George Sackville, and Sir Philip Francis.
Pamphlets and books have been written by hundreds upon this question of
authorship, and it is not yet by any means definitely settled. The
concurrence of the most intelligent investigators is in favor of Sir
Philip Francis, because of the handwriting being like his, but slightly
disguised; because he and Junius were alike intimate with the government
workings in the state department and in the war department, and took notes
of speeches in the House of Lords; because the letters came to an end just
before Francis was sent to India; and because, indecisive as these claims
are, they are stronger than those of any other suspected author. Macaulay
adds to these: "One of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis
was Junius is the _moral_ resemblance between the two men."

It is interesting to notice that the ministry engaged Dr. Johnson to
answer the _forty-second_ letter, in which the king is especially
arraigned. Johnson's answer, published in 1771, is entitled _Thoughts on
the Late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands_. Of Junius he says:
"He cries havoc without reserve, and endeavors to let slip the dogs of
foreign and civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and careless what
maybe their prey." "It is not hard to be sarcastic in a mask; while he
walks like Jack the giant-killer, in a coat of darkness, he may do much
mischief with little strength." "Junius is an unusual phenomenon, on which
some have gazed with wonder and some with terror; but wonder and terror
are transitory passions. He will soon be more closely viewed, or more
attentively examined, and what folly has taken for a comet, that from its
flaming hair shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be only a
meteor formed by the vapors of putrefying democracy, and kindled into
flame by the effervescence of interest struggling with conviction, which,
after having plunged its followers into a bog, will leave us inquiring why
we regarded it."

Whatever the moral effect of the writings of Junius, as exhibited by
silent influence in the lapse of years, the schemes he proposed and the
party he championed alike failed of success. His farewell letter to
Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1773. In that letter he declared
that "he must be an idiot to write again; that he had meant well by the
cause and the public; that both were given up; that there were not ten men
who would act steadily together on any q