meet them again in the library to drink coffee; after which, unless Lady Shelburne wants me to make one at whist, it is absolutely necessary I should be in readiness to play at chess with Miss Fox, whose cavaliere servente I have been ever since she came here from Warwick Castle in exchange for Miss Vernon."[1]
It was on occasions such as those when Lord Dartrey was passing the bottle, and Barré was in full spirits, that attempts would be made by the guests to extract from their host the secret of the authorship of Junius, which he was supposed to possess.[2] To an attempt of this character Lord Lansdowne once replied by saying that he knew the secret as much as did the servant who stood behind his chair. This happened to be a negro (possibly the boy whose baptism is mentioned in the first Lady Shelburne's diary),[3] known in the household by the name of Jacko. Thenceforward he went by the appellation of Junius. Some years afterwards it began to be reported, to the astonishment of the literary world, that a handsome gravestone stood in Calne churchyard, bearing the inscription "Here lies Junius." The great secret it was now thought was about at length to be revealed. The mighty unknown was the person lying underneath the gravestone in Calne churchyard. An inquiry was set on foot; Lord Lansdowne himself was appealed to, but the tombstone was not to be found. It appeared that the
- ↑ The Hon. Caroline Fox, daughter of Stephen 2nd Lord Holland, born November 3rd, 1767, died March 12th, 1845, was Lord Lansdowne's niece. Of Miss Fox, Bentham remained the cavaliere servente for many years. It is even said that he proposed to her, and was refused. It is also said that Miss Fox, none the less, retained to her last days a feeling something more than that of ordinary for her early admirer. She lived till 1845, a constant guest at Bowood during all that long period; and it was to Bowood and those she had known there that her mind wandered back in her last illness. She was a strong Liberal, and in her old age used to compare the politics of her later and her younger days, to the disadvantage of the former. She left by will a sum of money to found a school in Kensington, and directed that no clergyman should ever have any exclusive control over it. See Jeremy Bentham—His Life and Works, by Charles M. Atkinson, iii. 49-51.
- ↑ As to the claims of Col. Barré, Dunning, and Lachlan Macleane to be considered Junius, see the Papers of a Critic, by the late Mr. Charles Dilke. As to Lord Lansdowne's supposed knowledge of the secret, see a letter in the Morning Chronicle of December 29th, 1770: "Your Lordship will hardly believe there is a man in England who does not believe you to be the author. … Mr. Dunning and that archfiend Col. Barré will perhaps claim the honour; but, my lord, they are to be looked upon in the same light as the carpenter and mason employed by Sir Christopher Wren."
- ↑ Vol. I. p. 396.
