is driven into the lists, to be expelled by the champion, Sir P. Francis.

1819. "A refutation on the claims preferred for Sir P. Francis and Mr. Gibbon."

1822. The delightful "Reminiscences of Charles Butler " appeared. The Octogenarian maintains that Lord Sackville was Junius, and Sir P. Francis his amanuensis.

1825. Mr. George Coventry's "Critical Inquiry proving the Letters of Junius to have been written by Lord Sackville."

1826. "Mr. Burke proved to be Junius."

1827. "The claims of Sir P. Francis disproved. Inquiries into the claims of Charles Lloyd. Observations on the character of Burke, &c. by E. H. Barker, Esq." This work contains a mass of curious information on this question.

1830. A discussion on the subject of Lord Temple's being the writer of the

Letters.

1831. "An attempt to prove that Lord Chatham was Junius."

1833. "Junius Lord Chatham, and the Miscellaneous Letters,' proved to be spurious."

1838. From Mr. Green's "Diary of a Lover of Literature," December 2, 1812, "Called at Row's-Gibson there. He conjectured Junius to be Lord G. Sackville. I suggested Lord Chatham."

"The conjectures have been extended by the present Sir Charles Grey to Horace Walpole." Editor of Gent. Magazine.

1840. In the number for this present month of March there is a Review of "Lord Brougham's Historical Sketches of Statesmen." Mr. Urban remarks, "Sir J. Mackintosh came, after careful inquiries, to the conclusion that whoever was the author of these Letters, he was connected with the Grenville party, but we know also

that the late Mr. Windham always suspected Gibbon to be the author; "Wilkes threw his suspicions on Butler, Bishop of Hereford, and Dr. S. Parr was positive (according to his usual disposition) that Mr. Lloyd was the man in the iron mask."

From this general review of the subject, so far as it is noticed in the Gentleman's Magazine, it appears that few attempts had been made to discover who was the writer of the Letters of Junius, prior to the publication of the "Miscellaneous Letters," and it is as undeniably true that every work written after the year 1812, rested the pretensions of the claimant, mainly, if not entirely, on the facts, arguments, opinions, and assertions, to be found in the "Miscellaneous Letters."

It is not necessary for me to enter into the question of the authenticity of those Letters; my opinions have been for many years before the public. I may, however, be permitted to produce the admissions of other public writers in their favour, and they may be entitled to particular attention.

The Editors of the "Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham," observe in a note, vol. iii. p. 305,—“ This panegyric on Lord Chatham adds considerable weight to an opinion entertained by many persons, namely, that some of the Miscellaneous Letters, inserted in Woodfall's edition of Junius, are erroneously attributed to that distinguished writer." It would have been more satisfactory if the Editors of this note had stated where the recorded opinions of many persons could be referred to. However little merit there may be in having proved the Miscellaneous Letters spurious and worthless, yet I cannot tacitly permit any one to claim that little honour to which I consider myself fairly entitled.* But to proceed. My object is to bring the

question of the presumed authenticity of the Miscellaneous Letters distinctly before the public, and through the medium of the Gentleman's Magazine.

To elucidate this question, we must search for our arguments and inferences in the text as written by Junius. All others are fallacious, untenable, and absurd. Guided in our judgment by such correct data, how shall we designate the productions of Mr. Taylor, Mr. Coventry, &c. when it is an acknowledged fact that the spurious Letters were considered by those gentleman as the genuine productions of the pen of Junius? If the Miscellaneous Letters had not had an existence, even the hypothesis by Mr. Taylor in favour of Sir Philip Francis could not have been formed. Such an investigation, conducted on logical principles and just inferences, may not indeed enable us to detect the writer of the Letters of Junius, yet it will most assuredly allow us to devote our unbiased faculties and our energies in its elucidation, and narrow the circle in which future researches must be carried. In the third and fourth volumes of the "Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham," there are two private Letters addressed by Junius to Lord Chatham. The discovery of the existence of these two letters, appears at variance with the claim I have endeavoured to substantiate in favour of that nobleman. I am not, however, convinced that my conjectures are erroneous, and, with your permission, Mr. Urban, I will in some early number of your Magazine state the reasons which influence me in the belief, that two unpublished private letters written by the unknown Junius to Lord Chatham, are not an insuperable objection, to the opinion which I hold, that Lord Chatham was Junius. I will conclude this long, yet I hope not uninteresting letter with an extract from one which I received in November 1830, from the "Reminiscent," the late Mr. Charles Butler:

"I believe the most probable account of the recent reports respecting the discoveries at Stowe, is, that a Letter was found in the family papers, subscribed with the name of Junius, and ascertained to be in the handwriting of a person known to the family." I will not indulge in a com

mentary on this interesting fact. With a few short extracts from my pamphlet of 1833, I will finally close this communication. The family papers of the Earl of Chatham were bequeathed by him in trust to Lady Chatham, Richard Earl Temple, and Charles Lord Camden." Now, bearing in mind that Lord Temple and Lady Chatham were in the relationship of brother and sister to George Grenville, and of uncle and aunt to the Marquess of Buckingham, it will not require a great stretch of imagination to conceive, 66 that the Duke of Buckingham had from certain documents found in his archives (at Stowe) discovered who really was the author of the Letters of Junius." "The Stowe archives are kept as a sealed book, and no ordinary inducements will ever lead the Grenvilles, the Buckinghams, Temples, or Chathams of this generation to break the seal of se.. crecy."

Yours, &c. JOHN SWINden.

yet this partition, from the style and character of the pannels, appears to have been added so early as the reign of Henry VIII. The doors to the buttery hatch, &c. may still be traced on the wall of the passage.

J. A. R.

Note. We are inclined to conclude, that the tradition alluded to by our correspondent, has originated entirely from a remembrance of King Richard's well-known heraldic supporter, but that he had nothing at all to do with this Chelmsford boar. There can be no question that the insignia before us belong to the family of Vere, Earl of Oxford. In the Catalogue of Badges and Crests, temp. Hen. VIII. in the Collectanea Topog. et Genealog. vol. iii. p. 73, we find

TH' ERLL OF OXFORDES Crest. On a chapeau Gules, turned up Ermine, a boar statant Azure, armed, &c. Or.

These colours agree with the example before us, and at p. 66 we find the Earl's badge was a mullet, but it was of silver, and not red as above exhibited. This badge was taken from the coat of Vere, Quarterly gules and or, in the first quarter a mullet argent.

It is well known that the county of Essex was the principal locality of the Vere estates, and that their great manor and burial place was at Earl's Colne in this county. John Earl of Oxford, who died in 1512, possessed the manor of Culverts, in the parish of Boreham, adjoining Chelmsford, by grant from Henry VII. (Morant, vol. ii. p. 13.)

We think there can be no doubt

that the Black Boy belonged either to the Earl of Oxford, as a provincial town house or hostelry, or to one of his principal friends and adherents, who might display the heraldic insig. nia of his lord.-EDIT.

MR. URBAN, Cork, March 8. THE observations with which Mr. Hallam has honoured my notice of his History of Literature, "in reference to the authority of the Council of Trent," neither do, nor are meant to arraign my assertion of the unreserved and declared submission of the Roman Catholic Church, as represented by her clergy, in every part of the world, to the doctrinal decrees of that council, which on the contrary they affirm and recognize; while the distinguished writer owns that, as applicable to the Gallican Church, his expressions "may have conveyed something less than the truth to the mind of a reader unacquainted with the subject." So it struck me; and this was the impelling motive of my late appeal to your columns; for, as the greater portion of readers must be presumed little familiar with the topic, I wished not that the shadow of a doubt should obscure the truth; and the more eminent is Mr. Hallam's name for general impartiality on controverted questions, the more anxious I was, that his high authority should not appear to countenance the doubt deducible from his language. If I did not introduce into my extract from his paragraph the words of which he marks the omission, he must have perceived that I gave him, in the preceding sentence, full credit for their import, in stating that, “with a knowledge and impartiality far superior to most of our English writers, he was, in general, careful to separate the obligatory canons of doctrine from the local regulations of discipline." But an exception to this rare merit occurred, and that, too, on a momentous point, which I could not suffer to elapse unnoticed.

Mr. Hallam's transcript from De Thou in relation to the Emperor Ferdinand's recurrence to George Cassander, with a view to reconcile the Augsburg Confession and the Tridentine decrees, rather sanctions, it will be found, my prevision of its purport. Ferdinand's solicitude for the accom

plishment of so desirable an object was perfectly legitimate and laudable, and not less so that he should consult an able and moderate theologian on the means of success; as the matter was, of course, beyond his own competence of judgment. He was disappointed

that the Council had not effected its destined purpose of conciliation, and was anxious to learn whether any hope of achieving that end still existed; but it could not be, in his intention, by the surrender of any essential tenet of faith, of which his own declaration, quoted by me from Ranke, deprecates all discussion. We may also assume that the disregard manifested for the imperial mandates emanating from himself and his renowned predecessor, must have been a source of irritation. Sovereigns naturally behold with jealousy what is independent of their control, or counteracts their will, as religion generally does, though certainly less so in England, at least during the early periods of the Reformation, than elsewhere; for there, as Mr. Hallam has remarked in his Constitutional History (vol. i. p. 140, Paris edition) "Henry, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth found an almost equal compliance with the varying schemes of faith," as if to verify the old observation, that reform is never right at first. In Germany, however, the edicts of Charles and Ferdinand fell powerless on the popular conscience, which probably in England would now, likewise, be less tractable. The effect of this resistance to the ruling authority on the unenduring pride of Napoleon, is expressed with such energy and point in the "Report of the Deliberations of his Council of State," that I cannot forbear, and I trust, will be excused for citing his words. They were uttered in consequence of the bull of excommunication fulminated in 1809 by Pius the Seventh against the mighty conqueror, in which the unsubdued Pontiff emphatically asserted for the Holy See, as John Knox did for his order, "a sovereignty far more noble than the imperial sway, unless, he adds, it be contended that the body is superior to the soul, and the interests of the earth above those of heaven." Upon which the Emperor exclaimed,

Voyez l'insolence des prêtres... qui se réservent l'action sur l'intelligence

... ils gardent l'âme et me jettent le cadavre." And, on another occasion, when made conscious of the impossibility of reducing religion to the passive subserviency of civil rule, he observed, with equally vivid illustration, "Je cherche en vain où placer la limite entre l'autorité civile et l'autorité réligieuse. J'ai beau regarder, je ne vois que des nuages. Le gouvernement civil condamne à mort un criminel; le prêtre lui donne l'absolution, et lui promet le paradis." And our own criminal records daily confirm this contrasted jurisdiction. (See Thibeaudeau, and Pelet de la Lozère, now minister of finance, "Sur le Conseil d'Etat," and Bignon, tome viii. p. 269, 281.)

Ferdinand's consultation with Cassander, I may add, produced no practical fruit; nor was the subject pursued after the death of the Emperor and divine, which almost immediately ensued; and altogether, indeed, the circumstance was scarcely entitled to the importance attached to it by Mr. Hallam. Similar and more serious efforts of posterior date have been equally impotent of effect; nor could it be otherwise, where one party cannot and the other will not, yield, while both, under different forms, lay claim alike to inerrability. The most celebrated of these essays of union was that at the close of the seventeenth century, which is detailed, at ample length, by Cardinal Beausset in his Life of Bossuet, (livre xii.) when Leibnitz proposed as a basis, or protocole, of negotiation, that the Council of Trent should be wholly set aside, (comme non-avenu) which, of course, it was impossible for Bossuet to grant. But that great prelate and Cassander were differently constituted; and the latter, it is well known, like Melancthon among the protestants, fell under the imputation of carrying his pacific character to the verge of latitudinarian indifference. Many an attack, we learn from Mosheim (vol. iv.) was directed against the mild reformer, under the title of De Indifferentismo Melancthonis, which, in truth, would appear to derive some support from the advice he gave his mother, a Catholic, when consulted by her in 1529, on the controversies of the day, to continue to believe and pray as she had hitherto done. Ut pergeret hoc credere et orare quod credidisset

et orasset hactenus, nec pateretur se turbari conflictibus disputationum,' says Melchior Adam, a professor at Heidelberg. (Vitæ Theologorum, in Opp. tom. i. Frank. 1706 and Boyle, art. Melancthon.)

Since I last addressed you, I have read more at leisure, than circumstances had then permitted me to do, Mr. Hallam's volumes; and the perusal has, if possible, enhanced my admiration of the erudition they evince, and the spirit in which that erudition is applied to the illustration of his subject. It likewise suggested some additional remarks, but with which I shall not now encumber your pages, though you will allow me, I hope, to mark a few necessary corrections in my own article, arising, I am quite aware, from my indistinct writing.

At p. 146, line 46, for considerable read inconsiderable; pages 250 and 255, Boyle, read Bayle; page 255, second column, line 28, a new sentence should begin after the word books; page 256, first column, line 28, for intolerable read intolerant, and same page, second column, at bottom, after published, add by.

MR. URBAN,

Yours, &c. J. R.

AS you have admitted many long papers from "J. R.," including in almost every division an apology for the doctrines and practices of the modern Church of Rome, you will not decline, I hope, the insertion of a short correction of his delusive statements, as regards Bossuet's noted Exposition, sometimes put forward as an authorised announcement (which it was not) of the doctrines of the Latin sect.

"Mons. de Meaux's Exposition of the Doctrine of the [Roman] Catholic Church, which is here so much extolled, was a greater misrepresentation of genuine Popery than the Reformed writers had ever drawn of her; it was but the occasional accommodation of the tenets of the Gallican Church to the scruples of the poor affrighted Huguenots, many of whom were more than half-proselyted before by the terror of Royal Edicts and the threats of a dragonade. So far was this work of his from being a full refutation of the falsehoods and prevarications of weak Protestants, that he was in such a haste to