Letter of Junius [Part One of Three]

First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 29 December 1827, p. 270. Reprinted Tave, pp. 236–46. For the attribution of this and the following two essays, see Tave, pp. 271–6. The author claims to be ‘indebted to several private conversations’ with John Taylor, whom De Quincey knew as the proprietor of the London Magazine in the early 1820s. De Quincey gives a very similar account of the Junius controversy in his ‘Elements of Rhetoric’ (Vol. 6, pp. 178–80), and his review of ‘Schlosser’s Literary History’ (Vol. 16). The signature ‘X.Y.Z.’ was one that De Quincey used from time-to-time in the London Magazine, the Post, and Blackwood’s. Other indications include the many rhetorical questions, and allusions to Shakespeare, Milton, and other poets.