Junius - Style

Style

Latin literature was not only studied but imitated at that time but also supplied the inspiration for numerous writings (such as the satires of Juvenal, and the speeches of Cicero against Verres and Catiline). If Junius was doing what others did, he did it better than anybody else; a fact which sufficiently explains his rapid popularity. His superiority lay in his style. Here also he was by no means original, and he was uneven. There are passages in his writings which can be best described in the words which Burke applied to another writer: A mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once vapid and sour. But at his best Junius attains to a high degree of artificial elegance and vigour. He shows the influence of Bolingbroke, of Swift, and above all of Tacitus, who appears to have been his favourite author. The imitation is never slavish. Junius adapts, and does not only repeat. No single sentence will show the quality of a style which produces its effect by persistence and repetition, but a typical passage as follows displays at once the method and the spirit. It is taken from Letter XLIX to the duke of Grafton, 22 June 1771:

"The profound respect I bear to the gracious prince who governs this country with no less honour to himself than satisfaction to his subjects, and who restores you to your rank under his standard, will save you from a multitude of reproaches. The attention I should have paid to your failings is involuntarily attracted to the hand which rewards them; and though I am not so partial to the royal judgment as to affirm that the favor of a king can remove mountains of infamy, it serves to lessen at least, for undoubtedly it divides, the burden. While I remember how much is due to his sacred character, I cannot, with any decent appearance of propriety, call you the meanest and the basest fellow in the kingdom. I protest, my Lord, I do not think you so. You will have a dangerous rival in that kind of fame to which you have hitherto so happily directed your ambition, as long as there is one man living who thinks you worthy of his confidence, and fit to be trusted with any share in his government.... With any other prince, the shameful desertion of him in the midst of that distress, which you alone had created, in the very crisis of danger, when he fancied he saw the throne already surrounded by men of virtue and abilities, would have outweighed the memory of your former services. But his majesty is full of justice, and understands the doctrine of compensations; he remembers with gratitude how soon you had accommodated your morals to the necessities of his service, how cheerfully you had abandoned the engagements of private friendship, and renounced the most solemn professions to the public. The sacrifice of Lord Chatham was not lost on him. Even the cowardice and perfidy of deserting him may have done you no disservice in his esteem. The instance was painful, but the principle might please."

What is artificial and stilted in this style did not offend the would-be classic taste of the eighteenth century and no longer conceals the fact that the laboriously arranged words and artfully counterbalanced clauses convey a venomous hate and scorn.