natural festivity of Falstaff, and in all the gayer part was very inefficient.
From a slight specimen which Garrick gave of Falstaff when the Jubilee was represented at Drury Lane, Sir Joshua thinks he would have played it inimitably well, could he have sustained the continued effort during the whole part necessary for assuming the voice of a very fat man, &c. He had often thoughts of playing that character.
It has long been a question who was the author of the letters which appeared under the signature of Junius in 1769 and 1770. Many have ascribed them to Mr. Wm. Gerard Hamilton, who is certainly capable of having written them, but his style is very different. He would have had still more point than they exhibit, and certainly more Johnsonian energy.[1]
Besides, he has all his life been distinguished for political timidity and indecision. Neither would he, even under a mask, have entered into such decided warfare with many persons whom it might be necessary afterwards to have as colleagues. What is still more decisive, he could not have divested himself of the apprehension of a discovery, having long accustomed his mind to too refined a policy, and being very apt to suppose that many things are brought about by scheme and machination which are merely the offspring of chance. He would have suspected that even the penny post could not be safe; and that
- ↑ See the answer which he wrote (with some aid from Mr. Burke) for Lord Halifax, when as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he refused an addition of 4,000l. a year to his salary. Gent. Mag. 1762, p. 133—also p. 224.—M.
