It will be observed that roundness of form When Junius joined either a letter m or a letter characterises the upper turns, commencing then to the word preceding it, he altered the letters m and n, in the above examples. Those character of those letters in a very marked letters might have been joined to the words manner by changing the round form into a very preceding them and still have preserved that angular one. Francis also fell into the same character; and would do so in hands wherein habit, as is evinced in the following facsiroundness of form is habitual. This, however, miles:was not so either with Junius or with Francis.

'Thus, three distinct formations of the letter m at the beginnings of words, distinguish alike the handwriting of both Junius and Francis.'

We have selected the above similarities out of many hundreds of a like kind, merely as examples of the mode of investigation adopted by Mr. Chabot in dealing with the formation of letters. We now proceed to mention some instances of habits common to Junius and Francis, which are not necessarily dependent on their mode of forming letters. Mr. Chabot enumerates nine such instan

ces:

1. The mode of dating Letters.

2. The placing of a fullstop after the salu

tation.

3. The mode of signing initials between two dashes.

4. Writing in paragraphs.

5. Separating paragraphe by dashes placed between them at their commencement.

6. Invariable attention to punctuation. 7. The enlargement of the first letters of words.

8. The insertion of omitted letters in the line of writing, and not above it, and the various modes of correcting mis-writing

the

9. Mode of abbreviating words, and abbreviating the same words.

10. Misspelling certain specified words. Of these several points of agreement in habits between the handwriting of Junius and Francis, the first is the most striking, and deserves special study. The datings of the letters of Junius are characterised by the following nine points :

1. The placing the note of place and time at the top of the letter, and not at the foot or close of it.

2. The writing the whole in one line only. 3. The writing the name of place. 4. Placing the day of the month before the month, and not after it.

5. Placing a stop after the name of place. 6. Placing a stop after the day of the month.

7. Placing a stop after the name of the month.

8. Placing a stop after the figures of the

London. 20. October. 1760.

comma.

Now it is remarkable that these nine | forty-one out of the forty-two letters in points, and particularly the first eight, are found combined in most of the existing Letters of Francis. Many of these points, taken separately, are of common concurrence in the openings of Letters; but their combination is likely to be extremely rare. Mr. Chabot says he has never seen them combined except in Junius and Francis; and Mr. Twisleton, who has examined more than 3000 Letters in the Grenville Papers,' the 'Anson Papers,' and other documents of the same kind, likewise states that he has never seen those points united in any other writer. Mr. Chabot, therefore, we think, is justified in adding that, "upon comparing a paper written anonymously with the known letters of a suspected party, such a combination in each document would carry suspicion to the highest point, and, united to a few only of other coincidences of equal importance, would, by an impartial mind, be deemed conclusive as to the reality of the suspected fact.'

Francis's Letter-Book. The habits of dif
ferent persons differ in this respect. Some
put a comma, a few put a fullstop, a very
few put a semi-colon, and the great majority
of writers put no stop at all after the saluta-
tion. Others do not follow any fixed rule,
but sometimes put no stop, sometimes put a
fullstop, and sometimes put a
What was remarkable in Francis was his
settled habit of marking his salutations with
a fullstop. On scrutinising Junius with a
knowledge of this habit, it will be found that
in this volume there are twenty-five saluta-
tions of Junius; that he placed after every
one of them either a fullstop or a line
of separation; that he substituted the line of
separation in seven instances only, which are
in informal Letters to his printer; while in
twelve other Letters to his printer, and in all
his formal Letters, such as the three Letters
to Mr. Grenville, the first Letter to Lord
Chatham, the Letter signed "Vindex," and
the Letter signed "Scotus," a fullstop inva
riably follows the salutation.'

Another habit which Francis had in writing was to put a fullstop after the salutation, We may also direct attention to the manthus: Sir.' 'My Lord.' This we find inner in which Junius signed his Letters. He

rarely subscribed himself otherwise than with | lines, ending with "nothingness" and "change

the single initial capital letter C, which he - placed between two lines, thus : *.

This practice is not traceable in the earlier Letters of Francis, but during the writing of the Junian letters he seems unconsciously to have adopted himself the form of signature which he had assumed as a disguise. On two occasions, whilst the Junian Letters were being written-viz. on the 3rd May, 1769, and on the 14th July, 1770-he added two lines, precisely as in the Junian signature, thus:

It is interesting to observe, as Mr. Twisleton has pointed out, that this Letter of the 3rd of May, 1769, was written only two days before the private Letter of Junius to Woodfall, No. 2. Francis signed his initials P. F., between two dashes on the Wednesday, and Junius signed his initial letter, C, between two dashes on the Friday.

In connection with this subject the following anecdote may be mentioned, for which Mr. Twisleton was indebted to Mr. W. J. Blake, of Danesbury, to whom it was told by his father, the late Mr. William Blake :

'After the publication of "Junius Identified," Mr. William Blake was in a country house with Sir Philip Francis, and happened to converse with him on the poetry of Lord Byron, to which Sir Philip expressed his aversion. This induced Mr. Blake to single out for his perusal the well known lines in the "Giaour," beginning with "He who hath bent him o'er the dead." Francis read them, went to a writing table, seized a piece of paper, wrote down on it a string of words which he extracted from those

* It may be remarked, by the way, that these

two forms of the letter C can be traced to the

less," added below them the word "senseless," and then rapidly subscribed his initials between the two dashes. On observing the signature, Mr. Blake said to him, "Pray will you allow me to ask you, Sir Philip, do you always sign your initials in that manner?" Sir Philip merely answered gruffly,. "I know what you mean, Sir," and walked away. This took place in or about the year 1817, forty-eight years after the 3rd of May, 1769, the date of the Letter in this volume in which the signature of his initials between two dashes first occurs.'

There is also a striking similarity between Junius and Francis in their mode of abbreviating words. This will be seen by two or three examples. Junius and Francis occasionally abbreviated the words 'though' and 'would,' thus: tho','wo' as in the following facsimiles:

Junius and Francis both punctuated their writing habitually; and where a sentence ends in the middle of a paragraph, they frequently give force to the punctuation by substituting a dash for a period, and sometimes more effectively by employing both. Occasionally they add this dash to every other form of punctuation, in the follow

hand of Francis, as shown in the following facing manner, thus:

similes:

Claret Chitchat
Cause
Candidate

?

The most remarkable instances are those of the notes of exclamation and interrogation, involving in each three operations of the pen, thus:

The attention which Junius and Francis paid to punctuation had been previously noticed by Mr. Taylor:

"Nothing affords greater scope for the diversity of practice than the mode of punctuation. It is a common thing for writers to be very careless in this matter: but Junius and Sir Philip are particular in the use of stops, pointing with minute accuracy even the most trifling notes. The principle upon which this is done shows the closest conformity of plan. It may seem a trivial circumstance to some, but the introduction of the short stroke or dash between words as well as sentences, to the degree in which it was done by both of them, is characteristic of the writers.'-Junius Identified, p. 376.

On the nature of, the evidence thus adduced, the following remarks of Mr. Twisleton deserve attention :

'Applying this illustration to Mr. Chabot's Reports, it would be well, after studying them, to review connectedly all the instances of habits which he has pointed out as common to Junius and Francis. In page 134, ten such habits are specified, which are not necessarily dependent on the mode of forming letters. Of these, the very first habit is likely to be so rare that it will probably be difficult to find a parallel in any contemporary of Junius and Francis. If such a parallel is discovered, the point will arise whether such habit is found in conjunction with the second habit; and if this is so, whether these two are found in conjunction with the third habit, and so forth. And then, if all these ten habits are found combined in any other individual, the question will present itself whether the same person unites the nine characteristics enumerated in pages 101 and 102. And, if even those characteristics belong to him, a question will still remain whether the same individual combines the nine habits as to the formation of letters which are specified in page 133. There is thus a union of at least twentyeight habits in Junius and Francis; some of them involving a complex variety of minor habits or peculiarities: and all these habits are to be viewed in connection with the evidence, which shows that Francis has left the mark of his undisguised hand on the Proof Sheets of Junius. Commencing with the facsimiles in this volume of the autographs of seventeen different contemporary writers, search should be made to ascertain how many of those twenty-eight habits co-exist in any other autographs; and the ultimate point to be decided will be whether the combination of all of them in Junius and Francis can have been accidental.'

'I have examined in every way most minutely the quality of the paper, both as regards colour, texture, and thickness, of Junius's first Letter to Mr. Grenville, on the 6th February, 1768, and I find it perfectly agrees in each of those particulars with those of Francis's Letter, written little more than two months previously, viz. on 5th December, 1767. The two sheets of paper on which those Letters are written also agree in the following particulars:The device of the water-mark is the same. The initials of the maker are the same; and 'The water-lines, which are not quite parallel,

"It is to be remembered that the evidence of the identity of Junius and Francis as handwriters is cumulative; that is to say, the force of the evidence depends not on any one single coincidence, but on Previous investigators had called attention numerous coincidences varying materially in to the paper upon which Junius and Francis their individual strength, which, when viewed wrote; but though this is a matter of less in connexion, lead irresistibly to one inference consequence than the handwriting, the ob alone, though each by itself may be inconclu-servations of Mr. Chabot deserve notice:sive. A common fallacy in dealing with such evidence is to take each coincidence separately, and to show that a similar coincidence exists in some other writer. This would be a perfectly legitimate mode of reasoning, if any one coincidence so dealt with were adduced as in itself conclusive; but it fails to meet the requirements of the case, when the argument is based on the combination of many such coincidences collectively, and not on the separate existence of any one of them. Perhaps the best illustration of the force of cumulative evidence is one which has long since been made, but which is not, on that account, the less valuable. It is the inference that dice are loaded, founded on the observation that the same numbers-say, double sixes-are thrown so many times, say fifty times running, that the fact cannot possibly be accounted for by chance. In such a case it would be vain for an advocate to attempt to shake the inference by stating after each individual throw that every dice-player sometimes threw double sixes, or occasionally threw many double sixes in succession. The point would be that the double sixes are thrown fifty times running.

are the same width apart, showing that the paper has been made in the same frame or mould.

'And further, I find the two sheets of paper are so exactly of the same size and shape, both having been cut slightly out of truth, whereby the top edge of the paper is not mathematically parallel with the bottom edge, that I cannot doubt they have been taken from one and the samé quire of paper. And, furthermore, I find that the colour of the ink with which those