170
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. n. AUG. 27,
rumour that the beeches were in danger
from the builder. The high price he set
upon the land astonished Mr. Fortescue (Lady
Grenville's heir), who doubted if he could
obtain it. " Leave that to me," said the
steward. " London will not risk losing the
beeches, which we shall enjoy all the same,
at no cost, and receive a handsome sum into
the bargain." The result justified his fore-
thought. With regard to Boconnoc I may
refer to a local error, inadvertently repeated
by me, that Lord Chatham was born there.
To me this astute steward was most com- municative. Among the documents entrusted to him by Lady Grenville, when he under- took the stewardship at Dropmore, was the sealed packet alluded to in my last, 8 th S. iii. 189, to which he attached such importance that my impassive reception of the news piqued him. I knew my man so well for thirty years that I would stake my life on the truth of his statements respecting the packet and the secrecy enjoined for family reasons, and confidence in my unique position stimulated inquiry, which was answered by more false Juniuses than I was prepared for. Certainly the parallels cited by Messrs. Swinden and Waterhouse go far to excuse the hasty conjecture that Chatham and Junius were one ; and to propitiate my censor, to whom thanks are due, I follow in the ortho- dox wake of three law luminaries. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge wrote: "If Francis really was Junius, a scoundrel he was of the deepest dye." Indeed, Francis himself branded the identification as a "silly, malignant false- hood." Lord Camden, Chief Justice of Com- mon Pleas, said that Junius, by touching on a fact known only to three persons (Lord Camden himself, Chatham, and Temple), had betrayed his complicity with the nobleman last named. George Hardinge, Attorney- General, a Welsh judge, and nephew of this Lord Camden, heard his lordship declare that many things strengthened his conviction Judge Hardinge observed that Lord Temple and Junius, during almost the whole perioc of the letters, were bitter against Lords Camden and Chatham ; that collusion there was, for Lord Temple had not "eloquence or parts" enough to be the author. But the editor of the ' Grenville Papers ' says, on the con trary, " that he was capable of writing the letters of Junius," as proved by " some pecu liarities of style as well as similarity o thoughts and expression " preserved in evi dence. Now I remember, years ago, rousing the ire of a literary lady by saying, in jest that Junius must have had a female colla borateur to account for the acerbity anc
.sperity more feminine than masculine. It
was a random shot, but Richard Grenville
married an inspired poetess, Anne Chambers,
vho knew how to " smear the page with gall,"
and, I doubt not, wrote the C that appears on
- he original MSS.
That Junius favoured the Grenvilles in opposition to their brother-in-law Lord Chatham is proved by a simple test (Edinb. Review, xliv. 5, 6, q.v.\ He changed front )y lauding Chatham after the reconciliation with Richard Grenville, Lord Temple; and lis warm attachment to George Grenville, says Dr. Mason Good, indicates an ardent personal friendship, though he wrote : " I [as Junius] have not the honour of knowing Mr. Grenville personally " (an excusable fib in the opinion of Dr. Johnson) ; yet he warns him against attempting to unmask Junius, lest the discovery, which could do no good, might recoil injuriously, and says that in proper time Junius will declare himself. Richard Gren- ville was a good French scholar, and Dr. Pan- observed many gallicisms in Junius, who wit- nessed occurrences in Paris that must have happened when Richard Grenville was re- sident there, and before Sir Philip Francis was born.
Not to quote further what is already known to Junius-hunting readers, I will proceed to name some competent authoritieswno confirm the aforesaid steward in regard to the sealed packet preserved at Dropmore, Lady Gren- ville's seat, viz., two Dukes of Buckingham, father and son, nephews of Lord Grenville ; Miss Wynne, cousin of the first duke, and Mrs. Rowley, his niece ; Lady Grenville ; and Thomas Grenville, brother of Lord Grenville, who declared emphatically at a dinner table in 1805, "I know the real Junius, but the secret must not transpire in my lifetime," and this many years before he received the packet from the Duke of Buckingham who discovered it at Stow. George Grenville died in 1770, and my memory, though defective at seventy-nine, inclines to 1870 as the year in which the packet was reopened.
As the instructions for publicly revealing the name of Junius were disregarded, I feel no delicacy in repeating the statement of my late friend, the confidential steward, who en- joined no secrecy, nor did the case demand it. But for what family reasons did the Hon. George Fortescue, the grandson of George Grenville (ob. 1770), depart from his in- structions ?
Dr. Fellowes well put it in 1827 that the Grenvilles (if Junius was connected with them) had momentous reasons for conceal- ment in the reign of George III. :
