Francis was the man. Francis was the wicked butler within, whom Pharaoh
ought to have hanged, but whom he clothed in royal apparel, and mounted
upon a horse that carried him to a curule chair of honor. So far his
burglary prospered. But, as generally happens in such cases, this
prosperous crime subsequently avenged itself. By a just retribution, the
success of Junius, in two senses so monstrously exaggerated--exaggerated
by a romantic over-estimate of its intellectual power through an error of
the public, not admitted to the secret--and equally exaggerated as to its
political power by the government in the hush-money for its future
suppression, became the heaviest curse of the successful criminal. This
criminal thirsted for literary distinction above all other distinction,
with a childish eagerness, as for the _amrecta_ cup of immortality.
And, behold! there the brilliant bauble lay, glittering in the sands of a
solitude, unclaimed by any man; disputed with him (if he chose to claim
it) by nobody; and yet for his life he durst not touch it. He stood--he
knew that he stood--in the situation of a murderer who has dropt an
inestimable jewel upon the murdered body in the death-struggle with his
victim. The jewel is his! Nobody will deny it. He may have it for asking.
But to ask is his death-warrant. 'Oh yes!' would be the answer, 'here's
your jewel, wrapt up safely in tissue paper. But here's another lot that
goes along with it--no bidder can take them apart--viz. a halter, also
wrapt up in tissue paper.' Francis, in relation to Junius, was in that
exact predicament. 'You are Junius? You are that famous man who has been
missing since 1772? And you can prove it? God bless me! sir; what a long
time you've been sleeping: every body's gone to bed. Well, then, you are
an exceedingly clever fellow, that have had the luck to be thought ten
times more clever than really you were. And also, you are the greatest
scoundrel that at this hour rests in Europe unhanged!'--Francis died, and
made no sign. Peace of mind he had parted with for a peacock's feather,