Junius (writer)

The latter deal with a variety of subjects, some of a purely personal nature, such as the alleged injustice of the Viscount Barrington, the secretary at war, to the officials of his department.

Grafton's administration had been formed in October 1768, when William Pitt the Elder was compelled by ill health to retire from office, and was a reconstruction of his cabinet of July 1766.

He communicated with Pitt, with George Grenville, with Wilkes (all opponents of the Duke of Grafton), and also with Henry Sampson Woodfall, printer and part owner of the Public Advertiser.

An ill-judged defence of John Manners, Marquess of Granby, the popular Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, by Sir William Draper gave Junius an easy victory over a vulnerable opponent with weak arguments.

The core of Junius' arguments were the arbitrary appointments made by Grafton, presumably to stay in favour with the Duke of Bedford and his party (also known as the Bedfordites or Bloomsbury Gang).

Junius was not a radical anti-royal Whig, as many texts suggest, though he did trouble himself with explaining to the public the real constitutional role of the royal prerogative, and (if engaged correctly) how it benefited the country.

Latin literature (such as the satires of Juvenal, and the speeches of Cicero against Verres and Catiline) was not only studied but imitated at that time, and supplied the inspiration for numerous writings.

No single sentence will show the quality of a style which produces its effect by persistence and repetition, but a typical passage as follows displays at once the method and the spirit.

It is taken from Letter XLIX to the Duke of Grafton, 22 June 1771:[3] "The profound respect I bear to the gracious prince who governs this country with no less honour to himself than satisfaction to his subjects, and who restores you to your rank under his standard, will save you from a multitude of reproaches.

The attention I should have paid to your failings is involuntarily attracted to the hand which rewards them; and though I am not so partial to the royal judgment as to affirm that the favour of a king can remove mountains of infamy, it serves to lessen at least, for undoubtedly it divides, the burden.

You will have a dangerous rival in that kind of fame to which you have hitherto so happily directed your ambition, as long as there is one man living who thinks you worthy of his confidence, and fit to be trusted with any share in his government.... With any other prince, the shameful desertion of him in the midst of that distress, which you alone had created, in the very crisis of danger, when he fancied he saw the throne already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities, would have outweighed the memory of your former services.

But his majesty is full of justice, and understands the doctrine of compensations; he remembers with gratitude how soon you had accommodated your morals to the necessities of his service, how cheerfully you had abandoned the engagements of private friendship, and renounced the most solemn professions to the public.

[3] Woodfall felt assured that when kings and ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their remotest consequences; this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be transmitted to posterity.The identity of Junius is open to question and debate, and may never be finally resolved unless documents are found which establish his identity.

The pseudonym was used as well by the great Italian economist Luigi Einaudi, who expressed his liberal beliefs in two series of letters signed 'Junius': the former published in 1920, the latter in 1944, while he was living as a refugee in Switzerland.

[5] Irish novelist James Joyce satirised the style of Junius in the 14th episode of his 1922 novel Ulysses, known as "Oxen of the Sun", which takes place in a maternity hospital.

The Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail has carried the following legend on its editorial or front page for many years: "The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.