and, in a dissertation accompanying Mr. Bohn's edition of Junius, Mr. Wade continues to put it forward A past, vampt, future, old, revived, new claim. We thought Mr. Barker had completely laid it; but it still walks. It is not likely to resist Mr. Wade, however; and we suspect that, in a little time, if our own hypothesis be not adopted, people must honestly chime in with Lord Byron, and admit That he whom Junius we are wont to call, a conclusion, by-the-by, which Sir Harris Nicholas, in the book about which we write, says, comes as easy to his apprehensions of the matter as any hypothesis extant. The acquaintance with the War-Office so visible in Junius's letters, seems to tell very much in favor of the advo cates of Sir Philip Francis. Mr. Francis was a chief-clerk in the War-Office at the time Junius began to write, in 1767; and continued there till 1772, when the letters ceased. Favorable mention is made of Francis in the Miscellaneous Letters, and Lord Barrington is denounced for dismissing him. Several of the miscellaneous letters are in sarcastic denunciation of Lord Barrington for his appointments, and written in the way young Francis would be supposed to write, if he wrote on such a subject. Again, in 1813, Mr. Taylor, who published a book, called "Junius Identified," puts Sir Philip's case in another way. He argues from the fact, that young Francis reported several speeches delivered by Lord Chatham in the House of Lords. Now, a number of sentiments, metaphors, and peculiar phrases, which appear in these speeches (published by Almon, in 1791), are also to be found in Junius' letters, forming a remarkable portion of their style and character. Of course, argues Mr. Taylor, either of two things must have happened that Francis adopted these things from the speaker, and used them as his own; or that, from the affluence of his mind and manners, he clothed the meaning of Chatham with his own phraseology, figures, and-soforth-did for these speeches what he did for the letters— poured the Franciscan characteristics over both! This likeness between Lord Chatham's reported matter and the letters is so strong, so startling, that Mr. Taylor comes to the obvious conclusion, that Francis was Junius! He had no other alternative, of course. Nevertheless, we are not yet convinced. There are one or two objections so rugged and indefensible, that Mr. Taylor, e seguaci suoi, must get along without us. The first-and we think it all-sufficient-is that, at the time the first of the Miscellaneous Letters was published (that signed "Poplicola"), Francis was just twenty-seven years oldan insignificant clerk in the War-Office. There is no difference in power or style between this letter and those of the later Junian series. The beginning of the series bears as plainly the stamp of Junius as the close of it; the vivacity and power of the extraordinary author are visible everywhere alike. Now, we do not think it possible that a young man of twenty-seven could write these letters-could exhibit the high political decision-the consummate literary strength and science conspicuous in every one of them, The tone of them does not belong to that period of any man's life; and it is to little purpose that Lady Francis, in a letter to Lord Campbell, talks of Sir Philip's early experience in embassies, bureaux, and-so-forth. This negative evidence has demonstrative power enough to carry all the special pleading of Sir Philip's advocates away before it. There is another good argument, inferior to the foregoing, but forcible, nevertheless. It is not possible that a young man, who began life under the patronage of Wil liam Pitt-who received his appointment in the War-Office from Lord Holland, Pitt's paymaster of the forces-who was the private secretary of Pitt for some time, and professed for him, ever after, the highest veneration and gratitude, would begin a series of letters with an outrageously exaggerated assault on the character and general policy of his benefactor-the highest genius and the most popular man in the realm. The masked writer was a whig. Is it likely he would begin by assailing the venerable and recognized champion of Whiggery? Such a supposition is too violent to be countenanced. Furthermore, in all that he achieved in his life-long career, Sir Philip gave no proof that he possessed the mind-the large intellectual mould in which the lava-literature of Junius took shape--none whatever. In everything he wrote, an imitation of Junius can be detected; and thus many have been cheated into the belief that he was the anonymous writer. Whether it was the influence of his early admiration, disposing him to copy a certain living model which had won his enthusiasm, or some secret design which influenced him throughout all his after-life, we perceive Sir Philip Francis always trying to regulate his style and manner after the forcible rhetoric of Junius. But he moves, like Ascanius by his father's side, haud passibus equis; he always proves that he is an imitator-that he never was the great original. Who, then, wrote these letters? No doubt somebody whose antecedents were as striking and as full of power as the epistles themselves are seen to be; one who did other things as great as these. His celebrity, we think, was not confined to the pen; it will be found equally recognized under another aspect in the politics and statesmanship of that age. We must not take Parr's, Taylor's, Brewster's, Wade's word for it, and look for Junius among the understrappers and pelting, petty officers of the day. We must look among the foremost and most towering characters in the nation-the men of the quarter-deck, who used trumpets for their talk, and directed the ship of the state through the rough waters of the time. To find Junius we must look to the picture painted by Copley, and lying on the wall of the House of Lords. THERE is old Nominis Umbra! with his flannels on his gouty legs, his crutches falling out of his hands, and he himself sinking into the arms of the Duke of Cumberland: "The Pilot that weathered the Storm," on one side, and Lord Mahon on the other; there he is, after having protested against the independence of America, and the diminution of that ancient and noble monarchy" which he himself had said and done so much to establish-and about to be carried away to Hayes, where, in eleven days, he shall die, and make no sign of Junius! It is only in William Pitt, Lord Chatham, that we can find the anonymous letterwriter. In him alone, of all the great characters of the time, can we find the full requirements of the authorship. He alone could have written the letters. He alone had the compelling motive to write them, and the bitter vigor to keep up the epistolary war for five years. The only whig of the time who came near Chatham in intellectual power, was Burke. When the latter is set aside, the grim earl stands alone, as the secretary did before.* * Our writer proceeds to argue his case at some length, and certainly with some plausibility, but we cannot say with much success. We rather think, indeed, that Lord Chatham, like Edmund Burke, could not have written the Letters (though the traits are more like his,) but we are quite sure that he would not; and there is at least one passage in one of them, the passage namely in praise of himself, in the 54th letter, which we are very confident he could not and would not have penned from any consideration whatever, not even to favor an assumed disguise. At any rate, we are satisfied that he was not Junius. But who then was? Why, as to that, we still retain the opinion which we formed some years ago, on reading Mr. Taylor's very able and ingenious book on the subject, that Sir Philip Francis, and no one else, was the "great unknown," and our writer himself has rather confirmed us in our conviction on this point. For if, as he argues, the authorship lies between Lord Chatham and Sir Philip, we should not hesitate for a moment to ascribe it to the latter; and the grounds on which he sets him aside, strike us as light and altogether insufficient. But we cannot pursue the subject any further at present. THE OYSTER. [The Oyster, as an article of food merely, is so great a favorite with all the good people of our State, and especially with the worthy citizens of Norfolk and the country round about, and has done so much service, in its way, to our colony and State, from the first settlement to the present time; that we cannot doubt that many of our readers will be pleased to know a little more about it, and to consider it philosophically, as well as to enjoy it physically. We take pleasure, therefore, in giving them this lively paper on the subject, which we have drawu from a late number of the Westminster Review for their benefit, and which we think they will find both instructive and entertaining.] There are facts worth knowing, and a great philosophy worth evoking in all things, small and great; even in shellfish, and more particularly in the oyster, as we shall show you at once. Look at an oyster. In what light does the world in general-not your uneducated, stolid, world merely, but your refined, intellectual, cultivated, classical world-regard it? Simply as a delicacy-as good to eat. The most devoted of oyster-eaters opens the creature's shell solely to swallow the included delicious morsel, without contemplation. or consideration. He relishes with undisguised gusto the good living that lies embodied in a barrel of Colchester natives. He gratifies his palate, and satisfies a craving stomach. He takes neither note nor notice of the curious intricacies of its organization; he neither knows nor cares about its wisely-contrived network of nerves and bloodvessels. He clips its beard, that wondrous membrane of strange and curious mechanism by which the creature breathes, as thoughtlessly as he would shave his own. He gulps down its luscious substance, unmindful that he is devouring a body and organs, which all the science of man |