The more plausible of these claims, such as those made for Lord Temple and Lord George Sackville, could not stand the test of examination. Indeed after 1816 the question was not so much "Who wrote Junius?" as "Was Junius Sir Philip Francis, or some undiscoverable man?" In that year John Taylor was led by a careful study of Woodfall's edition of 1812 to publish The identity of Junius with a distinguished living character established, in which he claimed the letters for Sir Philip Francis. He had at first been inclined to attribute them to Sir Philip's father, Dr. Francis, the author of translations of Horace and Demosthenes. Taylor applied to Sir Philip, who did not die till 1818, for leave to publish, and received from him answers which to an unwary person might appear to constitute denials of the authorship, but were in fact evasions.
The reasons for believing that Sir Philip Francis (q.v.) was Junius are very strong. His evasions were only to be expected. Several of the men he attacked lived nearly as long as himself, the sons of others were conspicuous in society, and King George III. survived him. Sir Philip, who had held office, who had been decorated, and who in his later years was ambitious to obtain the governor-generalship of India, dared not confess that he was Junius. The similarity of his handwriting to the disguised hand used by the writer of the letters is very close. If Sir Philip Francis did, as his family maintain, address a copy of verses to a Miss Giles in the handwriting of Junius (and the evidence that he did is weighty) there can be little further question as to the identity of the two. The similarity of Junius and Francis in regard
to their opinions, their likes and dislikes, their knowledge and their known movements, amount, apart from the handwriting, almost to proof. It is certain that many felons have been con demned on circumstantial evidence less complete.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-The best edition of the Letters of Junius, properly so called, with the Miscellaneous Letters, is that of J. Ward (1854). The most valuable contributions to the controversy as to the author ship are: The Handwriting of Junius investigated by Charles Chabot, expert, with preface and collateral evidence by the Hon. E. Twisleton (1871) ; Memoirs of Sir Philip Francis, K.C.B., by Parkes and Merivale (1867) ; Junius Revealed by his Surviving Grandson, by H. R. Francis (1894) ; The Francis Letters, edit. by Beata Francis and Eliza Keary, with a note on the Junius controversy by C. F. Keary (1901) ; and "Francis, Sir Philip," by Sir Leslie Stephen, in Dict. of Nat. Biog. The case for those who decline to accept the claim of Sir Philip Francis is stated by C. W. Dilke, Papers of a Critic (1875) ; Abraham Hayward, More about Junius, Franciscan Theory Unsound (1868) ; and C. W. Everett, The Letters of Junius (1927), in which a claim is put in for Lord Shelburne. (D. H.; X.)