_Junius and the Quarterly Review._--The writer in the _Quarterly Review_
who has attributed the _Letters of Junius_ to Thomas Lyttelton, seems to
have overlooked that passage in the _Lyttelton Letters_ in which the
writer confesses his deficiency in the _principal_ "rhetorical figure,"
which at once rendered "the style of Junius" so popular:
"_Irony_ is not my talent, and B---- says I have too much
impudence to make use of it. It is a fine rhetorical figure; and
if there were a chance of attaining the manner in which Junius has
employed it, its cultivation will be worth my attention."--_Letter
36._ p. 131.
In my researches to "set this question at rest," I have found the
_Discoverers of Junius_ invariably inclined to withhold some fact or
circumstance, which, if published with the _proofs_, must have
overthrown their hypotheses. This may be good policy in an advocate
pleading before a jury, or in an orator addressing a popular assembly,
where an object may be attained by "making out a good case." On the
question of _Junius_ it is not only disingenuous, but highly
reprehensible, since it proves that the writer thinks more of gratifying
his own vanity, than in satisfying the public.