e with this, that no
seizure could be made. I do not know what the reference means; perhaps some
of your legal correspondents may do so.

JAYTEE.

* * * * *

MACLEAN NOT JUNIUS.

(Vol. iii., p. 378.)

Your correspondent AEGROTUS (_ante_, p. 378.) is not justified in writing
so confidently on a subject respecting which he is so little informed. He
is evidently not even aware that the claims of Maclean have been ably and
elaborately set forth by Sir David Brewster, and, as I think, conclusively,
on the evidence, set aside in the _Athenaeum_. He has, however, been
pleased to new vamp some old stories, to which he gives something of
novelty by telling them "with a difference." I remember, indeed, four or
five years since, to have seen a letter on this subject, written by Mr.
Pickering, the bookseller, to the late Sir Harris Nicolas, in which the
same statements were made, supported by the same authorities,--which, in
fact, corresponded so exactly with the communication of AEGROTUS, that I
must believe either that your correspondent has seen that letter, or that
both writers had their information from a common story-teller.

Respecting the "vellum-bound copy" locked up in the ebony cabinet in
possession of the late Marquis of Lansdowne, Mr. Pickering's version came
nearer to the authority; for he said, "_My informant saw_ the bound volumes
and the cabinet _when a boy_." The proof then rests on the recollection of
an Anonymous, who speaks positively as to what took place nearly half a
century since; and this anonymous boy, we are to believe, was already so
interested about Junius as to notice the fact at the time, and remember it
ever after. Against the probabilities of this we might urge, that the
present Marquis--who was born in 1780, and came to the title in 1809, is
probably as old, or older than Anonymous; as much interested in a question
believed by many persons, AEGROTUS amongst them, intimately to concern his
father, and quite as precocious, for he was Chancellor of the Exchequer in
1805--never saw or heard of either the volumes or the cabinet; and, as
AEGROTUS admits, after a search expressly made by his order, they could not
be found. Further, allow me to remind you, that it is not more than six
weeks since it was recorded in "NOTES AND QUERIES" that a "vellum-bound"
Junius was lately sold at Stowe; and it is about two months since I learnt,
on the same authority, that a Mr. Cram