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shall be carried on, but how those who ought to carry it on shall circumvent each other. In such a state of things, no order, uniformity, dignity, or effect, can appear in our proceedings either at home or abroad. Nor will it make much difference, whether some of the constituent parts of such an administration are men of virtue or ability, or not; supposing it possible that such men, with their eyes open, should choose to make a part in such a body."

Before the appearance of these pamphlets, two events of moment had occurred in 1768, viz. the resignation of Lord Chatham, and the return to London of Wilkes. It is unnecessary to relate here matters of such general knowledge as the political agitation, public disturbance, and legal contention, which ensued when the terrible tormentor of government in those days, John Wilkes, came once more upon the scene. The unwise way in which the Grafton administration set about opposing him is equally notorious. Ephemeral as might otherwise have been the recollection of his audacity and their weakness, one circumstance has rendered the proceedings against Wilkes memorable for ever-a circumstance which must be always linked with the name of Mr. Burke.

The conduct of the Grafton administration gave life to Junius -the man not in the iron, but the literary mask, which time and theory, search and research, cannot remove. The mysterious letters of Junius know few equal essays among political publications. Under cover of the darkness that lies on them, they have been ascribed to several authors,-among them, to Edmund Burke. Leaving other claimants out of the question, it becomes necessary here to see what Burke had to do with this epistolary mystery. The following arguments may be, and have been, brought forward to support the charge of his connexion with the secret. First: from his text, Junius is held to be an Irishman, and so was Burke. The style of Junius is Irish in thought and tone, and now and then an expression escapes him which an Englishman would never have employed. For instance, Junius in allusion to a government measure calls it

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"a Castle job." He mentions some one degrading even the name of Luttrell," a personage little, if ever heard of in England, but proverbially common in Irish parlance, as having been the traitor who betrayed the passage of the Shannon to the enemy in 1691. He refers to the inmates of a university as collegians,' the exact term used in Trinity College, Dublin; 'gownsmen' being the designation given to them at Oxford and Cambridge. Burke, be it remembered, was educated at Trinity College. Secondly: Burke was supposed the author, or aiding in the authorship, as the only man then equal to the performance. On that ground Johnson, according to Boswell, once thought him the writer; but on Burke's spontaneously declaring the contrary, was convinced by his assertion. "I should," said Johnson," have believed Burke to be Junius, because I know no man but Burke who is capable of writing these letters; but Burke spontaneously denied it to me: the case would have been different had I asked him if he was the author; a man may think he has a right to deny it, when so questioned as to an anonymous publication." With all his confidence in Burke's veracity, Johnson may here be wrong. Disavowal apparently positive of a performance, by many imputed to Burke, where such supposition might have exposed him to prosecution, does not go for much. As to the proof that lies in seemingly direct denial, men of honour have since shown its fallacy. The author of far-famed Waverley in particular had recourse to denials scarcely evasive, as his only shield against accidental suspicion or pertinacious inquiry and moralists have been loath to quarrel with his apology for having made use of such protection. The letters of Junius were no doubt an extraordinary production, and Burke was the extraordinary man of the time equal to the task. Thirdly: the letters must have been written by a person inimical to the Grafton administration, and to the secret influence by which it was believed to be guided. In the general opinion, and in the particular circumstances of Burke, motives might have induced him to commence and continue the attack. The Duke of Grafton had been brought

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into administration by the Rockingham party, and was represented as having betrayed that nobleman and his friends. On that account, or because he succeeded to another ministry, he was very obnoxious to the partisans of the marquess; hence it was natural to impute a severe attack on him to one of a party in which the pre-eminence of genius unquestionably belonged to Burke. Burke, in the house, poured forth his eloquence in assaults upon the Grafton administration in general, and more particularly on those of its acts which are the principle butts of Junius's invective. Burke strenuously maintained that there existed a system of court favouritism, and he joined in ascribing to its influence the dismissal of his own friends. He reprobated the measures he supposed to originate from that source; he spared not the principal agents of that junto. The Duke of Bedford, the negotiator of Lord Bute's peace and the opposer of the Rockingham interest, naturally excited the displeasure of Burke. The Whigs of Burke's party considered the doctrines advanced by the Lord Chief Justice Mansfield on the bench as inconsistent with constitutional liberty, and as plants of Tory or Jacobite growth. Burke, in the House of Commons, frequently enlarged with force against the law and practice of Lord Mansfield. Burke execrated the proceedings respecting Wilkes and the Middlesex election. In all these circumstances Burke completely coincided with Junius. Fourthly: some external evidence has arisen to strengthen the presumption that Burke was at least in communication with Junius. In 1767, two years before Junius commenced, at a time when debates were not reported, one of Burke's earliest parliamentary speeches, evidently written out under his dictation, came in manuscript to Woodfall's Public Advertiser, with (for Woodfall's guidance) the private signature of C. That identical signature of C. was the private one which Junius afterwards adopted in communicating with that same Woodfall, the well-known publisher of the "Public Advertiser" in which the letters appeared. Among the persons then supposed to be Junius was a Mr. Dyer, a member of the Gerrard Street or Literary Club, and a man. much mixed up

with the private, official, and political affairs of the day. Dyer was very intimate with Mr. Burke and his family. When Dyer died in 1772, the letters of Junius ceased; but what was even more strange was this fact, related by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of Dyer's executors. The moment Dyer was dead, Edmund Burke's cousin, William Burke, went to the deceased's lodgings, and there seized and destroyed a large quantity of manuscript. Reynolds happening to come in, found the room covered with the papers, cut up into the minutest fragments, there being no fire in the grate. Reynolds expressed some surprise, and Mr. William Burke hurriedly explained that "the papers were of great importance to himself, and of none to any body else." Mrs. Burke once admitted that she believed her husband knew the author of the letters, but that he did not write them. It is, moreover, certain that on one occasion Edmund Burke himself acknowledged to Sir Joshua Reynolds that he knew who was the writer of Junius's Letters; intimating, when he said so, that he wished to hear no more upon the subject. Another argument, and not a weak one, is this: Junius would fiercely retort upon any man criticising or condemning him, yet he did not reply to the attack of Dr. Johnson. This fact is of the more weight, not only because Johnson was one of Burke's dearest friends, but because the Doctor was not powerful in political writing; and Burke well knew how sensitive he would be if defeated in the contest: his bodily health might even suffer, which Burke would be the last man to endanger. Fifthly: two of the greatest lawyers of Burke's time-men who were masters of the art of considering testimony, Lord Mansfield and Sir William Blackstone,-both believed Burke had to do with the letters. The universal popular credence, too, during the course of publication, was, that Burke, at least, was allied with Junius; and— as in the case of the authorship of the "Waverley Novels"-contemporary general suspicion is not usually very wide of the mark.

In addition to these reasons, one important piece of evidence occurs to the writer of the present biography in support of Burke's originating or helping the letters of Junius. It seems strange the

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circumstance has scarcely been before alluded to, and certainly never relied on; yet it is of some value, being that kind of proof which arises from the party charged having undoubtedly done, and been addicted to doing, the same thing before. Burke, it will be remembered, on the two occasions of confuting Dr. Lucas and Lord Bolingbroke, was wonderfully successful in starting anonymous. publications, so different from his ordinary compositions, that, until they were acknowledged, no one would believe them to be his. The personification of Lord Bolingbroke, in particular, shows Burke to have had complete possession of a very rare faculty, that of writing at considerable length in a style totally unlike his own-of writing, not as a mere imitator might, but eloquently, naturally, and powerfully. Few authors at any time-none but himself in his own day-have been known to have had this gift, and to have used it. Now, if not the author himself of Junius, might he not have planned and aided some other in this clever, and to him easy mode of deception? Again, Burke had a particular fancy for writing anonymously. Not only the imitations of Lucas and Bolingbroke, but the majority of Burke's publications appeared without his name. His favourite plan seemed to be this: he would produce the work anonymously, and when it had made a sensation, then avow it. Thus he acted with the "Vindication of Natural Society," with the "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," with the "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," and with many other of his lucubrations. Why he should hesitate to acknowledge his connexion with the letters of Junius is sufficiently obvious. Those letters had made an impression beyond all anticipation, and had placed their author or authors within reach of a penal prosecution; and even setting aside the danger of a criminal charge, it would have been next to ruin for any rising politician or statesman to have, by confessing, confronted the anger of the incensed king, George III., a prince always obdurate in his wrath. A charm, moreover, as it turned out, lay in the very continuation of the mystery. Still stronger ground for secrecy would also exist if