Lady Bulwer Lytton has written two extraordinary letters to the Morning Post, of a review in that paper, of her School for Husbands, hinting at what might have been said about some of the minor faults, had the book been written by any body else, and going out of her way, to remind us that her husband is a plagiarist. Repeating one of Mr. Joseph Miller's anecdotes of a larceny of brooms, ready made, she says. "And so it is with the great Bombastes of the Press—Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. Truly, therefore, may he exclaim:—
"——Non ulla laborum:
O Virgo nova ni facies inopinaque surgit,
Omnia percipi atque animo mecum ante peregi."
And well may a sapient, moral, and impartial press uphold so great an empiric."
Lord Cockburn, one of the Scottish judges, is preparing a Memoir of Lord Jeffrey, with selections from his correspondence. "The ability, judgment, and taste of Henry Cockburn, as well as political sympathy and personal friendship," the Athenæum says, "give him every fitness for being the biographer of Francis Jeffrey."
The last number of the London Quarterly Review presents a new candidate for the honor of the authorship of Junius, in the person of the second Lord Lyttleton—best known in his lifetime for profligacy, and since, for the curious circumstances attending his death, which are well related in Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft. The reviewer proves Lord Lyttleton capable of writing the letters; that he had motives to write them; that his conduct on other occasions is consistent with Junius's anxiety to preserve his incognito; and that there are curious coincidences between his character and conduct, and many characteristic passages in the letters. This directs research to a new quarter; but though a good prima facie case of suspicion is made out, that is all. Positive evidence is wanted. A writer in the London Athenæum, who long ago demolished the claims of Sir Philip Francis to be considered Junius (Lord Mahon's judgment to the contrary notwithstanding), and who has since pretty satisfactorily disposed of the dozen or more other prominent claimants, has, we think, conclusively answered the Quarterly's claim in behalf of Lord Lyttleton. We should like to know who the critic of the Athenæum supposes to be the Great Unknown. In one of the volumes of the Grenville Papers, just published in London, the author says:
"With respect to the letters addressed to Mr. Grenville by the author of 'Junius,' which will be printed in the concluding volumes of this correspondence, it will be sufficient to say for the present, that there is not a particle of truth in all the absurd tales that have been invented, as to their preservation or discovery. In the proper place I shall have an opportunity of explaining that there was no mystery attaching to them, beyond the anonymous nature of the author's communication."
This is rather unfavorable, as far as it goes, to the hypothesis of Lyttelton's having been the author. It throws us back upon Sir David Brewster's claim in behalf of Mr. Maclean. Upon that theory, probably, the archives of London House could throw some light. It may be mentioned, with reference to this subject that the Grenville Papers go far to substantiate Lord Shelburne's title to the designation of Malagrida.