Junius unmasked

Preface

One hundred years ago to-day, Junius wrote as follows: " The mau who fairly and completely answers this argument, shall have my thanks and my applause. . . . Grateful as I am to the good Being whose bounty has imparted to me this reasoning intellect, whatever it is, I hold myself proportionably indebted to him from whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge communicates to mine. But neither should I think the most exalted faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the Divinity, nor any assistance in the improvement of them a subject of gratitude to my fellow-creatures, if I were not satisfied that really to inform the understanding corrects and enlarges the heart."

These were the concluding words of his last Letter. So say I now, and I make them the preface to an argument which now sets the great apostle of liberty right before the world. They serve, like a literary hyphen, to connect the two ages — his own with this ; and the two lives — the masked with the open one ; in both of which ages and lives he did good to mankind, and that mightily.

Washington, D. C, January 21, 1872.

P^RT I.