The letters are of interest on three grounds--their political significance, their style, and the mystery which long surrounded their authorship. As political writings they possess no intrinsic value. Junius was wholly destitute of insight, and of the power to disentangle, define and advocate principles. The matter of his letters is always invective. He began by a general attack on the ministry for their personal immorality or meanness. An ill-judged defence of one of the body--the marquess of Granby, commander-in-chief--volunteered by Sir William Draper, gave him an easy victory over a vulnerable opponent. He then went on to pour acrimonious abuse on Grafton, on the duke of Bedford, on King George III. himself in the letter of the 19th of December 1769, and ended with a most malignant and ignorant assault on Lord Chief Justice Mansfield. Several of his accusations were shown to be unfounded. The practical effect of the letters was insignificant. They were noticed and talked about. They provoked anger and retorts. But the letter to the king aroused indignation, and though Grafton's administration fell in January 1770, it was succeeded by the long-lived cabinet of Lord North. Junius confessed himself beaten, in his private letter to Woodfall of the 19th of January 1773. He had materially contributed to his own defeat by his brutal violence. He sinned indeed in a large company. The employment of personal abuse had been habitual in English political controversy for generations, and in the 18th century there was a strong taste for satire. Latin literature, which was not only studied but imitated, supplied the inspiration and the models, in the satires of Juvenal, and the speeches of Cicero against Verres and Catiline. If, however, Junius was doing what others did, he did it better than anybody else--a fact which sufficiently explains his rapid popularity. His superiority lay in his style. Here also he was by no means original, and he was unequal. There are passages in his writings which can be best described in the words which Burke applied to another writer: "A mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once vapid and sour." But at his best Junius attains to a high degree of artificial elegance and vigour. He shows the influence of Bolingbroke, of Swift, and above all of Tacitus, who appears to have been his favourite author. The imitation is never slavish. Junius adapts, and does not only repeat. The white heat of his malignity animates the whole. No single sentence will show the quality of a style which produces its effect by persistence and repetition, but such a typical passage as follows displays at once the method and the spirit. It is taken from Letter XLIX. to the duke of Grafton, June 22, 1771:--