Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/52

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NOTES AND QUERIES.


 * S. NO 3., JAN. 19. 7>C.

thor of the Essay upon the English Constitution. We have had it already shown, incontestabli/, that those famous let- ters were by Mr. Burke, afterwards by the Duke of Port- land, and, after that, by M. de Lolme.

" This article exacts from me the publication of a de- claration, which only events had suppressed, and also the death of the young editor of the Works of Mr. Hugh Boyd ; which I shall not be prevented from making by those incontestable demonstrations, by means of which it is intended to be insinuated that the Letters of Junius were bv Mr. Burke, afterwards by M. J. H. de Lolme.

""Being in London in 1802, I had occasion to procure the acquaintance of Mr. Campbell, brother-in-law of Mr. Richard Johnson, formerly Ambassador at Hyderabad, and with whom I had been intimate during my stay at Calcutta. I was ignorant that there was an extant edition of the Works of Hugh Boyd ; I was ignorant also that Mr. Campbell was the editor of them, and -I knew nothing more than that, in this edition, there was restored to the memory of this immortal author of the Letters of Junius, a possession, which, through his own fault, was disputed during his lifetime. I owe it to truth and to my conscience, and do now that which I had promised Mr. Campbell to do at that time to publish the circumstances which placed it in my power, without any intention of doing so, to draw from Mr. Hugh Boyd a secret, which his death should have revealed.

" Iii 1785, a four months' residence at Madras, on the Coromandel coast, gave me the pleasure of seeing Mr. H. Boyd frequently, and also of forming a friendship with him, for the opportunity of which 1 was indebted to M. Maracin, Intendant of the French Establishment at Pondicherry. The obliging reception I met with from Mr. Davidson, at that time Governor of Madras, from General Dowling, Commander-in-Cliief, and from many other persons in eminent stations in the Civil and Mili- tary service of the Company, whom I could mention the particular hospitality offered me by Lieutenant- General Ross, and by Benjamin Sullivan, Advocate-Gene- ral of the Company, for which I felt the liveliest gratitude and the most unalterable sense of obligation, all caused me to meet Mr. Boyd continually : for the qualities of his heart, and the charm of his wit, rendered him agree- able and necessary in all companies.

" I arrived on the 18th at Calcutta, where I had not long to wait to contract fresh obligations to kindness, owing to the particular hospitality, the noble politeness, of the Hon. Sir John Macpherson, the Governor- General, and of a great number of others in the Civil and Military services, which resemble each other throughout all the establishments belonging to the English Company. The Hon. Sir John Macpherson allowed me indeed, he com- manded me to consider his house as my own ; and, al- though a Frenchman, I soon found myself, both in the country and in the city, a regular member of the society of the Governor-General one of his friends a designa- tion with which my heart and my self-love were equally flattered.

" Hugh Boyd had come from Madras to Bengal, only to pay a visit to his friend Sir John Macpherson. Our acquaintance and our intimacy acquired, by this cir- cumstance, the force and solidity which sympathy in dis- position and in opinion strove to give it during my stay at Madras. When I could not be with my most respect- able friend, Sir John Macpherson, I felt how needful it was to me to seek out Hugh Boyd ; he was moved by a corresponding desire, and the hour of our familiar inter- course generally preceded that of the Governor's dinner.

"At the close of one of those conversations, in which we freely spoke our thoughts disembarrassed of all re- serve, having heard me quote entire letters from Junius, with a sense of gratification for the pleasure I had en-

joyed in perusing them, and for the taste for the English language with which they had inspired me, I perceived a change in Boyd's countenance. His features were altered ; he hastened to his secretaire, from which he drew several pieces of manuscript, in his own hand-writing the verv letters which I had been reciting. With eyes suffused with tears, and with a voice bespeaking emotion, he re- vealed to me, in showing them to me, his secret upon this production this instructive melange of profound politics, fine censorship, pungent irony, which almost every day serves to feed, in the periodical publications, the national curiosity, the author of which has been vainly sought for, and who is this day disputed about in England. I do say, that not the famous, but the inimitable Letters of Junius, are, incontestably, the chef (Toeuvre of the Works of Hugh Boyd; by the side of which we may, with pride, place the genuine French and Persian Letters of our great Montesquieu.

" Such is the declaration which I owe to truth, to my conscience, and to my old engagement with Mr. Camp- bell. I beg j'ou, Mr. Editor, to give this insertion in one of your pages, justly considered the depositories of every- thing bearing the stamp of truth and justice.

" G. BONNECARRERE,

" Formerly Minister Plenipotentiary, Director- General of the Political Department, Pro- cureur- General and Special of His Majesty Louis XVI., to treat of Indemnities, and to grant Princes their Possessions."

[Although this letter is known to all who have made the authorship of the Letters of Junius an object of in- quiry, we are not aware that it exists in any accessible form, and therefore willingly preserve it in our columns. But in doing so, we must remind our correspondent and our readers I. That it was not written until up wards of forty years after Hugh Boyd's conversation with tke writer. II. That whatever Hugh Boyd's "secret "was, M. Bonnecarrere does not furnish us with it, and by no means declares that Hugh Boyd explicitly claimed* the authorship of the Letters. III. That, whatever the letters were which Boyd showed to M. Bonnecarrere, they were not the orit/inal Letters of Junius. There is not the slightest evidence that the original letters were ever re- turned to the writer; the inference from practice is, thut they were not returned ; and, moreover, whatever de- ductions can be drawn from the known facts of the case, go to show that they never were returned. ED. "N.&Q."]

ANCIENT ORIGIN OF PHRASES NOW IN VULGAR

USE.

The origin of phrases in vulgar use has already attracted attention in "N. & Q..," and I myself noted one some time ago in your serial as from the royal mouth of Charles II., " As good as a play " (1 st S. viii. 363.).

I have recently remarked several words and phrases now in very ordinary use, which are to be traced much farther back than the present day, and to be found in received works, as may be seen from the following list :

1. Selling a bargain was a slang expression known to Sliakspeare, who makes Costard use it in Loves Labour Lost, Act III. Sc. 1., " The boy hath sold him a bargain."

2. And in the very same sentence another most