j u x i u s 777 travelled like gentlemen, and lived like rakes." February 12, 1771: "Tilman dined with me yesterday, and swallowed a moiety of two bottles of claret. " . . . . " We lead a jolly kind of life. This night to a concert, on Thursday to a ridotto, on Saturday the opera, and on Tuesday following a grand private ball at the London Tavern." July 26, 1771 : "To-morrow Godfrey, Tilmau, another gent, and I set out upon a tour through Derby shire, and propose to reach Manchester." They did not return till August 13, the day on which Junius s reply to Home Tooke appeared. On June 25, 1771, in the very thick of the Junian correspondence, Francis writes to a friend abroad : " For the next three years I am likely enough to remain in my present state of uninteresting indolence," There is no trace at this time of any connexion with the newspapers, nor of any earnest or sustained literary occu pation. The only political personage we find him in com munication with was Calcraft, to whom he occasionally supplied scraps of official news. By a startling coinci dence, all the persons who had been kind or useful to him in promoting his advancement, including Wood (to whom he owed his clerkship), his chief (Lord Harrington), and Calcraft, were bitterly assailed by Junius. The predilec tions of the pair, the substance and the shadow, are as hard to reconcile as their antipathies. Juuius had a high respect for Wilkes s judgment, and avows a liking for both the cause and the man. On November 8, 1771, he vnites to Woodfall : "Show the dedication and preface of the letters to Mr Wilkes, and, if he has any material objec tion, let me know. Francis, in his private correspondence, uniformly expresses the most unmitigated contempt for Wilkes. He writes like one of the general public about Junius. Thus on June 12, 1770, to his brother-in-law: "Juuius is not known, and that circumstance is perhaps as curious as any of his writings. I have always suspected Burke; but, whoever he is, it is impossible he can ever dis cover himself." Sir William Draper, Junius s first victim, was an old friend of the Francis family, and in a letter dated Bath, January 28, 1769, Dr Francis writes to Philip: " Give my love to Mr Calcraft. Tell him to expect a very spirited and exceeding honourable defence of L. G y (Granby) against the virulent Junius, by our friend Sir W. D r. I truly honour him for it. Again, February 11, 1769: "Poor Sir William! I am glad he is gone to Clifton, where he may eat his own heart in peace. When he repeated to me some passages of his letter, I bid him prepare his best philosophy for an answer. But who is this devil Junius, or rather legion of devils ? Is it not B rke s pen dipped in the sy of Sa lie s heart ? Poor Sir William!" One of Lord Macaulay s five points is that Junius was " bound by some strong tie" to the first Lord Holland, the friend of Dr Francis and the early patron of Philip. Xow, in a fragment of autobiography (included in tho memoirs) it is stated that, long before the Junius letters, Dr Francis considered himself grossly ill used by Lord Holland, and " was stung with tho idea of having been so long the dupe of a scoundrel." "In this," adds tho son, "I concurred with him heartily." Another point, and a most important one, is that Francis bitterly resented the appointment (over his head) of Mr Chamier to the place of deputy secretary- at-war, and that to the resentment thus aroused was owing the downright ferocity, tho brutal abuse (as Mr Merivalo calls it), with which Lord Barrington was assailed by Junius under the signature of Veteran. Laying out of the account tho fact that Lord Barrington had been the object of Junius s unrelenting attacks for more than two years before the appointment of Chamier, it is sufficient to refer to Francis s letter of January 24, 1772, to Major Baggs. in which he says : " You will have heard that Mr D Oyly has resigned his employment (of deputy). He did it while I was at Bath. Immediately upon my retain, my Lord Barrington was eo good as to make me the offer with many obliging and friendly expressions. I had, however, solid reasons for declining the offer, and Mr Anthony Chamier is appointed." He was obviously looking oat for an Indian appointment, and left the war office in the March following, relying on Lord Barrington s aid in procuring one. After relating in the autobiography how he accident ally heard that Cholwell, one of the intended commissioners for India, had declined the appointment, he proceeds : " It was the king s birthday, and Barrington was gone to court. I saw him the next morning; and, as soon as I had explained my views, he wrote the handsomest and strongest imaginable letter in my favour to Lord North. Other interests contributed, but I owe my success to Lord Barriugton." After his arrival in India, Francis was in the habit of writing long and confidential letters to Lord Barrington, who, in 1777, writes to express his gratification at the good understanding between Francis and Clavering. "I love you both so much that I cannot wish youto continue long in a situation so painful though so creditable to you." One of the first visits Francis paid on his return was to Lord Barriugton at his country house. * It is the imputed folly," urge the opponents of the Franciscan theory, " not merely the imputed baseness of Francis that startles us. He is represented systematically writing against every friend, benefactor, and patron in succession, without a rational motive or an intelligible cause." As if the embarrassments of his position were not enough) he must have gone out of his way to multiply them. Th terms on which Junius stood with Sir William Draper are- well known. In a letter dated February 14, 1770, he describes Sir John Burgoyne as "sitting down for the remainder of his life infamous and contented." On December 11, 1787, when Francis was attacked in the House of Commons for having allowed himself to be included in the list of managers for tho impeachment of Warren Hastings, his personal enemy, he rose and stated that the two persons whom he had consulted as the best judges of points of honour were Sir William Draper and Sir John Burgoyne. Draper was dead, but Burgoyne rose and handsomely responded to tho appeal, which, if Francis was Juuius, has been justly stigmatized as one of the strongest examples of gratuitous folly and brazen impudence on record. That Earl Temple wrote or inspired Junius is a theory which has been maintained in two able essays, and it derives plausibility from Pitt s assertion that he knew who Juuius was, as well as from the language of the Greuvillo family, which nil points to Stowc as the scat of the mystery. The Right Hon. T. Grenville told the first duke of Buckingham, who thought he had discovered the secret, that it was no- news to him. but for family reasons the secret must be kept. He also stated to other members of the family, subsequently to the publication of Juntas 7i{<mt(rit?J, that Junius was not either of the persons to whom the letters had boon popularly ascribed. Lord Grenville told Lord Sidmouth that he (Lord G.) knew who Junius was. Lady Greuvillo told Sir Henry Holland and Dr James Ferguson that she had heard Lord Grenvillo state that he knew who Junius was, and that it was not Francis. Tho handwriting of Countess Tcmplo (supposed to have acted as tho amanuensis of her lord) comes far the nearest to tho Junian hand of any that have been produced as similar to it, especially a* regards powers of penmanship ; but evidence is altogether wanting that Farl Temple, or anyone about him, possessed tho required literary qualifications and capacity. Tho authorship of the letters, therefore, remains a mystery, and Xlll. - 98
