d Sir William
Draper with doing--had been the author of "Junius." But here lay the
perplexity of the matter. At the least five-and-twenty excellent men
proved by posthumous friends that they, every mother's son of them, had
also perpetrated "Junius."' 'Then they were liars,' I answered. 'Oh no,
my right friend,' he interrupted, 'not liars at all; amiable men, some
of whom confessed on their death-beds (three to my certain knowledge)
that, alas! they had erred against the law of charity. "_But how?_" said
the clergyman. "Why, by that infernal magazine of sneers and all
uncharitableness, the 'Letters of Junius.'" "Let me understand you,"
said the clergyman: "you wrote 'Junius'?" "Alas! I did," replied A. Two
years after another clergyman said to another penitent, "And so you
wrote 'Junius'?" "Too true, my dear sir. Alas! I did," replied B. One
year later a third penitent was going off, and upon the clergyman
saying, "Bless me, is it possible? Did _you_ write 'Junius'?" he
replied, "Ah, worshipful sir, you touch a painful chord in my
remembrances--I now wish I had not. Alas! reverend sir, I did." Now, you
see,' went on my friend, 'so many men at the New Drop, as you may say,
having with tears and groans taxed themselves with "Junius" as the
climax of their offences, one begins to think that perhaps _all_ men
wrote "Junius."' Well, so far there was reason. But when my friend
contended also that the proofs arrayed in pamphlets proved the whole
alphabet to have written 'Junius,' I could not stand his absurdities.
Death-bed confessions, I admitted, were strong. But as to these wretched
pamphlets, some time or other I will muster them all for a field-day; I
will brigade them, as if the general of the district were coming to
review them; and then, if I do not mow them down to the last man by
opening a treacherous battery of grape-shot, may all my household die
under a fiercer Junius! The true reasons why any man fancies that
'Junius' is an open question must be these three:

First, that they have never read the proofs arrayed against Sir Philip
Francis; this is the general case.

Secondly, that, according to Sancho's proverb, they want better bread
than is made of wheat. They are not content with proofs or absolute
demonstrations. They require you, like the witch of Endor, to raise Sir
Philip from the grave, that they may cross-examine him.

Thirdly (and this is the fault of the able writer who unmasked Sir
Philip), there hap