The New Student's Reference Work/Junius, Letters of

Junius, Letters of, seventy letters of political character, which appeared in the Public Advertiser of London between January, 1769, and January, 1772. For publishing the letter to the king, Woodfall, the proprietor of the Public Advertiser, was prosecuted, but was acquitted on a legal point; but a bookseller was punished for selling a reprint. These letters attracted the widest attention, because of their unknown author's boldness and his seeming familiarity with politics and well-known persons. It certainly was bold in that day to say, as Junius said to George III: "Remember that while the crown was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another." A dozen or more leading writers and politicians were suspected of hiding under the name of Junius. But the man most commonly held to be the writer is Sir Philip Francis, and this theory was adopted by De Quincey, Macaulay, Stanhope and other critics; yet there is no direct evidence connecting Francis with the authorship. The Letters of Junius were more polished than those of any writer of the day. They were the first of modern newspaper editorials. See Dilke’s Papers of the Critic.