Sir Walter Scott, however, in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, states that

"Poor John Damer has made a strange exit in a strange manner. We were at Eton and in Ital together, and at subsequent periods in habits o "Of late it has been said and published, that friendly connection. Few of those who knew him the unfortunate nobleman had previously deterhave been more gloomily affected by the melancholy mined to take poison, and of course had it in his event than myself. . . . . I have sometimes taken own power to ascertain the execution of the pre-of supporting an opinion, exercising a talent, or up the argument in favor of self-murder, by way diction. It was, no doubt, singular, that a man who meditated his exit from the world, should have chosen to play such a trick on his friends. But it is still more credible that a whimsical man should do so wild a thing, than that a messenger should be sent from the dead to tell a libertine at what precise hour he should expire."

We do not know what authority Scott had for this statement, but we confess we think that it discloses the truth. With his great abilities, Thomas Lyttelton had a turn for singularity of conduct, which excited the amazement of his friends. If he had determined on suicide, we can conceive, from what we know of his character, that he might have invented some artifice to conceal his design, and might feel a kind of scornful joy in anticipating the success of the cheat he meditated. That weariness of life" which springs from a consciousness of talents abused and opportunities lost, and from the mental prostration consequent on vicious indulgence, was much more common in that day than our own. A long list might be made out of men of rank and fortune, gifted with every endowment to render life desirable, who committed suicide merely to shake off the burden of existence, or, more

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probably, to escape from the reproaches of that inward monitor, whose voice they might neglect but could not stifle. The death of Mr. Damer, eldest son of Lord Milton, who shot himself at the Bedford Arms, Covent Garden, in 1776, called forth some sombre reflections from Thomas Lyttelton's pen:

christened "Honeysuckle," and then presented the mother with 1000l., to be applied to its use. In some of the biographical notices which appeared, he is described as a kind and generous landlord, as a punctual paymaster, and as greatly beloved by those who knew him most intimately. By his will he left 1000l. and 300l. per annum to Mrs. Dawson, the lady with whom he had been longest connected, and who had, it is asserted, sacrificed her fortune as well as her honor to her affection for him. To Clara Haywood he bequeathed 20007 and 1007. per annum. The bequests to various members of his family were extremely munificent. His executors were Lord Westcote, Lord Valentia, and Mr. Roberts. To the latter, who seems to have been most in his confidence, he left all his "speeches, letters, verses, and writings," with directions that, if pub. lished, it should be for his sole use and benefit,-a proof that his Lordship considered his compositions of some importance.

convincing a fool; but I will honestly confess that the weakest of my antagonists have ever got the better of me on this subject, though I might arises from very different and opposite causes, has not publish my conviction. . . . . Despair, as it varions and distinct appearances. It has its rage, its gloom, and its indifference; and while under the former its operations acquire the name of madness, under the latter it bears the title of philosophy. Poor John Damer was no philosopher, and yet he seems to have taken his leap in the dark with the marks both of an epicurean and a stoic. He acted his part with coolness, and sought his preparation in the mirth of a brothel."-Lyt. Let. xlvii.

We may hence conclude that the idea of suicide had often obtruded itself on Lyttelton's mind, and though it is true he might have fortified himself by reason against it, yet we know how little the conclusions of reason are to be relied on, particularly in a character so open to temptation as that of Lyttelton, when despair, "in its mood of either rage, gloom, or indifference," seizes on a sick and depraved imagination. His constitution had been seriously impaired by his excesses. In his Letters he speaks frequently of the gloomy thoughts and fearful forebodings which made him shudder as they came. over him, (xlviii., lii.,) and he also alludes to the harassing influence of physical pain:

"After all," he writes, "this tenancy of life is but a bad one, with its waste and ingress of torturing diseases; which, not content with destroying the building, maliciously torture the possessor oftentimes curse the possession."-xxx. with such pains and penalties as to make him

It is said that shortly before his decease he was tormented with dreams of a most distressing character. The Public Advertiser states that on one occasion when he came down to breakfast he was observed to be unusually depressed. When bantered by the company who were staying with him on his sadness, he related a dream he had had the night before. "I dreamt," said he, "that I was dead, and was hurried away into the infernal regions, which appeared as a large dark room, at the end of which was seated Mrs. Brownrigg, who told me it was appointed for her to pour red-hot bullets

down my throat for a thousand years. The resistance I endeavored to make to her awakened me; but the agitation of my mind when I awoke is not to be described, nor can I get the better of it." These "thick-coming fancies" are the more remarkable, as they have been observed to be, in very numerous cases, the prelude to selfdestruction, most likely from the indication they give of a disordered state of the nervous system.

A few weeks previous to his death, he had, as if in anticipation of that event, made final settlement of his worldly affairs. He added four codicils to his will, all written with his own hand. The style of the first is remarkable:

"I, Thomas Lyttelton, Baron of Frankley in the county of Worcester, considering the uncertainty of human life, which even in the strongest hangs but by a slender thread, and wishing to make ample provision for Margaret Amphlett, daughter of my dear friend and relative, Mrs. Mary Amphlett, of Clent," &c.

legacy. Their presence might have been accidental; but, on the supposition of premeditated suicide, he might naturally have wished to spend his last evening on earth in the society of those young relations whom he regarded with the kindliest feelings.

Young as Lord Lyttelton died, he had outlived every object which could render life desirable. Though married, he was separated from his wife, and was without hope of offspring. He had drank so deeply of the cup of pleasure that only its dregs remained to him; his profligacy had rendered his name infamous; and that last hope with which he at one time consoled himself under censure, of "making the world smile on his political career," faded with the disasters of the ministry to whom he had attached himself. Great as his abilities confessedly were, he had secured no following, Distrusted by all parties, his genius seemed to shine with a baleful lustre, and to keep

those most in fear who were nearest its influence. "The loss of Lord Lyttelton is not much to be regretted," wrote the Earl of He proceeds to bequeath 5000l. to Margaret Carlisle to George Selwyn-and the sentiAmphlett, and 2500l. to her sister Christian, ment was probably shared by the whole in addition to former legacies; and he di- ministerial party. When he separated himrects that his diamond bow, for which he self from the Government, he stood alone; had given "thirteen hundred and seventy and though the thought may be fanciful, we guineas," should be sold by auction, and the cannot help viewing that magnificent effort proceeds be divided between the sisters. in which he took a survey of the whole state The codicils are most clear and precise in of the empire, and delivered his sentiments all their provisions; and from the number of on every great question of his time, as his these "last words," and the liberal bequests deliberate bequest to the country he was reto several different persons-the little "Ho-solved to quit for ever. The shadow of Fate neysuckle" gets a legacy of 20007.-it would seem that Lord Lyttelton must have seriously revolved in his mind the probability of his decease, and have considerately mentioned every name which had any claim on his remembrance.

was upon him, and gave to his parting accents a tone of severe and solemn sincerity.

Between this character of Thomas Lyttelton, as drawn from his own declarations and the events of his life, and that of the mysterious, impenetrable Junius, we believe our readers will readily recognize some broad traits of likeness. Their sentiments on all great public questions were certainly the same; their genius was remarkably similar in the direction it took and in the vivacity and ardor with which it was manifested; the disappearance of the one is closely connected with the appearance of the other, and there is a striking and characteristic resemblance in the manner in which both made their exit from the public stage, each carrying his secret with him to the grave.

THE ATHENAEUM'S REPLY.

THE Junius of our contemporary, as we announced a fortnight since, is Thomas, the second Lord Lyttelton. We doubt not our readers shared in the surprise with which we heard of such a man being put forward on such a claim. Apart from all the logical or historical evidence in the case, the moral conditions out of which to make a Junius had here been selected on a principle so outrageous as to introduce something like a novelty into the discussion.

There is not much, it must be admitted, in his life and character, to suggest that Thomas Lyttelton was the laborious and indefatigable Junius. But the less we know the more room for speculation and conjecture, and if nothing were known, there is no possibility of contradicting anything that is said.

"In opposition to all such purely fanciful conjectures, we have the express declaration of [George] Woodfall's editor, that in the collected letters are included only those unacknowledged compositions of Junius which are indisputably declaration that we are disposed to maintain the genuine.' We have so much confidence in this perfect integrity of the text of the three-volume edition, and are unwilling to allow the alteration or omission of a single sentence there attributed to Junius."

The writer's "confidence," it is easily and jauntily assumed, is to be admitted conclusive as to the authenticity of the letters !— yet such is our impenetrable dullness, that what was before impossible remains impos

sible still.

That these Lyttelton letters were forgeries was never, we repeat, so far as we know, doubted until now. Their authenticity was publicly denied by Lord Lyttelton's executors as soon as they appeared. Years since it was positively and publicly stated that they were written by Combe--best known in his old age as the author of Dr. Syntax's "Tour"-and said to have been an acquain

The edition of the Letters of Junius to which the writer in the Quarterly refers and on which he founds his argument, is that of 1814, now commonly known as the edition of Dr. Good and Mr. George Woodfall; and, on a rough estimate, about one half of his authorities of facts, or coincidences, or parallel passages, or whatever they ought to be called, are taken from the Miscellaneous Letters, therein first published. We long since showed on what insufficient authority many of those letters had been attributed to Junius, -that they could not all have been written by the same person,-that many of them rest their sole claim on a coincidence between the dates of publication and the dates affixed to one or other of the private letters to Sampson Woodfall,—that the dates to fifty-tance and associate of Lyttelton, which is nine or sixty out of the sixty-three private letters were affixed conjecturally by the editors of the edition of 1814,-and, therefore, that the letters avowedly inserted on the authority of that coincidence had lost all claim whatever to be considered as letters by Junius. We have stated, we believe,—if not, we do now state, that we know that in some instances the errors in the conjectural dates were discovered and admitted to be errors by the editors themselves. We know, indeed, a great many more curious facts relating to the selection of the Miscellaneous Letters, how some got admission and why others were excluded;--but an incidental discussion was not, and is not, the proper

probable, as both were educated at Eton, and both were dissolute and improvident. Combe, however, who soon dissipated his small fortune-but not till he had won for himself the sobriquet of "Duke Combe"-lived for the remainder of his life as a bookseller's hack, and for twenty or more years in prison, where he died. Chalmers, in his "Biographical Dictionary," speaking of these letlers, in 1815, says: "Two volumes of Letters published in 1780 and 1782, though attributed to him [Lyttelton], are known to have been the production of an ingenious writer yet living." Watts, in the "Bibliotheca Britannica," re-echoes this. Lowndes, in his "Bibliographer's Manual," dismisses