remote and barbarous world.  If General
Townsend is blamable for anything, it is for having done
too much, more than the public, by his then situation at
going abroad, had a right to expect from him, and for
which his family might with reason rebuke him. Therefore, all persons opposed to, and revilers of, such natural
desert as his, whether the public consider him as the promoter of the long wished-for militia, or the glorious reducer
of Quebec (!), are to be branded with equal contemptthough hitched in the cell of a prison, or a more elevated
lodge." How the wretched Brigadier-general must have
writhed when he read this exquisitively ridiculous defense!
The reader perceives the art with which the attack on
Townsend is attributed to some jail-bird or lofty garretteer.
"Refuter" goes on, worse confounding the cause of Townsend at every paragraph, to defend Lord George Sackville,
in the manner of a warm friend (Townsend was the intimate friend of Lord George), and flouts Prince Ferdinandthe commander at Minden, and, next to Wolfe, the popular
hero of the day. This part of the vindication seems amazingly absurd and reckless. In one part, we read: —" The




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               185
superiority of genius, talents, education, and knowledge,
Kwith which Lord George Sackville is so uncommonly endowed, made the German leader shrink into a diffidence of
himself!"  With what a shout of laughter that must have
been read throughout England! The two unfortunate soldiers of quality must have trembled with horror at the preposterousness of such a defense. Regarding the imputation
on Lord George's courage, "Refuter" seems to be puzzled
what to say; but he says that Turenne himself was always
in a tremor in the beginning of his battles, and that it is
very presumptuous to pretend to judge from any man's
countenance what his feelings are-unless a person was a
most extraordinary physiognomist" (!).  He goes on to
sneer at Prince Ferdinand as a confused sort of a man,
who was "absolutely ignorant he had gained the victory;
in which, however, Lord George had some share, inasmuch
as the battery of his contrivance greatly annoyed the enemy."
At this distance, we cannot pretend to estimate the great
amusement and amazement with which all this was received
in its day.
Then follow more silly malevolence against Prince Ferdinand, and some very clumsy, vulgar banter about caricatures, quite in the style of Sulky. Justifying the hasty
retreat of Townsend from Quebec, he says: "His friends,
his family, his country, the British constitution sighed,
wished for, nay, demanded his return, in order to see him
at the head of a national militia, of which he was the great
promoter. What a glorious example it is, to see the reducer
of Quebec march at the head of a regiment of militia!"
Here you can almost hear the laughter of the secret writer.




186           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
In answer to the question, "Why do you receive the pay
of two regiments for nothing?" the champion brazens it
out, as if it were a personal matter, gratuitously insulting
Lord  Blakeney, as well as Prince Ferdinand: —" If
true, the taking of Quebec deserves a great deal more.
General Blakeney was made a Knight of the Bath and a
peer with a pension of one thousand pounds per annum,
for giving up Minorca.  Prince Ferdinand has two thousand five hundred per annum on the Irish Establishment,
etc.; I should be glad to learn for what. What was General Townsend's promotion on his return? What has he
received?"  There is no need of dwelling any further on
the palpable design of this most subtle performance, so
farcical in its irony and sarcasm, from beginning to end.
In connection with Lord Townsend, there is one more instance of this sham-fighting, which we may add to the rest.
Junius, with the signature of " Moderator," on 12th October, 1767, speaks of his lordship's conduct at Quebec, and
gives currency to some taunts flung at him by a certain
writer called "No Ghost."  This "No Ghost" and "PhiloVeritas" are fighting pro and con, about the courage or
cowardice of the Brigadier-general at Quebec, and elsewhere, till his character is quite covered with the dirt they
are flinging.   "No Ghost" and "Philo-Veritas" (unrecognized) and "Moderator" (recognized),* are one and the
same; and this is another of those wonderful little mellays
that you meet with in passing over the field of this Miscellaneous Collection. It is one man pulling so many wires.
* Miscellaneous Letter vi., Oct. 12, 1767.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                187
All this presents Junius in a new light, enlarges his surroundings, and makes the reader desirous of looking further, both before 1767, and after 1773. An opportunity
of examining the old London journals would enable him to
do so, and thus arrive at a truer idea of this most restless,
double-minded, and formidable newspaper-writer that ever
lived. We are convinced that, taking the true direction, he
would be enabled to find in the course of Pitt's career,
from his going into parliament to the Junian dates-a space
of thirty years-another volume of his writings, as large,
perhaps, as Woodfall's book.  We cannot, for a moment,
contemplate such a terrible cornet of horse, such an assaulter of kings and wielder of democracies, with a versatility
of eloquence which struck his age with admiration, and
which cannot be shuffled entirely out of sight in ours, and
not fancy him as "attacking" with his pen as with his
tongue, from the very first. We cannot fancy him neglecting to grasp the most effective weapon in the war of such a
pamphleteering time. Posterity has been too much in the
habit of looking on him as a sort of grand lomzne manqu,
seeing a great portion of his energetic life obliterated, as it
were, and the rest under a curious cloud of confusion. The
suggestion of these pages-and, we are very confident, the
true one —would probably lead to some restorations of his
biography, or, at any rate, make him less of a riddle than
he is, in many eyes. It is too much, we repeat, the custom
of inquirers to stay groping at the shadow's heels, disputing with one another about dates, coincidences, catchwords,
and so forth, looking at what he pleases to show them, and
believing what he pleases to tell them.  Some of them,




188            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
with a commended sagacity, confine'themselves to the inclosure of the regular series; others, with greater daring,
explore the Miscellaneous; but still with a kind of uncertainty, as if they were not exactly working selon les regles.
As for this idea of Junius bespattering himself as "' Nerva,"
they may possibly reject it as too violent-not even give it
the welcome of a stranger. And, certainly, if it is to be
Francis, or Temple, or Macleane, they do right to reject it.
In such a case, Junius was not the writer of " Nerva's" letter, nor of the " Refutation" of 1760.




CHAPTER IX.
CONTEMPORARY EVIDENCES; SHOWING THAT THE ACUTEST JUDGES OF
THAT PERIOD CONSIDERED JUNIUS TO BE LORD CHATHAM.
Well, well, we know, or we could an if we would; or if we list to
speak!
HAMLET.
Chacun parle a son gre de ce grand cardinal
M- ais, pour moi,je n'en dirai rien;
II m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal,
I1 m'a fait trop de mal pour en diro dn bien.
CORNEILLE.
THE foregoing pages contain all we meant to indicateleaving out minor considerations.  If our demonstration is
true, enough has been written; if not, we have said too
much.  Still, having gathered the materials of this theory,
we find it hard to throw them away.  Besides-in consequence of indiscreet compression-our matter threatens to
look disparagingly thin between the covers, when all is
done; and everybody know that a certain portliness, not
to say, corpulence, of a book carries its own general trade
recommendation along with it. Making use of those materials, then, we shall go on, to trace the limbs and outward flourishes of our subject.
It is interesting to consider what the cotemporaries of
Junius thought of his identity.   And we shall find in the
expressions of those most familiar with the political arena




190           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
of the time, and most capable of knowing the various actors
on it, a strong suspicion-an apparent consciousness of the
truth —very little short of a direct statement of belief.
Many of the foremost men of that day could see that
strange and malcontent Lord Chatham, behind the mask of
Junius; but so terrible was the nature of the secret with
regard to that nobleman and his family, and so guarded was
it by a circumvallation of shows and seemings, that no one
cared or dared to speak of it freely.  There was no direct
proof to be had, and respect, fear, or prudence, kept people
silent. But a great amount of indirect evidence shows that
it was either known or suspected.  John Horne Tooke
seems to have been convinced that Junius was Lord Chatham; he very nearly pulled off the mask in that epistolary
contest on the subject of the city differences.  He struck
the shield with the point of the lance.  "The darkness," he
says, " in which Junius thinks himself shrouded, has not
concealed him, nor his artifice of only attacking, under that
signature, those he would pull down (whilst he recommends
by other means those he would have promoted), disguise
from me whose partisan he is."   The parenthesis points to
those letters eulogizing Lord Chatham, signed, " A Whig
and an Englishman," to which we have already alluded, and
which Junius was so anxious to disavow.
Horne goes on: " When Lord Chatham  can forgive the
awkward situation in which, for the sake of the public, he
was designedly placed by the thanks to him from the city,
and when Wilkes's name ceases to be necessary to Lord
Rockingham, to keep up a clamor against the ministry, then,
and not until then, may those he now abuses expect the ap



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                191
probation of Junius. Mr. Wilkes is supported and assisted
in all his attempts as long as he continues to be'a thorn
in the king's side.' This is the very extremity of faction,
and the last degree of political wickedness. Because Lord
Chatham has been ill-treated by the king, and treacherously
betrayed by the Duke of Grafton, the latter is to be the pillow on which Junius will rest his resentments, and the public are to oppose measures of government from mere motives
of personal enmity to the sovereign."  This told dangerously against the Mask-seeing that Chatham's anger
against the king and the Duke of Grafton was well known.
A little further on, Horne says, that Junius, with all his partiality for Wilkes, never, any more than Lord Chatham,
contributed a farthing to Wilkes's expenses.  He ends this
harping on the earl, by declaring that the principles of
Junius-who, he knows, is looking ambitiously to a change
of ministers-will suit no form of government.  " They are
not to be tolerated under any constitution. Personal enmity is a motive fit only for the devil."* This motive was
that attributed by the court party, and a great portion of
the public, to the fierce parliamentary onslaughts of Lord
Chatham. These thrusts at his identity must have greatly
discomposed Junius.  Horne, in effect, identifies him with
Lord Chatham.  What shall he write now?  If he show
consciousness he is lost, for the eyes of the public are on
him. To show any leaning to the earl, would only confirm
the suspicions suggested by Horne. So the critics would
suppose. But Junius thinks more cunningly. He comes
Letter liii., July 31, 1771.




192            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
out with an air of boldness, and writes that eulogy on Lord
Chatham which we have already quoted.  The public curiosity was thus ably met and imposed on.  In a letter written about a fortnight after that of Junius (the 54th), Horne
says: "I am as well satisfied with your panegyric as Lord
Chatham can be"*-a sentence affecting us with something
of the same dubiety which touches the readers of the passage it refers to.  Short as it is, it has an equivocation
suggestive of what we believe were the secret beliefs of Mr.
Horne. The latter certainly told truth when he laid down
his knife and fork at the dinner-table and said, with such
sternness: " I do, sir."
Edmund Burke would not, perhaps, have taken his oath
that Lord Chatham was Junius, or dictated the letters; but
we are persuaded he firmly and potently believed it. Let
us mark how this clear-seeing politician, so familiar with
the penetralia of the Whig party, regards the Mask.  He
speaks remarkably of Junius in his place in parliament, and
he speaks with emphasis, on more than one occasion, of the
conduct and character of Lord Chatham; and while his
honorary mention of the former proves he did not think the
letters came from any mere clerk or secretary, the peculiar
manner and similarity of style in which he introduces both
the one and the other, show the degree in which the subjects
were identified in his mind.  In 1768, at a time when
Lord Chatham kept himself shut up in the country, and re* It is to be remarked as highly significant, that both Wilkes and Mr.
Butler, the writer of the " Reminiscences," thought there was something
ironical in the language of that passage, and Robert Heron could find
nothing in it but a burlesque meaning. No wonder that a thing so full
of constraint and hypocrisy should puzzle the critics.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              193
fused to come out for a million of prayers, Burke, alluding
to the perplexity of the ministers, speaks thus of the Lord
Privy Seal: "But, perhaps, this house is not the place
where our reasons can be of any avail; the great person, who
is to determine this question, may be a being far above our
view-one so immeasurably high, that the greatest abilities
(looking to Mr. Townsend), or the most amiable disposition
(to Mr. Conway), may not gain access to him-a being before whom thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers (waving his hand all the time over the Treasury Bench,
behind which he stood), all veil their faces with their wings.
But though our arguments may not reach him, our prayers
may."  Burke then apostrophized the great Minister above,
who governs all, to have mercy on the work of his hands;
to have mercy on the public credit, of which he has made so
free and large a use: " Doom not to perdition that vast public debt-a mass of seventy millions-which thou hast
employed in rearing a pedestal for thine own statue!" Here
he was called to order by Mr. Hervey, who probably thought
the orator was verging too closely on the profane, and checked in mid-volley, greatly to the regret of many in the House,
who thought they were getting something more interesting
than the usual dinner-signal.
We shall now see how he speaks of Junius, in the same
figuratively-imaginative way, as of one in whom also the assembly he addressed would be largely interested. The following language, spoken in such a place, was meant for
none but some lofty and magisterial agency: "How comes
this Junius to have broke through the cobwebs of the law,
and to range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the land,
9




194           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
The myrmidons of the Court have been, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me
or upon you, when the mighty boar of the forest, which has
broke through all their toils, is before them. But what will
all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one,
than he strikes down another dead at his feet. For my own
part, when I saw his attack upon the king, I own my blood
ran cold. I thought he had ventured too far, and that there
was an end of his triumphs. Not that he had not asserted
many bold truths, by which a wise prince might profit.  It
was the rancor and venom with which I was struck. But
while I expected from this daring flight his final ruin and
fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down, souse,
upon both houses of parliament! Yes, he made you his
quarry, and you still bleed from the effects of his talons.
You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage.  Nor has
he dreaded the terrors of your brow, sir (Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker); for he has attacked even you; and I
believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter.
Not content with carrying away our royal eagle in his
pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you
prostrate; and king, lords, and commons, thus become but
the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this House,
what might not be expected from his knowledge, his
firmness, and his integrity?  He would be known by his
contempt of all danger, his penetration, and his vigor.
Bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; nor
could promises nor threats induce him to conceal anything
from the public."* All this, surely, makes the idea of a clerk* Debate on the Address, November 27j 1770.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                  195
Junius, or secretary-Junius, utterly ridiculous. That Burke
looks up to some great and distinguished man, is visible in
such language; and he knew who Junius was as well as any
man in England.
The speeches we have quoted proceeded from impressions
similarly made on the mind of the orator. On a former
occasion, he produced the same soaring and pouncing fancy
by which he had understood and depicted Junius: " The
style of Lord Chatham's politics," he says, "is to keep
hovering in the air over all parties, and souse down where
the prey may prove best." To this we may add that Burke
admitted to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he thought he knew who
Junius was, and that he always avoided the subject of the
identity.*
We now come to consider how John Wilkes regards the
man in the paper mask. This little squinting scoffer, who
seems to venerate nothing in the world, looks reverently to
his veiled correspondent —he almost worships him. Replying to Junius, he says: "I do not mean to indulge the
impertinent curiosity of finding out the most important
secret of our time-the author of Junius. I will not attempt, with profane hands, to tear the veil of the sanctuary.
I am disposed, with the inhabitants of Attica, to erect an
altar to the unknown god of our political idolatry, and will
be content to worship him in clouds and darkness."t' Writing to Charles Townsend, in 1771, Burke seems to express his
consciousness of the mode in which Junius managed his secret, the better
to baffle inquiry. He says he himself is incapable of treating the character of his friends, and even his own character, with levity, in order to be
able to attack that of others with less suspicion.
t Private Letter No. lxix,, September 1'2, 1771.




196           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Again: "I did not go to Woodfall to pry into a secret I
had no right to know; the letter itself bore the stamp of
Jove." Wilkes tells Junius that he is thinking of making
an onslaught on the House of Lords concerning their
usurped powers,* and insidiously asks his opinion, strongly
suspecting he would not be very favorable to such a proceeding. Junius, in reply, says: "Do now as you think
proper. I have no resentment but against the common
enemy, and will assist you in any way that you will suffer
yourself to be assisted. When you have satisfied your
understanding that there may be reasons why Junius should
attack the king, the minister, the Court of King's Bench, and
the House of Commons, in the way that I have done, and
yet should desert or betray the man who attacks the House
of Lords, I would still appeal to your heart."t This unconsenting, round-about sort of reply was enough, it seems,
for Wilkes, whose proposal was a significant feint, and he
let the matter drop. He always agreed with Dr. Mason,
that Junius was a man of high rank. He never dreamed he
was an understrapper of any sort.
Let us now come to Woodfall.  This man, receiving all
the letters of Junius, privy to his system of feints and
cross-purposes, and likeliest to make the shrewdest guess at
the identity of one who was certainly wealthy, and carried
such an undeniable tone of command with hinm, shows himself all deference to the will of his correspondent.  His
language, in addressing him, is that of a man looking up.
He buys a franchise, and begs the shadow of a name will
* Private Letter No. lxxx., November 6, 1771.
t Ibid. No. 1xxxi., November 9, 1771.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                197
deign to instruct him how to vote. Woodfall was not the
man to address any clever clerk or amanuensis, such as
Francis, Lloyd, Boyd, or Macleane, in that manner. He
knew the world about him too well, and well knew that
none but a man of the most powerful rank could have
protected him against the consequences of publishing the
letters.
Dr. Johnson will furnish us with one more evidence of
the impression made upon the best-informed cotemporaries
of Junius by that writer. The dogmatical doctor, who had
received a pension from George III., was brought forward
during the tempest of the still-vexed Falklands, to show his
science against that terrible assailant of the ministry.* He
wrote a defense of them, which they were very proud of, and in
this " Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting the Falkland Islands," he denounces both Lord Chatham and Junius,
leaving a strong impression that he identified them, in chief
opposition to the policy of the government. In one part of
the pamphlet he alludes thus to Lord Chatham, whom he
does not name:'"This, surely, is sufficient answer to the
feudal gabble of the man who is every day lessening that
splendor of character which once illuminated the kingdom, then dazzled, and afterwards inflamed it, and for
whom it will be happy if the nation, at last, dismiss him to nameless obscurity, with that equipoise of
praise and blame which Corneille allows to Richelieu, a
* There was some talk of bringing the doctor into parliament; but Lord
North objected, saying the philosopher was something of an elephant,
and would be just as- likely to trample down his friends as his enemies
in any of the mellays of the House of Commons.




198             JUNIUS,  LORD  CHATHAM.
man who, I think, had much of his merit and many of his
faults."   The doctor speaks of Junius in a rather elaborate
passage in another part of the pamphlet.  He says: "It
cannot be said, as of Ulysses, that he scatters ambiguous
expressions among the vulgar; for he cries havoc without
reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of foreign and
civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what
may be their prey.  * * *  Junius knows his own meaning,
and can, therefore, tell it. He is an enemy to the ministryhe sees them hourly growing stronger. He knows that a
war, at once unjust and unsuccessful, would have certainly
displaced them, and is, therefore, in his zeal for the country,
angry that war was not unjustly made, and unsuccessfully
conducted."*   This is the  undoubted  portrait of Lord
Chatham in 1771.
It seems strange that Dr. Johnson should think it a happiness for the earl, that he should be dismissed to obscurity
for opposing the ministry. But if we suppose the doctor
knew him to be implicated in something less dignified and
* "Johnson's Works," vol. viii., London, 1806. It is to be remarked,
that the doctor does not write very savagely against the Mask. He is
gravely severe, and no more. We can fancy good reasons for this. Frederick, Prince of Wales, in whose household Pitt spent some of his earlier
years, was a great patron of literary men, among them Dr. Johnson,
whose "Rambler" he greatly admired. It is not very improbable that the
doctor found Pitt, on occasion, a welcome go-between-especially as the
rising statesman then enjoyed as great a reputation for literature as for
political eloquence, and wished to maintain it. If Johnson believed he
was called upon to denounce a mere clerk, secretary, or other person of
that sort, we should have something in his own squelching and truculent
style, very different from those measured terms of blame in which he has
expressed himself. Corneille's sentiments regarding Richelieu are apparently those of Johnson towards Lord Chatham-a man who was fvery
likely to have laid the doctor under obligation.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              199
more factious, we can account for that disrespectful style of
language applied to so great and venerable a man. No
doubt Dr. Johnson could make as close a guess at the
identity as any one in London. But we believe it would
have been a very desperate proceeding, even in "Mun"
himself, to question him about it, in any of those grand
ursine moods of his, at the Club.
We have to mention another instance, in which Lord
Chatham is brought into close connection with Junius.*
Beckford, the admirer and adherent of that great man, on
being asked if his lordship was not Junius, said: " No, for,
if so, they would all have known it," that is, Chatham's
friends-Beckford among them.  But that self-sufficient
reason is of course inconclusive.  Beckford, very likely,
knew the truth. He told the inquirer that Dr. Wilmot, a
great Whig, and a great friend of Lord Chatham, was the
man. Wilmot, he said, knew all about the court, and was
the clergyman who married George III. to Hannah Lightfoot, and William Pitt and a lady named Taylor were the
only others present at the ceremony. This last is a curious
piece of gossip. But it is to be observed, how Beckford, to
ward off suspicion from Chatham, is obliged to say that
Junius was his lordship's close friend. Then, undoubtedly,
Chatham must have known all about the business. So that,
having got into the adyta, led by this intimate of the great
minister, we find the latter a portion of the secret, as it
were. But, there is no Junian theory extant, in which we do
not jostle the grim earl, more or less closely. Whatever
* New Monthly Magazine, vol. ii., p. 276.




200           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
point of view be adopted, the inquirer is always sure to see
him, frowning beside or above the theme, just as Vesuviusto quote from one of Victor Hugo's fine odes-still forms
the severe background of all the soft vistas which the traveler finds round the Bay of Naples.
In addition to the foregoing, we may observe that, up
and down in our literature, we meet with a great many passages concerning Lord Chatham  or Junius, which have the
effect of sustaining, in some degree, the conclusions of these
pages.  We have noticed some of these passages in the Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, whose character was so
wonderfully like that of her grandfather.  Her very tones resembled his so much, that William Pitt used to say: " Good
God, if I were to shut my eyes, I could almost think it was
my father."  She had all the earl's pride, eccentricity, voluble sarcasm and general waywardness-a more powerful,
though less elegant specimen of womanhood than MIrs. Pitt,
her grand-aunt, who was such a distinguished woman in her
day.  Dr. M., who writes the Memoirs, allows himself, in
an apparently unconscious manner, to express a foregone
conclusion-such as he must have gathered from the conversation of her ladyship, where he considers-" Whether
Lord Chatham might not have been the author of Junius's
Letters."  He says this in a passing way, as if led to it by
some natural course of thought, and as if the world would
not consider the idea rather a violent one. As we have
said, he knew Lady Hester well, and heard her conversations, and these must have had their eftect on him. At one
time, she said to him: " My grandfather was perfectly
capable and likely to write and do things which no human




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                    201
being would dream came from his hands." This would be
a better epigraph of our book, than Pope's verses. It contains a very remarkable admission; and when we consider
that Lady Hester was on bad terms with her family, and
would say things to displease and spite them, which she
would otherwise keep secret, her words are among the most
significant, bearing on this curious question. She goes on to
say that Lord Chatham employed many spies and secret
writers, and talks of one who, in the dress of a sailor,
gave him much information on American and West India
events.   Speaking of her relatives, who had just published
the Chatham Correspondence, she says: " They are totally
ignorant of the politics of my grandfather's age, and of the
style of language used at that period; and absolutely ignorant (mark how curiously close she comes again) of his
secret reasons and intentions, and the real or apparent footing he was upon with many people, friends and foes. I
know all that from my mother, who was his secretary, and,
as Coutts used to say, the cleverest man of her time in
politics and business," etc. It is Hester,* Lord Chatham's
daughter, who is here spoken of as such a clever assistant
of the earl.
+ We are not sure this name is set down correctly-not having a
Debrett. It may be a wrong one. And we may as well observe, here,
that in these pages two or three other names or dates may be involved
in the same uncertainty. But any slips will be surely found out. We
leave them, however, to those who know how to deal with them-the
fera literaturce, whose natural prey they are. We mean simply to approach and point to the true Junius-very careless what little obstacles
the foot may stumble over in so doing. The pretense of being precisely
right at all sides of any human argument, is, perhaps, a ridiculous one
after all-generally speaking-and peculiar to an age merely critical.
9*




202           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Sir Nicholas Wraxall, in his Memoirs, also alludes to
our subject, and in such a way as shows he thought Junius
a man in very high position-one who may possibly have
accepted a pension and a peerage from some of the persons
he vituperated in his letters.  Sir Nicholas was a man remarkably well informed in all the political gossipries and
personal histories of his time, and very well enabled to
make a shrewd guess at the real Junius. It must be admitted that, in his allusions, he comes wonderfully close to
the facts of Lord Chatham's biography.  At all events, it
is plain he does not look to any of the understrappers or
War Office clerks, so insisted on by the acute critics of a
later generation.
There is another curious passage bearing upon this question somewhat, and occurring in Mr. Landor's Imaginary
Conversations.  The two lords, Chatham  and Chesterfield,
talk about Plato, and the latter seeing a Bible in the hands
of his friend, kisses it, saying: "I kissed it preparatorily to
swearing on it, as your lordship's power and credit are from
this time forward at my mercy, that I never will divulge, so
help me God, the knowledge I possess of your reading
Greek and philosophy."  This is rather a curious close of
the colloquy, and seems to imply, on Mr. Landor's part, a
feeling that this doing a thing in secret, and having his
friends swearing solemnly never to divulge their knowledge
of it, was perfectly in character and consistent with the
idea of Lord Chatham. Our notion of this seeming may
be right or wrong; but if Mr. Landor really meant miching
mnalheco, we find his meaning countenanced remarkably by
the statements of Lady Hester Stanhope.




CHAPTER X.
LORD CHA.THAM S SPEECHES, AND REPORTERS-AFFECTATIONS AND INADEQUACY OF SIR PHILIP FRANCIS, LORD CHATHAM'S AMANUENSIS AND
SECRETARY.
With purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle.
MERCHANT OF VENICE.
Rien ne te sert d'6tre farine.
LAFONTAINE'S CAT.
IN the present chapter, we shall offer a few observations
on the subject of Sir Philip Francis, showing his subservient
connection with the Junian mystery.
The general opinion that Lord Chatham was an ineffectual, careless writer —the antipodes of such a man as
Junius-is a fallacy.  We have shown enough to prove that
he was among the most elegant and forcible of British writers. Some of his letters, of which we have certainly
got the least spirited and characteristic, exhibit the terse and
decisive style of the masked writer, while the reported
speeches of the great orator echo the Junian cadences in a
handred places, though, doubtless, less close and polished
than these last. But, you are told, that the thoughts and
cadences of the speeches were those of the young man's




204           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
manner; that the orator's mind, passing through the reporter, took a Franciscan hue.  This fallacy is met by
the fact that the speeches reported by Boyd are as fill
of the peculiar spirit and character of Lord Chatham as
those reported by Francis. Indeed, we believe it was impossible it should be otherwise, for, according to all appearance, he corrected and polished his speeches, or rather
the reports of them, before sending them to the press. This,
at least, was the case with his most important speeches,
which have the clear unsuperfluous style of his letters.
There is no reporter's "gummy flesh" about any of them,
no periphrases; they are spare, muscular and ad rein.
Some of them begin with an abruptness which discredits the
idea of mere reporting. The reader who peruses the speeches
of January 19, 1775, and November 18, 1777, first published in 1779 —the year after Chatham's death-will find in
them the tone and manner of those of 1770, reported by
Francis, and none of that peculiar style of strong writing
affected by Mr. Boyd.
The greatest difficulty in the way of the Franciscans
exists in connection with these speeches of 1770.  The
number of the parallel passages is very damaging to
the pretensions of Sir Philip.  Nothing but a desperate
resource remains to his advocates. It is necessary to say
the young clerk had greater powers than Lord Chatham;
and some of them say it. They say the youth powdered the
harangues of the noble veteran with his own flowers of
thought and language, fancies, figures and felicities; nay,
that he did for the orator what the latter could not do so
well for himself-write some of his speeches. Lest this




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                205
should be taken for a scurvy jest, we quote from Bohn's
edition of the Letters: "It is not improbable that Sir
Philip Francis composed those speeches for Lord Chatham;
he certainly composed many of his lordship's speeches."*
This conclusion is drawn from the fact that, on the margin
of a copy of " Belsham's History of England," Francis once
wrote: "I wrote this speech for Lord Mansfield, as well as
all those of Lord Chatham, on the Middlesex election."
This, to be sure, is an excellent Franciscan argument; but
some minds, we confess, would be rather staggered to
think Junius wrote a speech for Lord Mansfield!  C'est un
peu trop fort. It is too violent a piece of testimony. But
the editor calls another witness in support of his theory, whose
evidence is of a still more awkward character. This witness
brings forward Lord Chatham, and gives him a position in
this argument, from which, we believe, he will not be obliged
to recede. She says (for it is Lady Francis who speaks)
that the earl was the ally-the powerful ally of Junius.
Not Junius himself, but still " a piece of him!" Her opinion
is quoted from her very inconsequent letter, inserted by
Lord Campbell in his "Lives of the Lord Chancellors."
She states that, after the young man had assailed the general
policy of the government in the first letter (that is, of the
regular series, for her ladyship skips and slurs over the Miscellaneous Letters, as things. of no account), a new and powerful ally came to his assistance; and, by this ally, she subsequently says, she means the Earl of Chatham. Then the
little demiourgos wrote and wrote, in that vigorous, dreaded
" Bohn's edition of Junius,' vol. i., p. 62.




206           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
style; and the sometime Cornet of Horse, who could smite
the house of Bourbon with one hand, and wield in the other
the democracy of England, exerted himself, assisted by
Lords Camden and Temple, Mr. Grenville and Mr. Calcraft,
in gathering for the able juvenile the materials of those widesweeping assaults on the highest estates and men of the
realm, and helping him, with unwearied care and precaution, to protect his clerkly mystery from the world, and
from the latest posterity!
Such are the most recent Franciscan views.  But we can
appreciate the grain of wheat contained in all this bushel of
chaff. The strong necessity of truth produces from Lady
Francis the admission so damaging to the belief to which
she is still attached, that Lord Chatham had a hand in the
letters. He certainly had, and a head, too.
Lady Francis sees the necessity of arguing that Sir Philip
was a precocious genius, quickly flowering and quickly falling off. She says at seventeen he was Latin secretary to
Lord Chatham: "then to an embassy; then to General
Bligh; then clerk in the War Office, where he thought himself ill-treated (mark that!). He was at the Court of France
in Louis XVI.'s time, when the Jesuits were driven away for
offending Madame Pompadour. And yet people say that,
at twenty-nine years old to thirty-two, he was too young,
etc."" This is not void of a certain lady-like force of reasoning, which all must recognize, and it has the merit of
having produced, or strengthened, Lord Campbell's convictions.  There is another consideration which inevitably emra* "Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors," vol. vi., p. 344.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                207
barrasses the Franciscans. Their Junius has all the appearance of being silenced by a bribe. When Junius ceased to
vituperate, young Francis was sent, from  a clerkship and
~500 a year, to an Indian Satrapy and ~10,000 a year.
Some of his advocates, with a sense of what is really due to
the idea of Junius, make an attempt to parry that imputation. They say Francis could not have been bribed, seeing
the dreaded letters had ceased to come out, for over a year,
when Philip Francis received that princely place and salary.
No, the king and Lord North might have done this to bribe
him, but he was not bribed!  If it was a bribe (it is
argued) the two occurrences would have taken place together, say within the compass of a week, at least. As regards the splendid nature of the promotion, it is also asserted that young Francis had claims on government (never
mind that business of the letters!), and ten thousand a year
was not such an inordinate sum in such a case.  Lord
Campbell does not reason in this way; he thinks, with
"Poetikastos," that Junius touched ministerial gold and
fell.  In his "Lives of the Chief Justices," he says: "At
last the great boar of the forest, who had gored the king
and almost all his court, and seemed to be more formidable
than any blatant beast, was conquered, not by the spear of
a knight-errant, but by a little provender held out to him,
and he was sent to whet his tusks in a foreign land."* His
lordship tries to throw ridicule upon the metaphor of Edmund Burke-a man who often saw Junius face to faceand entertains, apparently, but a scurvy opinion of one
* "Lord Campbell's Chief Justices," vol. ii., p. 492.




208           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
accepted by even the flying-stationers as a British classic.
We appeal from Lord Campbell's court-and we believe
many of his brother Franciscans will do the same-to that
of Apollo-or Mercury, a close-contriving god, also a patron
of letters. That lawyer-like verdict cannot stand; and
the opinion of Lord Byron seems a very sound one:
The lawyer and the critic but behold
The baser sides of literature and life.
Turning from such logic and criticism as the foregoing,
we pursue the inferences that rise, easily and naturally, from
the theory of these pages. We do not pretend to explain
every movement and artifice of the negotiation which sent
Mlr. Philip Francis to Calcutta with ten thousand a year, on
the earnest and significant interference of the Earl of Chatham. They are little to our purpose. But it is admitted,
and especially by Lady Francis, that Lord Chatham was
the man who principally negotiated this business with Lord
North-a man who would be very glad to seize any opportunity of propitiating the atrocious mind of that stern old
chief. It is not difficult to understand how the deep and
subtle genius which had hitherto so successfully guarded his
secret, would now plan a coincidence which should, as it
were, crown the whole system of strategy, and have the
best chance of making the mystery immortal. The ministry were, no doubt, informed that if the dismissed and discontented Mr. Francis were provided for, they would be
likely to hear no more of Junius. Then probably followed
some negotiations, ending in an appointment of Francis
which would best suit the purposes of Lord Chatham-one




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               209
that would take the young man out of the country.  All
this implies that the king, his prime minister, and one or
two others, were let into the secret, and told that Junius
was Francis. This is the belief of some of the Franciscans;
and they must, therefore, suppose that Philip Francis would
confide his mystery to half a dozen people of the court, yet
never once, in the course of his life, give the slightest hint
of it to Lady Francis, who would have given her little finger
for the information, but who, as we know, was never favored
with it. This, however, is one of the slightest of the Franciscan obstacles. The truth is, that both the king and Lord
North knew why the real Junius would give over, and they
consented to give him the opportunity of doing so, on the
terms he desired.
The part played by Francis in the Junian mystery cannot
be traced with any certainty. He was the secretary, amanuensis, and reporter of the earl; and we receive from Lord
Mahon and others intimations that he was the secret agent
and correspondent of the great man. This, certainly, is the
truth. We have, therefore, these two men brought together
in close and secret intimacy; and the mystery lay between
them.  The Franciscans know and allow this.  The earl
had head enough for his purpose, and hands enough also;
but not legs. Such a man as Francis was necessary to
him-one whom he had distinguished by his patronage and
bound to him by the closest ties of obligation. It may be
impossible to explain exactly the agency of the young clerk
in this secret business; it is, beyond a doubt, impossible to
fancy how it could get on without him. And when it is
admitted-as it must be-that he must, in any case, have




210           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
some knowledge of it, we think it may be justifiably concluded that he was the secret and trusted agent of the Earl
of Chatham in the management of his mystery.  When the
time came in which this strife of letters was to have an end,
the partner of so perilous a secret was to have such a reward
as would keep the seal of honorable silence forever on his
lips.  The earl would not shrink from  negotiating in a
dignified way with Lord North, knowing that his own connection with this anonymous literature was too strongly
suspected to be successfully ignored, and feeling content to
effect such a master-stroke of private policy at the expense
of seeming to have been merely the encourager of such a
terrible writer. Francis took his Indian employment and
~10,000 a year; and yet Junius was not bribed. The
understanding that the young man should have a place,
did not imply a bribe, in that paltry "provender" sense
of such a thing. Junius had already resolved not to write
any more, and only wished to procure a reward for his
satellite, in the usual way of effecting such things, and so
send him off out of harm's way. In this, Junius was certainly not so much accepting a bribe, as playing off his last
trick in his own astute style.
Francis took his place and income without dishonor. He
had done his patron many and critical services, and enjoyed
his reward. Thenceforward it was his duty to be grateful,
and to do everything in his power to protect the secret of
his best friend; and he did so, as we know, to the end of
his life. And this leads us to consider his way of doing it,
and those demonstrations that showed him so desirous to
attract to himself the suspicion of the world.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               211
In his paper on his Regency, published in 1811, he greatly
affects the Junian style.  He chooses for his motto part of
one of the speeches delivered by Lord Chatham in January,
1770: "There is one ambition which I will renounce but
with my life. It is the ambition of delivering to my posterity those rights of freedom which I have received from
my ancestors."   He then commences: "After the noble
speaker of these words, no one has so good a right to make
use of them as I have." Now, the sentiment is found in
one of the letters of Junius; and he evidently wishes the
reader to conclude that he, Francis, who reported the old
earl, and who says he has a right to the words, must have
used them as Junius. As a mere reporter, he could hardly
suppose he had a right in the matter. Elsewhere, he says
that Lord Chatham  made a certain assertion, "or-it is
recorded for him;" thus hinting that there was once a
reporter who could put into the orator's mouth words which
he might not have said, and thereby leading people to conclude that the resemblance between the speeches and the
letters was produced in the same way.  No one, who
peruses the writings and speeches of Francis with attention, can fail to see a number of indirect meanings, imitations, and so forth, all tending to remind us of Nomninis
Umbra. The consciousness of Junius seems never to leave
him, at any time; all his life, he appears to us an imitator;
whether looking up to the great earl, with the awe of a clerk
or amanuensis, never permitted to sit down in presence of
the chief, or guarding the secret of the departed before the
observant eyes of men.
In one of his speeches in the House of Commons, in




212           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
1792, on the subject of foreign affairs and the negotiations
of 1761 with Mons. Bussy, he says: "Was it on the ground
of status quo?  No, I affirm  with knowledge, that he
(Lord Chatham) would have rejected it with scorn.  The
principle of that negotiation was an uti possidetis.  We
were to keep all our conquests, unless the contracting parties should agree upon exchanges for their mutual convenience. I attended the conferences (he was a clerk of twenty-one at the time). The documents are in print. But I
have other evidence, if possible, more in point and drawn
from the same authority.  The anecdote I allude to, is of a
public nature, and must appear in the records of the Secretary of State's office. When the Court of Spain interposed
and endeavored to seduce us to terms advantageous to
France, what was the answer of Lord Chatham to the
Spanish Ambassador? I am sure of the substance —I could
almost answer for the words." etc.  In another place, Mr.
Francis said he " penned the answer of Lord Chatham, as
he did many of his dictating."   Mr. Taylor italicizes this
declaration, supposing it proves something; but it proves
only that the speaker was once a very clever young amanuensis, and that he was subsequently disposed to mystify
his hearers, and lead them to think that he was pars mzagna
of those old Chathamic affairs which were also among the
subjects of Junius. There is another instance of affectation
on his part, which we find alluded to in the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1839. In 1817, Mr. Brougham, in his
place in parliament, said some very harsh things of Mr.
Wilkes and his general character. Next day Mr. Francis
accosted the speaker at the Club, and, with a great show of




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               213
temper, began to expostulate with him about his observations of the day before on Wilkes; and then went on to
justify the latter, and denounce the principles of Lord
Mansfield.  This is significantly noted by the Franciscans
as something highly noteworthy.
But the most remarkable of these affectations-and there
are a great many more of them-may be seen in a couple
of his letters written to Edmund Burke, and printed in the
lately published correspondence of that statesman.  Before
the coming out of Burke's " Reflections on the French Revolution," admirable, in spite of the disparagement of Lord
Brougham, and the school of Whig reformers, Francis,
who has been favored with a sight of the revises, writes to
Burke in the most decided way, to try and persuade him to
stop the publication. To stop the publication! He puts on
his Junian airs, and affects the high trenchant and overbearing style of superiority, declaring that really this pamphlet affair is unworthy of such a man as Burke. He is
bluff and earnest.  He calls that passage about the Queen
of France, a pure foppery.  "Pray, sir," he says (and
mark the stately severity of Francis, playing Junius),
"pray, sir, how long have you felt so desperately disposed
to admire the ladies of Germany?  Is it nothing but outside? Have they no moral minds? Or are you such a
determined champion of beauty, as to draw your sword in
defence of any jade upon earth, provided she be handsome?
Look back, I beseech you, and deliberate a little before you
determine that this is an office that perfectly becomes you.
If I stop here, it is not for want of a multitude of objections.  The mischief you are going to do yourself, is, to my




214            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
apprehension, palpable. It is visible. It will be audible.
I snuff it in the wind.  I taste it already.   I feel it is in
every sense; and so will you hereafter, when, I vow to
God, a most elegant phrase! it will be no sort of consolation to me, that I did everything in my power to prevent
it."  In another place he says: " Once for all, I wish you
would let me teach you to write English.   To me, who am
to read everything you write, it would be a great comfort;
to you, no sort of disparagement.  I wish you were at the
devil for giving me all this trouble."   What does the reader think of all this-of nothing but outside, and 7moral minds,
and any jade upon earth, and once for all, and I vow to God,
and let me teach you to write English, and I wish you were at
the devil, with the spasmodic little sentences and the gesticular curtness, as of a man in presence of some fierce wrong
or imminent peril?  Francis, doubtless, thought it perfectly
Junian, and we have seen it called " the highest style of
Junius."   But the melancholy reader will declare that
never, in any polite walk of literature, has he met with so
mtich vulgar arrogance, conceit, clumsy affectation and general impertinence, brought so offensively together, in such a
limited space. Even at this cool distance, they are offensive.  The passionate and poetic Burke received this
farrago with wonderful calmness-at least, he answered it
with such; but he certainly felt, for the critic, the haughty
contemptuousness which became him. It is young Richard
Burke who first replies, of course to express those sentiments of rejection and superiority which could not proceed
* " Burke's Correspondence," edited by Lord Fitzwil!iam and General
Bourke, vol. ili., pp, 128, 132.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              215
with such propriety from his father. In the course of his
well-written letter, the young man says: "Do I not know
my father at this time of day? I tell you, his folly is wiser
than the wisdom of the common herd of able men." The
spirit of the whole reply lies in the meaning of the last sentence, and Richard could have devised no more telling
retort. The glowing and chivalrous tone of Burke's philosophy would be ill understood by mere men of the world
like Francis, whose estimate of things was made by a much
lower standard of human sentiment.  Burke never allowed
that the poetries and loftier feelings of our nature should be
sneered down, or made subservient to the practical arguments and solid considerations of society. Writing, himself,
to Francis, he sustains his pamphlet and the philosophy of
it, and says, with a candid and reasoning fervor, so characteristic of the man: "You find it perfectly ridiculous and
unfit for me, in particular, to take those things as my ingredients of commiseration.  Pray, why is it absurd in me to
think that the chivalrous spirit which dictated veneration for
women of condition and of beauty, without any consideration whatever of enjoying them, was the source of those
manners which have been the pride and ornament of Europe
for so many ages? And am I not to lament that I have
lived to see those manners extinguished, in so shocking a
manner, by means of speculations of finance and the false
science of a sordid and degenerate philosophy? I tell you
again, that the recollection of the manner in which I saw
the Queen of France, in 1774, and the contrast between
that brilliancy, and splendor, and beauty, with the prostrate
homage of a nation to her, and the abominable scene of




216           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
1789, which I was describing, did draw tears from me, and
wetted my paper.  Those tears came again to my eyes as
often as I looked at that description, and may again. You
do not believe this fact, nor that those are my real feelings;
but that the whole is affected, or, as you express it, a downright foppery. My friend, I tell you it is the truth, and
that it is true, and will be true, when you and I are no
more.  It will exist as long as men with their natural feelings shall exist."*
Burke, with all his weakness, is infinitely manlier than
his small, hard antagonist, made still smaller by a pretension which it is not improbable his correspondent saw
through. Francis had all the mannerism, without one iota
of the spirit or judgment of Junius. In the words of Burke
himself, he had all the nodosities of the oak without its
strength, all the contortions of the Sybil without her inspiration-words at first applied to some imitator of Dr. Johnson, but which the orator would often recall in connection
with Mr. Francis. We do not need Dr. Parr to assure us
that the general lexis of the writings of Francis has no
resemblance to the lexis of Junius. Francis was always the
mere imitator and servitor, protecting his patron's secret to
the end; always contriving to deny his own authorship, in a
manner that only served to confirm the public suspicions of
it. His short letter of seeming denial to the editor of the
Mi3onthly Magazine, on the publication of Taylor's pamphlet,
is an instance of this.  Perhaps, after all, we should
not be so hard on him  for these affectations.  Much
*" Burke's Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 139.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.             217
of the duty and obligation of his life was, doubtless,
implied by them; and they may be charitably interpreted
as his tributes of gratitude to the memory of his dead
benefactor.
10




CHAPTER XI.
SOME FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS LYING ROUND THE MAIN TRACK OF
THE ARGUMIEN-T.
These are complements, these are humours.
MOTH (Love's Labor Lost).
3ly lady's a Catayan; we are politicians; Malvolio's a Peg-a-Ramsay,
and three merry men be we!
SIR TOBY BELCH.
HAVING thus, like Allan McAulay, in the Legend of
Montrose, pushed the follower from the upper place into his
fitting position below his chieftain, we shall proceed with a
few more of those minor considerations, without which, perhaps, the reader may not think the subject properly rounded
off.
Junius says: "I am the sole depository of my secret;"
and he is believed by a great number.  But this was, of
course, said to lead inquirers astray.  The identity of the
secret writer could not be concealed from the reporter of
Lord Chatham's speeches; and, therefore, it is certain that
Francis was the confidant and agent of a mystery which
stood in need of some such medium.  Of the exact nature
of his cooperation we must be ignorant, as yet. But it may
be believed he was employed in conveying manuscripts, and




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              219
sometimes copying them. As a bringer of reports and
general intelligence, he was probably of little use. Lord
Chatham had means of knowing the most important or most
curious occurrences of politics and high life, far beyond
those of any clerk in the War Office. It is enough for our
purpose to show-what has been suggested and admitted by
Lord Mahon and others —that young Philip Francis was
the confidential agent of the Earl of Chatham at that
Junian period. We may conclude with certainty that he
was not the earl's only aid in the management of such a
wonderful business.
If the letters could have been written without the
knowledge of Lady Chatham, we believe his lordship
could have contrived to dispense with her participation.
But concealment from her was an utter impossibility;
anid, therefore, we are convinced she was his best auxiliary.
She was always, as the world knows, the earl's amanuensis,
and conducted his correspondence whenever he was ill with
the gout, or wished to be thought so. Lady Chatham,
sister of Richard Earl Temple and George Grenville, was a
woman of strong understanding, fine taste, and literary
accomplishments; one capable of comprehending and sympathizing with such a genius as her husband's. It is impossible to suppose she would not be the frequent, it may be
too much to say the constant, copier of his letters-especially those signed Junius. In this business she would
naturally employ a partially disguised manner, but such as
must still leave to her handwriting that feminine character
which seems to have struck all those who saw the manuscript of Junius. It is highly significant, that when Mr.




220           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Wilkes and Mr. Butler, author of the " Reminiscences," examined one of the private letters, the former perceived in it
a strong likeness to the handwriting on a card of invitation
he had once received from the old Countess Temple, mother
of Lady Chatham. In this business of writing cards, it is
natural to suppose the old lady may have employed her daughters. This, of course, has little in it. But certainly one grand
element of such a mystery would be the intimate cooperation of a wife, and especially if she were a highly educated
woman of abilities and skilled in the work of an amanuensis,
such as Lady Chatham confessedly was. Mr. Thackeray
says of her, that " she possessed a very powerful understanding, combined with great feminine delicacy.  The ease and
spirit with which her ladyship wrote, rendered her letters
very delightful to her friends, and enabled her to assist
Lord Chatham, during his attendance in parliament or his
attacks of the gout, in answering many correspondents."
We have already seen enough to show that, during the
Junian interval, her ladyship was a participator in the concealments which enveloped the unaccountable Earl.
The Junian manuscripts were not all in the same hand.
We can very well conceive how many of them would be in
the earl's own hand disguised. His autographs that we have
seen are wonderfully loose and sprawling, reminding one of
the style of his letters to the Dtke of Newcastle and the
king, and those bows at the levee, which used to set all the
world smiling and staring. It is not to be supposed that
such a consummate actor and mimic as William Pitt would
neglect that strategy of handwriting. As to the show of
crippled fingers, made during his retirement, in getting the




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               221
power of attorney for her ladyship, it is as fallacious as the
pretense of insanity.  This device of the attorney, adopted
at such a time, is an evidence of design, as we have said.
In everything respecting the man who wrote those remarkable letters, you must be prepared to meet with shows and
simulations. Whatever the critics may think, Junius was no
simpleton, but a match for Machiavelli in cunning.  Lord
Chatham would not be Junius, if he could not mould his
handwriting to another style as easily and dexterously as
we have shown he could mould his mind.  Such considerations as these, and others which will suggest themselves
to the inquirer, must, of course, depend on the general assertion of these pages for their complete validity. They do
not pretend to support any theory; they are content to follow it.
It has been argued, and it may appear to some readers
of the letters, that Junius and Lord Chatham entertained different opinions on the American Stamp Act, and
American affairs in general. It is not inconsistent with the
aim of Junius-such as we can gather it, from a perusal of
his literature-to compromise his real opinions on subjects
lying comparatively aside from his main course, in order to
insure his secret. And if Junius and Chatham were at issue
on this question, we should hold it as but a slight argument
against our position. There is, however, no distinct difference
at all, or none that cannot be easily explained.  The truth
was, that Lord Chatham held very modified opinions on
that most bewildering theme; and those of Junius are just
as modified.
In the first place, we must consider the necessity of




222           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
disguise —that which compelled Junius, on setting out, to
abuse the only two men he ever eulogized subsequently.
Lord Chatham had opposed the Grenvillite Stamp Act;
but more for the danger and impracticability of it; more
because it was proposed by an incompetent minister, than
on principle. He had, or asserted he had, from the beginning, made a distinction between external and internal taxation of the colonies.  But he always stood up for the
sovereignty of England over these, and her power to make
laws for them. We can easily believe that, if he had been
minister, with a heavy war-drain on the treasury, he would
have tried to get money from the Americans either by way
of local tribute or custom-house impost, which last his
luckless colleagues actually decreed in 1768. In this case
the colonists would grumble just as surely as they did in the
other, and Mr. Pitt would as certainly try to bring them to
order. Junius makes a show of blaming Lord Chatham
for encouraging the American resistance-the Grenvillite
argument-and yet he complains that, after the Stamp Act,
in spite of experience, " a new mode of taxing the colonies
is invented, and a question revived, which ought to have
been buried in oblivion."   He also says, the right to tax
the colonists should never be exercised, but never be given
up-a right merely speculative.
These sentiments, as the reader sees, are loose and broad
enough to cover, with ease, many more differences than we
discover between Chatham and Junius, in this matter.  Jurius taunts the king that the colonists justly complain of an
Lcttcr i., 21st January, 1769




JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.                    223
act of oppression, and says they first went to seek liberty in
a desert. Looking to the earl, on the other hand, we do
not find him  so much on the American side, after all.  He
had the prejudice of an Englishman as well as the aggressive
spirit of an ambitious man in opposition. In 1767, writing
to Lord Shelburne, he says: "A spirit of infatuation has
taken possession of New York. * * *  Their disobedience
to the Mutiny Act will leave no room for any one to say a
word  in  their defense."*   Again:  " The  advices  from
America afford unpleasing views. New Yorkt has drunk
deepest of the baleful cup of infatuation; but none seem to
be quite sober and in full possession of reason. It is a literal
truth to say that the Stamp Act, of most unhappy memory,
has frightened these irritable and umbrageous people out of
their senses.": Again, Mr. Johnson, in his letter to Governor Trumbull (see "Sparks' Works of Franklin"), thus
reports part of Lord Chathamn's speech of March 2, 1770:
" I love the Americans because they love liberty. But
I must own I find fault with them in many things. * * *
But (I wish every sensible American, both here and in that
*  Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 188.
t However infatuated the New Yorkers may have seemed in the matter
of their liberties, they could admire the character of Pitt, and feel grateful
to him for the expressions of his sympathy with them and their causeexpressions which came naturally from one in such truculent opposition,
and which, it may also be said, were natural to the moods of so great and
bold a man. They erected in Wall street a statue of him, which was mutilated during the occupation of the city by the English troops. The latter
knocked off the head and hand, it is said, and the figure was removed
after the peace. It may somewhat interest the reading folk of New York,
to think that for several years the city held the effigies of Junius in its
most public place.
I" Chatllam Correspolndence,' vol. iii., p. 193.




224          JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
country, could hear what I say), if they carry their notions
of liberty too far, as I fear they do, if they will not be subject to the laws of the country, especially if they would disengage themselves from the laws of trade and navigation,
of which I see too many symptoms, as much of an American
as I am, they have not a more determined opposer than
they will find in me. They must be subordinate, and, if
you don't make laws for them, let me tell you, my lords,
they will make laws for you." Again, in a speech of 25th
of May, 1774, he speaks of the "guilty tumults" of the
Bostonians.
All these things show that Junius and Lord Chatham
are not at marked variance on the American subject, as too
many suppose. The earl shows the colonists as frowning a
face as Junius; and Junius justifies the complaints of the
Americans against the ministry.
Lord Chatham, we repeat, was not opposed to the taxing
of the Americans, if they would permit it. But the resistance of the colonists proved that George Grenville committed a blunder which Chatham never would have fallen into,
and which he could denounce with the happiest force of reasoning. It is very probable —indeed, convincing to some
minds-that one motive of Lord Chathamn's obstinate retreat,
in 1767 and 1768, was a desire to shun the perils of that
American question, deprived, as he was, of the aid of any
ministry on which he could rely. The Rockinghams, in
fact, feeling the hopelessness of their endeavors to bring
about an adjustment of the same question, were at that
time thinking of retiring, in a body, from Parliament.
Lord Chatham was, doubtless, afraid of being forced to act




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                 225
inconsistently with the opinions expressed against George
Grenville.  His opposition antecedents embarrassed him,
as they have embarrassed many another man. That American discussion was a business in which men's minds were
very much at sea. Mindless of the laws of nature and
geography, ministers were hoping to reconcile contrary principles, to reconcile a complete sovereignty over a society of
men with a maimed and half-surrendered right to make laws
for it; trying to draw, what Lord Campbell not incorrectly
calls, " a flimsy and fallacious distinction" between a power to
regulate commerce externally, and the power to impose taxes
internally-and this at a time when some farmers, irritated
by all that bewildering logic, were preparing those rifle-shots
which, fired from the hedges and gable ends, brought down
the whole pile of argumentation-the deep philosophy of
statesmen and of kings tumbling to pieces, as many fine-spun
theories had tumbled before. There can scarcely be a doubt
that, if Lord Chatham had been at the head of the ministry,
he would have proceeded to quiet the Americans with a
high hand, and, exerting all the force of his popularity and
his military statesmanship, have stopped, for, perhaps, fifty
years, the march of the colonies to independence.* If it were
not to consider too curiously, we might try to imagine the
effect of Lord Chatham's armaments in America, just as
Livy (Book ix.) sets forth the consequences of the invasion
of Italy by Alexander the Great.  At all events, Chatham
died in protest against the diminution of the " ancient and
Sir George Saville used to say: " The colonists are above our hands,
and Grenville's Act only brought on a crisis, twenty, or, perhaps, fifty years
sooner than otherwise would be the case."
10'




226           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
noble monarchy" of England; and, everything considered and
compared, it will be found that, on a subject so calculated to
divide and bewilder the minds of most men, for every
instance in which he seems to differ from Junius, another
can be found in which he seems as plainly to differ from
himself.
Turning our consideration to the War Office, we find that
the ridicule of Chamier and Bradshaw, and the doings of
Change Alley, have been considered below the attention of
a great man like Lord Chatham, but quite suitable to the
idea of Francis. In the first place, in any scheme of hostility against the ministry, the assaulter would naturally
strike at such an important department as the War Office,
and any contempt flung upon the subordinates would be
sure to react upon those who appointed them. Again, it
will be remembered that no department could be better
known, to the sometime Paymaster of the Forces and the
great war-minister, than that.  Lord Chatham  knew the
War Office-the armory of the thunder of the crown-as
well as his own house. As regards the comicalities against
Chamier and the rest, the reader is already aware of his
admirable powers of ridicule.  There is nothing low or
mean in these sarcastic attacks.  Still, while he laughs,
you see his eye is upon his enemies of the highest rank;
and mark how he reaches questions of the greatest national
import through the persons of these subordinates. It must
also be remembered that he has meditated that final arrangement with Francis, and that he would do everything in his
power to attach suspicion to the young clerk, by giving his
attacks a tone of the War Office. Again, there is nothing




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                227
that more indicates the feeling of Lord Chatham than those
objurgations of Change Alley.  Ministerial stock-jobbing,
particularly among his political foes, offended his somewhat
lofty ideas of statesmanship, and thwarted his prospects of
power. On 13th November, 1770, he said, in the House of
Lords, winging a missile into the centre of his opponents:
" There is a set of men, my lords, in the city of London,
who are known to live in riot and luxury upon the plunder
of the community which stands most in need of and best
deserves the care and protection of the Legislature, To
me, my lords, whether they be miserable jobbers of Change
Alley, or the lofty Asiatic plunderers of Leadenhall street,
they are equally detestable. I care but little whether a man
walks on foot, or is drawn by six or eight horses, if his
luxury be supported by the plunder of the country, I despise and detest him." On 25th January, 1771, he writes,
at a time when he was waiting to hear the first shot fired in
a Spanish war: " How it will turn out, I do not yet see
sufficiently, but I suspect the weight of the Alley is prevalent."'  The jobbers and gamblers in the funds had
speculated on the chances of peace, and were, therefore,
clamorous against war. The sentiment of Junius, where
he exclaims, "The army, indeed, has come to a fine pass,
with a gambling broker (Bradshaw) at the head of it,"t is
emphatically that of Lord Chatham; and all these War
Office vituperations as truly indicate the pen of the earl as
any other passages of this anonymous correspondence.
There is another curious consideration, which must not
" Chatham Correspondence," vol. iv., p. 88.
t Miscellaneous Letter cx. Signed "Veteran," March 23, 1772




228           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
be passed over; that is, the secret writer's knowledge of
what was passing at court and in aristocratic life.  In this
respect, the true statement of the identity puts easily aside
many of those difficulties existing at first sight, under the
supposition that Junius was some threadbare hireling, like
Macleane, and with the idea that the further from the court
in opinion, the further in person and opportunity.  The
friends and intimates of Junius and his family were either
no strangers to the king's houses, or familiar with those who
frequented themn; and Junius himself was a great courtier
in his time, and always well received whenever he was
pleased " to veil the terrors of his beak and the lightnings
of his eye." The apprenticeship, in fact, of his stormy
political life, was passed in a court —the rebellious little
court of Frederick, Prince of Wales —in which he was
Groom  of the Bed Chamber, while his sister, Mrs. Anne
Pitt, was Lady of the Wardrobe or Privy Purse to the
Princess of Wales.  And it is to this sister that we are
more particularly disposed to refer that otherwise unaccountable intelligence of court matters and incidents to be
found in the Junian correspondence.*  This lady was as
remarkable in her day as her brother, he and she resembling
one another, as Horace Walpole says, like two drops of
fire. She was a bold, beautiful woman (if she had been
but brown, she would have merited the happy epithets
applied by Evelyn to that other celebrated woman, Lucy
Walters, mother of the Duke of Monmouth); voluble and
versatile, and fortunate in being mentioned with admiration
" This suggestion is due to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                229
by the most celebrated men of her age-Bolingbroke. Walpole, Chesterfield, and Burke.  The former used to call her
"Divinity Pitt," as he called her aspiring brother " Sublimity Pitt."  She could exercise all the intellectual fascinations of those sparkling French ladies who were wont to
be the centres of literary and political society in the city of
Paris, and was, in fact, accustomed to take up her residence
in that capital, where she held her ruelles and reunions in
the style of the Mirepoix, du Haussets, Epinays, Du Barrys,
and so forth. Lord Chesterfield, in one of his letters to his
son, reminds him that it will make him fashionable and be
for his advantage to call on Mrs. Pitt, one of the givers of
the highest Parisian tone. And it appears to be beyond a
doubt, that this able woman was in the habit of procuring
secret political intelligence for her powerful and ambitious
brother, who is often, in his taunting speeches against the
incapable ministries, found hinting at the knowledge of foreign matters which they do not seem to have been aware of.
Mrs. Pitt was as much at home in France as in England,
and, on the other hand, her London parties were as well
attended and highly spoken of as those of Paris. Remembering this system of intelligence between the brother and
sister, and considering that the latter was, during the Junian
period, either Privy Purse to the Princess Dowager of Wales,
or intimately familiar with the doings of the royal households, we can the more easily understand how the secret
information of Junius could reach him-especially that
relating to the court: how the king takes cordials when his
mind is agitated by any of his turbulent Whig chieftains,
and lives for a week on potatoes; how his majesty is cal



230            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
lous as a stock-fish to anything but the imputation of cowardice, which so sets the humors afloat that he will not eat
meat for a week; how the Duke of Bedford scolded the
king in his closet, and left him in convulsions; how Garrick
told Billy Ramus, the page, that Junius would write no
more.(a piece of news that came with remarkable celerity
to the ear of Junius); and how the Princess Dowager,
whom Woodfall had thoughtlessly pronounced to be recovering, was still obliged to suckle toads from  morning till
night for a cancer in the breast.  The rest of this information might have reached him by means of any common
court-gossip; but the last could only come through a woman.
The suspicion that Lord Chatham received much of his
secret intelligence from his sister, is involuntarily strengthened by the fact that Lord Mahon, in his " History of England," says, with the appearance of embracing an opportunity,
or making one, that Pitt and his sister were at variancewere not on good terms.  The latter, we are told, used
to sneer at her brother, and say he knew nothing but
Spenser.* This saying would be as little honorable to her
judgment, as to her sentiments as a sister. It was hardly
worth while to repeat such a thing in a grave history at all,
unless it was meant to produce the impression that MIrs.
Pitt, Privy Purse to the Princess Dowager, could not, of
course, be on communicating terms with her formidable
brother in those Junian days.  As we have already said, we
" " No matter how that was sai(l," Burke used to observe; " but whoever relishes and reads Spenser as he ought to be read, will have a strong
hold of the English language."




JUNIUS, LORD CEIATHAM.               231
cannot help our suspicions of Lord Mahon's history in these
Chathamic respects. They may be very groundless, indeed,
seeing that in a question like this-particularly since the
business of our Eighth chapter-and in dealing with so
many shams, pretenses, cunning dodges, and general delusions, it may be only natural that we should look for snares
at every hand's turn, and come to suspect a little too much,
like Deilus or Croaker in the comedy.  We must, however,
go on to say that we do not entirely credit this variance,
between Mrs. Ann Pitt and her brother.  In a letter from
that lady to Lady Suffolk, in July, 1757, she says: " My
brother continues as he began-as soon as the king put him
in the place he is in-by giving me the strongest and tenderest proofs of his affection. He has always seemed to guess
and understand all I felt of every kind, and has carried his
delicacy so far, as never to put me in mind of what I felt
more strongly than any other part of my misfortune-which
was to think how very disagreeable and embarrassing it must
be to him'to have me in France." She also speaks of the
kindness of her sister-in-law, Lady Hester Pitt. As regards
that last quoted sentence, we are inclined to think her stay
in France was the very reverse of embarrassing to the Secretary of State, then gathering his intelligence and preparing
his plans for the splendid war of the Quadrennium.  Before
the time of "our correspondents," such a head and hand as
Mrs. Pitt's would be the most effectual means of obtaining
secret information concerning the designs of the house of
Bourbon; and she certainly served her brother in that way.
Of course we have none of her letters addressed to him; but
the politico-gossiping style of some of Mr. Stanley's letters




232            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
from France to the Secretary, gives an idea of what hers
must have been. In one of the Envoy's letters to Mr. Pitt,
of 9th of June, 1761, we find passages which show that the
great minister paid attention to the lesser as well as the
larger diplomacies, and arrived at his results with rouleaux
as well as thunder-bolts. Stanley sends several requests,
which he says it will be for his majesty's interests to comply
with, and so make his own commission popular.  He says,
in one letter, that Mr. Bougainville's request is backed by
persons of high rank, and mentions Madame Dexars as a
friend of Mrs. Pitt.* This shows the lady's connection with
the secret service of her brother's ministry.
The following proves that, in England as well as France, she
was in the habit of participating in his views and triumphs of
statesmanship.  It is addressed by Mrs. Pitt to Lady Suffolk,
in August, 1758: " I am not quite so well as I was on the
taking of Louisburg. As I felt a most hearty joy on that
occasion, I hope you will approve, and even applaud, my
having given some demonstrations of it. As my brother
has a great many friends at the Bath (she writes from Bristol), I employed one to ask Mr. Mayor if he would
approve of my indulging myself in doing what I could to
add to the people's rejoicing for the success of his majesty's
arms. He sent me word he would take it as a compliment.
So I ordered a bonfire, so placed, as, to be sure, no bonfire
* In one place, Mr. Stanley mentions that the King, Louis XV., whenever he goes a-hunting (this was after the affair of Damien), is apt to start
at every strange face he sees; and that Prince Charles Edward, then relied on to frighten the house of Brunswick, is drunk, morning, noon,
and night.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                233
ever was before, for beauty, on a rising ground before the
Circus, where my brother's house is, and ten hogsheads of
strong beer round it, which drew all the company I desired,
and enabled them  to sing " God bless great George, our
King!" with very good success, with the help of all the
music I could get in the Circus. The whole town was illuminated, which, as it is the prettiest in the world, was the
gayest thing I ever saw.""  Mrs. Anne Pitt would scarcely
be the one to sneer at her energetic brother, and say he
knew nothing but Spenser. She was one of his most
serviceable auxiliaries, at home as well as abroad, and very
probably as much so during the Junian period as at any
other time.  Of this, of course, we have no certainty.  We
have thought that she might have sometimes been her
brother's amanuensis in the business of the letters.  Her
peculiar character and ability would justify such an idea.
But this, also, is a mere matter of loose conjecture, which
we dismiss, merely stating our belief that she was in her
brother's secret of the letters, or at least some of them. We
have not dwelt on this matter, as thinking that the agency
of this lady particularly affects the main question, but to
impress the idea that the ramifications of the Junian secret
go a great way off, and that people who would see them
more clearly and minutely than we can show them, must
make large detours and look liberally about them.
We will close the chapter with a few observations respecting David Garrick.  This famous actor was on very
friendly terms with Mr. Pitt, who, as we have said, was' Quoted from the Appendix of Thackeray's "Biography of the Earl
of Chatham."




234           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
a lover of the drama, and encouraged dramatic amusements
among the children of his family.  The great orator was
always considered a good judge of dramatic literature. We
see in Thackeray's life of him, that the Rev. W. Horne,
when he published his tragedy of "Agis," had it sent to
Mr. Pitt for his opinion, which the latter, who dates from the
Pay Office, gives, with his usual judgment and decision. The
Great Commoner had the finest and aptest power of common
language, as we gather from his speeches, badly described
and reported as they are; and the dramatic features of the
Junian literature-the dialogue of the Grand Council in
1767 and "Veteran's" conversations of Lord Barrington
and Waddlewell in 1772-are full of the peculiar spirit and
ability of Mr. Pitt, such as Garrick and his other friends
knew him in his accessible days.  Garrick would be very
apt to recognize the manner of some of those War Office
letters, and this, together with other circumstances of a long
intimacy, would make Junius very apprehensive of the
actor's attempts to come at the secret.  But, it is to be remarked, that Garrick's letter to Mr. Ramus did not concern
the identity of the Mask-the man himself-but the cessation of his letters: "Junius will write no more."  The rapidity with which the knowledge of this private letter to
the king's page reached Junius, is a strong proof that he
must have communication with some one in the royal household, or very familiar with it. Garrick's interference, though
a very slight one, apparently, seems to have disconcerted
Junius a good deal; perhaps, as the actor had an interest
in Woodfall's paper, he might suspect some collusion
between them-some display of the manuscript to a man




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               235
who was probably acquainted with the handwriting of Lady
Chatham, and others of the family. At all events, the
angry menace of the note to Garrick shows that Junius
was afraid of him, and wished to check his curiosity. The
player's voice sinks to a whisper, and he cowers before that
awful shadow of a name, as greater men had done before.
It is curiously suggestive, that, some months after the date
of that fierce little missive to " the vagabond," Lord Chatham, with all his defeats and disappointments rankling in
his heart, should have sat down to write those verses to
Garrick, which we have already quoted.  The talk of a philosophic and contented repose in the country, is mere pretense, as every reader of the earl's history knows, and thus
leads us, irresistibly, to the motive. Friendly as the verses
seem, Lord Chatham did not go so far as to send them to
Garrick.  He sent them to Lord Lyttelton, by whom they
were transmitted.  The actor wrote a copy of verses in
return, in which he compared the great earl to Achilles, who
could touch the lyre as well as guide the war.  We suspect
the sentiments of Garrick, on one side, were as forced and
affected as those of Lord Chatham  on the other.  The
actor's manner of receiving the abusive and threatening note
is noticeable. His reply to Woodfall, published in the
Garrick Correspondence, is in a subdued and explanatory
tone.  He desires it should be intimated to Junius that he
would scorn to act the spy or informer —that if he knew
who Junins was, he would not reveal his name, seeing that
this would be productive of much mischief. No word of
disrespect escapes him, and we can plainly see that he
regards the mnasked writer with wonderful deference.  He




236          JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
thinks a discovery would cause much mischief. Not, surely,
if the man was only Francis, or Lloyd, or Macleane. No
doubt Garrick never made any fuss about the name. He
says he only reported that the writing would cease. Among
the court people, there was not much anxiety about the
real name. The king knew it, and others knew it as well.
But they shrunk from pronouncing it.    The king and
court shrank from meddling with Junius, and the highest
and best-informed in the land shrunk from naming him.
These are the facts which give you a true idea of the
masked writer. You see his cotemporaries looking up at
him in hatred, or in fear, but, silently, for the most part, and
must feel convinced that the being so regarded was the
most formidable man in England. Having perused and
pondered on evidences like these, so suitable to a mystery
of such subtlety and power, and indicating so plainly some
shape of magisterial dignity, the reader will probably be
disposed to turn, with something like contempt, from the
ignorant or insincere theories of those who look for that
most terrible of British writers among the clerks, amanuenses, and secretaries, and bewilder us with a barren clatter
of quotations, comparisons, and coincidences about Francis,
and Macleane, and Barre, and Lloyd, and others of that
common herd of able men who, among them all, could not
furnish forth one-half the powers of the single real Junius.




CHAPTER XII.
RECAPITULATION - PASSING REMARKS ON THE JUNIAN LETTERS PUBLISHED IN TIHE GRENVILLE PAPERS AND IN THE CHATHAM CORRESPONDENCE-MR. MACAULAY'S LETTER, AND CONCLUSION.
Here's a maze trod, indeed,
Through forthrights and meanders.
TEMPEST.
I have in this rough work shaped out a man
Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
With amplest entertainment.
TIMON OF ATHENS.
IN this concluding Chapter, we have only to recapitulate
our reasons for regarding Lord Chatham as the Man in the
Mask.  But we must first take the opportunity of alluding
to some late statements concerning the mystery, made in
the third volume of the Grenville Papers, lately published.
We saw them after having arranged our preceding Chapters, and though they call for no particular notice, they
can hardly be passed over in silence.  Mr. Smith, late
Librarian at Stowe, tries to show that Junius was a Grenvillite-that he was Lord Temple:
That past, vampt, future, old, revived, new claim.




238           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
The London Athenceum, the North British Review, and other
pages have sufficiently set aside that feeble hypothesisthe feebler in this case, that Mr. Smith seems to share the
doubts of his readers, and does not argue with the self-conviction necessary to produce conviction in others. Si vis mne
credere, etc. There is nothing new in his arguments. Even
those three letters purporting to be from Junius to George
Grenville can scarcely be called new, they have been so
long talked about.  But they are important.  No doubt,
they prove nothing for any Grenvillite, but they prove the
extreme subtlety of Junius, and his profound desire to seem
a partisan of George Grenville.  The writer intended that
in his own day a whisper should go abroad that Grenville
had letters of adhesion from Junius, and that posterity
should find these letters, read them, and swear by them.
The design is evident, and deceives very few.  In the letters-dated respectively, Feb. 6, Sept. 3, and Oct. 30, 1768the writer says he is alone and unconnected. Those fierce
and sweeping attacks on ministers and their policy, made
by "Lucius," "Atticus," " Valerius," " Correggio," and the
rest, proceeded, then, from one totally unconnected-from
one looking indifferently on and writing, as it were, mere
exercises.  He tells Grenville he first began, for his own
amusement, discharging his paper bullets of the brain, in
fun, against Chatham, Granby, Grafton, Bute, the Princess
Dowager, Draper, and so forth. No personal animosity by
any means.  "L No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none; no, boys,
none." No wonder they took him for an Irishman! But,
after all, he were a poor strategist, indeed, who could not
have such letters as these written to George Grenville or




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.                239
any one else, in order to shield his secret and bother the
critics of a future age.  And Junius was not mistaken.
The critic of the North British Review, for August, 1853,
shows himself as ready to take the ghost's word as Hamlet.
When the Shadow says, " I have no connexion," the critic
believes it. He points to it-he puts it in small capitals
once and again.  He thinks it a capital thing to believe
what that arch-deceiver is pleased to say.  His notions of
the identity are consistent with all this.  He says: "IVWe
do not believe there is a noble family in the British empire
who would claim for an ancestor the literary fame of Junius,
when blackened by personalities that would have convicted
him of slander, or by deeds that would have brought him to
the scaffold. It is among inferior men, like Francis, Barre,
Macleane, Wilkes, and Horne Tooke, that the reality of
Junius shall be found when the dark shadow of his name
shall have received the rites and purifications of baptism.
If a nobleman, occupying a high official position, and
thus personally connected with the sovereign, Junius can
no longer be regarded as a patriot. If a commoner with
liberal opinions, a functionary driven from office, a secretary insulted by his chief, or a proteg6 of statesmen who
encouraged or aided him in his denunciation of public corruption or in his attacks upon constitutional government,
we may overlook his failings in consideration of the impulses which he obeyed; and in the soundness of his principles and the sacredness of his cause, we may forget the
virulence with which it was advocated."*' North British Review, for August, 1853.




240           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
The ethics and criticism of this passage are on a par with the
logic of it. The assertion, that because a man is a nobleman he
cannot be so liable to act unworthily as an untitled man, is
made ridiculous by experience, and is untrue to human nature.
The reviewer certainly did not trouble his head with the
public or private history of that Georgian period.  If he
did, he might have seen that the meanness, or bad passion,
that may have belonged to such men as Wilkes, Tooke,
Macleane, and others, seems purity itself compared with
some of the wicked doings and sayings of the highest order
of people. There is no need to argue such a matter. But
let us note the morality of the critic. It would be a shocking thing for a titled man, writing from an intimate sense
of wrong and ill treatment-from an ebullition of the blood
and a towering of the passions-to be guilty of truculent
language against those working against him. But let it be
some other man, bowing subserviently before his superior,
and, at his command, in cold blood, with an abstract malignity, pursuing, and abusing, and stabbing those who never
offended him, in order to earn a dirty bit of daily breadand that is a pardonable view of the case, and quite allowable.
The reviewer seems to know very little of the world we
live in, when he says such an inflamed man as Junius could
not be a patriot. Not a band-box patriot, to be sure, such
as Fenelon would put in a book and any little politician
would profess himself to be; but, nevertheless, one of those
patriots turned out or accepted by society to do its terribly
rough business of forcing a nation along the broken roads
of progress, and making all necessary hubbubs about princi



JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               241
ples, and so forth. Lord Chatham, in his letters and his
life, showed he loved the glory of his country; and he was
always ready to tomahawk and trample upon those contemptible and disastrous people who refused to recognize his superiority, and who checked his efforts to raise England to the
level of a Roman renown. There have been much worse
patriots than his lordship. But this question has nothing
to do with patriotism, and we dismiss the matter-merely
insisting that the grim earl, striking right and left at his
enemies and foaming at the mouth, like many a better man
in a passion, is a more natural and wholesome object than
a cowering little wretch sitting at another man's writingdesk and assassinating character to order.
The Grenville Letters mean nothing but "miching malheco."  In this they resemble the two letters said to have
been sent to Lord Chatham by Junius. The first of these
Chatham letters is dated January 2d, 1768. In the first
place, it has no signature. In the next, it is, on the face of
it, a feint. It speaks of respect and veneration for the earl,
though, but a few months previously, Junius was abusing
his lordship for his villainy, his lunacy, and his gouty legs;
and, only a week before, he declared that Lord Chatham had
made a national debt which the country could never pay,
and that he himself could not bear to see incense offered to an
idol who so little deserved it 1* The use of the word " idol,"
in reference to the earl, was greatly affected by Junius.
Again, about a month after the above date, he asks why
Lord Chatham should hold the Privy Seal, if he cannot do
" Miscellaneous Letter xi. Signed " Downright," Dec. 22, 1767.
11




242           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
the duties of it!* and, in half a year after, he calls him a
compound of contradictions, and one who would be as mad
in the heart as in the brain if he attempted to deny some
former letter, relating to Sir Jeffrey Amherst.t That letter
of 2d January, then, is a transparent piece of strategy. The
other letter bears date the 14th of January, 1772. At that
time the proof-sheets of the letters to Lord Mansfield and
Camden were in the hands of Lord Chatham. This letter
states that Junius sends them for his lordship's inspection.
If the proofs had been traced to Hayes, or seen there by
any one not in the secret, a letter from Junius would be
necessary, to say he sent them. But this, of course, is
mere conjecture, and worthless. It is enough to know that
the second letter would mean just as much as the first.
Both are parts of a scheme of deception. After what has
been set forth in these pages, any further argument on the
subject would be superfluous.  All these letters, we repeat, Grenvillite and Chathamite, bear the palpable marks
of simulation.
As we write, we are captivated by the newspaper heading
of a letter from Mr. Macaulay concerning Junius.  One
more disappointment! Nothing is more attractive than
these Junian captions, and, as a general rule, nothing can be
more unsatisfactory than the matter which follows. To
look for anything in them is like trying to fill your belly
with the east wind. When you look for broad views of any
of these creeds-some principle and spirit of doctrine-you
are treated to a confusion of narrow texts and testimonies,
* Miscellaneous Letter xii., February 16, 1768.
Miscellaneous Letter xxxv. Signed "Lucius," August 29, 1768.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              243
and inevitably bewildered into a feeling of disgust and disrespect. Instead of dwelling-if it were only for novelty
-on the great Junian points and features-on the high tone
and palpable aim of the letters, say in those onslaughts of
1770, in which Junius, Lord Chatham, and the City of London
fought the King, Lords, and Commons of the realm, foot to
foot, and hand to hand, Mr. Macaulay, a high critical polemic, takes us into a crypt of the War Office, among all the
dry, dusty quillets and quiddities-the Irish half-pay and
the English half-pay, and the inevitable Mr. Francis. In
the letter before us, he is opposing the Lyttelton theory of
the Quarterly Review, and the assertion which it makes, that
Francis, the War Office clerk, would not have been ignorant
of the difference between the Irish half-pay establishment
and the English half-pay establishment, and declaring positively that the young man should, on the contrary, have
exhibited that very sort of ignorance. That ignorance appears a great argument for the Franciscan theory.  And
why? Because, when he, Mr. MIacaulay, was Secretary at
War, he made particular inquiries of two or three of his
clerks, and there was not one of them who did not agree
with him, viz.: that Francis ought to have made the mistake-ought not to have known the difference between
the English half-pay and the Irish half-pay! We cannot
see the force of Mr. Macaulay's logic. It seems remarkably feeble and Franciscan. However, having thus satisfied his mind that Junius, who makes the mistake about Draper's half-pay, must have been Francis, who would be ignorant enough to make it, he goes on to say that the
case of the young clerk "rests upon coincidences such as




244:          JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
would be sufficient to convict a murderer!"  Historical criticism surely sinks very low here; and Mr. Macaulay, with his
view to the " coincidences" in this Junian question, seems
curiously on a par with M. Dupin, the French advocate,
who, it is said, sees nothing in the crucifixion of Jesus
Christ, so much as a certain point of illegality in the sentence of Pilate. Those "coincidences" would not convict
a hen-stealer; and it would be a bad day, indeed, for society, if we could have no more valid kind of evidence against
our murderers. In turning away from this lawyer-like mode
of criticism, we cannot help saying, what we think, that Mr.
Macaulay is really not such a maladroit and helpless critic
of this matter as he is pleased to show himself.
The arguments for Francis, we repeat, are not less fatal
to his claim than the moral considerations arising out of this
mystery. That desire of doing a thing worthy of immortality, and the resolve that the secret of the authorship shall
perish with him, show that Junius was a great man, a man
of powerful unfaltering will. There is something sublime in
the idea of sealing up forever a secret which millions would
desire to look into.  To such a man as Francis, Boyd,
or Macleane, no such idea could ever belong or be attributed. None but a man like Lord Chatham would think
of taking that secret into the coffin with him.  To any
of the small men, what would be the consequence of
discovery after a lapse of years, at a late period of life.
or at the close of it?  The fame of an undying litera
ture. Anything like punishment to themselves, or dispar
agement to their families, would be, if not out of the ques
tion, only a trifling consideration when weighed against that




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               245
volitare per ora —that celebrity which should preserve and
perpetuate the name of a great writer, and to which few men
are indifferent. Francis was not the man to forfeit such
celebrity. Sir Edgerton Brydges and George Cholmondeley
declared the opinion of all who ever knew Sir Philip, when
they said it was not in his nature to conceal his authorship
if he were Junius.  It was not in the nature, nor in the
need of any of these subordinate men.  With Chatham
the case was different.  He could not contemplate a discovery during his lifetime; for this would expose him to a
storm of aristocratic indignation, and the general blame
attachable to the wilder displays of the passions; nor a discovery after his death, which may be thought to tarnish his
glory as a great war-minister and patriot, and be a source
of detriment or disagreeable remembrance to his family.
He, therefore, pushed aside, with a steady, subtle hand, the
renown of Junius, resolved that it never should be reclaimed. The man who had achieved the fame of the greatest
orator and the greatest statesman of his time, could dispense with one more less dignified passport to immortality.
Coming now to consider the odium still attached to the
memory, so to speak, of Junius-especially in the aristocratic circles of England-we are convinced the Grenvilles
of the present day would not permit Mr. Smith to bring forward Lord Temple, if they were not very well aware that
he was not Junius, and that the world should never for a moment believe he was. Mr. Smith and his Grenville papers,
in fact, have authoritatively extinguished the claims of Lord
Temple. But, arguing on special grounds, what should that
Junian odium signify to Lord Chatham's fame, or to his de




246           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
scendants-after such a lapse of time?  That nobleman's
character could scarcely be more blackened and vituperated
than it was in his lifetime. The king, Grafton, Mansfield,
and the rest, thought him a man of the wickedest and subtlest passions-" the subtleist-workinest villain that is on
the face of the earth," as good Queen Anne used to say of
Lord Sunderland-and so did hundreds of others. Lord
Waldegrave, a very honest, sincere sort of man, says of
him: "He is imperious, violent, and implacable; impatient
even of the slightest contradiction, and, under the mask of
patriotism, has the despotic spirit of a tyrant."* Again: " I
was not ignorant that Pitt could be guilty of the worst actions
whenever his ambition, his pride, or his resentment was to be
gratified."t  What worse could now be said or thought of
him as the veritable Junius? The earl's descendants are
not, or would not be, justified in any great horror of this imputation, considering the qualities that usually go to make
up the world's celebrities. Junius denounced a great many
culpable men and discreditable things; he told George III.
some glorious truths; and when he thought he saw his
country going to the dogs, under the guidance of weak men,
he made outcries that rang from one end of the kingdom
to the other. No doubt, he often preferred vituperation to
calm logic-loved flogging better than preaching. It is also
urged against him, that he struck behind a mask (and this
seems the gravamen of the charge), exhibiting a truculence
of passion supposed to belong to no order of human nature
above the rank of a justice of the peace, or a baronet at far-' Lord Waldegrave's Memoirs, p. 18.  t Ibid., p. 131.




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.              247
thest. But not even for such considerations should we think
the family of Lord Chatham disparaged by a discovery. If
anonymous vituperation were a very heinous offense, half
the able editors in the English-speaking lands, generally considered respectable members of society, would be in the Penitentiary. Lord Chatham was a man of genius, and genius
has a way of distinguishing men by leveling them to the
commonest impulses of the common red earth. As the
world goes and has gone, the celebrities have very often
most blots to show. Falstaff says that he who has most
flesh has most frailties; history seems to show that those
who have most mental power have most mental perverseness.
Quitting the philosophy of the question, it may be truly
said that there is not a peer's family in the British dominions of which some member, at some time or other, has
not done something opprobrious; and yet who thinks of disparaging the family for such a thing? It would be a good
thing for the highest families if they had no greater disgrace
to remember than that their ancestor, in denouncing the
faults or crimes of his fellow-men, gave way to his passions,
and grew foul:mouthed-particularly when the gout tormented his great toe, or some rash medicine sent it flying
upward, to put toys of desperation into his brain. Lord
Chatham's greatness and instinctive sense of rectitude,
together with his glory as a minister, are more than a set-off
against some of his bitter letters, and leave to his descendants a balance of hereditary credit, larger, perhaps, than that
of any other noble family in the United Kingdom. The
great statesman and orator belongs to history and literature.




248           JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
Keats says, that the humblest man shows a grace in his
quarrel; and the quarrel of Lord Chatham has a gladiatorial
grace which wins admiration, scarcely mixed with any other
feeling, now that the passions of his day and generation are
all exhaled. He belongs, as we have said, to literature
as much as to any family; and literature is not at all
ashamed of the author of the Junian letters. A censor
is nothing without severity; and we believe very few will
doubt that Alexander Pope had more malignity than
Lord Chatham, with none of that passionate grandeur of
sentiment which could redeem it.
In the foregoing chapters we have shown that the intellectual power, political experience, and political disappointments of William Pitt enabled and prepared him to play the
part of Junius; that several years before the Junian period,
he was a writer of anonymous attacks; that he was tempted by the persuasions of the king to make that heterogeneous and unfortunate ministry of 1766; that, baited and
disgusted, he quitted it, going into the country and shutting
himself up on pretense of gout and general debility; that
he was not insane during the long time of his retreat, as was
reported, and as Lord Mahon still asserts, nor, by any
means, overwhelmed with any incapacitating sickness; that
it was during one of his most remarkably secluded periods
of retirement the letters of the Miscellaneous Series began
to come forth; that the very first of these was a simulated
attack on Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, whom he came,
by degrees, to justify, and, finally, to eulogize; that Junius
bitterly avenged every slight and affront offered to Lord
Chatham, holding, at the same time, a face of dislike towards




JIUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               249
him; that he fiercely denounced the personal enemies of
that lord, authoritatively rebuked the king for a policy to
which Lord Chatham was all his life opposed, and used all
his efforts to discredit and beat down those feeble ministries
by which the earl was forced from power, and thwarted in
his efforts to regain it; that, on the chief questions of national policy, Junius and Chatham thought alike, and used
one another's language, and that this is most palpable
during the party struggles of 1770 and 1771, when the
vehement earl, at the head of the Whig alliance, and aided
by all the sedition of the city of London, attempted the
complete destruction of the king's friends as a corps; that
when Lord Chatham's war upon the ministry resulted in
failure, Junius brought his letters to a close, his expressions
of despondency and disgust being echoes of those used at
the same time in the letters or speeches of the earl; that
Francis was the reporter, amanuensis, and ally of Lord
Chathari in all this time; that when the letters were about
to cease, the young man quitted the War Office, and was, in
a few months, removed from a place of ~500 a year to an
Indian appointment of ~10,000 a year-a most extraordinary fact as regards his youth and insignificancy; that the
earl exerted himself to procure for him this situation, and
thus arranged a coincidence which has attached a suspicion
of the authorship to Mr. Francis; that the affectations of
the latter during his life prove his complicity and his desire
to guard the secret of his patron; that, in fine, the advocates of Francis are now forced to admit that their juvenile
Junius had a potent ally, and that this ally was Lord Chatham.
11*




250            JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.
To this conclusion we must all come at last: Lord Chatham and Francis were allies. And if it be conceded that
each would play his natural part-that the eloquent and exasperated statesman would act like himself, and the smart
little clerk of twenty-seven would stick to his proper vocation, we shall not be very much at a loss, or at variance,
about recognizing the truth of the matter; unless, indeed, we
should have some other than logical reasons for our particular beliefs. Everything, in fact, leads us to this: JUNIUS WAS
LORD CHATHAM.  The great orator alone, of all those
named from the beginning, of all the public men of his age,
covers, easily and powerfully and completely, all the conditions of that anonymous literature.  That stumbling-block
and dissuasive of so many sincere inquirers-the opening
letter of "Poplicola" (echoed in some of those which follow) is the chief condition of the secret.  Without those
demonstrations of subtlety (a quality, remember, as distinctive of this astonishing writer as his vivid rhetoric), our
idea of Junius is not perfect. Nay, the cunning, as we
have already said, was beyond the rhetoric; the latter failed
in the contest, while the former has, for eighty-five years,
succeeded in baffling the curiosity of the world.
VWTe repeat, Lord Chatham covers all the conditions of
Nominis Umbra.  There are no marks of an understrapper's
or hireling's pen on these formidable specimens of literature.
Even where Junius descends lowest and becomes most
truculent, there is certain tone of lordly willfulness in his
manner which cannot be mistaken. The high passion of the
man saves the worst thing he utters from the charge of vulgarity, and when he scatters his dirt about him, it is with an




JUNIUS, LORD CHATHAM.               251
air of majesty. If any one still speaks of malignity, let us
remember how the greatest of men have behaved in the bitter business of controversy; remember the angry paroxysms
of John Milton, grinding his teeth and swearing to kill Salmasius after he has been gouged in the contest with that enlightened philosopher. Lord Chatham alone had the motives of thwarted ambition and fierce personal resentment
which would enable a man to sustain that wonderful epistolary war for five years. The writings of Junius give evidence of a man of mature age-one versed in the experiences of social life, and accustomed to discuss the gravest
and most difficult questions of state policy-holding his
head as high as any other head in England-not even excepting one, and confronting, on terms of lordly equality,
the best of those he vituperated and challenged.  His
general intrepidity of speech, in fact, shows him to have
been as exalted in position as commanding in intellect-an
aristocrat of the proudest style; and this may be as easily
gathered from the manner of his notes to Woodfall as from
his authoritative letter to tile king.
Junius must, so to speak, be regarded as the complement
of the great minister. Without the literature of Junius,
the historic reader must feel that the character of Lord Chatham is strangely incomplete; that the latter part of his biography is out of proportion, and not a little perplexing to those
who would comprehend it. On the other hand, without the
antecedent statesmanship and polemic experience of a man
like the elder William Pitt, such a strange literary tempest,
and all the championship and strategy of the Mask would
be impossible things.  The one is necessary to the other.
----— ~ —----   ----




252             JUNIUS, LORD  CHATHAM.
Asunder, each has been a puzzle to the world.   Brought
together, they present a grand character with distinct lineaments. Asunder, they may be imagined as parts of some
broken piece of statuary, one portion of which lay buried in
the ground and lost in concealment; but we can fancy them
yet generally contemplated together in a restored condition,
and Lord Chatham still more intelligibly and truly recognized in the attitude so finely sculptured by Henry Grattansmiting with one hand the house of Bourbon, and wielding
in the other the democracy of England.*
* On account of a few similarities of expression-lest they should be
thought plagiarisms-it may be observed that a paper from the present
writer, sketching, by anticipation, the theory of these pages, appeared,
a few seasons ago, in the Diublin University /Magazine. The reprints
of it, and even of rifaciamentos of it, in the eclectic periodicals of this
country, and the rather out-of-the-way notice a thing so slight met with
from some of the great transmarine critics, furnished an interesting reply
to the stereotyped assurance that nobody cared to hear any more about
Junius. That little straw showed the way the wind blew-but not the
trade-wind. And the great literary fact is that, within the last twenty
years, the interest in the secret has increased, the inquirers have become
more numerous, and their position in society, as well as in the world of
letters, has given to the investigation a dignity, so to speak, which did
not belong to it in the beginning. Three highly remarkable and important publications (it will be remembered), put forth by the immediate
descendants or family relatives of the Earl of Chatham, have, in that
time, raised the wind of the discussion to a higher pitch than ever-to
say nothing of Campbell, Nicholas, Macaulay, Brewster, and the other
tempestarii of this literary element; so that, after all, it is no great wonder
that, if the poorest sort of paragraph about the identity of Junius shall
appear in John O'Groat's Jornal, the scissors of every newspaper on
English-speaking ground must move to it and help to send it round on its
grand tour of the world. The theme is certainly still interesting. Everything dark naturally is, and men love so much the discussion of a mystery-the mumbling of the game, so to speak-that, very probably, any
too direct attempt to put an end to it would be rather unfavorably
received than otherwise.