"But the usual lot of those who have identified themselves with any one public subject, rapidly overtook him. His temperament, his talents, and his knowledge, were all Indian. With the impeachment he was politically born, with it he lived, and when it withered away, his adventitious and local celebrity perished along with it. He clung to Fox for a few years after; but while the great leader of opposition found all his skill necessary to retain his party in existence, he was not likely to solicit a partisan at once so difficult to keep in order and to employ. The close of his ambitious and disappointed life was spent in ranging along the skirts of both parties, joining neither, and speaking his mind with easy, and perhaps sincere, scorn of both; reprobating the Whigs, during their brief reign, for their neglect of fancied promises; and equally reprobating the ministry, for their blindness to fancied pretensions. "But he was still to have a momentary respite for fame. While he was going down into that oblivion which rewards the labours of so many politicians; a pamphlet, ascribing Junius's letters to Sir Phillip, arrested his descent. Its arguments were plausible; and, for a while, opinion appeared to be in favour of the conjecture, notwithstanding a denial from the presumed Junius; which, however, had much the air of his feeling no strong dislike to being suspected of this new title to celebrity. But further examination extinguished the title; and left the secret, which had perplexed so many unravellers of literary webs, to perplex the grave idlers of generations to come. "Yet the true wonder is not the concealment; for a multitude of causes might have produced the continued necessity even after the death of the writer; but the feasibility with which the chief features of Junius may be fastened on almost every writer, of the crowd for whom claims have been laid to this dubious honour: while, in every instance, some discrepancy finally starts upon the eye, which excludes the claim.