"After the Revenge was entangled with the San Philip, four others boarded her, two on her larboard and two on her starboard. The fight thus beginning at three o'clock in the afternoon continued very terrible all that evening. But the great San Philip, having received the lower tier of the Revenge, shifted herself with all diligence from her sides, utterly misliking her first entertainment. The Spanish ships were filled with soldiers, in some 200, besides the mariners, in some 500, in others 800. In ours there were none at all, besides the mariners, but the servants of the commander and some few voluntary gentlemen only. After many enterchanged vollies of great ordnance and small shot, the Spaniards deliberated to enter the Revenge, and made divers attempts, hoping to force her by the multitude of their armed soldiers and musketeers; but were still repulsed again and again, and at all times beaten back into their own ship or into the sea. In the beginning of the fight the George Noble, of London, having received some shot through her by the Armadas, fell under the lee of the Revenge, and asked Sir Richard what he would command him; but being one of the victuallers, and of small force, Sir Richard bade him save himself and leave him to his fortune." A little touch of gallantry, which we should be glad to remember with the honor due to the brave English heart who commanded the George Noble; but his name has passed away, and his action is an in memoriam, on which time has effaced the writing. All that August night the fight continued, the stars rolling over in their sad majesty, but unseen through the sulphur clouds which hung over the scene. Ship after ship of the Spaniards came on upon the Revenge, "so that never less than two mighty galleons were at her side and aboard her," washing up like waves upon a rock, and falling foiled and shattered back amidst the roar of the artillery. Before morning fifteen several armadas had assailed her, and all in vain; some had been sunk at her side; and the rest, so ill approving of their entertainment that at break of day they were far more willing to hearken to a composition, than hastily to make more assaults or entries." "But as the day increased so our men decreased, and as the light grew more and more, by so much the more grew our discomfort, for none appeared in sight but enemies, save one small ship called the Pilgrim, commanded by Jacob Whiddon, who hovered all night to see the success, but in the morning bearing with the Revenge, was hunted like a hare among many ravenous hounds-but escaped." All the powder in the Revenge was now spent, all her pikes were broken, 40 out of her 100 men killed, and a great number of the rest wounded. Sir Richard, though badly hurt early in the battle, never forsook the deck till an hour before midnight; and was then shot through the body while his wounds were being dressed, and again in the head; and his surgeon was killed while attending on him. The masts were lying over the side, the rigging cut or broken, the upper works all shot in pieces, and the ship herself, unable to move, was settling slowly in the sea; the vast fleet of Spaniards lying round her in a ring like dogs round a dying lion, and wary of approaching him in his last agony. Sir Richard seeing that it was past hope, having fought for fifteen hours, and having by estimation eight hundred shot of great artillery through him," "commanded the master gunner, whom he knew to be a most resolute man, to split and sink the ship, that thereby nothing might remain of glory or victory to the Spaniards; seeing in so many hours they were not able to take her, having had above fifteen hours' time, above ten thousand men, and fifty-three menof-war to perform it withal; and persuaded the company, or as many as he could induce, to yield themselves unto God and to the mercy of none else; but as they had, like valiant resolute men, repulsed so many enemies, they should not now shorten the honor of their nation by prolonging their own lives for a few hours or a few days." The gunner and a few others consented. But such darovín áper was more than could be expected of ordinary seamen. They had dared do all which did become men, and they were not more than men, at least than men were then. Two Spanish ships had gone down, above 1500 men were killed, and the Spanish Admiral could not induce any one of the rest of his fleet to board the Revenge again, “doubting lest Sir Richard would have blown up himself and them knowing his dangerous disposition." Sir Richard lying disabled below, the captain finding the Spaniards as ready to entertain a composition as they could be to offer it, gained over the majority of the surviving crew; and the remainder then drawing back from the master gunner, they all, without further consulting their dying commander, surrendered on honorable terms. If unequal to the English in action, the Spaniards were at least as courteous in victory. It is due to them to say, that the conditions were faithfully observed. And "the ship being marvellous unsavourie," Alonzo de Bacon, the Spanish Admiral, sent his boat to bring Sir Richard on board his own vessel. Sir Richard, whose life was fast ebbing away, replied, that he might do with his body what he list, for that he esteemed it not; and as he was carried out of the ship he swooned, and reviving again, desired the company to pray for him." The Admiral used him with all humanity, "commending his valor and worthiness, being unto them a rare spectacle and a resolution seldom approved." The officers of the rest of the fleet, too, John Higgins tells us, crowded round to look at him, and a new fight had almost broken out between the Biscayans and the "Portugals," each claiming the honor of having boarded the Revenge. "In a few hours Sir Richard, feeling his end approaching, showed not any sign of faintness, but spake these words in Spanish, and said, Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true sol-, dier ought to do that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and honor. Whereby my soul most joyfully departeth out of this body, and shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier that hath done his duty as he was bound to do.' When he had finished these or other such like words, he gave up the ghost with great and stout courage, and no man could perceive any sign of heaviness in him." Such was the fight at Florez, in that August of 1591, without its equal in such of the annals of mankind as the thing which we call history has preserved to us; scarcely equalled by the most glorious fate which the imagination of Barrère could invent for the Vengeur; nor did it end without a sequel awful as itself. Sea battles have been often followed by storms, and without a miracle; but with a miracle, as the Spaniards and the English alike believed, or without one, as we moderns would prefer believing, "there ensued on this action a tempest so terrible as was never seen or heard the like before.' A fleet of merchantmen joined the armada immediately after the battle, forming in all 140 sail; and of these 140, only 32 ever saw Spanish harbor. The rest all foundered, or were lost on the Azores. The men-of-war had been so shattered by shot as to be unable to carry sail, and the Revenge herself, disdaining to survive her commander, or as if to complete his own last baffled purpose, like Samson, buried herself and her 200 prize crew under the rocks of St. Michael's. From the Dublin University Magazine. TOUCHING THE IDENTITY OF JUNIUS.* "Si quid novisti rectius isto Ir is not true, as some may be disposed to, think, that the puzzle of Junius has lost its interest, and become an obsolete matter. This writer has connected himself with the governmental history of his day in England in a manner too striking to permit the mere lapse of time to nullify him. He waged war with the Government of George the Third before the Thirteen Colonies did, for nearly as long a space, and on something of the same consti *“JUNIUS: including Letters by the same Writer under other signatures; to which are added, his confidential Correspondence with Mr. Wilkes, and his Private Letters to H. S. Woodfall; with an Analysis, by the late Sir Harris Nicholas, and New Evidence, by John Wade." Bohn, London. tutional principle. This alone would give him claims to an undying consideration, and such consideration is further secured by the mystery which has always a power of fascination over the human mind. If we were disposed to forget his powerful pen, his provoking mask would not let us. Then, posterity must always be anxious to know who it was who left behind him some of the most elegant and masterly specimens of epistolary literature in the language. The successful concealment of Junius strikes us as a prima facie proof that he was a man of high consequence, not a secretary or other hireling. From the care he took of his secret, we may guess the importance of it to himself in his life-time, and also to his family after him. No inferior man would take all these precautions-would push away from his name for ever the celebrity of the letters. Everything points steadily and conclusively to some distinguished man; one who would also belong to the aristocracy of England. It is not alone by hand writing, or the tall gentleman with the cloak in Ivy-lane, punctuation, capital letters, favorite words, dates, and soforth; nor even by what Junius is pleased to say of himself or others in his public or private letters, that we should be guided in looking for him. All these are false or frivolous guides. The whole subject should be regarded at a distance, and in all its bearings. And because the secret was the result of a comprehensive scheme-because the writing of the letters must have had causes covering a large surface, we should try to make our means of detection comprehensive in proportion, and gather our conclusions from a wide circle of facts-from the chief political characters and questions of that memorable time, when great things were done, and great men walked the stage; when the Toryism of the house of Brunswick began to supplant the Whiggery of the Revolution, and the North American Colonies began to agitate all minds with the first impulses of their immortal rebellion. We do not get grapes from thorns, nor figs from thistles. The lofty and overbearing literature of Junius, so full of genius and passion, never could come from any understrapper; it was the fruit of one of the most self-sustained and lordly intellects of the time. All who look for Junius must look up for him, not down. Hitherto the eyes of the great majority of the searchers have been turned in the latter direction tive in warding off detection than anything else. Therefore it is that people have mostly gone to look for the secret among clerks and secretaries, not permitting themselves to suspect the right man. About eighty years ago, Junius boasted, with the confidence of Isis in the old temple of Sais, that nobody should ever be able to lift his mask; that he was the sole depositary of his secret, and that it should perish with him. Since that time a hundred books and a vast number of articles have been written by men desirous to point out the real author of the letters: and a crowd of undoubted and rejected Juniuses have rewarded the curious infelicity of the inquirers. Most of these nominis umbræ have strutted their hour upon the stage, and then passed off to be talked of no more. As it is, there are not "six Richmonds in the field," out of so many. Mr. Wade, in Bohn's edition of Junius, gives a list of these involuntary candidates, to the number of thirty-five, to wit:-Colonel Barré, Hugh Macaulay Boyd, Bishop Butler, Lord Chatham, Lord Chesterfield, Earl Shelburne ("Shelburne meek holds up his cheek" with the rest), Lord Camden, Earl Temple, M. Delolme, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, Henry Flood, Henry Grattan, E. Burke, E. Gibbon, W. G. Hamilton, C. Lloyd, J. Roberts, Sam. Dyer, George and James Grenville, W. Greatrakes, Duke of Portland, Rd. Glover, Sir W. Jones, Jas. Hollis, General Lee, Laughlin Macleane, Lord George Sackville, Rev. P. Rosenhagen, J. Wilkes, J. H. Tooke, John Kent, Dr. Wray, Horace Walpole, Lord Loughborough, Sir Philip Francis. claims advanced for the great majority of these are ridiculous, and prove nothing so much as the principle of diversity and dissent existing in the human mind, and the power The "Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which which a hypothesis will have, at times, over dared not glow. The critics have repeatedly come close to him -have seen his large vestiges in the sand: have been within reach of him, with only a cobweb, as it were, between them and him. But that has been as successful in averting discovery, as was the miraculous spider-work, which, lying across the mouth of the cave of Thor, hindered the Koreish from laying hands on Mahomet. The filmy influence in this case is chiefly, we think, made of traditionary feelings and national prepossessions. A good deal of it is certainly due to the Machiavelian art with which Junius draws his cloud about him; but foregone conclusions and historic preoccupations have been more effec the poor Frankenstein that has made it. Among those spoken of with most confidence, when the letters were coming out in the Public Advertiser, was Edmund Burke; and there was some appearance of truth in the assumption; for Burke was the only Whig writer of the day whose intellectual powers seemed to bear any comparison with those exhibited in the letters. We say seemed; for the two authors differed widely; and their writings afford intrinsic evidence of this. Burke was a generalizer, and dealt very much in abstract principles, following out his conclusions by long chains of reasoning. Junius was all for particulars: he went directly and dictatorially to his mark, with an impatience. of all ratiocination; he would not waste time in the tediousness of outward flourishes. I suspected, when Junius first appeared. He Burke had not the fierce heart of Junius; he would wage war with pomp and circumAs for Junius stance. "He had nae thought but how to kill was a Whig, had reason to be angry with the Marquis of Granby for his share in the court-martial and disgrace which followed the battle of Minden; and, as a military man, would be likely to exhibit the knowledge of the War-Office visible in the letters of Junius. Lord Chesterfield too was set up and sworn by, for a while; so was W. Gerard Hamilton; and so was Horace Walpole. But a person is forced to smile when he speaks of these four fastidious members of the aris Burke's dramatic hostility against Warren Hastings was a different thing from the bloody personal assaults upon Grafton, Bedford, or Mansfield. Burke used a bright and chivalrous rapier; Junius came on with a toma-tocracy in the same breath with Junius. hawk-not, however, without its own beautiful lightnings, as he swung it round his head and brought it down with an unmerciful sway, right, centre and left. But Burke himself has set this question at rest. He told Dr. Johnson, of his own accord, that he was not Junius. Mr. Butler, of the Reminiscences, says that Burke spoke of the letters with disgust; and the latter said to Dean Marley, I could not write like Junius; and if I could, I would not." Gibbon was also spoken of; but he had nothing in common with the Man in the Mask but a splendid style. The historian's rhetoric is never colored by the warm blood of cotemporary politics or statesmanship. The date of his mind was many centuries anterior to the age of Wilkes and liberty; and it concerned itself more with the Constantines than the Georges-with the Arians and Ebonites, rather than the Whigs and Tories. The style of Lord George was bald and debilitated in the extreme; he himself was pigeon-livered, and lacked the gall of that truculent masquer. Chesterfield, though really something more than a high priest of "the Graces-the Graces," could be Junius as little as the cynical, finical Horace Walpole. As for Hamilton, he is almost knocked down by the breath of imputation which makes him nominis umbra. There is a sentence in one of Junius's letters to Grafton, in which the writer speaks of a man who had travelled through every sign of the political zodiac, from the Scorpion, in which he stung Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Virgin in the house of Bloomsbury, &c. • If I had written such a sentence," shrieks Single-Speech (Horace Walpole, in his letters, shows that this is a misnomer, after all), “I should have thought I had forfeited all pretensions to good taste in composition for ever." Hamilton's good taste in composition has long ceased to be outraged by the suspicion of the world. Dunning, Lord Ashburton, has been advocated. But at the time the letters first appeared, Dunning was Solicitor-General, and continued such for some time after. This argument, however, is not so strong as another which may be used, to wit, that he could not write the letters. This is, in fact, an argument which overturns the pretensions of every one of the claimants, save the right one. General Lee was once confidently put The erudite Dr. Parr thought Charles Lloyd, George Grenville's private secretary, was Junius, beyond any reasonable dout. Writing, in 1822, to Mr. Butler, the Doctor says "I tell you, peremptorily, the real Junius was private secretary to George Grenville. The name of Junius was Lloyd. This will, one day, be universally acknowledged." The points in Lloyd's favor were, that he always praised George Grenville, and that at the period of Lloyd's death Junius ceased to write. Lloyd died three days after the date of Junius's last letter. But the follow-forward as Junius: and he certainly was ing seems to do away with this hypothesis. Six weeks after the death of Lloyd, Woodfall made his usual signals for Junius. Now, Woodfall knew Lloyd, and must have heard of his death. He also suspected, if he did not know, who his famous correspondent was; and it is not to be supposed he would make overtures to a dead man. The claims of Lloyd, in spite of the large credulity of Parr, have always been considered very feeble. Lord George Germaine was also Junius; but with a difference. During the years 1769, 1770, and 1771, he wrote in the Public Advertiser, under the signature of "Junius Americanus." He also wrote the Preamble of the Bill of Rights for the citi zens of London; and in a letter to Wilkes, the real Simon Pure says that his American namesake is plainly a man of abilities. In 1803, a Mr. Rodney, in a letter which appeared at Wilmington, in America, said Lee confessed to him, in 1773, that he was Ju nius. Lee, doubtless, played off his equivoque | upon his auditor; but it made a great sensation, and people said Nominis Umbra was a Yankee, after all. Mr. Newhall, of Massachusetts, has written a book to show that Junius was Richard, Earl Temple, brother of George Grenville. It was generally considered that Junius was in some way connected with the Grenvilles; and in 1827, a report was spread which seemed to strengthen that conviction. It was stated in a London magazine that Lord Nugent and the Duke of Buckingham, rummaging in the library at Stowe, found a secret parcel of documents which contained MS. originals of a few of Junius's letters, among which was the famous letter to the King. It was further said, Earl Grenville was conscience-struck on this discovery, and begged a respite, as he was very old, promising to leave a true statement of facts at his death, and admitting, at the same time, as much as implied that Junius was connected with his family, which meant to lead to the idea that he was Lloyd, George Grenville's secretary. But the whole thing was a hoax. The idea that Junius would go putting the useless MSS. of his printed letters into holes and corners is too childish to be entertained for a moment. But this report made quite a sensation, showing that the public interest in that literary riddle has not at all died away. Influenced a good deal by the foregoing report, and by the opinion of the best critics, among whom is the writer of an article in vol. xliv. of the Edinburgh Review, that Junius was a Grenvilleite, Mr. Newhall tries to find in Earl Temple some lineaments of Junius. But after all is said and proved, we find that, like the clothes of a giant on the body of a dwarf, the hypothesis is too large for the man. The Earl had neither the genius nor the fervid political blood which could give birth to that strong, anonymous literature. Nothing in any part of his career justifies the belief that he could have written the letters. The only considerations in his favor, are those which would countenance the claims of Chesterfield, Shelburne, and the other peers: to wit, high rank and wealth, such as would naturally give the tone of loftiness that belongs to Junius instinctively, and is as palpable in his smallest notes to Woodfall as in his letter to the King; and would also afford the pecuniary means of successfully guarding such a perilous secret. Among the latest original attempts to unmask Junius was that made, four or five years ago, by Mr. Britton. This gentleman thinks Col. Barré was the man, or rather he makes Junius a sort of epistolary Geryon—“ three single gentlemen in one;" viz., Barré, Dunning, and Lord Shelburne. He shrewdly suspected this triumvirate would be most likely, if not sure, to cover all the conditions of Junius-the legal and constitutional knowledge, the military evidences, and the lofty anti-Toryism of the celebrated letters. He fails in his grand argument, founded on a "Letter to an Honorable Brigadier-General." He assumes, and tries to show, that Barré wrote, or may have written it; and thinks it carries a resemblance to the style of Junius. Now, it must be remembered that Barré began his career in Parliament by a bitter attack on Chatham-a man for whom Junius evidently, in spite of appearances, entertains a strong feeling of attachment. Mr. Britton's man can't stand. The claims of Wilkes, Tooke, and all the rest-the Glovers, Boyds, Dyers, Macleanes, &c., are no longer debateable. They have been given up, and nobody thinks of recal ing them. To be sure, a late critic in the North British Review-Sir David Brewster, we believe-leans to the belief that Macleane was the secret writer. But his argument carried very little conviction with it. Macleane was skulking about London, and trying to get out of his gambling difficulties, when Junius was in the midst of his great business-- "When, like an eagle in a dovecote, he Fluttered the Volsci in Corioli" made the King, Lords, and Commons tremble at the sound of his scourge; and the former time when the letters still continued to come was Collector at Philadelphia in 1772, at a forth. bish of falsified pretension, we find two men Sweeping the board clean of all this rubleft, between whom, certainly, lies the truth of this mystery. These are, Lord Chatham and Sir Philip Francis. ONE OF THEM WAS JUNIUS, and the other knew it. Such is the conviction to which a steady survey of Junius, in connexion with his era, should lead every investigator, and which, we believe, will be the general conviction in a little time. The claim of Sir Philip Francis has been confidently supported for a long time; and, in a dissertation accompanying Mr. Bohn's edition of Junius, Mr. Wade continues to put it forward 1 'A past, vampt, future, old, revived, new claim." We thought Mr. Barker had completely laid |