Schlosser talks of Junius, who is to him, as to many people, more than
entirely the enigma of an enigma, Hermes Trismegistus, or the mediaeval
Prester John. Not only are most people unable to solve the enigma, but
they have no idea of what it is that they are to solve. I have to inform
Schlosser that there are three separate questions about Junius, of which
he has evidently no distinct knowledge, and cannot, therefore, have many
chances to spare for settling them. The three questions are these:--A. Who
_was_ Junius? B. What was it that armed Junius with a power so
unaccountable at this day over the public mind? C. Why, having actually
exercised this power, and gained under his masque far more than he ever
hoped to gain, did this Junius not come forward _in his own person_,
when all the legal danger had long passed away, to claim a distinction
that for _him_ (among the vainest of men) must have been more precious
than his heart's blood? The two questions, B and C, I have examined in
past times, and I will not here repeat my explanations further than to
say, with respect to the last, that the reason for the author not claiming
his own property was this, because he _dared_ not; because it would have
been _infamy_ for him to avow himself as Junius; because it would have
revealed a crime and published a crime in his own earlier life, for which
many a man is transported in our days, and for less than which many a man
has been in past days hanged, broken on the wheel, burned, gibbeted, or
impaled. To say that he watched and listened at his master's key-holes, is
nothing. It was not key-holes only that he made free with, but keys; he
tampered with his master's seals; he committed larcenies; not, like a
brave man, risking his life on the highway, but petty larcenies--larcenies
in a dwelling-house--larcenies under the opportunities of a confidential
situation--crimes which formerly, in the days of Junius, our bloody code
never pardoned in villains of low degree. Junius was in the situation of
Lord Byron's Lara, or, because Lara is a plagiarism, of Harriet Lee's
Kraitzrer. But this man, because he had money, friends, and talents,
instead of going to prison, took himself off for a jaunt to the continent.
From the continent, in full security and in possession of the _otium cum
dignitate_, he negotiated with the government, whom he had alarmed by
publishing the secrets which he had stolen. He succeeded. He sold himself
to great advantage. Bought and sold he was; and of course it is understood
that, if you buy a knave, and expressly in consideration of his knaveries,
you secretly undertake not to hang him. 'Honor bright!' Lord Barrington
might certainly have indicted Junius at the Old Bailey, and had a reason
for wishing to do so; but George III., who was a party to the negotiation,
and all his ministers, would have said, with fits of laughter--'Oh, come
now, my lord, you must _not_ do that. For, since we have bargained for a
price to send him out as a member of council to Bengal, you see clearly
that we could not possibly hang him _before_ we had fulfilled our bargain.
Then it is true we might hang him after he comes back. But, since the man
(being a clever man) has a fair chance in the interim of rising to be
Governor-General, we put it to your candor, Lord Barrington, whether it
would be for the public service to hang his excellency?' In fact, he might
probably have been Governor-General, had his bad temper not overmastered
him. Had he not quarrelled so viciously with Mr. Hastings, it is ten to
one that he might, by playing his cards well, have succeeded him. As it
was, after enjoying an enormous salary, he returned to England--not
Governor-General, certainly, but still in no fear of being hanged. Instead
of hanging him, on second thoughts, Government gave him a red ribbon. He
represented a borough in Parliament. He was an authority upon Indian
affairs. He was caressed by the Whig party. He sat at good men's tables.
He gave for toasts--_Joseph Surface_ sentiments at dinner parties--
'The man that betrays' [something or other]--'the man that sneaks into'
[other men's portfolios, perhaps]--'is'--ay, _what_ is he? Why he is,
perhaps, a Knight of the Bath, has a sumptuous mansion in St. James's
Square, dies full of years and honor, has a pompous funeral, and fears
only some such epitaph as this--'Here lies, in a red ribbon, the man who
built a great prosperity on the basis of a great knavery.' I complain
heavily of Mr. Taylor, the very able unmasker of Junius, for blinking the
whole questions B and C. He it is that has settled the question A, so that
it will never be re-opened by a man of sense. A man who doubts, after
_really_ reading Mr. Taylor's work, is not only a blockhead, but an
irreclaimable blockhead. It is true that several men, among them Lord
Brougham, whom Schlosser (though hating him, and kicking him) cites, still
profess scepticism. But the reason is evident: they have not _read_
the book, they have only heard of it. They are unacquainted with the
strongest arguments, and even with the nature of the evidence. [11] Lord
Brougham, indeed, is generally reputed to have reviewed Mr. Taylor's book.
_That_ may be: it is probable enough: what I am denying is not at all
that Lord Brougham _reviewed_ Mr. Taylor, but that Lord Brougham _read_
Mr. Taylor. And there is not much wonder in _that_, when we see professed
writers on the subject--bulky writers--writers of Answers and Refutations,
dispensing with the whole of Mr. Taylor's book, single paragraphs of which
would have forced them to cancel their own. The possibility of scepticism,
after really _reading_ Mr. Taylor's book, would be the strongest
exemplification upon record of Sancho's proverbial reproach, that a man
'wanted better bread than was made of wheat--' would be the old case
renewed from the scholastic grumblers 'that some men do not know when they
are answered.' They have got their _quietus_, and they still continue to
'maunder' on with objections long since disposed of. In fact, it is not
too strong a thing to say--and Chief Justice Dallas _did_ say something
like it--that if Mr. Taylor is not right, if Sir Philip Francis is _not_
Junius, then was no man ever yet hanged on sufficient evidence. Even
confession is no absolute proof. Even confessing to a crime, the man may
be mad. Well, but at least seeing is believing: if the court sees a man
commit an assault, will not _that_ suffice? Not at all: ocular delusions
on the largest scale are common. What's a court? Lawyers have no better
eyes than other people. Their physics are often out of repair, and whole
cities have been known to see things that could have no existence. Now,
all other evidence is held to be short of this blank seeing or blank
confessing. But I am not at all sure of _that_. Circumstantial evidence,
that multiplies indefinitely its points of _internexus_ with known
admitted facts, is more impressive than direct testimony. If you detect a
fellow with a large sheet of lead that by many (to wit seventy) salient
angles, that by tedious (to wit thirty) reentrant angles, fits into and
owns its sisterly relationship to all that is left of the lead upon your
roof--this tight fit will weigh more with a jury than even if my lord
chief justice should jump into the witness-box, swearing that, with
judicial eyes, he saw the vagabond cutting the lead whilst he himself sat
at breakfast; or even than if the vagabond should protest before this
honorable court that he _did_ cut the lead, in order that he (the said
vagabond) might have hot rolls and coffee as well as my lord, the witness.
If Mr. Taylor's body of evidence does _not_ hold water, then is there no
evidence extant upon any question, judicial or not judicial, that _will_.
But I blame Mr. Taylor heavily for throwing away the whole argument
applicable to B and C; not as any debt that rested particularly upon
_him_ to public justice; but as a debt to the integrity of his own
book. That book is now a fragment; admirable as regards A; but (by
omitting B and C) not sweeping the whole area of the problem. There yet
remains, therefore, the dissatisfaction which is always likely to arise--
not from the smallest _allegatio falsi_, but from the large _suppressio
veri_. B, which, on any other solution than the one I have proposed, is
perfectly unintelligible, now becomes plain enough. To imagine a heavy,
coarse, hard-working government, seriously affected by such a bauble as
_they_ would consider performances on the tight rope of style, is mere
midsummer madness. 'Hold your absurd tongue,' would any of the ministers
have said to a friend descanting on Junius as a powerful artist of style--
'do you dream, dotard, that this baby's rattle is the thing that keeps us
from sleeping? Our eyes are fixed on something else: that fellow, whoever
he is, knows what he ought _not_ to know; he has had his hand in some of
our pockets: he's a good locksmith, is that Junius; and before he reaches
Tyburn, who knows what amount of mischief he may do to self and partners?'
The rumor that ministers were themselves alarmed (which was the naked
truth) travelled downwards; but the _why_ did not travel; and the
innumerable blockheads of lower circles, not understanding the real cause
of fear, sought a false one in the supposed thunderbolts of the rhetoric.
Opera-house thunderbolts they were: and strange it is, that grave men
should fancy newspapers, teeming (as they have always done) with
_Publicolas_, with _Catos_, with _Algernon Sidneys_, able by such trivial
small shot to gain a moment's attention from the potentates of Downing
Street. Those who have despatches to write, councils to attend, and votes
of the Commons to manage, think little of Junius Brutus. A Junius Brutus,
that dares not sign by his own honest name, is presumably skulking from
his creditors. A Timoleon, who hints at assassination in a newspaper, one
may take it for granted, is a manufacturer of begging letters. And it is a
conceivable case that a twenty pound note, enclosed to Timoleon's address,
through the newspaper office, might go far to soothe that great patriot's
feelings, and even to turn aside his avenging dagger. These sort of people
were not the sort to frighten a British Ministry. One laughs at the
probable conversation between an old hunting squire coming up to comfort
the First Lord of the Treasury, on the rumor that he was panic-struck.
'What, surely, my dear old friend, you're not afraid of Timoleon?' First
Lord.--'Yes, I am.' C. Gent.--'What, afraid of an anonymous fellow in the
papers?' F. L.--'Yes, dreadfully.' C. Gent.--'Why, I always understood
that these people were a sort of shams--living in Grub Street--or where
was it that Pope used to tell us they lived? Surely you're not afraid of
Timoleon, because some people think he's a patriot?' F. L.--'No, not at
all; but I am afraid because some people think he's a housebreaker!' In
that character only could Timoleon become formidable to a Cabinet
Minister; and in some such character must our friend, Junius Brutus, have
made himself alarming to Government. From the moment that B is properly
explained, it throws light upon C. The Government was alarmed--not at such
moonshine as patriotism, or at a soap-bubble of rhetoric--but because
treachery was lurking amongst their own households: and, if the thing went
on, the consequences might be appalling. But this domestic treachery,
which accounts for B, accounts at the same time for C. The very same
treachery that frightened its objects at the time by the consequences it
might breed, would frighten its author afterwards from claiming its
literary honors by the remembrances it might awaken. The mysterious
disclosures of official secrets, which had once roused so much
consternation within a limited circle, and (like the French affair of the
diamond necklace) had sunk into neglect only when all clue seemed lost for
_perfectly_ unravelling its would revive in all its interest when a
discovery came before the public, viz., a claim on the part of Francis to
have written the famous letters, which must at the same time point a
strong light upon the true origin of the treacherous disclosures. Some
astonishment had always existed as to Francis--how he rose so suddenly
into rank and station: some astonishment always existed as to Junius, how
he should so suddenly have fallen asleep as a writer in the journals. The
coincidence of this sudden and unaccountable silence with the sudden and
unaccountable Indian appointment of Francis; the extraordinary familiarity
of Junius, which had _not altogether escaped notice_, with the secrets of
one particular office, viz., the War Office; the sudden recollection, sure
to flash upon all who remembered Francis, if again he should become
revived into suspicion, that he had held a situation of trust in that
particular War Office; all these little recollections would begin to take
up their places in a connected story: _this_ and _that_, laid together,
would become clear as day-light; and to the keen eyes of still surviving
enemies--Horne Tooke, 'little Chamier,' Ellis, the Fitzroy, Russell, and
Murray houses--the whole progress and catastrophe of the scoundrelism, the
perfidy and the profits of the perfidy, would soon become as intelligible
as any tale of midnight burglary from without, in concert with a wicked
butler within, that was ever sifted by judge and jury at the Old Bailey,
or critically reviewed by Mr. John Ketch at Tyburn.
Francis was the man. Francis was the wicked butler within, whom Pharaoh
ought to have hanged, but whom he clothed in royal apparel, and mounted
upon a horse that carried him to a curule chair of honor. So far his
burglary prospered. But, as generally happens in such cases, this
prosperous crime subsequently avenged itself. By a just retribution, the
success of Junius, in two senses so monstrously exaggerated--exaggerated
by a romantic over-estimate of its intellectual power through an error of
the public, not admitted to the secret--and equally exaggerated as to its
political power by the government in the hush-money for its future
suppression, became the heaviest curse of the successful criminal. This
criminal thirsted for literary distinction above all other distinction,
with a childish eagerness, as for the _amrecta_ cup of immortality.
And, behold! there the brilliant bauble lay, glittering in the sands of a
solitude, unclaimed by any man; disputed with him (if he chose to claim
it) by nobody; and yet for his life he durst not touch it. He stood--he
knew that he stood--in the situation of a murderer who has dropt an
inestimable jewel upon the murdered body in the death-struggle with his
victim. The jewel is his! Nobody will deny it. He may have it for asking.
But to ask is his death-warrant. 'Oh yes!' would be the answer, 'here's
your jewel, wrapt up safely in tissue paper. But here's another lot that
goes along with it--no bidder can take them apart--viz. a halter, also
wrapt up in tissue paper.' Francis, in relation to Junius, was in that
exact predicament. 'You are Junius? You are that famous man who has been
missing since 1772? And you can prove it? God bless me! sir; what a long
time you've been sleeping: every body's gone to bed. Well, then, you are
an exceedingly clever fellow, that have had the luck to be thought ten
times more clever than really you were. And also, you are the greatest
scoundrel that at this hour rests in Europe unhanged!'--Francis died, and
made no sign. Peace of mind he had parted with for a peacock's feather,
which feather, living or dying, he durst not mount in the plumage of his
cap.