No More Learning

Junius vanishes with the publication of the collected edition of
his letters. It was far from complete. Not only are the letters
previous to 1769 omitted, but many of inferior quality or of
transient interest, written during the continuance of the great
series, usually under other pseudonyms, are absent. And, more
remarkable still, there are certain letters of 1772, after the Junian
series had closed, which he very anxiously desired not to be known
as his, and which passed unidentified for years. Under fresh
pseudonyms, such as ‘Veteran,' he poured forth furious abuse on
Lord Barrington, secretary at war. The cause, in itself, was
strangely slight. It was only the appointment of a new deputy
secretary, formerly a broker, Anthony Chamier, and the resigna-
tions of the preceding deputy, Christopher D'Oyly, and of the first
clerk, Philip Francis. But, trifling as the occasion might be, it was
sufficient to make the cold and haughty Junius mouth with rage. .
Junius follows the habit of his fellow-correspondents in dealing
very little with strictly political subjects. Personal recrimination
is the chief aim of his letters, and it would hardly be fair to con-
trast them with those of a different class of authors, such as Burke,
or even with the product of the acute legal mind of Candor. Yet,
when he treats of political principles he does so with shrewdness
and insight. He understood the plain-going whig doctrine he
preached, and expounded it, on occasion, with matchless clearness.
What could be better as a statement than the sentences in the
dedication of the collected letters which point out that the liberty
of the press is the guarantee of political freedom and emphasise
the responsibility of parliament? And the same strong common
sense marks an apophthegm like that on the duke of Grafton-
Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven; but insults admit of no compen-
sation. They degrade the mind in its own esteem, and force it to recover its
level by revenge.
Yet these sentences betray in their sinister close the cast of
Junius's mind. There is an evil taint in his strength, which could
not find satisfaction in impartial reasoning on political questions.
This partisanship merges at once into personal hatred, and his
rancour against his chief victim, Grafton, can hardly be accounted


## p. 406 (#432) ############################################

406
Political Literature (1755—75)
6
for on merely political grounds. His object is to wound and ruin,
not only to overthrow. Scandal, true or false, is the weapon of
his choice. The great boar of the forest,' as Burke called him,
loved the poison in which he dipped his tusks, and took a cruel
pleasure in the torture he inflicted. Secure in his anonymity, no
insult or counter-thrust could reach him. With frigid glee, he
retorts upon accusations, which, of necessity, were vague and wide,
by plausible insinuations against his opponents. “To him that
knows his company,' said Dr Johnson, it is not hard to be
sarcastic in a mask. And Junius, thus gripped with the obvious
realities of his position, found no reply to this sarcasm.
But, however much he owed to his concealment and to his re-
markable knowledge of the vulnerable points of his quarry (and,
be it added, to the cunning with which he selected for his attack
men who could not produce their defence), Junius holds a high
position on his own literary merits. He was the most perfect
wielder of slanderous polemic that had ever arisen in English
political controversy. Not lack of rivals, but eminent ability,
made him supreme in that ignoble competition. In invective which
is uninformed by any generosity of feeling he stands unequalled.
His sentences, brief, pithy and pungent, exhibit a delicate equi-
librium in their structure. Short as they are, their rhythm goes
to form the march of a period, and the cat-like grace of their
evolution ends in the sudden, maiming wit of a malign epigram.
Direct invective, lucid irony, dry sarcasm mingle with one another
in the smooth-ranked phrases. A passage on George III and
Grafton will show to what excellence Junius can rise:
There is surely something singularly benevolent in the character of our
sovereign. From the moment he ascended the throne there is no crime of
which human nature is capable (and I call upon the recorder] to witness it)
that has not appeared venial in his sight. With any other prince, the
shameful desertion of him in the midst of that distress, which you alone had
created, in the very crisis of danger, when he fancied he saw the throne
already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities, would have outweighed
the memory of your former services. But his Majesty is full of justice, and
understands the doctrine of compensations; he remembers with gratitude
how soon you had accommodated your morals to the necessities of his service;
how cheerfully you had abandoned the engagements of private friendship,
and renounced the most solemn professions to the public. The sacrifice of
Lord Chatham was not lost upon him. Even the cowardice and perfidy of
deserting him may have done you no disservice in his esteem. The instance
was painful, but the principle might please.
Junius possessed to perfection the art of climax.
1 Jas. Eyre, later chief justice, in whose court there bad lately been condemned
for murder two or three persons, who received the royal pardon.


## p. 407 (#433) ############################################

The Mystery of Junius 407
The anonymity which he marvellously preserved enabled
Junius to maintain that affectation of superiority which dis-
tinguished him. Never before were mere scandals and libellous
diatribes presented with such an air of haughty integrity and
stern contempt for the baseness of jacks-in-office. We have to
make an effort in order to remember that this lofty gentleman,
above the temptation of a common bribe,' is really engaged in
the baser methods of controversy, and cuts a poor figure beside
Johnson and Burke. But, from his impersonal vantage ground,
he could deliver his judgments with more authority and more
freely display the deliberate artifice of his style. Its general
construction will appear from the passage on Grafton which has
been quoted above. But he also uses a more shrouded form of
innuendo than he there employs. He was very ingenious in com-
posing a sentence, or even a whole period, of double meaning, and
in making his real intent peculiarly clear withal. Perfect lucidity,
indeed, is one of his chief literary qualities. In his most artificial
rhetoric, his meaning is obvious to any reader. His wit, too, is of
high quality, in spite of his laboured antitheses. It has outlived
the obsolete fashion of its dress. It far transcends any trick of
words; as often as not, it depends on a heartless sense of comedy.
'I should,' he wrote to the unhappy Sir William Draper, ‘justly be
suspected of acting upon motives of more than common enmity to
Lord Granby, if I continued to give you fresh materials or occasion
for writing in his defence. ' He needs, we feel, defence himself.
The best apology, perhaps, that can be offered for him is that he
was carrying on an evil tradition and has to be condemned chiefly
because of his excellence in a common mode.
Something, too, of his celebrity is due to the mystery he
successfully maintained. The wildest guesses as to his identity
were made in his own day and after. It was thought at first that
only Burke could write so well, and most of the eminent con-
temporaries of Junius have, at one time or another, been charged
with the authorship of the letters. Fresh light was cast on the
problem by the publication, in 1812, of his private letters to Wood-
fall, with specimens of his handwriting, and subsequent research has
at least laid down some of the conditions which must be satisfied if
his identity is to be proved. Among them, we may take it that a
coincidence of the real life of the author with the hints regarding
himself thrown out in the letters is not to be expected. It was part
of Junius's plan to avoid giving any real clue, and he was anxious
to be thought personally important. But there are more certain


## p. 408 (#434) ############################################

408
Political Literature (1755—75)
data to go upon. The very marked handwriting of Junius is well
known, although, to all seeming, it is a feigned hand. The dates of
the letters show when the author must have been in London. His
special knowledge is of importance. He had an inner acquaintance
with the offices of secretary at war and secretary of state, and he
was very well informed on much of the doings of contemporary
statesmen and on the court. His politics show him to have been
an adherent of George Grenville, who was anxious to draw Lord
Chatham into alliance with the thoroughgoing whigs, and turn out
the king's chosen ministers. The latter he hated to a man; but he
had a singular antipathy to Grafton and Barrington? His power
of hating is characteristic. We must find a man proud and malig-
nant, yet possessed of considerable public spirit and of a desire for
an honest, patriotic administration. Finally, we require a proof of
ability, in 1770, to write the letters with their merits and defects.
Later writings, even when tinged with the admired Junian style,
are but poor evidence. Nor is the inferior quality of a man's
later productions an absolute bar to his claims. He may have
passed his prime.
Perhaps it is not too bold to say that the only claimant who
fulfils the majority of these conditions is Sir Philip Francis.
In his case, also, there are corroborative circumstances of weight;
and, although, with our present knowledge, we cannot definitely
state that he was the author of the letters, yet it is pretty clear
that he was concerned in their production. Sir Philip was an
Irishman, the son of that elder Philip Francis who was also a pam-
phleteer. He was born in Dublin on 22 October 1740, but was bred
in England at St Paul's school. In 1756, he obtained a clerkship
in the secretary of state's office, and accompanied Lord Kinnoul
on his embassy to Portugal in 1760. From 1762 to 1772, he held
the post of first clerk at the war office, which he resigned in
obscure circumstances only to be appointed a member of the
governor-general's council in India next year. His long feud
there with Hastings brought him into public notice, and, after his
return to England in 1781, he became the relentless engineer of the
prosecution of his enemy. Failure, however, alike attended these
efforts and his hopes of political office. He gave up, in 1807, the
seat in parliament which he had held from 1784. He survived to
see the claim put forward that he was the author of Junius; but he
died, without either admitting or denying the fact, on 23 December
1 Next to the Duke of Grafton, I verily believe that the blackest heart in the
kingdom belongs to Lord Barrington. ' Junius to Woodfall, Letter 61.


## p. 409 (#435) ############################################

The Franciscan
Theory
409
1818. He had married twice and left descendants by bis first
wife.
Though this career was not humdrum, yet the earlier part of it
by no means corresponded with the fancied importance of Junius,
and John Taylor, who declared for Francis's authorship in 1814,
showed an adventurous spirit in his thesis. Nevertheless, the
arguments he collected then, and those since added by his ad-
herents, form a strong array. The all-important handwriting has
been assigned to Francis by expert evidence; four or five Junian
seals were used by him, and, since Francis's undisguised hand
appears in a dating on the Junian proofs along with the feigned,
while the feigned hand directs the envelope of a copy of verses
dated 1771 and shown, by absolutely independent evidence', to
be of Francis's composition, it seems impossible to avoid the
conclusion that Francis was Junius's collaborator, if not Junius
himself. The same result is obtained from the facts that
Junius used, and vouched for, a report made by Francis of
one of Chatham's speeches in December 1770, and that an
unacknowledged Junian letter signed 'Phalaris' can hardly have
been written without Francis's cooperation, employing, as it does,
Francis's very words in a letter to Chatham? Again, Francis's
presence in London tallies remarkably with the dates of the
letters: When he is absent, Junius is silent. In less external
matters, Francis had that experience of the offices of war and
state which is marked in Junius. His politics were identical with
those of the libeller, and he was at the time engaged as a jackal
of the declining politician Calcraft, in the labour of effecting
a junction of Chatham and the Grenvilles. Calcraft and Lord
Temple, the latter a veteran patron of libellers, may well have
given him court intelligence not otherwise obtainable. Calcraft,
again, at the time of his death in 1772, was, obviously, under great
obligations to Francis for services rendered: he leaves him a
legacy and prescribes his nomination to a pocket-borough of
his own. If Junius's remorseless hatred of the duke of Grafton
1 The verses, copied out by Francis's cousin, Tilghman, and addressed in the
feigned Junian hand, were sent to a Miss Giles at Bath, in the winter of 1770—1.
Later, before this copy was the subject of investigation, Sir P. Francis gave his second
wife another copy, in his own hand and on a portion of the same sheet of paper
as Miss Giles's copy, among other specimens of his early verses.
2 See the article by Sir Leslie Stephen in The English Historical Review, April
1888. The letter to Chatham was sent through Calcraft.
3 Yet the evidence here is rather negative than positive. See Hayward, More about
Junius.


## p. 410 (#436) ############################################

410
Political Literature (1755—75)
remains unexplained though some insult received by Francis in
the course of his official duties is an easy supposition—the fury he
manifests against Barrington in 1772 is in precise harmony with
the mysterious retirement of D'Oyly and Francis which partly
forms the theme of that attack. Then, the characters of Junius
and Francis markedly coincide. The same pride, the same fierce
hatreds, the same implacable revenge and the same good intention
towards the public interest meet us in both. Even the seeming
improbability of Junius's hostile reference to Calcraft is paralleled
by Francis's readiness, when piqued, to put the worst construction
on his friends. At the same time, a difficulty arises in the question
as to Francis's ability to write the letters. True, there are Junian
turns in his productions of later date. He shares that trait with
many writers, and, high though his reputation as a pamphleteer
was, we must admit that, if he was Junius in 1770, under his own
name in 1780 he was a cooling sun.
To sum up, the letters of Junius seem to be brought home to
a small group which included Calcraft, Francis and, perhaps, Lord
Temple? They passed through Francis's hands, and he is their
most likely author. He evidently wished to be thought so; but, if
he was, the malignant talent they displayed could only develop
in secrecy, or, perhaps, his prime was short. He remains in his
real character a pretender only, in his assumed, a shade: stat
nominis umbra.
In Junius, we have the culmination of a series of political
writings; but his merits and defects do not exhaust theirs. Abuse
and slander and political hatred are continually to be found in all.
These blameworthy features should not obscure the quantity of
solid facts and serious argument put forward for the public
information, in many able and honest pamphlets and letters. It
is easier for posterity than it was for the writers to judge of their
fairness and accuracy; not so easy, perhaps, to perceive that, with
their open discussion and criticism, they were the chief safeguards
of the responsibility of government to public opinion.
1 The explanation may lie hid in the lost Junian letter to the duke, signed • Lucius,'
and seen by Henry Bohn (Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, see bibliography).
2 Temple has even been claimed as the author of the Letters (Smith, W. J. , Grenville
Papers, see bibliography); but, beyond the facts that he, doubtless, approved their
purpose and was a patron of virulent pamphleteers and himself a pamphleteer, there
does not seem to be corroboration of this theory. It is true that Lady Temple's
handwriting had a strong resemblance to that of Junius. But Temple would hardly
have sent anonymous letters to his brother-in-law, Chatham, written in a hand which
the latter must have known well.
9


## p. 411 (#437) ############################################

BIBLIOGRAPHIES
CHAPTER I
RICHARDSON
I. COLLECTED EDITIONS
Works, with a sketch of his life and writings by Mangin, E. 19 vols. 1811.
Novels. In Ballantyne's Novelists' Library, with a life by Sir Walter Scott.
3 vols. Edinburgh, 1824.
Ed. Stephen, L. , with a prefatory chapter of biographical criticism.
12 vols. 1883.
With introduction by McKenna, E. M. M. 20 vols. 1902.
Complete Novels. With life by Phelps, W. I. 18 vols. New York,
1901-3.
A Collection of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Cautions,
and Reflections, contained in the Histories of Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe,
and Sir Charles Grandison, digested under proper heads. 1755.
a
a
II. SEPARATE NOVELS
Pamela, or Virtue rewarded. In a series of familiar letters from a beautiful
young damsel to her parents. 2 vols. 1740. 4 vols. 1741-2. 10th edn.
1771. Abridged 1817. Rptd 1891. Transl. into French by Prévost
d'Exiles, A. F. 4 vols. Amsterdam, 1742-3. Another version, 1771.
The following are the direct adaptations of Pamela for the French
stage: Boissy, Louis de, Paméla en France, ou La Vertu mieux éprouvée,
Paris, 1745. Voltaire, Nanine, Paris, 1749. Nenfchâteau, François de,
Pamela, Paris, 1795. Goldoni's adaptations for the Italian stage, Pamela
Fanciulla and Pamela Maritata, both appeared in 1750.
An Apology for the life of Mrs Shamela Andrews, in which the many
notorious falsehoods and misrepresentations of a book called
Pamela are exposed. By Conny Keyber. 1741.
As to Fielding's Joseph Andrews, see bibl. to chap. II, post.
Pamela censured in a letter to the Editor, shewing that under the
specious pretence of cultivating the principles of virtue. . . the
most artful and alluring amorous ideas are conveyed . . . . 1741.
Pamela's conduct in high life. (Sequel to Richardson's novel. ) 1741.
Povey, C. The Virgin in Eden. To which are added Pamela's
Letters proved to be immodest romances. 1741.
Clarissa; or the History of a young Lady, comprehending the most important
concerns of private life, and particularly shewing the distresses that may
attend the misconduct both of parents and children in relation to
marriage, published by the Editor of Pamela. 7 vols. 1748. 2nd edn,
8 vols. , 1749–51; 7th edn, 8 vols. , 1774. In Mrs Barbauld's British


## p. 412 (#438) ############################################

412
Bibliography
Novelists, with prefaces biographical and critical. 1810. Abridged by
Dallas, E. S. 1868. Rptd 1890. Transl. into French by Le Tourneur, P.
10 vols. Geneva, 1785-6. Transl. into French by Prévost d'Exiles, A. F.
2 vols. Paris, 1845-6. Transl. into French by Janin, J. 2 vols.
Brussels, 1846. Transl. into Italian. 5 vols. Venice, 1783-6. Transl.
into Dutch by Stinstra, John. 8 vols. Harlingen, 1752-3. Stinstra's
correspondence with Richardson is printed in vol. v of Mrs Barbauld's
edition of Richardson's correspondence (see sec. III, post).
Remarks on Clarissa addressed to the author. 1749.
The History of Sir Charles Grandison in a series of Letters published from
the originals by the Editor of Pamela and Clarissa. 7 vols. 1754.
2nd edn, to which is added a brief history of the treatment which the
author has met with from certain booksellers and printers in Dublin,
1754; 3rd edn, 1755; 7th edn, 1776; 8th edn, 1796. In Mrs Barhauld's
British Novelists, with prefaces biographical and critical. 1810. New
and abridged edition by Howitt, M. 1873.
Letters from Sir Charles Grandison. Selected with a biographical intro-
duction and connecting notes by Saintsbury, G. 2 vols. 1895. Transl.
into French by Prévost d'Exiles, A. F. 4 vols. Amsterdam, 1784.
Imitated in German. Eisenach, 1760-2. Transl. into Italian. 4 vols.
Venice, 1784-9. Transl. into Spanish. 6 vols. Madrid, 1798.
A candid examination of The History of Sir Charles Grandison.
1754.
Critical remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela,
enquiring whether they have a tendency to corrupt or improve
the public taste and morals. In a letter to the author by a Lover
of Virtue. 1754.
For a list of plays in English, French, German and Italian, founded on
Richardson's novels, see, also, the bibliography in Samuel Richardson, by
Thomson, Miss C. L. , mentioned under sec. v, post.
à
III. CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence, to which are prefixed a biographical account of the author,
and observations on his writings, by Barbauld, A. L. 6 vols. 1804.
Mrs Barbauld's life transl. into French, 1808.
For an account of the Forster collection of Richardson's correspondence
preserved in the South Kensington Museum, see the bibliography in Miss
Thomson's work mentioned below.
IV. EDITED MATTER
The negociations with the Ottoman Porte from 1621 to 1628. By Sir Thomas
Roe. Ed. by S. Richardson. 1740.
Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain. (By Defoe. ) With
considerable additions [by Richardson). 4 vols. 1742. Other edns: 1753,
1769; 8th edn, 1778; 9th edn, Dublin, 1779.
V. BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM
Boas, F. S. Richardson's novels and their influence. Essays and studies by
members of the English Association. Vol. 11. Oxford, 1911.
Cross, W. The Development of the English Novel. (Chap. II: The 18th
century realists. ) New York, 1899.
Diderot, D. Éloge de Richardson. 1761. Rptd in Euvres complètes,
vol. v. Paris, 1875.
Si7. chris
Renang ini
244 Anda di tipi fint :
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Chapter 1
413
Dobson, A. Richardson at home. Eighteenth Century Vignettes. 2nd series.
1894.
Richardson. (English Men of Letters. ) 1902.
Donner, J. O. E. Richardson in der deutschen Romantik. Weimar (1896).
Hazlitt, W. On the English novelists. English Comic Writers, V. Works,
edd. Glover, A. and Waller, A. R. , vol. viii. 1903.
Hettner, H. Litteraturgesch. d. 18. Jahrh. : 1. Gesch. d. Engl. Literatur,
1660-1770. 2nd edn. Brunswick, 1865. (Bk 111, part 11, chap. 1, sec. 1,
Richardson u. der moralisirende Familienroman. )
Jeffrey, Francis, Lord. Samuel Richardson. Edinburgh Review. Oct. 1804.
Rptd 1853.
Jusserand, J. Le Roman Anglais. Origines et Formation des Grandes
Écoles de Romanciers du 18me siècle. Paris, 1886.
Nichols, J. Samuel Richardson. Literary Anecdotes, iv, 578–598. 1812.
Poetzsche, E. Samuel Richardson's Belesenheit. Kieler Studien zur
englischen Philologie. Kiel, 1908.
Schmidt, E. Richardson, Rousseau, und Goethe. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte
des Romans im 18. Jahrhundert. Jena, 1875.
Texte, J. Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme
Littéraire. (Bk 11, chap. 11: Popularité européenne du Roman Anglais;
chap. III: L'euvre de Samuel Richardson; chap. IV: Rousseau et le Roman
Anglais. ) Paris, 1895. Eng. trans. by Matthews, J. W. 1899.
Thomson, C. L. Samuel Richardson: a biographical and critical study.
1900. [Contains a useful bibliography. ]
A. T. B.
CHAPTER II
FIELDING AND SMOLLETT
I. FIELDING
A.