Letters must have been the result of elaborate pains, thought, and research, independent of the ordinary duties of his clerkship. Traces appear in some of them, from the absence of sequence, in the construction of the paragraphs, that they were not thrown off at a heat, but composed, or sketched, probably, on separate slips of paper, and then from haste, or want of time, sent to the printer without a proper fusion and arrange

ment of parts. Composition was only one of the anxious duties pertaining to the Letters. The materials had been to collect, inquiries to be made in various channels and of divers persons; and, lastly, the conveyance of the finished product, all under strict secrecy, to the office of the Advertiser.

All this, however, comports well with the history and character of Sir Philip Francis, whose ambition was less the desire of literary celebrity than of official pre-eminence. He was never a recluse, but a man of action; clever and alert in society, as well as a precocious scholar. When a minor, he frequently dined with his elders at the table-d'hôte of Slaughter's Coffee-house. Higher sources of intelligence than that of town adventures flowed from his peculiar connexion at the War-office, or from persons who, like himself, were busy in the gossip, hopes, and affairs of political life. In all these respects he was advantageously placed, both from his position in a public department and personal affinities. Early in life, from ability and trustworthiness, he had obtained the confidential patronage of the first Lord Holland, next of the Earl of Chatham; these able and influential noblemen, not directly, probably, but through the intermediate agency of Earl Temple, Mr. Calcraft, and Dr. Francis, became the chief sources of the private information of Junius. They had ample means for contributing all the parliamentary, court, and club news that rendered the Letters remarkable. The City news passed partly through the same hands, especially Mr. Calcraft's, and was obtained first from Alderman Beckford, and after his death from Alderman Sawbridge. Wilkes communicated with Junius through the medium of Mr. Woodfall. Such were the real but unconscious dramatis persona, none of whom appear to have been in the secret at the outset of the Letters, and only some of them afterwards, when they had become celebrated. That they were competent auxiliaries, though unknowingly so, to all the requirements of the Junius undertaking, and that their available aid, it is likely, suggested to Francis his enterprise, will be evident from some brief indication in the Essay referred to, of their social and official relations.

Dr. Francis, the accomplished father of Sir Philip, and not very dissimilar from him, was the favourite chaplain of Lord Holland, living in intimate fellowship with him. They met at the house of Mrs. G. A. Bellamy, the noted courtesan, then in the keeping of Mr. John Calcraft, who had been the confidential clerk of his lordship in the busiest period of his career. Lord Holland, after retiring from the king's service, continued a favourite at court: he was, in fact, the confidential adviser of both the king and Lord Bute in the chief ministerial crises that rapidly ensued from 1763 to 1770. It was by his lordship's intervention the Grafton ministry was strengthened by the Bedford party, and it was this ducal union that subsequently rendered the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford the bitter objects of the attacks of Junius, when his favourite patron, Lord Chatham, had recovered from his suspended animation, and had become eager to regain the premiership by the destruction of the coalition

ministry. At this later period Calcraft, who had been deputy-commissary of musters, after enriching himself in the service of Lord Holland, but unable to reach the height of his ambition, had deserted his lordship for the opposite party, and become the confidential secretary of Lord Chatham. He was a member of the House of Commons, but, Junius says, gave silent votes. Though no speaker, he was extensively connected with, and well informed on, all state affairs. With him the younger Francis appears, from the "Chatham Correspondence," to have been in constant communication under the denomination of a "friend." That this "friend" was the younger Francis, the author of the Letters, and the Sir Philip Francis of a later period, there can be no doubt. Evidence of the most intimate and friendly ties between them may be readily adduced. Mr. Calcraft exerted himself to obtain for Francis the appointment of deputy secretary-at-war; failing in that, he, on the same day Francis was dismissed from the War-office, added a codicil to his will, bequeathing him a handsome legacy, and an annuity for life to Mrs. Francis. This fact, and the disclosures in the Chatham papers of the constant interchange of intelligence between Calcraft and Francis, led me to conclude that letters and papers which Francis had addressed to Lord Chatham's secretary might be in the possession of his descendants. Under this impression, I wrote to Mr. Calcraft, but almost immediately after I had done so, I learned from an unquestionable source that my application would be fruitless, as nearly half a century before Sir Philip Francis, aware that a mine existed in that quarter, had got back all his papers. No doubt Sir Philip destroyed them, as no scrap of them remains with his family; they shared in common, it is likely, the fate of the manuscript of Junius's Letters and the vellum-bound copy he received from Mr. Woodfall. It was in 1787 he got back his papers; he was then in hot war against Warren Hastings, when any discovery that he was the redoubtable Junius would have been damaging to his influence, as several of his colleagues in the impeachment of the ex-governorgeneral were among those he had bitterly reviled under the shelter of his nom de guerre.

The Calcraft disclosure added an important link to the chain of testimony. In an article on Hastings,† Lord Macaulay enumerated five points, identifying in his position, pursuits, and connexions Sir P. Francis with Junius, and only two of which could be found in any other person. For myself, I reduced the roll of candidates immensely, by showing that Junius was certainly not a clergyman of any grade, nor a lawyer, nor a member of either House of Parliament. In addition, I cleared up the difficulties preceding investigators had left relative to the intellectual competence of Sir Francis to the task of Junius; his ready and various sources of intelligence; his evasive denial of the Letters; the different style of his later public writings, and the conditions of reticence which his compact with Lord North enforced both on himself and others in the secret of his authorship.

Junius will ever rank among the most able, best-sustained, and successful of literary impostures. By big words, classic style, loud professions

*Not the lawfully affanced, as I have been informed by a lady contemporary of the parties, but living with Francis on the same terms, probably, she had previously done with the deputy-commissary.

† Edinburgh Review, October, 1841.

of disinterestedness, and patrician demeanour, the public was misled for almost a century. The anxious vigilance, the deception imposed on the author, must have been immense, and for which his direct reward was nil. He wholly failed in his leading purpose; in lieu of a Chatham, a North became premier, and the people, weary of changes without amendments, acquiesced in the substitution. Disgusted with the results, Junius withdrew from the arena to a new sphere of action, and, it may be added, of disappointment and baffled schemes.

His labours in the composition of the Letters and concealment of their authorship were enormous, without enabling him to carry off any brilliant trophy, or derive any comfort, not even that of self-satisfaction. Whatever contemporary pride he might have had in the Letters, he appears to have had none afterwards. Else why his steadfast and anxious disavowal of them? Except indirectly, in a kind of death-bed confession, never the slightest admission or indication escaped him of the authorship. Overtly and conclusively he never seems to have coveted any fame or merit pertaining to them. Indeed, he considered himself superior to them, Lord Brougham intimates; and, no doubt improving with the fashion of the age, he had become so in respect of the private details and calumnies in which Junius had freely indulged, to give piquancy to his writings. But more cogent reasons may be adduced for his abstinence in the later incidents and connexions of his public life. The avowal of the authorship would have exiled him from society; for how could many of the distinguished persons with whom he subsequently became intimately connected have associated with the anonymous defamer of their dearest connexions, both by blood and political ties? How, for instance, could the Dukes of Grafton or Bedford, who survived during the active portion of the life of Francis, and whom Junius had calumniated with unscrupulous bitterness, have consorted with him. Their numerous descendants must have cherished corresponding provocatives to alienation and resentment. In what way some of them felt towards Junius may be instanced in a distinguished living personage, better known for amiability than the violence of his antipathies. I allude to the comments of Lord John Russell in his Introductions to the "Bedford Correspondence." Junius, in the fashion of his age, sought to lessen the influence of public men by defaming their private character, a species of irrelevant hostility to which political disputants of the present day have become superior. After some reflections on this abuse of the liberty of the press, and the tendency of anonymous writing to exaggeration, Lord John Russell adverts in strong terms to Junius. "But it seems," says his lordship, "to have been the delight of this libeller to harrow the souls of those who were prominent in public life; and while he had not the courage to fight with the sword in the open daylight, he had too much malignity to refrain from the use of the dagger, covered by a mask, and protected by the obscurity of the night. Nor can any excuse be found for him in the warmth of his ardour for public liberty. His zeal on that subject was wonderfully tempered by discretion. He viewed favourably the taxation of America, but dreaded as excessive innovations' the disfranchisement of Gatton and Sarum.'"*

With such sentiments and antagonisms it would certainly not have

*Bedford Correspondence, Introduction, vol. iii. p. 66.

been pleasant, if safe, for Sir Philip Francis, as Junius, to have encountered a scion of the house of Bedford, with full right to question him in the saloons of Holland House or the more free warren of a club-room. Discovery would have obviously and seriously endangered Sir Philip's peace, and weakened, if it had not destroyed, his political connexion; and that at a time when he needed all the strength he could raise to fight his Indian battle against Warren Hastings.

As some set-off to the personalities of the Letters may be pleaded, as already remarked, contemporary usage, their literary excellence, elevated moral tone, free but moderate constitutional sentiments. As to the bubble of high station and authority with which Junius so cleverly misled the public, they were allowable from the necessities of his position. A cause may be good, its advocacy eloquent and able, but alone they only slowly win attention. The field of popular favour is already occupied, and new admissions, jealously scrutinised; neglect at first, and stingy favour next, are the common ordeal of new aspirants to distinction. It is the same for all. Deeds, not words, are the test of merit alike in all the principal walks of life-in literature and science, the professions, forum, and the senatehouse. Rank, title, and wealth are sometimes privileged, but only from popular impression, as the representatives of past services, or assumed present desert. Francis at the outset had need of these testimonials. He had great gifts natural and acquired; had worthily filled inferior places, but had no name or high position. These he necessarily sought to meet the popular prestige. His writings were a sufficient voucher of his abilities, but not of the political and personal revelations which established his authority in public opinion.

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The reason the secret was so well kept has this simple solution that all the parties privy to it were interested in keeping it. There needed no compact for the purpose, though I believe there was one. With what credit or comfort could Junius himself reveal it? Setting aside the deadly enmities he had fomented, and would have had to face in after life, he, a Whig, had accepted a "common bribe" from a Tory ministry by a lucrative nabobship. George III. knew who Junius was, but had taken the rebel into his service, and the king's lips were sealed like those of his minister, Lord North. With what honour could the "great Lord Chatham" divulge it? He and his brother-in-law, Lord Temple, had combined with an anonymous libeller to destroy a ministry they hoped to succeed. All traces of this undignified alliance were doubtless destroyed, as were those of the Chathamite liaisons in City intrigues with Aldermen Beckford and Sawbridge. Mr. Burke it is probable knew Junius, with whom he was in intimate intercourse after his return from India, but he had the same inducement as Francis himself to reticence, engaged as they were in concert in the impeachment of Hastings. Besides, how humiliated and how ridiculous Burke must have felt after his extravagant eulogium of the clever unknown. Alderman Wilkes had been similarly duped. He had swallowed Junius in all his disguises, and was so overcome in devotion as actually to raise an altar to the "unknown god of his idolatry." Could he, too, have been the abject worshipper of the painted devil, or could he hope to mention the name and position of the author of his delusion without being laughed at? As to Mr. John Caleraft, one of the most efficient stokers of the Junian furnace, he, with other aids, died too early for revelations.

THE AMERICAN ATHENS.

BY J. G. KOHL.

Of all the cities of the American Union, Boston is the one that has most fully retained the character of an English locality. This is visible upon the first glance at its physiognomy and the style of building. The city is spread out over several islands and peninsulas, in the innermost nook of Massachusetts Bay. The heart of Boston is concentrated on a single small peninsula, at which all the advantages of position, such as depth of water, accessibility from the sea, and other port conveniences, are so combined, that this spot necessarily became the centre of life, the Exchange, landing-place, and market.

The ground in this central spot rises toward the middle, and formerly terminated in a triple-peaked elevation (the Three Mountains), which induced the earliest immigrants to settle here. At the present time these three points have disappeared, to a great extent, through the spread of building; but for all that, the elevation is perceptible for some distance, and the centre of Boston seems to tower over the rest of the city like an acropolis. From this centre numerous streets run to the circumference of the island, while others have been drawn parallel with it, just like Moscow is built round the Kremlin. All this is in itself somewhat European, and hence there are in Boston streets running up and down hill; at some spots even a drag is used for the wheels of carts. The streets, too, are crooked and angular-a perfect blessing in America, where they generally run with a despairing straightness, like our German everlasting poplar alleys. At some corners of Boston-which is not like other American cities, divided chessboard-wise into blocks-you actually find surprises: there are real groups of houses. The city has a character of its own, and in some parts offers a study for the architect, things usually unknown in America.

The limitation of the city to a confined spot, and the irregularity of the building style, may partly be the cause that the city reminds us of Europe. But that the city assumed so thorough an English type may be explained by the circumstance that Boston received an entirely English population. In 1640, or ten years after its formation, it had five thousand English denizens, at a period when New York was still a small Dutch country town, under the name of New Amsterdam. Possibly, too, the circumstance that it was the nearest seaport to England may have contributed to keep up old English traditions here. The country round Boston bears a remarkable likeness to an English landscape, and hence, no doubt, the state obtained the name of New England; but as in various parts of New England you may fancy yourself in Kent, so, when strolling about the streets of Boston, you may imagine yourself in the middle of London. In both cities the houses are built with equal simplicity, and do not assume that pomp of marble pilasters and decoration noticeable at New York and elsewhere. The doors and windows, the colour and shape, are precisely such as you find in London. In Boston, too, there is a number of small green squares; and, amid the turmoil of