p had asserted that vellum-bound
copies were so common, that the printer must have taken the Junius copy as
a pattern; so that, if AEGROTUS'S facts be admitted, they would prove
nothing. There is one circumstance, however, bearing on this question,
which perhaps AEGROTUS himself will think entitled to some weight. It was
not until 1812, when George Woodfall published the private letters of
Junius, that the public first heard about "a vellum-bound" copy. If
therefore the Anonymous knew before 1809 that some special interest did or
would attach more to one vellum-bound book than another, he must be Junius
himself; for Sampson Woodfall was dead, and when living had said nothing
about it.

AEGROTUS then favours us with the anecdote about "old Mr. Cox" the printer,
and that Maclean corrected the proofs of _Junius' Letters_ at his
printing-office. Of course, persons acquainted with the subject have heard
the story before, though not with all the circumstantialities now given.
Where, I might ask, is the authority for {412} this story? Who is
responsible for it? But the emphatic question which common sense will ask
is this: Why should Junius go to Mr. Cox's printing-office to correct his
proofs? Where he wrote the letters he might surely have corrected the
proofs. Why, after all his trouble, anxiety, and mystification to keep the
secret, should he needlessly go to anybody's printing-office to correct the
proofs, and thus wantonly risk the consequences?--in fact, go there and
betray himself, as we are expected to believe he did? The story is absurd,
on the face of it. But what authority has AEGROTUS for asserting that
Junius corrected proofs at all? Strong presumptive evidence leads me to
believe that he did not: in some instances he could not. In one instance he
specially desired to have a proof; but it was, as we now know, for the
purpose of forwarding it to Lord Chatham. Junius was also anxious to have
proofs of the Dedication and Preface, but it is by no means certain that he
had them; the evidence tends to show that they were, at Woodfall's request,
and to remove from his own shoulders the threatened responsibility, read by
Wilkes: and the collected edition was printed from Wheble's edition, so far
as it went, and the remainder from slips cut from the _Public Advertiser_,
both corrected by Junius; but we have no reason to believe that Junius ever
saw a proof, even of the collected edition,--many reasons that tend
strongly to