[Sir] Philip Francis (1740-1818)

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Criticism
Junius Affair, The Identity of Junius with a Distinguished Living Character Established [by John Taylor] (1st, Taylor & Hessey 1816), engrv. port. of Sir Philip Francis, vii, 366pp., Demy 8vo, an anonymously published attempt to identify the author of the Junius letters by the publisher of Keats and other Romantics. [Eric Stevens, Cat. 166].

Note that James Wilmot (d.1808) was another alleged author of the Junius Letters, as propounded in Mrs. Olivia Serres, The Life of the Author of the Junius Letters, The Rev. James Wilmot DD (1813) [ODNB]. NOTE Bibl., Beata Francis and Eliza Keary, eds., The Francis Letters (1901) [see Keary, q.v.].

See also Charles Wentworth Dilke, The Papers of a Critic, Vol. 2 (1875; facs. 2023 - contains a chapter on “Junius” - in the form of a long review of works on the subject which was first published in Athenaeum (22 July 1848 & 7 July 1849, 9 Feb. 1850, 10 Dec.1853, &c.) - tending to dismiss the theory of Sir Philip Francis was the writer: [Available at Google Books - online.]

Pillow-talk ...? Charles Wentworth Dilke, The Papers of a Critic, Vol. 2 (1875; facs. 2023), pp.81-82 - first printed in the Athenaeum (9 Feb. 1850) - available online.

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Commentary
Edmund Burke: on Sir Philip Francis in a hint that he knows who Junius was: ‘I decline Controversy with you; because I feel myself overmatched in a competition with such talent as yours.’ (Quoted in O’Brien, Edmund Burke: The Great Melody, Sinclair Stevenson 1992 p.411.)

Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770): ‘They contend that, no adequate provocation has been given for so spreading a discontent; our affairs having been conducted throughout with remarkable temper and consummate wisdom. The wicked injury of some libellers [viz., the author of Letters of Junius which had started in the previous year], joined to the intrigues of a few disappointed politicians, have, in their opinion, been able to produce this unnatural ferment in the nation.  […] If a few puny libellers, acting under the a knot of factious politicians, without virtue, parts, or character (such they are constantly represented by these gentlemen) are sufficient to excite this disturbance, very perverse must be the disposition of that people, amongst whom such a disturbance can be excited by such means.’ (Routledge “Univesal Library” Edition, p.5] Note also that Junius, and Dr. Johnson, supported Wilkes in his trial in Middlesex - Wilkes being the editor of The North Briton (1760- ) who published a supposed libel on George III as pamphlet No. 45. (See ibid., p.64, ftn.)

Edmund Burke: Francis told Burke that ‘the opinion of the world [about Marie Antoinette’s virtue] is not lately, but had been many years decided.’ (See Tom Furniss, ‘Stripping the Queen: Edmund Burke’s Magic Lantern Show’, in Steven Blakemore, ed., Burke and the French Revolution: Bicentennial Essays, Georgia UP 1992, p.86; cited in Daphne Abernethy, ‘Edmund Burke and the Paradox of History’, MA Diss., UUC 1998, p.84.)

Conor Cruise O’Brien, Edmund Burke, The Great Melody: A Commented Biography (London: Sinclair-Stevenson 1992): Francis was appointed a member (or councillor) on the East India Regulating Act of 1773. Burke early spots is qualities, ‘I find that this Mr Francis is entirely [in the] interests of Lord Clive. Everything contributes to the Greatness of this Man, [273] who whether Government or the Company prevails will go near to govern India’ (Corr. , II, 472). For all Burke’s tribute he had yet done little but hold minor government posts. O’Brien continues: ‘However, his pseudonymous writings, the Letters of Junius, were the talk of British political world. The Letters, a brilliant series of political polemics, appeared in the Public Advertiser between 21 Jan 1769 and 21 Jan 1772. they were mainly directed against the Duke of Grafton’s Administration from the point of view of a supporter of George Greville, and the political argument is on a high intellectual level. But Junius’s readers were less interested in political argument than in damaging personal allegations, couched in a tone of silky menace, which intersperse the argument and lend spice to it. Politicians read Junius with bated breath, in fear of what might be coming next. [...] The Letters are superbly written - some of the finest writers of the time, including Burke, are among those credited with the authorship. But the identity remained in dispute until, in 1962, Alvar Ellegaard [or Ellegård], on the basis of statistico-linguistic tests, established conclusively that Junius was Francis.’ [See extensive further extracts, attached.]

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References
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, p.161-69 - entry on Sir Philip Francis quotes extensively from a work entitled “Junius Identified” respecting the authorship of the Junius Letters: “With the ability, and the opportunity, he had the inducement to write the Letters. He is proved to have possessed the constitutional principles, political opinions, and personal views of the author. His public attachments and animosities were the same. He had the same private friends, acquaintances, and opponents. In the country of his birth, in the mode of his education, in his opportunities of political instruction, early initiation into state affairs, and inclination to profit by his advantages; - in having access to the first sources of information respecting the king, the court, the cabinet, and every department under government, with which Junius seems familiar, the resemblance is most strikingly preserved. It is heightened by his having the disposition, hopes and fears, habits, pursuits, and even personal appearance. In attending Parliament without being a member, - in the practice of taking notes, and reporting speeches) - {168} in hearing the same debates, and quoting the same speeches, even at the time they were unpublished, - in writing anonymously, - and in employing, throughout all his works, similar phrases, metaphors, sentiments, illustrations, maxims, quotations, and trains of thought, the identity is still further apparent. But in his connection with the War-office, in that excessive zeal and evidently personal feeling with which his own interests are maintained and his name is mentioned, - in the critical period of his retiring from the public service, - in the duration of his absence from England, - and in the time of his return, with his consequent departure for India, we meet with proofs which inevitably shew that he is Junius.” (Ryan, op. cit., pp.167-68; see full text version via index or as attached.)

[Note: The work to which Ryan refers is almost certainly John Taylor"s The identity of Junius with a distinguished living character established. : Including the supplement, consisting of fac-similes of hand-writing and other illustrations (London 1816), and Do. [corr. & enl.; 2nd edn.] ((London: Printed for Taylor and Hessey, 93, Fleet Street. 1818), viii [i.e. ix], [1], 404 p., [6] leaves of plates (5 folded) : facsims., port. ; 22 cm (8vo) [COPAC listing.] The title Junius Identified appears alone on half-title page. Other candidates for the authorship incl. Dr. Francis Philip (Philip’s father and namesake); Hugh Macauley Boyd (q.v.) and Edmund Burke.

See also ‘Identity of Junius’ in Wikipedia - where an extensive annotated list of candidates is headed by the summary remark: ‘Two generations after the appearance of the letters, speculation as to the authorship of Junius was rife. Sir Philip Francis [Wiki’s q.v.] is now generally, but not universally, believed to be the author.’ (Available - online [accessed 10.01.2024].)

[ On Hugh Macauley Boyd, see RIA Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA 2009) - entry by Linde Lunney - online; accessed 10.01.2024. ]

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Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB] summarises arguments pro and contra ‘Franciscan theory’ of Junius authorship, case rests on acquaintance with war office material; lapses in correspondence during personal absences; and expert evidence of handwriting supported by Chabot and Netherclift, as well as political atttitude, and finally on his conduct when so challenged; against Franciscan theory is denial by Pitt and Woodfall, and almost incredible malignity of Junius towards some of Francis’s friends and benefactors. Note also that ODNB lists James Wilmot (d.1808) as alleged author of the Letters of Junius, he being uncle of Mrs. Olivia Serres, who put forth that claim in The Life of the Author of the Junius Letters, The Rev. James Wilmot, DD (1813), pretending in a pamphlet to prove her theory from the evidence of handwriting (1817).

Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: Catholic University of America 1904); long notice concerned with authorship of Junius Letters, a specimen of which is selected, commences by quoting Leslie Stephen, ‘whether Junius or not, a man of great ability and unflagging industry’, b. Dublin 1740, etc. Selects ‘Letter to Duke of Grafton’ (8 July 1769) [‘Whether you have talents to support you at a crisis of such difficulty and danger should long since have been considered ... Since the accession of our most gracious sovereing to the throne, we have seen a system of government which we might called be a reign of experiments’].

Oxford Companion of English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble (OUP: 1985); Alvar Ellegård, in Who was Junius? (1962), argues for Francis’s authorship on statistico-linguistic grounds. Saintsbury’s comment was that the evidence for Francis far outweighs all others in favour of possession of ‘that bad eminence’. He characterises the success of the letters in the context of the 18th century mania for period style in oratory; yet ‘they display some of the worst qualities of the human soul – arrogance, spite, jealousy [...] – in asmuch as their very denunciation of abuses is evidently but personal, or at best partisan.’ He compares him adversely with Burke, ‘the effect is not in the least marmorial as Burke’s. It has, on the contrary, two qualities of the usual imitation of marble - it is plaster and it is hollow. [...] a conventional exercise [done well but] not worth the doing’; ‘As a man of morals he has put talents great, of not consummate, at the service at best of party, at worst of self.’ Saintsbury calls him son of the translator of Horace. (Short History, 1922 ed. p.648). Justin McCarthy, Irish Literature (1904), gives extract from Letters of Junius (to the Duke of Grafton)[ top ]

British Library Cat. lists many titles relating to the Govt. of India and the impeachment of Warren Hastings; 15 others relating to the authorship of the Letters of Junius; also Warren Hastings and Philip Francis, etc., with a portrait (Univ. of Manchester, Hist. series, no. 56, 1929).

Francis - Junius?: Note the coincidental fact that the name ‘Junius’ is associated with that ‘Francis’ in the given name of the early Protestant divine Francisus Junius (1545-1602), author of Treatise on True Theology and subject of The Life of Franciscus Junius - both in Latin and both of which have been published in translations by David C. Noe (Reformation Heritage Books 2016). See Everard - online; accessed 22.01.2024.

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