JUNIUS QUERIES.
Junius Rumours.
—Some months since there was a story whispered in certain circles, or rather two stories, which, when taken together, went to show that this great mystery of modern times was on the eve of solution. The first stated that the Grenville Papers, about to be published by Murray, would prove the identity of Junius with the correspondent of Woodfall under one of the signatures Atticus or Brutus, whose letters had been already, and, as it would thereby appear, very properly, attributed to Junius himself. The second rumour was to the effect that an eminent bookseller, whose attention had been drawn to the Junius question by the circumstance of his having recently published an edition of the letters, &c., on being called in to estimate the value of certain historical papers for some legal purposes, was startled by discovering, in the course of his examination of them, who this Atticus or Brutus was—and, consequently, who Junius himself was. On the announcement of an article on Junius in the Quarterly Review, those who had heard these stories expected to find in the article in question the solution of what has been called the "great political enigma of the eighteenth century." As this hope has not been realised, may I ask, through the medium of "N. & Q.," whether there is any foundation for the rumours I have referred to; and, if so, how much of truth there is in both or either of them. Such information will be acceptable to every one of your readers who is not satisfied with any of the THIRTY-NINE theories on the subject which have been already propounded, and who is therefore like myself still a
JUNIUS QUERIST.
"To Commit" in the Sense used by Junius.
—On looking into Walker's Dictionary, a short time since, I found the following remark, which seems to have escaped every inquirer into the authorship of the letters of Junius:—
"To COMMIT.—This word was first used in Junius's letters in a sense unknown to our former English writers, namely, to expose, to venture, to hazard; this sense is borrowed from the French, and has been generally adopted by subsequent writers."
Can any of your readers produce an instance of the use of this word in the sense here applied to it, prior to the appearance of Junius? Such a parallel would carry more weight with it than the countless examples of verbal singularities with which almost every discoverer of Junius has encumbered his essay.
D. J.
Junius' letters to Wilkes.
—Would MR. HALLAM kindly inform your readers whether the Junius Letters, to which he refers in "N. & Q." Vol. iii., p. 241., were inserted in books or not? And in the former case, whether they were in a separate collection, or mixed with the other correspondence of Mr. Wilkes?
I. J. M.