[other men's portfolios, perhaps]-"is" ay, what is he? Why, he is perhaps a Knight of the Bath, has a sumptuous mansion in St James's Square, dies full of years and honour, has a pompous funeral, and fears only some such epitaph as this" Here lies, in a red riband, the man who built a great prosperity on the basis of an unparalleled knavery." I complain heavily of Mr Taylor, the very able unmasker of Junius, for blinking the whole questions B and C. He it is that has settled the question A, so that it will never be re-opened by a man of sense. A man who doubts, after really reading Mr Taylor's work, is not only a blockhead, but an irreclaimable blockhead. It is true that several men, among them Lord Brougham, whom Schlosser (though hating him, and kicking him) cites, still profess, or are said to profess, scepticism. But the reason is evident: they have not read the book, they have only heard of it. They are unacquainted with the strongest arguments, and even with the nature of the evidence.* Lord Brougham, indeed, is generally reputed to have reviewed

* Even in Dr Francis's "Translation of Select Speeches from Demosthenes," which Lord Brougham would be likely to consult in his own labours on that theme, there may be traced several peculiarities of diction that startle us in Junius. Sir Philip had them from his father, Dr Francis. And Lord Brougham ought not to have overlooked them. The same thing may be seen, as was pointed out by Mr Taylor, in the notes to Dr Francis's translation of " Horace." These points, though not independently of conclusive importance, become far more so in combination with others. The reply made to me once by a publisher of some eminence upon this question is remarkable, and worth repeating. “I feel,” he said, "the impregnability of the case made out for Sir Philip Francis by Mr Taylor. But the misfortune is, that I have seen so many previous impregnable cases made out for other claimants." Ay, that would be unfortunate. But the misfortune for this repartee was, that I, for whose use it was intended, not being in the predicament of a stranger to the dispute, having seen every page of the pleadings, knew all (except Mr Taylor's) to be false in their statements of fact; after which, that their arguments should be ingenious or subtle, signified nothing.

Mr Taylor's book. That may be; it is probable enough. What I am denying is not at all that Lord Brougham reviewed Mr Taylor, but that Lord Brougham read Mr Taylor. And there is not much wonder in that, when we see professed writers on the subject, bulky writers, writers of answers and refutations, dispensing with the whole of Mr Taylor's book, single paragraphs of which would have forced them to cancel the sum total of their own. The possibility of scepticism, after really reading Mr Taylor's book, would be the strongest exemplification upon record of Sancho's proverbial reproach, that some men "want better bread than is made of wheat"—would be the old case renewed from the scholastic grumblers, "that some men do not know when they are answered." They have got their quietus, and they still continue to "maunder" on with objections long since disposed of. In fact, it is not too strong a thing to say-and Chief-Justice Dallas did say something like it-that if Mr Taylor is not right, if Sir Philip Francis is not Junius, then was no man ever yet hanged on sufficient evidence. Even confession is no absolute proof. Even confessing to a crime, the man may be mad, or a knavish simulator. Well, at least seeing is believing: if the court sees a man commit an assault, will not that suffice? Not at all: ocular delusions on the largest scale are common. What's a court? Lawyers have no better eyes than other people. Their physics are often out of repair; and whole cities have been known to see things that could have no existence. Now, all other evidence is held to be short of this blank seeing or blank confessing. But I am not at all sure of that. Circumstantial evidence, that multiplies indefinitely its points of internexus, its nodes of intersection, with known admitted facts, is more impressive than any possible direct testimony. If

you detect a fellow with a large sheet of lead, that by many (to wit, seventy) salient angles-that by tedious (to wit, sixty-nine) re-entrant angles-fits into and owns its sisterly relationship to all that is left of the lead upon your roof, this tight fit will weigh more with a jury than even if my Lord Chief-Justice should jump into the witness-box, swearing that with judicial eyes he saw the vagabond cutting the lead whilst he himself sat at breakfast; or even than if that very vagabond should protest before this honourable court that he did cut the lead, in order that he (the said vagabond) might have hot rolls and coffee as well as my lord, the witness. If Mr Taylor's body of evidence does not hold water, then is there no evidence extant upon any question, judicial or not judicial, that will.

But I blame Mr Taylor heavily for throwing away the whole argument deducible from B and C; not as any debt that rested particularly upon him to public justice; but as a debt to the integrity of his own book. That book is now a fragment; admirable as regards A; but (by omitting B and C) not sweeping the whole area of the problem. There yet remains, therefore, the dissatisfaction which is always likely to arise-not from the smallest allegatio falsi, but from the large suppressio veri. B, which, on any other solution than the one I have proposed, is perfectly unintelligible, now becomes plain enough. To imagine a heavy, coarse, hard-working government, seriously affected by such a bauble as they would consider performances on the tight-rope of style, is mere midsummer madness. "Hold your absurd tongue," would any of the ministers have said to a friend descanting on Junius as a powerful artist of style; "do you dream, dotard, that this baby's rattle is the thing that keeps us from sleeping? Our eyes are fixed on something else: that fellow, whoever he is, knows

what he ought not to know; he has had his hand in some of our pockets: he's a good locksmith, is that Junius; and before he reaches Tyburn, who knows what amount of mischief he may do to self and partners?" The rumour that ministers were themselves alarmed (which was the naked truth) travelled downwards; but the why did not travel; and the innumerable blockheads of lower circles, not understanding the real cause of fear, sought a false one in the supposed thunderbolts of the rhetoric. Operahouse thunderbolts they were: and strange it is, that grave men should fancy newspapers, teeming (as they have always done) with Publicolas, with Catos, with Algernon Sydneys, able by such trivial small-shot to gain a moment's attention from the potentates of Downing Street. Those who have despatches to write, councils to attend, and votes of the Commons to manage, think little of Junius Brutus. A Junius Brutus, that dares not sign by his own honest name, is presumably skulking from his creditors. A Timoleon who hints at assassination in a newspaper, one may take it for granted, is a manufacturer of begging letters. And it is a conceivable case that a twenty-pound note, enclosed to Timoleon's address through the newspaper office, might go far to soothe that great patriot's feelings, and even to turn aside his avenging dagger. These sort of people were not the sort to frighten a British Ministry. One laughs at the probable conversation between an old hunting squire coming up to comfort the First Lord of the Treasury, on the rumour that he was panicstruck. "What, surely, my dear old friend, you're no afraid of Timoleon ?"-First Lord. "Yes, I am."-C. Gent. 66 "What, afraid of an anonymous fellow in the papers?"-F. L. "Yes, dreadfully."-C. Gent. "Why, I always understood that these people were a sort of

shams-living in Grub Street—or where was it that Pope used to tell us they lived? Surely you're not afraid of Timoleon, because some people think he's a patriot ?”—F. L. "No, not at all; but I am afraid because some people think he's a housebreaker!" In that character only could Timoleon become formidable to a Cabinet Minister; and in some such character must our friend, Junius Brutus, have made himself alarming to government. From the moment that B is properly explained, it throws light upon C. The government was alarmed-not at such moonshine as patriotism, not at such a soap-bubble as rhetoric, but because treachery was lurking amongst their own households; and, if the thing went on, the consequences might be appalling. But this domestic treachery, which accounts for B, accounts at the same time for C. The very same treachery that frightened its objects at the time by the consequences it might breed, would frighten its author afterwards from claiming its literary honours by the remembrances it might awaken. The mysterious disclosures of official secrets, which had once roused so much consternation within a limited circle, and (like the French affair of the diamond necklace) had sunk into neglect only when all clue seemed lost for perfectly unravelling it, would revive in all its mystical interest when a discovery came before the public-viz., a claim on the part of Francis to have written the famous letters, which must at the same time point a strong light upon the true origin of the treacherous disclosures made in those letters. Some astonishment had always existed as to Francis-how he rose so suddenly into rank and station: some astonishment had always existed as to Junius, how he should so suddenly have fallen asleep as a writer in the journals. The coincidence of this sudden and unaccountable silence with that