the contrary opinion. Under these circumstances, we are
required to believe an anonymous story, which runs counter to all evidence,
that we may superadd an absurdity.

Mr. Pickering further referred to Mr. Raphael West, as one who "could tell
much on the subject." Here AEGROTUS enlarges on the original, and tells us
what this "much" consisted of. The story, professedly told by Benjamin
West, about Maclean and Junius, on which Sir David Brewster founded his
theory, may be found in Galt's _Life of West_. But Galt himself, in his
subsequent autobiography, admits that the story told by West "does not
relate the actual circumstances of the case correctly;" that is to say,
Galt had found out, in the interval, that it was open to contradiction and
disproof, and it has since been disproved in the _Athenaeum_. So much for a
story discredited by the narrator himself. Of these facts AEGROTUS is
entirely ignorant, and therefore proceeds by the following extraordinary
circumstantialities to uphold it. "The late President of the Royal Academy
knew Maclean; and his son, the late Raphael West, _told the writer of these
remarks_ [AEGROTUS himself] that _when a young man_ he had seen him
[Maclean] in the evening at his father's house in Newman Street, and _once
heard him repeat a passage in one of the letters which was not then
published_;" and AEGROTUS adds, "a more correct and veracious man than Mr.
R. West could not be." So be it. Still it is strange that the President,
who was said to have told his anecdote expressly to show that Maclean was
Junius, never thought to confirm it by the conclusive proof of having read
the letters before they were published! Further,--and we leave the question
of extreme accuracy and _veraciousness_ to be settled by AEGROTUS,--the
President West was born in 1738; he embarked from America for Italy in
1759; on his return he visited England in 1763, and such was the patronage
with which he was welcomed, that his friends recommended him to take up his
residence in London. This he was willing to do, provided a young American
lady to whom he was attached would come to England. She consented; his
father accompanied her, and they were married on the 2nd of September,
1765, at St. Martin's Church. Now Maclean embarked for India in December,
1773, or January, 1774, and was lost at sea, when "the young man," Master
Raphael, could not have been more than seven years of age,--nay, to speak
by the card, as Master Raph