See Lord Mansfield's statement of this view in Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices , ii. 478–480.
Parl. Hist. xvi. 1267.
Campbell's Lord Chancellors , vi. 176. It was on occasion of the acquittal of the Craftsman that Pulteney wrote his ballad called The Honest Jury , with the well-known stanza:
Lord Mansfield, in the case of the Dean of Asaph, is said, by a strange lapse of memory, to have stated that Pulteney had admitted that ‘libel or no libel’ was a question for the Court, by saying in his ballad:
Campbell's Chief Justices , ii. 481, 485.
Campbell's Chancellors , vii. 45–47. Thurlow, Bathurst, and Kenyon protested strongly against the measure. Considering the long chain of authorities who agreed with Lord Mansfield, and the scorn which was so abundantly poured on mere laymen who discussed the question on the grounds of common sense, justice, and analogy, it is amusing to read Lord Campbell's commentary upon the Act. ‘Now that the mist of prejudice has cleared away, I believe that English lawyers almost unanimously think that Lord Camden's view of the question was correct on strict legal principles; and that the Act was properly made to declare the right of the jury to determine upon the character of the alleged libel, instead of enacting it as an innovation’ (p. 47).
See some acute observations on this point in the Annual Register , 1771, p. 60.
Hallem's Hist. of England , ch. xvi.
Walpole's Memoirs of George III. iii. 164, 165.
This change is noticed in Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century , iii. 93. On the absorption of the old essay writing by newspapers, see Timperley's Encyclopedia of Literary Anccdote , p. 702.
Andrews' History of British Journals , i. 274. Grant's History of the Newspaper Press , i. 430, 431.
See his anonymous letter to G. Grenville, Grenville Papers , iv. 381, dated October 20, 1768. See, too, pp. 355, 356.
See the elaborate argument against the genuineness of these letters in Dilke's Papers of a Critic.
Cavendish Debates , ii. 106.
‘Recorded honours shall gather round his monument and thicken over him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it.’ It is no great eulogy of a monument that it is not crushed by lavrel wreaths.
See Woodfall, i. 247, 248.
The passages about the Princess Dowager are from the letters signed Domitian, but Junius in one of his private letters acknowledged that signature. The other passages I have quoted are from the letters signed Junius.
An atrocious note which Woodfall refused to print has been given for the first time by Mr. Twisleton in his great work on the handwriting of Junius, plate 103. In the text of a letter, Junius had written: ‘When all hopes of peace are lost, his Majesty tells his Parliament that he is preparing, not for barbarous war, but (with all his mother's softness) for a different situation ;’ and he adds, as a note, ‘The lady herself is now preparing for a different situation. Nothing keeps her alive but the horrible suction of toads. Such an instance of divine justice would convert an atheist.’ On this remedy, which was supposed in the 18th century to be useful in cases of cancer, see Twisleton, p. xxv, and compare one of the private letters of Junius to Woodfall: ‘What do you mean by affirming that the Dowager is better? I tell you she suckles toads from morning to night.’—Wood-fall's Junius , i. 241. In a letter signed Domitian, Junius wrote: ‘Few nations are in the predicament that we are, to have nothing to complain of but the filial virtues of our Sovereign. Charles I. had the same implicit attachment to his spouse, but his worthy parent was in her grave. It were to be wished that the parallel held good in all the circumstances.’
The infamous falsehoods of Junius about the Duke of Bedford are fully exposed in Lord Brougham's Statesmen of George III. art, ‘Bedford,’ and in Lord J. Russell's Introduction to the third volume of the Bedford Correspondence. Among other charges the Duke and Duchess were accused of having sold the clothes and trinkets of their son. The truth was that ‘these effects were given, as was the practice, to the immediate servants of Lord and Lady Tavistock, and sold by them for their own benefit.’ Bedford's despair at the death of his son was such that, as Hume said, ‘nobody believed when it happened that he would have survived the loss.’
‘I must be more cautious than ever. I am sure I should not survive a discovery three days, or if I did they would attaint me by bill. Change to the Somerset Coffee House, and let no mortal know the alteration. I am persuaded you are too honest a man to contribute in any way to my destruction.’—Woodfall's Junius , i. 231, 232. ‘When you consider to what excessive enmities I may be exposed, you will not wonder at my cautions.’ Ibid. i. 208. ‘Though you would fight,’ he wrote to Draper, ‘there are others who would assassinate.’
Woodfall's Junius , i. 221. Compare George Grenville's Journal of May 1765, written at the time of the silk weaver riots. ‘Mr. Grenville went in next. The King spoke to him first upon the state of the rioters. He seemed in great disorder and agitation; hurt with people thinking he had kept out of the way from fear, said he would put himself at the head of his army or do anything to save his country.’— Grenville Papers , iii. 177.
Junius to Wilkes, Oct. 21, 1771. Wilkes' MSS. British Museum. Woodfall, in his published edition, suppressed part of this letter.
Junius to Wilkes. This letter was received Nov. 7, 1771.
See Campbell's Life of Mansfield . Brougham's Statesmen of George III . art. ‘Mansfield.’
See Almon's Biographical Anecdotes , i. 12–15.
In a letter to Mackrabie, Philip Francis writes: ‘The approach of a war loads me with business, as by-and-by I hope it will with money’ (Dec. 11, 1770); and in his autobiography he says: ‘We thought a Spanish war inevitable, and that Chatham must be employed. Lord Weymouth on that conviction resigned the Secretary of State's office, and I lost 500 l. in the Stocks.’—Parkes and Merivale's Life of Francis , i. 251, 363.
In one of his private letters he begged Woodfall to find out the exact day on which this important event took place.—Woodfall, i. 227, 578.
Chatham Correspondence , iv. 35, 36. Campbell's Chief Justices , ii. 476–480.
This, e.g., was the address of a very able letter signed Zeno in defence of Mansfield.— Public Advertiser , Oct. 15, 1771. Burke complained bitterly that Lord Mansfield ‘had not thought proper to discountenance the blending a vindication of his character with the most scurrilous attacks upon mine; and that he has permitted the first regular defence that I have ever seen made for him to be addressed to me, without the least proof, presumption, or ground for the slightest suspicion that I had any share whatsoever in that controversy.’— Burke's Correspondence , i. 270, 271. He again and again distinctly and upon his honour denied that he was the author of Junius.—Ibid. pp. 275, 282. Boswell's Johnson , p. 625.
Junius Identified with a Distinguished Living Character . (London, 1816.)
See Twisleton and Chabot's Handwriting of Junius —probably the most complete investigation ever made into the handwriting of an author. The facts relating to the copy of verses will be found, pp. 219–244. The verses seem to be in the handwriting of Tilghman, the cousin and intimate friend of Francis.
Parkes and Merivale's Life of Francis .
This fact rests on the distinct assertion of Francis and of the Editor of the Parl. Hist , in which the reports appeared. See Stanhope's History of England , v. pp. xxxiv, xxxvi. Taylor's Junius Identified , pp. 257–313. It was once believed that the reports of those speeches did not appear till long after the letters of Junius. Dilke, however, who has examined the Junius question with great minuteness, has shown that reports may be found in the earlier newspapers. ( Papers of a Critic , ii. 109–121.) This no doubt weakens the argument from the coincidence of expression, but it leaves the fact that Francis heard and took notes of speeches which Junius heard and imitated. Mr. Leslie Stephen has recently examined this subject with great care ( Historical Review , April 1888, pp. 233–249), and he appears to me to have shown conclusively that Francis's report of one of Chatham's speeches had not been printed when Junius wrote, and that, notwithstanding this fact, it is almost certain that Junius must have seen it.
This argument was, I believe, first brought forward in an admirable essay in Herman Merivale's Historical Studies —a book of great interest and beauty. See, too, Parkes and Merivale's Life of Francis , i. 192–196.
Francis, in a speech made in 1796, said that on the American question he adopted ‘the principles and the language of Lord Chatham,’ and rejoiced that America had resisted. This has been urged as a strong argument against the Franciscan theory. ( Greenville Papers , iii. p. xx), but it has been completely overthrown by the Life of Francis , which proves that at the time when the letters of Junius appeared, Francis, like Junius, adopted the views of Grenville, though he appears to have abandoned them as early as 1776. In a letter written from India in that year to his friend D'Oyly, he speaks strongly of the folly of carrying on the war against America, and adds, ‘There was a time when I could reason as logically and passionately as anybody against the Americans, but since I have been obliged to study the book of wisdom, I have dismissed logic out of my library.’—Parkes and Merivale, i. 104–108, 250.
The great coarseness with which Junius writes about women has been often noticed, and it gave rise to a very characteristic incident. A letter appeared in the Public Advertiser in September 1769, directed against Junius and signed Junia. Junius at once answered in a tone of coarse raillery, urging that ‘since Junia has adopted my name, she cannot in common matrimonial decency refuse to make me a tender of her person,’ &c. Two or three days later, it struck him that this letter was ‘idle and improper,’ so he wrote to Woodfall to insert a paragraph to the effect that he had ‘some reason to suspect that the last letter signed Junius in this paper was not written by the real Junius.’—Woodfall's Junius , i. 199; iii. 218, 219.
Parkes and Merivale, i. 211, 212.
See Lord Brougham's sketch of Francis in his Statesmen of George III .
Parkes and Merivale, ii. 206.
Ibid. ii. 257.
See the curious letter of Lady Francis to Lord Campbell, in Campbell's Chancellors , viii. 211–214; and a few additional reminiscences of Lady Francis in Parkes and Merivale.
Parkes and Merivale, i. 360, 361. Hayward's More about Junius .
The most remarkable is his employment of the term ‘collegian,’ which is used at Dublin University (where Dr. Francis received his education). A few other expressions have been collected in Prior's Life of Burke , and in Coventry's Junius , but they are not very decisive. Great stress has been laid upon the language in which Junius spoke of Luttrell. ‘He has degraded even the name of Luttrell.’ ‘A family on which nature seems to have entailed a hereditary baseness of disposition.’ Macaulay says that to the great majority of English readers such language must have been unintelligible, and he explains it by the fact that ‘Philip Francis was born and passed the first ten years of his life within a walk of Luttrellstown’ ( Hist. of England , oh. xvii.). I quite agree with Mr. Hayward ( More about Junius , pp. 57, 58) that this argument is worthless. Residence in a great town like Dublin is not likely to give much knowledge of families living seven miles away. Francis left Dublin when he was a child, and in a fiercely contested election every family scandal that could be raked up against the unpopular candidate was sure to become known.
Several writers on the subject are very confident that they can also prove (chiefly by Junius's great anxiety that the galleries of the House of Parliament should be opened to strangers on particular nights) that he was not a member of either House of Parliament, but I confess that to my own mind there appears no evidence of any real value on the matter. See, however, Junius Identified , pp. 130–133. Parkes and Merivale, ii. 532, 533.
See on the relations of Francis to Calcraft, Parkes and Merivale, i, 282–288.
In his fragment of autobiography he says, speaking of his Indian appointment, ‘Barrington was gone to Court. I saw him she next morning. As soon as I had explained everything to him, he wrote the handsomest and strongest letter imaginable in my favour to Lord North. Other interests contributed, but I owe my success to Lord Barrington.’—Parkes and Merivale, i. 324, 325.
Ibid. pp. 328–330.
Ibid. p. 227.
Woodfall's Junius , ii. 451–467. The following passage in a letter of Antisejanus is eminently in the style of Junius. ‘I will not censure him for the avarice of a pension, nor the melancholy ambition of a title. These were objects which he perhaps looked up to, though the rest of the world thought them far beneath his acceptance. But to become the stalking-horse of a stallion; to shake hands with a Scotchman at the hazard of catching all his infamy; to fight under his auspices against the Constitution, and to receive the word from him, prerogative, and a thistle (by the once respected name of Pitt); it is even below contempt.’—P. 467.
Chatham Correspondence , iii. 302–305.
The following is the testimony of Merivale on this subject. ‘One friend, supporter, patron, and colleague after another—Kinnoul, Chatham, Robert Wood, Calcraft, D'Oyly, Clavering, Fowke, Coote, Fox, the Prince of Wales—those who had wished well to him, defended him, showered benefits on him, appear at last in his written records branded with some unfriendly or contemptuous notice, some insinuated or pronounced aspersion, ungrateful at best, but treacherous also, if, as has been already conjectured, he meant those records to be known some day to the world.’—Parkes and Merivale, ii. 415, 416.
Parkes and Merivale, i. 359.
Wright s House of Hanover, ii. 373.
Campbell's Life of Mansfield.
Foote's Works, i. xlv, xlvi. See too Foote's Bankrupt; Andrews' Hist. of Journalism i. 193.
Andrews, i. 220.
Correspondence of George III. and Lord North, i. 57, 58.
Annual Register, 1771, pp. 62, 63. The minorities ranged from 55 to 10, and the majorities from 143 to 70.
Walpole's George III. iv. 284–286.
Letters of George III, to Lord North, i. 64–67. He said very shrewdly that Wilkes must soon get into prison for debt, if some measure was not speedily taken to revive his popularity.
Woodfall's Junius, ii. 219, 220.
Parl. Hist. xvii. 164.