Chapter XXVII: Book XIV: §Voltaire§, in his Œdipus, makes Jocasta say, (3)

That the book has no very high order of genius to commend it is evident from the fact that it has passed into comparative obscurity. The world does not suffer the works of true prophets to die. Still, there is enough in it to render it worthy of being held in remembrance; and, antedating Bunyan as it does, passing through seven editions immediately after its first publication, presenting some striking analogies with the great master of allegory, and sinking into obscurity before the brighter and more enduring light of the Bedford tinker, its author deserves honorable mention for his attempt to present religious truth in a striking and impressive form at a period when such attempts were rare.

Southey, in his _Commonplace Book_, gives a long quotation from _Lucian’s Hermotimus_, to show how Bunyan was anticipated, in the main idea of his allegory, by a Greek writer, as far back as the second century.

Another claimant for this Telemachus of Protestant religious literature has recently been brought to light by Catherine Isabella Curt, who has just published in London a translation of an old French manuscript in the British Museum, which is almost word for word the Pilgrim’s Progress. The manuscript is the work of a clergyman, G de Grideville, who lived in the fifteenth century. Its title, in Norman English, is _Pylgremage of the Sowle_. The printer, Caxton, who occupied the same position in London as the Etiennes of Paris, published in 1483 a translation of this manuscript, of which the authenticity appears incontestable. It would seem, therefore, that the credit of this celebrated book belongs to France, although France hitherto has shown less appreciation of the original than England has bestowed on the copy.

ROBINSON CRUSOE: WHO WROTE IT?

Disraeli, in his ever-charming _Curiosities of Literature_, expresses boldly the opinion that “no one had, or perhaps could have, converted the history of Selkirk into the wonderful story we possess but De Foe himself.” So have we all been accustomed to believe, from those careless, happy days of boyhood when we pored intently over the entrancing pages of “Robinson Crusoe” and wished that we also could have a desert island, a summer bower, and a winter-cave retreat, as well as he. But there is, alas! some slight ground at least for believing that De Foe _did not write_ that immortal tale, or, at all events, the better portion of it, viz., the first part or volume of the work. In Sir H. Ellis’s _Letters of Eminent Literary Men_ (Camden Soc. Pub. 1843, vol. 23), p. 420, Letter 137 is from “Daniel De Foe to the Earl of Halifax, engaging himself to his lordship as a political writer.” In a note by the editor a curious anecdote is given, quoted from “a volume of Memoranda in the handwriting of Thomas Warton, poet-laureate, preserved in the British Museum,” in relation to the actual authorship of the “Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” The extract is as follows:—

“Mem. July 10, 1774.—In the year 1759, I was told by the Rev. Mr. Hollaway, rector of Middleton Stoney, in Oxfordshire, then about seventy years old, and in the early part of his life chaplain to Lord Sunderland, that he had often heard Lord Sunderland say that Lord Oxford, while prisoner in the Tower of London, wrote the first volume of the History of Robinson Crusoe, merely as an amusement under confinement, and gave it to Daniel De Foe, who frequently visited Lord Oxford in the Tower and was one of his pamphlet-writers; that De Foe, by Lord Oxford’s permission, printed it as his own, and, encouraged by its extraordinary success, added himself the second volume, the inferiority of which is generally acknowledged. Mr. Holloway also told me, from Lord Sunderland, that Lord Oxford dictated some parts of the manuscript to De Foe. Mr Hollaway,”—Warton adds,—“was a grave, conscientious clergyman, not vain of telling anecdotes, very learned, particularly a good Orientalist, author of some theological tracts, bred at Eton School, and a Master of Arts of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He used to say that ‘Robinson Crusoe at its first publication, and for some time afterward, was universally received and credited as a genuine history. A fictitious narrative of this sort was then a new thing.’”

Besides, it may be added, the _real_ and somewhat similar circumstances of Alexander Selkirk’s solitary abode of four years and four months on the island of Juan Fernandez, had, only a few years previously, been the subject of general conversation, and had therefore prepared the public mind for the possibility, if not the probability, of such adventures.

PROVERB MISASCRIBED TO DEFOE.

In an article on the writings of Daniel Defoe, in a late number of the _Edinburgh Review_, the critic refers to the _True-Born Englishman_, the opening quatrain of which is quoted as being “all that will ever be remembered of the poem.”

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The devil is sure to build a chapel there;
And ’twill be found, upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.

A recent number of Chambers’s _Papers for the People_ also contains an article on Defoe, in which the same lines are quoted as having since grown into a proverb. It is evident that the two critics believed the idea to be original with Defoe. But they were both in error; for in an old tract, entitled _The Vineyarde of Vertue_, printed in 1591, seventy-seven years before Defoe was born, may be found the following sentence:—

It is oftentimes seene, that as God hath his Churche, so will the
Deuill have a Chappell.

It was also used before Defoe’s time by George Herbert and Robert Burton. The former says, in his _Jacula Prudentum_, “No sooner is a temple built to God, but the Devil builds a chapel hard by;” and the latter, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, thus expresses it: “Where God hath a Temple the Devil will have a Chapel.” It is evident that Defoe only versified a well-known proverb of his day.

THE USE OF LANGUAGE.

To Talleyrand has generally been attributed the authorship of the maxim that “the use of language is to conceal our thoughts.” (La parole a été donnée à l’homme pour aider à cacher sa pensée.)

In Pycroft’s _Ways and Words of Men of Letters_, a quotation is made from an article on _The Use of Language_, published in a periodical called the _Bee_, under date of October 20, 1759, which reads as follows: “He who best knows how to conceal his necessity and desires is the most likely person to find redress; and _the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them_.”

Nearly a century before this, Dr. South preached a sermon in Westminster Abbey, on _The Wisdom of the World_, in which he said, “Men speak with designs of mischief, and therefore they speak in the dark. In short, this seems to be the true inward judgment of all our politic sages, that speech was given to the ordinary sort of men whereby to communicate their mind, _but to wise men whereby to conceal it_.”

SCANDINAVIAN SKULL CUPS.

What a pretty tale was slaughtered when Grenville Piggot pointed out, in his _Manual of Scandinavian Mythology_, the blundering translation of the passage in an old Scandinavian poem relating to the occupation of the blest in the halls of Valhalla, the Northern paradise! “Soon shall we drink out of the curved horns of the head,” are the words in the death-song of Regner Lodbrog; meaning by this violent figure to say that they would imbibe their liquor out of cups formed from the crooked horns of animals. The first translators, however, not seeing their way clearly, rendered the passage, “Soon shall we drink out of the _skulls of our enemies_;” and to this strange banqueting there are allusions without end to be met with in our literature. Peter Pindar, for example, once said that the booksellers, like the heroes of Valhalla, drank their wine out of the skulls of authors.

GREAT LITERARY PLAGIARISM.

The _London Athenæum_ asserts that Paley’s Natural Theology is copied from a series of papers which appeared about the end of the seventeenth century, in the _Leipsic Transactions_, written by a Dutch philosopher named Nieuwentyt. It is extraordinary that this discovery was not made before, inasmuch as the papers, after having been published at Amsterdam about the year 1700, were afterwards translated into English by Mr. Chamberlayne, and published by Longman & Co., in 1818, about fifteen years after Paley’s Natural Theology appeared. As Paley quotes Dr. Nieuwentyt from the _Leipsic Transactions_, he, of course, must have known and perused them. Parallel passages are printed side by side in the _Athenæum_, for the purpose of proving the assertion.

OLD BALLADS.

It was not the more polished author of Ivanhoe who gave us the unfading picture of the Black Knight, but he who sang of

—a stranger knight whom no man knewe,
He wan the prize eche daye.
His acton it was all of blacke,
His hewberke, and his sheelde,
Ne no man wist whence he did come,
Ne no man knewe where he did gone,
When they came from the feelde.

It was not the “thousand-souled Shakspeare” who gave birth to the story of the pound of flesh; for Shylock is no other than _Gernutus the Jew of Venice_. We subjoin two stanzas from Percy’s Reliques:—

But we will have a merry jest
For to be talkéd long:
You shall make me a bond (quoth he)
That shall be large and strong.

* * * * *

The bloody Jew now ready is,
With whetted blade in hand;
To spoil the blood of innocent
By forfeit of his bond.

Even the tragedy of Lear was set to the tune of “When flying Fame” before it was known to the stage. Nor will it be unjust to the memory of the good and gifted Goldsmith to say that the Old Harper sang:—

Thus every day I fast and pray,
And ever will doe till I dye;
And gett me to some secrett place,
For soe did hee, and soe will I,—

before the gentle Angelina thought of saying:—

And there forlorn, despairing hid,
I’ll lay me down and die:
’Twas so for me that Edwin did,
And so for him will I.

THE WANDERING JEW.

The success of _Le Juif Errant_ of M. Sue, when first published, arose doubtless from two causes: the deep hold upon the popular heart which the legend of the lonely wanderer naturally acquired, and the reaction against papacy at that period. The efforts of the church, and particularly of the Society of Jesus, against which it was specially directed, to either suppress it or neutralize its effects, tended the more to extend its influence. The legend of a wanderer, pursued by some fate or power above, suffering, solitary and deathless, is as old as the human race. It takes a new form with every step in human progress, adapting itself to the character of the period and place where it reappears. It belongs to the early East, notably the Hindoo legendary literature, to Greece and Rome, and to Christendom, taking shape rather from the religious than the ethical elements of character. The Wandering Jew of Christendom varies with times and places, as his name also varies. He is Salathiel, Ahasuerus, Cartaphilus, Theudas, Zerib Bar Elia, Isbal, Michob-Ader, Bultadœus, Isaac Laquedon or something else, as circumstances determine. The German designation—the Everlasting Jew, _der ewige Jude_—is more specifically significant really than that of other languages, in most of which it is “wandering.”

The weird figure, wandering in fulfillment of his doom in the Carpathians, or halting at Nürnberg or Bamberg, or going in and out among the peasantry of Brittany or Wales, is an attractive subject: a vague, shadowy form; mortal and yet immortal; typical at once of man’s liability to death, and of his everlasting existence. He has the passions and anxieties and sorrows of manhood, and is endowed with a function which places him beyond the operations of Providence. From the earliest notice of this hero, which occurs in the Chronicles of the Abbey of St. Albans, he appears in numerous and manifold literary forms—drama, lyric, ballad, historical poem, legend, novel, study, essay, chronicle, biography, myth and paragraph, to the extent of perhaps a hundred volumes. The legends of most of these agree in representing the Jew as a wanderer since the day of the crucifixion, sometimes repentant and sometimes defiant, but always going. From this general voice Dr. Croly, in his _Salathiel_, upon a true artistic principle, departs, and makes his doomed one live only the usual period of man’s life. His Jew is repentant and anxious to die, and dies in due season. The Jew of M. Eubule-Evans, in the _Curse of Immortality_, also is repentant, but, pursued by implacable vengeance of the Almighty, he refuses, in his morbid pride, to purchase the repose of death at the price of self-abasement; but at last reaches contrition through the softening influence of human love, repents and dies.

With similar general characteristics the wanderer of M. Sue’s powerful melodramatic story seeks death in every clime and form: but lives on, wanders on, and toils to achieve human ends, until the close of the romance, when the hero sets out anew. Our readers are doubtless familiar with the story—the scattered heirs of a fortune of two million francs to be divided among them upon condition of their assembling at a given hour in a given room in Paris; and the machinations of the wily Jesuit Rodin, whose end was to secure the money for his own society.

The Chronicles of the Abbey of St. Albans, already referred to, report the following circumstantial details:—

In the year 1228, a certain archbishop of Armenia came on a pilgrimage to England to see the relics of the saints, and visit the sacred places in this kingdom, as he had done in others; he also produced letters of recommendation from his Holiness the Pope to the religious men and prelates of the churches, in which they were enjoined to receive and entertain him with due reverence and honor. On his arrival, he came to St. Albans, where he was received with all respect by the abbot and monks; and at this place, being fatigued with his journey, he remained some days to rest himself and his followers. In the course of conversation by means of their interpreters, he made many inquiries relating to the religion and religious observances of this country, and told many strange things concerning the countries of the East. In the course of conversation he was asked whether he had ever seen or heard anything of Joseph, a man of whom there was much talk in the world, who, when our Lord suffered, was present and spoke to him, and who is still alive, in evidence to the Christian faith; in reply to which a knight in his retinue, who was his interpreter, replied, speaking in French, “My Lord well knows that man, and a little before he took his way to the western countries, the said Joseph ate at the table of my lord the archbishop in Armenia, and he has often seen and held converse with him.” He was then asked about what had passed between Christ and the said Joseph, to which he replied, “At the time of the suffering of Jesus Christ, he was seized by the Jews and led into the hall of judgment, before Pilate, the governor, that he might be judged by him on the accusation of the Jews; and Pilate finding no cause for adjudging him to death, said to them, ‘Take him and judge him according to your law;’ the shouts of the Jews, however, increasing, he, at their request, released unto them Barabbas, and delivered Jesus to them to be crucified. When, therefore, the Jews were dragging Jesus forth, and had reached the door, Cartaphilus, a porter of the hall, in Pilate’s service, as Jesus was going out of the door, impiously struck him on the back with his hand, and said in mockery, ‘Go quicker, Jesus, go quicker; why do you loiter?’ and Jesus looking back on him with a severe countenance, said to him, ‘I am going and you will wait till I return.’ And according as our Lord said, this Cartaphilus is still awaiting his return. At the time of our Lord’s suffering he was thirty years old, and when he attains the age of a hundred years, he always returns to the same age as he was when our Lord suffered. After Christ’s death, when the Catholic faith gained ground, this Cartaphilus was baptized by Ananias (who also baptized the apostle Paul), and was called Joseph. He dwells in one or other division of Armenia, and in divers Eastern countries, passing his time amongst the bishops and other prelates of the church; he is a man of holy conversation, and religious; a man of few words, and circumspect in his behavior, for he does not speak at all unless when questioned by the bishops and religious men, and then he tells of the events of old times, and of those which occurred at the suffering and resurrection of our Lord, and of the witnesses of the resurrection, namely, those who rose with Christ, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto men. He also tells of the creed of the apostles, and of their separation and preaching. And all this he relates without smiling or levity of conversation, as one who is well practised in sorrow and the fear of God; always looking forward with fear to the coming of Jesus Christ, lest at the last judgment he should find him in anger, whom, when on his way to death, he had provoked to just vengeance. Numbers come to him from different parts of the world, enjoying his society and conversation; and to them, if they are men of authority, he explains all doubts on the matters on which he is questioned. He refuses all gifts that are offered to him, being content with slight food and clothing.”

Of the myths of the Middle Ages, none is more striking than that of the Wandering Jew; indeed it is so well calculated to arrest the attention and to excite the imagination, that it is remarkable that we should find an interval of three centuries between its first introduction into Europe by Matthew Paris and Philip Mouskes, and its general acceptance in the sixteenth century. Of the romances of Eugéne Sue and Dr. Croly, founded upon the legend, the less said the better. The original legend is so noble in its severe simplicity that none but a master mind could develop it with any chance of success. Nor have the poetical attempts upon the story fared better. It was reserved for the pencil of Gustave Doré to treat it with the originality it merited, and in a series of wood-cuts to produce at once a poem, a romance, and a chef-d’œuvre of art.

Curious Books.

ODD TITLES OF OLD BOOKS,

_Mostly Published in the time of Cromwell_.

_A Fan to drive away Flies_: a theological treatise on Purgatory.

_A most Delectable Sweet Perfumed Nosegay for God’s Saints to Smell at._

_A Pair of Bellows to blow off the Dust cast upon John Fry._

_A Proper Project to Startle Fools: Printed in a Land where Self’s cry’d up and Zeal’s cry’d down._

_A Reaping-Hook, well tempered, for the Stubborn Ears of the coming Crop; or, Biscuit baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet Swallows of Salvation._

_A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, breathed out of a Hole in the Wall of an Earthly Vessel, known among Men by the Name of Samuel Fish_ (a Quaker who had been imprisoned).

_A Shot aimed at the Devil’s Head-Quarters through the Tube of the Cannon of the Covenant._

_Crumbs of Comfort for the Chickens of the Covenant._

_Eggs of Charity, layed by the Chickens of the Covenant, and boiled with the Water of Divine Love. Take Ye and eat._

_High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness._

_Hooks and Eyes for Believers’ Breeches._

_Matches lighted by the Divine Fire._

_Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sin, or the Seven Penitential Psalms of the Princely Prophet David; whereunto are also added, William Humius’ Handful of Honeysuckles, and Divers Godly and Pithy Ditties, now newly augmented._

_Spiritual Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their Souls’ Nourishment_: a catechism.

_The Bank of Faith._

_The Christian Sodality; or, Catholic Hive of Bees, sucking the Honey of the Churches’ Prayer from the Blossoms of the Word of God, blowne out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service throughout the yeare. Collected by the Puny Bee of all the Hive not worthy to be named otherwise than by these Elements of his Name, F. P._

_The Gun of Penitence._

_The Innocent Love; or, the Holy Knight_: a description of the ardors of a saint for the Virgin.

_The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary_; or a collection of passages from the fathers.

_The Sixpennyworth of Divine Spirit._

_The Snuffers of Divine Love._

_The Sound of the Trumpet_: a work on the day of judgment.

_The Spiritual Mustard Pot, to make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion._

_The Three Daughters of Job_: a treatise on patience, fortitude, and pain.

_Tobacco battered, and the Pipes shattered about their Ears that idly idolize so loathsome a Vanity, by a Volley of holy shot thundered from Mount Helicon_: a poem against the use of tobacco, by Joshua Sylvester.

_Vox Cœlis; or, Newes from Heaven: being imaginary conversations there between Henry VIII., Edward VI., Prince Henrie, and others._

THE MOST CURIOUS BOOK IN THE WORLD.

The most singular bibliographic curiosity is that which belonged to the family of the Prince de Ligne, and is now in France. It is entitled _Liber Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, cum Characteribus Nulla Materia Compositis_. This book is neither written nor printed! The whole letters of the text are cut out of each folio upon the finest vellum; and, being interleaved with blue paper, it is read as easily as the best print. The labor and patience bestowed in its completion must have been excessive, especially when the precision and minuteness of the letters are considered. The general execution, in every respect, is indeed admirable; and the vellum is of the most delicate and costly kind. Rodolphus II. of Germany offered for it, in 1640, eleven thousand ducats, which was probably equal to sixty thousand at this day. The most remarkable circumstance connected with this literary treasure is, that it bears the royal arms of England, but it cannot be traced to have ever been in that country.

SILVER BOOK.

In the Library of Upsal, in Sweden, there is preserved a translation of the Four Gospels, printed with metal types upon violet-colored vellum. The letters are silver, and hence it has received the name of _Codex Argenteus_. The initial letters are in gold. It is supposed that the whole was printed in the same manner as bookbinders letter the titles of books on the back. It was a very near approach to the discovery of the art of printing; but it is not known how old it is.

BOOK AMATEURS.

It was the Abbé Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Vallière, who made the following classification:—

A _Bibliognoste_ is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; when and where printed; the presses whence issued; and all the minutiæ of a book.

A _Bibliographe_ is a describer of books and other literary arrangements.

A _Bibliomane_ is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained and purse-heavy.

A _Bibliophile_, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who appears to read them for his own pleasure.

A _Bibliotaphe_ buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing them in glass cases.

Literariana.

THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS.

“Junius” was the name or signature of a writer who published, at intervals between 1769 and 1772, a series of political papers on the leading questions and men of that day. They appeared in the newspaper called the _Public Advertiser_, and attracted immense attention, partly from the high position of the characters assailed, (among whom was George III. himself,) and still more from their brilliancy of style, their boldness of tone, and the tremendous severity of the invectives employed in them. The letters are still models of that species of writing,—though it has since risen to such a point of excellence generally as would greatly weaken the force of any similar phenomena if appearing in our day. However, from the monarch to the meanest of his subjects, all men were impressed deeply at the time by the letters of Junius, the mystery attending their authorship adding largely to their influence. It was a mystery at the moment, and remains a puzzle still. Not even the publisher, Woodfall, knew who his correspondent was, or, at least, not certainly. Yet all the world felt the letters to be the work of no common man. Their most remarkable feature, indeed, was the intimate familiarity with high people and official life which they so clearly evinced. “A traitor in the camp!” was the cry of the leading statesmen of the period. Hence it occurred that almost every person of talent and eminence then living fell, or has since fallen, more or less under the suspicion of being Junius. But his own words to Woodfall have as yet proved true:—“It is not in the nature of things that you or anybody else should know me, unless I make myself known.” He adds that he never will do so. “I am the sole depository of my secret, and it shall die with me.” If it has not died with him, he at least has gone to the grave without its divulgement by himself. But there may still be circumstantial evidence sufficient to betray him, in despite of all his secretive care.

In Rush’s _Residence at the Court of London_ is preserved an anecdote relating to the authorship of Junius, of interest and apparent importance to the investigators of this vexed question. It is as follows:—

Mr. Canning related an anecdote pertinent to the topic, derived from the present king when Prince of Wales. It was to the following effect. The late king was in the habit of going to the theatre once a week at the time Junius’s Letters were appearing, and had a page in his service of the name of Ramus. This page always brought the play-bill in to the king at teatime, on the evenings when he went. On the evening before Sir Philip Francis sailed for India, Ramus handed to the king, at the same time when delivering the play-bill, a note from Garrick to Ramus, in which the former stated that there would be no more letters from Junius. This was found to be the very night on which Junius addressed his laconic note to Garrick, threatening him with vengeance. Sir Philip did embark for India next morning, and in point of fact the letters ceased to appear from that very day. The anecdote added that there lived with Sir Philip at the time a relation of Ramus, who sailed in the morning with him. The whole narrative excited much attention, and was new to most of the company. The first impression it made was, not only that it went far towards showing, by proof almost direct, that Sir Philip Francis was the author, but that Garrick must have been in the secret.

The _Bengal Hurkaru_, a Calcutta paper, dated Feb. 19, 1855, contains the following paragraph, which is the more interesting when taken in conjunction with several facts connected with Francis’s residence there, as a member of the council, for several years (1774–80).

“The _Englishman_ (a military newspaper published in Calcutta) states that there is a gentleman in Calcutta who possesses ‘an original document, the publication of which would forever set at rest the _vexata quæstio_ as to the authorship of the _Letters of Junius_.’ The document which we have seen is what our cotemporary describes it to be, and bears three signatures: that of ‘Chatham,’ on the right-hand side of the paper; and on the left, those of Dr. Wilmot, and J. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton. The paper, the ink, and the writing all induce us to believe that the document is genuine; and we understand that the gentleman in whose possession it is has other documentary evidence corroborative of this, which still further tends to clear up the riddle which so many have attempted to read with small success.”

The incident related by Mr. Canning acquires additional value and significance when considered in connection with the evidence in favor of Francis, so concisely drawn up by Macaulay in his Essay on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. After an introductory allusion to the disputed authorship, Macaulay goes on to say:—

The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, nay, in a criminal, proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be considered as clearly proved: first, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State’s office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the War Office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now, Francis passed some years in the Secretary of State’s office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the War Office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham; and some of those speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the War Office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence.

The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius; nor are we disposed to admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at all events, is one which may be urged with at least equal force against every claimant that has ever been mentioned, with the single exception of Burke, who certainly was not Junius. And what conclusion, after all, can be drawn from mere inferiority? Every writer must produce his best work; and the interval between his best and his second-best work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say that the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or four of Corneille’s tragedies to the rest; than three or four of Ben Jonson’s comedies to the rest; than the Pilgrim’s Progress to the other works of Bunyan; than Don Quixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. To go no further than the letters which bear the signature of Junius,—the letter to the king and the letters to Horne Tooke have little in common except the asperity; and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings or in the speeches of Francis.

Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was Junius is the moral resemblance between the two men. It is not difficult from the letters which, under various signatures, are known to have been written by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably correct notion of his character. He was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity,—a man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant and insolent, a man prone to malevolence, and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. “Doest thou well to be angry?” was the question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. And he answered, “I do well.” This was evidently the temper of Junius; and to this cause we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his letters. No man is so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be added, that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old institutions with a respect amounting to pedantry, pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervor, and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis.

It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have been willing at that time to leave the country which had been so powerfully stirred by his eloquence. Every thing had gone against him. That party which he clearly preferred to every other, the party of George Grenville, had been scattered by the death of its chief, and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over to the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by the Middlesex election had gone down. Every faction must have been an object of aversion to Junius. His opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the Ministry, his opinions on colonial affairs from the Opposition. Under such circumstances, he had thrown down his pen in misanthropic despair. His farewell letter to Woodfall bears date January 19, 1773. In that letter he declared that he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men who would act steadily together on any question. “But it is all alike,” he added, “vile and contemptible. You have never flinched, that I know of; and I shall always rejoice to hear of your prosperity.” These were the last words of Junius. Soon afterwards Sir Philip Francis started on his voyage to Bengal.

One of the ablest articles in favor of Lord Chatham may be found in Hogg’s _Instructor_, already quoted from. The writer sums up his evidence in a masterly manner, and almost conclusively, were it not that he still leaves, like others who have preceded him, a large space for an entering wedge. Nay, more: he even divides the palm, and, though he gives the great William Pitt the chief glory, he intimates that Francis not only wrote some of the epistles, but originated “the idea of so operating on the public mind.” He says in his closing remarks, in answer to the question, “Had Sir Philip Francis no share in the Junian Letters?” “He certainly was privy, we imagine, to the _whole business_, and, indeed, very probably wrote some of the earlier and less important epistles. He had been private secretary to Chatham at one time, and was his friend, or rather idolizing follower, through life. But he was not Junius. He may even have begun the epistolary series, and may deserve the credit, perhaps, of having suggested the idea of so operating on the public mind. But still he was not _Nominis Umbra_ himself. In answering the queries of Lord Campbell, Lady Francis, while owning that Sir Philip never called himself Junius to her, assumes nevertheless that he was that mystic being, but adds that after he had begun the letters a ‘new and powerful ally’ came to his assistance. The whole mystery is here laid bare. Lord Chatham is clearly the ally meant; and the testimony of Lady Francis, therefore, founded on the revelations of her husband, may be held as fully establishing our present hypothesis.”

Yet Francis and Chatham both “died and left no sign:” the question is therefore still open to discussion, and, as a late writer has remarked, it is not a mere question of curiosity. He recommends it to the study of every barrister who wishes to make himself acquainted with the _Theory of Evidence_. There is scarcely a claim that has been put forward as yet, which he will not find worthy of his attention, especially when he considers the _remarkable coincidences_ which have generally been the occasion of their being brought forward. He adds that he has during the last thirty years successively admitted the claims of five or six of the candidates, but that now he does not believe in one of them.

GRAY’S ELEGY.

Never the verse approve and hold as good
Till many a day and many a blot has wrought
The polished work, and chastened every thought
By tenfold labor to perfection brought.—§Horace.§

The original MS. of this immortal poem was lately sold at auction in London. At a former sale (1845) it was purchased, together with the “Odes,” by a Mr. Penn. He gave $500 for the Elegy alone. He was proud, says the _London Athenæum_, of his purchase,—so proud, indeed, that binders were employed to inlay them on fine paper, bind them up in volumes of richly-tooled olive morocco with silk linings, and finally enclose each volume in a case of plain purple morocco. The order was carefully carried out, and the volumes were deposited at Stoke Pogis, in the great house adjoining the grave of Gray. The MS. of the Elegy is full of verbal alterations: it is the only copy known to exist, and is evidently Gray’s first grouping together of the stanzas as a whole. As the Elegy is known and admired by almost every one conversant with the English language, we select some of the verses, to show the alterations made by the author. The established text is printed in Roman type, the MS. readings as originally written, in Italics:—

Of such as wandering near her secret bower
_stray too_
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep
_village_
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
_Forever sleep; the breezy call of_
The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn
_Or Chanticleer so shrill_,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share
_coming_
_doubtful_
Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
_homely_
Their homely joys
_rustic_
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault
_Forgive, ye proud, th’ involuntary fault_
Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust
_awake_
Chill penury repress’d their noble rage
_had damp’d_
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
_Tully_
Some Cromwell
_Cæsar_
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined
_struggling_
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way
_silent_
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires
_And buried ashes glow with social_
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
_With hasty footsteps brush_
There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech
_Oft_ _hoary_
_spreading_
Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn
_With gestures quaint_
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove
_fond conceits, he wont to_
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree
_By the heath side_
The next, with dirges due, in sad array
_meet_
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn
_Wrote_ _that_
_Carved_
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere
_heart_
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
_Nor seek to draw them_
There they alike in trembling hope repose
_His frailties there_

In the original manuscript copy, after the eighteenth stanza, are the four following verses, which were evidently intended to complete the poem, but the idea of the hoary-headed swain occurring to the author, he rejected them:—

The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,
Exalt the brave and idolize success;
But more to innocence their safety owe,
Than power or genius ere conspired to bless.

And thou who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these notes their artless tale relate;
By night and lonely contemplation led
To wander in the gloomy walks of fate:

Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around
Bids every fierce, tumultuous passion cease,
In still, small accents breathing from the ground
A grateful earnest of eternal peace.

No more with reason and thyself at strife,
Give anxious cares and endless wishes room;
But through the cool sequestered vale of life
Pursue the silent tenor of thy doom.

After the twenty-fifth stanza was the following:—

Him have we seen the greenwood side along,
While o’er the heath we hied, our labor done,
Oft as the woodlark piped her farewell song,
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun.

Preceding the epitaph was the following beautiful allusion to the rustic tomb of the village scholar:—

There scattered oft, the earliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble there,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.

Gray began the composition of this exquisite poem in 1742; but so carefully did he proceed, that it remained on his hands for seven years. It is believed to have been mostly written within the precincts of the church at Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge; and the curfew in the poet’s mind was accordingly the great bell of St. Mary’s, tolled regularly every evening at nine o’clock in Gray’s time and since.

As a piece of finished composition, possessing all the elements of true poetry, in conception, in illustration, in the mechanical structure of the verse, in the simplicity of the style, in the touching nature of the ideas, the Elegy won from the outset a fame which, as a century of time has but served to make it more certain and more illustrious, is likely to last as long as mankind have the feelings of mortality.

As illustrations of the popularity of this poem, we may cite two historical incidents that will be interesting and acceptable to the reader.

On the night of September 13, 1759,—the night before the capture of Quebec by the English,—as the boats were floating down the river to the appointed landing, under cover of the night, and in the stillness of a silence constrained on pain of death, Gen. Wolfe, just arisen from a bed of sickness, harassed with the anxieties of a protracted yet fruitless campaign, and his mind filled with the present hazard, slowly and softly repeated its soothing lines; and he added to the officers around him, “Now, gentlemen, I would prefer being the author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to-morrow.”

On the night of October 23, 1852,—the night before Daniel Webster’s death,—the great statesman, having already been informed by his medical attendant that nothing further could be done, except to render his last hours more quiet, said, somewhat indistinctly, the words, “Poetry, poetry,—Gray, Gray!” His son repeated the opening line of the Elegy, and Mr. Webster said, “That is it! that is it!” The volume was brought, and several stanzas of the poem were read to him, which gave him evident pleasure.

Among the many who have sought notoriety by pinning themselves to the skirts of Gray is a Mr. Edwards, author of _The Canons of Criticism_. This gentleman, though a bachelor, was more attentive to the fair sex than the pindaric Elegist, and, thinking there was a defect in the immortal poem that should be supplied, wrote the following creditable stanzas, which remind one of _Maud Muller_, to be introduced immediately after “some Cromwell guiltless,” &c.

Some lovely fair, whose unaffected charms
Shone forth, attraction in herself unknown,
Whose beauty might have blest a monarch’s arms,
And virtue cast a lustre on a throne.

That humble beauty warmed an honest heart
And cheered the labors of a faithful spouse;
That virtue formed for every decent part
The healthful offspring that adorned their house.

The following beautiful imitation, by an American poet, is the best that has ever been offered to supply another remarkable deficiency,—the absence of such reflections on the sublime truths and inspiring hopes of Christianity as the scene would naturally awaken in a pious mind. With the exception of two or three somewhat equivocal expressions, Gray says scarcely a word which might not have been said by any one who believed that death is an eternal sleep, and who was disposed to regard the humble tenants of those tombs as indeed “each in his narrow cell _forever_ laid.” A supplement according so well with the Elegy, both in elevation of sentiment and force of diction, as the following, might appropriately have followed the stanza,—

“Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife.”

No airy dreams their simple fancies fired,
No thirst for wealth, nor panting after fame;
But truth divine sublimer hopes inspired,
And urged them onward to a nobler aim.

From every cottage, with the day, arose
The hallowed voice of spirit-breathing prayer;
And artless anthems, at its peaceful close,
Like holy incense, charmed the evening air.

Though they, each tome of human lore unknown,
The brilliant path of science never trod,
The sacred volume claimed their hearts alone,
Which taught the way to glory and to God.

Here they from truth’s eternal fountain drew
The pure and gladdening waters, day by day;
Learned, since our days are evil, fleet, and few,
To walk in Wisdom’s bright and peaceful way.

In yon lone pile o’er which hath sternly passed
The heavy hand of all-destroying Time,
Through whose low mouldering aisles now sigh the blest,
And round whose altars grass and ivy climb,

They gladly thronged, their grateful hymns to raise,
Oft as the calm and holy Sabbath shone;
The mingled tribute of their prayers and praise
In sweet communion rose before the throne.

Here, from those honored lips which sacred fire
From Heaven’s high chancery hath touched, they hear
Truths which their zeal inflame, their hopes inspire,
Give wings to faith, and check affliction’s tear.

When life flowed by, and, like an angel, Death
Came to release them to the world on high,
Praise trembled still on each expiring breath,
And holy triumph beamed from every eye.

Then gentle hands their “dust to dust” consign;
With quiet tears, the simple rites are said,
And here they sleep, till at the trump divine
The earth and ocean render up their dead.

SCENE FROM THE PARTING INTERVIEW OF HECTOR AND ANDROMACHE.

From the manuscript of Pope’s translation of Homer’s Iliad we select a passage, with its alterations and emendations, characteristic, like those of the foregoing, of the taste and precision of the author. It is interesting to note the variety of epithets, the imperfect idea, the gradual embellishment, and the critical erasures. But in their contemplation, rather than say, with Waller,—

Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot,

we should feel with Dr. Johnson, who remarked, upon examining the MSS. of Milton, that “such relics show how excellence is acquired: what we hope ever to do with ease we must learn first to do with diligence.” Johnson himself employed the _limæ laborem_ on _The Rambler_ to an extent almost incredible, and, according to Boswell, unknown in the annals of literature.

Dr. Nash remarks that it is more difficult, and requires a greater mastery of art, in painting to foreshorten a figure exactly than to draw three at their just length; so it is more difficult in writing, to express any thing naturally and briefly than to enlarge and dilate.

And therefore a judicious author’s blots
Are more ingenious than his first free thoughts.

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
_Extends his eager arms to embrace his boy_,
lovely
Stretched his fond arms to seize the _beauteous_ boy;
babe
The _boy_ clung crying to his nurse’s breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.
each _kind_
With silent pleasure _the_ fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child.
The glittering terrors unbound,
_His radiant helmet_ from his brows _unbraced_,
on the ground he
_And on the ground the glittering terror placed_,
beamy
And placed the _radiant_ helmet on the ground;
_Then seized the boy, and raising him in air_,
lifting
Then, _fondling_ in his arms his infant heir,
_dancing_
Thus to the gods addressed a father’s prayer:
glory fills
O thou, whose _thunder shakes_ th’ ethereal throne,
deathless
And all ye _other_ powers, protect my son!
_Like mine, this war, blooming youth with every virtue bless!_
_grace_
_The shield and glory of the Trojan race;
Like mine, his valor and his just renown,
Like mine, his labors to defend the crown._
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
the Trojans,
To guard _my country_, to defend the crown;
_In arms like me, his country’s war to wage_,
Against his country’s foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
successful
So when, triumphant from _the glorious_ toils,
Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may
_All Troy shall_ hail him, with deserved acclaim,
own the son
And _cry, This chief_ transcends his father’s fame;
While, pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.
fondly on her
He said, and, gazing _o’er his consort’s charms_,
Restored his infant to her longing arms:
on
Soft _in_ her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
_Pressed to her heart_, and with a smile surveyed;
to repose
Hushed _him to rest_, and with a smile surveyed;
_passion_
But soon the troubled pleasure _mixed with rising fears_
dashed with fear,
The tender pleasure soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with the smile a tender tear.

In the established text will be found still further variations. These are marked below in Italics:—

Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy
Stretched his fond arms to _clasp_ the lovely boy.
The babe clung crying to his nurse’s breast,
Scared at the dazzling helm and nodding crest.
With _secret_ pleasure each fond parent smiled,
And Hector hasted to relieve his child.
The glittering terrors from his brows unbound,
And placed the _beaming_ helmet on the ground;
_Then kissed the child_, and lifting high in air,
Thus to the gods _preferred_ a father’s prayer:—

O thou, whose glory fills th’ ethereal throne,
And all ye deathless powers, protect my son!
Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown,
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown;
Against his country’s foes the war to wage,
And rise the Hector of the future age!
So when, triumphant from successful toils,
Of heroes slain, he bears the reeking spoils,
Whole hosts may hail him, with deserved acclaim,
And _say, This chief_ transcends his father’s fame;
While, pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy,
His mother’s conscious heart o’erflows with joy.

He _spoke_, and, fondly gazing on her charms,
Restored _the pleasing burden to her arms_:
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid,
Hushed to repose, and with a smile surveyed.
The _troubled pleasure_ soon chastised by fear,
She mingled with the smile a tender tear.

POPE’S VERSIFICATION.

The mechanical structure of Pope’s verses may be shown by omitting dissyllabic qualifying words, which are comparatively unimportant, and converting a ten-syllable into an eight-syllable metre, as in the following examples. First read the full text as in the original, and then read with the words in brackets omitted:—

Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the [direful] spring
Of woes unnumbered, [Heavenly] Goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s [gloomy] reign
The souls of [mighty] chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the [naked] shore,
Devouring dogs and [hungry] vultures tore—

Now turn from the _Iliad_ to the _Rape of the Lock_:—

And now [unveiled] the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in [mystic] order laid.
A [heavenly] image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, [to that] her eyes she rears;
The [inferior] priestess at her altar’s side,
[Trembling] begins the sacred rights of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope [at once], and here
The [varied] offerings of the world appear.
From each she nicely culls with [curious] toil,
And decks the goddess with the [glittering] spoil.

IMPORTANCE OF PUNCTUATION.

The following passage occurs in Marlowe’s _Edward II._:—

_Mortimer Jun._—This letter written by a friend of ours,
Contains his death, yet bids them save his life.
_Edwardum occidere nolite timere, bonum est._
Fear not to kill the king, ’tis good he die.
But read it thus, and that’s another sense:
_Edwardum occidere nolite, timere bonum est._
Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.
Unpointed as it is, thus shall it go, &c.

Mr. Collier appends the following note:—