vestigation, that he could not have been a native either of Scotland or Ireland, nor have studied in any university of either of those countries. The fact is, that there are a few phraseologies in his letters peculiar to himself; such as occur in the compositions of all original writers of great force and genius, but which are neither indicative of any particular race, nor referable to any provincial dialect.

The distinguishing features of his style are ardour, spirit, perspicuity, classical correctness, sententious, epigrammatic compression: his characteristic ornaments keen, indignant invective, audacious in terrogation, shrewd, severe, antithetic retort, proud, presumptuous disdain of the powers of his adversary, pointed and appropriate allusions that can never be mistaken, but are often overcharged, and at times perhaps totally unfounded, similes introduced, not for the purpose of decoration, but of illustration and energy, brilliant, burning, admirably selected, and irresistible in their application. In his similes, however, he is once or twice too recondite, and in his grammatical construction still more frequently incorrect. Yet the latter should in most instances perhaps, if not the whole, be rather attributed to the difficulty of revising the press, and the peculiar circumstances under which his work was printed and published, than to any inaccuracy or classical misconception of his own. As to the surreptitious copies of his letters, he frequently complains of their numerous errors. Indeed,' says he, they are innumerable; and though the genuine edition labours under very considerably fewer, and on several occasions received his approbation on the score of accuracy, yet it would

be too much to assert that it is altogether free from errors. In truth this was not to be expected, for it is not known that a single proof sheet (excepting those containing the first two letters) was ever sent to him. You must correct the press yourself,' says he in one of his letters to Woodfall; but I should be glad to see corrected proofs of the two first sheets.' The Dedication and Preface he certainly did not revise.

"Yet if the grammatical construction be occasionally imperfect, (sometimes hurried over by the author, and sometimes mistaken by the printer) the general plan and outline, the train of argument, the bold and fiery images, the spiritedinvective that pervade the whole, appear to have been always selected with the utmost care and attention. Such finished forms of composition bear in themselves the most evident marks of elaborate forecast and revisal, and the author rather boasted of the pains he had bestowed upon them than attempted to conceal his labour. In recommending to Woodfall to introduce into his purposed edition various letters of his own writing under other signatures, he adds, "If you adopt this plan I shall point out those which I would recommend; for you know, I do not, nor have I time to give equal care to them all.-As to Junius I must wait for fresh matter, as this is a character which must be kept up with credit.' The private note accompanying his first letter to Lord Mansfield commences thus, The enclosed, though begun within these few days, has been greatly laboured; it is very correctly copied; and I beg that you will take care that it be literally printed as it stands." The note accompanying his last and most celebrated letter observes

as follows: At last I have concluded my great work, and assure you with no small labour.' On sending the additional papers for the genuine edition he asserts, I have no view but to serve you, and consequently have only to desire that the Dedication and Preface may be correct. Look to it ;-if you take it upon yourself, I will not forgive your suffering it to be spoiled. I weigh every word; and every alteration, in my eyes at least, is a blemish. In like manner in his letter to Mr. Horne, he interrogates him, What public question have I declined, what villain have I spared Is there no labour in the composition of these letters?' In effect no excellence of any kind is to be attained without labour: and the degree of excellence that characterises the style of these addresses, intrinsically demonstrates the exercise of a labour unsparing and unremitted. Mr. Horne, in his reply, attempts to ridicule this acknowledgment: ⚫ I compassionate,' says he, your labour in the composition of your letters, and will communicate to you the secret of my fluency Truth needs no ornament; and, in my opinion, what she borrows of the pencil is deformity. Yet no man ever bestowed more pains upon his compositions than Mr. Horne has done: nor needed he to have been more ashamed of the' confession than his adversary. To have made it openly would have been honest to himself, useful to the young, and salutary to the conceited.

"His most elaborate letters are that to the King, and that to Lord Mansfield upon the law of bailments one of his most sarcastic is that to the Duke of Grafton, of the date of May 30, 1769; and one

of the best and most truly valuable, that to the printer of the Public Advertiser, dated October 5, 1771, upon the best means of uniting the jarring sectaries of the popular party into one common cause.

"His metaphors are peculiarly brilliant, and so numerous, though seldom unnecessarily introduced, as to render it difficult to know where to fix in selecting a few examples. The following are ably managed, and require no explanation. The ministry, it seems, are labouring to draw a line of distinction between the honour of the crown and the rights of the people. This new idea has yet been only started in discourse, for, in effect, both objects have been equally sacrificed. I neither understand the distinction, nor what use the ministry propose to make of it. The king's honour is that of his people. Their real honour and real interest are the same. I am not contending for a vain punctilio.-Private credit is wealth; public honour is security.-The feather that adorns the royal bird, supports its flight. Strip him of his plumage and you fix him to the earth. Again: Above all things let me guard my countrymen against the meanness and folly of accepting of a trifling or moderate compensation for extraordinary and essential injuries. Concessions, such as these, are of little moment to the sum of things; unless it be to prove, that the worst of men are sensible of the injuries they have done us, and perhaps to demonstrate to ns the imminent danger of our situation. In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved; while every thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom, and is lost for ever. Once more ; The very sun-shine you live in, is a pre

lude

lude to your dissolution. When you are ripe, you shall be plucked.' The commencement of his letter to Lord Camden shall furnish another instance: I turn with pleasure, from that barren waste, in which no salutary plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a character fertile, as I willingly believe, in every great and good qualification.'

"In a few instances his metaphors are rather too far-fetched or recondite: Yet for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred, until your morals shall be happily ripened to that maturity of corruption, at which the worst examples cease to be contagious.' The change which is perpetually taking place in the matter of infection gives it progressively a point of utmost activity:-after which period, by the operation of the same continued change, it becomes progressively less active, till at length it ceases to possess any effect whatever. The parallel is correctly drawn, but it cannot be followed by every one. In the same letter we have another example: His views and situation required a creature void of all these properties; and he was forced to go through every division, resolution, composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before he happily arrived at the coput mortuum of vitriol in your grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state, but brought into action, you become vitriol again. This figure is too scientific, and not quite correct: vitriol cannot, properly speaking, be said to be, in any instance, a caput mortuum. He seems, however, to have been unjustly charged with an incongruity of metaghor in his repartee upon the following observation of Sir W. Draper, You,

indeed, are a tyrant of another sort> and upon your political bed of torture can excruciate any subject, from a first minister down to such a grub or butterfly as myself. To this remark his reply was as follows:

If Sir W. Draper's bed be a bed of torture, be has made it for himself. I shall never interrupt his repose. We need not amble so far as to vindicate the present use of this last word by referring to its Latin origin: he himself has justly noticed under the signature of Philo-Junius, that those who pretend to espy any absurdity either in the idea or expression, cannot distinguish between a sarcasm and a contradiction.'

"To pursue this critique further would be to disparage the judgment of the reader. Upon the whole these letters, whether considered as classical and correct compositions, or as addresses of popular and impressive eloquence, are well entitled to the distinction they have acquired; and quoted as they have been, with admiration, in the senate by such nice judges and accomplished scholars as Mr. Burke and Lord Eldon, eulogized by Dr. Johnson, and admitted by the author of the Pursuits of Literature, to the same rank among English classics as Livy or Tacitus among Roman, there can be no doubt that they will live commensurately with the language in which they are composed.

"These few desultory and im perfect hints are the whole that the writer of this essay has been able to collect concerning the author of the Letters of Junius. Yet desultory and imperfect as they are, be still hopes that they may not be utterly destitute both of interest and utility. Although they do not undertake positively

positively to ascertain who the author was; they offer a fair test to point out negatively who he was not; and to enable us to reject the pretensions of a host of persons, whose friends have claimed for them so distinguished an honour.

"From the observations contained in this essay it should seem to follow unquestionably that the author of the letters of Junius was an Englishman of highly cultivated education, deeply versed in the language, the laws, the constitution and history of his native country: that he was a man of easy if not of affluent circumstances, of unsullied honour and generosity, who had it equally in his heart and in his power to contribute to the necessities of other persons, and especially of those who were exposed to troubles of any kind on his own account: that he was in habits of confidential intercourse, if not with different members of the cabinet, with politicians who were most intimately familiar with the court, and intrusted with all its secrets: that he had attained an age which would allow him, without vanity, to boast

of an ample knowledge and experience of the world: that during the years 1767. 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, and part of 1772, he resided almost constantly in London or its vicinity, devoting a very large portion of his time to political concerns, and publishing his political lucubrations, under different signatures, in the Public Advertiser ; that in his natural temper, he was quick, irritable and impetuous; subject to political prejudices and strong personal animosities; but possessed of a high independent spirit; honestly attached to the principles of the constitution, and fearless and indefatigable in maintaining them; that he was strict in his moral conduct, and in his attention to public decorum; an avowed member of the established church, and, though acquainted with English judicatute, not a lawyer by profession.

"What other characteristics he may have possessed we know not; but these are sufficient; and the claimant who cannot produce them conjointly is in vain brought forwards as the author of the Letters of Junius."

"W"

ILLIAM Windham, the lamented subject of this narrative, was the descendant of a line of ancestors which is traced to a very remote period. The name is derived from a town in Norfolk, generally written Wymondham, but pronounced Windham, at which place the family appears to have been settled as early as the eleventh, or the beginning of the

1812.

became their principal residence. Among the Windhams of Felbrigg, many might be enumerated who distinguished themselves by services to their country in the army, the navy, and on the judicial bench; and from them descended not only the present noble family of Egremont, but others of considerable eminence, long since settled in distant parts of the kingdom, by whom the name of Windham has been preserved, though generally with a slight deviation from that orthography.

"Colonel William Windham, an inheritor of the Felbrigg patrimony, and the son of Ash Windham, who bad represented the county of Norfolk in parliament, was a mau of versatile talents and an ardent mind. He was the associate of the wits of his time, the friend and admirer of Garrick, and the distinguished patron of all manly exercises. In his father's lifetime, he had lived much on the continent, particularly in Spain. Of his proficiency in the language of that country, he gave proofs in some printed observations on Smollett's Translation of Don Quixote. While abroad, he entered as a hussar offi. cer in the service of the deserted, though finally successful, Maria Teresa, Queen of Hungary. This commission, at his father's desire, he at length very unwillingly relinquished; but his military ardour was revived many years afterwards, on the passing of the act which established the militia force upon its present footing Upon that occasion, which happened in the year 1757, he assisted his friend, the first Marquis Townshend, in form ing a battalion of militia in his native county, of which he afterwards became lieutenant-colonel. Though his military education had not

been regular, he not only proved an active and skilful officer, but distinguished himself as the author of a " Plan of Discipline composed for the use of the militia of the county of Norfolk,” which was much esteemed, and generally adopted by other corps of the establishment. Unhappily Colonel Windham's feeble constitution by no means seconded the ardour and activity of his mind. A victim to a consumptive habit, he died on the 30th of October 1761, when only in the 44th year of his age.

"He had married Mrs. Lukin, the mother of the present Dean of Wells, by whom he had but one son, William Windham, who was born in 1750, on the 3d of May (old style), in Golden-square. At seven years of age, young Windham had been placed at Eton, where he remained till he was about sixteen; distin guishing himself by the vivacity and brilliancy of his talents, among school-fellows of whom many were afterwards highly eminent for their genius and acquirements. He was the envy of the school for the quickness of his progress in study, as well as its acknowledged leader and champion in all athletic sports and youthful frolicks. The late Dr. Barnard, then head-master, and afterwards provost of Eton college, used to remark when Fox and Windham had become conspicuous in the senate, that they were the last boys he had ever flogged. Their offence was, that of stealing off together to see a play acted at Windsor. The sub-master, Dr. Dampier, afterwards Dean of Durham (the father of the present Bishop of Ely), was Mr, Windham's guardian, in conjunction with David Garrick, Mr. Price of Hereford, and the celebrated Benjamin Stillingfleet, who