"It is not difficult, from the letters which, under various signatures, are known to have been written by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerable correct notion of his character." I call the attention of the reader to the above sentence, and have emphasized the word "notion," and the phrase "various signatures." Of the former, I would remark that a notion of one's character falls far short of a judgment, and in a criticism is not only trifling, but contemptible. In regard to "various signatures," I will let Junius himself answer: "The encouragement given to a multitude of spurious, mangled publications of the 'Letters of Junius,' persuades me that a complete edition, corrected and improved by the author, will be favorably received."—Preface. In this volume his signature is Junius, and occasionally, when he wishes to explain the meaning, or defend the principle, he puts forward Philo Junius, but never without this cause. I now proceed to give the character which Macaulay has picked up—I know not where:
"He was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity—a man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant and insolent—a man prone to malevolence, and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. 'Doest thou well to be angry?' was the question asked in olden time of the Hebrew prophet, and he answered: 'I do well.' This was evidently the temper of Junius, and to this cause we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his Letters. No man is so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be added that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of the old constitution with a respect amounting to pedantry; pleaded the cause of Old Saurum with fervor, and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis."
Thus much Macaulay. Where he got the above character I am unable to tell, unless out of his own imagination. Before I answer it, I will give another perversion of the truth. Dr. Goodrich concludes his article on Junius as follows: "Junius continued his labors, with various ability, but with little success, nearly two year's longer; until, in the month of January, 1772, the king remarked to a friend in confidence: 'Junius is known, and will write no more.' Such proved to be the fact. His last performance was dated January 21, 1772, three years to a day from his first letter to the printer of the Public Advertiser. Within a few months, Sir Philip Francis was appointed to one of the highest stations of profit and trust in India, at a distance of fifteen thousand miles from the seat of English politics!"
The "few months" in the above sentence is just a year and a half after the king "remarked in confidence," etc. But Francis did not go to India for more than two and a half years after. In March, 1772, he resigned his clerkship in the war department, in consequence of a quarrel with Lord Barrington, the new Minister at War. He then left England, and traveled on the continent the remainder of the year; in the June following he was appointed one of the Council of Bengal, with a salary of £10,000, and in the summer of 1774 went to India. That fall Thomas Paine came to America. It is thus the phrase "a few months," artfully put into a sentence in connection with the supposed fact that the king had found out Junius, and had bribed him to stop writing, would mislead the mind, and pervert a reasonable conclusion. This is a trick of the pen, and to which no honorable mind will descend. The fact is, Francis would never have been thought of as Junius, had he not been an intimate friend and schoolmate of Mr. Woodfall's.
But the above argument, summed up by Lord Macaulay, is the strongest on record for any man till now. I was not aware of its weakness till now. I supposed there was a plausible argument at least. To be answered, it needs only to be appended to this. I speak without vanity, for the argument is nature's own, not mine. I will honor it, therefore, with a rebuttal from Junius himself. In Letter 44 he says: "I may quit the service, but it would be absurd to suspect me of desertion. The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment to the people. To sacrifice a respected character, and to renounce the esteem of society, requires more than Mr. Wedderburn's resolution; and though in him it was rather a profession than a desertion of his principles (I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for, when treachery is in question, I think we should make allowances for a Scotchman), yet we have seen him in the House of Commons, overwhelmed with confusion, and almost bereft of his faculties. But in truth, sir, I have left no room for an accommodation with the piety of St. James'. My offenses are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance: on one side, our warmest patriots would disclaim me as a burthen to their honest ambition; on the other, the vilest prostitution, if Junius could descend to it, would lose its natural merit and influence in the cabinet, and treachery be no longer a recommendation to the royal favor."
There is not, among the dregs or scummings of human nature, a character so false and vile as to write that, and then do as Francis did, or do as the king of England did, if he believed him to be Junius. Nature rebels at such an argument, founded on the facts of the case. It is by a species of subterfuge, or literary legerdemain, exhibiting some facts and hiding others, calling the attention to some trifling thing, and then concealing the truth of the matter, is all that has ever rendered the argument in favor of Francis of any consequence with the public. There is more, for example, in the one word Lord, placed just in front of Macaulay, than in any argument he may give on the subject. In fact, that word imposes on the mind an authority not easily resisted. It obscures the reason, quiets investigation, destroys the desire to search, beguiles thought, puts the mind to sleep, and the reader, like a young bird with eyes closed and mouth open, takes the food from out the old one's mouth, gulps it down, and goes to sleep. It is thus the student and the professor take, on authority, what they have no business to, and do what they never would do, did their own souls not bow basely at the shrine of some literary Baal. It is thus in politics, religion, history, law, philosophy, criticism, belles-lettres, science—whichever way we turn we find the false god and his worshipers. When the student and the professor come to find Mr. Macaulay to be a man of much talent in a certain direction, but by no means a literary god to be worshiped as infallible, they will lose faith in his assertions which come without proof.
It had been my intention to throw a few hints into the Introduction upon external and internal evidence, as it is called, but I concluded to defer it till now, because the remarks and the illustrations would then be thrown together.
In a criticism of this kind, but little confidence can be placed in external evidence, because it all comes within the realm of art or accident, and any scientific truth can not be founded thereon. For example, Macaulay says: "The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised." Handwriting is an art, just like chopping wood or playing on the piano. And to tell who wrote an article by the "peculiar" handwriting, is about as safe as to hazard an opinion upon who is chopping wood by the "peculiar" swing of the ax. Nor does the same individual always write in the same style or manner. Such proof is good for nothing. And this is the nature of all external evidence, and is the cause of the endless litigation in our courts. A man may go on the stand and swear to a lie. I have known men do it. Then we draw inferences from the associations of men, which the real facts of the case might not warrant. The accidents of place and position, of friendships and age, of times and circumstances, and even of existence, all may or may not, in a world full of men, have bearing on the facts which form the opinion of an outside spectator. For example, Francis, it is said, "did not deny that he was Junius." If he had denied or affirmed he was, it would have proved just the same. It belongs to the most worthless kind of external evidence. A naturalist does not ask his horse whether or not he is a horse. If the horse could speak and say to his master, "I am a jackass," the master would be a fool to believe him. It is thus persons often put on a character in a word or two which does not belong to them, but nature takes care to always reveal the true character, if they say much. Now if we could get within the meaning of the words, get behind them to the spirit of their author, we would be getting at the very soul of evidence. This would be true, and we could found a scientific conclusion upon it, because natural and not artificial. This is internal evidence. At present, this kind of evidence is known only in such a criticism as this, for the soul of the author shines out of his work, I care not who he is. We may, for aught I know, write our history on all we touch. If so, science will some day give the world a knowledge of it. It is then external evidence will have ceased.
In a work of this kind, it is incumbent on the critic to ascertain, first, the spirit and object of the work, and then to see if it be inconsistent with itself. If it is not, then the character he finds will be true to nature, and he can not go wrong in his conclusions. There is a passage in Letter 53 on this very point. Junius is speaking of the Rev. Mr. Horne, and says: "He repeatedly affirms, or intimates, at least, that he knows the author of these Letters. With what color of truth, then, can he pretend 'that I am nowhere to be encountered but in a newspaper?' I shall leave him to his suspicions. It is not necessary that I should confide in the honor and discretion of a man who always seems to hate me with as much rancor as if I had formerly been his friend. But he asserts that he has traced me through a variety of signatures. To make the discovery of any importance to his purpose, he should have proved either that the fictitious character of Junius has not been consistently supported, or that the author has maintained different principles under different signatures. I can not recall to my memory the numberless trifles I have written; but I rely on the consciousness of my own INTEGRITY, and defy him to fix any colorable charge of inconsistency upon me."