Note 539 — THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. BY QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS.

{513}[The Letters of Junius have been attributed to more than fifty authors. Among the more famous are the Duke of Portland, Lord George Sackville, Sir Philip Francis, Edmund Burke, John Dunning, Lord Ashburton, John Home Tooke, Hugh Boyd, George Chalmers, etc. Of Junius, Byron wrote, in his Journal of November 23, 1813, "I don't know what to think. Why should Junius be yet dead?.... the man must be alive, and will never die without the disclosure" (Letters, 1893, ii. 334); but an article (by Brougham) in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxix. p. 94, on The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character established (see Letters, 1900, iv. 210), seems to have almost persuaded him that "Francis is Junius." (For a résumé of the arguments in favour of the identity of Junius with Francis, see Mr. Leslie Stephen's article in the Dict. of Nat. Biography, art. "Francis." See, too, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, by W. E. H. Lecky, 1887, iii. 233-255. For a series of articles (by W. Fraser Rae) against this theory, see Athenæum, 1888, ii. 192, 258, 319. The question is still being debated. See The Francis Letters, with a note on the Junius Controversy, by C. F. Keary, 1901.)]