The Quarterly Reviewer who endeavours in the number just published to
establish the claim of Thomas Lord Lyttelton to the authorship of
Junius, instances the following coincidence in support of his theory:--
"Junius tells us directly, 'I remember seeing Busenbaum, Suarez,
Molina, and a score of other Jesuitical books, burnt at Paris, for
their sound casuistry by the hands of the common hangman.' _We may
assume_ that this took place in 1764, as it was in that year that
Choiseul suppressed the Jesuits. Thomas Lyttelton was on the
continent during the whole of 1764, and for part of that time
resided at Paris."[1]
[Footnote 1: [The burning of the books referred to by BIFRONS not
Junius (unless it be proved that JUNIUS and BIFRONS are one, which
is not yet universally admitted), took place on 7th August, 1761.
See a very curious note on the subject in Bohn's recently
published edition of _Junius_, vol. ii. pp. 175-6.--ED. "N. &
Q."]]
But the orders of the parliament of Paris against the Jesuits, one of
which condemned some thirty of their books to be burnt, were issued
three years before the suppression of their order in France, viz., in
the early part and summer of 1761. That Thomas Lyttelton could then have
been in Paris is highly improbable; he was only seventeen, and it was a
time of war. Will any one take the trouble to ascertain where Francis
was? I believe he was appointed secretary to the Portuguese embassy in
1760, and returned to London in 1763.