Touching the Identity of Junius.

New Zealander, Volume 9, Issue 725, 26 March 1853, Page 4

Touching the Identity of Junius.

It would appear that this famous controversy, like that to Avhich the character of Mary Stuart has given rise, is as far as ever from its termination. A feAV years ago Macaulay proved to the satisfaction of all his admirers in the Edinburgh Review , that Sir Philip Francis Avas the undoubted writer of these famous letters. The very last number of the Quarterly , however, gives the credit of their authorship to a very different person, viz,, the young and profligate Lord Lyttelton, and a very good case, indeed, they managed to make out on his behalf. An able paper in the Dublin University Magazine of July last, hoAvever, does not so much as deign to refer to this candidate, According to it, Junius, was no other than the great Lord Chatham, who amused his declining years, and relieved his disappointed ambition, by the composition of these inimitable letters. This theory, no doubt, Avould satisfactorily account for the profound secrecy observed in their publication. But another essential question is, could Chatham have written them! Was he sufficiently master of those peculiar powers of invective Avliich Junius displays to such transcendent advantage ? It is strenuously contended by T the reviewer that lie was. He observes—

“The same similarity to Junius is seen in the intellectual features of Chatham’s character. Pitt was always vehement and bold of speech, full of assurance, invective, vernacular idiom, metaphor, and so forth. A letter written by Horace Walpole, in 1/55, will give us a general idea of what he was, on most occasions. Walpole speaks of a meeting that took place at the Cockpit, in that year ; “ Pitt surpassed himself, and then, I need not tell you, he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What a figure would they, with their formal, laboured cabinet oration, cut ris-a-vis his manly and dashing eloquence 1 1 never suspected Pitt of such a universal armoury, . . . On the first debate (on the Hanoverian and Russian Treaties) Hume Campbell, whom the Duke of Newcastle had retained as the most abusive counsel he could find again t Pitt, attacked him for his eternal invectives. Oh ! since the last philippic of Billingsgate memory, you never heard such an invective as Pitt returned ! Campbell was annihilated. Pitt, like an angry wasp, seems to have

left his sting in the wound, and has since a style of delicate ridicule and repartee But think what a charming ridicule that must be thU lasts, and rises, flash after flash, for an hour and-a-half! The scarcastic humour and happy raillery displayed in some of Junius’s miscellaneous letters, are at once recognised to be what Walpole has thus described ; and the loftiness of’ 1 ft. character cannot hinder any one from conceiving how he could descend to satirical comedy and tl e ridicule of “little Shammy, the wonderful Ougashite,” &c. In his place in parliament he often gave specimens of this extraordinary quality. He turned upon Lord Mansfield once, m the Bouse of Lords, and cried out he had a few words to say to him; hut they should be daggers. I hen, after staring with the face of a thundercloud at the grandest and gravest functionary in the realm, he added, in a tone which Kemble never could have ennailed “Judge Felix trembles! lie shall hear from me another day,” and then sat down. People gathered a notion, from his peculiar manner, that Chatham’s head also was touched with the gout; “men stoodabeigh, and ca’d him mad. Those who shrink from allowing him the verve and vituperate spirit of Junius, must be com pletelv ignorant of the intellect and passions that went ‘to constitute the man. Some argue that Chatham was too old and feeble for the bitter vivacity of Junius; but age can hardly wither some minds. Lord Brougham man than the Juniau Chatham, and the agile vigour of his mind has very lately appeared to be_ as great as ever it was. In 1770, “ Nerva,” writing to Lord Chatham in the Public Advertiser, speaks of the “ presumption, insolence, absurdity, meanness, folly, ignorance, and rancour” of his lordship’s conduct in the House of Peers. All this is, doubtless, exaggeration; but there must have been something in Chatham’s words and demeanour to which “Nerva’s” language, in his own opinion, was not wholly inapplicable ; and we can easily suppose that some of the old Pitt characteristics had again exhibited themselves. Chatham was now sixty-two years of age. But “ Nerva” further meets the doubts of those who believe the earl was a broken-down old man at that time. He says, “ you possess, with the cold heart of age, the hot brain of rash and intemperate youth.” Lord Chesterfield gives us a few more Junian features : “ Lord Chatham” he says “ was haughty, imperious, impatient of contradiction, and overbearing. He had manner and address, but one might discern through them too great a consciousness of his own superior talents. His eloquence was of every kind; his invective terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction and such dignity of countenance, that he intimidated those most willing and best able to encounter him. It is in such an original, energetic, passionate man as this, alone, that we can expect to find the identity of the daring Junius. To no feebler or tamer order of intellect can that anonymous assaulter ever be traced. And this consideration should be the guide of all our inquiries.”

Ordination at Islington. —On Sunday morning, October 24, at an early service, an ordination look place at St. Mary’s, Islington, by the special commission of the Bishop of London, under the provisions of an act passed in the last session, by the Bishop of Sierra Leone, at which two candidates were admitted to (he order of deacon—Mr. Richard Cbarneley Paley, 8.A., of St. Peter’s College, Cambridge, who is shortly to proceed, as a missionary of the Church Missionary Society, to Abbeokuta, and Mr. George Hunn Nobbs, who had been for 20 years the faithful schoolmaster and pastor of the remarkable community in Pitcairn’s Island. The Bishop of Sierra Leone was attended by the Secretary of the Bishop of London. The candidates were presented to him by the Rev. Henry Venn, secretary of the Church Missionary Society. The Vicar of Islington, the Rev. D. Wilson, assisted at the Lord’s Supper. Several of the clergy of Islington were present, and the principal and students of the Missionary College, as well as the director of the Missionaries Children’s Home and some of the elder children. Those who were present will not soon forget the interesting sight when the young university student, a grandson of the celebrated Paley, knelt by the side of the aged and weatherbeaten schoolmaster of the distant island in the Pacific to receive their commission by the imposition of hands from the missionary Bishop of Sierra Leone, surrounded, also, by more than 20 students of the Islington Church Missionary College, who are all preparing for missionaries.