communicated to a friend the important secret that he was the author of these celebrated letters; but, whether Lee ever made such a communication or not, nothing is more palpable than that he did not write them-since it is a notorious fact, that during the whole, or nearly the whole of the period in which they successively appeared, this officer was on the continent of Europe, travelling from place to place, and occupying the whole of his time in very different pursuits.

The friend to whom this communication is said to have been made, is a Mr. T. Rodney, who declares as follows in a communication inserted in the above-mentioned American periodical work.

"In the fall of 1773, not long after General Lee had arrived in America, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon in his company, when there was no other person present. Our conversation chiefly turned on politics, and was mutually free and open. Among other things, the Letters of JUNIUS were mentioned, and General Lee asked me, who was conjectured to be the author of these letters. I replied, our conjectures here generally followed those started in England; but for myself, I concluded, from the spirit, style, patriotism, and political information which they displayed, that Lord Chatham was the author; and yet there were some sentiments there that indicated his not being the author. General Lee immediately replied, with considerable animation, affirming, that to his certain knowledge, Lord Chatham was not the author; neither did he know who the author was, any more than I did; that there was not a man in the world, no, not even Woodfall, the publisher, that knew who the author was; that the secret rested solely with himself, and for ever would remain with him.

"Feeling, in some degree, surprised at this unexpected declaration, after pausing a little, I replied: 'No, General Lee, if you certainly know what you have affirmed, it can no longer remain solely with him; for, certainly, no one could know what you have affirmed but the author himself!'

"Recollecting himself, he replied: 'I have unguardedly. committed myself, and it would be but folly to deny to you that I am the author; but I must request that you will not reveal it during my life; for it never was, nor never will be revealed by me to any other.' He then proceeded to mention several circumstances to verify his being the author; and, among them, that of his going over to the Continent, and absenting himself from England most of the time in which these Letters were first published in London, &c. &c. This he thought necessary, lest, by some accident, the author should become known, or at least suspected, which might have been his ruin, had he been known to the court of London, &c."

The account from which we have made this extract was reprinted in the St. James's Chronicle for April 16, 1803, which the editor prefaces by observing, "Of Mr. Rodney, or of the degree of credit that may reasonably be attached to his declaration, we know nothing; but the subject is so curious, that we think our readers will not be averse from having their attention once more drawn to it."

The public do not in any degree appear to have been influenced either by General Lee's pretended assertion, or Mr. Rodney's positive declaration: and this claim had totally died away like the rest, when in 1807 it was revived by Dr. Girdlestone of Yarmouth, Norfolk, who endeavoured to establish General Lee's pretensions by a comparison of Rodney's statement with Mr. Langworthy's memoirs of the general's life, in a pamphlet published anonymously, under the title of "Reasons for rejecting the presumptive evidence of Mr. Almon, that Mr. Hugh Boyd was the writer of JUNIUS, with passages selected to prove the real author of the Letters of JUNIUS." And in consequence of this revival of Mr. Lee's claim, the editor feels himself called upon to examine its foundation somewhat more in detail.

The passages selected are in no respect convincing to his mind, and do not appear to have been so to that of the public. But without entering upon so disputable a question as that of a superiority of literary taste, it will be sufficient to remark that the great distance of General Lee from England during the period in which the Letters of JUNIUS were published, together with the different line of politics which he pursued, render it impossible that Lee could have been the author of these letters.

The correspondence of General Lee previous to his quitting England for America, in August, 1773, as published by Mr. Langworthy in the memoirs of his life, and adverted to in Dr. Girdlestone's pamphlet, extend through a period of about thirteen months, from Dec. 1, 1766, to Jan. 19, 1768, and give us the following dates.

The dates of the letters written by JUNIUS under his occa

May 28.

The same in answer to a letter of Sir Wil

31.

No signature, in answer to a letter of
Oct. 27.

Dec. 5. Y. Z. on the King's speech, on opening the parliament Nov. 24, 1767: the receipt of which will be found acknowledged by the printer in his usual method among the "answers to correspondents," Nov. 30.

19. No signature, on the subject of American politics.

22. Downright.

It is only necessary for the reader to compare these two lists of dates, and places; as for example, London, and Warsaw, or Kamineck, during the two months of May and August, and to observe the rapidity with which the Letters of JUNIUS were furnished, in answer to the different subjects discussed, to obtain a full proof that the latter list of letters could not have been written by the author of the former.

These remarks however relate only to the year 1767. Let us see how the account stands for 1769, being the year in which the author first appeared before the public under his favourite signature (with the single exception of Miscellaneous Letter, No. LII.) It is difficult to ascertain exactly at what places General Lee was residing during this period. Langworthy's memoirs abound with erroneous dates, which are not material however to the present question. The only : serviceable hint that can be collected from them is, that he was rambling somewhere or other abroad, and "could never stay long in one place:" to which the editor adds, "that we can collect nothing material relative to the adventures of his travels, as his memorandum books only mention the names of the towns and cities through which he passed. That he was a most rapid and very active traveller is certain," p. 8. The account furnished by Rodney confirms this statement, by telling us, "He then proceeded to mention several circumstances to verify his being the author; and, among them, that of his going over to the continent, and absenting himself from England most of the time in which these letters were first published in London, &c. &c. This he thought necessary, lest, by some accident, the author

should become known, or, at least, suspected, which might have been his ruin, had he been known to the Court of London, &c."

It is clear, therefore, that during the whole or the greater part of 1769, General Lee was rambling over the continent; and of course had no possibility of keeping up a very close correspondence with any person at home. Yet the following table of the Letters of JUNIUS, written either under his favourite or occasional signatures, or privately to Mr. Woodfall, will shew that in the course of this very year, the author maintained not less than fifty-four communications with Mr. Woodfall: that not a single month passed without one or more acts of intercourse: that some of them had not less than seven, and many of them not less than six, at times directed to events that had occurred only a few days antecedently: that the two most distant communications were not more than three weeks apart, that several of them were daily, and the greater number of them not more than a week from each other.

There is but one conclusion that can be drawn from a

perusal of this table: which is, that the writer of the letters of which it forms a diary, could not have been travelling