The pre-established harmony between Junius and his readers accounts for
the rapidity of his success, and for the importance attributed to him by
Burke and Johnson, far better writers than himself. Before 1772 there
appeared at least twelve unauthorized republications of his letters,
made by speculative printers. In that year he revised the collection
named "_Junius: Stat nominis umbra_," with a dedication to the English
people and a preface. Other independent editions followed in quick
succession. In 1801 one was published with annotations by Robert Heron.
In 1806 another appeared with notes by John Almon. The first new edition
of real importance was issued by the Woodfall family in 1812. It
contained the correspondence of Junius with H. S. Woodfall, a selection
of the miscellaneous letters attributed to Junius, facsimiles of his
handwriting, and notes by Dr Mason Good. Curiosity as to the mystery of
the authorship began to replace political and literary interest in the
writings. Junius himself had been early aware of the advantage he
secured by concealment. "The mystery of Junius increases his importance"
is his confession in a letter to Wilkes dated the 18th of September
1771. The calculation was a sound one. For two generations after the
appearance of the letter of the 21st of January 1769, speculations as to
the authorship of Junius were rife, and discussion had hardly ceased in
1910. Joseph Parkes, author with Herman Merivale of the _Memoirs of Sir
Philip Francis_ (1867), gives a list of more than forty persons who had
been supposed to be Junius. They are: Edmund Burke, Lord George
Sackville, Lord Chatham, Colonel Barré, Hugh Macaulay Boyd, Dr Butler,
John Wilkes, Lord Chesterfield, Henry Flood, William Burke, Gibbon, W.
E. Hamilton, Charles Lloyd, Charles Lee (general in the American War of
Independence), John Roberts, George Grenville, James Grenville, Lord
Temple, Duke of Portland, William Greatrakes, Richard Glover, Sir
William Jones, James Hollis, Laughlin Maclean, Philip Rosenhagen, Horne
Tooke, John Kent, Henry Grattan, Daniel Wray, Horace Walpole, Alexander
Wedderburn (Lord Loughborough), Dunning (Lord Ashburton), Lieut.-General
Sir R. Rich, Dr Philip Francis, a "junto" or committee of writers who
used a common name, De Lolme, Mrs Catherine Macaulay (1733-91), Sir
Philip Francis, Lord Littleton, Wolfram Cornwall and Gov. Thomas
Pownall. In the great majority of cases the attribution is based on
nothing more than a vague guess. Edmund Burke denied that he could have
written the letters of Junius if he would, or would have written them if
he could. Grattan pointed out that he was young when they appeared. More
plausible claims, such as those made for Lord Temple and Lord George
Sackville, could not stand the test of examination. Indeed after 1816
the question was not so much "Who wrote Junius?" as "Was Junius Sir
Philip Francis, or some undiscoverable man?" In that year John Taylor
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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