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 règles. 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 Il m'a fait trop de bien pour en dire du mal, 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 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 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. out with an air of boldness, and writes that eulogy on Lord Chatham which we have already quoted. osity was thus ably met and imposed on. 66 The public curi 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. |